(logo)
(navigation image)
Home American Libraries | Canadian Libraries | Universal Library | Open Source Books | Project Gutenberg | Biodiversity Heritage Library | Children's Library | Additional Collections

Search: Advanced Search

Anonymous User (login or join us)Upload
See other formats

Full text of "Life and letters of Edward Bickersteth, Bishop of South Tokyo"

rsity of California 



ithern Regional 




BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 



PRINTED BY 

SPOTTISWOODK AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
LONDON 



LIFE AND LETTERS 

OF 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

BISHOP OF SOUTH TOKYO 



BY 



SAMUEL BICKERSTETH, M.A. 

VIOAR OF LEWISHAM, S.E. 



LONDON 
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY 

(LIMITED) 

St. IDunstan's fsousc 

FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, B.C. 
1899 



TO THE BELOVED FATHER 

TO WHOSE PRAYERS, EXAMPLE, AND TRAINING 
ALL HIS CHILDREN OWE MORE THAN WORDS CAN EXPRESS 

AND WITH THE EARNEST DESIRE 

THAT THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM 

SO DEAR TO HIM AND TO HIS FIRST-BORN SON 

MAY BE ADVANCED BY THIS RECORD 

OF A MISSIONARY'S LIFE 

AND WORK 



2O662O2 



PREFACE 

To write a biography is an attempt to prolong and extend 
a personal influence. After my brother's death in August 
1897, a desire was expressed not only in England, but 
also in Delhi and in Japan, that some authentic account 
should be written of the work which he was called of God 
to do, first in the East and afterwards in the Far East. 

At the request of Mrs. Edward Bickersteth, my sister- 
in-law, I undertook to write this biography. I had hoped 
to complete the work within a year, but I could not fore- 
see that the increase of population in the parish of Lewis- 
ham, rapid for many years past, would have developed 
during the last two years at a pace in excess of the growth 
of any other part of the metropolitan area. This has 
made it almost impossible to give continuous thought or 
study to the Life, except during absence from home. 

While it may be granted that the choice of a near 
relative as a biographer has some advantages, there are 
obvious dangers involved in such a selection. I cannot 
say how far I have avoided them ; at least, I have tried to 
do so. As a Commissary in England to my brother during 
almost all his episcopate, I was necessarily familiar with 



Vlii BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

his Japanese work, but I have special reason to thank those 
who by the loan of letters and documents have enabled 
me to deal, as fully as space allowed, with the years during 
which my brother was head of the Cambridge Mission. 
I am thus indebted to the present Bishop of Durham, the 
Bishop Designate of Lahore (Dr. Lefroy), the Master of 
Pembroke College, the Rev. S. S. Allnutt (now head of the 
Cambridge Mission), the Rev. Dr. Weitbrecht, and especi- 
ally to Canon Stanton, of Trinity College, Cambridge, who 
has been intimately connected with the Mission from its 
start and kindly allowed me to read over to him the 
Chapters II. to V. As a graduate of the University of 
Oxford, I have felt it a special privilege to be allowed to 
write the story of this well-known Cambridge Mission. 

In the early part of Chapter VI. will be found, in a letter 
addressed by the Bishop to the Master of Pembroke, a terse 
and vivid account of the state of Japan in 1886. But I 
have purposely avoided overloading the book with facts and 
figures connected with the marvellous story of Japanese 
enterprise since 1868, as travellers, artists, and journalists 
have already made the world familiar with this romance of 
modern history, its contrast with the preceding centuries 
of apathy, its encouragement to believe that what the 
Japanese have already done is but the preface to the 
volume of their future achievements, if once the gold of 
Christianity mingles with the quicksilver of their national 
temperament. To them imitation does not appear to mean 
limitation, as it so often does, because they are careful also 
to adapt, as well as to adopt, western ideas, reforming 



PREFACE IX 

them where necessary to suit their own habits of thought 
and life. The late Sir Rutherford Alcock once pointed 
out to me, in the course of conversation, that more than 
once in their history the Japanese had shown great ability 
in seizing upon new ideas, but for his part he was doubtful 
as to their power ' to keep on developing ' unless Chris- 
tianity added stability to the national character. 

I have intentionally put together into separate chapters 
information about the organisation of the Cambridge Mis- 
sion, the Nippon Sei Kokwai, and Community Missions, 
because happily in these days not only several English 
Bishops expect their Ordination candidates to take up a 
missionary subject, but also young Church people all over 
the country voluntarily submit themselves to examination 
in missionary knowledge. It will be convenient, I hope, 
to such students to have ready to hand, and disentangled 
from biographical details, information upon such missionary 
methods, while for those who have time for fuller study 
the intervening chapters will illustrate the way in which 
the Bishop applied his principles. 

I desire to take this opportunity of thanking those, and 
they are many, who have sent me personal recollections of 
my brother's work, which every reader will feel to be a 
great addition to the value of the volume, especially the 
well-known traveller, Mrs. Bishop, Colonel Gordon Young, 
the Rev. F. Armine King, Warden of St. Andrew's Mis- 
sion, Tokyo, the Rev. John Imai, and others, as well as 
Mr. A. C. Benson for leave to reproduce some of his father's 
letters. 



X BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Chiefly I have to thank my sister-in-law, not only for 
putting unreservedly at my disposal all my brother's 
papers and .letters, but also for helping me in every way in 
her power, especially where her residence in Japan, which 
I have never visited, enabled her to supply my lack of 
knowledge. 

Some words of my predecessor in this parish, the 
present Bishop of Lichfield, to whom I had written 
acquainting him with my purpose of writing my brother's 
life, have often come to my mind, and supplied me with 
an inspiring motive : ' Your brother's memoir will be much 
more than a valuable contribution to missionary literature. 
It will be an incentive to missionary zeal, and to self- 
sacrificing love for the Master and for the souls He 
loves.' 

If it should please God to fulfil this hopeful forecast, it 
will be an answer to many prayers, and a rich reward for 
any labour involved in the task. 

THE VICARAGE, LEWISHAM, S.E. 

Festival of S. Michael and AH Angels, 1899 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

PAGE 

Birth at Banningham Parentage, Edward Bickersteth of Watton, ' Ed war 
Henry,' of Exeter Baptism Childhood at Hampstead Schooldays 
at Highgate Foreign travel Scholarship at Pembroke College, 
Cambridge Degree Death of his mother and of two sisters 
Selection of assistant curacy Ordination Work at West End, 
Hampstead Fellowship Personal appearance Characteristics 
Relationship to Church parties . . . . . . I 

CHAPTER II 

RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 

Return to Cambridge Recollections by Rev. C. W. E. Body Desires 
for missionary work, to what due ? First idea of the Cambridge 
University Mission Influence of Dr. Westcott and Dr. French 
Bickersteth's offer to go out to India Testimony of Professor Stanton 
and Rev. S. S. Allnutt to his influence His paper on Cambridge 
Mission before Cambridge Church Society The four-fold object of 
the C. M. His paper in ' Mission Field ' Why Delhi was selected 
Community Missions then a novelty Affiliation of Cambridge Mission 
with S. P.O. Statistics of S.P.G. at Delhi Letter of Rev. R. R. 
Winter Consecration of Dr. French as first Bishop of Lahore 
Formation of Cambridge Committee Departure of the first two 
missionaries, Edward Bickersteth and J. D. M. Murray, for Delhi . 2O 

CHAPTER III 

CAMBRIDGE MISSION, DELHI (THE WORK) 

Arrival in Delhi Visit of Bishop (Johnson) of Calcutta First impres- 
sions Teaching in St. Stephen's High School Training of Catechists 
Christian hostel for boys Furlough of the Rev. R. R. Winter- 
Serious illness of the Rev. J. D. M. Murray Bickersteth left alone in 
charge of the mission Recollections by Mrs. Parsons His efforts to 
teach the teachers Necessity for Christian masters in secular schools 
Arrival of the Rev. H. C. Carlyon and Rev. J. D. Blackett 
Bickersteth's views on bazaar preaching His evangelistic labours 
among Kolis and Chamars His views on relative merits of Hinduism 



Xli BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 



and Muhammadanism and their mutual influence on India and on each 
other Arrival of Rev. S. S. Allnutt and Rev. G. A. Lefroy Deci- 
sion of the C.M. to prepare candidates for the Calcutta (B.A.) degree 
Appeal of Bishop French and Bishop Lightfoot to Cambridge 
Meeting in College Hall, Westminster Speech by Dr. Westcott The 
beginning of the Higher Education Visit of Rev. E. H. Bickersteth 
to Delhi Bickersteth's illness and enforced furlough Personal 
Recollections by Dr. Weitbrecht ....... 47 

CHAPTER IV 
CAMBRIDGE MISSION, DELHI (THE LIFE) 

Spiritual power dependent on devotional life Bickersteth's appreciation 
of Retreats and Quiet Days His advocacy of intercessory prayer 
Other plans for deepening spiritual life His vindication of ' rule ' in 
prayer, and conviction that missionaries, above all men, need a regulated 
devotional life Effects of the spiritual fervour of the Cambridge mis- 
sion in (a) stricter discipline, (b) more definite teaching, and (c ) the spirit 
of brotherliness among the members of the mission Recollections by 
Rev. G. A. Lefroy By Bishop (Matthew) of Lahore By Col. 
Gordon Young Address of native Christians to Bishop of Exeter on 
hearing of Bickersteth's death 79 

CHAPTER V 
FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 

Continued ill-health Letters to Rev. G. A. Lefroy, S. S. Allnutt, H. C. 
Carlyon Forced to take another year of furlough (1883-4) Depar- 
ture of Rev. J. W. T. Wright and Rev. Arthur Haig for C.M., 
Delhi Permanent Relations of C.M. with S.P.G. Endeavours to 
organise Zenana work into a Community Mission for women At 
Cannes for the winter Letter on the unseen world Correspondence 
with Allnutt and Lefroy Summer in England Again forbidden to 
return to India (1884) Acceptance of. Rectory of Framlingham 
Bishop'French's offer of Archdeaconry of Simla and Indian Chaplaincy 
Correspondence re Headship of C.M. Refusal of Archdeaconry and 
decision to return to Delhi Again forbidden to rejoin mission (March 
1885) At last allowed to return (Sept. 1895) Called to Japan as 
Bishop (October) His training for that post Grief at giving up 
the C.M., Delhi Letters to Lefroy Consecration Departure for 
the Far East . . . . . . ..... . . 109 

CHAPTER VI 
A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE (l886-l888) 

Outward bound Journal Visit to Jesuit Missions at Shanghai ' Open : 
letter to Dr. Searle on the State of Japan Landing at Nagasaki 



CONTENTS Xlii 

PAGE 

Holy week at Osaka Important conference there Arrival at Tokyo 
Meeting with Bishop Williams (American) and Bishop Nicolai 
(Russian) First idea of Nippon Sei K5kwai (N.S.K.) Second 
' open ' letter to Dr. Searle on St. Andrew's Mission, to be established 
at Tokyo First missionary tour (Northwards) to Yezo and the Ainus, 
(Westwards) to Kiushiu First- proposal for Ladies' Institute (Educa- 
tional) at Tokyo Letters to his fourth brother on his beginning the 
clerical life Three conferences at Osaka His first ordination in 
Japan To Nagasaki again and back by Shikoku Easter (1887) in 
Tokyo First local council of N.S.K. Visit to Korea with Bishop 
(Scott) of North China (Sept. 29-Oct. 6) Beginning of St. Andrew's 
and St. Hilda's Missions Holy Week (1888) in Tokyo and ordination 
of John Imai Bishop's First Pastoral Return (May 1888) to Lambeth 
Conference Five months in England Speech in St. James's Hall 
His part in the Lambeth Conference Summer holidays with the 
Bishop of Exeter Return with recruits to Japan (October 1888) . 149 

CHAPTER VII 



S.P.G. and C.M.S. Missions Bishop Bickersteth's paper on 'Variety of 
Methods' (1893) Letter from Canon Tristram The Ladies' Institute 
(Education) Community Missions St. Andrew's for men The 
Bishop's idea in starting it Its first members Its rule of life Vows 
Miss Tsuda's paper on the position of Japanese women St. 
Hilda's Mission for women Exterior rule of the community The 
Bishop's letters on the necessary qualifications of its members Its 
special work Consecration of the chapel, with the Bishop's address 
Its medical work Orphanage Recollections by Miss Thornton and 
by Miss Bullock . . . . . . . '.'V "' . . 206 

CHAPTER VIII 

A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE (1888-93) 

Landing at Tokyo (St. Andrew's Day) 1888 Statistics as to the strength 
of the missions of the Church of England in Japan Christmas at 
Tokyo Letters from the Inland Sea Visit to Kagoshima, his most 
southernly station Travelling hard and fast, late and early Second 
Lenten Pastoral (March 1889) on (i) Reunion, (2) Standards of faith, 
(3) Ritual controversies at home, (4) Ecclesiastical courts in their effect 
on missionary enterprise His first (English) ordination to priesthood, 
Easter 1889 St. Hilda's Hospital Second Biennial Synod Scheme 
for Pastor Funds Journey to Yezo (2,000 miles in 17 days) Tour in 
Southern Japan Ordination of Rev. John Imai to priesthood 



XIV BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

FACE 

First thought of bishopric of South Japan (January 1890) Pastoral 
letter to university students Third Lenten Pastoral Visit of Duke 
and Duchess of Connaught And of Bishop Corfe (of Korea) -First 
extempore address in Japanese Autumn journey to Western Japan 
Fourth Lenten Pastoral (1891) At work on Commentaries Canon 
Barnett's visit and reminiscences Third Biennial Synod and visit of 
Bishop Hare (American) Letter on Prayer Book Revision Visit of 
the Bishop of Exeter and party Terrific earthquake A year of 
journeying (1892) Visit to Luchoo Islands First baptism of Ainus 
Return to England (December 27, 1892) -via Delhi Conference 
with Archbishop on Episcopal Subdivision In England February to 
October 1893, with incessant travelling His marriage (September) 
and return to Japan via Canada . . . . . . .254 



CHAPTER IX 

NIPPON SEI KOKWAI 

(Holy Catholic Church of Japan) 

Its intention Two defective views of a missionary's duty Archbishop 
Benson on the opportunity thus offered The Bishop's sermon before 
the First Synod (1887) The resolution adopted at Osaka The rela- 
tion of the N.S.K. to other bodies of Christians A conference with 
Protestant Nonconformists The constitution and Canons of the 
N.S.K. Was its formation premature? Letter from the Bishop on 
ritual points Revision of Japanese Prayer Book The principles which 
underlay it Pastoral letter from the Bishops of the Anglican communions 
in Japan The decision as to the Thirty-nine Articles The marriage 
laws Letter of Archbishop Benson, and joint Pastoral letter on this 
subject Successive synods and their work Home and foreign missions 
of the N.S.K. Extension of the Episcopate Recollections by Bishop 
Fyson and Bishop Evington. . . . ... . . 301 

CHAPTER X 
A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE (1893-97) 

Success of his efforts for the increase of the episcopate in Japan Con- 
secration of the Bishops of Kiushiu and of Yezo His visit and appeal 
to the Church in Canada His impression of the missionary oppor- 
tunities of that Church Fourth General Synod Welcome to the 
newly consecrated American Bishop (McKim) Special General Synod 
on Episcopal Jurisdiction His proposal to the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury to form a bishopric of Osaka (June 1894) His appeal to 
Canada to send a Bishop to the West Coast The war with China 
and its effect on missionary inquiry His special collects for use of 
soldiers Revision of Japanese Book of Common Prayer Conduct of 



CONTENTS XV 

PACK 

the Japanese during the war The Bonin Islands Visitation of the 
West Coast Eighth Lenten Pastoral (1895) First meeting of 
Bishops of the Anglican Communion in Japan (June 1895) Summer 
holidays in Karuizawa Summoned to England to confer about Osaka 
Bishopric Return with Bishop (Awdry) of Southampton appointed as 
First Bishop of Osaka A bright Easter (1896) General Synod at 
Osaka Letters written while on a ' pioneer ' tour Recollections by 
Miss Rankin Disastrous floods in Gifu Serious illness and final 
return to England Recollections by Mrs. Bishop . . '' . . 360 

CHAPTER XI 

INTELLECTUAL STANDPOINT 

His natural love of reading Criticism on books in his letters home r 
Value of early Greek Fathers to the modern missionary References 
to books which attack the faith To biographies, Manning, Pusey, &c. 
His views on the Atonement On Sacrifice On the ' Lux Mundi ' 
school of thought On Old Testament criticism On Keswick teach- 
ing On Reunion with Nonconformists On the Pope's Encyclical 
On the Imperial position of the Church of England On Church Re- 
form the true cure for lawlessness His defence of the Miracle of the 
Resurrection in the 'Japan Mail' His teaching on private con- 
fession Non-communicating attendance Fasting Communion 
Some letters of spiritual counsel His ideal of the Episcopate and 
efforts to reach the ideal Appreciation of his character by the Rev. 
F. Armine King By Rev. John Imai By the Bishop of St. 
Andrews ........... 397 

CHAPTER XII 
THE CALL HOME 

The Bishop's death at an early age not premature Months of illness 
Lambeth Conference Last earthly days The funeral at Chisledon 
Reception of the news in Japan Address from Kobe Christians 
Extract from the ' Japan Daily Mail ' Memorial services, with address 
by Archdeacon Shaw Resolution of the Diocesan General Synod 
Permanent memorials Personal letters ...... 454 

APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . 475 

INDEX . . . . . . . . . 493 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT ..... Frontispiece 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE . . - . . To face p. 20 

CAMBRIDGE MISSION AT DELHI . -. . . 49 

BlCKERSTETH HALL, DELHI ..... 6l 

GROUP OF CAMBRIDGE MISSIONARIES AT DELHI . 79 

FRAMLINGHAM RECTORY t 130 

ST. ANDREW'S HOUSE, TOKYO . . . ' -. - ' 224 

GROUP OF CLERGY AND DIVINITY STUDENTS . 290 
VIGNETTE PORTRAIT . . ... L v 300 

GROUP OF THE MEMBERS OF THE SYNOD OF 1893 351 

BISHOPSTOWE, TOKYO ( i 365 

ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, TOKYO v .1 w . . 368 

THE BISHOP'S GRAVE AT CHISLEDON ... . ' , '. 474 

MEMORIAL BRASS IN EXETER CATHEDRAL . . page 474 
MAP OF JAPAN 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH, the third in direct succession 
who has borne the name during this century, was the 
eldest son of Edward Henry, Bishop of Exeter. He was 
born June 26, 1850, 'at Banningham Rectory, Norfolk. 
He sprang, however, from a family which had originally 
come from the North. Nowhere do the waters gleam and 
curve with greater beauty than along the winding banks of 
the Inline, as it nears the little country town of Kirkby 
Lonsdale in Westmoreland. The old pastoral republics 
which peopled the valleys and hills in the good old days of 
the Cumberland and Westmoreland estatesmen produced 
many gentle in heart and soul, and wise and shrewd above 
their class. Of these the Broughams, the Sedgwicks, and the 
Bickersteths are examples. The Bickersteths, or Bicker- 
staffes for down to the last century the name was spelt in- 
differently in either way were lords of the manor of 
Bickerstaffe, near Ormskirk, in Lancashire, from a period 
anterior to the reign of King John, and played a not in- 
considerable part in local history during the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries, two members of the family represent- 
ing the county in Parliament, Sir Ralph (who was several 
times High Sheriff of Lancashire during the reign of 
Edward II.) in 1313, and Henry de Bickersteth in 1339. 
In 1376 the manor passed by the marriage of an heiress 
to an ancestor of the present Earl of Derby, but more than 

B 



2 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

one branch of the family continued to reside in the neigh- 
bourhood, and a second Henry de Bickersteth acquired 
through his marriage with Malma, daughter and co-heir of 
Gilbert de Ince (circa 1420), an estate in Aughton, the 
adjoining parish to Ormskirk, which remained in the pos- 
session of the family down to 1736. From this Henry 
was lineally descended Thomas Bickersteth of Aughton, 
whose third son James, after studying medicine under Dr. 
Longworth of Ormskirk, settled as a surgeon at Burton-in- 
Kendal. He was the father of Henry Bickersteth of Kirkby 
Lonsdale, who as a surgeon was well known in the town, 
and honoured far and near. 

Henry Bickersteth married a lady named Elizabeth 
Batty, of Deansbiggin, a remarkable woman, shrewd, 
strict, and stately, called the Queen of Kirkby Lonsdale. 
They had five sons, the eldest of whom, James, was lost 
at sea ; the second, John, was a learned divine and hymn- 
writer, and was the father of Robert (Bishop of Ripon, 
1857-1884) and Edward (Dean of Lichfield) ; the third, 
Henry, became Senior Wrangler (1808), subsequently 
Master of the Rolls (1836-1851), and was called to the 
Upper House as Baron Langdale. 1 The fourth was 
Edward, and the fifth Robert, who having settled at 
Liverpool, became one of the first medical men in the 
north of England. 

This fourth son, Edward Bickersteth, the father of 
the present Bishop of Exeter, was the grandfather of the 
subject of this memoir. He came to London on January I, 
1 80 1, when only fourteen years of age, to take a clerkship at 
the General Post Office. He was a youth of eager tempera- 
ment, possessed of great energy of character, and had a 

1 He married Lady Jane Harley, daughter of Edward, Earl of Oxford and 
Mortimer, but had only one daughter, who pre-deceased him. He was offered, 
but declined on the score of health, the great seal of England. ' 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

passion for reading. His duties at the Post Office occupied 
him daily from 10 to 3, but within four years we find him 
offering his services to a lawyer for eight hours a day in 
addition to this. These hours had to be fitted in between 
6 to 10 A.M. and 3 to 1 1 P.M. In his new work he employed 
himself with such success that in due time he himself became 
a solicitor, a profession which he only relinquished, together 
with an annual income of 8oo/., in 1815, on taking Holy 
Orders. He undoubtedly bequeathed to his grandson his 
love of learning, while his character and career probably 
shaped the thoughts of the younger man in more ways 
than can be definitely traced. For Edward Bickersteth, in 
exchanging the legal profession for the ministry of God's 
Word and Sacraments, had not only given up excellent 
worldly prospects for the kingdom of God's sake, but knew 
that he would be at once sent out on a special mission of 
inquiry to Africa, the western shores of which were then 
invested with peculiar terror owing to the grievous mortality 
among the missionaries. He had, however, for years been 
a missionary at heart, and was ordained Deacon (being then 
twenty-nine years of age) on December 10, 1815, by the 
Bishop of Norwich, and Priest on December 21, within eleven 
days, by the Bishop of Gloucester (on Letters Dimissory). 
This enabled him to proceed in full orders to Sierra Leone, 
where he himself prepared the first six native converts for 
the Lord's Supper, and admitted them to those Holy 
Mysteries. 

Subsequently, he was resident for many years at the 
C.M.S. House in Salisbury Square, E.G., as one of the 
secretaries of that society, and as Rector of Watton, Herts 
(1830-1850), he was ' in labours abundant, in journeyings 
oft' on behalf of the foreign missions of the Church. He 
was called to his rest on February 28, 1850. 

His only son Edward Henry (through his marriage 



4 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

with Sarah, eldest daughter of Thomas Bignold, Esq., of 
Norwich) was born on St. Paul's day 1825. He had five 
sisters, two of whom became widely known through the 
book called ' Doing and Suffering.' l After taking classical 
and mathematical honours at Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, and obtaining for the first time then on record the 
Chancellor's medal for English verse three years in suc- 
cession, he was ordained in Norwich Cathedral in 1848 
(where his father had been ordained twenty-three years 
before), and appointed at once as curate-in-charge of the 
small country parish of Banningham in Norfolk. He 
had married the same year his cousin Rosa, daughter of 
Sir Samuel Bignold, M.P. for Norwich. Their first-born 
child was a daughter, the eldest of ten sisters, and the 
next a son, Edward, the eldest of six brothers. He 
was born at the Rectory on Wednesday, June 26, 1850. 
Against this event the following extract stands in the 
Bishop of Exeter's diary : ' The mercy of its being a boy, 
whose birth my father anticipated with joy, and whose 
blessed standard of the Gospel may God grant him one 
day to uphold.' 

It will be seen, therefore, that from the first day of his 
earthly life the child thus welcomed was dedicated by the 
piety and prayers of his own father to the work of uphold- 
ing, if not of carrying into distant lands, the Cross of 
Christ. For indeed the father himself had fully inherited 
the ardour of the missionary spirit, and although in God's 
never-failing Providence not allowed to offer himself for 

1 This book recorded the correspondence between the elder sister Eliza- 
beth (wife of the Rev. T. R. Birks, Professor in Moral Philosophy in the 
University of Cambridge), and Fanny her younger sister, a great invalid, 
and was written by their sister Mrs. Ward, afterwards the devoted godmother 
of .Edward Bickersteth. Of the other sisters, one, Mrs. Durrant, is now a. 
missionary ut her own charges in connection with the C.M.S. in North- 
West India, and another, Mrs. Cook, is the mother of two medical mission- 
aries in Uganda. 



INTRODUCTORY 5 

the mission field (an honour which he had in early life 
once coveted), yet he became the spiritual father and 
supporter of many who gladly sacrificed all for Christ's 
sake and the Gospel's, and lived to send his eldest son as 
his representative. 

Edward was baptised by his father on Sunday, July 28, 
-1850, his godfathers being one of his uncles, the Rev. T. R. 
Govett, M.A., and John McGregor, Esq., better known as 
' Rob Roy,' who had been a bosom friend of his father's 
at Trinity College, Cambridge. 1 At the baptism the 
father preached from the words, ' Of whom the whole 
family in heaven and earth is named ' thinking of 
his own father, then in Paradise, and of the little boy 
added that day to the Church below. 

In 1851 Edward Henry Bickersteth was appointed by 
the philanthropist Earl of Shaftesbury, his own and his 
father's friend, to the Rectory of Hinton Martell in 
Dorsetshire, and while there Bishop Denison of Salisbury 
visited the parish and gave his blessing to the future 
missionary. In 1855, however, Mr. Bickersteth was chosen 
by trustees for the Vicarage of Christ Church, Hampstead, 
where he continued to reside for thirty years, until he 
was selected on the nomination of Mr. Gladstone first 
for the Deanery of Gloucester, and shortly after for 
the Bishopric of Exeter, over which see he now presides. 
The change of the parental home to the pleasant vicinity 
of London (Hampstead is only four miles from Charing 
Cross, and was then much less built over) solved the educa- 
tional problem, as there were exceptionally good schools 
in the neighbourhood. 

The vicarage, built in the time of Queen Anne, was 

1 It is interesting to note that another Cambridge friend and cotemporary 
of his father's, also of Trinity College, the Rev. Brooke Foss Westcott, had 
visited the rectory shortly before. 



6 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

a roomy house, secured for Christ Church during the 
vicariate of my father's predecessor, Thomas Pelham 
(subsequently Bishop of Norwich), and commanded 
splendid views across London from Primrose Hill to the 
Crystal Palace, and on a clear day as far as to Knockholt 
Beeches, near Sevenoaks ; while it had a garden which 
recalled Tennyson's lines: 

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. 
News from the humming city comes to it 
In sound of funeral or of marriage bells ; 
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
The windy clanging of the minster clock. 

There many happy hours were spent, and a healthier 
place in the neighbourhood of London could hardly have 
been found. 

In the autumn of 1859 Edward went to a dame's school 
(Mrs. Smallwood's), situated in North End, on the farther 
side of the Heath, and stayed there for two years and more. 
Each morning he shared his father's early cup of coffee, 
and was then accompanied by him across the Heath, 
which was at that time infested by very rough characters. 1 
Father and son, however, went both of them together, 
and reached the school daily in summer and winter by 
7 A.M., at which hour the boy's work began. 

In 1862 he was sent on to Highgate School, which was 
founded in 1565 by Sir Roger Cholmeley, Chief Justice 
of the King's Bench, and was then under the Rev. John 
Bradley Dyne, D.D. This entailed a daily walk of four 
miles to and from school, in winter across the Heath and 
along the high road which led through Caen woods, the 

1 On three occasions the boy when returning home from Highgate School 
was stopped in the fields, and once robbed of watch and chain, and another 
time of money. 



INTRODUCTORY 7 

property of the Earl of Mansfield ; in summer by a slightly 
shorter route across the fields which lay to the north side 
of Traitor's Hill. The father still accompanied the son 
daily, unless hindered by private or pastoral duties, de- 
lighting in making him familiar with the Latin names of 
birds, trees, &c., and in following all his classical studies. 
Within a term or two a cousin, Edward Bickersteth Birks, 
came to reside at Christ Church vicarage for several 
years, 1 and the two cousins, thus thrown together, became 
almost like brothers. 

Edward's seven years at Highgate School were in every 
sense happy, and while proving him to be keen in the 
acquisition of Greek and Latin, and unusually fond of 
reading, also showed tha^: he was not devoid of a healthy 
interest in games. Football he never cared for, but 
excelled so far in cricket as to play in the First Eleven 
during his last term, obtaining that year the highest score 
in the Old Cholmeleian match. 2 He was also fond o{ 
entomology, and collected many good specimens on the 
Heath and in the Highgate woods. He was taught swim- 
ming and riding, the latter accomplishment giving him a 
firm seat and confidence on horseback, and being of special 
use to him in after years, when he had to scour the plains 
round Delhi in visiting different mission stations, or make 
his way along untrodden paths in Japan. At school he 
showed no aptitude for modern languages, though as a 
missionary he mastered six eastern languages. 

Edward Bickersteth continued at Highgate till 1869, 
in which year he obtained the school exhibition and also 

1 Edward B. Birks obtained the School Exhibition in 1867, also an open 
scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the same year, and a Fellow- 
ship in 1871. He is now Vicar of Kellington, Whitley Bridge, Yorks. 

2 He never lost his interest in this game, and in his many voyages was 
always 'ready to join in a deck game ; and the cry of 'Well bowled, Bishop,' 
was not infrequently heard. 



8 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

an open classical scholarship at Pembroke College, Cam- 
bridge, thus half supporting himself while he was an 
undergraduate at the University. His father wrote in his 
diary : ' His scholarship crowned his patient diligence at 
Highgate ; his school course has never caused an hour's 
anxiety, but has called for continual praise.' 

Dr. Dyne, 1 his head master at Highgate, writes thus : 

Rogate, Petersfield : September 24, 1897. 

( 

Dear S. Bickersteth, You ask me to send you any 
reminiscences I can of your brother Edward's schooldays, 
or of the influence he exerted in the school. I gladly do 
so as far as I can, for the whole of his school life was most 
gratifying to me ; although from his living with his parents 
at Hampstead, not under my roof, or in a boarding house 
at Highgate, but merely coming over to school daily, I 
had not the opportunity of knowing his inner life which I 
had in the case of boys living under me out of school. 
He was of a retiring character, loved his home, whither he 
generally went when work was over ; so that, always 
without reproach and happy with his school-mates, 2 and 
sociable, whilst with them he did not attain that command- 
ing influence amongst them which a senior eminent in. 
school sports does. 

He entered the school in January 1862, after the 
Christmas holidays, at the bottom of the third form. 
We generally printed our school list in October : and 
in the list of that year I find his name at the top of 
his form. This was an augury of future industry and 
love of study, and I may add of doing his duty to his 
parents, always a ruling principle with him. From the 
third form he gradually rose through the fourth and fifth,, 
always taking a high place amongst several clever con- 
temporaries (E. B. Birks being one), to the foremost place 
in the sixth form in 1869, when he was senior prefect,, 
and left the school carrying off not only the Governors' 

1 Died January 1899, when nearly ninety years of age. 

- The boys of Highgate in after years collected an annual sum of money 
for the Delhi Missions while Bickersteth was connected with the Cambridge 
Mission. On his consecration as Bishop his old school-fellows at Highgate 
presented him with a pastoral staff, still in use in the diocese. 



INTRODUCTORY 9 

gold medal for Latin verse, but the first exhibition to the 
university, the Burdett Coutts prize for mathematics, the 
first prize for Divinity, and several others. 

At one time several boys walked over from Hamp- 
stead with him to school, and I always spoke with praise 
of the punctuality of my Hampstead contingent led by him 
. . . Pray excuse this rambling letter from one many years 
past the allotted life of man but thankful to have been 
so long spared. 

Yours sincerely, 

J. B. DYNE. 

Edward's summer holidays were spent as a rule under 
the roof of his grandfather, Sir Samuel Bignold, who 
resided at Norwich, but who had also a seaside home at 
Lowestoft. Twice the Lake district was visited while 
staying at the house of his aunt (Mrs. Robert Bickersteth) 
at Casterton Hall near the old home at Kirkby Lonsdale, 
and once in 1867 he had a delightful tour in Norway 
and Sweden with his father, during which they took an 
extended tour up the Fiords, journeying over 2,000 miles. 
On that occasion he became familiar with the great Uni- 
versity at Christiania, where they were the guests of Pro- 
fessor Voss, and with which in after years (1886) he 
compared the modern University of Tokyo. 

It will thus be seen that his boyhood and early youth 
offered no striking features worthy of notice, but were 
essentially ' home-spun,' to use a favourite expression of 
his father's, and redolent of the simple joys so beauti- 
fully described by John Keble, himself brought up in a 
clerical home. 

Sweet is the smile of home, the mutual look 

Where hearts are of each other sure, 
Sweet all the joys that crown the household nook, 

The haunt of all affections pure. 

At the same time proximity to London, with occasional 
visits to St. Paul's, to Westminster Abbey, to the Royal 



10 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Academy, and to the House of Commons l (in the pro- 
ceedings of which throughout his life Edward Bickersteth 
took an unflagging interest), prevented any stagnation of 
mind. His father's varied circle of interests parochial, 
ecclesiastical, literary widened his horizon. These early 
years make a reposeful background on which the eye lingers 
fondly, when it is contrasted with the far distant scenes in 
which the boy, thus trained, was to spend his strenuous 
life. 

Spiritually, he was from his earliest years devout. It 
seems in keeping with his subsequent well-balanced judg- 
ment and sagacity that he never passed through any 
violent epoch of conversion, but ' grew on before the Lord.' 
As early as December 1856, among his father's memo- 
randa occurs this note, ' I trust prayer is a real tJiing with 
our boy.' He was then six and a half years old. In his 
fifteenth year (March 1865) he was confirmed at Hamp- 
stead Parish Church by the Bishop (Tait) of London. 
His father, who himself prepared him for confirmation, 
was engaged at that time with his poem ' Yesterday, To- 
day, and For Ever,' in which the son took intelligent 
interest and delight. Then, as throughout life, he seemed 
to have a shrinking from coarse expressions and evil ways, 
and was never entangled in those moral difficulties which 
threaten the soul with shipwreck. 

In 1857 and again in 1863, God gathered from the 
home two little ones, Constance and Eva Mabel, but no 
desolating bereavements swept over it till Edward's 
Cambridge career was nearly over. 

Among the younger members of the family the 
' Brother,' as he was often called, being at one time the 
only son among five daughters, won himself an unques- 

1 He was present at the great debate in the House of Lords on the 
Disestablishment of the Irish Church. 



INTRODUCTORY 1 1 

tioned place in their estimation, while in after years the 
youngest ones looked up to him not without awe, though 
with much affection. He stood godfather to his sister Effie 
on her baptism in 1867, and greatly valued that relation- 
ship. 

In the summer of 1869 he spent six weeks travelling 
through Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and France, in 
company with his father and mother and three of the elder 
sisters, and in the autumn of that year he went into 
residence at Pembroke College, Cambridge, as a scholar. 
It was then a small college, but had already begun to 
expand under the inspiring organisation of the Rev. C. E. 
Searle. During his time as tutor, and since 1 880 as Master, 
it has been partially rebuilt and has doubled its size. 
Between the scholar and the tutor a friendship of no 
ordinary tenderness and tenacity sprang up, and through- 
out his life Edward Bickersteth could always rely on the 
confidence of Dr. Searle in his different missionary under- 
takings. 

In the autumn of 1870 he accompanied his father 
for a tour of some weeks in America. The father will 
never forget his son's ' exquisite delight ' on first hearing 
of the plan. He was always an excellent traveller. 

Among his contemporaries and friends at Cambridge 
may be mentioned C. W. E. Body, W. Lawson, Heriz 
Smith, A. F. Kirkpatrick, V. H. Stanton, C. H. Prior, 
A. J. Mason, A. W. Verrall, G. H. Rendall, with some of 
whom he went upon a reading party in the Isle of Wight 
(1871) under the guidance of his cousin, Professor Joseph 
Mayor. 

Edward Bickersteth went up to the university set on 
obtaining a good degree, and determined to take 
advantage to the fullest extent of the intellectual oppor- 
tunities there abundantly opened to him. From the 



12 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

first he and two friends read with a view to obtaining 
Fellowships, and consequently his failure to obtain a first- 
class in the Classical Tripos (February 1873) was at the 
time a bitter disappointment to him, probably one of the 
keenest trials of his life. 1 

In April of that year he visited Rome with his cousin 
Edward Birks and an old school friend Dorsay Cremer 2 
and made a tour in Italy, which in after years he was able 
twice to revisit. Few travellers were more untiring than 
he in absorbing all that the magnetic influence of historical 
sights and scenes is able to impart. 

On his return he was anxious to take Holy Orders at 
once, saying that enough money had been spent on him, 
but yielded without delay to the earnestly expressed 
wishes of his parents that he should continue at Cam- 
bridge and read for the Theological Tripos. The college 
offered to extend his scholarship for another year, and the 
following spring he was rewarded by being placed with 
two others in the first class, obtaining also the Scholefield 
and Evans prizes, so that in the spring of 1875 he was 
elected to a fellowship at Pembroke College. But his 
mother was not spared on earth to share in the joy of 
these successes. On August 2, 1.873, while staying at 
Cromer in Norfolk, she had been suddenly called to enter 
nto her rest. It would not be easy to reproduce in words 
the perfect sympathy which had always bound together 
the mother and son, or to bring out how great a depriva- 
tion to him was the loss of her discriminating judg- 
ment and devoted love, for which he had never looked in 
vain. The death of the mother had followed upon the 
' home call ' 3 of his sister Alice Frances, eleven months 

1 He was bracketed seventh in the second class. 

2 Now Vicar of Eccles. 

3 She was aged 19, and inherited her father's gift of song ; see ' The 
Master's Home Call,' by the Bishop of Exeter (Sampson Low & Co.). 



INTRODUCTORY 13 

previously (September 16, 1872), and of the youngest 
sister Irene (November 12, 1872). 

There had always been the strongest affection between 
Edward and Alice, and it is also remembered with what 
poignant sorrow Edward grieved over the sudden death of 
Irene. Thus death had entered into the vicarage three 
times in twelve months, and although by the clear insight 
of my father's strong faith we had been taught that those 
in Paradise were the living ones, those on earth the dying 
ones, yet the earthly home could never be the same again. 

Edward never destroyed one of his mother's letters, 
which unfailingly reached him two or three times a week 
during his undergraduate life ; but they do not offer 
material for quotation, being full of the home interests of 
a large family, in which then, as afterwards in India and 
Japan, he never failed to keep up an unbroken interest, 
and in which he expected to be most fully posted up. 
An exception may be made in the following three letters, 
considering the intimate influence which the two men 
therein mentioned were to have on his life. 

On November 12, 1871, his mother wrote : 'How kind 
Mr. Westcott seems to be to you and your companions. 
I am sure his teaching must be very valuable.' Or again : 
< It is interesting to us that you should be enjoying Pro- 
fessor Westcott's lectures, when twenty-five years ago he 
and your father were together.' Such allusions are fre- 
quent, while on November 28, 1871, she wrote :' Father 
and I, with Lily, went to St. Pancras yesterday and heard 
a most wonderful preacher of the same class as Mr. Body. 
It was Mr. Wilkinson, 1 and he certainly gave a wonderful 
sermon. I never saw anyone, perhaps, who seemed so 
vividly to realize eternal things while speaking. It was a 
very great help.' While with regard to his first curacy, 
' Now Bishop of St. Andrews. 



14 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

which had been already under discussion, she wrote 
(May 17, 1872): 'Did father tell you that he lunched 
with Mr. Thorold one day this week to give him 
American information, as he is hoping to go there this 
summer, and Mr. Thorold still so wishes to have you 
for his curate ? I do feel it would be a great privilege 
to you to work under such a man, and your position in 
every way would be a good one. It makes my heart so 
happy to think of you in the ministry, telling of the 
Saviour's love to perishing souls, and I often and often 
commit it in prayer to our gracious Father, my dear boy. 
Father has said sometimes that he thought if he could see 
you preaching the gospel he could say from his heart, 
" Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace ;" but if 
He spares us to see you established in the ministry, and 
your work blessed of God, it would be indeed a blessing.' 
These words were written within three months of her death. 

Mr. Thorold ' was an old friend of Edward Bicker- 
steth's father, and godfather to his son Hugh. He 
had been persuaded by him to leave Westmoreland for 
work in London, and a curacy under him would have 
been congenial work and valuable experience. But his 
mother's death made Edward wish to reside as near as 
possible to the old home, so that eventually he accepted 
the offer of a title from a neighbour of his father's, whose 
parish all but adjoined that of Christ Church, Hampstead. 

He was ordained deacon at St. Paul's Cathedral by 
Bishop Jackson of London, being first among the candi- 
dates, on the fourth Sunday in Advent, 1873. 

The recently formed parish of Holy Trinity to which 

he was licensed was administered by the Vicar (the Rev. 

Henry Sharpe) on more extreme Evangelical lines than 

his new curate felt in sympathy with, so it turned out 

1 Afterwards Bishop of Rochester, and then of Winchester. 



INTRODUCTORY 15 

happily that the little hamlet of West End (now a large 
suburb) was intrusted to his care. There within two 
years he succeeded, with the help of many of his father's 
friends, in building an excellent mission church of brick, 
which has now become a centre for a new ecclesiastical 
district. This his first scene of ministerial labours never 
ceased to be regularly remembered by him in intercession 
up to the end of his episcopate. 

On December 20, 1874, m tne same place, and by the 
same Bishop of London who had set him apart for the 
diaconate, Edward Bickersteth was advanced to the 
priesthood. His father wrote in his journal : ' This day 
my beloved Edward was ordained Priest. His diaconate 
has been full of promise, and full of realised blessing, a 
wise tact in dealing with many minds, and a constraining 
desire to preach Christ, a full Christ, to his flock. And 
this while pressed with many literary works the Theo- 
logical Tripos examination, in which he came out first 
writing for the Hulsean, trying for the Carus, and prepar- 
ing for the examination of priest. But now his preparation 
work is over, and he is fully on his ministerial way. The 
Lord grant that, abiding in Jesus Christ, he may bring forth 
much fruit, and win many jewels for the crown he will cast 
at the feet of his Lord. His dear mother's image has 
seemed so present the last two days. Surely through 
Jesus she knows all.' 

It was during these years (1873-5) that Bickersteth 
greatly enjoyed the friendship of Mrs. Charles, one of his 
father's oldest friends resident at Hampstead. The gifted 
authoress of 'The chronicles of the Schonberg Cotta Family' 
was, as all who knew her will admit, most stimulating as a 
conversationalist, and very sympathetic in her power of 
appreciating the intellectual workings and spiritual aspira- 
tions of younger minds. He also regularly attended the 



1 6 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

conference of the London Junior Clerical Society, of which 
he was one of the first members. This society used to meet 
at a Lecture Room in King's College, London, and among 
its members at that time were the Rev. H. J. Mathew 
(late Bishop of Lahore), the Rev. John Oakley (late Dean 
of Manchester), the Rev. Brook Deedes (now Rector of 
Hawkhurst and sometime Archdeacon of Lahore), the Rev. 
A. J. Worlledge (now Chancellor of Truro), the Rev. J. W. 
Horsley (Vicar of St. Peter's, Walworth), and others. The 
Rev. Charles Kingsley, the Rev. Alfred Barry (afterwards 
Bishop of Sydney), and the Rev. W. D. Maclagan (now 
Archbishop of York), used to attend the meetings from 
time to time and address the members. In all such intel- 
lectual discussions Edward Bickersteth took a thoughtful 
part. 

In appearance he was tall, being just over six feet 
in height, always very thin, with grey eyes and some- 
what marked features, his chin being unusually long. 
His voice, though not powerful nor remarkable for its 
musical cadences, carried well, and seldom if ever failed 
him. His forehead was of noble proportions and marked 
him out as a man of thought. His eyes shone with keen 
intelligence, and a smile of singular sweetness lit up his 
whole face, and revealed as in a moment the man himself. 
All his movements were quick, and he walked always at a 
great pace. 

Although a poet's son, Edward Bickersteth was never 
himself a poet, nor was his expression of ' thought much 
tinged by emotion.' In writing he aimed rather at lucidity 
of style than at rhetorical effect, and he set more store on 
introducing an historical precedent than a glowing simile. 
From his father he inherited his strong will and great 
tenacity of purpose, coupled with a gentleness of bear- 
ing and a singular gift of patient waiting upon God; 



INTRODUCTORY \J 

while from his mother he derived a marked tenderness, a 
cautious sagacity in judgment, the reticence of reserve, 
as well as a disinclination to self-advertisement. Like all 
highly strung natures, he could be deeply stirred, but by 
God's grace he learnt to curb his impatience, so that the 
peacefulness, seldom broken in upon in later life, carried 
with it a note of victory. These characteristics, disciplined 
and matured by experience, developed in him not only 
a vocation of leadership, but also made that leadership 
eagerly looked for by friends and acquiesced in even by 
those who differed from him. 

To the fact that he was born and bred among the 
Evangelicals may be attributed his early sense of the 
seriousness of life, of the necessity for personal religion, of 
the reality of divine mercy and judgment, and of the con- 
straining force latent in the words ' For Christ's sake.' 
This spiritual birthright he never lightly esteemed, and 
never forfeited by a rash exchange into a wholly opposite 
school of thought ; but his natural disposition, his love of 
learning and of precision of thought, his appreciation of first 
principles and of historical precedents, and his balanced 
judgment made it certain that fuller sacramental teach- 
ing when presented to him would find a ready response 
and satisfy the deeper instincts of his nature. Moreover 
in God's providence he went up to the University two 
years before the Cambridge School of Divinity received 
its most powerful recruit in the person of Dr. Westcott 
(called in 1871 to be Regius Professor of Divinity), and 
the influence of his Alma Mater, interpreted for him by 
Lightfoot, Westcott, and others, completed his mental and 
spiritual evolution, more especially after his return to the 
University to reside as a Fellow. 

But there is no doubt that his early training enabled 
him to see from the inside the aspirations and methods 

c 



1 8 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

of truly spiritually minded men, both clergy and laity, 
belonging to the Evangelical school of thought. The re- 
membrance of this experience was of special use to him 
when called upon to supervise the work of strongly 
Evangelical missionaries in Japan. Many years later 
writing in Japan from a mission station where he was stay- 
ing, he expressed himself thus in a letter to his wife : 

These are people from whom I feel one may learn 
much. Their hearts are really in their work, and they 
pursue it simply and loyally for Christ's sake. Of course 
I do feel a great lack of church privileges and of the sense 
of need of them. They would be stronger and better if 
they would only superadd them to what they have. But 
their lives seem otherwise set. Their very reading is in 
the main of a dissenting order, and their thoughts get that 
tinge. Still, with it all there is a personal love of our Lord 
and a loyalty to Him which makes their work not what 
it might be, but still very valuable and with a beauty of 
its own. God give us increasingly what they have, as well 
as all the truths of the other order which complement it. 

Again : 

These dear people live as if no great movement had 
ever passed over the English Church with all its teachings 
fifty years ago, (indeed, almost as if the Church were 
not, in many of its aspects and directions), though un- 
consciously they are much the better for its influence. 
But I had even to remind them it was Lady Day. Would 
that they could learn to add the idea of the sv arwp.a and 
all it means to that of the iz> 



1 In 1892 Archbishop Benson, speaking at a meeting in 
St. James's Hall on behalf of the Society for Promoting 

1 Speaking at the I95th Anniversary of that Society, Archbishop Benson 
said : ' We talk familiarly about people being ' ' High Church " people, or 
" Low Church " people, or " Broad Church" people ; but there is an un- 
occupied word which I want to come, if not into our lips, at least into our 
minds, and hearts, and lives. It is the word " Deep." What I want is 
" Deep Church " for all ; Deep Church that can be produced only by Christian 
knowledge and by the " principles" of Christian knowledge.' 



INTRODUCTORY ip 

Christian Knowledge, pointed out that in the nomenclature 
of Church parties one word had been left unemployed, and 
pleaded in favour of 'Deep Churchmen,' as distinct from 
High, Low, or Broad, while embracing many character- 
istics of all the three. It would be presumptuous to imply 
that Edward Bickersteth realised that description, it is 
quite certain that it expressed his ideal. 



c 2 



20 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 



CHAPTER II 

RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 

' The very fact of their having received the training and education of one 
University will be a bond of sympathy between the missionaries of no ordinary 
strength. Our English Universities have a character and tradition of their own, 
which are impressed by a thousand subtle and indefinable influences on those 
who pass through them, and will naturally engender unity of feeling and 
similarity in modes of thought. We refuse to regard the consideration of such 
influences and associations as merely sentimental rather we believe that they 
should be carefully taken account of, and consecrated by combined action in 
the service of Christ.' Rev. EDWARD BICKERSTETH, t'u the ' Mission Field? 
March 1877. 

IN May 1875 Edward Bickersteth returned to Cambridge, 
having been elected to a Fellowship at Pembroke College, 
on which foundation he had already held a scholarship. 
Those were the days before the last University Commis- 
sion had reorganised the conditions on which Fellowships 
are held, and there was no rule of compulsory residence at 
the University, nor indeed any rule attached to the tenure 
except that a Fellow could not be married. 

As a matter of fact, Bickersteth retained his Fellow- 
ship for eighteen years, the larger part of which time he 
was absent from England either in India or Japan, and 
only for the first two years took his full share in lecturing 
and other collegiate duties. He always held that if 
Fellowships were ever to be allotted to specific objects, 
it was not unreasonable that one should be held by a 
missionary. He maintained that the Christian sons of 
an ancient University were responsible not only for the 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 21 

confirmation of the faith, but also for its propagation. 
He had reason to believe that his brother Fellows, or many 
of them, the tutor especially, took his view, and approved 
of one of the governing body being thus employed on 
foreign service ; and there can be no doubt that the news 
from the front which Bickersteth from time to time sent 
home, and his letters from Japan addressed to the Master 
of Pembroke on some important new departure in his 
-work, not only excited interest in the college itself, but 
were widely read in other colleges as well. He did not 
retain rooms in college after he left Delhi, but his sermons 
.in chapel and occasional lectures during his enforced and 
prolonged absence from India, or on his brief visits from 
Japan, brought home to many younger men their own 
share of responsibility for imparting as well as for retain- 
ing the faith. Certain it is that Pembroke College never 
failed to have a place in his intercessions, and if the 
mission to Delhi gained greatly in prestige through its 
first leader being on the governing body of a college, the 
college itself lost nothing by sharing some of its material 
resources with the East, and by giving one of its sons for 
this work of the Lord. 

The following recollections, contributed by the Rev. 
C. W. E. Body, D.D., Professor at the Theological College, 
New York, and formerly Provost of Trinity College, 
Toronto, give a contemporary picture of Edward Bicker- 
.steth's college life. 

Amongst my most valued recollections of happy Cam- 
bridge days are those of a little group of younger Fellows 
and graduates who were accustomed to meet two or three 
times a week at the lectures of Dr. Westcott, then Regius 
Professor of Divinity, or at the meetings of the University 
Church Society, a society founded largely at Dr. West- 
cott's suggestion. Under the influence of the deeply 
spiritual teaching with which we were thus constantly 



22 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

surrounded we were drawn together in bonds of mutual 
sympathy and affection of a somewhat unusual kind. 
Coming from various colleges, with every variety of 
temperament and standpoint, we felt ourselves united in a 
living harmony of developing faith. Such intercourse and 
fellowship I shall always look upon as among the most 
precious formative influences of my life. Among these 
friends Edward Bickersteth occupied a foremost place. 
He possessed a remarkable combination of qualities 
not often given to any one man ; on the one side one was 
instinctively drawn to him by his affectionate nature, with 
all its delicacy of consideration and sympathy, whilst very 
soon one felt oneself to be in the presence of a singularly 
resolute will informed by a well balanced conscience, and 
even masterful in its grip and influence. 

Strength and tenderness were blended in him in 
singular beauty, and to the last the attractiveness of the 
combination was felt by all who knew him well. A slight 
lisp in speech, and that half-suppressed laugh which 
seemed to flow instinctively from his buoyant nature, might 
have seemed in others a defect or an affectation ; to 
Bickersteth's transparently genuine nature these were soon 
felt to give an additional charm. 

The Monday evening class on the Epistle of St. John, 
as well as the more formal professorial lectures on the 
Introduction to Christian Doctrine in the quaint old 
Divinity Schools, in which from many sides we were led 
up to the fulness of the Christian faith, were to him an 
unfailing source of ever fresh delight. I can still re- 
member the joyous enthusiasm with which in our afternoon 
walks he would discuss some wider thought thus opened 
up to him. His buoyancy and depth of faith gave a special 
kind of inspiration to his society, marking him out as a 
future leader in the world of men. 

Hence when his name was announced as the head of 
the new University Mission to North India his friends 
recognised a special appropriateness in the selection. 
How memorable was that service on Sunday evening 
in St. Giles's Church, at which Dr. Lightfoot, with even 
more than his usual forcefulness and sympathy, gave the 
farewell address, 1 and the Bishop of Ely (Dr. Woodford) 

1 As a matter of fact, this sermon was preached a year before the Cam- 
bridge Missionaries started, and was entitled, 'The Father of Missionaries.' 
For some quotations from it see p. 42. 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 23 

sent forth the first two University missionaries (Bickersteth 
and a dear personal friend, the Rev. J. D. Murray, Scholar 
of St. John's College) to North India. 

We felt that it was a representative offering which was 
then made. We were sending out in faith and hope that 
which seemed most distinctly characteristic of the best 
Cambridge life of our day. This conviction was only 
deepened by subsequent events. Through all the neces- 
sary difficulties of the inception of such a work, in the 
delicate task of remodelling an established S.P.G. Mission 
to adapt it to the special type of university brotherhood 
and educational work we had set before ourselves, Bicker- 
steth's affectionate tact and unswerving loyalty to his own 
ideals were alike everywhere felt ; of all this, however, 
others will speak with far more intimate knowledge than I 
possess. Two or three years after Bickersteth's departure 
to Delhi I was called to work at Trinity College, Toronto. 
When we were again brought into close contact Bickersteth 
was Bishop in Japan, and we were endeavouring to send 
out from Trinity a Canadian mission on something like 
the old Cambridge lines. As he spoke in our Convo- 
cation Hall for this mission the same spiritual attractive- 
ness and impelling force of statesmanlike conviction were 
as strongly marked as ever. There was nothing limited 
or negative about his nature all was positive to the 
highest degree, positive to the point of a bold insistence 
as he depicted our opportunity and responsibilities. To 
his encouragement and zeal whatever success has attended 
the mission is largely due. 

The same qualities were conspicuous in his earnest 
desire that the Church of Canada should send out a Bishop 
of its own to assume in its name chief oversight over a 
large district in Japan in which the Canadian missions 
were situated. He had little sympathy with that point of 
view which, contrary to all apostolic precedent, assumed 
that a young National Church should first prove itself 
perfectly able to bear alone all its own internal burdens 
before it ventures forth, in obedience to our Lord's com- 
mand, to plant the faith in the regions beyond. 

Although at the last meeting of the Canadian General 
Synod the proposal of the Japanese Bishops was felt to 
be at that time impracticable, one may confidently hope 
that the day is not far distant when those greatly to be 



24 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

regretted obstacles will be removed, and Bishop Bicker- 
steth's desire is, by God's mercy, carried to a successful 
realisation. 

In what so unexpectedly proved to be his last illness 
I was privileged to be with him once in New York on his 
way to England, and subsequently in London. The same 
heroic discontent with present results and glad pressing 
forward to new activities remained with him to the last ; 
that in some sense almost unique combination of faith and 
hope and love which it was permitted him to embody and 
to leave as an abiding legacy to the Church he so dearly 
loved. 

But when Bickersteth returned to Cambridge, had he 
then definitely before his mind the idea of offering himself 
for mission work abroad ? There had been various pre- 
disposing influences at work for many years, leading him 
to ' look at the fields ' white for the harvest. At Christ 
Church Vicarage, Hampstead, he met many missionaries, 
and his father remembers in particular the deep impres- 
sion left on his son's mind after a missionary meeting 
addressed by the Rev. Robert Clark (of the Punjab) and 
the Rev. J. Welland, two missionaries of the Church Mis- 
sionary Society. 

He had never thought of offering himself either to the 
S.P.G. or C.M.S., so far as is known at the time he returned 
to Cambridge. His election, however, to a Fellowship 
after he had experienced two years and more of pastoral 
work in England placed him in a position in which he was 
bound to look at his life from a new standpoint. What 
was to be his future ? At home or abroad ? And if the 
latter, how could he work in and bring to bear most fruit- 
fully the academic resources and advantages now open to 
him ? I remember well his expressions of surprise and 
regret when it was pointed out (I think in some periodical) 
how few University graduates, and how much fewer honours 
men, had followed the lead which Henry Martyn had 






RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 25 

given to his University. 1 Whatever occupied Edward 
Bickersteth's mind he was sure to pray about. It is not, 
therefore, strange that he who had already listened to two 
out of the three most memorable commands ever uttered 
by our Lord ' Look at the fields ' and ' Pray the Lord 
of the harvest ' soon heard with increasing clearness 
the complementary words, ' Go and make disciples of 
the nations.' He had taken stock of the facts, descried 
the paucity of the labourers, and in his perplexity had 
turned to pray ; so in due order he was led to obey the 
third command, not by securing a deputy in lieu of per- 
sonal service, but by offering himself. This seems to be 
a sufficient explanation of his desire for missionary work, 
and of his decision to go. What led to the realisation of 
his hope, and to the formation of the Cambridge Mission 
must now be told. 

The entry occurs in his father's diary, July 25, 1875 : 

My beloved son's election to a Fellowship in May was 
indeed a signal mercy as crowning his long work of 
patient study, and now he has opened up to me a thought 
which has long been in his mind of trying to organise a 
band of missionary labourers in Cambridge, and himself 
going forth with them to India after a while. I feel that 
it is the greatest gift I could give to the missionary cause, 
for I had often counted on Edward being the stay of my 
declining years, and the stay of his brothers and sisters ; 
and if once he is called to missionary work, though he 
may come home from time to time, he will not look back, 
having put his hand to the plough. 

The father's insight into the tenacity of his son's purpose 
proved true, but his foresight could not tell that the work 
begun in India and then checked through disease would be 

1 See Mr. Eugene Stock's ' History of the Church Missionary Society ' 
vol. ii. ch. 36, for an interesting account of ' Some recruits from the Uni- 
versities.' 



26 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

continued in Japan, and ended so far as earth's activities 
are concerned at the comparatively early age of 47. 

There can be no doubt that the Cambridge Mission, 
the first Community Mission sent out by any University in 
modern times, is greatly indebted in its inception to the 
influence of two distinguished men the Rev. T. V. French, 
sometime Fellow of University College, Oxford, and 
the Rev. Professor B. F. Westcott, formerly Fellow of 
Trinity College, Cambridge, who were each in the Provi- 
dence of God recalled to reside at their respective 
Universities early in the seventies. Mr. French, as Rector 
of St. Ebbe's in Oxford, and Dr. Westcott, as Regius 
Professor at Cambridge, were both deeply impressed with 
the needs of India and with the special aptitude of the 
Universities, ' by the happy discipline through which they 
combine reverence with freedom and enthusiasm with 
patience,' to meet those needs. The one had formed his 
opinions through his own prolonged experience as a 
missionary in Northern India, especially as Principal of the 
Lahore Divinity School ; the other had arrived at the same 
conclusions by independent thought and study, but both 
alike felt that ' the Universities are providentially fitted to 
train men who shall interpret the faith of the West to the 
East, and bring back to us new illustrations of the one 
infinite and eternal Gospel.' They inculcated their views 
on all who came under their influence, and Edward Bicker- 
steth, as it so happened, was naturally brought into touch 
with both. Mr. French had served with his father (the 
Rev. E. H. Bickersteth) at Christ Church, Hampstead, 
during a few months in 1863, and their common love for 
missionary enterprise had cemented so fast a friendship 
between the two men that Mr. French always revisited 
Hampstead when he returned to England. Professor 
Westcott, born in the same year and the same month as 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 2/ 

Mr. Bickersteth of Hampstead, had first met him when they 
were both undergraduates at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
from which time dated a friendship destined to be lifelong. 
Edward, who had been himself accustomed to hear fre- 
quently from his father's lips the wise counsel, ' Thine own 
friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not,' cannot have been 
uninfluenced by Mr. French's missionary ardour during 
his visits to Hampstead, and when in due course he 
himself had gone up to Cambridge he was not slow to 
claim an introduction to Professor Westcott on the score 
of being his father's son. 

In this way it may safely be asserted that the younger 
man was gradually put on terms of easy friendship with 
these two master minds, and was therefore the more ready to 
receive the contagious influence of their teaching and their 
ideals. But we are not left to weave together conjectures 
on this point. Professor V. H. Stanton, his contemporary 
and close friend, writing in the ' Cambridge Review ' 
(October 14, 1897), has recorded that Edward Bickersteth 
had himself stated that a letter of Mr. French's to him in 
1875 suggested the first idea of a Cambridge Brotherhood 
to his mind. The paper read by Mr. French on the in- 
vitation of Edward Bickersteth before the Cambridge 
Missionary Aid Society, February 16, 1876, on the pro- 
posed Cambridge University Mission in North India is 
unquestionably the result of much previous correspondence 
between the two men. It may be here noted that 
Bickersteth himself had read a paper on February 9, 1876 
(the week previous to Mr. French's visit), before the Cam- 
bridge Church Society on the same subject. 

While, therefore, fully acknowledging all the indebted- 
ness of the Cambridge Mission to these two leaders for their 
large share in the first suggestion and direction of the move- 
ment, there can be no doubt that the Rev. S. S. Allnutt 



28 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

(the present head of the Cambridge Mission) was justified in 
writing, in the 'Delhi Mission News' (October 1897) : ' It 
is certain that to the energy, enterprise, and devotion of 
Edward Bickersteth it was due that the idea of a Uni- 
versity Mission did not remain a splendid dream, but was 
so speedily translated into actual concrete form and em- 
bodiment. How well I remember the walks during which 
he unfolded to me the main principles on which it was 
proposed to start a missionary Brotherhood, and the role 
it was to seek to accomplish. The subject had taken 
entire possession of him, and to his contagious enthusiasm 
was due the fact that with only one exception the band of 
men who with himself composed the original staff of the 
Brotherhood were won by his own personal influence. 
This alone testifies to the force of character as well as the 
consuming zeal that marked the man then as afterwards 
throughout his career.' 

Professor Stanton, in the paper already quoted, writes 
to the same effect, ' that Edward Bickersteth made the 
general idea which he derived from his teachers thoroughly 
his own, conceived with the definiteness and force that 
were necessary in order that the project should succeed, 
how the life and work of such a body of missionaries 
should be organised, saw from his own study of foreign 
missions what the defects of ordinary methods were which 
needed to be remedied, and was the first to point out fully 
what the secrets of strength of missionary work conducted 
by a community would be. He stated with perfect 
clearness the advantages of the proposed plan precisely 
as they are to this day insisted on by those who have had 
experience of their working. And it should be remem- 
bered that there was not then any mission, even belonging 
to a religious order, which could serve as an example, 
certainly none which would naturally occur to the mind.' 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 29 

But this point can be best cleared up by the words of the 
present Bishop of Durham (Dr. Westcott). Writing to me 
on October 8, 1897, from Auckland Castle he says : ' No- 
thing, as you know, gave me greater joy in my 'Cambridge 
work than the foundation of the Delhi Mission, and your 
brother was made to embody the ideas which it represents.' 
What, then, were the advantages which Edward 
Bickersteth hoped for from the establishment of a 
University Mission ? In his paper read before the Cam- 
bridge Church Society he sums them up under four heads : 

I. Concentration of effort on a particular city or small 
district. 

II. Continuity in work done, involving the possibility 
of subdivision of labour in (a) controversial, (^) literary 
undertakings. 

III. (And on this he desired to lay special stress). 
Opportunity afforded for united religious exercises and 
services, and 

IV. The connection of the mission with Cambridge, 
securing a supply of men, as well as substantial aid by 
research carried on at home in libraries and colleges, and 
thus enabling the University to perform one of her most 
sacred duties. 

It is suggestive that in this his first statement he fore- 
casts the time when ' the whole would be handed over to 
Indian teachers and the Indian Church,' thus incidentally 
showing how early rooted in his mind was the value of the 
principle of autonomy which in after years, by the Provi- 
dence of God, he was to be the main instrument for 
securing to Japan, by the organisation of the Nippon 
Sei Kokwai (the Holy Catholic Church of Japan). 

He impressed the spirit of brotherhood on the whole 
scheme by the choice of the three words which he placed 
at the head of his paper : 



crvvspyoi, <7Vfnro\irai, 

fellow soldiers fellow workers fellow citizens 



30 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

In drawing up the memorandum circulated in Cambridge 
in June 1876, Bickersteth elaborated with greater detail the 
aims with which the Cambridge Mission was begun. He 
wrote that ' the many resident members of the University 
who felt that Cambridge ought to be connected with a 
characteristic missionary work believed that the present 
needs of India pointed towards fresh efforts in the direction 
of education, especially the education of native Christians, 
a work which would naturally belong to the province of 
an English University. This belief had taken shape in 
the original resolution that 

The special object of the mission be, in addition to 
evangelistic labour, to afford means for the higher educa- 
tion of young native Christians, to offer the advantages of 
a Christian home to students sent from mission schools to 
the Government College, and through literary and other 
labours to reach the more thoughtful heathen. 

In further explanation of this resolution he wrote in the 
' Mission Field,' 1 March 1877 : 

The direct work of preaching and evangelisation needs 
no comment. . . . All recognise the importance of training 
a native pastorate. Such a work could only be under- 
taken by the Cambridge Mission in years to come. It 
demands a full mastery of the language, and an ac- 
quaintance with the customs and habits of the people 
and their characteristic modes of thought. The value 
of controversial literature as a means of reaching the 
more thoughtful has long been appreciated. A more 
pressing need is the supply of doctrinal and devotional 
books for the native Church. A University mission will 
naturally attempt something in this direction. An over- 
burdened missionary, who bears alone the manifold cares 
of a whole station, has but little time for such labours. 

1 It is a strange coincidence that the very next article in this issue of the 
Mission Field deals with the progress of missions in Japan, and also that 
Mr. Bickersteth, in the opening sentence of his own article, cited India and 
Japan as two countries which illustrated the greatly changed character of 
missionary work since Gregory sent Augustine to Kent. 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 31 

The education of young native Christians is an important 
part of the machinery of the native Church, which has as 
yet received comparatively little attention in India. . . . 
The only other object specified is a Home of Christian 
Students at the Government College. At Delhi there is no 
Christian College, as at Calcutta, Madras, and Agra, and 
Government education is purely secular. Now, by way of 
comparison, imagine the general moral effect on an average 
English youth who had been brought up at a Christian 
school of spending two or three years at Oxford or 
Cambridge, and finding that the curriculum of study and 
discipline of his college rigidly excluded from first to last 
all provision for religious instruction or services. But this 
is no imaginary case in India, and how much worse is such 
an ordeal for those who have only recently abandoned 
heathen practices, and are perhaps as yet only partially 
instructed in Christian truth. How likely that philosophy 
divorced from religion, science without God, history apart 
from its moral teaching, should lead them, not to their old 
superstitions those they have abandoned for ever but to 
the negation of the atheist, the doubting of the sceptic, 
or it may be to the cheerless creed of the Positivist or 
Secularist. 

The perusal of the article from which the above extracts 
have been taken makes plain (i) that Delhi had been 
decided upon as the city which was to be occupied with 
all the strength that the University of Cambridge could 
put forth, and (2) that the Cambridge Mission was to be in 
affiliation with the S.P.G. Some explanation is necessary 
in order to show by what considerations and negotiations 
these two important matters had been settled. 

From the first it had been understood that India should 
be the chosen country, but at one time Amritsar and some 
unevangelised country district within reach of that city had 
been thought of as the best field for a University mission. 
Characteristically, Bickersteth had written in February 
1876: 

All such questions may be safely and gladly left to 



32 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

those whom years of experience have taught the most 
urgent wants of India, and the most fruitful method of em- 
ploying whatever resources England, and especially our 
Universities, may supply. 

Certainly no efforts were spared to find out what city 
or province was pointed out by God's Providence as being 
most urgently in want The influence of Mr. French was 
naturally cast in favour of the Punjab, the scene of his 
own missionary labours. He pleaded for a district to be 
occupied accessible both by rail and steamer to the Indus 
and beyond the Indus to the great mountain barrier such 
as Multan, which is by rail only a night's journey from 
Lahore and Amritsar, or Alwar in Rajpootana, from which 
Jaipur with its large and thriving market-place and famous 
for its massive temples and gorgeous palaces, could be 
visited, and from which Ajmeer and Mount Aboo were 
an easy distance. He enforced his appeal by recalling 
the opinion of Sir H. Lawrence, who had urged him to 
get a mission planted or to go himself among the original 
Bheels and Minas singularly unprepossessed and likely 
to be readily impressed with the Gospel. He cited the 
words of the Rev. Robert Clark, 1 a veteran missionary of 
the C.M.S., who had lately written : 

I do not know a more hopeful field than we have in 
the Punjab, a people for centuries accustomed to conquest 
and government, and who have in them the spirit to con- 
quer and govern for Christ, when once God's Holy Spirit 
of Life has been imparted to them. 

Then as regards affiliation with any existing Missionary 
Society, many considerations suggested an appeal to the 
Church Missionary Society. It was known that the C.M.S. 
Punjab Conference had urged on that society the establish- 

1 The Rev. Robert Clark, of Trinity College, Cambridge, was 28th 
Wrangler, and is still, after nearly fifty years' service engaged in active 
missionary work in the Punjab. 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 33 

ment of a Christian college, and that one of their mis- 
sionaries, Mr. Baring, had had the importance of such work 
in his mind for many months, and had had much corre- 
spondence with the secretaries in Salisbury Square about 
it. It was pointed out that for a number of young men to 
go out without any connection with any society, and with- 
out any of the experience gained during a whole century, 
would endanger greatly the success they so desired. They 
must have some head, or the body would suffer greatly. 
They must not be independent of existing missions, or 
there would be a collision. They must rather work in 
with existing societies than independently of them. Mr. 
French himself in his visit to Cambridge (February 1 876) 
had felt at liberty to plead for the C.M.S. ' as the society 
to which the proposed mission should be affiliated, on 
the score of the prolonged, patient, diversified, and costly 
efforts made by that society in North India, which gave 
them a sort of claim not to be set aside in any decision 
arrived at regarding the Missionary Order to which the 
Cambridge men should ally themselves, he would not say 
identify themselves.' 

It is certain that there was no wish on the part of 
Edward Bickersteth to set aside the C.M.S. On the 
contrary, his grandfather's connection with that Society as 
one of its secretaries (1815-30) and his father's devoted 
support of it as a prominent member of committee, made 
it natural for him to desire that the Church Missionary 
Society should be approached in the first instance. Besides, 
one of the men who had offered to join the Cambridge 
Mission was the son of a strong C.M.S. supporter, and his 
father would have been glad if the proposed connection 
with that Society had been found feasible, though when 
that arrangement fell through, his hesitation was in the 
end removed by the assurance he received from Professor 

D 



34 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Westcott that the lines on which the mission was founded 
and would be worked were distinctly those of moderate 
churchmanship. 

In a letter to me from Pontresina (September 12, 
1875) my brother wrote : 

I am very glad you like my plan. It will have to be 
steered, I expect, between many rocks and quicksands, 
and maybe will never reach harbour, but I am hopeful. 
Its three masts are : 

1. A close connection with Cambridge and Oxford. 

2. An affiliation to one of the societies. 

3. A connection with one of the missionary bishops 
who are shortly to be appointed. 

As regards the C.M.S., I should not myself much mind 
being under it, only I think, and indeed know, that this has 
been a difficulty to some men, and I should be glad to lift 
it out of the way. Still, independent work would look like 
opposition, so something must be excogitated if possible 
between dependence and independence. 

Mr. French had indeed foreseen the possibility of ' an 
a priori dim apprehension of not being able to work in 
harmony with C.M.S. principles and methods of action,' 
and had asked that if the way was not clear at once to join 
themselves with the C.M.S. that they would hold their judg- 
ment in suspense for two or three years, and make them- 
selves practically acquainted with the working and workers 
of both C.M.S. and S.P.G., relying meantime on their own 
resources or funds guaranteed them by friends. Clearly 
there was no lack of deliberation. Writing later to me in 
June 1876 from Pembroke College, Cambridge, my brother 
speaks of a missionary conference to be held at Christ 
Church Vicarage, Hampstead, on the I4th, which French 
came from Oxford to attend, and when the Rev. H. 
Wright (Chief Secretary of the C.M.S.), the Rev. R. Clark 
(of the Punjab), the Rev. H. U. Weitbrecht l (a C.M.S. 

1 Of Simla, formerly of the Divinity School at Lahore, and now at Battala. 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 35 

missionary himself and the son of a C.M.S. missionary), 
and General Maclagan all met under the roof of the Rev. 
E. H. Bickersteth to discuss the affiliation of the Cambridge 
Mission with the C.M.S. 

But discussion only served to bring out the difficulties 
which at all events seemed to be insuperable at that time. 
There was no lack of sympathy with the missionary ardour 
of the Cambridge graduates on the part of the C.M.S. 
Committee, but the idea of a Community Mission called a 
' Brotherhood ' was then too novel to be acceptable, and 
too strange a method of working to be easily understood. 
Although no vows were taken by the members, yet it was 
understood that they could not marry and remain connected 
with the mission, a condition of membership open to much 
criticism in the judgment of some C.M.S. supporters. 
This is perhaps worth noting, as it is a proof that during 
the last quarter of a century the organisation of the 
Cambridge Mission and its success has done much to 
educate the opinion of Church people, and to familiarise 
their minds with the idea of Brotherhoods, now well 
known and adopted in England as well as in the mission 
field. 1 

The Rev. A. Clifford, C.M.S. Secretary at Calcutta (now 
Bishop of Lucknow), in a paper read before the Calcutta 
Diocesan Conference (February 9, 1889), noticed this 
change of sentiment in the following words : 

Next let me state briefly why I think that the Com- 
munity system represents a method which God's Provi- 
dence is calling us to use. Twenty years ago if it had 
been proposed to either of the two great missionary 

1 At the end of the Second Report of the Cambridge Mission, published 
at the University, the Cambridge Committee ' hail with deep thankfulness 
and satisfaction the prospect of the mission to Calcutta which is now being 
undertaken by the sister University of Oxford, and they rejoice to believe 
that the two missions will support one another in advancing towards one 
common end.' 

D 2 



36 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

societies of our Church to recognise the Community life as 
a practicable missionary method, the proposer would, I 
think, have been told in very emphatic terms that his 
suggestion was entirely visionary. He would have been 
told that he lived 500 years too late, that the Community 
system belonged to mediaeval times and was contrary to 
the spirit of the nineteenth century. Ten years ago the 
reply to such a proposal would have been more hesitating, 
but it would still almost certainly have been voted unor- 
thodox. To-day it is plain that a very great change must 
have come over the mind of the Church, when not only 
can we be calmly discussing the question here, but when 
it is a fact that within a month we may expect to see a 
Community actually started in this Province by the most 
evangelical if the least conservative of the two great mis- 
sionary societies. 

In answering the question, What has brought about 
this change ? Mr. Clifford gave as his first reason the effect 
of the example set by the Cambridge Mission to Delhi, as 
well as by the Cowley and Oxford brethren. 

The selection of the missionaries, again, was a point 
which involved some difficulties. It was felt that Cam- 
bridge graduates who would be willing enough to be 
nominated by a sub-committee consisting of three Uni- 
versity professors (such as was afterwards appointed) 
would not submit to a further examination by the com- 
mittee of the C.M.S. Also, it was felt on the side of the 
Cambridge men to be essential in order to keep up the 
interest of the University in the proposed mission that 
reports should be made direct to the committee in Cam- 
bridge, and this was contrary to one of the rules of the 
C.M.S., by which all workers for whom they are in any 
way financially responsible must make their reports direct 
to Salisbury Square. These considerations, apart from 
any possible doctrinal differences, were in themselves 
sufficient to make co-operation unworkable. 

The result of the failure to come to terms with the 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 37 

CM.S. was that application was made to the S.P.G., whose 
rules of procedure enabled them to dispense with some of 
the conditions which the C.M.S. had laid down. 1 

But it is time to explain how it was that Delhi 
was chosen in preference to any other city in North 
India, such as Amritsar, Alwar, or Multan. The opinion 
may be hazarded that from time to time God wills that 
certain cities should be strongly occupied, so as to make 
them centres from which the gospel of His grace should 
sound out throughout a large region. It was so in the 
Church of the first days, as we may see from the forces 
brought to bear upon Ephesus (Acts xviii. 24-28, xix.). 
He guided first Aquila and his wife Priscilla, then 
Apollos, and then St. Paul to come to that city and 
there reside. The consequences were felt throughout 
all the province of Asia. The Church grew and mul- 
tiplied, and a fierce opposition, helping the cause which 
it attacked, sprang up. So it has been again and 
again in the Church's story. So it has been, as it is 
reasonable to believe, in the case of Delhi. Missionary 
work was commenced there on behalf of the Church of 
England by the S.P.G. in i854, 2 and continued with great 
promise till the Indian Mutiny, when four missionaries 
and two native Christians were amongst its first victims. 

1 It was settled that if Cambridge raised 5oo/. a year towards the 
continuous maintenance of the mission, the Standing Committee of the S.P.G. 
were willing to supplement such contributions, and generally to afford every 
assistance to the mission, while leaving the nomination of the missionaries to 
the sub-committee of Cambridge professors. Eventually it was determined 
that the S.P.G. subsidy should take the form of personal grants to the 
missionaries, each of whom were to receive 7$ a year besides a grant for 
their outfit. 

2 The Rev. J. S. Jackson and the Rev. A. R. Hubbard, both of Caius 
College, Cambridge, the former being a Fellow, commenced work there on 
February II. Mr. Hubbard was killed in the Mutiny. The Rev. T. Skelton, 
Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, offered in 1858, and recommenced the 
work in 1859. See S.P.G. Digest, p. 615. 



38 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

The mission was re-formed in 1859 and made steady pro- 
gress. Canon Crowfoot (now of Lincoln) had resided there 
for three years, and had kept up a remarkable influence by 
lectures and private intercourse over the boys, who, having 
been educated in St. Stephen's High School at Delhi, 
were afterwards drafted into the Government College. 
There also a devoted man of great powers of organisation, 
of restless energies, of impulsive enthusiasm, the Rev. R. 
R. Winter, with his wife, had been labouring for eleven 
years without furlough. Both were filled with missionary 
ardour, and had taxed and even over-taxed their strength, 
but they could not be persuaded to take any rest until it 
was possible to supply their place, and so had stayed on 
year after year. In the year 1875 there had been ninety 
baptisms, chiefly from the Chamars. The agencies con- 
nected with the mission were very numerous, and of a 
more representative and diversified character than was 
then customary, as may be judged from the following sta- 
tistics, which are copied from a statement drawn up by 
Mr. Winter himself. 

'The district entrusted to the mission contains over 
3,000,000 people. Work is carried on, not only in Delhi 
and its suburbs, but in fifty towns and villages, by three 
English clergy, two native clergy, two laymen (voluntary 
Europeans), forty-nine catechists, readers, and school- 
masters, thirty-eight non-Christian masters, fourteen 
European zenana missionaries, ten native Christian mis- 
tresses, four parochial mission women, twenty-six Hindu 
and Muhammadan female teachers, and one medical mis- 
sionary with three assistants. 

' Eight hundred and fifty-seven boys were taught in the 
higher class of schools, 777 boys and young men in schools 
and evening classes for the lower orders, 443 pupils in 
zenanas, and 396 in schools for women and girls, showing 
a total of 2,473 under instruction. 

' The statistics of the Medical Mission for the previous 
year showed 9,058 separate cases treated, with an aggre- 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 39 

gate of 29,798 attendances and a daily average of 101 
sick attended. 

' The total number of Christians was 650, and frequent 
applications for Christian teaching were being received 
from the villages round.' 

All this organisation had been worked by mis- 
sionaries connected with the S.P.G. and maintained by its 
financial support, and Delhi was the city above all others 
in the north of India on which they had been led to con- 
centrate their forces. When, therefore, the application 
was received from the Cambridge graduates, who were 
prepared to go out to India and had been advised to think 
of Northern India as the scene of their future labours, 
what more natural than that the Standing Committee of 
the S.P.G. should welcome their aid and direct their atten- 
tion to so hopeful an opening as Delhi undoubtedly was ? 

It so happened also that a letter written by Sir Bartle 
Frere early in the year 1876' had been received in 
Cambridge and had excited much interest there. Sir 
Bartle Frere had visited Delhi in the suite of the Prince of 
Wales, and had thus written : 

I have been to call on Mr. and Mrs. Winter at Delhi, 
and find them both much overtaxed. I am much mis- 
taken if you have not a larger Tinnevelly at Delhi in the 
course of a few years, but they need more money and 
more men, especially a man to take charge of educational 
work and a medical man to supervise and direct the 
Medical Female Mission, which really seems doing wonder- 
ful work. Delhi seems quite one of the most hopeful 
openings I have seen. 

Yet another circumstance was overruled of God to 
the selection of Delhi. Edward Bickersteth's article in the 
' Mission Field ' (March 1 877) already quoted fell under the 
eye of Mr. Winter himself at Delhi, and led him at once to 

1 January 16. 



40 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

write off to the Bishop (Johnson) of Calcutta, recently con- 
secrated as successor to Bishop Milman : 

Your Lordship will have thought me long in writing 
on the subject of forming classes for the B.A. degree in 
connection with this mission, but it seemed better to put 
off doing so till the fate of the Government College was 
decided. It has now been closed on financial grounds. 
Will the Cambridge Mission fill the gap left vacant? Our 
plan has hitherto been to educate only up to the Matricula- 
tion examination in our High School, and then to draft 
the boys into the Government College. / see by an article 
in the ' Mission Field ' for March that this formed part of 
the plan of the Cambridge men, as well as a home for 
Christian students in the Government College. . . . When 
the college is thoroughly efficient we might hope to 
attract students from other mission schools in the Punjab, 
for no mission whatever in this province has B.A. classes. 
In that case it would be most useful for them to open a 
boarding-house, or extend an existing one, not only for 
Christians but for non-Christian students. If the Cambridge 
Mission will undertake this, most of the educated young men 
of the city will pass under its influence, 

The Bishop of Calcutta's comment on this letter will be 
readily endorsed. ' My own mind [he writes in reply to 
Mr. Winter] is that this seems to be quite providential in 
that an opportunity offers for securing the Christian educa- 
tion of young men up to the taking of the degree.' 

Yet one more unforeseen coincidence may be regarded 
as a providential sanction, vouchsafed by the Divine guid- 
ance. In the autumn of 1877 the Rev. T. V. French was 
appointed to be the first Bishop of Lahore, and Delhi was 
transferred from the see of Calcutta to the newly created 
diocese. Episcopal control more sympathetic, more 
painstaking, more inspiring, could not have been found 
anywhere by the Cambridge Brotherhood than was 
assured to them by the fact that they would have as their 
father in God the very man who had come over from 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 41 

Oxford to Cambridge on purpose to advocate the selection 
of some city in Northern India as the most suitable 
place for this new departure in missionary methods. How 
little could it have been foreseen early in 1876, when the 
first proposals for the establishment of the Cambridge 
Mission were being publicly discussed, that before the end 
of the year following the principal speaker at the meeting 
would have been consecrated the Bishop of the first two 
men who had come forward to join the mission. 

All the pourparlers were so far settled that on 
November 29, 1876, the Rev. R. Bullock, the Secretary of 
the S.P.G., was invited to Cambridge and attended the first 
meeting of the Cambridge Committee, which consisted of 
thirty-four well-known resident members of the University. 
Among them were the Rev. the Masters of Clare, Pem- 
broke, and Magdalen Colleges ; Professors Westcott, Light- 
foot, Cowell, and Paget, M.D. ; the Rev. F. J. Hort, D.D. ; 
the Rev. C. W. E. Body, now Theological Professor at 
New York ; the Rev. J. W. Hicks (Sidney), now Bishop 
of Bloemfontein ; the Rev. A. F. Kirkpatrick (Trinity), 
now Master of Selwyn ; the Rev. E. T. Leeke, now Sub- 
Dean of Lincoln ; the Rev. A. J. Mason (Trinity), now 
Lady Margaret's Reader in Divinity ; the Rev. C. E. Searle, 
now Master of Pembroke ; the Rev. V. H. Stanton (Trinity), 
now Ely Professor of Divinity. The Rev. Edward 
Bickersteth was appointed secretary, and in a private note- 
book, where he entered the briefest possible memoranda, 
are the following entries : 

November 5. Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity. 
Pembroke College Chapel. Subject for praise and prayer 
at the Holy Eucharist, that ' the S.P.G. have accepted 
our scheme.' Gratias Deo. This week I am to speak on 
the subject before the Church Society. Our prayer must 
be constantly for His direction. 

November 29. First committee meeting of Delhi 



42 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Mission. Mr. Bullock attended from London. So far, 
gratias Deo, all gone well. May He give us the means 
we need. 

November 30. St. Andrew's Day. Was engaged in 
drawing up circular. Searle sent ioo/. In the evening 
Bishop Lightfoot's sermon. I made use of the Cuddesdon 
manual of devotion for foreign missions. 

It may be of interest here to note that on December 4 
and again on December 5 occurs the entry, ' Had walk 
with G. A. Lefroy, who thinks of missionary work.' 

The following quotation from Bishop Lightfoot's well- 
known sermon (alluded to above) on ' Abraham, the 
Father of Missionaries,' will show how vigorous an appeal 
was made to Cambridge to support the new mission. 

Taking as his text Hebrews xi. 8, the preacher 
pleaded : 

God grant that this noble army of missionaries may 
never want recruits ! God grant that, as from time to 
time its ranks are thinned by death, or as new levies are 
raised for some fresh campaign in the service of our great 
Captain, men may press forward from this our own dear 
Cambridge to fill the vacant places, and do battle for the 
truth ! 

I need hardly say why I have put these thoughts 
before you this evening. You yourselves will have 
anticipated the moral. These annual days of intercession 
have not been without their fruit. Some among ourselves 
have heard the call and are ready to obey. Steps have 
been taken for the formation of a Cambridge Mission to 
North India. Two volunteers have already come forward. 
The headquarters of the mission are to be fixed at Delhi. 

Delhi ! What associations do not gather about the 
name ? Delhi, the immemorial centre of Hindu tradition, 
the chief stronghold of Muhammadan power, the capital of 
the descendants of Timur, the seat of the most splendid, 
if not the most powerful, of Oriental monarchies, the city 
of many sieges, Tartar, Persian, Mahratta, English Delhi 
the beautiful, the cruel, the magnificent, the profligate. 
And a name, too, of not less absorbing interest to the 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 43. 

Christian than to the Englishman. The Delhi Mission 
was still in its infancy when the Mutiny broke out. The 
Delhi Mission was baptised in blood. It was literally 
murdered. But here, as elsewhere, the blood of the 
martyrs was the seed-plot of the Church. The work of 
evangelisation has revived. A memorial church, bearing 
the name of the first martyr, St. Stephen, commemorates, 
the death of these, his latest successors. No missionary 
field in India, we are told, is more promising than this. 
Only men are wanted to aid in the work. 

And to Cambridge more especially the call comes. It 
is the blood of Cambridge martyrs which cries out of the 
ground for revenge, the noble revenge of bringing the 
gospel of love and peace home to the hearts of that people 
by whose hands they were slain. The Delhi Mission was 
in its origin essentially a Cambridge Mission. Its martyrs 
were Cambridge men. Its first founder, the chaplain, had 
been a Fellow of Christ's College. Its acting head at the, 
time when the Mutiny broke out was a member of Caius 
College. Another student attached to the mission was a 
near relative of one who now holds an honourable office 
in our University. All these were among the first fruits 
of the slain. Shall their blood cry to us in vain ? 

It is therefore in some sense in fulfilment of a pledge 
which Cambridge has given to Delhi that our two 
volunteers have devoted themselves to this work. Before 
we meet together on St. Andrew's Day next year they 
will already, if it please God, have left our shores. 

On Sunday, October 21,1 877, Dr. Vaughan preached the 
University sermon, and the Bishop of Ely (Dr. Woodford) 
preached at Pembroke College Chapel, and on the follow- 
ing day he ordained Mr. Murray to the Diaconate in 
Great St. Mary's Church. 1 The ordination sermon was 
preached by Dr. Westcott, and Dr. Lightfoot gave a 
luncheon party in his rooms, at which, among others, 
the Bishop of Ely, and the Rev. E. H. Bickersteth (now 

1 Mr. Murray was ordained priest at Lahore by Bishop French, Arch- 
deacon Matthews preaching the sermon, on December 21, St. Thomas' 
Day, 1878, being the first anniversary of the Bishop of Lahore's consecration. 
Mr. Bickersteth, as examining chaplain, went up from Delhi to be present. 



44 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Bishop of Exeter) were present, as were the first two 
members of the mission. In the afternoon a committee 
meeting was held in Dr. Westcott's rooms, and in the 
evening a farewell service was held at St. Michael's Church, 
when the Bishop of Lichfield (Dr. Selwyn) preached, 
taking for his text Psalm cxxi. 8. Writing a year later 
to the Rev. R. Bullock (October 16, 1878) from Faredabad, 
sixteen miles south of Delhi, Bickersteth said : 

I cannot close this letter without a reference to 
the loss which we feel the Cambridge Mission has sus- 
tained in the death of Bishop Selwyn. 1 To have been 
allowed to listen to his strong and loving words of 
counsel in leaving Cambridge was a singular privilege. I 
have very often thought of his parting good-bye, ' The 
Lord preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this 
time forth for evermore.' 

That same evening after the service, Dr. Lightfoot gave 
a soiree in his rooms, when the Bishop of Lichfield was 
present, and also three former workers in the Delhi Mis- 
sion, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Skelton, and Canon Crowfoot. The 
next morning there was a farewell breakfast at Pembroke 
College, and later in the day Bickersteth left Cambridge 
and returned to Hampstead. The day after he went down 
with one of his sisters to spend a quiet day at Watton, the 
scene of his grandfather's pastorate (1830-50), and where 
his own mother and his sister Alice, with three other sisters, 
had been laid to rest. 

His father had married the previous year as his second 
wife, Ellen Susanna, daughter of the late Robert Bicker- 
steth, Esq., of Liverpool. Between her and her stepson 
there grew up a true affection, and twice over, once in 
Delhi (1881) and again in Japan (1891), he was able to 
welcome her, when, accompanying his father, she visited 
the scene of his missionary labours. 

1 The news of his death reached Delhi, May 4, 1878. 



RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE AND CALL TO DELHI 45 

Writing to me at St. John's College, Oxford, on the 
night before he left the old home, he said : 

Christ Church Vicarage, Hampstead, N.W. 
October 29, 1877. 

I have your letter, a thousand thanks for it, and for 
the very dear little Bible. Fancy me translating out of it 
to a Hindu two years hence. All has now been nicely 
arranged ; everything, even to the cake for Rosie, 1 packed. 
Dearest boy, I know your thoughts will be with me to- 
morrow, and very often all the time we are parted one from 
the other. Thank God, those who have the same Christ 
are not really altogether parted. ' Peace I leave with you,' 
pray it may be true of me and pray it still more for father. 
It is his grief at losing me that grieves me most, and will 
for long. But I feel sure he will be comforted, some special 
gift of peaceful comfort will be given him of God. And 
may He comfort you I know He will and guide you 
in every difficulty, and strengthen you for all the strong 
work you have before you, and give you the happiest 
Oxford life, shall ever pray, 

Your affectionate Brother, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 

Next day, Tuesday, October 30, he left England, 
accompanied by his father as far as Dover, and by 
Murray. In the train between London and Dover the 
father engaged in prayer with his son and his companion, 
and it was then that in answer to a request from the 
former he chose the words evsica e/uov ical rov svayys\iov 
to be their guide and inspiration. These words were 
chosen as expressing the only but sufficient consolation 
which the father felt in giving up his firstborn son to 
the mission field. Ever since these words have been 
preserved as the motto of the Cambridge Mission, and 
have been printed on the first page of all its reports, and 
they are now cut into the coping stone of the grave of its 
first head. 

1 His eldest sister, Mrs. Rundall, then living at Kharwarra in Rajputana. 



46 EISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

By these providential leadings the steps of the Cam- 
bridge Brotherhood were thus ordered by God to the 
ancient city of Delhi, where the two first members arrived 
early in December 1877. In order to sustain the full 
efficiency of the work, it was felt to be most desirable that 
the mission should consist of not less than five men, and 
if possible of six. The first members left England knowing 
that the Rev. H. F. Blackett, Scholar of St. John's College, 
purposed joining them the following year, and they soon 
received the gratifying news that the Rev. H. C. Carlyon, 
M.A. (formerly Scholar of Sidney Sussex College), had 
offered to come out with him, and that his offer had been 
accepted by the Cambridge sub-commitee. Both these 
missionaries started on November n, 1878, by which time 
the committee were able to announce in their ' First Report 
of the Cambridge Mission to North India (Delhi),' that 
'they had reason to believe that before the close of 1879 
two others will be ready to follow.' These two latter were 
the Rev. Samuel Scott Allnutt, M.A. (late Scholar of St. 
John's College), and the Rev. G. A. Lefroy, B.A. (Trinity 
College), who went out in 1879, thus bringing the mission 
up to the number originally contemplated. 

Thus had the great Head of the Church heard the 
prayers offered up with fervent faith, and been pleased to 
send out in three successive years these men, ' two and two 
before His face,' into the city, whither He Himself would 
come. 



47 



CHAPTER III 

THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 

I. THE WORK 

' Certainly I feel, if possible more vividly here than in England, that the 
Church will never regret any single labourer sent to North India.' Letter of 
the Rev. Edward Bicker steth to the Rev. R. Bullock at the end of his first year. 

' WE offer, then, in the name of our friends at Delhi to 
those who are able to join them the life and the work. We 
want the best men that Cambridge can give, and we have 
nothing to offer them but the life and the work.' In these 
words, on May 24, 1882, speaking at a meeting held by 
the London Committee in the College Hall, Westminster, 
Professor Westcott summed up the situation some five 
years after the Cambridge Mission at Delhi had been in 
full activity. 

There is no doubt whatever that Edward Bicker- 
steth would have cordially accepted the dichotomy thus 
characteristically drawn between the inner and the outer 
aspects of the mission which had been undertaken by his 
University. Indeed, it may weir be that the teacher was 
quoting from his own pupil's words, for writing to 
Dr. Westcott on September i, 1881, he had closed his 
appeal : ' Very gladly shall we welcome to a share in our 
life and work any who, otherwise fitted, will join us in the 
spirit of our motto " For My sake and the Gospel's." ' 
The phrase 'the life and the work' was so constantly on 
Bickersteth's lips, and his own example showed how 



48 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

important he felt it to maintain the life as well as the work, 
that the principle involved in the distinction may be said 
to give the key to his character. He would often point out 
how choked with care and jejune, work must become unless 
it is continually fed by the forces which alone refresh the 
inner life and keep it calm and vigorous. The spirit of 
the work was more to him than the work itself. 

In describing Edward Bickersteth's share in the 
inception and organisation of the Cambridge Mission, I 
purpose, therefore, to devote this chapter to a statement 
of the work undertaken by that mission, so long as he was 
officially connected with it (1877-84), and to attempt in 
a subsequent chapter to discover the springs and secret 
sources of the life which took shape in the work now to 
be recorded. I say so long as he was officially connected 
with it, for it will be easy to show that the Cambridge 
Mission never ceased to hold its place in his affections and 
in his daily intercessions. 

The voyage out was in no way eventful, Bombay being 
reached on November 21, 1877. During his two days in 
this city, Bickersteth saw the Robert Money schools, and 
made a memorandum that there had been no conversion 
in those schools for twelve years, though much moral 
influence had been exercised. 

On the 23rd he left for Kharwarra, where his eldest 
sister and her husband Lieutenant F. M. Rundall x were 
staying among the aboriginal Bheels. 2 

Mr. Murray had arrived in Delhi on December 12, 

1 Now Colonel Rundall, D.S.O. 

2 It will be remembered that Mr. French had quoted Sir Henry 
Lawrence's opinion that missionary work among the Bheels would be a 
promising opening. It is pleasant to know that although Edward Bickersteth 
was led further afield to Delhi, his sister collected funds to build a church 
at Kharwarra, while his father supplied the Church Missionary Society with 
the stipend of a missionary. 



49 

having spent several days in seeing the principal towns on 
the route from Bombay. Of his own arrival Edward 
Bickersteth writes in his Journal : 

It was still dark when I reached Delhi from Kharwarra 
on the morning of December 13, so that I had no oppor- 
tunity of seeing the city as I entered. I succeeded, however, 
without difficulty in rinding the mission compound, which 
is near the station, and in arousing Murray, whose room 
opened on the garden. I need hardly say that I had a very 
warm welcome from Mr. Winter, when at daybreak he came 
to see if I had arrived. As the Bishop (Johnson) of Calcutta 
was to arrive the next afternoon, all that day was engaged 
in getting the necessary furniture for our house, which is 
on the other side of the compound to Mr. Winter. 

The Bishop, who was then engaged in making the 
acquaintance of his huge diocese, came to Delhi to visit 
the work before ceding it to the newly constituted diocese of 
Lahore, and stayed there from Friday, December 14, for a 
fortnight. 

Bickersteth described this visit with all the enthusiasm 
of a new-comer. 

Our first work was to arrange a whole scheme of 
engagements with the Bishop. Nearly every day was 
occupied, and sometimes the Bishop gave three or four 
addresses on the same day to different audiences, hold- 
ing a confirmation on Christmas Eve, and first baptising 
59, of whom all but 10 were adults. This is considerably 
the largest baptism that has ever taken place in this part 
of India. Nearly 200 were confirmed. Bishop Milman 
was about to hold a confirmation here at the time of 
his lamented death, so that there has been considerable 
delay and the number has accumulated. This and the 
celebration of Holy Communion on Christmas Day, at 
which 150 communicated, were perhaps the two most 
intensely interesting services I have ever attended. 

The Cambridge Mission, therefore, were clearly happy 
in the hour of their arrival, so far as the Bishop's visitation 

E 



5O BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

led to a review of all the forces that made for Christianity 
in and about Delhi, and enabled them to take in at a glance 
the varied work that had been started by Mr. and Mrs. 
Winter, and in which they were henceforth to take so 
important a part. 

From what was said on page 38, it will be remembered 
that Delhi and its districts were so organised by Mr. Winter 
as to be able to satisfy all the forecasted requirements 
of the Cambridge missionaries. The city itself, divided 
into nine separate divisions or parishes, each with its 
catechists and readers, seemed to Bickersteth's sanguine 
anticipations 'to fall in with the future organisation 
of the Cambridge Mission, and to make it quite easy 
to arrange to give each English missionary, when he has 
obtained a sufficient knowledge of the language, a practi- 
cally independent sphere of work, in which he will be able 
to work out, with the assistance of his own catechists, and, 
when the time comes, of native pastors, his own plans, 
educational or otherwise, while he himself will live at our 
central Mission House.' ('Journal,' January 1878.) 

St. Stephen's High School and many vernacular schools 
which were carried on among the very numerous class of 
Chamars (workers in leather, a staple trade of Delhi), made 
educational work possible from the first. Bickersteth wrote 
in his first letter to Mr. Bullock : 

A low caste vernacular school in Delhi differs almost 
as much from St. Stephen's High School as at home a 
ragged school from a public school. 

And again, Jan. 3, 1878 : 

We are to have some personal experience of St. 
Stephen's High School, the highest educational institution 
of the mission, almost at once, as Murray and I have agreed 
directly the school re-opens to give an hour and a half each 
of us three times a week to taking a class. 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 51 

The school had been worked on the principle of 
enforced Christian instruction, on the wisdom of which 
Bickersteth desired further light, and with his characteristic 
preference for wide research before forming an opinion on 
a debatable point, he wrote home : 

It would, I think, help to the solution of this difficulty 
if someone were willing to devote time to collecting 
accounts of the various methods of instruction that have 
been in favour in the mission schools of past ages, and 
accompany them with such opinions and judgments on 
the one side and the other as are given in the Allahabad 
Conference Report. I have not seen any such compre- 
hensive articles, though General Tremenhere's pamphlet 
and the late Bishop Douglas's letters are heavy blows 
aimed against the present system, or, as its advocates say, 
against its abuses. 

With regard to catechists, he wrote that Bishop John- 
son's suggestion of assembling them for some regular system 
of instruction, each catechist spending at least two months 
in the year under instruction at Delhi, ' seems to open out 
a prospect in the direction of what should be the most 
characteristic work in days to come of the Cambridge 
Mission, as some of these men if further instructed would 
(Mr. Winter thinks) make excellent native ministers.' 
But it should be stated that although the catechists 
benefited greatly as preachers by the instructions they 
received, the expectations that several might advance to 
the ministry has not been fulfilled. 

The advantages of a Christian Home or ( Hostel ' for 
students sent from mission schools to the Government 
College had been one of the plans also mentioned in the 
original circular, and it became possible at once to take up 
that kind of work, inasmuch as there was already the be- 
ginning of a Christian Boys' Boarding School. Bickersteth 
expressed his hope that they might become an important 

E2 



52 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

agency in training the members of the native Church, 
and in supplying suitable men as native catechists and 
pastors. Already keen to promote any work which would 
indirectly build up the native Church, he agreed to take 
over the school, the headmaster of which, Janki Nath by 
name, was a graduate of the University of Calcutta. He 
had formerly been a Brahmin. 1 The boys were thirteen 
in number. 

But one entry in the Journal already quoted needs 
some notice. ' I must hasten to mention that at a meeting 
of the Delhi Mission Committee held on Saturday, De- 
cember 21, the care of the mission during Mr. Winter's 
absence was formally handed over to us.' This entry is 
explained by the 'memorandum on the Cambridge Mission 
to North India (Delhi) ' published in Cambridge by the Uni- 
versity Committee, March 29, 1 878. We read : ' After Delhi 
was chosen as the first seat of the mission, the Cambridge 
Committee heard that it would be necessary for the Rev. 
R. R. Winter, who, with the help of the Rev. Tara Chand, 
had been in charge of the S.P.G. Mission there, to return to 
England for two years in the early part of the present year. 
Under these circumstances, by agreement with the Com- 
mittee of the S.P.G. they authorised Mr. Bickersteth and 
Mr. Murray to take charge of the work during his absence.' 

Accordingly on April 2 Mr. and Mrs. Winter left for 
their much needed furlough in England, and did not return 
to Delhi till December n, 1879, on which day Mr. Winter 
came back to India in company with Mr. Allnutt and 
Mr. Lefroy, Mrs. Winter returning a year later. 

It is plain that although the Cambridge Committee 
added that ' the letters which they had received satisfied 
them that this arrangement will be of the greatest service 

1 The Rev. S. S. Allnutt writes : ' Janki Nath is a man of very high 
principle universally respected by all, Christians ancl non-Christians alike.' 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 53 

in supplying under favourable conditions the objects of the 
Cambridge Mission,' yet the whole burden of responsibility 
must have weighed very heavily on the shoulders of a 
young Cambridge graduate, not yet twenty-eight years of 
age, unacquainted with the languages in daily use and 
unversed in oriental methods and manners, who had only 
been resident four months in the land of his adoption. 
He was left practically alone, for a great misfortune had 
befallen the mission, of which the Cambridge Committee 
knew nothing when they passed their memorandum just 
quoted. 

On March 1 1 Mr. Murray fell ill with a slight attack of 
haemorrhage, and the entry in Bickersteth's Journal is : 

March 12-20. During this time Murray had one or 
two very slight returns of haemorrhage. He was unable to 
move himself, and this has been his worst day. Very weak 
and depressed. 

March 21. Murray decidedly better, and has been out 
in the garden. Gratias Deo. 

March 22. A return of haemorrhage the worst he 
has had. 

April 7. Murray has been going on well since March 
22. To-day he has been walking in the compound ; but 
on the nth he was taken ill again, and on the 22nd he 
left for Meerut en route for Simla. 

Thus Bickersteth was brought perilously near to the 
situation which he had described only to deprecate, and 
which it had been hoped the Cambridge Mission would 
render next to impossible : ' An over-burdened missionary, 
who bears alone the manifold cares of a whole station.' * 

It must not be supposed that he so much as hinted 
that he felt oppressed. In fact, with his usual reticence, 
he said very little, if anything, about it, not only nursing 
his brother missionary with unremitting care till he left 

1 See chapter ii. 30. 






54 I5ISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

for Simla, but in the midst of that anxiety saying farewell 
to Mr. Winter, and with a stout heart setting to work at 
once to keep pace with all the multifarious calls upon his 
time. In writing at the end of his first year to Mr. Bullock 
to excuse himself for not having written reports of their 
proceedings at certain stated intervals, he says : 

My excuse must be the ready but true one, that when 
I agreed to the rule as proposed I had no idea of the inces- 
sant demands which a mission like that of Delhi would 
daily make on time and strength. Life in Delhi itself, if 
any progress at all is to be made in the essential work of 
learning the language, leaves no leisure for writing reports. 
I take the opportunity of being out for a fortnight among 
our distant country stations with the Bishop of Lahore to 
send a letter. Since the beginning of April, when Mr. and 
Mrs. Winter left for England, the mission has been in my 
charge. I had thought that this great responsibility would 
have been shared by the daily co-operation and counsel of 
my friend and colleague Mr. Murray, but God's will was 
otherwise, and owing to the illness which prostrated him 
in March, he has been condemned to very unwilling exile 
in the Himalayas for the past six months, and is forbidden 
to return to Delhi till this time next year. A short three 
months in Delhi had already given him great influence in 
the schools which were under his charge. His time at 
Simla will not be wasted, as he is at work on the language. 

Of course Edward Bickersteth could not be left only 
with the assistance of his native colleague, the Rev. Tara 
Chand, and there is a note of relief in the brief entry 
on April 24 : ' Telegram saying that Hunter is coming.' 
Mr. Hunter was assistant to Mr. Bray, the S.P.G. Secretary 
at Calcutta, who, at the cost of greatly adding to his own 
labours, spared him to come and work at Delhi. 

Two young laymen also gave their help one Mr. 
Bridge, whom the Bishop of Calcutta had brought with 
him from Assam, and the other Mr. Maitland, of Trinity 
College, Cambridge. The latter had been visiting the 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 55 

celebrated cities of the world, and felt an especial 
attraction to Delhi and its mission. He daily taught 
English to the boys in the Upper School, and passed six 
of them into the Punjab University largely by his exertions. 
He also helped to nurse Mr. Murray. Mr. Bridge lived in 
the Mission House for nearly a year, ' making the longest 
stay hitherto of any of my companions ' Bickersteth 
writes in a letter dated April 29, 1879, a fact which shows 
how fragmentary was the help on which he could rely. 

The recollections sent to me by Mrs. Parsons, Zenana 
(S.P.G.) Missionary at Delhi, prove how others appreciated 
his efforts at that time of stress. 

In February 1878 I had the privilege of being engaged 
in the S.P.G. Zenana. Mission, and placed at the Ladies' 
Home. The Winters were going on furlough, and the 
mission, including the many branches of women's work, 
was to be left in sole charge of Mr. Bickersteth. The 
Home at that time consisted of six Zenana teachers and a 
training class of five pupils, all quite young. In allotting 
my work to me Mrs. Winter said : ' Refer every matter of 
difficulty to Mr. Bickersteth. He is young, but very wise 
and good.' 

In a very little time Mr. Bickersteth began to acquaint 
himself with each of the different institutions, 2nd got to 
know all about everything. Of his large minded sympathy 
and tact, which seemed to extend to every case, one could 
never say too much. . . . Soon we learnt we could always go 
to him in every case of difficulty, great or small. . . . One 
great feature of his character was his treatment of the 
erring. His rebukes were given with the gentleness of 
a loving woman and the firmness of the Master. His 
presence among us seemed to bring with it a desire for 
higher aims for ourselves, and a feeling of affectionate 
reverence for him. 

We went once to bring some orphans from the Poor 
House. (1877 had been a year of famine, and there were 
many destitute ones left in 1878.) We found them all 
looking miserable, like bundles of dirt and rags, some very 
famished. After Mr. Bickersteth had selected as many as 



56 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

he thought fit, as we were going away he saw two girls, 
one rather big who was crippled after rheumatic fever, and 
one little one quite blind. He looked at them and said, 
4 We must take these two also, and see what we can do for 
them.' So he lifted each one, and, carrying them himself, 
put both into his tonga, to the surprise of the natives 
standing by, not one of whom would have liked to touch 
them. For the cripple girl he got the best treatment to 
be had, and after some time she could walk : she never 
forgot the Padre Sahib's kindness. 

Sometimes if a matter taken to him were rather serious 
he would say : ' Come to-morrow, and I will tell you what 
to do or say.' Then we knew that our Head was going to 
pray over it before deciding what was to be done about it. 
Once a girl in the Orphanage was bad with cholera, and 
he went twice every day to see her, and would sit a long 
time beside her. One would have thought the girl might 
have been his own kith and kin. In no case was his 
sympathy and help given in a half-hearted way. 

He was so much reverenced in Delhi that a letter 
addressed ' To the Chief Christian in Delhi ' puzzled the 
Post Office until the postman insisted it must be for Mr. 
Bickersteth, and so indeed it proved. In the Zenana 
Mission we all felt that Mr. Bickersteth was indeed our 
guide and friend. 

But h^ could write at the end of the first year, ' AIL 
the old machinery has been kept in operation,' and this 
included the Sunday and daily services in St. Stephen's 
Church, the evening services for Christians in different 
parts of the city, the high and low caste schools, preach- 
ing in the bazars, the Zenana work, the hospital and 
dispensary, the two boarding schools, and the refuge. 
The lamented death of the excellent Dr. Bose, who had 
been suddenly called to his rest shortly before Mr. Winter 
left, called out in a home letter the expression of the hope 
that ' Cambridge may speedily send us a duly qualified 
doctor ; ' but no man offered, nor has any medical graduate 
of Cambridge yet joined the mission. In the autumn of 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 57 

1878 he writes that 'the medical lady in charge of the 
mission hospital and dispensary broke down after eleven 
years of Indian work under the great pressure of a fever 
epidemic caused by the subsidence of an unusual overflow 
of the Jumna in last October and November. She has 
since been ordered to spend two summers at home, and 
has left for England.' 

The principal new efforts of the year were a class for 
the lower grade of catechists or readers, and a monthly 
devotional service for the English-speaking mission 
workers. Of the service something will be said in the 
next chapter, but he wrote of the class : < 4 r 

It represents at present a very rude endeavour to improve 
the attainments of our native teachers. The idea of the plan 
we pursue was given to me by Pastor Luther, 1 of Ranchi, 
who visited us last winter to place his son in our Boarding 
School. The village readers, who are employed during the 
week in teaching in their schools, come into Delhi on Friday 
evening and stay till after morning service on Sunday. 
In company with teachers of the same grade who are 
employed in Delhi itself they receive during the time 
lessons in the Bible and Prayer-book, dictation and read- 
ing, besides listening to parts of the ' Pilgrim's Progress ' 
read aloud to them. 

Periodical examinations were held and an order of merit 
published, and it was decided that the amount of the stipend 
they received should be partly dependent, as in the case of 
the Bengal Missions, on their place in the list. 

In one most important branch of the work, St. 
Stephen's High School, the lack of any visible results 
caused the young missionary much thought and some 
misgivings. Commenting on the results of the last year 
he writes home : 

1 An S.P.G. Pastor of the Kol Mission. 



58 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

No boy from the High School has this year become a 
Christian. There seems no other means for reaching the 
upper classes in India which covers the same ground ; at the 
same time, no doubt, knowledge of Christianity is imparted 
under extreme difficulties in our high schools. The boys 
cannot be regarded in any sort as religious inquirers. They 
are sent by their parents to the mission school because the 
fees are somewhat less than the Government School, and 
during the latter part of the course, when their minds 
would naturally be more open to new truth, they are 
engrossed in the one object of acquiring sufficient know- 
ledge to pass the University Entrance Examination as a 
preliminary to obtaining a Government post. Under these 
circumstances, it seems to be the opinion of the most 
experienced teachers that little immediate result can be 
expected, but that success is rather to be looked for in a 
higher moral standard in after years, induced by contact 
with the moral beauty of the New Testament teaching 
and a certain familiarity with the example of our Lord's 
life. Something more might perhaps be hoped for from 
the personal influence of Christian masters who would be 
willing to lay themselves out to obtain influence over the 
scholars out of school as well as in, as was so remarkably 
and successfully done by Mr. Noble at Masulipatam. From 
this point of view the increase in the number of Christian 
masters is very greatly to be desired, and also the addition 
of a higher college class, as at present the boys are often 
removed under alien influences before their education is 
completed. 

Mr. Winter had always taken a somewhat different 
view, holding that 'for secular teaching non-Christian 
masters are not only indispensable, but that they form 
a link between the missionaries and the boys with their 
parents,' bringing ' an efficient and thoughtful body of 
men into contact with the missionaries, and whose habits 
of loyalty to their employers kept them from acting 
against Christianity.' Bickersteth, while admitting that 
there were collateral advantages in a mission possessing 
a large institution like St. Stephen's School and its 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 59 

branches in a place like Delhi inasmuch as it added 
greatly to the general reputation of the mission, bringing 
the missionaries into contact from time to time, in a way 
that would not otherwise be possible, with the native 
gentlemen of the city yet was thankful when he could 
write to Dr. Westcott to the effect that ' we have been 
able slightly to increase the number of Christian masters 
in the High School and its branches, sufficiently to give us 
one Christian master to each branch ; ' and he added, ' We 
are still very far short of the standard which I see the 
well-known native Madras clergyman, Padre Sattianadan, 
considers essential to the profitableness of the school from 
a missionary point of view that one half at least of the 
masters should be Christian.' 

He was deeply thankful, also, when the arrival of 
Mr. Carlyon, just before Christmas Day 1878, enabled 
him to put him in charge of the High School and its 
branches, and to entrust the keeping of the Christian Boys' 
School to Mr. Blackett Mr. Carlyon also started a Bible 
class on Sunday afternoons for young men able to speak 
English who had already embraced Christianity. It was 
the same feeling which led Bickersteth four years later to 
begin what Mr. Allnutt described as a most useful course 
of lectures to masters, on the Characteristics of the Old and 
New Testaments, a course which was only interrupted by 
the illness which obliged him to return to England. 

Delhi itself, of course, offered scope for bazar preaching, 
and the Cambridge missionaries were able to increase 
somewhat the frequency and regularity of this branch of 
work in different parts of the city and suburbs. Bickersteth 
wrote : 

So far as I have hitherto observed, the only opponents 
to our preachers are Muhammadan moulvies. One of 



6O BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

these is a Wahabi preacher also on his own account. 
He generally takes St. John's Gospel as his text-book, 
and though his aim certainly is far more to invalidate 
the Gospel than to use it for the instruction of his 
hearers, yet I have sometimes thought that he is not 
altogether uninfluenced by what he has read. In 
argument it must be admitted that it sometimes so 
happens that the Muhammadans have the best of it. 
A moulvie one day in my hearing stoutly maintained that 
Our Lord's words, ' There be some standing here which 
shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of 
God,' involved a plain historical inaccuracy, and the 
catechist, though not an illiterate man, had no answer to 
give. 

This led Bickersteth to draw the conclusion that 
' knowledge of the Bible more than controversial books 
was the main need of their teachers and preachers ' a need 
which he at once set to work to try to supply, not only by 
the weekly Bible-readings for those in Delhi (as mentioned 
above), but by encouraging the Reverend Tara Chand to 
hold a class on the first Sunday in each month, when all 
the catechists came in from the districts. Between the 
monthly meetings each catechist was expected to prepare 
so many chapters of one of the Gospels, the commentary 
in use being that of the Rev. Robert Clark (C.M.S.) and 
of Moulvie Imad-ud-din. 

A few sentences from a letter to Dr. Westcott, written 
much later on September I, 1 88 1, give his more matured 
opinion. He writes : 

Our first circular also referred to evangelistic labours. 
All work in a heathen land is this more or less, for 
even a sermon in church may be listened to by a crowd of 
Muhammadans and Hindus in the church porch. But 
perhaps bazar preaching has the best claim to that title. 
Its value is universally recognised when the speakers are 
intellectually and spiritually qualified for the work, but 
the criticism to which all missionary operations are now 




B1CKERSTETH HALL, DELHI. 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 6 1 

subjected has condemned many efforts in that line which 
once would have passed muster. Two improvements may, 
I hope, be shortly possible in our present practice. The 
one is a preachers' class, where subjects may be carefully 
prepared and digested beforehand .... the other a 
preaching-room. The difficulty is that the bazar is after all 
common property, and the Christian preacher has no real 
authority to regulate the crowd who listen to him. 1 The 
case would be quite different in a preaching-room, or, 
still better, a chapel by the side of the way. It would, I 
think, be specially useful among a Muhammadan popu- 
lation. The adherents of a religious system to which 
love is almost unknown enjoy heated controversy, but 
get no good from it. We are at present looking out for 
a suitable site. If we obtain one, and can erect a 
building 2 on a sufficiently large scale, we hope that some 
of the most able and thoughtful of the native clergy 
and others in North India will be willing to deliver 
lectures in Delhi. 

Outside Delhi many thousand representatives of the 
Koli or weaver class, and of the caste of Ckamars, or shoe- 
makers, were gathered in small village communities. 
It was among the latter that so many had been baptised 

1 ' The preaching in the bazar (at Biwari) was not very satisfactory ; 
very large crowds gathered, but they were disorderly, and no inquiries 
followed as to our lodging-place.' Again at Kalanam : 'We went to their 
little bazar, and for some time sat and talked, but the place was too noisy to 
be satisfactory, and the cattle being driven home at night continually broke 
up the audience. ' Again : ' A little friendly conversation resulted, as it was 
meant to do, in a request to sit down in the place for conversation attached to 
their mosque, and a little crowd soon collected. Such an opportunity is much to 
be preferred to preaching in the open bazar, when the audience consists of 
Muhammadans. The Christian is on their ground, so to speak, and if he came 
unasked still they have requested him to remain. We talked for awhile of sin, 
and of escape from it, not without some attempt being made to get the conver- 
sation away to those metaphysical points which the Muhammadan always 
prefers to moral teaching. The one flatters his real or supposed intellectual 
acuteness, the other condemns his daily life ; the one fortifies him in the sup- 
posed sufficiency of his creed, the other suggests doubts which he would fain 
banish as to whether it answers his real needs.' (Mission Field, June 1882.) 

2 Such a building was erected in Delhi soon after Bickersteth had been 
obliged to leave India, and[received the name of the Bickersteth Hall. 



62 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

by Mr. Winter in recent years. Of these Edward Bicker- 
steth writes : 



There is a little Christian colony of the Koli caste, 
some fifty miles to the south of Delhi, at Biwari. They 
consider themselves somewhat higher in social rank than 
the Chamars, but both are very low in the social scale. 
It seems likely that of God's mercy Christianity will have 
a rapid and wide extension among these classes. More 
than once during the last few months we have had requests 
for instruction from distant villages. The Chamars live, 
alike in the city and in the villages, apart by themselves 
in small mud huts, which are often neatly arranged in 
squares and alleys. Each hut as a rule contains one 
or two rooms, and possibly a very small verandah to 
keep off the hottest of the sun's rays. The furniture 
consists of one or two charpoys (bedsteads), some cook- 
ing utensils, and possibly a piece of carpet and a stool 
for a visitor. . . . The master of the establishment may 
generally be discovered sitting on the ground in front of 
his house at work on his shoes (an active worker can make 
a good pair in about two days) ; his wife, her dark-skinned 
children hanging about her the while, is commonly engaged 
in some culinary occupation not far off, which frequently 
involves the whole prospect in a cloud of smoke. In the 
evening, should a pair of shoes have been completed, it is 
usual for the head of the establishment to make a visit 
to the bazar in hope of a purchaser. . . . One excellent 
native custom, by which the chief men of a particular 
district form a kind of court of arbitrament among their 
fellows, Mr. Winter has perpetuated among our native 
Christians. . . . The people of one entire square of houses of 
this kind in Delhi are now all but entirely Christian. This 
square or 'basti,' as it is called, lies just within the city 
walls, not far from our mission house, at the north-east 
corner of the city, close under the battered and shapeless 
mass of the Mori bastion, a name very familiar to those who, 
twenty years ago, followed in breathless anxiety the 
fortunes of the siege of Delhi. ... I believe that many 
will be found to pray that these poor Christians may live 
worthily of their profession, and as I was trying to teach 
them last night (the strangeness and picturesqueness of the 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 63 

phrase seemed to strike them at once), be ' fishers of men ' 
among their heathen brethren around. 

Rohtak (forty-four miles west of Delhi), Kalanam 
(a village consisting mainly of Muhammadans), Biwari (a 
large commercial city), Dadri (the capital of a native 
State), and many others were places frequently visited by 
Bickersteth, accompanied by Mr. Carlyon or else by Mr. 
Lefroy as well as by a catechist. 1 Daryagunge, a district of 
Delhi itself, was always accessible and was visited bi- 
weekly (on Thursdays and Saturdays). Bickersteth had 
taken special charge of that district. On arrival the 
two missionaries and catechist used to pay several pastoral 
visits, and then the simple evening service was held, if 
possible in a chapel, which formed one side of the court. 
It consisted of a bhajan (or hymn), the Confession, 
Absolution and Lord's Prayer, Magnificat and Creed, 
then a chapter read and expounded, after which followed 
the sermon, another bhajan, and a few more prayers. The 
hymn was especially popular, and it would scarcely have 
been a service to these people without one or two bhajans, 
which conveyed in the roughest metre some simple 
Christian truth. 

The more distant stations, best visited in the cold season, 
such as Rohtak (with 1 5,000 inhabitants and twenty-four 
mosques), were reached by dakgari (post carriage), or, if the 
road was very bad, in ekkas or native pony-carts, ' a method 
of procedure which effectually prohibits any use of books 
by the way ' being Bickersteth's characteristic comment. 2 
Here is a shortened account of one of these periodical visits. 

1 Yakub Kishan Singh, who was his frequent companion, was ordained 
subsequently to Bickersteth's departure from Delhi, He died in October 1897 
at Gurgaon, where he had retired with his son, and thus was called to his rest 
within two months of the death of his English friend. 

2 '.Yakub found us an empty native house at Rohtak, with, of course, no 



64 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

January 12, 1882, I left Delhi with Carlyon at IOP.M. ; 
owing to the dreadful state of the road after the winter 
rain we did not reach Rohtak till three in the afternoon. 
There one of our two native deacons is placed, an old 
gentleman with white beard and venerable l aspect, but with 
natural strength unabated. He owes his Christianity (it 
is thirty-one years since he was baptised) to the zeal of a 
Christian officer in the army. As a boy his father had 
given him a good education in ancient Hindu learning, 
and much he laments over its decay. He has known 
many missionaries, among others Dr. Pfander, who used to 
read with him at one time in Agra. Rising early, the 
missionaries went out and sat for some time talking, now 
with a little group of saltpetre manufacturers, now 
in the ' baithak,' or place of conversation attached to a 
mosque, later in the day spending the time in looking 
up the scattered Christians, mostly poor, and receiving 
little parties of native gentlemen, masters perhaps from a 
Government school, and in the evening preaching in the 
bazar. ' We also believe in the Trinity/ was the some- 
what abrupt announcement of one of the masters [he was 
the head master, and had been trained in the mission 
school at Delhi many years ago]. This led to a con- 
versation about mysteries and our duty to accept them on 
sufficient evidence, even when they are wholly beyond our 
power to comprehend. This is a point which the more 
educated Hindus are very slow to allow, though it is 
plain that all men do it in a multitude of instances. 

Sometimes much interest attached to the personal 
history of some of the scattered Christians. Thus Bicker- 
steth writes : 

Part of the object of our visit was to see Jumna 
Das. He was formerly a sadhu, 2 or holy man, a Hindu, 

furniture or carpets, but it is wonderful how soon, when one has disposed one's 
effects about one and got out one's books, ; &c. , one begins to get fond of one's 
abode and to regard it as a kind of quasi-home for the time being.' Letter, 
Jan. 12, 1882, Mission Field. 

1 He was ordained by Bishop Milman. The other, Asad Ali, was 
ordained to the diaconate by Bishop French (1880). 'A special interest,' 
wrote E. B., ' attached to Ali's ordination by his former teacher at the Lahore 
Divinity ..School, where he|had been the senior student of his year.' 

2 Sadhu or saint = holy man. Fakir = poor man. 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 65 

baptised three years ago by Yakub. A special interest 
about him is that he still retains much, perhaps too much, 
of his old manner of life. Certainly nothing has been 
done to alter or denationalise the outward man or old 
surroundings of this strange convert. Scanty dress, rough 
hair, vvcatherbeaten countenance, dwelling and occupation, 
are all just as they were before the Hindu sadhu took on 
him the yoke of Christ. He lives on a plot of land of 
which he is owner, and satisfies his wants, which are simple 
enough, by its cultivation. His house is little more than 
a hut of reeds, just sufficient to keep off nightdews quite 
insufficient, I should say, to shield him from heavy rain. 
His house is close to the road, and travellers often stay to 
get water from his well during the hot weather. To give 
water to passers-by is a recognised meritorious action of 
Hindus. It is pleasant to think that in one spot at least a 
good work, to the performance of which by Christians a 
special promise is attached, is not neglected. Who can 
tell the results of the quiet talks that doubtless go on 
sometimes between the Christian guru and the thirsty 
travellers who resort to him for water. Jumna Das soon 
caught sight of us as we made our way to his little hut. 
Apart from his own conversation, you would perhaps only 
find out his Christianity from his books, but you would 
probably not discover his library at once. It is contained 
in a large earthen pot, such as is commonly used for 
holding water in India. The possible dangers attached to 
this method of storing his treasures the old man recently dis- 
covered to his cost, as several were stolen from him. The 
accomplishment of reading is an immense gain in the case 
of a solitary Christian. For instance, he is shortly to be con- 
firmed, and I was able to give him an excellent little Hindu 
book on the subject (S.P.C.K.). He will study it word by 
word, but without this his preparation must have been con- 
fined to the very scanty instruction Yakub can give him on 
very occasional visits. We stayed with him some little time, 
and had reading and prayer. He is very honest and real. 

Again : 

The native Christian whose name is Hassu seems to 
be doing his work l fairly well. His early life was a strange 

1 I.e. teaching a school of little urchins belonging to the Koli caste on the 
outskirts of the city of Bihwari. 

F 



66 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

one. He belonged to a Muhammadan family, whose chief 
occupation is to take care of the ruinous tomb of an old 
Muhammadan ' pir ' or saint. He spent his young days in 
the service of this tomb, and participated in the alms of 
the faithful. He was baptised some years since, having 
heard the Gospel, I believe, first during street preaching. 
I went with him to see his relations, whose countenances, 
as is commonly the case with this class of people, had very 
little to recommend them. Degradation had too certainly 
followed on the idleness in which their ancestor's sanctity 
enabled them to live. A curious part of their story is that 
the people who now support them are Hindus, not 
Muhammadans. The 'pir' seems to have been reverenced 
alike by both classes of religions, but in the case of the 
Hindus, who should naturally have been hostile to him and 
his religion, reverence has survived to later generations, 
and some poor idolaters of a neighbouring village still hope 
to win merit hereafter by supporting his descendants on 
part of their produce. This is but one of the many curious 
instances in which Hinduism and Muhammadanism have 
managed to dissemble their differences in outlying places 
in India. Islam has, I think, in all cases been the loser, 
adopting the superstitions of its natural enemy without 
inclining in the least towards the truths which the super- 
stitions feel after. The followers of a system based on the 
sternest monotheism have been saint worshippers, but 
none, I think, till they accept the truth, regard incarnation 
as within the limits of revelation. 

It may safely be asserted that at no time was direct 
evangelistic work (whether public preaching, Bible classes, 
or the care of three of the Delhi districts and three 
out-stations in the surrounding district) neglected by the 
Cambridge Mission, nor did it cease to have a powerful 
attraction for Bickersteth. Preaching in bazars in a 
popular style was not his forte, and, to quote a Devonshire 
proverb, the fodder he provided was too high up for the 
cattle ; but he was at his very best when engaged in earnest 
conversation with some inquirers who remained behind 
after the audience had broken up, or who, Nicodemus-like, 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 67 

sought further light in the seclusion of the house or tent 
after nightfall. 

These longer evangelistic tours, undertaken on the apos- 
tolic method of journeying two and two together, greatly 
enriched the experience of the Cambridge missionaries, 
and led Bickersteth to dwell much on the relative good 
and evil of Hinduism and Muhammadanism, and to think 
deeply about the best method of presenting Christianity to 
the adherents of both these religions. 1 In regard to their 
distinctive tenets, he saw how ' the impersonality of the 
Supreme Being is a fundamental doctrine of Hinduism, 
and affects their whole system.' ' This/ he writes, ' seems 
to be frequently forgotten by those who argue that, owing 
to its theory of incarnations, the system of Hinduism is far 
nearer to Christianity than that of Islam.' In a letter of an 
able Sanscritist he had read : ' In Hinduism the principle of 
Divine Incarnation abounds to utter extravagance. It is 
like a tree which needs nothing but the pruning knife 
vigorously applied.' Upon which he commented : ' If the 
incarnations of Hinduism were incarnations of a personal, 
self-conscious Being, it would be so, but they are not. 
They are rather means by which a being, impersonal and 
incapable by itself of attaining to conscious existence, is 
enabled through contact with matter to attain to person- 
ality.' 

In answer to the question, ' Has the presence of Islam 
in India been for good or evil ? ' he believed it to be 
' impossible to give any simple and unqualified reply.' 
In a lecture which he delivered after his return to England 
(before the Cambridge Graduates Mission Aid Society, 
March 1883), he argued : 

1 With regard to methods, he looked forward hopefully to the influence of 
the Christian 'guru' (Hindu religious teacher) and his disciples as ' potent 
auxiliaries, perhaps even chief agencies, in spreading the Gospel in India.' 

F 2 



68 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

On behalf of Islam it may fairly be contended that 
the protest it has maintained for certain fundamental 
truths of religion has not been without influence for 
good, such as the personality of God, the essential 
brotherhood of man with the consequent duty of charity, 
and the sinfulness of idolatry and drunkenness. . . . 
But heavy counts may be brought to prove that this gain 
has been largely counterbalanced. If it asserts the person- 
ality and unity of God, it also, by the denial of the fact or 
possibility of incarnation, places an impassable barrier 
between Him and His creatures. If it rightly proclaims 
the essential brotherhood of all men, it finds a false basis 
for it in fact, in a common submission to the claims of 
Mahomed. Again, taking it as a whole, its moral code 
and its practice is lower than that of Aryan nations. A 
considerable school of living writers has so minimised 
these and other vices and deficiencies of the system as to 
justify a verdict almost wholly in its favour. This incon- 
siderate partisanship produces a result as far from the 
truth as the indiscriminate condemnation which it succeeds. 
Good and evil are so intermingled in the system as 
necessarily to produce results which cannot be tabulated 
under either head, and any estimate of Islam which neglects 
this is essentially defective. 

More quotations in the same vein might be given, but 
enough has been cited to prove the spirit in which 
Bickersteth approached some of the problems presented 
by comparative religious philosophy, and which he 
aimed at impressing on all who came to work with him. 
His was a mind from the first singularly free from pre- 
judice, and therefore especially fitted to draw up a fair 
statement of the strong and weak points of any faith 
which has claimed the moral allegiance of the human 
heart, and then strike a balance and justify the position 
which he himself held. 

Education, especially higher education, had been 
from the first the principal object in the eyes of those 
who started the Cambridge Mission. 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 69 

The arrival of the Rev. S. S. Allnutt and the Rev. 
G. A. Lefroy at the close of December 1 879 had greatly 
added to the strength of the mission, and justified the 
serious contemplation of a more elaborate educational 
programme. From the first Mr. Allnutt identified himself 
with the educational work of the mission, for which he 
had great ability. Between both these two valuable recruits 
to the mission and Edward Bickersteth there grew up the 
warmest brotherly affection. 

It will be remembered that the charge of St. Stephen's 
High School (with 150 boys), training up to the standard of 
the University Entrance Examination, was entrusted to the 
mission at the beginning of 1880, as was that of several 
branch schools in which from four to five hundred boys were 
under preparatory training. By the end of 1 880 the mission 
was able to undertake an important and characteristic edu- 
cational work. It was decided to form classes in order to 
supply the need felt since the Government College at Delhi 
had been closed, and so to prepare candidates for the B.A. 
Examination of the University of Calcutta. This privilege, 
indeed, had always been possessed by St. Stephen's High 
School as affiliated to that University, but it had long been 
held in abeyance. This decision was not arrived at without 
prolonged inquiry and prayerful thought. As long before 
as October 1878, the Bishop of Lahore had spent three 
weeks at Delhi with Bickersteth, and they had visited 
together for the first time, but by no means for the last, 
the most distant out-stations. 1 They frequently discussed 
the educational problem, especially an Arts College, the 



1 Writing to Edward Bickersteth from Peshawar (March 16, 1885) the 
Bishop says : ' I had two days also with Winter also at Balandshar, and looked 
with happy recollections on the road which you and I traversed by Toglaka- 
bad to the villages beyond it ; journeys it may yet please God to permit us to 
repeat either in the neighbourhood of Delhi or on the frontier.' 



70 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

proposal to establish which fell in with the views of the 
Bishop, who had himself spent the first years of his 
missionary life in a similar college at Agra. The Bishop 
had felt (and also had written home to the Cambridge 
Committee) the great and urgent importance of there 
being a college, as complete as possible in its proportions, 
religious, scientific, philosophic, at Delhi and in connection 
with the mission there. 

In his original paper before the Missionary Aid Society 
Dr. French had referred to the Alexandrian schools of 
thought and inquiry as supplying the exactest and most 
practical model of a Christian Educational Institute, which 
in its class-rooms and lectures should be exhaustive of all 
the great branches of science and problems of thought on 
which the human mind is exercised. He had pointed out 
that 'at Alexandria Christianity found ready to hand 
great schemes of education encyclopaedic in character, 
well compacted and organised in system, expansive and 
even tolerant in principle,' and that ' it needed only the 
mind of a philosopher and the heart and mind of a 
Christian to see how happily all this might be fertilised, 
fecundated, refined, and even glorified by being brought 
into combination with that seed of the Word God's 
divinely appointed instrument of growth into that Divine 
Image in which man was created : which, while raising 
him out of himself, makes him to be himself in the truest 
best sense, humanises most while it most divinises him, 
when he is most, as Hippolytus expressed it, Osoiroiovpisvos' 
He had further brought out that for the realisation of this 
ideal there must be an enquiring as well as a learned 
people as a condition of hopefully attempting to introduce 
the Alexandrian School system and programme, because 
unless there had been a stir and a ferment the scheme 
would fall to the ground flat and abortive. 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 71 

Now from investigation made on the spot in the daily 
companionship of the head of the Cambridge Mission, the 
Bishop's spirit was deeply stirred within him. As he 
mused the fire burned, and he wrote to Cambridge 
describing the opening and the need of a college ' which 
should (by God's help) rally round it the more highly 
educated natives, and Hindus trained at the primary and 
middle Government Schools, training them indeed for 
M.A. degrees, both at Lahore and Calcutta, but with the 
loftier and purer aim which Christian teaching imparts to 
other studies when that teaching is seen to be not merely 
a bye-end of an institution, but its quickening, informing, 
and binding principle.' He drove home the plea by 
illustrating ' the happy results ' which had followed the 
establishment of such colleges by Theodore and Hadrian 
in Canterbury, by Alcuin at York, at Alexandria in earlier 
times, and recently at Calcutta and Bombay by the Jesuits, 
and forcibly clinched his argument by the assertion : 
' This is the very crisis, Delhi is the very place, the 
Cambridge Mission is in several respects, to say the least, 
the very instrument which seems to me needed.' Thus he 
reaffirmed the verdict passed by the Bishop of Calcutta in 
1876, on the opportunity opened for Cambridge by the 
closing of the Government College, and at last his ideal 
based on the Alexandrian method of combining theo- 
logical and general learning took shape not only in his 
Theological School at Lahore, but also in the Arts College 
at Delhi. 

That Bickersteth himself had already made up his 
mind in the direction indicated by the Bishop can be 
gathered from his appeal to Cambridge, when he had 
pleaded for the establishment of a college where teaching 
would be given by Christian teachers and be permeated 
with Christian ideas, and added : ' Will two laymen of 



?2 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

sufficient attainments and of high aims offer to undertake 
this work ' ? while in a later letter to Dr. Wcstcott 
(September I, 1881) he described the situation thus : 

As regards the college, I have mentioned that our 
original proposal extended only to establishing a hostel 
for Christian students attending the Delhi Government 
College. The Government Institution was, however, closed 
shortly before we arrived in Delhi ; and we found that 
a scheme had already been set on foot by some of the 
wealthier inhabitants of the city to establish a native 
college, to which it was expected Government would give 
the usual grants in aid. We were anxious that if possible 
nothing should be done by us which might prejudice an 
independent and public-spirited movement of this kind. 
At the same time we felt that far more beneficial results 
might reasonably be looked for from an education which 
was completed under Christian influences, than if boys 
who had been trained in our schools passed just at the 
period when their minds are naturally most susceptible of 
impressions into a college which at best held a neutral 
attitude towards religious truth. Under these circum- 
stances it was during last summer agreed that the mission 
should undertake to open college classes from January 
1 88 1 for pupils from St. Stephen's and other mission 
schools. The limitation left a wide field for independent 
enterprise. The promoters, however, of a native college 
failed to collect sufficient funds to secure the support of 
the Punjab Government. Their scheme, therefore, has 
fallen into abeyance, and is not now likely to be revived, 
Since this happened we have received an intimation to the 
effect that a missionary college open to all students, 
whether of Government or mission schools, and conducted 
by our mission, would probably receive liberal support 
from the Government. Proposals made by us in reply,, 
having reference mainly to the amount of pecuniary 
assistance we should require, are at present under the 
consideration of the Punjab authorities. If these negotia- 
tions have a satisfactory termination, the higher education 
of so large a district as the South Punjab will for the first 
time have been placed in Christian hands. 

The news of this opening was received with enthusiasm 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 73 

by the Cambridge Committee, and at their request the 
Bishop of Durham (Dr. Lightfoot) penned a vigorous and 
characteristic appeal to his old University to rise to this 
occasion. 

After reminding Cambridge that as himself responsible 
for the working of a large, populous, and undermanned 
diocese, and eager therefore to welcome zealous and earnest 
recruits for his own work, he yet gladly made himself 
the mouthpiece of the cry from Delhi, regarding the 
mission there as the first charge on the evangelistic zeal and 
devotion of Cambridge, he then proceeded to quote the 
passage from Bickersteth's letter given above as best 
describing ' a signal opportunity, unforeseen when the mis- 
sion was planned.' In conclusion he asked for five more men, 
two for the new University and three for the more general 
work of the mission. ' But what have the committee to offer 
in return ? Certainly not wealth or luxury or ease, but a 
modest stipend sufficient for maintenance, brotherly co- 
operation and sympathy, opportunities of common prayer 
and devotional exercises, and, above all, a great work to be 
done for Christ's sake. Are there not five true sons of 
Cambridge to whom such a prospect is far nobler and 
brighter and more alluring than the immediate comfort of 
a country curacy, or the ultimate prospect of a country 
rectory ? Are there not five men who are prepared to lose 
their souls that they may find them ? ' 

This appeal was circulated in November 1881, and in 
the following spring (May 20) a largely attended meeting l 
was organised by the London Committee at the College 

1 At the meeting the Rt. Hon. G. Cubitt (now Lord Ashcombe) presided, 
and the speakers were Bishop (Lightfoot) of Durham, Bishop (Harvey Good- 
win) of Carlisle, Dr. Westcott (now Bishop of Durham), Bishop (Benson) of 
Truro, Rt. Hon. H. C. Raikes, M.P., Mr. Dalrymple, M.P., Canon Farrar 
(now Dean of Canterbury), Rev. E. H. Bickersteth (now Bishop of Exeter), 
Rev. Brownlow Maitland, and Mr. C. Raikes, C.S.I. 



74 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Hall, Westminster, to make the opportunity more widely 
known. On that occasion Dr. Westcott reminded those 
present that : 

In the other Indian universities English had been the 
one medium of higher education. In that of the Punjab 
it was proposed that while the subject-matter remained 
unchanged, instruction might be given in the vernacular. 1 
Everyone could see at once the vast difficulties and the 
corresponding advantages offered by that scheme. It 
involved nothing less than quickening into vigorous 
growth the language which answered to the characteristic 
modes of native thought. Let them consider for a moment 
what would have been the loss to England if all higher 
education had been given to them through the medium of 
Greek, what would have been the loss to the apprehension 
of Christian truth. No one could feel more intense 
gratitude than he for the lessons which Greek had taught 
them. But the Christian truths have passed into our 
common tongue and received large enrichments in the 
process. This represented to them, he believed, what we 
may look for in India. Let the treasures of western 
thought find expression it would be a long and hard 
work he knew in the vernacular, and there would be a 
double gain of incalculable value. India would be the 
richer, and they would be the richer. Not only would there 
be the power of conveying all that they had learnt of truth 
to every native in its most effective form, but they would 
learn in due time those aspects of the one Faith which in 
the order of Providence the Indian mind was fitted to 
present in virtue of its peculiar endowment. For they 
must be blind to the teaching of the past, if they did not 
believe that God would enable them to see hereafter more 
of His counsel through the races of the East. He con- 
cluded by describing the educational work at Delhi as an 
opportunity for sharing, however humbly, and it must be 
very humbly, in moulding the moral and spiritual bent of 
a great people, a sacred charge which had been undertaken, 

1 It may be well to explain that all instruction in the arts course is 
given through the medium of English, though at the same time there are 
Arabic and Sanscrit classes connected with the University, which have been 
a step in the direction pointed out by Dr. Westcott as so full of promise. 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 75 

or rather which had been given and not refused. It could 
not now be laid aside, and they wanted men, Cambridge 
men, to fulfil it. icaXov TO a6\ov KOI 17 gXvrts 



On the point of language, Edward Bickersteth himself 
used to point out that 'there is probably no Christian 
doctrine, however deep and intricate, which the copious 
and pliant language of India, with the aid on the one side 
of Sanscrit, on the other of Persian and Arabic, will not 
eventually be able to express in a suitable terminology.' 
He also felt that there was a profound truth and insight in 
the forecast of his old teacher Dr. Westcott, that ' the 
intellectual and spiritual sympathies of the leading peoples 
of India are with Syria and Greece rather than with Rome 
and Germany, that they will move with greater power 
along the lines traced out by Origen and Athanasius than 
along those of Augustine and Anselm which we have I 
followed.' Bickersteth held that this opinion would in 
time be confirmed by all experience in eastern lands. 

The St. Stephen's College at Delhi was eventually 
founded, and in October (1882) the Act was passed 
which constituted the Punjab University College at 
Lahore a college complete in all its functions, St. Stephen's 
College being at once affiliated to it. But by that 
time Edward Bickersteth had been invalided to England. 
He was forced by repeated attacks of fever to leave India 
in the August of 1882, confidently expecting to be back 
again before Christmas. As a matter of fact, he never saw 
again the scene of his first missionary labours until the 
early spring of 1893, by which time he had been seven 
years Bishop in Japan. 

Among the happiest experiences of his Delhi life was 
the winter visit paid to him in 1880-1 by his father and 
stepmother. After Mr. Bickersteth had been twenty-five 



76 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

years vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead, his parishioners 
presented him with a cheque, requesting him to spend 
part of it in a visit to India to see his son, well knowing 
that no suggestion would be more agreeable to him. 
Accordingly my father, leaving England in October, was 
met by my brother at Calcutta, and travelled with him 
for several weeks, ten days being spent at Delhi, inspecting 
missions in North India. 

There are very few letters of this Delhi period of my 
brother's life preserved, and one note book in which he 
jotted down scant memoranda is missing. The absence 
of these must be a loss to the biographer, but enough has 
been said to show the part and lot in the founding of the 
Cambridge Mission which in the Providence of God 
Edward Bickersteth was allowed to fill ; and the harder 
task now remains of trying to draw back the veil from the 
inner life of the mission, rightly hidden from the world, 
but for all that ' the very pulse of the machine.' 

In conclusion, the following paper of personal recollec- 
tions, kindly contributed by the Rev. H. U. Weitbrecht, 
D.D., C.M.S. Missionary at Batala, will be read with 
interest : 

My first introduction to Edward Bickersteth was in 
February 1 876, when he was residing at Pembroke College 
as a Fellow. Having resigned my curacy at Liverpool, I 
was on the way to London to offer my services to the 
C.M.S., and spent some days with the Rev. T. V. (after- 
wards Bishop) French, whose appeal on behalf of the 
Lahore Divinity School had drawn my attention. Mr. 
French's thoughts were naturally full of the plan then in 
hand for starting a Cambridge University Mission, and he 
offered to take me with him to a meeting which was to be 
held at Cambridge to discuss and set forward the project. 
I was only too pleased to go, and still more gratified on 
arriving at Cambridge to find that my host there was the 
man who was the moving spirit of the whole scheme. The 



THE CAMBRIDGE MISSION TO DELHI 77 

days spent in Bickersteth's rooms at Cambridge saw the 
beginning of a lifelong friendship. 

In May 1876 I went to reside at Cambridge for three 
months for the purpose of reading Sanscrit, and during 
that time we had many opportunities of discussing the 
work of missions, past, present, and future, and especially 
the great questions of how to influence the philosophical 
and educated classes of India, and to train the clergy and 
preachers of her Church. So strong were our sympathies 
that Bickersteth proposed to me to join the new Brother- 
hood, but being already pledged to the C.M.S. this was 
impossible. 

It was, however, a delight and a privilege that I 
repeatedly enjoyed, to have the opportunity of intimate 
intercourse with Bickersteth in India, where he followed 
me a year later. Early in 1879 I saw him at Delhi, and 
wondered at the progress he had made in the language 
amid the enormous mass of work that had devolved upon 
him when left in full charge of the widely ramified 
mission in his first year. Two contrasting pictures of him 
come to my remembrance in that year. The first is that 
of a little service with a handful of Cliamar Christians in 
one of the bastis of Delhi. We sat on a charpoy (cot) ; a 
few prayers were read, a rude hymn sung to ruder instru- 
ments, and a simple address given by Bickersteth. The 
other scene was laid in Simla, where we met a few months 
later. Bickersteth had readily accepted an invitation to 
lecture in English to an audience of non-Christians, con- 
sisting chiefly of well educated and high-caste men con- 
nected with the Government offices in Simla, many of 
them adherents of the theistic Brahmo Samaj. The subject 
that he chose was the trial of Jesus Christ. In his keen 
and polished, yet earnest and sympathetic style, he drove 
home forcibly the argument for the divinity of the Saviour, 
from the fact that He staked life and reputation on the 
truth of His assertion that He was the Son of God. Not 
long after, when we were on a walking tour together, some 
remarks on the same subject in a Brahmo journal called 
forth a letter from Bickersteth, which he read to me before 
sending it. It was in the same style as his lecture that is 
to say, a specimen of what Christian controversy should 
be. One cannot be too thankful that the Oxford Mission 
to Calcutta, a result of the stimulus which Bickersteth gave 



78 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

and which deals with the same class of people, fully main- 
tains the same tone. 

The walking tour that I referred to covered a happy 
ten days of that same summer holiday. We had for com- 
panions Murray and (I think) one other, and we walked 
fifty miles out toKotgur by the Simla-Tibet road, returning 
the same way. Delightful was the first nearer approach to 
the great snow range of the interior Himalayas, delightful 
the talks by the way and the Greek Testament readings in 
the forest or the hospitable mission house in the secluded 
station of Kotgur. 

Three years later came the sad news that Bickersteth 
was invalided home. The meetings at Diocesan Synods, 
ordinations, and like occasions were at an end, nor did I see 
him again till after he had been for some time as Bishop in 
Japan. In April 1891 I \vas passing with my wife, who 
was recovering from a long and weary illness, through 
Tokyo, and there we were warmly welcomed by our old 
friend, and spent some days in his house. Here it certainly 
seemed to me that his special gifts had found a fit field for 
their exercise. Faithful and strenuous in whatever task he 
was called to do, whether small or great, he was, I take it, 
more especially fitted to deal with the larger questions of 
policy and principle, and to teach, influence, and guide 
educated men and women. How effectually he did so his 
biography will sufficiently show. 

The last time we met was early in 1893, as Bickersteth 
was passing through India. Even t\vo years before he had 
seemed to be exhausted by work beyond his strength, and 
now his old Indian trouble had returned to some extent. 
But he was full of interest in all that he saw at Batala, where 
I was then stationed, and ready to hold a Bible reading for 
the missionaries, which brought to memory our Himalayan 
intercourse. I parted from him with apprehension ; yet 
God allowed him to work a while longer, and when the sad 
news of his departure came one could but feel that a full 
life-work had' been crowded into his comparatively few 
years, and thank God for that life with its deeds and 
memories. 




< 

Q d 
< 5 

X 

2 -s 

z H 

o JS 

' 



as a 

""^ O 

*s -* 



O S 

o *A 
* > 

O w 

Pi 



79 



CHAPTER IV 

THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 

' You have given much attention to the methods and helps which con- 
tribute to the cultivation of the spiritual life, and I am sure that this should 
be the distinguishing mark of a Brotherhood, and that on it eventually, all 
special success will depend. ' Letter from Rev. Edward Bickersteth to the 
Rev. G. A. Lefroy, November 20, 1884. 

' THE picture I have always had of him is at the close of 
a day in Delhi. I stayed with them once in the hot 
weather, when we all slept on the roof. When we had 
all laid down, he walked up and down the parapet, as I 
thought praying over the city from a place where he could 
look down upon it. His tall figure against the dark sky 
made quite an impression on me, and I feel sure that the 
burden of the city's needs weighed on him nobly. ... It 
was he who placed the Delhi Mission on a very high level 
of continual consecration.' So writes (August 1897) the 
Rev. J. H. Lloyd, now Vicar of St. Giles', Norwich, 
formerly Principal of St. John's College (C.M.S.), Agra. 
' His was indeed a consecrated life, and India can never 
forget him,' was the testimony of India's late Metropolitan 
Bishop, Dr. Johnson of Calcutta, in a letter of the same 
date. 

Now it will be conceded that spiritual consecration 
issues in devotional life and craves for expression in 
devotional habits, and it is the purpose of this chapter 
to draw aside the veil as far as may be, and show how 
' frequent opportunities of united devotion ' was the rule 



SO BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

of the Delhi Brotherhood as conceived by Edward 
Bickersteth. In his first paper before the Cambridge 
Church Society (February 9, 1876) he summed up the 
advantages of a Community mission, looked at from this 
aspect, in these words : 

Then, and on this I lay especial stress, there is the 
opportunity which will be afforded for united religious 
exercises and services. Without wishing for one moment 
to impugn the belief in the special presence of God with 
the solitary labourer, yet to most men there is no greater 
help in a work of abounding difficulty than the opportunity 
and the obligation of common devotion. It is striking 
to notice that even a St. Francis Xavier, after one of his 
great missionary journeys, refused to set forth again 
until he had time to recruit his spiritual force by staying 
awhile in the retreat of his college. 

' Frequent opportunity of united devotion ' was there- 
fore quite as much the aim of the Cambridge Mission as 
even concentration of effort, subdivision of labour, con- 
tinuity of teaching, and leisure for literary work. Edward 
Bickersteth, although brought up among Evangelicals, who 
twenty-five years ago had not yet made up their minds as 
to the spiritual results of such times of retirement, was 
indeed not unfamiliar with the blessing of retreats and 
quiet days, for his father, who had taken the lead in this 
as in other matters, had for some years planned and 
carried 'out an annual Retreat at Christ Church, Hamp- 
stead. Among the conductors appear such names as the 
Rev. Canon Thorold (afterwards Bishop successively ot 
Rochester and of Winchester), the Rev. Canon W. H. 
Fremantle of Claydon, Bucks (afterwards Dean of Ripon), 
the Rev. Canon Garbett, and the Rev. W. Boyd Carpenter 
(afterwards Bishop of Ripon). 

Another help to his devotional life came to him through 
his friendship with the Rev. Canon Wilkinson (then Vicar 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 8 I 

of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and successively Bishop of 
Truro and of St. Andrews), with whom he stayed in the 
spring of 1877, and who became, in God's providence, 
one of the strongly formative influences of his spiritual 
life. 

Bickersteth therefore left England for his new work 
strongly imbued with the conviction that prayer is worth 
our best time, ' more things being wrought by prayer than 
man dreams of,' and also not without some experience 
as to the best way of organising concerted action in 
prayer. 

It was to him a matter of special thankfulness that 
the ten days' visit of the Bishop of Calcutta to Delhi 
(which, as already mentioned, followed close on his own 
arrival there) ended with a quiet day of devotion : 

A practice which will (he writes), I hope, at intervals 
be always continued in our mission. . . . We found the 
practice quite as helpful here in a heathen land as some 
of us in former days had done in London. There was a 
peculiar sense of calm and strength in the gathering of 
our little company to pray both for itself and for the great 
heathen city, whose cries we could so plainly hear as we 
knelt in our silent church. 

While, writing after a year in India, we find him ex- 
pressing the hope : 

That it may be possible to arrange for a longer period of 
withdrawal from direct work [than is afforded by a quiet 
day]. If this is necessary in England, it is still more so in 
India. Mission life is life at high pressure, and in itself 
seems to have but little leisure for cultivating recollected- 
ness and prayerfulness of spirit. For the sake of the 
mission itself it will be very desirable, I believe, from time 
to time to escape from missionary duties altogether. 

A paper on ' Missionary Training,' which he read in the 

G 






82 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Selwyn Divinity School, Cambridge (April 9, 1884), sums 
up his experience gained at Delhi in these words : 

No men, I believe, as a class so need the help of a 
regulated devotional life as missionaries. Contact with 
heathenism and Islam tends more rapidly to exhaust 
spiritual energy than anything else. Happy, then, those 
whose spiritual training has led them to value regular 
reading of Holy Scripture, meditation, frequent com- 
munions, daily times of retirement, retreats, and the other 
different helps to spiritual progress for the voluntary use 
of which opportunity is now, as a rule, given in our 
theological colleges. The exigencies of foreign work may 
in after years cut them off for a time from some of these 
blessings as, for instance, from Holy Communion ; but if 
it be so, they will carry with them the desires and habits 
which the holy practice of their years of training will have 
implanted in them, and that sense of the Divine Presence 
which regulated practice so fosters that it abides, even 
when the practice itself must for a time be laid aside. 

Of a piece with this was the great value which Bicker- 
steth had learnt to set on intercessory prayer. He writes : 

The Book of Prayers published by the S.P.G. is in 
daily use at our Mission House at three o'clock in the 
afternoon, which, allowing for the difference of time 
between India and England, associates us with you in 
common supplication about the same hour. 1 

This conviction of the duty and privilege of regular 
and detailed intercession only deepened as years went 
on, so that during his episcopate of Japan, and right on to 
the last week of his life, not a day passed without his 
bringing before God the needs of each mission station in 

1 From a paper issued in Cambridge it appears that a short service had 
been started at 9.30 P.M. on the first Saturday in each month at the Mission 
House in Jesus Lane, Cambridge, ' as Mr. Bickersteth had asked that those 
interested in the mission would specially remember it in prayer that day,' 
bc>ing that on which the monthly service for English-speaking workers was 
held in Delhi. 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 83 

his diocese and its workers. No matter where he was at 
the hour assigned to that duty (generally about 2 P.M.) 
in crowded railway train or busy steamer, or in the quiet of 
his study the closed eyes and recollectedness of bearing 
would tell those who knew him best that the Bishop had 
entered the presence of God bearing his people on his heart. 
The following letter touches on these points. 

Delhi : November 8, 1878. 

My dear Sam, You are the most excellent of fellows 
in writing me letters. I quite look forward to getting them, 
and I am the worst of replyers, if such a word there be. 
But I must send you a line to-day, even though Hunter is 
away at Kurnal, and I have both churches (station and 
mission) to preach in on Sunday, which meaneth three 
sermons. 

Before I forget it, about the Highgate boys. I'll try 
and send them a letter for their magazine in December. 
I have already sent to the printer a letter to Mr. Bullock 
of the S.P.G., of which I will send copies home as soon as 
it is ready, and you can send them I am afraid it is not 
much of an epistle to Wordsworth, Holland, Dalton, &c., 
with my love. 

An article I have written on ' retreats ' in the ' Indian 
Christian Intelligencer' is, I hope, better worth perusing. 
It ought to have been out now, but the MS. was mislaid, 
and it will appear in the December number. 

If I feel one thing more strongly than another about 
this missionary work, after a year's thought and work 
(more work than thought though), it is that the ' Wilkinson ' 
idea of missions is the right one. I call it the ' Wilkinson 
idea ' because I got it most, and realised it most, in talking 
to him. I mean that the results, as far as results are 
granted, will be in proportion, generally speaking, to the 
spirituality of the agents. Increase your central fire ; i.e. 
be more filled with the Spirit, have a stronger hold on 
verities, live more in the sense of the unseen, realise (like 
Brother Lawrence) the overshadowing Presence, let Christ 
dwell in our hearts Bia rrfs tria-rsajs (taking those words in 
their mystery and fulness and blessedness), crush down 
selfishness and sin, and then through perhaps only two or 



84 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

three such agents more good might be done in a short while 
than by fifty ordinary Christians. Our present Bishop ' goes 
towards the ideal ; none, of course, attain it, as its measure 
is ' the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ ' but 
he exemplifies to me to some extent the idea one can form 
and dimly strive after. Such men breathe a power around 
them ; they are not, like your Evangelistic preachers, always 
aiming at conversions in the narrower sense of the term ; 
but still their whole life tends to convert people, whether 
dead Christians or inquiring heathens. They are not always 
talking about the Cross, but yet they lead men to it and, 
too, induce them to take it up ; they deal with all truths 
as they come across their path, thankful to set men right 
on any point, or to plant any seed which may grow and 
fructify. 

What a wonderful thing is that peace which God can 
give to those who ' walk in the light.' Emphatically it is 
a gift : it is no use striving after it directly : aim more 
singly at God's glory, strive to be purer, holier, better, 
and God gives it as a reward which indeed passeth under- 
standing. 

There is evening church bell, so I must hasten on. 

Later, after church. Some business turned up just before 
church, so I had to stop ; but I have given up my ' basti ' 
service to-night to our schoolmaster, so that I may get 
through some letters. One of the trials of this life is the 
multiplicity of small things : so likely are they to disturb 
that peace I was speaking of if one lets them e.g. since I 
began to write, a letter from a young lady to say she would 
be glad if I would send her a cheque for travelling expenses 
(I have just engaged her as Zenana teacher) ; the names 
of my class to be called over ; some money to be sent to 
Hunter in the district ; a man to be talked to who wanted a 
tip and didn't get it ; a letter about a house which has just 
turned up and might suit our girls' school, and I dare say 
some other matters which I now forget. There is a fine 
passage in chap. iii. of the ' Imitation ' (wrongly translated 
in the English version, the ' ones ' should all have capital 
O's) about the unity of work. It isn't so easy to see that each 
of the manifold trifles tends towards the development of 
' the kingdom of God,' but it is plain that none of them 

'I.e. Bishop Thomas Valpy French, of Lahore. 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 85 

could be omitted without detriment to that little part of the 
kingdom where each little trifle arises. 

Ever your most affectionate Brother, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 



A new feature of the first year's work in Delhi was the 
establishment in St. Stephen's Church of a monthly 
devotional service for English-speaking workers, consist- 
ing of a lesson, two hymns, a missionary litany, and an 
address. 

Among the subjects which have occupied us 
hitherto, (he writes) have been ' Times of Retirement ' 
' United Action,' ' Prayer,' ' Holy Communion,' &c. 
This and the daily use of a series of special collects have 
been found by all real helps towards realising the oneness 
of our work and its dependence on the one Source of life 
and strength. 

Out of this monthly service sprang daily morning 
prayer and a Thursday celebration of Holy Communion 
for English-speaking mission workers. 

Even in itself (Bickersteth writes in 1879) there is, I 
think, real use in the bell of a Christian church being heard 
twice a day in a city where the cry of the muezzin is never 
omitted from the platform of a hundred mosques. 

And in 1882 he writes: 

Hindus consider us a very irreligious people, and 
it has been thought that one reason of the fewness and 
the want of stedfastness in Muhammadan converts is to 
be found in the inadequacy of the provision for public 
devotion in the Church. Muhammad knew what he was 
about when he established the five obligatory hours of 
prayer, besides three others for the specially religious. 

A weekly devotional meeting for catechists and native 
Christian masters was started in October 1878, and the 
Bishop of Lahore (Dr. French), who was then on a visit to 



86 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

the mission, conducted the first of these. Bickersteth 
writes that 'it will be calculated to give a tone to the 
week's work,' and it was this higher and more spiritual 
tone on which he set an ever-increasing value as he saw 
more of missionary success and missionary failure. He 
also circulated a special subject for prayer every month in 
the mission, to secure that prayer should be offered with 
the understanding as well as with the spirit. 

The need of pastoral and devotional books, which 
hitherto had been infrequently used in Delhi, was much 
felt. Bickersteth often alludes to it, and regrets that the 
catechists had no such book to use on their way to their 
work and again on their return. It is characteristic of 
him that on his arrival in Delhi his first present to each 
of the native catechists had been a copy of St. Augustine's 
' Confessions ' 'a book [he writes] which has been recently 
translated into Urdu, and which seems wonderfully to 
commend itself to the native mind.' l 

But ' a man's praying power is not a mere arbitrary 
possession.' He cannot command it when he will. It is 
the result of the growth, generally of the slow growth, of 
his spiritual character, the development of a faith that 
has long communed with God. No account of the inner 
life of the Cambridge Mission would be complete without 
some reference to the private habits and personal religion 
of the first head of the mission. In God's providence he 
was sent to Delhi not only to plant the Cambridge Mission 
but also to purge the mission in Delhi of many weak 
adherents to the Christian Church, and to raise the standard 
of personal holiness among the Christian converts as well 

1 It may here be noted that a book of historical sketches, entitled The 
Women of Christendom (published by the S.P.C.K.), was written at his 
request by his friend, the late Mrs. Charles, author of The Chronicles of the 
Schonberg Cotta Family, for use in Zenana work. 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 87 

as among the European workers. This result could never 
have been attained had it not been for his own strenuous 
strivings after holiness. He was not a man who kept a 
devotional diary in which he poured out his soul almost 
with the freedom and fulness with which a man talks to his 
friend. But he began a habit (February 1 876) a year before 
he left England, which he seems never to have intermitted 
during his sojourn at Delhi and for years afterwards, of 
noting down each occasion on which he received Holy 
Communion the place, date, and the special subject of 
prayer, thanksgiving, or intercession then uppermost in his 
mind. They are noted with the utmost brevity, but they 
supply a continuous comment on his life of spiritual 
endeavour, and few, if any, of the chief interests of his work 
fail to find a place in these entries as the years roll on. 

In giving a few examples as a key to some of the self- 
discipline and training of the future Missionary Bishop, it 
must be understood that he himself would have been the 
first to deprecate their being regarded as other than 
the ordinary practice in the life of a growing Christian. 
Often these eucharistic resolutions (whether made in 
Pembroke Chapel or in the cities and villages of Northern 
India) were of the simplest, as : 

To look day by day for a happy sense of the Presence 
of Christ ; 

Or, 

For an immediate reference and obedience to Him 
such as was that of the disciples to the Son of Man in the 
days of His ministry. 

Or, 

For early rising [which for long was a difficulty to him, 
but for which he continuously strove until he acquired 
the habit]. 

Lent was always observed with special attention, care 
being taken at Easter to note down with frank fidelity 



88 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

success or failure, progress or defeat. Thus after his first 
Lent in India he notes on Easter Day (April 21, 1878): 

My Lenten Rule has been much broken, partly by my 
own want of zeal, partly by Murray's illness and the great 
rush of work which came in on me on Winter's departure. 

Then follows reference to the points of fasting and 
self-denial, which he had set himself to observe, with the 
characteristic touch of common-sense : ' Remember that 
any fasting which weakened would be wrong in this 
country,' and then follow these resolutions : 

A. During this hot weather it is essential for me to rise 
and go to bed at such hours as at all cost to obtain time 
for prayer. 

B. To daily pray amid the great responsibilities of my 
office for very special grace and power, and for 

C. Calmness and the sense of Christ's Presence amid a 
multitude of little things, and 

D. That my sense of responsibility as a minister of the 
Church may not be weakened by isolation or residence 
among heathen. 

At times he would take one main subject for a whole 
year, and e.g. try to practise humility in various ways 
throughout that time. So he would resolve : 

Not to read for the sake of having read. 

Not to speak for effect in the presence of superiors or 
inferiors. 

Not to love authority for its own sake. 

To care for truth, not supremacy in argument. 

To guard against over-sensitiveness, probably due to 
pride (think of Christ's humility). 

For guidance on the subject of confession. 

Or he would seek for a ' love of souls born of love to 
God,' and would pray that he might ' maintain an intense 
desire for the conversion and helping of souls,' and that he 
might ' let nothing interfere with the actual effort to draw 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 89 

souls to God, or nearer to God.' At this time he had 
been much impressed with the burning love of the Rev. 
R. Bateman, C.M.S. missionary at Narowal, of whom in 
after years he loved to speak as 'the apostle of the 
Punjab.' 

At another time he took a year of ' seeking God's glory 
because I love Him, and progressively as I love Him more 
so overcoming (i) passion ; (2) self-seeking and selfish- 
ness, specially in unreadiness to give up plans ; (3) unreadi- 
ness to meet others.' 

Sometimes he would concentrate his thoughts on inter- 
cession, and the names of his fellow-workers (Carlyon, 
Murray, Lefroy, Allnutt, R. R. Winter) constantly recur 
in this way. 

Nor did he omit thanksgiving e.g. ' because his midday 
and pre-Communion meditation had been blessed,' ' because 
he had been able to control his thoughts at the time of 
consecration,' or ' for the experience of a deeper reverence 
at the time of reception of the Holy Eucharist,' or ' because 
of some glimpses of His Presence.' 

It will be understood that these resolutions, which I 
have here necessarily strung together, were used by him 
singly, and that this watchful soldier of the Cross let his 
whole soul go out, now to one point and now to another, 
in which he sought a closer likeness to his Lord. Though 
he framed for himself, and used at intervals, a carefully 
constructed scheme of self-examination based on his 
ordination vows, yet he never practised and never advised 
the indiscriminate use of a long list of questions which tend 
either to depress or to deceive the questioner. Those 
who, in India or elsewhere, have attended retreats and quiet 
days conducted by Edward Bickersteth have borne witness 
to the power of his addresses, not only as uplifting, but as 
most practical, and his spiritual counsels to others could 



90 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

never have been so thorough, so searching, or so stimulat- 
ing had they not been the reflection of his own spiritual 
life. 

Further proof of Bickersteth's sense of the great impor- 
tance of an ordered devotional life is given in a paper on 
' System in Private Prayer ' which he read on his return 
from India in the rooms of his friend, the Rev. Heriz 
Smith, Fellow of Pembroke College. After anticipating 
' the objections often brought in perfect good faith against 
method in devotion, on the ground that though order and 
form were necessary for public worship, yet nowhere is a 
method less needed, or perhaps more out of place, than in the 
access of a soul to God, and in its personal and private 
approach to Him, he acknowledged that anything which 
could interfere with the sense of filial confidence towards God 
on the part of the suppliant must be opposed to the first 
principles of our Lord's teaching, and he wholly refused to 
admit as valid a priori objections to a systematised religion. 
Taking the seventeenth century as his example a century 
which has not yet been adequately appreciated, as it was 
the century of Bacon, Descartes, and Leibnitz in philosophy, 
of Harvey, Newton, and Halley in natural science, and in 
religion of the Oratorians, Port Royalists, and Quietists 
with Fenelon in France ; of Spener and the Pietists in 
Germany ; of Molinos in Italy ; and of the school of 
Bishop Andrewes, the Puritans, and the Cambridge Platonists 
in England he went on to cite the example of Bishop 
Andrewes (once Master of his own college) a man great 
alike as a scholar, a preacher, an administrator, and a 
linguist of Nicholas Ferrar, of George Herbert, of Bishop 
Cosin, as evidence of the very partial application of such 
objections. He then enumerated the positive advantages 
which had led men of great spiritual discernment to the 
adoption of system in prayer and the other parts of 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 91 

devotion. Among these were : (i) the maintenance of due 
comprehensiveness and variety in prayer ; (2) the readiest 
help against wandering thoughts ; (3) security for terse 
and simple language, such as becomes creatures in the 
presence of a Creator, servants before a Lord, sinners before 
a Judge ; (4) the means of bringing into use the treasures 
of the past.' In conclusion he said : 

We have had a great deal of thinking done for us, and 
this is no less true of devotion than of philosophy. It is 
not possible to believe that God can have so endowed the 
Church of later days with the bequests of the past, and at 
the same time have meant them to lie idle and infructuous 
on the shelves of libraries, instead of being, in proportion 
to their power and excellence, still used as the vehicle of 
prayer and intercession. 

In accordance with this was Bickersteth's frequent 
advice to use at the time of private devotion, first, ' a 
book of prayers by some approved author or collector, 
reverent, sober, and full the gain being great if such a 
book was interleaved and secondly, a MS. book in which 
each missionary should arrange and collect for himself such 
prayers as he valued.' 

The testimony of Dr. Phillips Brooks (afterwards Bishop 
of Massachusetts) on this point is striking. Speaking in 
1885 at the College Hall, Westminster, he thus referred to 
his visit nearly three years previously to the Cambridge 
Mission, Delhi : 

I was struck by the consecration of the missionaries 
to their work, and by their sincere piety. I shall never 
forget those simple noonday services in the little mission 
chapel, in which they consecrate themselves and their 
work to God. I have been present at no services which 
left upon my mind a more profound impression. 

Enough has been said to prove the spirit in which the 
first Head of the Cambridge Mission girded himself for 



92 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

the work, and it is time to try and trace the results of the 
devotional system thus definitely adopted and diligently 
maintained. 

To it may be attributed certain marked features of the 
mission : (a) its definite discipline, (b) its clear and dogmatic 
presentation of the Christian faith, and (c) the singular har- 
mony which knit together the brotherhood, and which has 
characterised the community from the first day until now. 

(a) Discipline. It will be remembered that Bickersteth 
was called upon within two or three months of his arrival 
to take over the supervision of the complex machinery of the 
whole mission at Delhi. While he found much to admire, 
he found also some things to criticise, and in his judgment 
there was need of greater firmness in the administration of 
discipline. 

During the few years preceding the establishment of 
the Cambridge Mission large numbers of the Chamars or 
shoe-makers had been baptised by Mr. Winter, sometimes, 
as Bickersteth was led to think, upon insufficient proof of 
faith and repentance. Shortly after his arrival he noted 
in his Diary (January 1878) : 

In the evening after service we were surprised by a party 

of 1 1 people (7 men and 4 boys) coming in from , all 

wishing for baptism. Mr. \Vinter explained to them the 
seriousness of the step. They are to stay the night. 

The next day he adds : 

The eleven Christians were baptised this evening. 
They just know the elements of Christianity, and had an 
earnest desire for baptism. Is this quicker than St. Paul 
and the jailer ? 

In his first formal letter to Mr. Bullock (October 1878) 
we find him uttering a warning note : 

Most of the Christians are as yet very poor and very 
ignorant, understanding but little of the step they have 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 93 

taken, but they have at least been brought under the influ- 
ence of a new and higher life. It is true one sometimes 
reads almost in despair St. Paul's descriptions of his recent 
converts in such passages as I Thessalonians i. ; but never- 
theless it would be faithless not to thank God for what we 
have, and to pray, work, and look for both their social and 
spiritual advancement. 

In the following February (1879) Bickersteth took 
advantage of the annual church meeting, consisting of 
mission agents and members of the ' Panchyats,' or local 
councils, to bring up for discussion the desirability of a 
service of admission for catechumens. He writes : 

All agreed as to the desirability in many cases of admit- 
ting catechumens by a regular service in church ; with the 
less educated especially, who require a longer preparation, 
it would prove of very great service. . . . Special cases, of 
course, might occur in which baptism could not be delayed. 

The plan was tried, and proved so beneficial that in a 
letter to Dr. Westcott, written two and a-half years later, 
Bickersteth was able to say : 

Besides this, after full discussion with Mr. Winter and 
our native brethren in the missionary council, some rules 
of discipline have been laid down. These relate mainly to 
two points, the instruction of candidates for baptism and 
admission to the Holy Communion. With regard to the 
instruction of candidates we have adopted the plan of a 
catechumens' class, into which all candidates are admitted 
by a short service. As regards the difficult point of admis- 
sion to and exclusion from Holy Communion, the best 
criterion seemed to be attendance at the ordinary services. 
By the admirable arrangement of small school-houses and 
chapels which Mr. Winter has established in various parts of 
the city these services are brought close to their very doors. 
Great negligence in attending them is therefore particularly 
culpable, and seems to warrant exclusion from the higher 
ordinance. The number of baptisms and communicants 
on the system is at present very small. Perhaps this is 
for a while not greatly to be regretted. Among a class so 



94 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

degraded and yet so comparatively unprejudiced rapid 
advance may I think be looked for, when once a few 
persons alike well instructed and devoted are leading the 
way. 

On Mr. Winter's return from his furlough in England 
(December 1879), he was at first inclined sharply to differ 
from the views taken on this matter of discipline by the 
younger man who had acted as his locum tenens, but 
eventually he himself came to the same conclusion. This 
change of mind resulted in a change of policy, which three 
years later bore fruit in a general gathering of the converts 
to Delhi, where steps were taken to test both their creed 
and conduct. A picturesque meeting, lighted by the fitful 
gleam of torches and prolonged far into the night, resulted 
in a diminution of the number of converts but in a 
strengthening of the morale of the mission. Although this 
event took place a few months after Bickersteth's return to 
England on sick leave, yet it was the result of the more 
searching standard by which he tested missionary work. 

(#) Purity of doctrine. The same spiritual insight led 
him from the first to see the inherent weakness of teaching 
Christianity through those whose grasp on its fundamental 
doctrines was feeble. 

A mind less trained to meditate on eternal truth 
might have lost sight of principles under the superincum- 
bent weight of daily details loudly calling for immediate 
attention ; but devotional feeling, by teaching the soul to 
linger in the presence of its Lord, teaches Christians ' not 
only to talk with Him face to face as a man speaketh with 
his friend, but also as brethren of the only Son to seek and 
embrace the faith in full liberty of the Spirit.' : 

This led Bickersteth from the first to be keenly 
sensitive to any dimness of apprehension in the con- 

' II. T. Liddon, The Priest in his Inner Life, p. 38. 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 95 

verts as to the Divine claims, and to set great store upon 
methods calculated to help them to know God and His 
Son Jesus Christ. 

He wrote home (1878) : 

A greater efficiency combined with a raised spiritual 
tone in our teachers, a truer and more vivid sense of the 
blessings of which they have been made heirs, and a 
stronger desire to make others partakers with themselves, 
are perhaps even more to be desired at present in our 
mission than an increase of converts. 

Again : 

An improvement may, I hope, shortly be possible 
to our present practice, that is a preachers' class, where 
subjects may be carefully prepared and digested before- 
hand. Our native brethren experience no such difficulty 
as Englishmen often would in filling half an hour with 
talk on a religious topic. But too often it happens that 
while each sentence of the sermon which is delivered 
is sufficiently excellent, the sermon as a whole is too 
discursive to leave any lasting impression. A class in 
which the subject will be talked out with such helps as 
books may supply may, I hope, partly correct this. 

Again, later (1881): 

Their danger is to be content with a minimum of reading, 
while constantly engaged in preaching and teaching. 

These extracts are sufficient to prove how keenly he 
was alive to the prime necessity of teaching the teachers, 
if they were to become weapons meet for the Master's use. 
He was well aware that the errors of teachers become the 
teachers of error, if we may revise Bishop Beveridge's 
aphorism. 

This view of Edward Bickersteth's spiritual influence 
on the mission is confirmed by the recollections of the Rev 
S. S. Allnutt, who writes to me (October 20, 1898) : 



p5 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

He was wholly right in his judgment as to the 
spiritual condition of the converts, and his spiritual instinct 
had discerned what was lacking, ' My people have perished 
from lack of knowledge.' It was to supply this that was 
the most crying need at first, and so he was led to set 
about introducing measures whereby the teachers should 
themselves be instructed and their standard of Christian 
life raised. What Pere Gratry calls in his life of Pere 
Perreyve, ' Organisation de la Vie,' was to all intents and 
purposes an unknown factor in the otherwise complete 
organisation of the mission. The book I mention was 

o 

a favourite one of E. B.'s, and he gave it me in 1875 on 
my ordination as Priest. 

The following letter and extract from a speech show 
how fully he believed the Church of England to be called 
of God to maintain and hand on this purity of doctrine. 

Cambridge Mission, Delhi : 
3rd Sunday after Trinity, May 1881. 

My dear Sam, I have two letters of yours unan- 
swered. Thanks much for them. And, what is more, 
time is getting on, and your ordination by the time this 
reaches you will be hard at hand ; so, contrary to custom, 
I must send you a Sunday line. 

I have a good deal on hand just now : a lecture 
Wednesday week in Urdu on ' The Jewish Expectation 
of a Messiah at the Christian Era.' This is the main 
subject There will be some comparison, also, of the 
vaguer Gentile hope. This is to be given to a class of 
Hindu and Mahomedan masters. I rather think of 
writing a little set of lectures in this line : such as 
' Heathenism at the Christian Era,' ' The Jewish Sects,' 
' How Christ fulfilled the Expectation of the Jews,' &c. 
This indirect but, perhaps, not less forcible line of argu- 
ment stirs less opposition and has perhaps more weight. 

Then I have two sermons in thought : one on ' The 
Church' for native Christians, its gradual rise, and the 
folly of supposing they can commence building de novo, 
and the advantages they gain from being heirs of the 
struggles and victories of the past ; and then an ordination 
sermon for Trinity Sunday at Amballa. I am glad I shall 
be at an ordination service that day. You partly sug- 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 97 

gested me a subject. I am going to take the combination 
of St. Paul's two great phrases, Xpio-Tos vjrsp and Xpicrroy 
h. What you wrote so truly about an historical creed 
seems to me to be summed up in these two phrases. Be- 
sides, it seems to me that their combination is really that 
which we are asked for 'a Gospel for the nineteenth 
century.' Speaking generally, Reformation theology and 
the modern Evangelical school have laid stress on the virep, 
and the Fathers and the modern High Churchmen on the 
sv, and just as Dorner has shown in another great subject 
that the Godhead of Christ was mainly insisted on till 
century XVI. and His manhood after that century, so, I 
should say, the work of the nineteenth is to combine 
the two teachings. A new Gospel cannot be anything 
srspos, or it will fail and come under St. Paul's malison 
(Gal. i.) ; but it may be a far more harmonious setting 
forth of the old truths in their connection, and not merely 
in their distinctness, and in proportion as it is so it will 
attract men and satisfy real soul needs. . . . 

. . . How thankful we ought to be for this dear old 
English Church, and to be allowed to work in her ! With 
faults patent enough (especially of organisation) I believe 
she goes nearer to the (unattained) ideal of a body which 
should teach revealed truth in its manifoldness and har- 
mony than any Christian society has done since the first age 
(and they probably taught without, not through, formularies). 

And I fancy one of the first delights you will find in 
ministerial work will be that of finding your daily occupa- 
tion to be the assimilation of revealed truth in order to 
the dispensing of it. ' Confirma et sanctifica me in veritate, 
Sermo tuus est veritas.' May this, dearest brother, indeed 
be true of you, and may you all through your life have the 
joy of seeing Christ's truth, ministered by you, the means 
of spreading the Christ life among your people. Every 
past struggle and victory will assuredly help towards this. 
I am sending you 5/. to buy books with. Get such as will 
be useful for your work ; especially commentaries, histories, 
and books on doctrine and sermons not that 5/. will go 
far in so many lines ! 

God bless and keep you, and make you a blessing 
prays ever 

Your affectionate Brother, 

BlCKERSTETH. 
H 



98 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Speaking at the Church Congress at Portsmouth, 1885, 
he said : 

The second suggestion I have to make is in connection 
with what I may call the liberty which would be given to 
native Churches in India. No doubt our primary duty is 
to hand over to them the fulness of the Catholic faith, and 
of the Church's organisation. But it is not necessary to 
hand over to them anything that is distinctly western. At 
the last Pan-Anglican Conference (1878) a resolution, I 
think, was passed with reference to the translation of the 
Prayer Book into other languages. I venture with great 
humility to suggest to your lordships that you should 
consider at some future meeting what is the minimum of 
conformity which will be required in future between 
Oriental Churches and our own Church. I have noticed 
in an ecclesiastical paper a report (I do not know whether 
correct or not) that the Episcopal Church of America has 
announced that it is willing to take into communion with 
itself any body of Christians that retains the Episcopal 
form of Government, the Holy Scriptures, the Creeds, and 
duly consecrated and administered Sacraments. May I 
suggest that it may be possible that, in future, we may 
receive into communion with our own Church in England 
any bodies of Christians who in these four points are at 
one with ourselves ? As has been already mentioned, there 
are a large number of Christians not belonging to our 
communion scattered throughout the length and breadth 
of India, but they all look up with reverence to the 
English Church. If we of the English Church have those 
advantages together which other communities possess 
separately namely, an orthodox faith, an unbroken past, 
and individual liberty it is our duty to hand these advan- 
tages to others ; but as regards the form in which we our- 
selves have them, we need not go further than ask them to 
receive from us the Divine Word, and the Creeds and the 
Church's Ministry and Sacraments, as we have them our- 
selves. If the suggestions I make could be carried out, I 
think we should have done something towards the develop- 
ment of the Church in India. 

(c) Spirit of brotherliness. With regard to the harmony 
which knit together the Cambridge men into one brother- 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 99 

hood, no testimony can be more valuable than that of 
the Rev. G. A. Lefroy. Mr. Lefroy was chosen after an 
interval to be second Head of the mission, a position 
which he has only resigned on his call to be the third 
Bishop of Lahore. In a letter to me (dated September 
1898) which he sent with his recollections he wrote : 

I feel so utterly unable to reproduce on paper any sort 
of picture of what he really was to us. You know, I think, 
something of what he was to me more than any other 
individual, he has been the inspiring example of my life. 
Yet we were only together two and a-half years, and that 
was fifteen years ago. During that time I was the junior 
member of the mission, and was not nearly so much in his 
counsels as, e.g. Carlyon and Allnutt 

Frequent visitors to the mission at Delhi have recorded 
the impression, made upon all of them alike, that those living 
there in community were indeed living together as brothers. 
Thus the idea of fellowship, emphasised in the first syllable 
of the three Greek words placed by Bickersteth at the head 
of his paper before the Church Society, 1 proved to be no 
standard impossible of attainment, but the inspiration of 
their daily life. 

From the Rev. G. A. Lefroy 

My recollections of contact at Cambridge with Edward 
Bickersteth, before the mission started for Delhi, are very 
slight indeed. I remember a walk in the Botanical Gardens 
shortly after I had, in consequence of a sermon preached 
by Dr. Lightfoot in Great St. Mary's, asked to be accepted 
as a member of the Brotherhood. One or two more similar 
walks I know followed, and then I have a clear recollection 
of a characteristically University gathering at which, the 
full number of six who had been asked for to start the 
mission having been completed, we inaugurated our under- 
taking by a breakfast in Pembroke College in the rooms of 

1 ffwarpaTiH-rai, ffvvfpyoi, ffv/jLiro\'trai. See Chapter II. p. 29. 

H 2 



100 BISHOP EDWARD fclCKERSTETII 

our leader. And I have often thought that it was a marked 
sign of the hand of our God upon us for good from the 
first, that although of the six who so sat down to breakfast 
in the spring of 1 877 only two were able to go out that 
year, two more the next year, and the remaining two not 
till the autumn of 1879, yet eventually, without a single 
loss or withdrawal from any cause, the same six met in 
December 1879 for breakfast and a truly 'common' life 
in Delhi. Of the subjects of conversation in those first 
walks I remember nothing, but I do know that the sense 
of enthusiasm and of keen, though restrained, energy which 
so markedly characterised Bickersteth did not wholly fail 
of their due effect upon me. In Delhi, while as quite the 
youngest and most inexperienced member of the mission 
I was unable to enter so thoroughly into the plans and 
difficulties of our Head as the elder members, such as 
Murray, Carlyon, and Allnutt, yet, on the other hand, just 
because of my youth I was brought into specially close 
contact with him of another kind, acting as a kind of curate 
to him in several departments of our work, notably the 
ministerial charge of Daryaganj, one of the most important 
of the city districts, and also of Mehrowli, a principal out- 
station lying some eleven miles to the south of Delhi. 
After the lapse of more than fifteen years, handicapped 
as I am by an abnormally weak memory, I am quite unable 
to recall specific incidents illustrative of the relationship 
so established, and of what it became to me, yet I do 
know that in the quiet walks home, late on Sunday night, 
from Daryaganj to our own house, a distance of about 
two miles, along a road often bathed in the glorious Indian 
moonlight, and running between the old Mogul fort of 
Delhi on our right hand and the solemn and beautiful 
Jama Musjid on the left, while further on we passed through 
the historic Kashmir Gate, with its undying Mutiny 
associations, ideals were suggested to me, and a force of 
character and depth of piety brought home to me, which 
in those first days of my ministerial life were of simply 
priceless value, and to which I believe I owe more of 
inspiration and strength for that life than to any other 
individual influence outside the innermost circle of my own 
home. The drives out to Mehrowli, too, were full of interest 
and helpfulness, though that part of our work together is 
more saddened in recollection by its frequent connection 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE IOI 

with weakness or suffering on Bickersteth's part, for it was 
often resorted to when overstrain of work or fever in Delhi 
made some little change imperative. And how frequent 
such occasions were I have realised more than I ever did 
before by reading through, for the purpose of these notes, . 
a diary I used to keep at that time. It is of the very 
barest kind and scarcely suggestive of anything of interest 
for my present purpose, but it is remarkable that out of a 
large number of allusions to Bickersteth in it nearly half 
consist of such remarks as ' E. B. very seedy,' ' bad night,' 
' high fever,' ' headache,' or the like. In point of fact, there 
is no doubt that almost from the first the intense summer 
heat told unduly on a mind and body which was always 
working at the highest possible point of energy and 
intensity. I know that often) as we lay out on the roof at 
night side by side, I would turn over in a sleep which, 
though somewhat disturbed by the heat, had yet plenty of 
restorative power in it, to find Bickersteth literally gasping 
alongside of me, and quite unable to get to sleep at all. 

Then two distinct experiences stand out in my mind 
with special clearness the one my ordination to the 
priesthood at Amballa, the other a walk deep into the 
Himalayas from Simla which Bickersteth and I took in 
the autumn of 1881. 

For the ordination, on Trinity Sunday, June 12, in the 
very greatest heat of a hot year, we stayed at the Chap- 
lain's house. There were together for about four days 
before the Sunday, Bishop French, that true father in God 
to so many of us in the Punjab, Bickersteth, as examining 
chaplain, another Englishman besides myself for Priest's 
orders, and a native, still working with an unblemished 
name and very high character in one of the C.M.S. stations 
of the Punjab, also for Priest's orders. 

As in other cases so here, in my inability to recall 
details I can only say that the whole time, the close 
contact with, and the addresses of, the saintly Bishop, the 
walks with Bickersteth, and his sermon at the ordination 
itself, formed one of the most impressive experiences of my 
life. 

In our Himalayan walk we were naturally brought 
into the closest and most continuous contact that I 
enjoyed during that two years and three-quarters of life 
together in India. Away from all the engrossing occupa- 



102 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

tions and distractions of Delhi work, we were for nearly a 
month practically quite alone together, scarcely meeting 
another Englishman along the road, usually sleeping in 
the same room, walking, talking, playing chess together. 
Into this trip also, however, the experience of sickness 
entered, as both on our outward and homeward march we 
had to lie by for one or two days owing to slight attacks 
of, as I believe, the very same trouble which at last took 
him from us. 

And from all these diverse experiences, while the 
separate details which went to form them have passed from 
my mind, a figure stands out of the clearest, most impres- 
sive, most unforgettable personality possible. If I were to 
try and single out special features of it which is difficult 
to do I think I should give the first place to two piety 
and energy. 

All he did was, as we knew and recognised instinctively, 
based on prayer and communion with God. His devotional 
addresses were full of the deepest spiritual power. One ot 
the most distinct contributions of all that he made to the 
organisation of the work of the Delhi Mission was the 
deepening in the native agents the sense of the supreme 
need of earnest personal prayer and of systematic Bible 
study for the efficient discharge of the very difficult work 
to which they were called. Additional opportunities and 
services for this end were afforded, while he regularly every 
week had any catechist, or other agent with whom he was 
in direct contact, to his own room for conversation and 
prayer together. Far as we have fallen short of his 
standard in this respect, I do yet hope and believe that 
the principles which he instilled into us, and on which he 
based the early life of our Brotherhood, have not been 
lost. 

And then there was his incessant energy of body and 
mind. I always think of him as living at the highest 
possible strain of all his powers. If he walked it was, even 
in the middle of the hot weather, at a pace which few cared 
to keep up with, at any rate without protests, uttered or 
thought ; if he rode and this he frequently did, though it 
always seemed to me as though he was not a true horseman 
in the sense of enjoying the riding for its own sake, but 
that he simply viewed it as a convenient and rapid means 
of getting from place to place no grass grew under the 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE 103 

pony's feet. So it was in his study of Urdu and Persian, 
so it was in every single thing he took in hand. That this 
intensity of disposition was, at any rate at that compara- 
tively early part of his life, accompanied by some of the 
defects which almost inevitably go with that type of 
character cannot, I think, be doubted. There was at 
times a tendency to impatience, and not infrequently the 
worries and difficulties inseparable from a work and life 
such as ours, and which on some occasions became very 
grave indeed in connection with our position and work in 
Delhi, told upon him in a way that he was, I am sure, 
himself the first to regret. 

But, on the other hand, the spirit of high enthusiasm, 
the thoroughness, the devotion to work as also to play, 
while he was at it the high aims, the wise, large-hearted 
plans for their attainment, and the depth of personal holi- 
ness and of striving after an ever closer and closer walk 
with God, which were embodied in him, were both to the 
mission as a whole and to each of us individually an 
inspiration such as we can never forget, and have, especially 
in conjunction with his peculiar position as the first Head 
and one of the first founders of the mission, secured a quite 
unique position in the annals of the Cambridge Mission to 
the name of Edward Bickersteth. 

G. A. LEFROY. 

Cambridge Mission, Delhi : September 29, 1898. 
St. Michael and All Angels. 

The late Bishop Matthew, in writing to me in the 
autumn of 1897, said that in Edward Bickersteth ' strength 
and sweetness were blended in quite an unusual degree.' 

A pathetic incident attaches to the following letter, as 
it was penned a year later within a few days of his own 
sudden death. 

From the Right Rev. H. J. Mattkeiu, late Bishop of 
Lahore 

Bishopsbourne, Lahore : 

October 22, 1898. 

Dear Mr. Bickersteth, I have once more to apologise 
for being behind time in sending this, but I have only just 



104 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

returned from a visitation tour which has been more than 
usually fatiguing. But I am afraid that I have been 
dilatory on this account more than any other, that I have 
become more and more alive to the want of materials which 
would contribute anything of interest to your biography of 
your brother. A careful search through my correspondence 
failed to find any letters which would be of use. That is 
not surprising, as Edward Bickersteth never wrote for the 
sake of writing, and our work was not in any way connected, 
mine being at that time entirely English work, while he was 
studying and endeavouring to solve missionary problems. 

Hence our intercourse was limited to the few visits 
which he was enabled to pay to us at Simla, and which 
were generally at a time when either he came to Simla 
as examining chaplain to the Bishop (French) on duty, or 
when compelled to suspend work from ill-health. I should 
mention that your brother was very strict in his abstinence 
from discussing matters in which there might be a difference 
of opinion between himself and other members of the Delhi 
Mission. And although there were questions of some im- 
portance upon which there was not unanimity between the 
representative of the old S.P.G. Mission and its Head and 
the Cambridge men, yet in reference to these E. B. was 
always very reserved. So that it comes to pass that, 
greatly as I valued his friendship and enjoyed the oppor- 
tunities of having his society, there is left little beyond the 
recollection of his strong but gracious and gentle personality. 
I had first seen him as long ago as 1875, when he was 
assistant curate to the Rev. H. Sharpe at Hampstead and 
I was taking charge, during my furlough, of an adjoining 
parish. Since that time his ecclesiastical position had some- 
what changed, and he had arrived at that via media which 
is so admirably represented in his legacy to the ' Nippon 
Sei Kokwai.' { The perusal of that book has reminded me of 
many a conversation on the themes therein treated ; the 
place of the sacraments in the Christian system, the relation 
of confirmation to baptism, and the like. On these sub- 
jects we were very much of one accord. When I was 
obliged to leave India in 1885, after a long term of service 
at Simla, it was the great desire of Bishop French that 

1 I.e. 'Our Heritage in the Church,' being papers written for Divinity 
Students, published by Sampson Low & Co. 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE IO5 

your brother then holding the college living of Framling- 
ham, and unable from considerations of health to return to 
Delhi should come out, at least temporarily, as Chaplain 
of Simla. The offer of the Bishopric of Japan came and 
put an end to this scheme, but had not a higher call come, 
in Simla he would have had a field for which he was in 
many respects admirably suited. The congregation of 
Christ Church, Simla, contains the heads of the Govern- 
ment of India, both civil and military, and no single con- 
gregation, either at home or in the dependencies of the 
empire, represents such vast responsibilities of rule. 

In the early spring of 1886 Mrs. Matthew and I had 
the great pleasure of a visit from Edward Bickersteth at 
Bologna when he was on his way to Japan after his conse- 
cration. We had a day of sightseeing it was a Saturday 
and on the Sunday he was to leave at 9 A.M. for Brindisi 
to join the mail steamer. When he and I arrived at the 
railway station it was to learn that the train would be two 
hours late. During those two hours we paced the long 
platform and had a most interesting talk. The principal 
subject was the strength and weakness of the Evangelical 
party to which few dealt more equal justice. 

Once more I had a visit from him on his way from 
Japan to England in 1893. He spared me a couple of 
days of his short sojourn in India, and one of the chief 
recollections of that visit is that he was in buoyant spirits, 
and his looking into my library with a ' Come out for a 
walk ' was like the summons of an undergraduate for a 
'constitutional.' In 1896 he wrote suggesting that in the 
following spring I should join him in Japan, and that we 
should voyage together to the Lambeth Conference. That 
delightful programme was not to be. He was driven 
home by illness earlier than he had proposed to go, and I 
was detained in my diocese by plague and scarcity. But 
among the companions I have known I recall none whose 
society was more stimulating or more edifying. 

Believe me, 

Yours sincerely, 

HENRY J. LAHORE. 



While at Delhi, as afterwards in Japan, Bickersteth 
always tried to cultivate cordial relations with those of his 



\ 
106 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

countrymen who were employed in the civil and military, 
or in diplomatic and naval life. The following testimony 
of a layman will thus add completeness to what is already 
written. 

Recollections of Colonel Gordon Young 

Stockton House, Fleet, Hants. 
Sept. 9, 1898. 

Dear Mrs. Bickersteth, I am sorry to think that I 
have not complied with your brother-in-law's request 
that I should write a few recollections of Delhi days in 
connection with the life of your dear husband, late Bishop 
of South Tokyo. 

This has not been from any unwillingness, but positively 
from my sense of absolute inability from a literary point 
of view, and in the absence of memoranda of any sort, to 
write anything that should in the least help to convey to 
others an idea of how his life at Delhi impressed those 
who were outside the immediate sphere of his daily 
work. 

The beauty of his character is much better known 
to you and to those of his own circle than to any others, 
and the scope and earnestness of his work and his devotion 
to it can only be told by those with whom he was associated 
in it all. 

I do not know if you know Delhi at all ; if so, you may 
remember Ludlow Castle, which was my residence as 
Commissioner from 1879 to 1883, with a break of ten 
months' furlough. This house and the mission residence 
were almost contiguous. 

When I went to Delhi Mr. Bickersteth reigned as Head 
of the Cambridge Mission there and was almost my nearest 
neighbour. We soon became acquainted, and though he was 
absorbed in the labours of evangelisation, controversy with 
Muhammadan doctors of the law, supervision of schools, 
and general administrative work of the mission, we were 
sometimes able to persuade him to come to tea and a game 
of tennis with us, which little piece of relaxation he seemed 
greatly to enjoy. 

He seemed almost a shadow in those days, so thin was 
he ; but he had physical strength, upheld no doubt by his 



THE DELHI MISSION THE LIFE IO/ 

high spirit, which enabled him to do more in the way of 
walking and working than anyone would have given him 
credit for possessing. However hot and oppressive the 
night had been, the very earliest dawn saw him struggling 
along towards the city, white umbrella in hand, for several 
hours' work before breakfast with unfailing regularity and 
this was only the beginning of what went on till nightfall. 
The missionaries' residence being half or three-quarters of a 
mile outside the city of Delhi while their work was chiefly 
inside, although it was no doubt good as a matter of health, 
yet added materially to the exhaustion all felt by nightfall, 
owing to the constant running to and fro in the blazing 
heat. Of all this, however, others will have given you the 
fullest details. 

It was a special privilege and delight to us when from 
time to time he was prevailed on to preach to us at St. 
James's Church ; at such times his face, and especially his 
eyes, seemed literally illumined with a holy light, which 
made it quite beautiful to regard. I can recall the look at 
this moment. 

His nature invited confidence, and the kindest hearing 
and wisest counsel might always be relied on by those 
who sought his advice. 

He certainly had very great persuasive powers with his 
opponents in religion amongst the Muhammadans of Delhi, 
and had he stayed he would, I doubt not, have succeeded 
to a large extent in affecting the attitude of many of the 
moulvies towards Christianity. Lefroy, as you know, has 
worthily followed his steps in this direction, and, I believe, 
with marked results. 

When my wife was in England and I a temporary 
bachelor, I was a not infrequent guest at the Mission 
House at the evening meal on Sunday, when the burden 
and heat of the day were over. Very delightful were the 
conversations which then ensued between your husband 
and his friends Blackett, Lefroy, Allnutt, and others 
among them a Mr. Maconochie, of the Civil Service, who 
used to come in from a neighbouring district for the 
day ; and it was interesting to remark the gentle way in 
which Mr. Bickersteth's influence pervaded the whole 
and elevated it 

Though these few lines seem hardly worth sending 
you, so bald and trite are they, yet I would not have you 



108 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

think me to fail in love and veneration for the late dear 
Bishop, and so they must go to you imperfect as they are. 

Believe me, Yours truly, 

G. GORDON YOUNG. 

In concluding this chapter on the life, as distinct from 
the work, the following touching letter from the native 
Christians at Delhi will show how the influence of the life 
outlasts the work, and in fact enables one who, as men say, 
is dead, yet to speak. 

From the Native Christians at Delhi 

Delhi : August 20, 1897. 

To the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Exeter. 

My Lord, I humbly beg to say that I write the 
following lines on behalf of the native Christians of Delhi : 

' We, the members of St. Stephen's Mission Church, 
Delhi, were grieved to hear of the death of your dear son, 
the Right Rev. Edward Bickersteth, Bishop in Japan. 
He was at one time the life and soul of the Cambridge 
Mission to Delhi, and we enjoyed the privilege of having 
him with us and among us for about five years. His zeal 
and earnestness in preaching Christ to our fellow country- 
men and his love and kindness had endeared him to 
us. Unfortunately, the climate of Delhi did not agree with 
him, and he was obliged to leave us ; when we consoled 
ourselves that, though he was taken away from us, yet he 
was called to a higher sphere of Christian work for the 
extension of the kingdom of Christ in Japan. Now that 
he has gone behind the veil our sorrow is revived ; still, 
faith and hope in Christ assure us that we shall meet him 
again, never, never to part. 

1 We heartily sympathise with you in your present 
bereavement, believing firmly that God the Comforter will 
comfort you, as well as those who now mourn for our once 
beloved pastor, teacher, and friend.' 

I am, my Lord, 
Your most obedient servant, 

JANKI NATH. 

Head Master, St. Stephens High School, Delhi. 
[Here follow the signatures of thirteen of the leading Christians.] 



109 



CHAPTER V 

FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 

' It is a much harder task to wait than to work, I fear, but perhaps in 
God's eyes one may conduce as much as the other to the final end.' Letter 
of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth to S. P. G. in reporting Mr. j\ fun-ay's illness 
(1878). 

IN September 1882 Edward Bickersteth landed in 
England from his first missionary journey, and though he 
thrice essayed to return to Delhi, the Spirit suffered him 
not. When he again left England for the mission field, 
three and a half years later, it was as Missionary Bishop in 
Japan. 

His return from Delhi was dictated wholly by reasons 
of health, and, as has been said, he anticipated a very short 
furlough of not more than three or four months. But the 
disease of dysenteric fever, from which he eventually died, 
had laid a deeper hold upon him than he or others knew. 
His temperament led him never to spare himself, and we 
find Bishop French writing to him as early as July 1878 : 
' I am sorry to gather you are not thinking of a breath of 
the hill air. If I have a house of sufficient size I must 
write and beg you to run up to Simla, if even for eight or 
ten days, to be revived and refreshed.' At this time 
Bickersteth was bearing alone the burden of all the work 
organised by Mr. and Mrs. Winter (S.P.G.), and which the 
Cambridge Mission had taken over during Mr. Winter's 
furlough. The strain of this single-handed work told upon 



1 10 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

him, and it was then undoubtedly that the seeds of his 
illness were sown. Later on, also, when itinerating with 
Bishop French (a workman who was also wholly unable to 
spare himself), he had a severe attack of fever. He first 
tried the effect of residence at Simla, whence he wrote to 
Mr. Lefroy : 

The Priory, Simla : June 7, 1882. 

My dear Lefroy, I am bowing with the best grace I 
can muster to Ross's dictum, but I don't at all like it nor 
believe it to be altogether necessary. However, a doctor's 
order backed by all the injunctions of the people I know in 
Delhi and here, and the Bishop's expressed wish seem to 
leave no loophole, so I hope it is for the best. [After 
asking for several books he continues :] You asked for a 
prayer for Holy Communion. Here is one by Bishop 
Moberly wholly in the words of the English Office. It 
omits the ava/j,vr)<ri$ r rrpo dsov side of the service, otherwise 
I like it. I have been round Jakko this morning on 
Micks, who is in capital form, though, being shoeless, he 
finds the stones a little awkward. 

Ever your affectionate Brother in Christ, 
EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 

But two months later the doctors were imperative that 
he must return to England at once. There, like too many 
other missionaries on furlough, he went about too much, 
and simply transferred the scene of his labours from Delhi 
and its environments to Cambridge, London, and other 
parts of the country which he visited to enlist new recruits 
or to awaken a sense of missionary responsibility. He was 
able to write from Hampstead on March 22, 1883. 

My dear Lefroy, . . . . Now for a happy piece of 
information. My silence about men hitherto has been 
because there has been nothing to tell since Haig l definitely 
offered. At last Wright 2 has been able to make up his 
mind, seeing his way clear. I heard of it only yesterday 
morning. I believe we have in him one of the most 

1 Rev. A. Haig. * Rev. J. W. T. Wright. 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN III 

valuable men that will have been in India for some time. 
He was the man selected for the work by both Dr. West- 
cott and the master of Pembroke, though he has offered 
quite spontaneously. As a great friend of Haig's alike at 
school (Cheltenham) and college (Pembroke), and as both 
now working as curates (St. Mary Abbot's, Kensington), 
our new colleagues will have much in common. I have 
eight sermons this week, so no more from your affectionate 
brother in Christ, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 

He went to Rome and Italy with three of his sisters 
after Easter, and spent August and September at Pen- 
maenmaur, whence he wrote to the Rev. S. S. Allnutt : 

September 6, 1883. 

My dear Allnutt, I have been seduced into reading 
longer than I meant by a chapter of Huxley's ' Lay 
Sermons.' It is my rule to read a book on natural science 
or art each vacation, so I have taken to this. A good deal 
of it is antiquated already by what has occurred since it 
was written e.g. the advocacy of natural science education 
in the Universities, &c. a good deal also of defence of his 
science against clergy and theologians perhaps he might 
think less necessary now than twenty years since. Some 
paragraphs are wholly regrettable e.g. a section on the 
' worship of the Unknown ' being the highest we can 
attain and likely to produce the noblest sentiments ! and, 
lastly there is a very great deal which to the mere t'Stwr^y 
in natural science (why don't we talk about naturals ? it is 
as good a word as mathema^y as far as formation goes 
and much more exact and expressive) is suggestive and 
helpful. ... I have been reading a good deal here 
(between walks) of one kind and another. ' De la Con- 
naissance de Dieu,' by Gratry, which a sister and I have 
just finished, is extremely well worth the reading, and has 
a good deal in it which may be useful, especially as to the 
way of putting truth before unbelievers. 

Rosmini's ' Five Wounds of the Church,' which 
Liddon has just published, I have also read but am much 
disappointed in, except in the chapter on clerical educa- 
tion. Tulloch's ' Rational Christianity ' I have also 
accomplished. The second volume is an account of the 



112 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Cambridge Platonists. I told you that Dr. Hort suggested 
them to me as a study. As a useful study for oneself I 
have no doubt he was right. Their noble ' rational ' (in 
the highest sense) method of theologising is a model, but 
I doubt if there will be very much in them which will be 
directly useful for Indian work less than in the great 
Fathers. By the bye, Professor Wace (the editor of the 
dictionary), with whom I went up Camedd Llewellyn, 
told me that Westcott's article on Origen is the most 
wonderful production, a book in itself, and most sug- 
gestive and thorough. It is to appear in the fourth 
volume. Also, I am reading as a ' Sunday book ' Fair- 
bairn's ' Studies in the Life of Christ ' a book you will 
enjoy for its suggestiveness. The author is a Presbyterian 
not the same man that wrote the ' Typology ' a younger 
and more modern-minded man, so much so that there is 
very much in his book that I dislike. 

I have just accomplished also 'John Inglesant,' 'The 
Monastery,' and ' Abbot ' (nearly), besides Neander's ' Life 
of St. Bernard ' ; so I have not been wholly given to oriental 
studies these few weeks. 

Your ever affectionate Brother in Christ, 
EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 

But the effect of his over-activity was too apparent 
when, in the autumn of 1883, he had actually taken his 
passage for his return to Delhi. The day had been fixed 
(October 22) for Bishop Lightfoot of Durham to preach 
the farewell sermon for himself and the two new mission- 
aries (the Rev. A. Haig and the Rev. J. W. T. Wright) 
who were to accompany him. On the eve of departure, 
however, he was suddenly prostrated by a severe return of 
his illness. He explained the situation in the following 
letter to Mr. Carlyon : 

Christ Church Vicarage, Hampstead : 
October 19, 1883. 

My dear Carlyon, This letter is a sad one for me to 
write, and I know it will be a sad one for you to receive. 
To tell you the cause at once, owing to an attack of fever 
which came on without expectation or notice last Saturday, 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 113 

the doctors have ordered me another year in Europe, and 
at Westcott's express wish, all but command, I have been 
obliged to consent. 

To give you more particulars. I think I told you, 
writing on Friday last, that my head was very dizzy. 
However, I anticipated no evil, and started Saturday 
morning for Cambridge for an executive committee. 
I walked up to my brother's rooms (a Pembroke freshman) 
in Tennis Court Road, and when I was half-way there, to my 
surprise I got all the symptoms of the old ague, which I 
had had no attack of since last January. However, there 
was nothing for it, and I got on to our committee, which 
lasted two hours, during the whole of which I was most 
wretched. . . . On Sunday the fit had gone, and I was able to 
get through though it didn't do me much good the work 
I had arranged. Westcott, dear loving man, pursued me by 
two letters, one urging me on his own account to see doctors, 
and another on behalf of a number of the committee, whom 
he had taken the trouble to see. So perforce I went. . . . 
On Tuesday I saw Dr. Charles, till 1880 the first man 
at Calcutta and now an Honorary Physician to the Queen, 
so I suppose there could be no higher authority. He 
examined me thoroughly, and, though he said there was 
nothing organically wrong, positively forbad my return, 
like Gowers, for a year. His reasons were that I am still 
very liable to fever and wholly anaemic, so that (he said) 1 
should not have a chance of getting through the rains, 
either in the hills or plains, without breaking down. He 
wants me to spend all the winter, doing only four hours a 
day work, in Italy and the Riviera, and then next summer 
(except two months) in Wales and Scotland. Then, and 
this is the only good part of it, he says I shall be up to 
another five or six years in India. Less than two winters, 
he thought, never really eradicated fever, if it had at all 
badly taken hold of one. 

Well, it seemed utterly sad, and to break up all one's 
plans and ideas. However, after having agreed to go and 
see the doctors, and my father and Westcott being so very 
decided that I ought to obey what they said, there did not 
seem a loophole of escape for this year. Another year 
away from Delhi and a year's practical idleness are a 
sufficiently unwelcome prospect ; and the Providence which 
assigned it, just as I seemed so very much better in health 



114 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

and was all prepared to start, is certainly very inexplicable ; 
one can only believe if grace be given for it that the reason 
and result will be seen hereafter. It is so sad to me to 
think of not seeing you all for so long, and also to feel 
that my work is burdening other shoulders, which have 
more than enough of their own ; but I must look forward 
to next year, and you will too. 

My plans are to leave this on the 3Oth of this month 
get to Bordighera in about a fortnight move about the 
Riviera places (Cannes, Mentone, Sec.) till February, and 
then go on to Rome. A sister goes with me, and another 
will join me later. 

Your affectionate Brother in Christ, 
EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 

While to Mr. Allnutt he wrote a week later as follows : 

Christ Church Vicarage, Hampstead : 
October 26, 1883. 

My dear Allnutt, . . . The service of farewell for 
Wright and Haig on Monday was very well attended, and 
all, except that the Bishop had a very husky voice, went 
well. The sermon was striking, though not equal to ' the 
Father of Missionaries.' You will see the last half in 
the ' Guardian ' of next week. The first part was on the 
phenomenon of the vitality of so small and insignificant a 
nation as Israel among the great empires of the past. 
There was also a striking parallel, quite new to me, between 
the revivals which at times now take place of false systems 
under the influence of Christianity and the revival which 
took place of the old heathenism between the time of 
Pliny's letter and that of Antoninus Pius. . . . 

Fare thee well in the name of the Lord. Alas that I 
am not to see you for so long. I have the kindest and 
most loving letters from everyone but it is a sad dis- 
appointment, which I feel more daily. 

Your very affectionate Brother in Christ, 
EDW. BICKERSTETH. 

This reluctance to give up even temporarily his work 
at Delhi will be seen to be a proof of his characteristic 
tenacity of purpose, especially in the light of a letter written 
three months before to Mr. Lefroy. Writing on St. James's 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 11$ 

Day, 1883, after referring to matters then being debated 
between the S.P.G. and the Cambridge Mission, he said : 

Now, lastly, as to myself. I strictly meant what I said 
several mails since that no plan whatever should be made 
to hinge on me for some time to come. When I came 
home I went to a London physician (Dr. Gowers), an 
uncommonly able fellow, who said in effect : ' You have 
been very ill indeed ; I can cure you this time, but if you 
get as ill a second time you will not recover.' Practically, 
I consider that he has kept his word as to curing me through 
God's mercy ; though not well, I am very much better. 
I have been to him several times, and he is reconciled 
to my returning to India. This being so, I propose to 
return to Delhi in October and not elsewhere. If I fail 
and get serious fever again I should probably try to start 
some hill mission work, or to carry on literary work in the 
hills for the rest of the year ; but in this case it would be 
right that someone else be appointed Head of the Cambridge 
Mission. . . . 

Murray, Maitland, Haig, and Wright all meet here 
to-morrow. Christmas together, God willing, in Delhi. 

The truth is that neither then nor later in Japan did he 
know when he was beaten, and so often did his excellent 
constitution and the buoyancy of his temperament respond 
to the calls made upon them by his faith in God and the 
fervour of his missionary zeal, that his power of recovery 
may well have seemed to himself well-nigh inexhaustible. 

But although the head of the mission was thus obliged 
to direct its affairs from a distance for yet another twelve- 
month, there were one or two matters which he could 
handle all the better for being accessible to Cambridge and 
to London. Notably was this the case with regard to (i) 
the permanent relationship of the Cambridge Mission to 
to the S.P.G. Mission in Delhi, and (2) a proposal to start 
a Community Mission for Women there. 

With regard to the former, it was inevitable that the 
successful starting of a University mission within the area 

I 2 



Il6 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

of an S.P.G. district, much in the same way as a College 
Mission has of late years been grafted upon the parochial 
system in South London, would raise questions as to the 
permanent relationship between the two organisations 
which required careful handling if the work was to be 
strong and to last on after those acquainted with its 
original foundation (such as the Rev. R. Bullock, Secretary 
of the S.P.G. till 1878) had passed away. This was in- 
evitable, quite apart from the personal equation of those 
concerned. The settlement of the matter was further 
complicated by some divergence of view between Mr. 
and Mrs. Winter and the members of the Cambridge 
Mission. This difference never caused disruption, and in 
the end Mr. Winter approximated more nearly to the 
views taken by the Cambridge Brotherhood ; but the 
way by which progress towards identity of policy and 
harmony of teaching was reached led through a prolonged 
and tangled correspondence. 

In a memorandum (dated May 4, 1883, Pembroke 
College, Cambridge) for the Cambridge Committee 
Bickersteth wrote : 

When the rules were laid down under which the 
Cambridge Mission started, it was declared that the 
arrangement contemplated in them was temporary. Mr. 
Winter had informed the Cambridge Committee that he 
only expected to return to India for a few years, and 
Mr. Bullock, though entering into no agreement on behalf 
of the society, looked forward to the mission being carried 
on in the future by Cambridge only. 

The point which Bickersteth always pushed to the fore 
was that ' only thus could the Cambridge Mission give full 
effect to its principles and methods of work. This cannot 
be till the opportunity is given it of attempting to carry 
out all branches of mission work, and more especially of 
organising and training a native Church, through which 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN II.; 

alone the methods and principles of a mission can widely 
influence the people of India? He therefore thought it would 
be well if the Cambridge Committee would request the 
S.P.G. to consider whether they would not be prepared to 
entrust their mission at Delhi to the members of the 
Cambridge Mission, to be worked by it after Mr. Winter's 
retirement, and in the meantime not to send more mission- 
aries of their own to Delhi. 

No useful purpose would now be served by giving 
copious extracts from the letters which passed between 
Delahay Street, Westminster, and Cambridge and Delhi ; 
but the points at issue involved (i) the possible amalgama- 
tion of the two missions, as when a college mission some- 
times takes over the administration of a whole parish, its 
titular head being Rector or Vicar of the old parish ; (2) 
the future title of the mission ; (3) the possibility of a 
married missionary being connected with the Cambridge 
Mission, whose wife could keep up some of the zenana 
agencies started by Mrs. Winter ; (4) the supervision of 
educational work solely by the Cambridge men. 

Canon Crowfoot of Lincoln was a personal friend of 
Bickersteth's, and as he had also previously worked at 
Delhi and was a member of the S.P.G. Standing Committee, 
he was a valuable intermediary. To him Bickersteth wrote 
as follows : 

Christ Church Vicarage, Hampstead : July 30, 1883. 

My dear Crowfoot, I received a copy of Winter's 
letter and a letter from Winter himself some weeks since. 
It seems to me to be in all main points eminently 
satisfactory, and quite such as our [Cambridge] Committee 
will be able to accept. . . . Winter's suggested title, 
' Delhi and South Punjab Mission,' could not be used in 
documents to be circulated in Cambridge. I propose 
' the Cambridge University Mission to Delhi supported by 
S.P.G.' This, I think, might be used both by us and by 
the society, which would be a great gain. His (Mr. Winter's) 






IlS BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

plan differs toto azlo from the other, 1 which I think could 
under no circumstances be accepted by us. To agree to it 
would be, I am sure, practically to condemn the University 
Mission to a condition in which it could at the best only 
hope to prolong a weak and lifeless sort of existence. . . . 
As to the whole mission, or the lead of the mission 
reverting to S.P.G., I do not think we need consider it 
now. It is most unlikely, I think, that it ever would be so, 
though if we could avoid leaving a legacy of doubt to our 
successors it would surely be better. With the scheme as 
a whole I heartily agree. . . . 

Yours very sincerely, 

EDW. BICKERSTETH. 

The return to England that summer of the Bishop of 
Lahore (Dr. French) enabled the matter to be discussed 
with all the chief authorities concerned. As to the division 
of the Cambridge Mission into two branches, one to continue 
as a purely educational body at Delhi, the other to open 
up more varied missionary work at Cawnpur, 2 Bishop 
French, then staying with Bishop Lightfoot, wrote to Dr. 
Westcott as follows : 

Auckland Castle : October 15, 1883. 

My dear Professor Westcott, I had sent to Bickersteth 
three days before as full an explanation as I could of my 
views on the knotty point of the precise relations to be 
sustained by the Cambridge Brethren towards the S.P.G. 
and its missionaries. This paper will doubtless be for- 
warded for your perusal, as also for that of the Bishop of 
Durham, whose guest I am at present for a missionary 
anniversary. 

I am so very thankful to be allowed to hope that there 
will not be a break up of the Cambridge Mission Brother- 
hood, and a severance of it into two bands, by which the 
original idea of the mission will be almost wholly frustra- 
ted. It is a grand field viewed in its various departments, 

1 The reference is to an alternative plan proposed to S. P. G. , but not 
adopted. 

2 It is interesting to note that the work contemplated at Cawnpur has 
since been undertaken by two of the sons of Bishop Westcott, who with the 
help of the S.P.G. started a missionary Brotherhood there in 1895. 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 1 19 

and can be occupied without the intrusion of rival missions. 
I pray God that the plan may be adhered to in its entirety 
and integrity. . . . 

Yours very truly and obliged, 

THOS. V. LAHORE. 



In the following October Bickersteth wrote to Mr. 
Carlyon that the S.P.G. passed a resolution to the effect 
' that the society agrees very carefully to abstain from 
doing anything which will prevent the eventual succession 
of a member of the Cambridge Mission to the headship of 
the Delhi Mission.' The Cambridge Committee, under- 
standing this resolution to mean that ' nothing would be 
done to prevent the management of the Delhi Mission 
coming into the hands of the Cambridge Mission,' agreed 
to it, and so Bickersteth had the satisfaction of leaving a 
few days later for his enforced sojourn on the Riviera 
knowing that this question of the relationship between 
two bodies which were ' separate yet connected ' had been 
placed in a fair way for final settlement. 

On the lamented death of the Rev. R. R. Winter in 
1891 the S.P.G. put their work under the supervision of 
the Cambridge Mission. In Delhi there was one paid 
missionary and one honorary at the time. The present 
title by which the mission is known is ' The Cambridge 
Mission to Delhi in connection with S.P.G.' There are 
branch missions in Karnal, Rohtak, Gurgaon, Rewari, and 
other places. 

The other matter which Bickersteth endeavoured to 
forward was the establishing of some organised women's 
work at Delhi to help in the zenana work started by Mrs. 
Winter, as well as in the medical work. 

As far back as October 1881 he had written to Dr. 
Westcott (from Kotgarh, in the Himalayas, where he and 
Lefroy had gone for a holiday) : 



I2O BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

The Zenana mission is, of course, no immediate part of 
our work, but at the same time it vitally affects the whole 
mission organisation. A mission to men unsupported by a 
mission to women would indeed be now quite an anachronism 
in India. The influence of the Zenana on Indian youth 
from the despotic old grandame downwards is proverbially 
strong, and efficient Zenana mission work is the only hope 
of purifying this influence and turning it in a right direc- 
tion. So far, then, as this is concerned, the position of the 
Cambridge Mission is at present a very unfortunate one. 

He felt that neither the existing S.P.G. Lahore Diocesan 
Committee, whose chief work was the distribution of funds, 
nor the monthly mission council at Delhi, on which natives 
sat, could be a governing body for a Zenana mission. 

In the summer of 1883 and throughout 1884 he corre- 
sponded much with Canon Crowfoot of Lincoln and with 
the members of the Cambridge Mission in Delhi on points 
of detail. 

The points which seemed essential to Bickersteth were 
that the head of the whole mission should be head of the 
zenana work ; that the Zenana mission should in future be 
formed into a community, with a rule of its own, superin- 
tended by a lady trained herself under rule in England ; 
that the then band of workers, older or younger, should be 
admitted only as assistants ; that there should not be the 
smallest hesitation in admitting Eurasian and native help 
to the full position of Sisters, if otherwise fit ; that the 
proposed community should be in immediate connection 
with an English institution. With regard to the vitally 
important principle of 'a reasonable agreement in theo- 
logical matters,' he wrote to Mr. Winter, who feared 
development on extreme lines, to re-assure him. 

Christ Church Vicarage, Hampstead : 
July 1 8, 1884. 

My dear Winter, . . . To be definite, I should not 
wish to have Sisters at Delhi who make a daily celebration 






FURLOUGH FKAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 121 

a condition of uniting in any plan. Not that I object to 
the daily celebration in itself; if I did, I should go against 
a great number of good people, St. Austen included, but 
that at present I do not think it would be desirable at 
Delhi ; nor again should I wish to have Sisters who made 
Confession compulsory, and a good many practically do 
so. ... 

Ever affectionately Yours, 

E. B. 

He was eager to choose St. Hilda as a name for the 
women's mission. ' I find her,' he wrote, ' described as 
" sancta, prudens, literata," in a note to Bright's " Early 
English Church." ' 

A memorandum for circulation in England was drawn 
up by Bickersteth and sent by him to Canon Crowfoot 
' for criticism and suggestion,' and then laid before Dr. 
Westcott and the Bishop of Lahore, who gave it their 
full approval. The death of Mrs. Winter, and her call to 
rest from her incessant labours early in the autumn of 1884, 
made it more urgent than ever to provide for the future of 
zenana work. ' The name [he wrote] has been altered 
from St. Hilda to St. Stephen at Mr. Winter's request. I 
think for the worse, but we thought we ought to yield.' 

But the appeal, so carefully discussed, although printed 
in December, was not widely circulated, for a letter came 
from Mr. Winter begging for still further delay. Bicker- 
steth wrote to Lefroy : ; ^ : 

Rectory, Framlingham : December 19, 1884. 

... I heard yesterday of Winter's return and that he 
wishes no steps taken in re Sisterhood till he comes. Give 
him my love and tell him he was just in time to stop our 
second circular, as before our first. Do not tell him that I 
am absolutely certain that his attempt to establish a Broad 
Church Sisterhood, which is what his letter to Crowfoot 
amounts to, is foredoomed to failure. A Sisterhood need 
not be on extreme lines, but I feel sure that for success 



122 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

the Sisters must be not only ' learned, with piety taken for 
granted,' but come out because they have a real vocation 
and also possess, and so are able to teach, a full and clear 
creed. 

Your loving Brother sv Xpia-Tw, 

E. B. 

For the time being no further steps could be taken. 
The present zenana and medical work is carried on from 
St. Stephen's House, Delhi, by eighteen workers, as well as 
at four other centres. 

The first week in November 1883 saw Bickersteth with 
one of his younger sisters, May, settled at the Hotel de la 
Terrasse, Cannes, for the winter. Then began between 
this brother and sister that close friendship and community 
of interest, intellectual and spiritual, which was to bear 
fruitful results in after years when this sister became the 
organising secretary of the Guild of St. Paul in support 
of Community missions in Japan. Brother and sister paid 
a visit to Avignon, ' the old papal chateau or fortress,' on 
their way out, and he wrote to Mr. Lefroy to announce his 
arrival. 

Hotel de la Terrasse, Cannes : 
November 9, 1883. 

My dear Lefroy, Here in Cannes we are going to 
stay, and not in Bordighera, as I thought when I was 
writing before. I shall send to Bordighera to see if any 
letters have gone from you to me there. Several reasons 
have induced us rather to choose Cannes. One that Dr. 
Charles is here, the physician who sent me abroad ; then 
that we have several friends ; also, I regret to say that we 
have a young cousin, a girl of nineteen, one of the ablest 
that has been to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, exceedingly 
ill of consumption and with only a slight hope of temporary 
betterment, living at Grasse, a place close by. Such is life. 
Here am I positively doing nothing walks, shoppings, tea 
parties, luncheons, &c., &c. and that at a time when I 
expected to be back with you all and in the thick of work. 
I am here because there seemed positively no alternative, 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 123 

and, as it was said to me yesterday, there are instances 
in which vox medici is vox Dei. I cannot but admit, 
after my last attack of fever (as my own feelings told 
me), that the doctors were for once right. I am doing 
nothing, because having consented to come it seems folly 
to defeat the end of coming by work, as they tell me I 
assuredly should. 

And there are you, doing far more work than you 
ought, and this partly because you have mine on your 
shoulders as well as your own. With the general disposi- 
tion of things, rest content. It is a nobler call far to work 
than to rest, and you are worthy of it. But for this very 
reason you should not exhaust your strength. It was 
utterly foolish of you not to take a holiday, and I hope 
you will get some change during the winter. . . 

Ever your affectionate Brother in Christ, 
EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 

Six weeks later he wrote again to Mr. Lefroy a letter 
which shows his inability to keep his mind from perpetually 
working on Indian problems, though it also illustrates his 
sense of humour. 

Cannes : December 29, 1883. 

My dear Lefroy, I have only a talkative salon to 
write to you in just now, so won't be altogether responsible 
for the coming production. So many thanks for your 
letter, which reached me from Bordighera. I do feel it 
indeed sad to be separated in ' presence ' and work for 
another year (only ten months now), but though I am really 
getting on here, I cannot say the doctors were wrong. 
I might have got back to India and to work for a bit, but 
I think it would probably have been, as they said, to 
topple over, like a house of cards, before so very long. 
Now I shall quite hope, God willing, for a spell of work ; 
and experience has shown that in most cases it is only 
periods of work on which reasonable expectations of 
results can be based. (There ! I have got a word ; a 
nervous old lady is chattering on draughts. There ! she is 
gone. Expect a slight improvement in composition.) 

Now about the two or three things you mentioned. 
First about the catechists' class. I am very glad you are 
going to take the Church history. Should I take it again, 



124 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

you are not likely to have exhausted that endless subject ; 
but in all this work I think it will be better that you should 
not look on what you are doing as temporary (except so 
far as you may be overtaxing your strength in taking it up 
at all). What I mean is that when I come back to India 
I think that it will be well for a year or two that I should 
do work which does not involve any great change of 
organisation &c. if I give it up ; e.g. I can preach, take 
tours, visit Muhammadans, give a course of lectures to 
masters if you want one, and I hope get to work on some 
book. These kind of things can be dropped if I get ill, 
and the literary work I could take to the hills with me. 
Furthermore, if I find it necessary to work sometimes at 
half-pressure, I should not feel tied by such work in the 
same way as by work which recurred on fixed days. I 
do not mean that if I keep well I should not try to get to 
something more regular, but that, as I said, for a time I 
think this would be a wiser arrangement. So in anything 
you start for the class don't feel only ' in charge.' And 
still more with Daryaganj, about which I want a long 
letter a little bird whispered to me that it was going on 
admirably. You must be their permanent pastor and 
priest in every sense, though of course I will give you any 
help I can. 

The plan of the Cambridge Mission Commentary on 
the New Testament was to get the books divided out 
among certain men of whom we should have the choosing. 
I thought it would be best to endeavour in all cases to 
put a native and European together, the former to supply 
illustration and to ensure intelligibility the latter for 
information, and to counteract the fancifulness &c. of the 
native brother. Further, I thought the commentary should 
be, if possible, very much shorter, and if the language 
admits it terser, than Clark's and Imad-ud-din's (I doubt 
theirs being much read) ; and then if ' our ' commentary 
were published in moderate sized volumes there would be 
a hope of catechists taking it about with them on their 
tours and so forth, or at all events not being afraid to 
begin a volume. Further, I had the idea that it should be 
in a native-looking form and style, so that an inquiring 
moulvi might not disdain it. I should not mind if the 
comments were printed round the paper, Quran and 
Persian poetry fashion. I think the idea is worth recon- 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 12$ 

sidering, though two years ago the Bishop thought it prema- 
ture ; but now if you and Allnutt could contribute and, say, 
Shirreff, Hooper, and Weitbrecht, there would at least be a 
nucleus of an English company. Short essays on such 
subjects as you mention, ' the authority of the Christian 
Ministry,' might certainly very well be added, and some 
detached notes, without making the volumes too bulky. 
I'll send you a tiny paper of headings for an essay on that 
same subject next week. The Bishop of Durham com- 
plains in the last edition of his ' Galatians ' that he has been 
much misrepresented and misunderstood in what he said 
about ' episcopacy.' Of course, as a necessary conse- 
quence, he is now accused of having changed his opinions 
since he became a Bishop ! 

I hope the new men will take to school work, and 
very much hope that with your powers of picking up the 
language, making its sounds and understanding them, you 
will be able to throw yourself into vernacular and literary 
work. But you will be guided by circumstances that is, by 
the Hand which makes the circumstances. Tell me when 
you write what you are doing in the language line. Have 
you learnt any Persian ? If so, don't stay too long over 
the dull books. Some of the poetry and philosophy I 
read with Cowell is most interesting. 

E.g. : the Masnavi, of which (book i.) there is an 
infamous translation in the library. 

Aklagi Jalali, an Orientalised Aristotle's ' Nico- 
machean Ethics ; ' there is a still worse translation in an 
old Oriental Society's series. 

Umr Khaiyairis Rubaiyat. I think I sent you out a 
translation in the last batch of books. 

Also, have you done any Arabic ? I find I can read 
the Quran with the help of Penrice's dictionary, a transla- 
tion, and notes ! ! ! and you might certainly get so far and 
much beyond, but so far is distinctly useful. There is an 
excellent new manual of Hindi ; it is up three flights of 
hotel stairs or I would give you the name, as it is I'll put 
it on the outside. It contains, I fancy, about all that we 
need know. 

Well, goodbye (in its true sense), 

Your ever affectionate Brother in Christ, 
EDWD. BICKERSTETH. 



126 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

During this time he made many delightful friendships, 
seeing much of Dr. Murray Mitchell and others. When 
visiting the Riviera myself in the spring of 1895, I came 
across several of the English residents there who had 
never lost the impression made by contact with his earnest 
missionary zeal. His pastoral visits to his young cousin, 
Miss Effie Murchison, daughter of the late Dr. Roderick 
Murchison, who had come into Cannes from Grasse, were 
paid daily, and in January he had to break to her at the 
doctor's wish that human skill could do no more to prolong 
her life. He wrote to Lefroy (January 1884) : 

I scarce know how I got through my task, but she was 
far calmer than I ; indeed, I shall never forget her perfect 
self-control and peace, and I see her daily TO, avw &TSITS, 
TO, avw <})povetT. At least these experiences should be a 
help to me to do this. 

At Easter he moved on to Rome, and from there 
wrote to Lefroy, on hearing of the death of his brother : 

Hotel d'Allemagne, Rome: April 19, 1884. 

My dear Lefroy, Your letter reached me just before 
I left Cannes, and I was very glad to have it. All in- 
formation as to how matters go with you all is very 
welcome to me, and will be till (D.V.) I see you in 
October. Here people wish one another a 'buona 
Pasqua ; ' why do not we in England, as much as ' A 
Happy Christmas ? ' Anyhow I hope you may have been 
having such, and it will not have been the less so in one 
sense to you personally that you will have connected it 
with the thought of your brother who has been taken from 
you. I had not heard of this till I got your letter, and 
now I pray God to comfort you and yours in the thought 
of him. The truest comfort, indeed, you have in the ' good 
Christian hope 'of which you tell me. and Easter fulfils 
it, as far as may be, till the stria-way a)<yr) ETT' Avrov with 
its wondrous teaching that death is a conquered foe. It 
requires much faith though to accept this and all it means. 
I have felt this during the winter in attending constantly 
on several dying people. . . . Well, I said it requires faith 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 1 27 

to believe this that when death seems so absolutely vic- 
torious it is not, and yet the two facts of our Lord being the 
Second Adam and of His Resurrection carry with them 
no less. ' Lord increase our faith.' . . . 

Ever your affectionate Brother in Christ, 

E. B. 

In Rome they met Mrs. Charles, their authoress friend 
of Hampstead, and returned to England by way of Assisi, 
the home of St. Francis, Perugia the old Umbrian capital, 
Florence, and thence back to Cannes, as Bickersteth's cousin 
had died there on May 5 and he wished to visit her grave. 
Writing to Lefroy from Hampstead, May 16, 1884, he 
said : 

I hope it has been good for me to have my own 
mind so often of necessity occupied with the thoughts of 
the other world and the preparation for it, but oh ! how 
strange the mystery of it all is, and taken at its fullest 
(and I can't quite follow Dr. Westcott's plea for keeping 
one's mind all but a blank on the subject), still how little 
one knows of the world upon which they enter. I think 
it is not sufficiently customary among us to practise 
meditation on the other life. I suppose it passed away a 
good deal with prayers for the dead ; but if they were at 
all generally revived in the form of Scudamore's Saturday 
prayer, and if it were more the custom to keep private 
diptychs of those at rest (as the prayers of the old Greek 
Liturgy form have so passed out of use), I think it would 
be helpful and salutary. 

And a few weeks later he wrote to Mr. Allnutt from 
Cambridge : 

Pembroke College, Cambridge : June 3, 1884. 

My dear Allnutt, You see I am here again in this 
dear old place, which is looking its loveliest and best. I 
paid a good many visits yesterday, and have just dotted 
down fifteen more that have to be paid to-day and to- 
morrow morning. . . . 

On the great subject of the Intermediate State, I 
don't feel that I have anything helpful to say. Two or 
three points strike me in what you say. 



128 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

1. If the teaching of many passages on the activity of 
the soul in the intermediate state is to be balanced against 
the one word Koipdcrdai, it seems to me that the result 
must be in favour of the many passages as against the 
one word. Koifiacrdat is easily intelligible on the theory of 
activity, the other passages are not intelligible on the 
theory of a soul asleep. 

2. Does not Dr. Westcott's suggestion that the soul with- 
out the body has no energetic power seem contrary to his 
own constant teaching, that we ought not to give opinions 
on matters which our present faculties are not suited to take 
cognisance of? 

3. May there not be something in the Hindu theory 
that the soul after death has an organ of its own through 
which it still acts ? This is strongly urged in one of the 
last sermons of a volume of sermons by the Nonconformist 
preacher Baldwin Brown, which is in my shelf of sermons. 

4. Dr. Westcott suggests in a passing sentence of his 
new volume of sermons that St. Paul in 2 Cor. v. is referring 
to the heathen idea of being unclothed such, I suppose, 
as Virgil describes in the meeting of yEneas and his father 
in this case I suppose the passage would have no 
reference to a Christian view of Paradise ? 

Tell me in your next if you have any opinion on this 
point viz. what account is to be given of our Lord's human 
body still bearing the marks of the Passion if Westcott's 
theory (worked out in the ' Historic Faith ') of the soul, so to 
say, forming its own body hereafter is to be accepted ? 
Your ever affectionate Brother in Christ, 
EDWD. BICKERSTETH. 



That summer he preached at Wells Cathedral and ad- 
dressed the members of the Theological College, and stayed 
some days with the Bishop of Truro (Dr. Wilkinson) at Lis 
Escop. The Bishop introduced him to Sister Julian, Superior 
of the Community of the Epiphany, whose friendship he 
greatly valued and to whose advice he owed much in later 
days when forming and carrying on the work of St. Hilda's 
Mission in Tokyo. Later on he visited the Bishop of 
Durham (Dr. Lightfoot), and assisted at the marriage of 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 1 29 

his friend the Rev. J. D. M. Murray, 1 who had gone out to 
Delhi with him (1877). In August he went to Scotland, 
from whence he wrote to Lefroy, still under the impression 
he was to return to Delhi in October : 

Pitlochrie, Perthshire : August 6, 1884. 

My dear Lefroy, You will have heard of me indirectly 
through Winter, but I indeed owe you some direct reply to 
your most interesting accounts. Taking it as a whole, I 
am sure we have every reason for deep thankfulness at the 
result of your great meeting. 2 Hitherto one has felt that 
there has been something behind keeping the men back ; 
that even the better sort of them, who attended services 
and in part obeyed Christian laws and followed Christian 
customs, were trammelled by their connection with their 
fellow-countrymen, and so had but little sense of the value 
of their new privileges, and less still of the happiness of 
true religion. Now I do hope there will be a change. 
Decision for God was what was needed, and this seems to 
have been after the first few defalcations just what your 
midnight meeting has led to. 

It will be a great joy to you that your work among 
these men during these past two years has led up to this, 
and you ought to accept it to the full. Missionaries want 
all the joy God sends them. And it seems to me to augur 
very well for the future of the Chaiuars in Delhi. Of 
course, as you say, there will be still plenty of difficulties, 
and the little ship will want piloting amid rocks and quick- 
sands for many a day yet. Still, if there are some deter- 
mined men even in one quarter of the city who value their 
faith and their fidelity to their Lord above all things, in 
the end all will be well, and the good neutralise and 
lessen the evil from year to year. 

With heartiest love, I am, 
Your affectionate Brother in Christ, 

E. B. 

But next month came keen disappointment. The 
doctors again refused their permission for him to return, 

1 He had retired from the mission in 1880, and died in London, 
December 10, 1894. 

2 See chapter iv. p. 94. 

K 



130 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

and would not be moved by his earnest wishes. The 
college living of Framlingham, in Suffolk, had just fallen 
vacant, and he was strongly advised by some of his friends 
to take it. On turning then, as always, to his father, 
to Bishop Lightfoot, and Dr. Westcott for advice, he was 
surprised to find that they all three agreed that it was his 
duty to accept the offer, at least for a time. 

The living was one of the best endowed in the gift of 
the college, being then of the value of 1,3 SO/, per annum, 
with good rectory and grounds. The parish, with the hamlet 
of Saxsted, was in the county of Suffolk and diocese of 
Norwich, with a population of 3,000 souls. The place was 
not devoid of many interests, but owing to the advanced 
age of a nonagenarian rector it had fallen behind the 
times in the matter of parochial efficiency. To speak 
plainly, almost everything had to be done if ' the cure of 
the souls of the said parishioners ' was to be fulfilled. 

Bickersteth entered upon the work in October and at 
once set to work to do what was necessary, but it is clear 
he never felt settled there. He wrote to Lefroy : 

I am feeling very sad these days, thinking of your 
getting my letter at Delhi, and oh ! so wishing that for my 
letter and its sadness I could substitute myself and the joy 
of meeting you. I cannot bear to think, and do not think, 
that all the work we have done (and especially you and I 
together) is the work of a closed chapter in life, and I cannot 
but feel that we shall be allowed some-while to write it out 
to a completer end. It may not be so. God only knows, 
and in this thought is, and ought to be, rest. 

In a letter to the Rev. S. S. Allnutt he enumerated some 
ways in which he hoped still to be of use to the Cambridge 
Mission while Rector of Framlingham. 

Pembroke College, Cambridge : October 21, 1884. 

First, so many thanks for telegraphing. I read into 
your words all the love that sent them not that I was 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 131 

able exactly to act on them in any literal way. Having 
accepted Framlingham, I was forced to go on with 
the various processes of Induction, Institution, &c., 
but then you know, as Thiers said about the French 
Republic, ' a thing is not eternal because it is estab- 
lished ;' so it is with me and this living. If I see my 
way opened India- wards again, and some ray of light 
showing me that I am to walk along it I should rather 
perhaps say, hear some voice bidding me do so no con- 
sideration of being in an English living will, I trust and 
hope, keep me from coming to you. I feel sure that I was 
right in obeying now and doing what I was told, notwith- 
standing the grief unto tears which the decision has caused 
me ; but I do not at all feel equally sure that to come out 
may not be my duty (made plain as my duty) in less time 
than most people think. Only I feel I cannot make plans. 
When God wills me to come, if so it be (and as I expect), 
He will make it plain that I ought to come by giving me 
strength perhaps, and opening some special work for me 
with you, or making it easy for me to give up work here. 
I shall try daily to. pray, 'Make Thou Thy way plain 
before my face. ' 

He also wrote to me at Ripon, where I then resided as 
chaplain to the Bishop (Dr. Boyd Carpenter) : 

The Rectory, Framlingham : 
October 31, 1884. 

My dear Sam, It is before breakfast but after chota 
haziri (we keep somewhat Indian hours here). As for 
writing you a long letter about my doings, don't you wish 
you may get it ? Why, you might consider it so interesting ! 
as to take it instead of the visit you promised me here. I 
am expecting you for some of the days you (previous to 
receiving this letter) meant to spend (only by a lapse of 
memory) at Lancaster Gate. On the whole I shall wish 
to have you on the I2th, as a young curate is coming to 
stay with me later, and we shall be less cosy (derivation 
' causer ' to chat, so equals ' chatable ' or ' chatatory '). 

Yes, I am here for a time. I can't think for long 
with enough work for ten years in merely getting things 
into order. I am thankful to be allowed to work, and feel 
better able to do it than previously but. .at present I do 

K 2 



132 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

not feel, though I shall, I trust, do all I can while here, that 
this is to be my life's work. But God knoweth. And, after 
all, life is far more like a mosaic of different pieces than a 
polished slab, so in a sense it is life's work. 

About the word catholic, see Westcott's note in his 
' Canon.' The more important of its two early meanings 
(universal and proportionate) that is, proportionate has 
been forgotten. 

Yours very affectionately, 

E. B. 

To his old head master he wrote : 

November 5, 1884. 

My dear Dr. Dyne, It was a very great pleasure to 
me to receive your kind letter. Leaving Indian work for 
the time being (I do not give up the hope of getting back 
to it in time) has been a great trial to me, but I believe 
that it is God's will that I should be for a while here. I 
have a large parish, with two churches and two curates. 

Yours most sincerely, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 

The parish church of Framlingham needed restoration 
and that work he at once began, though he could not do more 
than begin it. He was enabled, however, to see some desir- 
able alterations made in the chancel, and also in its furniture. 

As for the spiritual fabric, he knew it to be a much 
more delicate and difficult matter to handle wisely the 
spiritual stones of the living Church of Christ. But house- 
to-house visitation there, as everywhere, proved an invalu- 
able opportunity for explaining alterations, removing pre- 
judices, recruiting workers, as well as for that direct appeal to 
the human conscience, which the true pastor of souls learns 
how and when to make. Some of his friends, notably 
Canon Crowfoot of Lincoln, came to his assistance in 
beginning for that parish the special use of Advent and 
Lent as seasons for spiritual advance. Tho services of 
Holy Week in 1885 and the Three Hours' service on Good 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 133 

Friday, conducted by Canon Crowfoot, warmed the hearts 
of the people for the Easter Festival, the congregations on 
that day being full of encouragement. A visit paid to the 
parish in 1898, the year after his death and twelve years 
after he had ceased to be Rector, elicited from many their 
faithful and grateful remembrance of one who in his short 
ministry there had led them to Christ. 

But had he wished to settle down, his former Diocesan, 
Bishop French of Lahore, had no intention of losing 
his services in India if he could possibly retain them. 
The value which he set on his chaplain's work and 
influence may be gathered from a note in his Diary, written 
a year later on hearing of his call to Japan : 

Bickersteth's withdrawal has stunned me and pierced 
me to the quick of my soul. Should I, like Jonah, when 
stormy waves beat over our ship, ask to be let down the 
side of the ship, not to be swallowed up, even temporarily I 
hope, but to be transferred to some small missionary post ? 
The diocese should go into mourning, and the Gazette 
record it in black-edged notice. I have gone for a day's 
outing ^vhen young, and something has happened which 
took zest, sparkle, and spangle out of the day's pleasure ; 
I am almost tempted to find this in this sorrowful event. 

He referred to the same subject in an address to his 
clergy at the Diocesan Synod at Lahore, November 23, 
1885: 

About the transfer of Mr. Bickersteth's services I can 
hardly trust myself to speak yet. It ought to be a thought 
of comfort, and will be so, I trust, when the first shock of 
sorrow and disappointment has passed, that if the diocese 
of Lahore must wear the weeds of mourning, that of Japan 
may well wear the marriage garment of joy and praise. 

It is not therefore surprising that on this occasion he 
left no stone unturned to secure his return. On hearing of 
the acceptance of Framlingham, he telegraphed at once to 



134 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Lord Kimberley (Secretary of State for India) asking him 
to confer a chaplaincy on Bickersteth that he might reside 
at Simla in the hot weather. The Bishop also proposed 
to offer him an archdeaconry. Bickersteth wrote to Lefroy 
about what he described as ' this strange disturbing offer of 
chaplaincy and archdeaconry : ' 

Framlingham : November 20, 1884. 

Westcott refuses all advice. He says he has none to 
give. The offer coming from the Bishop, and yet upsetting 
such recently formed plans if it be accepted, are (he says) 
the pros and cons, but which should prevail he does not 
know ; my father also is undecided. As a consequence I 
am trying to work on here as if no such plan had been 
proposed, and am laying as I may the foundations of a 
parochial organisation. For myself I shrink greatly from 
a chaplaincy. . . . Still, if I could see the way open to be 
in charge of Simla and of some use to the mission, I do 
not know that I ought to shrink from it. I have made the 
latter a sort of condition with the Bishop of my considering 
the matter definitely. If, e.g., I was assured time each 
winter for a spell in the district with one of you, and had 
an open house to offer you by turns at Simla in the hot 
weather, this would be something. However, I will not run 
on in vain speculations. Till I hear, they are vain. Write 
me your full opinion. 

There was another question which in Bickersteth's 
opinion urgently pressed for settlement namely, the suc- 
cession to the headship of the mission. As long as he was 
in England planning to return at the earliest moment, his 
absence, though inconvenient, allowed of his duties being 
discharged by deputy. His acceptance of Framlingham 
altered the situation. The senior member of the mission, 
the Rev. H. C. C. Carlyon, did not wish for the headship, 
and Mr. Allnutt felt that he could not go on with his 
school work and also lead the mission. Mr. Lefroy was 
felt by all to have special aptitude for the duties of head- 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 135 

ship, but he was unwilling to assume the work at once. 
Moreover, the Cambridge Brotherhood were loth to give 
Bickersteth up as long as there was any possibility of his 
return. Accordingly, in the letter to Lefroy already quoted 
(dated November 20, 1 884), Bickersteth wrote : 

The [Cambridge] Committee is this day week, and as 
I think I mentioned to Allnutt I have written to Westcott 
to tell him that I shall support what seems your quite 
unanimous opinion because it is such, and I expect I shall 
get your wishes sanctioned, though somewhat against the 
independent opinion of the majority, as it is somewhat 
against my own. ... I do think and feel that you are 
very especially gifted %ptrt Ssov for the office. But this 
being so (again but for your letters) I should have de- 
cidedly held that you had better be appointed at once. 
There are grave evils in interregna : without the fault of 
anyone concerned, they keep things in uncertainty. How- 
ever, as you think otherwise (and I understand that you 
would like some further time for preparation and to look 
upon the next year or two as such) I shall, as I said, try 
and induce the Committee to accede. 

The offer of the archdeaconry with its intermittent 
possibilities of still serving the Cambridge Mission in- 
creased the uncertainty, but it did not alter Bickersteth's 
judgment that Mr. Lefroy should be head of the Cam- 
bridge Mission, as will be seen by the following letter : 

Gloucester : January 29, 1885. 

My dear Lefroy, Consider this scrap, please, a 
postscript to a letter which I have written to Allnutt and 
which he will send you. You will learn from it that there 
is some possibility of my returning to India in October 
no certainty and if I return of my eventually doing some 
work again at Delhi. Now what I want to say to you is 
that I do not think this should throw any doubt or hesita- 
tion into your mind with reference to your succession to 
the headship of the mission next year. If I return it will 
be to spend two years first of all at Simla, and then, 
perhaps, not to get more than seven months or so in the 



136 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

year at Delhi, of which I should be a good portion travel- 
ling in the district. Altogether, the prospect seems to me 
much too uncertain to admit of your entertaining any 
doubt that it is your duty to prepare during the next 
twelve months for accepting the full responsibility of the 
headship of the mission at Easter, 1886. I shall for my 
part, I believe, if again allowed to take part in mission 
work, work quite as happily under you as over you, and 
should such be the outcome of a somewhat far-off future, I 
see no reason to think that as between you and me there 
would be any difficulty. I write this now, however, because 
though my prospects of return are distant, your thoughts 
and prayers, through which you and the mission will be so 
largely shaped and influenced, are immediate. 

Your affectionate Brother in Christ, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 



In the event he, however, refused the proffered offer of 
the archdeaconry, chiefly on the advice of the Bishop 
(Pelham) of Norwich, and determined to make one more 
effort to return to Delhi itself. He wrote to Mr. Lefroy : 

Framlingham, Suffolk : March 5, 1885. 

There are only a few minutes to mail time, but I have 
several letters of yours unanswered and must send you a 
line, not, however, so much on account of the unanswered 
letters, though they are on my conscience, but because I 
have just decided, as far as I may for the present, on my 
future course. Briefly, I have refused Simla, and told the 
Bishop I will rejoin you in October if doctors will let me. 
I have been led to this, though after the greatest un- 
certainty for four months as to what I ought to do a four 
months which have been some of the most trying I ever 
spent mainly by the two following considerations : 

(a) The Bishop of Lahore has, in a series of letters of 
the most affectionate, and, at the same time, urgent cha- 
racter, pressed me to return to the Punjab. 

() I consulted the Bishop of Norwich, being the 
Bishop I am serving under. He said, in effect, ' If you are 
allowed to return to missionary work I have nothing to 
say, but your work in Framlingham is too important for 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 137 

you to give up to take, even for a time, other English work- 
in India.' 

Well, seeing myself a great deal to be said for taking 
Simla for the two years until I could see my way more 
clearly, I still did not feel at all certain enough that 1 was 
called to this to go against my present Bishop's advice. 

On the other hand, I have not been able to do other- 
wise than give the very greatest weight to the urgent 
invitations of a man I so much respect and love as the 
Bishop of Lahore. Well, the result is what I have told 
you. If doctors permit, I am returning to India in October ; 
but, without the interim of two years at Simla. I am 
coming straight to missionary work. 

I hope I may still be of some use to the Bishop at 
Simla, as for a couple of years certainly I shall have to 
be away from Delhi for May and June. 

Once again, however, he was denied his heart's desire. 
The doctors totally refused to entertain the idea of his 
return to India, and he had to write sadly to the Bishop of 
Lahore : 

The Rectory, Framlingham : March 26, 1885. 

My dear Bishop, It grieves me so to be writing this 
letter. The way to India for me seems again closed for 
the present. I obtained last week Dr. Westcott's consent 
to my return and the Master of Pembroke's, but was 
totally refused by Sir J. Fayrer when he examined me in 
London. He did not, indeed, say that his prohibition was 
final, but he did say plainly that I must not come now. I 
had only just escaped from a chronic disease, and though 
I am getting better I am not well, and that a return now to 
the plains and still more to the hills would be nearly sure 
to set it up again. The letter he wrote about me was such 
as to prohibit our committee from taking me. 

The disappointment is very great. I had counted on 
getting back now, and somehow believed I should. I can- 
not help still believing that it is only for a time : but for 
the present it does seem to make it a duty to do English 
work, and, I suppose, to work here where I am. My 
inclination is to retain my fellowship, and so to be free to 
come and go as I like ; but having come here at the advice 
of so many whom I am bound to respect, and having 



138 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

commenced work here, I do not like to throw it up, unless 
there is some call to me to go elsewhere. But wherever I 
am I shall always keep India in view as my objective. 
Pray for me, please, that I may be willing to accept what is 
to me the hardest of all decisions for as long as God 
wills it. 

It is just mail time, but I felt I must write this 
line. 

Ever your affectionate son in Christ, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 



No wonder he excused himself to the Cambridge 
Mission at Delhi for not writing to them on the details of 
the work as much as he had wished to do on the plea that 
' the double anxiety of starting a great parish and negotia- 
ting a return to India at the same time has been heavy, and 
I fear made me unduly self-centred. You have, however, 
been daily in my prayers, if I have not poured myself out 
on paper. You know I am, at the best, bad at the 
latter.' 

During that winter and spring came the interest aroused 
by his father's appointment, first as Dean of Gloucester, a 
position which he held for a few weeks only, and then by 
his call to the English episcopate as sixty-second Bishop of 
Exeter. This broke up the Hampstead home after thirty 
uninterrupted years. Edward was present with his father 
when he was installed as Dean at Gloucester on January 28, 
and attended him as chaplain on his consecration at St. 
Paul's Cathedral on St. Mark's Day, 1885, little thinking 
that within twelve months he would himself be called in 
the same place to bear the burden of fatherhood in God. 

Notwithstanding these interruptions, the parochial 
activities at Framlingham increased every month, and 
especially during Lent there was much encouragement n 
the attendance of many at the special services. On 
Easter Monday my brother wrote to me at Ripon : 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 139 

Every good wish of this season. Surely it was a true 
instinct which saw in Easter ' the Queen of Festivals.' If 
only Christ Risen had been more kept in mind, people 
would never have fallen into the mistake of substituting 
the acceptance of a doctrine for union with a Person as the 
condition of salvation. . . The forbidding of my return to 
India has been a great trial. I had made up my mind it 
was to be. Now father and all advise my staying here, and 
on the principle of not moving till one is called I think I 
shall. If I do, I shall try and make this place a centre for 
a society of missioners, to preach especially in Suffolk, but 
not exclusively. I had my vestry this morning. Only 
one opponent of my changes in a large meeting, and he 
never comes to church ! Pray that I may be guided 
aright. 

Your ever affectionate Brother, 

E. B. 

However, during the next three or four months his 
health so far improved as to enable him yet once again to 
wring a hesitating consent from his medical advisers to 
his return to Delhi. He wrote to Lefroy : 

Vicar's Close, Wells : September 9, 1885. 

My dear Lefroy, I have been spending another few days 
of pleasant holiday with my father on the borders of Dart- 
moor, picking up health and strength for India. . . I go 
on to my brother Sam's at Ripon, then, I think, to Lincoln, 
and then to wind up my affairs at Framlingham and preach 
farewell sermons. Even after a short year, farewell-saying 
is sore work, especially to the sick and others whom one 
has seen often ; and my decision was so pushed off from 
week to week by causes that I could not control that my 
time is now not long. Perhaps this is for the best. 

I do not think that I have attained to the standard you 
put before me in this decision of returning to you to which 
1 have come, I mean I have rather thought of coming to 
make another as persevering an attempt as I may to live 
in India and work with you all, than of necessarily coming 
to live or die. Perhaps the other would have been and 
would be the higher determination, but I don't think that 
I can be sure enough of what any resolution I now made 



140 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

would be worth at some future crisis, as men of greater 
moral strength would be, to make it right for me to act 
under the pressure of so high a purpose. Mine, I admit, is 
the lower ground not by any means ' a counsel of perfec- 
tion,' but safer, I feel, for me. Curiously, as regards leav- 
ing Framlingham I was helped by knowing (I should not 
like this generally mentioned) that I should not anyhow 
have been there for more than a short time longer that is, 
in all probability. 

I start on October 30, and come by Brindisi ; I fancy 
this is best for me medically and otherwise. I may be in 
time for the Synod. How very delightful it is to think 
that the month after next I shall probably see you all 
again. 

May God give you and me to do a little more work 
together for Him. 

There is more to write, but this will do for to-night. 
Your very affectionate Brother, 
EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 



At my house in Ripon I remember witnessing his 
signature to the deed of resignation of Framlingham, the 
one and only English parish which he held, and which 
henceforth he remembered in prayer every Wednesday. 
Had he been minded to settle in England, few places 
could have combined more attractions for one who, 
whether at home or abroad, never lost the keenest interest 
in the vexed and various problems which beset the 
development of the Church in England. The ample en- 
dowment would have enabled him to carry out any schemes 
which commended themselves to his judgment. But 
although the work there had drawn out many of his 
pastoral instincts, and was rich in opportunities of service, 
the missionary spirit had passed into his very soul, his love 
for the work at Delhi was little less than a passionate 
attachment, and there can be no doubt that he loosed 
himself from these moorings with an intense joy at the 
thought of returning to Delhi. 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 141 

And now he was to be tested by a new call. 

His berth for India was taken for the third time, and 
the day of his departure in October was settled, when a 
telegram from the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Benson) 
was destined wholly to change the scene of his future 
labours. The Archbishop had entertained Bickersteth 
both at Lincoln and at Truro as his guest, and he 
turned to him when he had to appoint a successor to 
Bishop Poole (Bishop of the Church of England in Japan), 
whose deeply lamented death after a brief episcopate of 
two years had occurred in the summer of I885. 1 

The Providence which thus transferred Bickersteth 
from the East to the Far East is unmistakable. In Japan 
he carried on his work for eleven years ; it is doubtful if he 
could really have stayed as many months in India. In 
Japan a man was wanted whose experience had already 
taught him the wide difference between the western and 
eastern mind ; the delicacy of the relationship between 
the principles underlying episcopacy and the accidental 
circumstances of which missionary societies are the too 
permanent product ; the undoubted advantages attaching 
to holy homes in which married missionaries can illustrate 
many Christian virtues, and yet the urgent call for Com- 
munity missions of women as well as of men not only 
or chiefly because more economical, but because apostolic 
simplicity and the ' separating ' vocation of the Holy 
Spirit can therein be very plainly exhibited ; the real 
importance of accurate translations both of Bible and of 
Prayer Book, and yet the danger of cumbering nascent 
churches with the literary lumber of mediaeval contro- 
versies ; the absolute necessity of maintaining the sense of 
the presence of God amid the inevitable loneliness of spirit 

1 The Right Rev. A. W. Poole, D.D., was consecrated in Lambeth 
Palace Chapel on October 18, 1883, and died on July 14, 1885. 



142 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

inseparable from missionary life, as well as a rule of life at 
once sober and strict for newly won converts ; and, as a 
guiding principle, unifying all missionary activities and 
dominating them, the keeping in view as the aim in all the 
work, the building up of a native Church to be in God's 
own time a true branch of Christ's Holy Catholic Church, 
an organ for the spiritual development of the nation, a body 
in which the Holy Spirit could dwell and prepare the 
Bride of Christ. 

It is plain to any reader of these pages that Edward 
Bickersteth as Fellow of his college, as the head of a Mis- 
sionary Brotherhood, as examining chaplain and confiden- 
tial friend of Bishop French at a time when the newly 
formed see of Lahore was being rounded into separate 
existence and made instinct with synodical activities, as 
already the painstaking learner of five Eastern languages 
and the sympathetic student in loco of at least two of the 
great Oriental religions, and as one not wholly unac- 
quainted with the details of pastoral and parochial activity 
had enjoyed advantages which promised to be of special 
use to him as a Missionary Bishop among the progressive 
Japanese, however much his appointment may have 
severed (as it did) the tenderest ties which fast bound him 
to his first missionary home. 

But he was not in much doubt as to which way the 
path of duty led him. If the Archbishop thought him the 
right man, then he was ready to go where he was sent. 
As usual, he wrote to Lefroy : 

Trinity College, Cambridge : October 30, 1885. 

My dear Lefroy, ... I have written to the Arch- 
bishop accepting Japan. The day after the mail last week 
I got an answer from the Bishop of Durham, quite agree- 
ing with Dr. Westcott, and so, as I obeyed before, I have 
obeyed again. I believe it is right. I know that it is not 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 143 

my own desire. Coming back to you all was a thought of 
constant joy to me. Work in Japan at present looks cold 
and comfortless. I do not mean that it always will do so. 
It has perhaps as great interests as any country could 
have, and I doubt not that I shall get to love the people, 
the work, and my fellow-labourers (some of whom, 
according to all accounts, are very excellent, among others 
Foss of Christ's, Lloyd of Peterhouse, Fyson of Christ's) 
as time goes on. But I speak of my present feelings. 
But we shall be doing one work and for one Master. I 
hope, too, the connection between Delhi and Japan may 
not be one of letters only. Parts of the country are quite 
a sanitorium, and some of you will come, I do trust, from 
time to time to see me. Maitland (to whom my hearty 
love) will of course abjure Australia in its favour ! I do 
not expect to start before January. The consecration day 
is not yet settled. . . 

Well ! farewell for to-day. My daily thoughts and 
prayers are with you. 

Your very affectionate Brother, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 

Again he wrote to him for the New Year : 

The Palace, Exeter: December n, 1885. 

My dear Lefroy, I must write you a line for the New 
Year, just to wish you in it all the greatest and most 
glorious blessings that time, as it goes, can bring with it. 
Do you remember our spending New Year's Day at 
Mehrowli four years since, and oh ! how I had looked 
forward to spending it and this winter in Delhi ! It had 
been the point of my hopes, and I seemed just about to 
reach it ; perhaps my way of bringing it about was too 
self-willed. Anyhow, it has been turned aside from where I 
wished it to tend, whither I have no longings or drawings, 
and where instead of the re-knitting of old and strongest 
affections, I may only look at the most to making new 
acquaintances which can never at the utmost be nearly what 
the old affections have been and are. Well, it is just that 
' are ' which is a comfort to me sometimes. To us being sv 
Xpia-Tw there is a true permanence amid all the incessant 
changings of this changeful life, something has been gained 
by the life and love together which will not ever die. 



144 I5ISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

But at present this separation is very hard. I believe 
it was right. At least, all wise people told me I had no 
choice, and I submitted it to enough of them ; but still, ever 
since I agreed to go to Japan I have had such a longing 
for Delhi and the society of you all that I dare say I have 
painted my future life in duller colours than perhaps it will 
actually wear, and, if so, this is not right. I ought, and I 
recognise it, to feel thankful that I am being sent to 
mission work, and to an important position where there is 
more hope of my being able to work continuously than 
there could have been in my loved Delhi. And you will 
get the wider view-point, too ; indeed, you already have, 
and from it the survey of life at least shall have in it hope 
and peace, though not all the lights that I had been 
making to play around my prospects. . . 

With hearty New Year's wishes and love to all, 
Your affectionate Brother in Christ, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 

To Rev. S. S. Allnutt 

January 8, 1886. 

My dear Allnutt, My consecration is fixed for 
February 2, and I am to start about March I. The multi- 
tude of meetings, &c., which I am obliged to attend in 
order to get up a Japanese fund prevents my taking an 
earlier mail. Also, I am trying to get men to accompany 
me, or join me in Japan. Meetings in Oxford and Cam- 
bridge in February may (as I pray) draw out someone, 
but they may not. I have often dreaded a lonely life, and 
it may be God's discipline for me for a time that I be 
alone. . . . 

I know you will give me your heartiest, fullest prayers, 
both unitedly and individually, on February 2, and when I 
am starting so I need not ask them. . . . 

... I shall look forward longingly. In March plainly 
1 could not come. Not only the weather is against it, but 
much is waiting me in Japan (confirmations and ordina- 
tions) which it would not be right to delay. Now that I 
have undertaken it, I must bear my burden and you will 
help me. 

Farewell sv Xptcrr&>. That bond unites absolutely 
Your very affectionate brother in Christ, 

EDW. BICKERSTETH. 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 145 

It is plain that Edward Bickersteth's call to Japan 
came from that Spirit Who still, as in the Church of the 
first days, uses that word, ' Separate Me Barnabas and 
Saul for the work ' a word which now as then cuts to the 
dividing asunder of relationships most intimate and friend- 
ships most close. 

But although the young Bishop-designate he was 
then only thirty-five years of -age felt the conflict so 
counter and so keen, he at once threw himself with 
characteristic energy into all the preparations for his new 
work. 

The postponement of the time originally fixed for his 
consecration chafed him as he longed to start ; but he 
occupied the longer interval in trying to catch some fishers 
of men who would join the Community Mission of St 
Andrew, which he at once determined to found. There was 
now also no let to his taking preliminary steps for the 
formation of St. Hilda's Community Mission for Women 
on the lines which he had already thought out as suitable 
for Delhi. Another care was to find a congenial companion 
as chaplain. ' Pray for me that I may find a true a-vvspyos 
(he wrote to Lefroy). I know too well how often my own 
judgments would have been wrong unless they had been 
balanced and corrected by you and the others. I want a 
man on whom I can rely for the diocese's sake as well as 
for my own.' 

It was at this time also that he created the nucleus of 
St. Paul's Guild for Prayer, the first members consisting 
chiefly of his own brothers and sisters. We all met as a 
family at Exeter for that Christmas and New Year, and no 
one would have known that Edward had to bear up under 
the still recent disappointment of not returning to Delhi 
and the load of his new duties, dimly descried. He 
threw himself into all the home festivities, and we enjoyed 

L 



146 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

one or two long walks on Dartmoor. On New Year's Day 
he wrote to Lefroy, whose father had recently died, and 
dwelt much on the permanence of the work done by the 
regenerate life. 

The Palace, Exeter: January i, 1886. 

My dear Lefroy, I only saw a notice in the paper of 
the great sorrow which has come to you and yours after 
the mail left last week. You will know how much you 
have been you are always, but beyond usual in my heart 
and prayers since. I know not if you will have heard by 
telegram of your father's call ; anyhow, I do not doubt 
that to you, who have served Him so stedfastly and lived 
with Christ these years so closely, there will be given now, 
when you so need it, not the removal of sorrow which 
none of us would have even if we could but the deep 
divine consolation which assuages it, and in time even 
illuminates it. I have been thinking a good deal about 
the real permanence of Christian work recently. All these 
changes which have come to myself, and perhaps unduly 
saddened me, have driven me that way for comfort. The 
changeless God ; the eternal fact of the God-man ; the 
communication of His life through the Spirit to all 
the sons of God and brethren of Christ ; these are the 
foundation truths, and from them results this, that all 
which they, God's sons and Christ's brethren, do has an 
eternal significance too. ' He that eateth of this Bread 
shall live for ever.' ' He that believeth on Me shall never 
die.' and if so, no work which is done by the energies 
of the regenerate life dies either ; it may seem to, but 
it does not. It has gone to add something to the 
increase, perfection, or beauty of the ever rising temple 
of God. 

And so your father's long life of usefulness to Church 
and parish, every nearest affection, and even perhaps 
through God's mercy some fragments of such broken work 
as my own, live on. 

I have been thinking of you, too, as being called to 
give up for India's sake something more than any of us 
have been called to. Absence from home we voluntarily 
adopt and we need not deny it to be difficult and a self- 
denial but it becomes far more so, and therefore by a 



FURLOUGH FRAMLINGHAM CALL TO JAPAN 147 

divine law which generally, I think, measures ultimate 
results to the suffering by which they are brought about, 
more fruitful, when it involves being away from those we 
love when we would most of all long to be with them. 
This great sorrow and its consolations, my dear brother, 
are given you not for your sake only, but for the sake of 
Hindus and Muhammadans yet outside, that they too may 
in years to come ' be comforted with the comfort wherewith 
you yourself are comforted of God.' Think of it this way 
when you can, sometimes. 

A Bishop's duties begin to press on me as in prospect 
and reality very onerous. 

Yours with abiding love and sympathy, 

EDWD. BICKERSTETH. 

The day of the consecration was then uncertain, but it 
was a few days later settled for the Feast of the Presenta- 
tion of Christ (February 2), to be in St. Paul's Cathedral 
on the same day as that of Lord Alwyne Compton, who 
had been called to fill the see of Ely. 

Edward Bickersteth's private note-book of spiritual 
resolutions bears ample evidence of the spirit in which he 
entered upon the episcopate. At the consecration the 
sermon was preached by Canon Paget, now Dean of 
Christ Church, Oxford, and the elected Missionary Bishop 
of Japan, vested with his rochet, was led up to the Arch- 
bishop by the former and present Bishops of Exeter 
that is, by Dr. Temple (now Archbishop of Canterbury, 
then Bishop of London) and by Dr. E. H. Bickersteth. 
Few who were present at the consecration could be un- 
moved spectators of this scene when the father led up 
his eldest son to the Archbishop of the province to 
present him for consecration. 

In the huge congregation there was a largely missionary 
element, and besides numerous relations there were present 
representatives of every period of Edward Bickersteth's 
life those who had known him at school, at college, or in 



148 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

India while the Delhi Brotherhood telegraphed to him 
as the assurance of their prayers, Philippians iv. I/. 1 

From henceforth the newly consecrated Bishop never 
failed to remember in his prayers the Bishop of Ely, in 
company with whom he had received the special spiritual 
grace which he firmly believed was granted in accordance 
with Divine promise to those who by apostolic succession 
had been brought, as Bishops, into a new relation with their 
ascended Lord. Within four weeks of his consecration 
Bishop Edward Bickersteth left for Japan. 

1 He kept the copy of this telegram in his MS. book of private devotions 
to the 'end of his life. 



149 



CHAPTER VI 

A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 

' I may add that no brighter prospect, I believe, has ever been set before the 
missionary than that in Japan.' Letter to Dr. Searle, August 14, 1886. 

THE Bishop left England on Saturday, March 6, 1886, for 
the Far East, and, travelling by way of Milan and Brindisi, 
reached Alexandria on Ash Wednesday, March 10. There 
he joined the Rev. H. Maundrell, who, with his wife and 
children, was returning after furlough to Nagasaki, 1 a 
C.M.S. station in Kiushiu, the great southern island of 
the Japanese Empire. Mr. Maundrell, who had more than 
once visited Hampstead, proved to be a most pleasant 
travelling companion, and it was God's good Providence 
which sent to the somewhat lonely Bishop so sympathetic a 
friend. Two years later he made him Archdeacon of 
Kiushiu, and placed much reliance on his good judgment. 
The following extracts are from letters written on the 
journey. 

To his Father 

Alexandria : Ash Wednesday, March 10, 1886. 

There could scarcely be a less pleasant way of spend- 
ing Sunday than in pouring rain running down the east 
coast of Italy for the most part alone in a railway carriage. 

1 This well-known port derives a special interest from the fact of its having 
been the scene of a large number of the martyrdoms which give lustre to 
Japanese Church History in the seventeenth century, while the English 
Bishop's chapel now occupies the ground where once renegade Dutch 
merchants trampled on the cross as a condition of their trading with Japan. 



150 BISHOP EDWARD BICKEKSTETH 

However, I read my services, and the earliest Christian 
sermon on record outside the Canon, the so-called Second 
Letter of St. Clement of Rome, really a homily by an un- 
known writer. I must make up my mind, I expect, to a good 
many lonely journeys, and seek to realise more fully the 
Presence of the Divine Guide. . . 

The man I have seen most of (on board) is one of Mr. 
Spurgeon's preachers ! . . . 

Still, much as I should value Lent in a Christian 
country, I am not altogether sorry to be journeying during 
it. It will be helpful, I trust, to trying to make the time 
a preparation for all the work before me. A strange eight 
years and a half indeed it has been since I was last draw- 
ing near to Alexandria with dear Murray : full of changes 
and surprises but I trust that God has been with me, and 
His guidance in the past should give me confidence for the 
future. ' Because Thou hast been my help, therefore' &c. 
Had I been going back to India the journey would have 
been comparatively natural. As it is, I am going again to 
the wholly unknown, and this is a great added trial to that 
of leaving you all. 

S.S. Bokhara, near Aden : March 16, 1886. 

A strange party we were on the little launch [at Suez] 
Indian officers, missionaries, ladies, Italian workmen hired 
for S. Indian gold mines, &c. 

I find Maundrell a very agreeable companion, and am 
getting from him a good deal of information about Japan. 
As yet I have learnt more about Japan than I have of 
Japanese. I brought with me so much to do of arrears of 
letters, accounts, &c., that my time has been well filled up. 
I do not spend more than about an hour and a half on 
deck, I think, usually. Almost the only book I have read 
at all has been the Report of the Osaka Conference of 
1883, which contains a mass of missionary information on 
all topics connected with Japan. . . We have a short daily 
service every day in the saloon at 10.30 . . . and had two 
services on Sunday. None of these have been very well 
attended, except the morning service on Sunday. Indians 
and colonists, like English farmers, are far too often content 
to make their one weekly service do duty for their whole 
religion. How we do need a higher standard ! and abroad, 
where it should be highest, everything tends to depress it, 
and it is lower than at home. . . I am despatching a heavy 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 151 

mail to London and Delhi, as well as Exeter so will not 
write more. My thoughts and prayers are ever with you. 

To Rev. S. S. Allnutt 

S.S. Bokhara, Red Sea : March 14, 1886. 

In a way there seems something wrong that I am at 
last, after so many attempts, coming East, and not coming 
to dear old Delhi ; and yet, as I look back upon it all now, 
in this the first period of quiet I have had for some time, 
I feel that God has been guiding me, though not in the path 
I had chosen. Well, if so, some day we shall be able to see 
that our plans were better broken and our efforts frustrated. 

... In Japan it is at present plainly, from all I have 
gathered, the day as yet of small realisations but large hopes. 
In one matter, however, which has been a good deal on my 
mind, they are ahead of India that is, in their readiness to 
undertake, in part or even altogether, their church support. 
Of course, in Japan they have profited by Indian experience 
of the disastrous results of too much help from England 
and America, and lay the greatest stress on independence. 
It may be that we have not been bold enough in the matter 
as yet at Delhi. Winter, I know, lays stress on the united 
service on Sunday morning in St. Stephen's, &c., but I 
cannot help thinking more than I did that with so large a 
body of missionaries as Delhi possesses, and is likely to 
retain, there will be great danger of overshadowing the 
native Church, which it is our very object to establish, and 
weakening where we think to support. Were the man forth- 
coming it would really, I believe, be a healthier thing for St. 
Stephen's and its services to be in native hands. Ot course, 
I know he is not at present, and it is also much easier to 
write about than effect changes ; but I do feel increasingly 
alike what the danger is and, therefore, what our object 
should be. 

To his Father 

S.S. Bokhara : March 24, 1886. 

I am getting on a little with Japanese under my good 
tutor Maundrell's care. . . . To think that this is my sixth 
Eastern language (besides Hebrew ) ! I hope it is the 
last. . . . 

It seems so strange to be so near India, the land where 



152 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETII 

I had thought to spend my life, and to be going on so 
very far beyond ; but as I have been looking back these 
days on the last three years and a half, certainly the 
Providence has seemed very marked which has led me to 
Japan. 

The steamer touched at Colombo on Lady Day, and 
the Bishop was able to land and see Bishop Copleston, and 
go with him to a celebration of Holy Communion. By 
April 8 Hongkong was reached and a few days later 
Shanghai. From these two places he wrote : 

To his Father 

C.M.S. House, Hong Kong: April 8, 1886. 

I have a good deal of talk with some of my fellow 
passengers on religious subjects. Among men in the East 
infidelity is everywhere ; partly the misstatements of the 
. Creed that have been so rife, above all the crude doctrine 
of Atonement that has been taught as if it, and not the fact 
it misrepresents, were the centre of the Gospel ; partly the 
uncertainty occasioned by the great variety of Christian 
sects ; partly the supposed inroads of science, and an un- 
defined fear that more will yet have to be given up, seem 
to have shaken the faith of men generally in the Far East. 
Of course there are many exceptions, but from what I am 
told, and the little I have seen, the disease of unbelief 
is very widely spread. Still, I am inclined to believe, as 
notably the last few years at Oxford, there will be a re- 
action before long. Men have been reading Buckle and 
Renan as discoverers and innovators, but the novelty is 
wearing off, and the hollowness of what they had to say 
will surely then become more apparent. . . . 

I am longing for news of you all, and shall feel it a 
great comfort when the weekly letters begin to arrive. 

Shanghai : April 13, 1886. 

At Shanghai Maundrell and I drove out to Sikawei, a 
great Jesuit establishment about five miles from the city. 
Truly as far as buildings and institutions are concerned the 
Jesuits have done great things. Sikawei is an immense 
collection of large houses devoted to various missionary 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 153 

objects. The largest is a college, to which pupils are sent 
from the interior, with a grand library, an observatory, 
museum, &c., and rooms for a considerable number of 
fathers. The rooms certainly were plain enough a bed, 
table, and chairs seemed the only furniture. Convents, 
girls' schools, orphanages, &c., are at a little distance. We 
were shown over the college by a lively French Jesuit in 
Chinese costume, pigtail and all complete. It looked 
laughable, but ' extremes meet.' Major Tucker and the 
Salvation Army are doing the same thing in India, and 
think it essential to large success. I wish at all events 
that there were in Japan some men like Bateman and 
Gordon of the Punjab, who identified themselves in a 
wonderful way with the people. 

It is extremely hard to find out the moral value of the 
results of Roman Catholic missions in these countries. A 
Nonconformist missionary after nearly forty years of experi- 
ence in the Canton province told me that he believed their 
work to be good, and that not a few of the country people 
whom he had come across were simple-minded Christians. 
On the other hand, Archdeacon Moule had come across 
some Mariolatry which seemed little better than a sort 
of z'</<?/atry. 

On the way back we visited another great missionary 
establishment Bishop Boone's, of the American Church. 
Unfortunately he was out, and I only just had time to 
leave a card and peep into a dear little church, where a 
Chinese clergyman was reading the Evensong Psalms. 

But the leisure which the voyage afforded had been 
turned by the Bishop to a more abiding purpose. In an 
' open ' letter which he addressed to the Rev. Dr. Searle, 
Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, he brought under 
review the leading features of Japan at that time, its 
chief needs and a characteristic proposal for helping to 
meet them. That proposal was the establishment of a 
University mission in some chief city of the empire, 
such as Cambridge had already sent to Delhi. 

Before leaving England he had brought this idea 
before the notice of personal friends, and addressed two 



154 



BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 



A plea 
for Uni- 
versity 
help. 



The claim 
of ancient 
countries 
upon 
ancient 
Uni- 
versities. 



meetings, one at Cambridge and one at Oxford, on the 
subject. He had argued that : 

To allow a great and prosperous nation to adopt the 
outward form of our civilisation without the knowledge of 
the faith on which it is based would be disastrous to them 
and dishonourable to us. To embrace the opportunity 
could not fail to ensure the divine blessing alike on them 
and us. 

He was careful to point out that already the mis- 
sionaries supported by the S.P.G. and C.M.S., as well as 
those sent out by the Sister Church of America, were doing 
excellent work in Japan, but that these missionaries would 
no doubt welcome, as they had done in India, additional 
labourers in a mission such as it was proposed to establish. 

He now wrote to Dr. Searle the following thoughtful 
and earnest appeal : 

S. S. Ancona, Singapore : March 31, 1886. 

The meetings of University men which I was allowed 
to address in Cambridge, Oxford, and elsewhere during 
last month, and especially the crowded meeting over 
which you so kindly presided in the old library of the 
college, have left in my mind a hope which I can 
scarcely doubt the future will fulfil that my request for a 
small body of men to establish a mission in Japan will not 
be disregarded. I wish in this letter to put before you 
some of the reasons which seem to me to justify this 
request at the present time. 

It is admitted that the nations which have the chief 
claim upon the missionary energies of the Universities are 
those which, with ancient histories, civilisations, and re- 
ligious systems of their own, have in recent years been to 
a greater or less degree permeated by our culture and 
knowledge. Particular places in Christendom will naturally 
select for their own sphere of work those places in the 
non-Christian world in which the characteristic resources 
and gifts at their command may find full and special em- 
ployment. From this point of view the great nations of 
the East, which in place of their ancient systems, in our 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 155 



own day and under our very eyes, are adopting the culture, 
the philosophies, and sciences of the West, seem to appeal 
with special force for that help which our Universities are 
best able to give. 

There are not very many places in the East in which 
as yet this is the case. It may be hoped, too, that in time 
to come native Christian Churches will themselves be in 
a position to secure that the claims of Christianity shall not 
be put on one side in the countries where they are estab- 
lished through the pressure of secular sciences. For the 
present this is not so, and if to-day Christianity is to 
obtain a hearing in the chief centres of literary and 
scientific life in the East, the few men of ability and learn- 
ing in the native Churches must be assisted by Western 
teachers of the faith. 

The islands of Japan have a population of about thirty- 
eight millions. Their intercourse with the West, after an 
interval of more than two centuries, recommenced in the year 
1853 ; and it was only so recently as 1868 that the Revo- 
lution took place, which resulted in the break-up of the 
old feudal system of the country and placed in complete 
authority the present dynasty and government. From this 
date commenced also the introduction with such startling 
rapidity of European methods and customs, and the adop- 
tion of the latest discoveries of the West. Railways and 
steamers, telegraphs and telephones, post offices and post 
office savings banks, and our methods of municipal and 
executive government, have all been introduced within the 
space of less than two decades into a country which was 
wholly unknown to the last generation of Englishmen. It 
is expected that the first representative Parliament will 
meet in 1890. With the outward marks of our civilisation 
has been adopted also our system of education. Japan for 
a thousand years has possessed an educational method 
founded upon that of China. Since the renewed inter- 
course with Europe this has been re-modelled in all its 
branches. Between 1873 an d 1883, 29,000 schools had 
been built and opened, and more are being established 
every year. The chief object of the old method of educa- 
tion was the acquisition of the Chinese character as the 
indispensable key to all later study of literature and philo- 
sophy. Not less than ten years was spent in this unpro- 
ductive toil. This study now occupies a subordinate place. 



Even 

native 

Churches 

need 

foreign 

help at 

first. 



The mar- 
vellous de- 
velopment 
of Japan : 
(a) politic- 
ally ; 



(b) edu- 
cationally. 



156 



mSHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 



Hence had 
arisen a 
desire to 
learn 
about 
Christian- 
ity- 



Proofs of 
this desire. 



Buddhism 
thus 
stirred 
into recru- 
descence. 



The ordinary subjects of primary education among our- 
selves have, to a considerable extent, supplanted it. Our 
text-books of science and literature are being translated, 
and English is taught as a classic. 

Two other changes seem to have accompanied the 
spreading of education among the masses of the people. 
On the one hand, they are far more ready than when the 
country was first re-opened to give a respectful hearing to 
the claims of Christianity. On the other, a determined 
and not altogether unsuccessful attempt is being made by 
the priesthood to revive an interest in Buddhism. 

Many causes, I gather, have combined with education 
to produce the change in the popular attitude towards 
Christianity, such as the better understanding of its tenets 
and character through the labours of missionaries, and the 
neutral position in regard to all religious faiths now taken 
up by the Government. The change itself seems very 
marked. Thus in 1860 a missionary wrote that when he 
mentioned the subject of Christianity in the presence of a 
Japanese, his hand would almost involuntarily be applied 
to his throat to indicate the extreme perilousness of such a 
topic. How great the contrast of this with an account in a 
recent number of the missionary organ of the American 
Church, in which I find that the people of a district near 
Osaka, the second city of Japan, are so earnest in their 
desire to learn Christianity that they have built a large 
house for a school, and are determined to have no one but 
a Christian to take charge of it. This feeling has for some 
time past been reflected in the native journals. In 1881 a 
leading Japanese paper declared Christianity to be the only 
religion that can satisfy the aspirations of the Japanese 
people to-day ; and another paper in my possession of so 
recent a date as last June assigns the spread of Christianity 
as the reason of the falling off of the income of a Buddhist 
sect. 

On the other hand, Buddhism seems not prepared in 
any degree to loose its hold upon the people without a 
struggle. Mr. Warren, the secretary of the Church 
Missionary Society in Japan, wrote in 1879 : ' Buddhism, at 
least in one of its branches, the Shiu sect, shows remarkable 
signs of vigour. . . It is making strenuous efforts to get a 
footing in Satsuma, from which province it has hitherto 
been excluded, and it has just completed a large college at 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 157 

Kyoto for the accommodation of 600 students. There is a 
rumour that some of the numerous students educated there 
may eventually be sent to Europe and America for 
proselytising purposes.' Mr. Maundrell, a missionary of 
the same society who is with me on board, tells me that 
he has experienced opposition in Kiushiu, the most 
southerly island of the Japanese group, which must be 
assigned to the same cause the revived energy of the 
Buddhist priesthood. It is well known that Japanese 
Buddhists, who have become aware of the vast differences 
between Buddhism as they received it in Japan and the 
system which 500 years before our era was taught by 
Gautama in India, have recently been studying in Europe 
the earlier records of their faith. This is another evidence 
of the strength of this movement, notwithstanding the 
opposition it has met from the progressive party. Such a 
renewal of interest in a system which for a thousand years 
has exercised supreme influence over the religious opinions 
of a great nation was perhaps to be expected. The Bishop 
of Durham, I think, has pointed out that the Paganism of 
Bithynia, which at the date of Pliny's letter seemed likely 
rapidly to die out, had apparently obtained a new lease of 
life by the middle of the century. In our own day there 
has been a revival of zeal. But the Church, I think, has 
nothing to fear from such temporary recrudescences as 
these of religious fervour. Rather, perhaps, more genuine 
recruits will pass into her ranks at such times than when 
the systems which are opposed to her are inactive and 
torpid. 

But I must turn to a subject which with reference to But the 
the proposal of a University mission is yet more important, general 
I mean the University which has been founded in Tokyo, contact 
the new capital of the Japanese empire. This is a Univer- with West - 
sity of which the instruction is given wholly through the ern . clvil ~ 
medium of European languages. Till recently the pro- [^ds'to 
fessors also have been European, German in the medical Agnosti- 
and English in the scientific and literary schools ; but cism - 
these professorships now as they fall vacant are generally 
filled by natives who have studied in Europe. Through 
this University have passed many hundreds of young 
Japanese. In Delhi, Hinduism lost its hold upon the 
faith of young Hindus about the time when they passed 
from the upper classes of the school into the college. An 



158 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

analogous result has followed in Japan. Belief in 
Buddhism and Shintoism has passed from the minds 
of the men who have followed the appointed course 
of instruction in the Tokyo University ; and they 
have returned to their homes, in the various provinces of 
the empire, with as little faith in the creeds of their ances- 
tors as has the graduate of Calcutta or Lahore in the 
divinities of the Hindu Pantheon. But this .is not all. 
Had it been so, the work of the University might have 
been regarded by the missionary more truly than it now 
can be as a prceparatio evangelica. But the mind of the 
young Japanese has not only been disabused of the super- 
stitions of his youth, but too often he has also been led by 
his European teacher to regard the creed of Christendom 
as practically on a level with the faith of his own country. 
' Europe,' he has been told, ' has rejected the faith of Christ 
very much on the same grounds on which you have seen 
it necessary to reject the demi-gods of Northern Buddhism.' 
I would not be understood to bring a sweeping charge of in- 
fidel propagandism against all the European professors who 
have taught in Japan. I know that there have been bright 
exceptions : men who have not been ashamed of the Cross 
amid surroundings of peculiar difficulty. But admittedly the 
great majority of those who have left England and Germany 
to teach in Japan have not themselves been Christian in 
faith, and have led their pupils to adopt their own attitude 
towards Christianity. This is an all but necessary con- 
sequence. Even if a teacher endeavour to maintain a 
negative and neutral attitude in regard to revelation, it is 
impossible, I believe, that the minds of his pupils should 
come under the daily influence of his mind at an age when 
they are most open to new impressions and not catch from 
him very much his own view of divine as well as human 
knowledge. In Japan, the wide dissemination of literature 
which is more or less directly hostile to Christianity is said 
also to have had a disastrous tendency in the same direc- 
tion. In an able article on this subject, which was read 
at a missionary conference at Osaka, I find the works of 
Spencer, Mill, Bain, Huxley, Draper, and others men- 
tioned as having prejudiced the educated classes against 
the study of the claims of Christianity. 

I need scarce do more than point out what seems the 
legitimate and inevitable conclusion. Through contact 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 159 

with Europe, and above all with England, a new era has Is not 
been inaugurated in the history of the whole Japanese En g land 
people. At the same time, the educated classes of the [bie for 
country have learned, chiefly from the lips of English averting 
teachers, to distrust all systems of religion, including thls T 
Christianity. Under such circumstances it cannot, I think, 
be unreasonable or over-confident to believe that the 
English Universities will shortly send men to Japan who, 
while they shall have full sympathy with the new longing 
after exact knowledge and science which has been awakened 
in so large a class of her people, shall at the same time 
teach them alike by word and life the knowledge of God. 
It is recognised that the slave trade and the enforced 
commerce in opium have laid us under a special obligation 
to send the Gospel to Africa and China. The obligation 
cannot be less onerous in the case of a country which has 
learned from us the knowledge of science without God and 
of philosophy without religion. 

I received, shortly before I left England, a letter from A corn- 
Mr. Lloyd (formerly a Fellow of Peterhouse, who, now in m ?mt.y 
connection with S.P.G., is himself doing excellent work cou i<j do 
among the educated classes in Tokyo) in which he urged good 
that the establishment of a University mission is particularly servlce 
desirable at the present time. In regard to such missions 
it may be said now, as could not have been said ten years 
ago, when first you were kind enough to go into the 
question with me, that experience has proved the method 
of working by small brotherhoods of University men to be 
alike practicable and effective. In place of the isolation 
which has too often been the lot of the foreign missionary, 
the members of such a brotherhood possess the privilege of 
fellowship alike in devotion, study, and work a privilege 
which at Delhi we have found to be invaluable. I plead, 
then, for men to carry out in Japan the method of mission- 
ary work which has proved so helpful in India. No doubt 
India has the first claim upon our missionary resources. 
There could be no question between the two countries were 
it necessary to select one or the other. But I know that 
you do not hold this to be the case. Indeed, with the 
interest in foreign missions which is so marked now in both 
Universities, it cannot be doubted that they are well able 
to establish and maintain a mission of their own in Japan 
without any injury to the missions in India. Were it 



i6o 



BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 



And 

especially 
help to 
build up a 
native 
Church. 



otherwise, my love to Delhi is too great to allow me to 
advocate the establishment of another mission, even in the 
diocese over which I have been called to preside. I may 
add that it does not seem unimportant, at a time when 
Buddhism is attracting so much interest in Europe, that 
the Universities should be directly represented in a Buddhist 
as well as a Hindu and Muhammadan country. 

There are not a few other characteristic features of 
Japanese missions at the present time upon which I should 
like to dwell. Such is the development, with a rapidity to 
which India presents no parallel, of an independent native 
Church, together with the emergence of all those difficult 
but most interesting problems which attend the early years 
of an indigenous Christian community. Such, again, is the 
presence in Japan alone of a powerful and well worked 
mission of the Russo-Greek Church, under its influential 
and learned Bishop Pere Nicolai. Such is the return to 
the Roman obedience by thousands of the descendants of 
the Christians who in the first half of the seventeenth cen- 
tury gave their lives for the faith. It is an interesting 
evidence of the tenacity of the Japanese character that 
sufficient fragments of the faith had been handed down 
from generation to generation, through more than two 
hundred years of separation from all western help, to 
induce these poor people again to profess Christianity 
when the country was re-opened. And yet again, besides 
the missions of our sister Church, there are in Japan at the 
present time various bodies of Christians founded by 
different Protestant communities in America. But I must 
be content with pointing out that the difficult questions 
which such circumstances give rise to will especially claim 
the study and assistance of a body of University men. 

I should indeed most heartily welcome to Japan those 
who, with the qualifications which are needed for such 
kinds of work as I have indicated, would join me in the 
spirit of our old Delhi motto, SVSKSV sfj,ov KOI rov 



This letter justifies the verdict of the present Bishop of 
Durham (Dr. Westcott) that ' on being called to undertake 
the episcopal charge of the English missions in Japan, where 
he found a larger field and more favourable conditions 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 l6l 

[than in Delhi] for the use of his zeal and experience, 
Bishop Bickersteth at once recognised the greatness of the 
unique opportunity? l The foundation and building up of 
the Nippon Sei Kokwai (Holy Catholic Church of Japan) 
was from the first the idea which he had in view, and from 
which he never allowed himself to be deterred ' by the 
emergence of all these difficult and most interesting 
problems ' which his keen foresight told him would be 
inseparable from ' the early years of an indigenous Chris- 
tian community.' 

It was with the feeling of most lively interest that the 
Bishop neared Japan on board a steamer belonging to the 
Mitsu Bishi Company (one of the largest of the Japanese 
steamship companies) in which he had come from Hong- 
kong. 

In his first letter from Japan he writes : 

We had a perfect passage to Nagasaki, the sea like a 
mill-pond all the way. The second evening we passed the 
Goto Islands, a group of five, where many of the Christians 
took refuge in the great persecution two and a half centuries 
ago. The Roman Catholics have now again got missions 
and congregations there, and I looked at them with the 
greatest interest as the first territory on which my eyes had 
rested in the empire of Japan. We reached Nagasaki 
about i A.M. Sleep had overpowered me, though I meant 
to have looked at the entrance through my cabin window. 
In the morning when I got up I found we were safely in 
the land-locked harbour, which is surrounded by the not 
very lofty but picturesque and fertile hills which are 
characteristic of Japan and distinguish it from the flat 
coast of North China. 

The day on which the Bishop landed was Thursday, 
April 15, and two missionaries, Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. 
Brandram, welcomed him on shore. After seeing the 

1 See Introduction to Our Heritage in the Church, by Bishop Edward 
Bickersteth, published (1898) in England after his death. 

M 



1 62 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

catechist's house and church in the city it was time for 
service. ' I had asked to have a service in order that 
special thanksgiving might be offered for our safe voyage. 
We had Holy Communion, and I spoke a few words.' 
The Bishop happened there also to meet some Chinese 
native Christians from Fuchow, who were being sent as 
missionaries to Corea ' a comparatively unvvorked country. 
We had prayer for them, as they were starting that night. 
These prayers were offered, one in Chinese, one in Japanese, 
and one in English.' 

But after a few hours the Bishop had to re-embark for 
Kobe, where he was to spend the festival of Easter. He 
writes : 

The hills of Kobe were in sight when we went on deck 
after tiffin, and you will imagine how interesting a sight 
they were to me. By 3. 1 5 we were at anchor in the great 
harbour ; the town lies on the north shore of the inland 
sea. The hills behind it rise to a height of 2,000 feet and 
the whole scene, except that the sea in front is shut in by 
islands, reminds me of the Riviera. 

On Monday in Holy Week he went on to Osaka, of 
which he writes : 

The chief feature of the town is its many-branching 
river and system of canals, which have given it the name of 
the Venice of the East ; but it is very unlike the Italian 
city. It has no great buildings, and consists of rows 
of wooden houses arranged with mathematical regularity 
in squares and oblongs. However, it is none the less 
interesting for this reason to the missionary, who thinks 
chiefly of its teeming population. 

It was here that the Bishop preached his first sermon 
and took his first confirmation in Japan, of which he writes : 

The services for the Holy Week had been arranged in 
common between us and the Americans, so I went to four 
out of the five different churches on different nights. On 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 163 

Good Friday I addressed all the missionaries together on 
' fellowship in the suffering of Christ ' from Phil, iii., and 
yesterday I took a confirmation, sixteen being confirmed. 
I learned the words and the blessing in Japanese, and Mr. 
Evington translated for me two short addresses. 

On Easter Monday the Bishop joined the mission 
party in ' a very pleasant picnic on the hills. The scenery 
is not unlike parts of Scotland or the Lakes ; not grand or 
rugged, but richly wooded and picturesque. The magnifi- 
cent flowering shrubs are unlike anything we have in 
England.' Thence he visited Kyoto, ' formerly the ancient 
capital of the country, still its religious centre, lying at the 
foot of hills of which the lower slopes are covered with 
great Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.' 

The conference of the Church Missionary Society took 
place on May 3, when the missionaries of that society 
and the other clergy of the Church of England presented 
the Bishop with an address of welcome, in which, after 
referring to ' the attitude of popular opinion towards 
Christianity as a hopeful sign for the future success of the 
work ' and assuring him of ' the loyal support and loving 
co-operation of the clergy and congregations committed 
to his charge,' they added these words : 

And above all, we are happy that one has been called 
in the providence of God to preside over us who has 
already shown such earnest devotion in the cause of 
missionary effort, a devotion, doubtless, inherited from a 
father whose name will ever be remembered for untiring 
zeal in promoting the extension of Christ's Kingdom 
amongst the heathen. 

This annual conference, the first of seven over which 
the Bishop presided without a break, passed the following 
important resolution, out of which much future organisation 
was to grow : 

M 2 



164 P.ISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

That, taking into consideration the existence of three 
Episcopal missions in this country, two of which are in 
connection with the Church of England and one with the 
Protestant Episcopal Church of America, and being con- 
vinced that co-operation between these three societies, and 
visible union among the native Christians connected with 
them, is necessary to the establishment of a strong Epis- 
copal Church and a necessary preliminary to any wider 
union of Christians in Japan on a permanent and satis- 
factory basis ; and further, noting that for some time past 
united action has existed among the various sections of 
non-Episcopal communities to the manifest increase of 
their strength and influence, and that efforts are now being 
made, specially by the native Christians, towards unity 
amongst the different communities themselves the 
annual conference of the C.M.S., now sitting in Osaka, 
wishes to suggest to the Bishop and clergy of the 
American Church and the clergy of the S.P.G. the 
desirability of holding a general conference of the three 
missions on this subject at an early date. 

In writing to his father about this conference, the 
Bishop recorded, his first impressions thus : 

c\o Rev. A. C. Shaw, S.P.G. Mission, Tokyo : 
May 14, 1886. 

Our Conference (C.M.S.) went off very well. It was 
harmonious throughout, and I trust has given a spur to 
our missionary work : not that my clergy need stimulating 
to do more work, as most of them are overworking already, 
but that meeting and discussion and common prayer send 
men back with greater heart to their labour. I hope next 
year to have a Quiet Day to end up with. 

Among many other matters we agreed to one resolu- 
tion which may carry with it important consequences. 
Mr. Fyson proposed a general conference of our Church 
missions (C.M.S. and S.P.G.) and the American Church 
Mission with a view to fuller co-operation. I yesterday 
transmitted the invitation to Bishop Williams of the 
American Church, who has accepted it. Union is very 
much in the air in Japan. The Presbyterians have all 
joined together, and the Congregationalists and they are 
trying to amalgamate. . . . On the other hand, we and the 
American Church are essentially one here we have the 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 165 

same Prayer Book in Japanese and if we could only 
work together should be a fairly strong body, though even 
then small compared with the Nonconformist American 
Missions. And we could certainly, if we had liberty 
allowed us, offer a basis of wider union on some such lines 
as those I mentioned at the Portsmouth Congress which 
ought in time to draw in many of the separated 
communities. 

. . . There is the most curious difference between the 
people of this country and India. Here foreigners can 
only suggest and guide, in India they rule ; so that even by 
missionaries, not to say Bishops, continual care has to be 
taken not to offend Japanese susceptibilities. They have 
not yet realised this in Salisbury Square, and send out 
pages of regulations for native Churches. In the one case, 
where a missionary unwisely took them in his hand and 
said that this was the plan agreed upon for their organisa- 
tion in England, the whole thing was promptly rejected 
with the offer of monetary help which was attached to its 
acceptance. Wiser men are bringing them to much the 
same point by suggestion and guidance. 

By the roth of the same month the Bishop had gone 
up to Tokyo, not then or for some years wholly connected 
with Osaka by railway. There he was welcomed by the 
Rev. A. C. Shaw (now Archdeacon of South Tokyo) and the 
Rev. A. Lloyd (formerly Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge), 
both connected with S.P.G. missions in that city. The 
former of these had worked in Tokyo since 1873. At his 
invitation the Bishop made his house his headquarters 
while in Tokyo, for the next year and a- half. He writes 
in his ' Journal ' : 

The house of the former is in a quarter of the city 
called Shiba, and I was most agreeably surprised at the 
situation and character of the place. Though in the heart 
of the city, there are a number of gardens and fir woods 
about, and Mr. Shaw's house is on a hill which lifts it above 
the masses of human habitations around. The city itself 
is immense, stretching like London for miles and miles in 
all directions. There are over a million inhabitants, and it 



1 66 'BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

contains all the Government Offices and the University of 
Japan. 

In Tokyo the Bishop met for the first time Bishop 
Williams, of the Episcopal Church of America. He had 
been in the Far East, both in China and Japan, for nearly 
thirty years, first as missionary and then as missionary 
Bishop, having been consecrated in 1866. Here also he 
called on Bishop Nicolai, the revered representative of the 
Greek Church, and he thus describes his visit : 

The Greek Bishop is a startling figure in long blue 
cassock, many-coloured belt, long hair. We talked of many 
things, including union of Churches. He has very large 
buildings, and is erecting a great cathedral. Russians 
take great interest in the mission, as it is their only one 
outside Russian territory, though they have others on the 
borders of China. He gave us copies of the Psalter &c., 
which he had recently translated. At my request he wrote 
my name in Russian, and he said when we parted, ' We 
must love in deed as well as word.' The object of the 
mission is not wholly political ; it was largely got up by an 
admiral who was wrecked on the coast of Japan, and sent 
out this mission as a thankoffering for the kindness shown 
him by the people. 

When Bishop Nicolai returned the above call, a visit 
was paid by both Bishops to the English Church. 

A dear little building, very well appointed, built of red 
brick and with a pretty garden round it. I asked him to say 
the Lord's Prayer with us and to give the blessing. He 
was very pleased, and explained that he only did not kneel, 
because it is contrary to their Canon during the fifty days 
from Easter to Pentecost 

On May 18 Bishop Williams and Bishop Nicolai came 
to dine with him, and he records in his ' Journal ' : ' Three 
Bishops not known to have met before in Japan.' 

On the 2ist he met the native Christians of the C.M.S. 
Mission in Tokyo, and records : 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1886-1888 167 

May 21, Evening. Dined with Mr. Williams of 
C.M.S. Met native Christians of C.M.S. congregation 
afterwards. Only one man of position among them a 
Dr. Hada. Had agreed not to speak that evening, but as 
they were anxious to hear something I talked to them a 
little while. Referred to Bishop Poole, their need of a 
pastor, the importance of their position in this capital city, 
the old Jansenist motto : Unde ardet inde lucet the flame 
and the light are of like origin. Love and usefulness go 
together. 

On May 22 the Bishop characteristically organised a 
Quiet Day, of which he writes : 

May 22nd. I held a Quiet Day for the S.P.G., C.M.S., 
and American Missions, and gave four addresses : (i) at 
Holy Communion, on ' The Use of Quiet Days ; ' (2) after 
Matins, on ' God and the Practice of His Presence ; ' 
(3) after the Litany, on ' Life in God ; ' and (4) after a 
Metrical Litany, on ' Work for God.' No such Quiet Days 
have been held before in Tokyo, and they seem to supply 
a real want. 

Thus at the outset of his work in Japan he emphasised 
the same principles of the life and the work which we have 
seen to have been the keynote of his work in Delhi. 

On May 24 a second step was taken towards con- 
federation at a meeting attended by English (S.P.G. and 
C.M.S.) and American missionaries, and called, in accord- 
ance with the resolution passed at the recent C.M.S. 
conference at Osaka : ' To try and weld together into one 
body the various scattered congregations of our respective 
missions.' Bishop Williams presided, and it was decided 
to hold a conference of delegates on July 8 and the 
following days, each society sending their own representa- 
tives. 

At once Bishop Bickersteth set to work to draft Canons ' 
in order to submit a scheme to the forthcoming conference. 
1 See chapter ix. , p. 320, and Appendix B, p. 476. 



l68 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

No task could have been more congenial to him, and he 
ransacked ancient and modern authorities. His short 
diary as well as his careful memoranda show how he com- 
pared primitive experience embodied in the decisions of 
early Councils with the more recent Canons of the 
American and New Zealand Churches, ever balancing one 
against another the claims of early precedents and of 
modern latter-day needs. He also referred the whole 
matter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Benson), then 
as ever ready, Cyprian-like, to enter into a careful consider- 
ation of such questions, and to place his own trained and 
discriminating judgment at the service of those who were 
called upon ' to build the walls of Jerusalem.' 

For the convenience of those who may have occasion 
to refer to the first beginnings of the Nippon Sei Kokwai, 1 
its constitution and Canons, its principles and aims, I am 
devoting Chapter IX. of this biography to an account in 
detail of this important and permanent work of laying the 
foundations, in which Bishop Bickersteth was surely sent 
out by God to take a leading part. 

I therefore will here only chronicle the holding of the 
United Conference on July 8 at Tokyo. All the delegates 
were present at the opening service, when Bishop Williams 
was celebrant at the Holy Communion and Bishop Bicker- 
steth preached the sermon, taking as his texts St. Matt. 
xvi. 19 and St. John xx. 23. 

He records in his ' Journal ' : 

Tokyo, July 8, 1886. (The week of a conference repre- 
sentative of missionaries, preparatory to a General Con- 
ference in 1887.) All the delegates were present this 
morning at our opening service. I preached and Bishop 
Williams celebrated. I took a subject from St. Mat- 
thew xvi. and St. John xx., ' The threefold power of the 
Keys/ (a) The Keys, () Binding and loosing, i.e. Legisla- 

1 I.e. The Holy Catholic Church of Japan. 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 169 

tion, (V) Absolution. I treated them as inherent in the 
Christian Society, and exercised continually through its 
ministry. The keys I took to be the key of knowledge, 
and the key of admission to and exclusion from the 
Christian Church. The whole seemed applicable to our 
efforts to found a Christian Church in Japan. 

The opening service was in the C.M.S. Mission Church 
at Tsukiji, the foreign settlement of Tokyo. We met in 
Bishop Williams's College for our meetings, which is near 
the church. The conference lasted four days, with 
sittings of about three hours twice daily. The proposed 
Synod and the code of Canons, on which Bishop Williams 
and I have been at work, were our chief subjects of discus- 
sion. I speak of discussion, but the whole was most har- 
monious, everybody, I think, trying to contribute rather 
than to oppose, to ' build ' rather than to ' overthrow.' 

Besides the two subjects I have mentioned, the revision 
of the present Prayer Book, the formation of an indepen- 
dent Japanese Missionary Society, education, various 
social questions (very difficult here as in India), litera- 
ture (this field has hitherto been left wholly to Non- 
conformistSj we are now starting a monthly Church 
Magazine, but this will not take the place of books), Quiet 
Days, and the circulation among the missionaries of papers 
of intercession like those of the Society of Watchers and 
Workers, &c., all came under review. 

The only drawback was the extreme heat, the thermo- 
meter registering higher than had been known for about 
fifteen years. 

July ii. One object of this conference is to form 
one native Church out of the various scattered congrega- 
tions. This is rendered necessary here, even more than in 
India, both because it is the demand of the Japanese 
Christians themselves, and because such unions have been 
accomplished by the various Nonconformist bodies ; also 
because here, even more than in India, the actual work of 
evangelisation is best done by the natives themselves 
under an organisation in which they have a considerable 
share of authority. We have had many delicate questions 
to consider, but the conference has been most harmonious. 
... If our plans can be carried through, I trust that by 
God's grace they will give a great stimulus to Church 
work, which is here mainly missionary work. 



I/O BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

The following is the letter written jointly by Bishop 
Williams and Bishop Bickersteth at the close of this 
conference, addressed to the Bishops of the Anglican 
Communion : 

Tokyo, Japan : St. James' Day, 1886. 

To t/ie Right Rev. the Bishops of the Anglican Communion. 

Right Rev. and Dear Brethren, We have been re- 
quested, by a conference of delegates of the three mis- 
sionary societies, which are connected with the Anglican 
Communion in our jurisdiction, to endeavour to set before 
the Church in England and America the special needs 
and claims of the great country in which our work lies. 

The missionary fields of the Church are now so various, 
and their needs for the most part so well known by 
missionary publications, that a special appeal requires 
justification. This justification we believe to be found in 
the greatness and hopefulness of missionary work in 
Japan, combined with the shortness of the time during 
which it is likely that the present opportunity will be 
continued to us. 

It is scarcely more than thirty years since this country, 
with its population of nearly forty million souls, was sealed 
to all intercourse with the West, except through a single 
Dutch trading company. During the interval it has 
adopted, with startling rapidity, our civilisation and cus- 
toms, assimilating very much of our most advanced learn- 
ing and knowledge, and itself being admitted to a 
recognised position among the nations of the world. The 
result has been a great displacement from the faith of the 
Japanese people in the religious systems which for a 
thousand years have held undisputed sway among them. 
Though Shintoism and Buddhism are still nominally the 
religions of the great mass of the people, they have ceased 
to have any beyond a speculative interest for the educated, 
and have lost much of their hold even on the lower classes. 
State recognition has recently been withdrawn from both 
systems. 

Meanwhile alike the treatment and popular estimate of 
Christianity have no less completely changed. Instead of 
being proscribed by public edict, it shares in the impartial 
toleration which is now shown by the Japanese Govern- 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 I/I 

ment of all religious faiths. Instead of being regarded 
with feelings of mingled contempt and hatred, it is now 
generally looked upon with interest and respect. Among 
the upper classes this is in part due to the belief that it is 
an essential element in the higher form of Western civilisa- 
tion, which they have adopted as their model. But a more 
spiritual motive often prevails. The work of the last two 
years more especially seems to have left upon the minds 
of many experienced missionaries, alike within and with- 
out our Communion, the impression of a widespread desire 
to know the truth. 

Such a crisis in a nation's history seems to call for a 
combination in the Church's missions of men of various 
gifts and powers. We desire to call attention to three 
lines of work which seem to us of special importance at 
the present time. 

1. A wide field is open to those who, taking advantage 
of the new spirit of respectful inquiry, would give them- 
selves to public preaching and lecturing alike in the towns 
and country, a work with which might often be combined 
the preparation of books fitted to commend the faith to 
the Japanese mind. 

2. The new system of education, which has been put 
into operation throughout the Japanese Empire, affords 
what we believe to be an unprecedented opportunity to the 
educational missionary. Alike in government and private 
schools, instruction in the English language is now 
eagerly sought from the lips of those to whom English is 
their native tongue. A fair salary is assigned in return for 
a few hours' teaching on five days in the week. The 
teachers in the private schools have the fullest consent of 
those who engage them to bring to bear upon their pupils, 
alike in and out of school hours, every moral and spiritual 
influence. Such missionaries, if attached to the staff of a 
society, would, in some cases, need to make little or no 
demand upon its funds other than for occasional expenses. 
Experience has already shown that large and even rapid 
results may be expected from such work. 

In connection with this we would notice that in the 
capital and some other large cities instruction in English 
is now desired scarcely less by the women than by the 
men of Japan. Ready access is afforded to English- 
speaking ladies who will undertake to provide it ; and 



1/2 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

this, in many cases, with the hope rather than the fear, on 
the part of the pupil, that the acquisition of the teacher's 
language will be accompanied by instruction in her faith. 

3. Colleges have been established for the education of 
clergy and teachers, as well as Christian schools both for 
boys and girls. A small beginning has also been made 
in the work of training Japanese Christian women to act, 
after the model of Apostolic days, as evangelists among 
the many millions of their countrywomen who are as yet 
unenlightened, and to help in the further instruction of 
their sisters in the faith. All such training institutions 
must for the present be carried on chiefly by foreign 
missionaries. Their importance is emphasised by the 
rapidity of the recent increase in the number of baptisms, 
which has been larger during the past year than during 
any year preceding since the foundation of the missions. 
Such growth can only be healthful and permanent, if the 
newly baptised can at once be placed under well instructed 
as well as earnest pastors and teachers of their own 
nationality and tongue. 

With opportunities and needs such as these, we have 
at present at work in connection with our communion only 
twenty-one clergy, six laymen, and eight missionary ladies. 
So small a staff is insufficient even for the work in hand, 
and without its increase extension is impossible. Such 
increase, to be effectual, should be immediate. Here the 
hope all but reaches certainty, that it is the divine 
purpose to grant to adequate efforts on the part of the 
Church a new Christian nation. But in a special sense, to 
the people of these islands, now is the day of salvation. 
Their old religions are indeed disappearing ; but manifold 
superstitions and infidelities wait to occupy the ground, if 
it is not claimed by the faith of Christ. 

On the other hand, the opinion held by many does not 
seem unfounded that when the people of these islands 
themselves shall have been gathered into the fold, mission- 
aries sent forth by them might exercise as large an influence 
on the nations of the neighbouring continent as was exer- 
cised by missionaries from Great Britain in the early 
middle ages on the nations of North Europe. 

We appeal, then, with many prayers, for men and 
women fitted alike by the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit 
of love to enter in at the great door and effectual which 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. l886-l888 1/3 

has been opened to us. We venture to commend most 
earnestly the facts which we have addressed to your con- 
sideration, asking you to bring them, as opportunity may 
offer, before the clergy, the missionary societies, and the 
students in our universities, colleges, and theological 
schools. Necessary support will, we cannot doubt, be 
provided for efficient labourers. Earthly recompense it is 
not in our power to offer them, and they will not seek 
it. Rather they will feel that to be allowed to share, at the 
crisis of its religious history, in bringing a great and noble 
people to the knowledge of God, is, till the day of Christ, 
its own all-sufficient reward. 

We are, Right Reverend and dear Brethren, 

Your faithful Servants in Christ, 
(Signed} C. M. WILLIAMS, 

Missionary Bishop of Yedo 
EDWARD BICKERSTETH, 
Missionary Bishop of the Church of England in Japan. 

By the August of this year the Bishop had fully made 
up his mind to place his University Mission in Tokyo. 
He gave his reasons in a second letter to the Master of 
Pembroke College (the Rev. C. E. Searle, D.D.), dated 
August 14, 1866, from which the following extracts are 
given : 

My dear Master, . . . Since I wrote to you last 
April, I have visited the principal mission stations of our 
Church in Japan. One object of my journeys has been, 
after consulting the missionary clergy in each place, to 
decide on the city in which a special mission to the edu- 
cated classes may at the present time be located with the 
greatest advantage. I now feel no doubt that such a mission 
should be placed in Tokyo, the capital of the Japanese 
empire, from which I am now writing. Tokyo is the chief 
centre alike of government and education. Young men 
of high position and promise continually visit it, and go 
forth from it again to all parts of these islands, so that 
Christian influence exerted here is widely felt throughout 
the whole land. 

Two special circumstances have assisted me in coming 
to this conclusion : 



174 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

1. There is an active and promising mission of the 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Tokyo, 
which is only prevented from a far wider range of useful- 
ness by want of men. The Society's missionaries will 
offer a hearty and brotherly welcome to a new mission, 
and put their experience at its disposal in its early 
days. 

2. An offer of educational work in a celebrated Japanese 
school has recently been made to the Rev. A. Lloyd, of 
which without further aid he is only able partially to take 
advantage. . . . 

I cannot but feel that this opening, at the present 
time, may be accepted as a sign of God's guidance. The 
primary difficulty of all mission work among educated 
classes is to obtain entrance among them. This school 
will afford the missionaries who teach in it an entrance 
into a large circle of Tokyo society from the time they 
arrive in the country, without laying on them the heavy 
burden of general school management and financial pro- 
vision ; and also without so engrossing their time as to 
prevent the acquisition of the language. When once this 
is attained, all the manifold operations of general mission 
work will also be open to them. 

I have ventured to ask for four men. One who was 
present at our meeting in the old Library last February 
has written offering to join me next year. Others are 
considering the matter. It may be that the proposal 
which has now been made to Mr. Lloyd will enable them 
to come to an immediate decision. The greatness of 
Japan's need is surely the measure of the Church's duty. 
I may add that no brigher prospect, I believe, has ever 
been set before the missionary than that which Japan 
offers to-day. 

1 am, my dear Master, 
Yours very sincerely, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH, 

Bishop. 

The Bishop was now burning to be off on his first 
missionary tour, and to see face to face the devoted mis- 
sionaries, men and women, as well as the converts under 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 175 

his charge, many of whom were isolated. During these 
three months in the city of Tokyo which is by far the 
largest city in Japan, its population being about 1,200,000 
he had not only closely studied the problem of the 
best way to bring the forces of Christianity to bear on 
that great centre of thought, life, and influence ; but he had 
also made plans for extensive missionary tours throughout 
the whole length and breadth of the empire, all the missions 
of the Church of England being at that time under his 
sole supervision. 

Japan is about 1,700 miles in length, and had in 1886 
a population of 38,000,000, while the English missions 
were dotted about at places as far distant as Nagasaki in 
the extreme south (Kiushiu) and Sapporo in the far north 
(Yezo). 

At that time there was no territorial division in Japan 
between the missions sent out by the sister Churches of 
America and England. The missionaries from each 
country, and the native converts gathered by their efforts, 
were under the jurisdiction of their respective Bishops, 
irrespective of locality. The first attempt at a delimita- 
tion of dioceses took place in 1891, when an arrangement 
made between Bishop Bickersteth and Bishop Hare of 
South Dakota (then in temporary charge of the American 
Mission) was submitted by them to the Archbishop 
of Canterbury and the American House of Bishops. 
The Archbishop approved the plan, and the House of 
Bishops ' commended it to the favourable consideration of 
the Bishop to be placed in charge of the missionary diocese 
of Yedo.' But it was not until 1894 that this delimitation 
(with important modifications) was ratified by the Japanese 
Synod and in the Synod of 1 896 the six ' missionary 
districts ' were formally recognised. During these years 
many negotiations were necessary, and some questions 



176 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

were raised of a difficult and delicate nature. But in this 
place it only seems necessary to point out how for 
Bishop Bickersteth the ruling principle throughout was 
that expressed by himself in 1895 : 

It is my earnest desire and prayer that the result of 
our present organisation may be the wider extension and 
progressive usefulness of the missions of both branches of 
the Anglican Communion in Japan, and of the Church 
which they have been allowed to found together. 

Writing on October 23, 1886, the Bishop remarks : ' I 
am reading Adams's " History of Japan," and find it hard 
to believe that the country is the same that he describes in 
the year 1860.' In 1886, however, internal communication 
between the capital and even the important cities in the 
main island (Hondo) was still deficient ; journeys were 
precarious, and often only possible on foot. The network 
of railways which the Bishop during his eleven years 
episcopate saw spreading in all directions had not then 
even connected the modern capital ' Tokyo with its 
ancient rival Kyoto, and journeys had to be accom- 
plished by jinricksha, or coasting steamer, or on foot, 
often in perils, not indeed of robbers, but of heavy 
rains, swollen rivers, and earthquakes. The Bishop's 
ubiquitous energy during this and the two or three following 
years, in which he visited and revisited every part of the 
empire, led Sir Rutherford Alcock, when presiding in 1888 
at a drawing-room meeting held at the London residence 
of Sir Monier Monier- Williams in support of the mission, 
to utter a timely caveat against such incessant travelling 
as being impossible for a European to keep up in Japan. 
However, the Bishop did not act on impulse, as will be 
seen from the following letter in which he had sketched 
out with precision the main outlines of the tour on which 
he now started : 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 177 
To his Father 

c\o Rev. A. C. Shaw, Shiba, Tokyo : 
June 28, 1886. 

This will reach you about the time that I start on 
my journey, so let me give you a sketch of my proposed 
movements. About August 10 or 15 I leave Yokohama 
by steamer for Hakodate in Yezo, the most northerly 
island of the Japanese group. There I shall probably stay 
a fortnight, and then go on to Sapporo, a town further up 
the east coast, where there is an ' unattached ' Christian 
congregation which perhaps may be brought to anchor by 
our side. 

From Sapporo I hope to get into the Ainu country, 
the harmless but wholly untutored race, whose ways and 
manners Miss Bird has described. By the last week of 
September I ought to be back here again, but only to stay 
a day to change summer for winter things and proceed to 
Osaka, whence partly by the Inland Sea and partly by land 
I am to make my way to the province of Iwami, on the west 
coast. This will be another six weeks' work. Mr. Evington 
of the C.M.S. is to be my companion. Thence to Nagasaki, 
the inspection of which and its outstations will take me to 
the middle of January ; then probably for a month or six 
weeks to Kobe and the C.M.S. Conference at Osaka, and 
then back here for Easter. 1 

No doubt the Bishop's tall slim figure, and at times his 
worn and emaciated appearance, hardly prepared people 
for the inexhaustible energy which kept his work, physical, 
mental, and spiritual, at high pressure. The shortest and 
one of the best missionary speeches which it has been my 
privilege to hear was made in the Library 2 at Lambeth 
Palace by Admiral Sir Vesey Hamilton. The Admiral, 
not without demur on his part, had consented to move a 

1 N.B. These plans were (with slight modifications) carried out with 
the addition of the first Synod of the Japanese Church at Osaka in February 
1887. 

2 The meeting was held on October 31, 1890, in support of the St. Andrew's 
and St. Hilda's Missions, Tokyo, founded by Bishop Bickersteth, and by that 
time in working order. 

N 



178 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

resolution at the meeting. He produced a profound 
impression on the friends and supporters of the mission 
gathered in the crowded library by his words : 

Being in command of the Chinese squadron, I hap- 
pened to be in Tokyo a few years ago when your 
Bishop first arrived, and I remember hearing men say, 
on seeing their new Bishop : ' Here is the round man in 
the square hole.' I returned to Tokyo after a year or 
two, and they said to me : ' Admiral, we were quite 
wrong. No one works harder than our Bishop, and he 
is the round man in the round hole ' Ladies and gentle- 
men, you may safely go on in your support of any work 
led by him. 

On the eve of his departure from Tokyo, the Bishop 
mentions in a letter his indebtedness to John Imai, ' a 
young catechist who interprets for me nicely ; a particu- 
larly pleasant young Japanese, strongly imbued with the 
Christian tone and temper.' 

The following extracts from the Bishop's 'Journal 
Letters ' will give some idea of this first journey to the 
northern island of Yezo : 

First Tour in Yezo, 1886 

Horobetsu, Aug. 26. A gloomy morning. We started on 
horseback for New Mororan, a place about twelve miles off, 
six miles along the shore, the same route we had come from 
Old Mororan, and then for six miles along a mountain path 
where only occasionally could we get out of a walking 
pace. We arrived in about four hours ; the village, with 
the exception of a house or two, is wholly Ainu, very pic- 
turesque, nestled in a little bay of the sea. We took up 
our quarters in a small Japanese inn, where shortly we 
received a visit of ceremony from the Ainu chief, who 
entered in his robe of state with absolutely imperturbable 
face, and seated himself demurely opposite Mr. Batchelor ; 
several followers did the same behind him, and then 
he commenced a short harangue to the effect that he 
was pleased to see us in his village. Mr. Batchelor 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 179 

replied with equal solemnity, reminding him that we all 
believed one God, and that the Ainu had a tradition that 
all men of old were brothers. In this we agreed, and 
hoped they would not consider us as aliens but friends. 
All this was preceded and followed by the usual beard 
stroking. An arrangement was then made that there 
should be a meeting in the evening at the hut of the chief, 
which is a good size, and a magic lantern shown which we 
had brought with us. Truly I wish you could have been 
present at that meeting. The wildness of the scene ! 
Possibly some of your Arab encampments across the 
Jordan may have equalled it, but nothing I have seen in 
India. The magnificent Ainu men with their great beards 
and solemn countenances, the women got up in their best 
bead necklaces, &c., all hideously disfigured to Western 
eyes by the tatooing they think so beautiful, the crowd of 
children, the bear skins hung about the rude hut, the hut 
itself grim with soot, which, nevertheless, had formed a kind 
of ebony polish over the roof beams, all lighted by the 
fitful gleams of pieces of pine bark, and all the faces turned 
in astonishment at the magic lantern pictures by help of 
which they were being taught the first principles of the 
Gospel. I cannot describe it for you, but you may be able 
to throw these features of the scene together into some 
sort of a picture. 

August 28. Reading Bishop of Durham's ' Ignatius 
and Polycarp ' truly a marvel of condensed learning and 
shrewd combination and interpretation of scanty details, 
throwing a flood of light on the darkest fifty years of the 
Church's history. 

August 29. I baptised two Ainu, and their adopted 
Japanese child. Mr. Batchelor took all the service except 
the words of the administration of the sacrament. They 
are only the second and third of their race admitted to the 
Church ; may they indeed be a first-fruits to Christ ! 

August 31. Left early in Japanese carriage (a springless 
vehicle) for Sapporo ; route is dull in parts, and so was 
the sky. I employ my time so far as the jolting permits 
in reading Dr. Lightfoot and in making use of my com- 
panions to learn some Japanese. 

September i. I reached Sapporo at 4 P.M. Sapporo is 
the capital of Yezo, a new city made by the Government, 
about twenty miles from the Western Sea, in order to be 

N 2 



ISO BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

out of reach of Russian ironclads. It is flourishing, and 
has now a population of about 10,000 or 12,000 people. I 
am staying with Professor Brookes, of the Agricultural 
College. 

September 3. I repaid calls on Christians. I found 
one with Liddon's ' Bampton Lectures,' and Kenan's ' Life 
of Christ ' ; in another house I found four generations, 
great grandmother to baby ! 

September 4. I saw in the museum a very interesting 
collection of Ainu curiosities, poisoned arrow-heads, primi- 
tive weaving looms, &c. Just outside the museum build- 
ings are some holes in the ground, the remains of the 
homes of a yet earlier race called Guru-pokguru ; of these 
there are yet some remnants, in yet more northerly 
islands. 

September 5. 10 A.M. Morning service and Holy 
Communion, fifty-eight communicants, the largest number 
I have seen in Japan. At 3 P.M. I gave an address 
to the college students on ' The Bible Revelation of the 
Divine Character.' It lasted over an hour, but they were 
very attentive, especially as they only know English 
imperfectly. 

September 8. I started at 6.30 from Mororan to cross 
Volcano Bay in a little steamer ; when half way across 
the captain said it was too rough to land on the further 
side, and returned, so we had three hours' toss for nothing. 
We returned ten miles to Horobetsu, meaning to round 
the head of the bay on ponies, but were stopped by a 
downpour of rain. This would have been a three days' 
journey. 

September 9. We started at 1.45 A.M. on ponies to 
return to Mororan, a fine but very dark night, and four 
hours' ride. I was thrown but not hurt ; my pony mistook 
Mr. Batchelor's big dog for a bear, and bounded over a 
ditch and into some rough underwood, when it stumbled 
and got me over its head. We crossed Volcano Bay 
safely and reached Hakodate after eight hours in a country 
brake. I found letters requiring an immediate answer 
and the mail starting next morning early, so I was up 
until i A.M. writing, thus for the first time in my life, I 
think, I travelled and worked for more than twenty-four 
hours at a stretch. 

September 10. Reading Pusey on Daniel. 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 l8l 

From September 16 till October I the Bishop was at 
Tokyo actively engaged in promoting the establishment of 
the Ladies' Institute, 1 a high-class school for girls the 
superintendence of which was offered, by the eminent 
Japanese who founded it, to English ladies, the choice 
of the first Head Mistress and members of the staff being 
left to the Bishop. 

He sadly records : 

No reading, except St. Ignatius's letter to St. Polycarp, 
an old to a young Bishop in the second century, and a 
tiny book by Archdeacon Norris on Pastoral Theology ; 
some good points, but his advice not to read modern 
commentaries on Scripture delusive. 

On October I came his first tour on the West coast, 
already alluded to, which is recorded in the following 
entries in his ' Journal ' : 

Tour on the West Coast, 1886 

October 8. I left by the little coasting steamer with 
Mr. Evington and Mr. Chapman, the former the Secretary 
and the latter a young missionary of C.M.S. ; it was 
delightfully smooth, or the little vessel crowded with 
Japanese would not have been very pleasant The morning 
lights were very lovely, and by nine o'clock we were again 
on shore and had started for Fukuyama, a town a few miles 
from the coast, where we were to stay a few days. This 
we reached about mid-day, and spent the afternoon in 
seeing the little company of Christians. Work was only 
commenced there last year, and there are already signs of 
a bountiful harvest if only the men were forthcqming to 
gather it in. 

October 10. I confirmed ten persons of all ages, from 
22 to 70, in the back room of the Japanese inn, and after- 
wards gave them their first Communion. In the afternoon 
Mr. Evington baptised five persons. 

October u and 12. A public preaching at night in 
a large rough shed ; such places the Japanese are wonder- 

1 See chapter vii. p. 215. 



1 82 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

fully clever in rapidly adorning and fitting up ; the first 
night about 120 persons, the second night about 200 
persons present. I gave an address by interpretation on the 
Christian's answer to these three questions : ' Whence is 
man ? ' ' What is he ? ' and ' Whither going ? ' 

October 12. I walked some six miles to Era, a large 
village where there are several Christians, one a farmer 
who had seen better times struck me particularly by the 
honesty of his countenance and, so far as expression is an 
index of heart, happiness in his new faith. 

We first called on the doctor, who is more or less 
favourably disposed to Christianity, and then adjourned to 
a house where the screens which divide Japanese rooms 
had been taken down, making one large room of the whole 
front part of the building. Here, both afternoon and 
evening, a large congregation collected ; in the afternoon 
I spoke by interpretation, and in the evening Mr. Evington 
gave the principal address, the Japanese catechist who is 
with us speaking both times. The heads of my sermon 
addressed ' to those only who believe in a good God,' were : 

A. All such may hold it as certain that God has 
made known a true religion to man, and that we men 
are so made as to be able to embrace it when made known 
to us. 

B. Are you or are you not satisfied with your new 
faith ? Man's chief needs are (a) The knowledge of God ; 
(#) Reconciliation with God ; (c) Union with God. How 
far does Buddhism or Shintoism satisfy you in these 
respects ? 

C. The answer of Christianity to these needs, through 
Christ the Word, Christ the Atoner, Christ Exalted, giving 
the Holy Spirit 

October u. I walked in to Fuchoo, a small town 
with about 6,000 inhabitants, six miles from Era. I passed 
on the way a new Buddhist college, beautifully situated on 
a hill ; probably the spread of Christianity has stimulated 
the effort. In the towns, among the upper classes, 
Buddhism has no hope of a future, but the case is different 
in the country. 

October 17. I confirmed one man who, with several 
others, had been baptised in the morning. His baptism, 
owing to circumstances, has been delayed some months, so 
Mr. Evington was anxious that it should not be put off 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 183 

any longer. He is to act as leader of the little band of 
Christians here until a regular catechist can be found. 

St. Luke's Day. Holy Communion ; Mr. Evington, the 
Catechist, Yama Shita, the man yesterday baptised and 
confirmed, and myself, a little company. I had some 
scruples both as to the confirmation of the man and so 
soon receiving him to Holy Communion ; but, under the 
circumstances, as there cannot be another celebration in 
this district until March, it seemed right. 

I visited the chief school of the town, only of the same 
grade as our parochial schools, but teaches chemistry, &c. : 
some 600 scholars, and though this is a fifth-rate country 
town, all are taught after the newest Western methods. 
What will be the result if Christianity is not able to give 
heart to this vast extension of intellectual learning, sup- 
ported by the whole force of a centralised government ? 
In the afternoon the Christians asked us to tea in a tea- 
house near the town, and in the evening I entertained 
them in the lower room of an inn. Afterwards I talked to 
them on bearing the cross in life as well as on their fore- 
heads. 

October 19. We left before daylight; the Christians 
had assembled, and accompanied us to the foot of a beauti- 
ful pass, through which our way lay. I had a jinriksha, 
but it broke down when our journey was only one-third 
accomplished. We slept at a little inn at the back of a 
shop in a place called Kisha. 

October 20. We left at 6.45, and walked ten miles 
along the banks of the Gogawa ; the road crossed the 
stream several times, but the bridges had been carried 
away by a flood, and we had to make circuits round the 
bend of the stream ; we reached Mizashi about mid-day, 
a large town with 10,000 or 12,000 people, at the point of 
a river where it becomes navigable ; there are no Christians 
here at present. 

After a short stay we took a large country boat with 
two oarsmen, one of whom worked a sort of paddle in the 
stern, and the other a large heavy oar in the prow ; we and 
our luggage were in the middle of the boat on a little 
platform to keep us from the water, which inevitably 
splashes in while descending rapids. 

On this river there are rapids about every mile, the 
descent of some is very interesting ; the boat is guided by 



1 84 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

the oarsman in front, who stands up and steers by the 
strokes of the heavy blade of his oar, which he cleverly 
balances on the side of the boat, now on this, now on the 
other side of the prow. When the steeper rapids are 
studded with rocks across the descent of the water, this 
method of journeying is very exciting and interesting, and 
but for the skill of the steersman, which seems never to fail, 
would be dangerous. I thought of our descent of the St. 
Lawrence Rapids in 1870, but then we had a steamer, 
which would have had no chance in a shallow boiling river 
like the Gogawa. 

October 21. All day in the boat running between hills 
from one to two thousand feet high, so no distant views. 
This province is rightly called Iwa-mi, or rock view. In 
the afternoon we stopped at a place called Kumamoto, 
hoping to see a young man who, from this out-of-the-way 
part of Japan, had made his way to Oxford ; he was, how- 
ever, away. It appears that since his return he has been 
lecturing against Christianity ; he is the son of a Buddhist 
Priest. We slept at a place called Watavi, where there is 
an earnest catechumen, who hopes to be baptised before long. 

October 22. We reached Watadzu at the mouth of the 
Gogawa ; the last part of the journey was exceedingly 
beautiful, the river descending rapidly through lofty hills, 
which block the view at the end of every reach. We stayed 
in a small inn belonging to one of the Christians, and had 
a service at night. 

October 23. After arranging for a confirmation here 
ten days later, we left at 6.45 A.M., and walked fourteen 
miles to Hamada ; part of the journey is over sand by the 
sea coast, which with a hot sun is tiring. At Hamada are 
some six or seven Christians. 

October 26. Confirmation of five candidates, followed 
by a tea, to which I asked all the Christians. In the 
evening a public preaching, at which some young pleaders 
from the county court were present. 

October 27. Holy Communion at 5 A.M., and all the 
Christians present, about ten in number. We rode fourteen 
miles to Matsuye, and walked on twelve more to Masuda. 
We got into the dark, and were glad of the help of a lamp 
brought to us by a Christian who came to meet us. He 
and another man are the only Christians as yet in the 
place. 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. l886-l888 185 

October 28. I found that there is a hopeful little 
company of catechumens here, but in this out-of-the-way part 
of Japan they are deterred by the opposition of their official 
superiors. They are employed in the police, and their 
chief happens to be a strong Buddhist. A widow woman 
who teaches in a Government school has been chief mover 
here. 

October 28-31. I preached by interpretation every even- 
ing. On the 3Oth Mr. Evington's sermon was interrupted 
by the ' fire-bell.' It was not a serious affair, but in Japan 
it is the custom for all people to troop to a fire to offer 
their services, and not seldom actually to hinder the efforts 
of the firemen. 

All Saints' Day. I started on the return journey to 
Hamada, and stopped at mid-day at a place called Misumi ; 
I saw a police inspector who is an inquirer after ' The 
Way ; ' his wife, who at first was bitterly opposed, now 
seems more earnest from what I could hear than he. 

November 6. By jinriksha some six miles to a large 
inland sea, and then by boat 16 miles to Matsuye (16 miles, 
8 men, 6 oars, 4 passengers, 3^ hours, price $s. !) Matsuye, 
is the chief town of the two provinces of Iwami and 
Idzumo, formerly, as its picturesque old castle bears 
witness, the capital of a Daimio. Now it is the centre of 
higher education in the district, and has a population of 
about 25,000. The first Christians were baptised here in 
the spring of this year, and number about seven persons. 

November 15-19. I journeyed to Kobe, by lake, river, 
jinriksha, and walking. I managed over twenty miles one 
day, the longest walk I have taken since my Indian illness. 
On the i /th we travelled for seventeen hours, and missed 
our steamer in the evening by ten minutes, hearing it 
whistle for departure just before we reached the port. In 
consequence I had all the i8th in a little inn on the coast ; 
a hurricane blew all day, and did a good deal of damage to 
Kobe houses, and the little mission church here. 

To his Father 

November 27, 1886. 

I finished the second volume of Lightfoot's ' Ignatius ' 
on a long river journey, and am now reading Hatch's 
' Organisation of the Early Christian Churches.' It is an 
extreme book, and I am not surprised he has had since to 



1 86 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

put the pastoral epistles into the second century. I don't 
see anything to be said for his view of Irenaeus having 
given a new and revolutionary turn to Christian thought 
in regard to a dogmatic faith and a visible Church 
organisation at least, there is nothing in his writings to 
suggest he thought himself saying anything new. 

Christmas 1886 was spent at Nagasaki and is thus 
recorded : 

I could not have had pleasanter hosts and companions 
than Archdeacon and Mrs. Maundrell and their chil- 
dren. On December 28 the Christians asked me to a tea, 
and I spoke to them of St. Francis Xavier, the seven- 
teenth-century martyrs, and the beginning of modern 
missions. On December 30 I met a Roman Catholic lady 
who told me of the descendants of the Japanese Christians 
for the 220 years of isolation retaining the use of Christian 
names, which they always called ' soul names.' 

Thus closed a year of incessant travelling, and on 
January n, 1887, he wrote to his father : 

From my consecration to the end of the year I held 
twenty-two confirmations I think, altogether mostly in 
private houses and hotels. Very, very different indeed to 
the beautiful old English churches ; but I like to compare 
this with what must have been the circumstances of the 
early days. 

In the first chapter of this biography I mentioned the 
tenacious hold which Edward Bickersteth always kept 
upon family interests at home, so that, although he was so 
far distant and for so long a time, yet he never ceased to 
be regarded as the eldest brother, whose opinion and advice 
were to be looked for and would be certainly forthcoming. 
The following extracts from letters to his fourth brother, 
the Rev. H. V. Bickersteth (now Chaplain to the Bishop of 
Exeter), then about to take Holy Orders, illustrate this 
close touch with home : 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 187 

Yokohama : June 2, 1886. 

My dear Harry, I am thinking of you, probably 
about concluding your Tripos Examination. How well I 
remember my feelings about mine when it was over ! A 
certain sense of relief at its not so much mattering whether 
you forget a fact or two now as it did a fortnight since is 
inevitable ; but the best of the Theological Tripos for the 
candidate for Holy Orders is that all his work is in direct 
preparation for the duties of his life. . . . Read books on 
the Pastoral Life ; Gregory's ' De Cura Pastorali/ Walsham 
How's ' Pastoral Work,' ' Bridges on the Ministry,' Liddon's 
' Priest in the Inner Life,' in addition to the Pastoral 
Epistles read devotionally, and our Lord's discourses to 
the disciples, as in St. Matt. x. and St. John xx. and xxi. 
I shall hope to pray for you constantly these months that 
God the Holy Spirit may indeed prepare you. ACCIPE 
Spiritum Sanctum, the form of words in ordination to 
priesthood and episcopate, imply preparedness on the part 
of the receiver as well as gift from the Great Giver, and 
this is no less true of admission to the diaconate. ... A 
longing for one of you out here, or for a while with you at 
home, is sometimes very great ; but the work is theMaster's, 
and I must not, and I trust do not, wish it otherwise or 
elsewhere. 

Your most affectionate Brother, 

EDW. BlCKERSTETH, Bishop. 
Again : 

Tokyo : August 15, 1886. 

I believe that you will never be other wise than most 
thankful for your course of reading forthe Theological 
Tripos ; it is invaluable for a clergyman's work, at least 
it will prove so if you continue it. For after all Theology, 
scientia Dei, is an endless and never fathomable subject, at 
least not so long as it is Theologia Viatorum. I suppose 
it will not be so, when the travellers have reached their 
country. 

Again : 

Watazu : November 3, 1886. 

I fear this will not reach you in time to convey, 
although you will not need it, the assurance of all my love 
and sympathy, and prayers on your ordination day. To- 



1 88 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

day reminds me specially of the mother. 1 If, as I scarcely 
doubt, in the patria cara they know the things of earth, at 
least of the Church on earth, then it will be to her a great 
joy that a third son is taking orders. . . . Before my 
consecration, in the three days I got at Trinity Square, I 
spent my time (and found it most helpful) in taking just 
the service and the Pastoral Epistles with parts of the 
Gospels, St. Matt, x., St. John x. and xxi., without any 
other book or nearly so. ... I hope you have daily ser- 
vice at your church. Try to keep up the daily saying of 
the Office, if not I think nothing has been of more help 
to me, especially reading the appointed lections of Holy 
Scripture. The prayers, too, never fail, specially if you 
take them, as is reasonable, as a framework into which 
special petitions may be fitted. 

On returning to Tokyo, January 15, 1887, the Bishop at 
once set about preparing for the United Conference of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church of America and the Church 
of England, which was to precede the First Synod of the 
Japanese Church, and which assembled at Osaka on 
February 8. At the opening service he 2 preached from 
the text St. John xvi. 13. 

He wrote to his father the same day : 

Osaka : February 8, 1887. 

I have preached a long hour's sermon and sat four 
hours in conference, so you will pardon it if this is 
but a line. Yesterday I was making arrangements for 
our three conferences ; 3 and finishing my sermon for 
to-day. I preached on ' He shall guide you into all the 
truth.' . . . 

This afternoon we have had an interesting discussion 
on union with other Christian bodies, and appointed a 
committee to meet some of their leading men. But, alas ! 
these matters are easy as long as they are in the ' resolu- 
tion stage.' Still I hope the expressed desire after better 

1 His mother's birthday. 

* For the argument of the sermon, see chapter ix. p. 305. 
1 (i) United Conference of American and English Missionaries, (2) First 
Synod of the Nippon Sei Kokwai, (3) C.M.S. Conference. 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 1 89 

things tends to bring it about a little more quickly than if 
it were not felt and formulated. 1 

By February 18 he was able to write after the three 
important gatherings mentioned in the preceding letter : 
' God has been very good to us, and guided us through.' 

Also: 

The united service on Sexagesima Sunday was most 
interesting, solemn, and stirring. Bishop Williams could 
remember the day when there was not a Christian in Japan 
in connection with our communion, and now the church 
was filled with adults, perhaps 220 : the children of neces- 
sity had a separate service of their own. 

From February 19 to March I the Bishop went to Kobe 
to make the acquaintance of the people there, and his first 
ordination followed his return to Osaka early in March. 

In March, one year after leaving England, he wrote to 
his father : 

Osaka : March 4, 1887. 

My dearest Father, It is half-past nine at night, and 
I have to-day looked over two sets of examination papers, 
given two long addresses to my three candidates, 2 and one 
address to the missionaries of our and the American 
Church here so I am afraid again this will be only a 
scrap of a letter. Truly I have had a rush of work the 
last two months. 

I think I told you the result of our conferences. We 
accepted the Articles &c., so that no present difficulty 
might arise as to the Church of England basis, and 
delayed the consideration of the more important Canons 
for two years. The C.M.S. ought now to be satisfied. 
Their Conference of Missionaries have passed a vote of 
warm satisfaction unanimously, and the S.P.G. men also 
are pleased ; so I hope the ship, which was a bit bested 

1 See chapter ix. p. 313. 

2 (i) Terasawa San, now priest -in-charge of Holy Trinity Church, Osaka, 
(2) Terata San, now (1898) sent to Formosa by the Japanese Missionary 
Society as a mission priest; (3) Nakanishi San (the 'old samurai'), now 
deacon-in-charge of St. Peter's Church, Osaka. 



190 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

by the waves, will now reach port. Already the whole 
thing has given a wonderful push to all work. The 
Japanese are delighted at having done the thing with us, 
and no longer feel only dictated to though, indeed, there 
was more feeling perhaps than fact about it. ... 

You will be thinking of me at my first ordination. One 
year to-day since I left England, a year and two days since 
I left Exeter, and a month longer since my consecration. I 
have already got to love my work, though truly there is an 
' onus episcopatus,' one anxiety, even with a small body of 
clergy, not going without another coming ; a continual 
giving out, I scarcely ever hear a sermon ; and the con- 
stant responsibility of more or less unaided decisions. 
Only may the Good Lord pardon and accept the work of 
this almost over-busy, over-anxious, yet unfailingly inter- 
esting year. 

To think that in another year I may be thinking of 
starting to see you all, 'just a glance,' again ! 
Your most loving Son, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH, Bishop. 

And again : 

Kobe : March 9, 1887. 

From Saturday, February 19, to Tuesday, March i, I 
was here in Kobe, making the acquaintance of some of 
the people. 

From March I to March 8 I was at Osaka for the 
examination and ordination. Another time I hope to be 
able to direct these more completely ; this time, owing to 
the conferences, I could only manage three addresses on 
the Friday and Saturday on ' The Call, to the Ministry,' 
'The Grace of Ministry,' 'The Pastor's Private Life.' 
Evington translated them for me. 

The ordination itself was, I hope, solemnly and im- 
pressively conducted. The church was crowded. The 
sermon was preached by Evington, whom, with Mr. Shaw 
of Tokyo, I have made my examining chaplain. Of the 
three candidates one was over sixty an old samurai, who 
in former days can remember being told off to see that no 
foreigner landed on the coast from a distressed man-of- 
war that had put in at Osaka, and has lived to be 
ordained ' deacon ' by an English Bishop. All three I was 
satisfied with. 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. l886-l888 IQI 

On Tuesday 7th I came here, and expect to stay till 
Monday fortnight about but with two breaks, one to a 
little S.P.G. outstation to the west along the coast, and 
the other to Tokushima, a large town in Shikoku, where 
the C.M.S. has work. 

I am giving Wednesday evening lectures on ' The 
Means of Grace ' to a tiny band, and Sunday afternoon 
sermons on ' The Prodigal Son ' that endless subject. 

While at Osaka the distressing news reached him of 
he death of Mrs. Maundrell, wife of the Archdeacon, and 
he at once started for Nagasaki (350 miles distant) to 
comfort his friend, then as always ready to pour out his 
sympathy for any of his clergy in trouble. He arrived 
too late for the funeral, but was able to conduct a me- 
morial service with a celebration of Holy Communion. 

He worked his way back to Tokyo for Easter, visiting 
en route Tokushima, a place on the east coast of Shikoku, 
a large island to the south-west of Osaka. 

March 22. I reached Tokushima at 10 A.M. The 
Church here is small and not very flourishing ; the 
Christians who are resident in the place have not been 
earnest, and there have been several defections. However, 
with a new and energetic catechist things are beginning to 
look brighter. In the afternoon I attended a ladies' sewing 
class, which he and his wife had started ; to this some of 
quite the upper classes in the city, the wives of the officials, 
came. In one of them, Mrs. Uyeda, we took a special 
interest, as she is a candidate for baptism ; her husband is 
head of the revenue department. In the evening I gave 
an address to some of the more educated men, whom the 
catechist had got together in Japanese fashion for tea and 
talk. I spoke of the changed view of Christianity in 
Japan, and of Christian doctrine being the answer to man's 
gropings and questionings. 

March 24. A confirmation of eleven persons, and one 
baptism. In the afternoon I asked all to a feast at a 
picturesque tea house, on a hill near the town. One of the 
Christians is a photographer, so he took our whole group. 
Several of the Christians belonged to a village twenty 



192 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

miles off, which we had not time to visit, so they had 
come to Tokushima to visit us. 

March 25. Seven A.M., Holy Communion ; I said 
farewell to the Christians, telling them to make me come 
again quickly by having a large number of candidates for 
confirmation, whom I must come to confirm. I went in a 
jinriksha to the coast, about ten miles, and took a sailing 
boat to pass over to Awaji, an island N.E. of Shikoku. 
On the way I went to see the celebrated whirlpool, and 
got a magnificent view from a rocky island close to the 
narrow channel where the waters are much agitated. I 
saw two junks come through, one of them was completely 
twisted round twice by the force of the waters, and then 
hurried on her way at a tremendous pace ; there does not 
seem to be any particular danger, the force of the water 
carrying them clear of the rocks. The day was delightfully 
fine, and we sailed into Fukura with a fair wind. 

Good Friday, Tokyo. A quiet day, with a good con- 
gregation in the morning. I preached on the Seven 
Words, the first three in the morning and the last four at 
night. 

Easter Eve. Mr. Shaw carried me off forcibly to see 
the cherry blossom in some Tokyo Gardens ; it was very 
beautiful. 

Easter Day. I preached on ' Behold I am alive for 
evermore.' A crowded congregation ; 90 communicants, 
Japanese and English, at the celebration of Holy Com- 
munion in our little church. 

The summer was occupied in various missionary 
journeys, and after a short holiday at the hill station of 
Karuizawa (August 1-13), the Bishop was free to make a 
long planned visit to Korea. 

Before leaving Tokyo on September 14 he attended 
the first Local Council of the Nippon Sei Kokwai. 

The Council (he wrote), according to our new orga- 
nisation, contains representatives of all missions of the 
Anglican communion in a particular district, as the bi- 
ennial Synod gathers representatives from all Japan. 
We did some practical work, besides a good deal of 
talking. 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 193 

The visit which the Bishop was now about to pay to 
Korea was the result of much previous correspondence 
both with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Scott of 
North China, the latter of whom had agreed to meet him at 
Seoul, the Korean capital. At that time Europe had heard 
very little of Korea and cared less for this peninsula, which 
was destined eight years later to become the theatre of the 
war fought so vigorously by Japan and so feebly by China. 
The Japanese Government were, however, well aware, 
then as later, that Korean misgovernment was a standing 
menace to the settled peace of the Far East, inasmuch as 
its glaring injustice was an invitation to Russia to step 
in, and even offered her a plausible excuse for putting her 
neighbour's house to rights. Needless to say, the two 
English Bishops were only remotely interested in the 
political opportunities of the moment ; their hearts were 
set on arranging for the seeds of the Gospel to be planted 
among the Koreans, then so little known and now so 
frequently visited by travellers, and so ably described by 
the pen of Mrs. J. F. Bishop and others. As a necessary 
preliminary, the Bishops were minded to see the land for 
themselves, as it was fairly accessible both from North China 
and Japan, and the result of their personal observations and 
of their joint report to Lambeth was the Archbishop of 
Canterbury's mission sent out in 1889 in connection with 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, under 
the devoted leadership of Bishop Corfe. Bishop Bicker- 
steth left Tokyo on September 14, only to be driven 
back by a violent storm, ' which the captain, though 
the boldest of sailors, was unable to face.' However, 
the next day the wind moderated, and a start was 
made. On board the Bishop saw much of Professor 
Shida (a Japanese pupil of Lord Kelvin's), ' a particularly 
attractive man ; ' and he left Kobe on September 22 for 

O 



194 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Nagasaki, ' the inland sea as calm as an Italian lake : I 
have never seen it more beautiful.' On September 27 he 
left Nagasaki for Korea, touching at the Goto Islands and 
at Tsushima. The rest of his experiences may be best 
given in his own words. 

September 29. I set foot on the soil of Korea for the 
first time this morning. With the help of a Chinese 
interpreter who speaks admirable English, I had no diffi- 
culty in finding the house of one of the Chinese catechists 
sent here by Archdeacon Wolf from Fuchow. You may 
remember my meeting them last year at Nagasaki. They 
were then on their way to this place. The interpreter was 
unable to stay, but I carried on a conversation for some 
time with them through their wives, who were trained at a 
boarding school at Singapore. They are getting some 
knowledge of Korean, and are welcomed at the houses of 
the people in the neighbouring villages. Their immediate 
work plainly must be to learn the language, and with this 
object they should certainly, as soon as possible, get a 
house among the Koreans. At present they are in a 
Japanese settlement. It is a difficult isolated position 
which they occupy, and they need the help of others' inter- 
cessions. At times they feel dispirited and lonely. They 
are the first missionaries of Korea, and by God's grace may 
be the pioneers of a great work. I left them after prayer, 
which I asked one of them to offer in Chinese, and the 
blessing, which I gave, in English. 

The Theological School at Tokyo begins work to-day. 

September 30. We left Fusan at 8 A.M. ; steam 
along the Korean coast all day, and pass Port Hamilton. 

October I. Still making our way along the coast, a 
curious sight on deck of Japanese and Koreans unable to 
understand one another's speech, but communicating their 
thoughts about us to one another by means of Chinese 

o * 

signs, which they traced with their fingers on the palms of 
their hands. 

The new Jubilee School at Yokohama opens to-day. 
I trust it may be a centre of widespread influence for 
good. The education of European and Eurasian boys is 
often sadly neglected in the East. 

October 2. I was greatly grieved at not reaching the 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. l886-l888 195 

port of Chimulpo until Sunday morning. I had looked 
forward to a quiet day with Bishop Scott Sunday 
travelling I abhor, but there are times when the irregulari- 
ties of steamers render it necessary. I was carried up to 
Seoul, some twenty-eight miles by eight men, in a chair 
which the Consul-General, my host, had kindly sent down 
for me. The bare sandy hills, with often fantastic and 
beautiful outlines, remind me somewhat of Ajmir and the 
north of Rajputana. 

The Consul-General gave me a warm welcome, and 
the pleasure was great of meeting Bishop Scott, the first 
Bishop of our Church whom I had met since I parted with 
Bishop Copleston in Ceylon. We were soon engaged in 
exchanging notes and experiences, and discussing plans for 
work in this country. 

The Consul's house is full, as two English officers from 
Hongkong have travelled across the country here from 
the east coast, and are his guests as 'well as ourselves. 
The house, which is now the British Consulate-General's, 
belonged formerly to a Korean Mandarin ; it stands well in 
a compound of its own, just inside the city walls, and a 
little above the general level of the city. The gain of this 
they only can know who have walked about the streets of 
Seoul. I will not attempt description. I thought when I 
saw it that the Chinese town at Shanghai was the filthiest 
place human beings live in on earth ; but Seoul is a grade 
lower. The climate is superb, probably one of the finest 
in the world. This may explain the comparative 
immunity of the people from epidemics which everything 
else would conduce to bring about. 

Most of the houses are merely hovels of mud, but the 
mandarins' are of wood, not unlike the better sort of houses 
in Japan. Some of those which outwardly look most 
dismal are, I am told, comfortable and even grand in their 
way inside. 

The costume of the men is very picturesque, and in 
this respect they are great dandies, being far more precise 
and particular than their Japanese neighbours. It is a 
mystery how such spotless garments find their way into 
and out of such beggarly houses. We had hoped for four 
days together in the capital, but a telegram, as it turned 
out unnecessarily, summoned us back to Chimulpo after I 
had been there for forty-eight hours only. The Bishop of 



o 2 



196 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

North China had, however, arrived three days before me, so 
that I think between us we obtained all necessary informa- 
tion. We are embodying it in a report for the Archbishop, 
It will be an ample repayment for the expenditure of time 
and trouble, if the generosity of English Churchmen should 
make it possible for a new missionary diocese to be 
established, with Seoul, at some future day, for its cathedral 
city. 

Two points I may notice : (i) The Koreans as a nation 
have no religion. They were Buddhists, and Buddhists' 
monasteries are still to be found on the hills. But Con- 
fucianism supplanted Buddhism, and now has itself but 
little hold even on the upper classes. (2) The story of 
the French mission, though there are some things about 
it to cause regret, is evidence that the people thirst for 
what they have not got, and are ready to listen to teachers 
who command their respect, and, like the Japanese, to give 
their lives for the faith. 

We were fortunate in seeing one most remarkable 
spectacle. Once in four years an examination is held for 
a sort of literary degree. It was going on last Monday. I 
was told that ten thousand students presented themselves. 
The Consul-General kindly accompanied us to see what 
we might, and with his help we were able to get into the 
great yard where it was being conducted. A large number 
of huge umbrellas had been stuck into the ground, under 
which there were little groups of students, provided each 
with an immense sheet of parchment paper, a rhyming 
dictionary, and thin strips of paper, on which had been 
written a subject for a poem. With the help of the 
dictionary, the duty of each candidate was to produce a 
poem of his own, to be submitted to the Examiner. When 
we arrived some had finished their task ; others \vere still 
in the throes of composition. The Examiner, a mandarin 
of high rank, in court dress, was seated in a sort of hall, 
fenced off from the candidates by a low paling. As each 
completed his task he rolled up the parchment, and pro- 
ceeded to fling it over the paling on to the ground inside. 
Men inside the paling were busy engaged in picking up 
the scrolls, unrolling them, rolling up a number of them 
together into larger bundles, and stacking these beside 
the examiner. As the scrolls came flying over the paling 
more thickly, it was all they could do to gather them 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. l886-l888 197 

together. Meanwhile no quiet was maintained, such as 
might seem suitable for votaries of the Muses ; on the 
contrary, a crowd of interested spectators, vendors of 
sweetmeats, tea, and other refreshments, &c., &c., surged 
up and down between the umbrellas. All thought, one 
would have considered, must be at an end ; and the con- 
trast was laughable as the remembrance suggested itself 
of the Senate House at Cambridge and St. Mary's chimes ! 
One person, at least, was au fait at his work. The aged 
examiner seemed to appraise the papers, which were pre- 
sented to him one by one, at the rate of about twenty a 
minute ! 

When we reached Chimulpo again late on Tuesday we 
found that our steamer was not to start until Thursday 
morning. This port is an increasing place, and mission- 
aries at Seoul would do well to have work there also, if 
possible. 

October 6. Bishop Scott is returning with me to 
Nagasaki. The sea is again as calm as a lake, and con- 
ference on all manner and kinds of subjects is delightful as 
we pace the deck. 

In the autumn of that year the Rev. L. B. Cholmondeley 
-arrived in Tokyo as the first member of St. Andrews Uni- 
versity Mission, and took up his residence with the Bishop 
at Shiba, a district of Tokyo ; and in December the Bishop 
had the pleasure of welcoming to Tokyo the first members of 
St. Hilda's Community Mission, who reached Yokohama 
-early on Sunday, December 4, and after being met there 
by the Bishop and Miss Hoar (of the Women's Mission 
Association, S.P.G.) arrived at Tokyo in time for the mid- 
day service and celebration of Holy Communion. On the 
8th the Bishop admitted them as members of the Com- 
munity Mission. 1 

The Bishop at once took steps to build a permanent 
house for the mission, as well as for the St. Andrews 
University Mission for men. For this a sum of i,2OO/. was 
required. He subscribed 3OO/. himself to meet a grant of 

1 See chapter vii. p. 233 



198 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

3OO/. from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 
and the balance was raised by the Guild of St. Paul in 
England. 1 

The time was now come for him to return to England 
to take part in the third gathering of the Bishops of the 
Anglican Communion. The Wednesday in Holy Week 
1888 was spent as a Quiet Day for all the workers 
in Tokyo, and on Maunday Thursday the Bishop 
admitted John Toshimichi Imai to the diaconate, and 
on the same day (March 29) he issued his first Pastoral 
Letter ' to the Clergy and Layworkers ' on the eve 
of his departure. After referring to the hope which 
he entertained of collecting sufficient funds in England 
to enable him to extend St. Andrew's and St. Hilda's 
Missions, and of urging during the summer, in conjunction 
with Bishop Scott of North China, the claims of Korea ' as 
a new and interesting field of evangelistic labour,' he made 
mention of the Tokyo Ladies' Institute, 'the superintendence 
and instruction of which had been placed by its Japanese 
promoters in the hands of members of the Church of 
England, although it lay outside the course of the 
operations of missionary societies.' He expressed regret 
that the re-issue of the ' Shinko no Hata,' the literary 
organ of the Nippon Sei Kokwai, had been prevented by 
other work, but believed that much good would result 
from the circulation among isolated Christians of brief 
letters containing advice and sympathy, together with 
information of what was passing in the mission with which 
they had become connected. 

In connection with the generous present by the S.P.C.K. 

of a theological library, placed in St. Andrew's House, 

Shiba, Tokyo (where the Bishop was now living with his 

Chaplain, the Rev. L. B. Cholmondeley), he expressed ' his 

1 See chapter vii. p. 241. 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 199 

sense of the importance of the prayerful, systematic, life- 
long pursuit of Biblical and theological study. Growth in 
knowledge was the one essential of efficiency in all ministry. 
In their own field of labour more especially, unlike some 
others, the progress of general culture had entirely outrun 
the obedience of faith, and at the same time ecclesiasti- 
cal questions of the gravest importance awaited considera- 
tion. It followed that nowhere was there more needed 
than among themselves that accuracy of teaching which 
comes from fulness of knowledge, together with that 
sobriety of judgment which commonly follows on sus- 
tained and comprehensive study.' 

In conclusion, the Bishop expressed very grateful 
thanks for the kindness he had received during his first 
two years in Japan, especially mentioning one (Arch- 
deacon Shaw) whose house had been his home during the 
greater part of that time. 

The Bishop sailed on April 3, and reached England on 
May 17, twelve days later than was expected, owing to 
being detained in quarantine at San Francisco, at which 
vexatious delay his eager spirit greatly chafed. 

During the five months which the Bishop spent in 
England, his forecast of incessant travelling and speaking 
was fulfilled to the letter, but he had the satisfaction in 
many parts of the country of making personal acquaintance 
of members of the Guild of St. Paul, which was henceforth 
established on a firm footing. 1 The roll of membership 
rapidly rose to 1,000, and the Bishop accepted the offer of 
two clergy (the Rev. F. Armine King and the Rev. F. E. 
Freese) for St. Andrew's Mission, where the Rev. L. B. 
Cholmondeley temporarily helped by the Rev. C. G. 

1 The annual subscriptions rose from ng/. to 2557. , and the income for 
the year, including donations and offertories, rose from 6437. in 1887, to 
I,2I4/. in 1888. 



2OO BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Gardner was already at work, and two more ladies 
volunteered for St. Hilda's Mission and were accepted. 

The chief speech delivered by the Bishop while in 
England was made in St. James's Hall at the annual 
meeting- of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 
(July 10), which was timed that year to be held during the 
session of the Lambeth Conference. 

In that speech Bishop Bickersteth began by drawing a 
parallel between the diffusion of the Greek language and 
literature in the nearer East through the conquests of 
Alexander the Great, and the diffusion of Anglo-Saxon 
modes of writing and thinking in the further East, as the 
two most important events in early and modern history. 
The supremacy of England in India, and her possession of 
a continuous line of important harbours along the southern 
Asiatic coast stretching from Aden to Hongkong, together 
with the re-opening of Japan to Western intercourse, and 
the formation of colonies of merchants, chiefly English and 
American, in China and Japan, had been the most powerful 
causes contributing to that result. Japan was the latest of 
the greater Oriental countries to come under the influence 
of this return movement of the West towards the East, but 
it had been probably affected by it more completely and 
more unalterably than any other nation. One of the 
greatest of Japanese statesmen had said to him last year : 
' Other Eastern nations have cared chiefly to adopt from 
you your guns and means of defence, we have honestly 
tried also to understand your thought ; ' and further, those 
who knew Japan best admitted that during the thirty-five 
years which had elapsed since the re-opening of the 
country she had made no backward step. Not only 
had much that was pernicious and embarrassing been swept 
away . . ., not only had all the latest inventions of natural, 
political, and economic science . . . been widely adopted, 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886- 1 888 2OI 

but also a system of graded education based on the village 
school and culminating in the Tokyo University had made it 
certain that the movement which vitally affected the upper 
classes would permeate the whole people. 

In answering the question what was the attitude of the 
people towards religion, the Bishop repudiated the recent 
suggestion of an English writer that the Japanese were 
without the religious sentiment, though he admitted that 
among the educated classes Shintoism, the ancient faith 
brought originally from Manchuria Buddhism, received, 
though in an altered form, from India and Confu- 
cianism, imported from China, had ceased to command 
credence, exercise authority, and guide life. In answer- 
ing the further inquiry, what was the attitude of the 
people towards Christianity, he thought it might best be 
described as one of respectful hesitation. Most certainly 
Christianity was respected, both as the faith of the 
missionaries who resided in Japan and as the religion of 
Western nations, and also a widespread feeling existed 
that it might prove the cement and bond of the new 
national life. But this favourable opinion was traversed 
by the doubts generated through the wide circulation of 
anti-Christian literature with its usual assumption that 
Christianity was the foe of science, unnecessary as a basis 
of morals, and already negatived by the wise men of the 
West. 

As regards the masses of the people, the Bishop had 
heard of no instance where a missionary conversant with 
the language and possessed of sympathy and tact had 
resided among them and not gathered considerable 
numbers into the fold of Christ. It was not beyond 
the bounds of sober expectation that Japan might be 
counted among the Christian nations within the lifetime of 
those now living. 



202 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

In conclusion, the Bishop urged that no work could be 
grander than that before them, and that no communion 
but their own was so fully fitted and furnished for its 
accomplishment. By its past history, by its present posi- 
tion, by its characteristic endowments, it only could be ' the 
church of the reconciliation' * not only to the separated 
fragments of Western Christendom, but also to countries 
as far asunder as England and America from India, China, 
and Japan. 

In the Lambeth Conference itself the Bishop felt an 
absorbing interest, the opening sermon of the Primate of 
All England (Archbishop Benson), delivered in the Abbey 
on July 3, greatly delighted him, not only as a weighty 
utterance on the position of the Anglican communion, but 
also as a luminous vindication of her inherited call to be a 
missionary and evangelistic agency throughout the world. 
I attended him as chaplain at that service, and can never 
forget the radiant face with which he broke away from the 
procession after it had passed down the nave, and said : 
' Was it not a true encyclical ? It will strengthen missions 
all over the world.' 

The Bishop of Exeter took a house in Wimpole Street 
during the whole month of the Lambeth Conference, and 
here the son was his father's guest, and greatly enjoyed 
meeting the many Bishops from all parts of the world who 
were entertained there. Of his own part in the conference 
little can be said, as it is well known that no report of 
the discussions is allowed to reach the public beyond the 
published encyclical. But my brother served on the 
Committee for Authoritative Standards of Doctrine and 
Worship, and also took an active part in some discussions, 

1 This phrase had been used by Bishop Whipple of Minnesota in a sermon 
preached by him before the members of the Lambeth Conference on July 3, 
1888, in Lambeth Palace Chapel. See Lambeth Conferences, published by 
S.P.C.K., p. 246. 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 2O3 

specially on the questions of polygamy and of the observ- 
ance of Sunday.. 

Some idea of the impression made by the young 
missionary Bishop may be gathered from the following 
letter written to him by Dr. Searle over a year later : 

Pembr. Coll. Lodge, Cambridge : 
December 30, 1889. 

My dear Bishop, It is a curious connection of thought 
that impels me to write to you on the occasion of the 
death of the Bishop of Durham. It is, however, easy to 
trace. That death will be felt to the remotest parts of 
the world, and at once I got thinking how you would feel 
it, for I know your admiration for him how, too, he had 
sympathised with you in your first missionary enterprise 
at Delhi, and how, too, last year he had opened his palace 
and his heart to all the missionary Bishops. He had great 
regard for you, and if I may tell you now that he is gone he 
looked to see great things done by you in Japan. Speaking 
of the Pan-Anglican meeting, he more than once said that 
your part in it had been so useful that you had impressed 
him by your largeness of heart and comprehensive spirit : 
' he has grown so ' was, I recollect, the exact expression. 
I venture to tell this to you-, my dear Bishop, as I know at 
times you must need encouragement and feel inadequate 
to your burden. 

. . . Always affectionately yours, 
C. E. SEARLE. 

Bishop Bickersteth's own impressions of the conference 
are recorded in the following letter to his old Diocesan, 
Bishop French : 

Lynton, North Devon : August 7, 1888. 

My dear Bishop, I am getting a little rest here in a 
house which my father has taken, and am thankful for it 
after the fatigues of ten weeks' incessant speaking and 
preaching. 

... I hope you will think the conference has done 
good work. I was in the minority on one or two resolu- 
tions ... I did not agree with the first of the resolutions 



204 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

on Sunday. Bengel and Lightfoot agree in thinking that 
St. Paul's words in the Colossians are inconsistent with 
the perpetual obligation in the Jewish sense of the law of 
one day in seven, and this is what the resolution seems to 
affirm . . . Still on the whole I do trust that God's work 
will have been set forward a step, and a large step, both at 
home and abroad ; and the tone which characterised all 
the meetings from first to last of brotherly love and 
mutual confidence was beyond anything that I had 
anticipated, and suggestive of highest and fullest hope. 

Ever your affectionate old chaplain and younger 
brother in the ministry of Christ, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH, Bishop. 

During the month of August, the Bishop of Exeter was 
able to gather all his children and grandchildren at Lyn- 
ton in Devon. The bachelor ' Uncle Bishop ' was always 
greatly in demand on all expeditions, and readily responded 
to all the pastimes of the children. One reminiscence 
may be allowed. On August 6, during a birthday picnic 
in the Valley of Rocks, a game of cricket was started, in 
which the two Bishops joined, and were supported by the 
late Bishop Smythies of Central Africa, then the guest of 
the Rector of Lynton. On asking the age of the hero of 
the day and being told he was just four, Bishop Smythies 
said : ' And I, my child, am forty-four this very day,' and 
gave him his blessing. It was during this month that the 
Rev. Armine King visited Bishop Bickersteth at Lynton 
after he had finally decided to join him in Japan, a 
decision which was the beginning of a close and abiding 
friendship, and greatly strengthened the Bishop's work in 
the capital of Japan. 

On October 25 the Bishop started for Japan via Canada, 
accompanied by the Rev. Armine King, the two St. 
Hilda's ladies, and a lady worker sent out by the Ladies' 
Association S.P.G., having as fellow-travellers the late 
Bishop of New Westminster and Mrs. Sillitoe. A member 



A MISSIONARY BISHOP'S LIFE. 1 886-1 888 205 

of the Guild of St. Paul wrote : ' I am glad our Bishop is 
starting on Agincourt Day. As far as numbers go he is 
fighting against far greater odds than the English were in 
France.' But, although few, the returning missionaries 
might have taken up the words, ' We few, we happy few, 
we band of brothers.' l 

The wrench of parting, however, was not easy, though 
it gave promise of the fruitfulness which waits upon all 
self-sacrifice, as will be seen from the following letter : 

To his Father 
Train near Shrewsbury : October 24, 1888. 

My dearest Father, One line to reach you to-morrow 
morning. It was very hard parting to-day, and yet as your 
love was the measure of it I do not know that I could 
wish it less hard ; and I believe that here or in Japan God 
will let me meet you again. Still, except for my work, I 
should, I am sure, never bring myself to leave our loving 
circle, or rather circle of home circles, in England. The 
wcrk and its end does just make it possible. Thank you, 
dearest Father, and God give you His richest blessings for 
all the love which you with Madre 2 have showered on me 
these months. They have gone by like a day. It is difficult 
to believe that what I so looked forward to is over ; but it 
is a very bright and helpful memory. I do trust that I 
may work in Japan as one should who has your example 
and prayers to support him. 

Your most affectionate Son, 

EDWARD BICKERSTETH, Bishop. 

1 Henry V. Act IV. Scene 3. 2 His step-mother. 



206 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 



CHAPTER VII 

MISSIONARY METHODS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO 
COMMUNITY MISSIONS 

' We need not go further than the Acts and Epistles, with such help perhaps 
as Professor Ramsay's great work gives in understanding Apostolic methods, 
to see how well it is to have an ideal and to work with a plan from the begin- 
ning.' Letter of Bishop EDWARD BICKERSTETH to Guild of St. Paul, 
December 28, 1893. 

IN this chapter a fuller account will be found of the two 
Community missions of St. Andrew's and St. Hilda's at 
Tokyo. The only reason for singling out these two mis- 
sions for special and detailed mention is that they were 
each of them founded by Bishop Bickersteth and each 
bear strongly the impress of their founder. But he himself 
would have been the first to deprecate any mention of 
them to the virtual exclusion of other methods of missionary 
work, such as had been maintained long before his arrival 
in Japan by the devoted missionaries, men and women, 
sent out from England through the agency of the S.P.G. 
or C.M.S. and other societies, as well as by the Sister 
Church of America. 

The first missionary of the S.P.G., the Rev. A. C. Shaw 
(now Archdeacon), who is so often mentioned in these 
pages, arrived in Tokyo on September 25, 1873, an d the 
first preaching station of the mission was opened by the 
Rev. H. B. Wright in the earlier months of 1874 that is, 
twelve or thirteen years before Bishop Bickersteth began 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 2O/ 

his special missions. The first convert, Andrew Shimada, 
won to God through the labours of these men, was 
baptised by Mr. Wright on St. Andrew's Day in 1874, 
and is now working as a Deacon. 

In 1875 Miss Hoar, of the Ladies' Association S.P.G., 
began ' her faithful and successful ' work l in Tokyo. She 
was joined in 1886 by her cousin Miss Annie Hoar, and 
the teaching and training of Japanese women, as well as 
district visiting, were zealously carried on by them, until 
owing to a breakdown in health they were obliged to 
leave Japan in 1898. 

The first missionary of the C.M.S. 2 in Japan was the 
Rev. George Ensor, who had been assigned to China, but 
owing to lack of funds he was sent to Japan, a special 
donation of 4,ooo/. having been made to the society in 
1867 to enable them to start a Japanese Mission. He 
landed on January 23, 1869, just after the conclusion of 
the Revolution for which the year 1868 will ever be 
memorable in the annals of the Japanese. It was in No- 
vember 1868 that the young Mikado had moved his Court 
from Kioto to Yedo, and renamed that city Tokyo. 
On January 5, 1869, he had first received a Foreign 
Minister in public audience ; but evangelisation was still 
carried on exposed to constant persecution, and it was 
not till the end of 1872 that the notorious notice-boards 
prohibiting Christianity were withdrawn. Mr. Ensor's 
health failed and he had to return to England in that 
very year ; but he had been already joined by the 
Rev. H. Burnside, and ever since the C.M.S. has gone on 
strengthening her mission agencies, until now not only in 
Kiushiu and in the Hokkaido (where there are no other 
English missionaries except those sent out by this society), 

1 See S.P.G. Digest, p. 721. 

- See History of the C.M.S. by Eugene Stock, vol. ii. ch. Ixv. 



208 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

but also on the main island of Hondo, they are far the 
strongest numerically of the missionaries which represent 
the Church of England. 

By such missionaries, both men and women, evange- 
lisation and education in all its variety of methods has 
been energetically carried on, and Bishop Bickersteth 
threw himself into their work with strong and discrimi- 
nating sympathy. At the Birmingham Church Congress 
in 1893 he thus alluded to the manifoldness of the methods 
by which the Gospel must be presented and preached : 

The subject I understand to be assigned to me is 
' Varieties of Method in the Evangelisation of the Heathen.' 
The title is rightly chosen. In some real sense there are 
no varieties in this work. St. Paul's words, ' We preach 
Christ Jesus as the Lord ' sum up and identify everything 
worth calling missionary work which has yet been done or 
ever will be. In missions, oneness and sameness are 
essential ; variety is only accidental. 

Such varieties, then, as are to be spoken about are due 
not to differences in the contents of the Gospel, but to the 
fact that in the effort to bring the message of the faith to 
bear on the hearts and consciences of men, all modern 
missions alike make use of a large machinery of apparatus 
and means educational, literary, institutional, medical 
which does vary indefinitely in accordance with the resources 
at the disposal of the particular mission, and the character 
of that one of the world's all but countless peoples among 
whom it is at work. 

I do not say, or think, that we are wrong in developing 
and using this great machinery. But I may be allowed to 
notice in passing that the number of missionaries, men and 
women, who put all use of means and machinery on one 
side as not intended for them, and go forth in the expecta- 
tion of winning souls simply by their words and lives by 
words of which the love of God in Christ is the inspiration 
and by lives lived in closest association with the lives of 
the people among whom they dwell is too few. Some 
such there have been in modern times Gordon, for instance,. 
ihefagir missionary of the Punjab and their influence has 
been incalculable and very salutary. 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 2O9 

But the mass of us work, and always will work, through 
machinery. Hence arise variety, and complexity, and 
manifoldness. I will employ the few moments at my 
disposal in mentioning some of the forms which our work 
takes in Japan. 

I. First of all, then, we use public preaching, a form of 
work which cannot be neglected without detriment not 
only to the aggressive power of a mission, but to its inner 
life. In Japan, however, this does not as a rule take place in 
the open air, as in India police regulations and the people's 
ideas on the matter stand in the way of this but in rooms 
erected or hired for the purpose. This form of work is not 
without results. At least it makes known among a large 
number of persons, chiefly in that lower rank of society in 
which the mass of any people must always be included, 
that there is such a thing as Christianity. Sometimes it 
has led directly to conversions. Recently in one or two 
large towns in Japan, a plan has been tried which has been 
called, by a name borrowed from you, a special mission. 
With us the speciality consists in concentrating for several 
weeks a number of evangelists who are commonly working 
separately, in one great city, in widely advertising for some 
time beforehand the meetings and addresses, and in asking 
the prayers of all the Church missions in the empire for 
that city during the time the mission is going on. Results 
have been appreciable. The Buddhists, notwithstanding the 
traditional teaching of their religion which prescribes uni- 
versal toleration, have paid the ' mission ' the compliment of 
noisy and violent opposition. 

II. Work among tJie educated classes. The percentage 
of the educated class in Japan is large. It was so formerly, 
when Chinese methods prevailed. It is so now, when 
European methods have largely taken their place. The 
present educational system of Japan is widely extended. 
It tends to become more thorough and less exotic than it 
was when first introduced a few years ago. In range it 
covers the whole field of knowledge from the subjects 
taught in village schools to the curriculum of an English 
University, theology only excepted. Theology cannot be 
taught, because the educated Japanese mind is as yet in a 
state of indecision and uncertainty in reference to the 
whole subject of religion. The number of educated men 
who believe in the old faiths is few, and the class tends to 



210 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

become extinct. It seems especially the duty of English 
and Americans, whose literature and science have been the 
main agencies in bringing about the changes out of which 
has emerged the modern Japan, to make sure that the 
classes who have proved so receptive of their teaching in 
other ways, should at least have the opportunity of learn- 
ing what their faith is. 

(a) The Community mission affords one way in which 
this may be done. . . . 

(b) Again, educated nations in a special degree require 
an educated clergy. The missionary societies are, I believe, 
conscious of this now, as they were not in former years 
before Bishop French induced a new view on the subject 
by founding his college at Lahore. In Japan now we have 
three Divinity Schools supported by the Anglican Com- 
munion ; one taught by the missionaries of the Church 
Missionary Society, one by the clergy of a University 
Mission which has been established in Tokyo, and one by 
the able and excellent clergy of the American Church 
Mission. 

The last eight years has seen the ordination of twenty- 
two Japanese, nearly all of them alumni of these schools. 
Our hopes for the future are largely bound up with these 
men and with those who will be added to their number. 
At the best, no European will ever understand the language 
or mind of the Oriental people as the sons of the soil do. 
The present danger is that the rising generation, even of 
young Christian men in Japan, should be so attracted to 
the new careers and prospects which are open to them 
under the modern circumstances of their country as to 
neglect or even despise the ministry of the Church. There, 
as in England, nothing but a sense of the value of the souls 
of men, and of the privilege for Christ's sake of minister- 
ing under His commission to those for whom He died, can 
meet this risk. 

(c) Again, in addition to schools founded and main- 
tained by English societies the educational system in Japan 
to which I have referred is glad from time to time to avail 
itself of the services of English masters, and occasionally of 
English mistresses. The vast educational departments of 
India and Japan are among the phenomena of our day. 
They are effecting a silent revolution in the East of which 
the Church must needs take account. Any plan which 
directs the forces which they control in right channels is 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 211 

worthy of consideration. Among such plans I unhesi- 
tatingly count the acceptance by sincere and consistent 
Christian men and women of educational posts under the 
Governments of these two lands. Let them count the cost 
beforehand in Japan, probable loneliness, the uncertainty 
of tenure, and the limitation (which must be loyally adhered 
to) which obliges them not to teach doctrinal Christianity 
during school hours. Still if, notwithstanding all these 
disadvantages, they are prepared to throw themselves 
enthusiastically on the one hand into the work of secular 
education, and on the other into the opportunities, indirect 
though they be, of making known the truth which these 
posts afford, then I believe such educationalists are to be 
counted among real and effective allies of the regular 
missionary staff. . . . Some English Churchmen, I gather, 
are suspicious of this mode of work, as if in it the claims 
of the truth were subordinated to those of secular science. 
This fear is groundless, provided the teacher is possessed 
by a sincere and earnest desire for the salvation of those 
under his charge. 

III. Work among women. In Japan, as in India, 
Christian work among women must largely be undertaken 
by Christian women if it is to be done at all. They have a 
field open to them than which they could not desire a fairer. 
An English Churchwoman, whose qualifications are bright 
and gentle manners, the knowledge which an average 
education supplies, and that sympathy for Orientals which 
will lead her to see their good points, and to wish to 
Christianise not to Europeanise them to mention some 
necessary points and to omit deeper qualifications still 
may in Japan adopt almost any form of work which 
she prefers with good hope of success. She may teach a 
school, she may nurse the sick, she may visit the poor, she 
may take charge of orphans, she may train Japanese 
women-workers. If she has considerable means at her 
disposal, and that indescribable quality which makes social 
intercourse a spiritual power, she may make her drawing- 
room a centre to which Japanese ladies will gladly resort 
in order that they may come under the influence of her 
words and spirit, and catch the reflection of her faith, 
though it may be they know not where its fires are fed. 
I have known this done in one almost ideal life l which 

1 Mrs. Kirkes. See chapter viii. p. 298. 



212 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

closed in Tokyo less than six months since, and invites 
followers to-day from among the refined and wealthy and 
devoted Church women of England. 

IV. Lastly, and perhaps of highest importance, there 
is the mission agency which the Church itself constitutes 
I mean the native, indigenous Church so soon as it has 
sufficient members to admit of organisation. Apostolic 
precedent and modern experience may alike warn us that 
there is serious loss in placing any long interval between 
the first groups of baptisms and the rudimentary organisa- 
tion of the wider Christian society. It is well to pass as 
quickly as possible through the congregational stage. 
And further, in Japan above all lands, if we can only 
advance towards it slowly, we are bound from the beginning 
to have an eye to the day, which may or may not be 
distant, when the Church shall be wholly independent of 
ourselves. 

The few thousand Christians who are attached to our 
missions are members of a nation numbering forty million 
souls, a nation where patriotism is almost too universal 
to be counted a virtue, and whose ideal it is to take its 
place as an equal among the great civilised nations of the 
world. Such a nation must of course have a Church of its 
own. Even now, though an Indian Christian if a Church- 
man not seldom counts himself a member of the Church of 
England of the Church, that is, of the conquering race to 
a Japanese the idea of belonging to the Church of a foreign 
land would seem too ridiculous to be worth growing 
indignant at. We have tried to meet this feeling, surely a 
right and worthy feeling on the whole, to the utmost 
extent that prudence, not to say the slow movement of 
the complicated machinery by which our Anglican com- 
munion does its work, have permitted us. We have to-day 
a genuine native Church in Japan, with its own constitution 
and Canons (drawn up in 1887, not 1603) and Synod and 
vestries and missionary society, &c., all, it is true, in their 
initial stage of working, still all mainly carried out by 
Japanese themselves, and on I believe such primitive and 
catholic lines as will only need expansion and develop- 
ment, not change, till the day of independence is reached. 
One thing at least has resulted from this venture : the 
distinction between converts of United States and 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 213 

Canadian and English Church Missions has fallen entirely 
into the background. All alike belong, and lay stress 
only on belonging, to this little Church of Japan. 

It was always a delight to the Bishop to stay with his 
missionaries whenever he could make time, and one of the 
incidental advantages of the increased Episcopate in Japan, 
to which he much looked forward, was further leisure for a 
more minute acquaintance with the details of their work. 

The recollections of Canon Tristram, of Durham, whose 
daughter, Miss Louisa Tristram, has been for long one of 
the foremost lady workers in the C.M.S. Mission at Osaka, 
will be read with interest : 

The College, Durham : February 13, 1899. 

Dear Mr. Bickersteth, I have rarely enjoyed a visit 
more than the few days I spent with the Bishop at Tokyo 
in 1891. My missionary daughter, who was my companion, 
was hospitably entertained at the beautifully situated St. 
Hilda's Mission House. . . . We had many delightful talks 
of an evening in the Bishop's own study, and he deeply 
impressed me as having inherited all his dear father's 
saintliness. There were a number of Japanese Divinity 
students to whom I gave a lecture on the evidences one 
evening. Shortly after our visit I had the pleasure of 
acting as chaplain at a confirmation at Nagoya in a 
mission room, simply an ordinary Japanese room fitted 
up. I was always struck with the considerate way in 
which your brother conducted his services in accordance 
with the custom of the missionary of the place, never 
adopting the eastward position or doing anything which 
could suggest difference. He also quite adapted himself to 
the habits of the country ; so at Nagoya, being in a house, he 
had taken off his shoes and confirmed in his stocking feet. 
I afterwards went round the island of Kiushiu, and as we 
were returning again came across the Bishop at Fukuoka 
in the north of the island, where I had the privilege of 
taking part in the consecration of a beautiful little church 
built by the C.M.S. native converts, and assisting after- 
wards in the Holy Communion. It was indeed a day of 
rare interest. We travelled back to Osaka together, where 



214 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

again I was one of the clergy at the consecration of 
another native church. The Bishop seemed very ill and 
worn, in fact he had been working with a ceaseless energy 
that would have tried an iron constitution. I never saw 
him again till he brought his bride to dine with us in 
Durham in 1893. I wish I could write anything worthy 
of being quoted in your memoir, but after seven years my 
recollections are not so distinct as they might be. I can 
only say that he was one whom to know was to love and 
reverence, though we might not see alike on many points. 
Believe me ever sincerely yours, 
H. B. TRISTRAM. 

An important educational venture in which the Bishop 
took much interest may here be mentioned. In the autumn 
of 1886 Professor Toyama, of Tokyo, wrote a paper on the 
higher education of Japanese ladies, with the result that it 
was proposed to found an institute in the capital to pro- 
mote the culture of women. The building, for which the 
Japanese authorities promised to be responsible, was to 
contain reading and lecture rooms, class rooms for about 
one hundred day pupils, and a hostel for boarders, the 
whole being under English superintendence and manage- 
ment. It was this latter condition which brought this wholly 
Japanese scheme before the Bishop. Through some 
Scotch professors at the university he was brought into 
contact with Count Ito (then Minister of Education, sub- 
sequently Prime Minister of Japan) and others, and elected 
a member of the committee of management. He was 
then asked to seek for teachers in England, and consented 
to do so after laying down this one stipulation that ' the 
teachers should be free to exercise their personal influence 
with their pupils as they might desire, no restriction being 
put upon them in any way, and it being understood that 
as religious people they would exercise religious influence.' 
He was himself surprised at the readiness with which his 
conditions were accepted, and wrote home that ' men 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 215 

themselves agnostic and as keen as razors in intellect not 
seldom admitted that religion is a great element even in 
culture. Here, if the scheme advances, is an offer to put 
under distinct Christian influence and instruction the 
young wives and daughters of the highest class in the 
capital, who share continually in the life which the enter- 
prise of their husbands and fathers has so wonderfully 
developed. I do not know that any nobler opportunity of 
widespread influence and usefulness of the highest kind 
has ever been offered to the Christian women in England.' 

The Bishop's appeal, in which he was joined by the 
Rev. A. C. (now Archdeacon) Shaw, met with a warm 
response in England, and within fifteen months of the 
receipt of this letter six ladies of exceptionally high 
culture and training gave themselves for the work of the 
Ladies' Institute, and under the leadership of Miss MacRae 
(Head Mistress of the Church of England High School 
for Girls, Baker Street) set sail for their distant field of 
work on January 26, 1888. One and all had given up a 
successful career in England for the sake of Japan. The 
Bishop's letters bear frequent testimony to the interest 
he took in their work, but its subsequent development 
disappointed him. In his judgment the ladies did not 
display sufficient patience in first securing influence 
over their pupils, which influence in Japan, as in the 
East generally, is proverbially strong, and then wait for 
opportunities to turn it into directly religious channels. 
In any case within a few years the Japanese authorities 
took fright at the idea of direct proselytism, so far altering 
the conditions as to materially restrain the liberty of 
Christian influence exercised by the English successors of 
these ladies. 

It will thus be seen that in launching his scheme for 
Community missions Bishop Bickersteth only designed to 



2l6 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

add, if it were possible, one more method hitherto untried, 
in order to supplement, not in any way to supplant, work 
already in operation. If, therefore, the rest of this chapter 
is devoted to the new work, it will not be supposed that 
the other and older work is ignored. 

It is proposed to establish, as soon as men and means 
are available, an associated mission in Japan after the 
manner of the University missions in India. The mission 
will be carried on in immediate connection with the 
Bishop, and if possible in the same city which shall be 
chosen for his residence. In this case the missionaries 
will reside in his house. The special object of the mission 
will be to reach the educated classes, while at the same 
time it is believed that it will form a useful centre for 
general mission work. It is hoped that in time educated 
Japanese Christians will be attached to the mission staff. 

On the last day of 1885, a few weeks before his conse- 
cration, this appeal had been made by the Bishop- elect. 
The Bishops of Durham (Dr. Lightfoot), Exeter (Dr. 
Bickersteth), and Salisbury (Dr. Wordsworth) at once 
headed a subscription list in order to help to provide the 
means, and in a few weeks nearly 3OO/. was collected. The 
committee of the S.P.G. also unanimously recommended 
that a grant be assigned at the next annual distribution of 
funds in aid of the initial expenses of the mission. As to 
men it will be remembered that three months later the 
Bishop, when on his first voyage to Japan, had written to- 
Dr. Searle (March 31, 1886) 'to claim the sympathy and 
assistance of a body of University men ' in the work of 
evangelising Japan and building up a native Church. 

The first member of the University Mission thus pro- 
jected was the Rev. L. B. Cholmondeley, formerly assistant 
curate of Kenwyn, Truro. He sailed for Japan at the end 
of March 1887, within a year of the Bishop's appeal to 
Cambridge. Mr. Cholmondeley, however, belonged not to> 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 217 

Cambridge, but to the sister University of Oxford, and it is 
curious to note that all the first members of this mission 
without exception were graduates of Oxford. Mr. Chol- 
mondelcy was followed in the autumn of 1888 by the 
Rev. F. Armine King (of Keble College, Oxford, formerly 
curate of Tottenham), and in the spring of 1889 by the 
Rev. F. E. Freese (Trinity College, Oxford, formerly curate 
of St. George's, Stonehouse). The Rev. C. G. Gardner 
(B.A. Oxford), who had gone out under S.P.G., joined St. 
Andrew's Mission for a time in 1890, and the Rev. Her- 
bert Moore (Keble College, Oxford, curate of St. Thomas's, 
Liverpool) came out from England in the same year. In 
1891 the Rev. L. F. Ryde (St. John's College, Oxford, 
formerly curate of St. Andrew's, Great Yarmouth), and in 
1894 the Rev. A. E. Webb (Brasenose College, Oxford, 
formerly curate of Stockport) were added to the number. 

The Bishop himself used often to tell the story that 
as the result of a miserably attended meeting at Oxford 
he received two or three offers of service, while enthusiastic 
receptions afforded him at his own University, which at the 
time seemed more encouraging, yet sent no members to 
the Community mission of St. Andrew's at Tokyo. 1 

A perusal of the early correspondence connected with 
the foundation of these two organisations will give some 
idea of the exact niche which the Bishop designed these 
associated missions to occupy. They had to make, almost 
to fight, their way to recognition, or at least to apprecia- 
tion. In the second chapter, in describing the initiation 
of the Cambridge Mission to Delhi, proof has been given 
of the shyness with which Community missions were 
regarded twenty years ago. A like spirit of caution is to 

1 In the autumn of 1896 the Bishop had the pleasure of welcoming the 
first recruit from his own University in the person of Mr. Basil Woodd 
(Trinity College, Camb. ), who joined the mission as a layman. 



2l8 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

be noticed in a speech delivered by Bishop Edward 
Bickersteth at the annual meeting of the S.P.G. at St. 
James's Hall in July 1888, when he was at home for the 
Lambeth Conference. 

The small independent mission to which I referred just 
now is to be a Community mission, and I venture to 
suggest that in the present circumstances of Church work 
in the East the society should put prominently forward as 
one of its main objects the formation of Community 
missions both of men and women. No one can value 
more highly than I do the exhibition before the heathen 
of the purity, the blessedness, the love of the English 
home. I should think it a loss if in any central station, 
or at the head of some large institutions, there were not a 
married missionary. But this being fully admitted, the 
reason of the case, together with the teachings of history 
and experience, prove that we cannot hope to do the work 
to which God has manifestly now led us in eastern lands 
if we continue to take the English parsonage as supplying 
the normal type of the life of the foreign missionary. The 
expense alone is prohibitory. On the other hand, there 
are very few and all honour to them who can bear the 
strain of solitary work in a heathen country. The Com- 
munity mission (I venture to mention that I speak from 
some experience in past years) supplies just what is needed. 
Sympathy is its guiding thought, and union in devotion 
and work its unfailing practice. Missions from Oxford 
and Cambridge in Calcutta and Delhi, and from St. John's, 
Cowley, in Bombay, have proved, if any doubted, that such 
associated life and work in the East is neither impossible 
nor unpractical. 

It will be noticed that the prudential reason of in- 
creased economy is given its full place in this apologia, 
and indeed the average cost of each member being only 
ioo/. a year justifies his argument; yet this financial 
consideration weighed far less with the Bishop than his 
belief that such a mission, consisting exclusively of gradu- 
ates of the English Universities, would command the respect 
of the educated classes, and especially of the University of 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 2 19 

Tokyo, which sent its own sons all over the country. He 
also believed that in the early Church history of any coun- 
try it is most important to avoid defects which it might be 
difficult to make good, and that a body of men working 
under the immediate direction of the Bishop and on 
Apostolic lines would be very careful in this respect. In 
a word, he was convinced that from the singular opportu- 
nity offered by the receptivity of Japan a mission of that 
kind ought to have the greatest influence. In a city like 
Tokyo, where men followed with keenest interest the battle 
between Christianity and agnosticism, where arguments 
might be answered at any moment by quotations from 
Huxley or Herbert Spencer, it was surely wise to send 
those who, as the Bishop expressed it, ' cannot have gradu- 
ated too highly in the spiritual life ' and yet who have also 
learnt from England's wisest and best how and when to use 
the weapons of attack. 

But it will be asked : What was the rule of life which 
the members of the mission were expected to follow ? 
One point from the first was decided, as stated by the 
Bishop in a letter to Canon Stanton, dated from Okayama, 
November 18, 1886. After mentioning four or five men 
in England with whom he had been in correspondence, 
he adds : 

If you remember, the last day I was with you in Cam- 
bridge we agreed that the plan adopted at Zanzibar should 
be adopted by me too in the case of all men coming out to 
serve directly under me that is, not in connection with any 
Society. According to this plan, the Bishop is responsible 
for all expenses except such as are strictly personal. For 
these a small yearly sum is allowed to each missionary ; at 
Zanzibar 2O/. or 25/., but here probably 40!. or 5O/. would 
be necessary. But anyhow there could be nothing but a 
' subsistence ' allowance not ' indigence ' in any sense, but 
no surplus. 



220 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

This plan has been always followed, but with regard 
to a rule of life the Bishop desired to feel his way, not 
from hesitation or uncertainty, but deliberately adopting 
this policy as most likely to avoid the evils of a cut and 
dried system. Even three years after the foundation of the 
mission he wrote to his secretary sister : 

Tell Canon Crowfoot (with my affectionate regards) we 
have no formulated rules as yet at St. Andrew's. I prefer 
their growing as St. Vincent de Paul taught. All are, of 
course, under me. All attend Mattins, Sext, and Compline, 
and generally Evensong. Holy Communion on Sundays, 
Thursdays, and Saints' Days, &c. Each has his own work 
to do college or mission district or classes as the case 
may be. All live together. The idea (as at Delhi) is a 
common life, to strengthen and help forward individual 
work. 

With regard to length of service the Bishop expressed 
his views in a letter of November 17, 1887, m which he 
wrote : 

' You will remember that I could not take on 

the staff of my special University Mission owing to his offer 
being limited to three years.' This was the principle which 
he wished to enforce, though at times the pressure of work 
forced him into a suspension of this rule. 

It was not till 1891 that the Rule of Life here given 
was formally drawn up and printed. 

The Rule of the Mission Brotherhood of St. A ndrew. 

1. The name of the society shall be ' The Mission 
Brotherhood of St. Andrew.' 

2. The object of the mission is to seek the glory of 
God in making known the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 
among the people of Japan, especially in Tokyo and 
adjacent districts. 

3. The members of the brotherhood shall be graduates 
of Oxford and Cambridge holding Deacon's or Priest's 
Orders in the Anglican communion. 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 221 

[It is understood that no one will be accepted as a 
member of the brotherhood who is engaged to be married, 
and that no member of the brotherhood will contract 
any such engagement without offering to resign his posi- 
tion.] 

4. The central residence of the brotherhood is the 
house of the Bishop St. Andrew's House, Shiba, Tokyo. 

No member shall undertake any work which perma- 
nently separates him from sharing in the corporate life of 
the brotherhood. 

5. Besides the members, clergy and laymen may be 
admitted either as Resident or Non-Resident Associates. 

6. The Bishop is Visitor, and no fundamental rule of 
the brotherhood shall be changed without his consent. 

7. One of the members shall be elected at a General 
Chapter on the eve or festival of St. Andrew to act as 
Head of the brotherhood for one year. He shall be 
admitted to his office by the Bishop. His duties shall 
include the general superintendence of the corporate life of 
the brotherhood and the distribution of work, subject to 
the approval of the Visitor. 

Every member shall be admitted at a service in chapel 
by the Bishop, or some one deputed by him. 

8. Ordinary chapters, to which questions concerning 
the rule and work of the brotherhood may be submitted, 
may be held once a month, or more frequently at the dis- 
cretion of the Head, who shall preside in the absence of the 
Visitor. Resident Associates (of six months' standing) 
have the right to attend. 

9. One of the members or associate members shall be 
appointed by the Head to act with him in the management 
of the .funds and domestic affairs. 

10. After every seven years' work in Japan every 
member of the brotherhood shall be entitled, subject to 
the exigencies of the work then in hand, to a furlough of 
one year in England. 

1 1. The ordinary week-day services will be as follows : 
(the times of the services being subject to alteration) 
Matins (Japanese), Holy Communion, Sext, Evensong, 
Compline (Japanese). 

[Each member shall have his own rule as to frequency 
of Communion.] 

a. All the brethren will endeavour to set apart some 



222 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

time or times before Sext for daily meditation and inter- 
cession. 

b. A missionary Litany will be held on Friday. 

c. A time or times will be set apart every week for the 
united study of the Bible and of Christian doctrine. 

d. A Retreat will be held once a year, and Quiet Days 
observed in or about the Ember seasons. 

1 2. Each member of the brotherhood is expected, 
(i) to pursue some branch of theological study, 
(ii) to prepare during his first three years of residency 
in Japan for two examinations in the language. 
Approved, EDW. BICKERSTETH, Bishop. 

November 27, 1891. 

Appendix to Rule explaining position of Associates. 

a. All clergy accepted for St. Andrew's Mission shall 
come out to Japan as members of the mission and 
associates of the brotherhood. 

b. An associate may, if he so desire, be admitted a 
member of the brotherhood after six months in Japan. 

c. Associates are expected to follow the Rule of the 
brotherhood so far as it regulates the common life of the 
House and the distribution of the work. 

d. Resident associates of six months' standing have the 
right to attend chapters, and to vote on all questions not 
immediately affecting the corporate life of the brotherhood. 

January 1892. 

It seems worth while to record thus fully the origin 
and rule of St. Andrew's House, inasmuch as experience 
gained in the Church's active warfare ought to be made 
available as a guide to those engaged in other parts of the 
mission field. 

Rightly as he believed wrongly as some thought the 
Bishop steadily refused on principle to be connected with 
or to found a brotherhood or sisterhood which would smother 
individuality and submit itself to the iron yoke sometimes 
assumed to be inseparable from such organisations. He 
saw, or thought he saw, his way to a revival of Community 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 223 

missions, both for men and women, which would combine 
a sufficiently strong central rule with allowance for the 
claims of individuality. This point is illustrated by a few 
words in a letter written in Easter week 1889 : 

I do not much think I should get on with his sort of 
people. I like people with lots of naturalness, sympathy, 
and love, making use of all Church privileges as God's 
gifts to them, and I should fancy he is enamoured more of 
ecclesiastical stilts, laces, strait waistcoats, and other 
articles of that description. 

Whatever may be the future of the missions which the 
Bishop was allowed to found in Delhi and Tokyo, at least 
one thing has been strikingly proved in the experience 
vouchsafed to them, that men so associated can live 
together in brotherly love, and by love can serve one 
another and the Church of God. What the Rev. G. A. 
Lefroy 1 once said of Delhi is, I believe, equally true of 
St. Andrew's that its members have been singularly free 
from jars and misunderstandings. 

The Bishop dealt with the vexed question of vows in 
the same spirit. He did not hold them to be essential 
neither did he regard them as unwise or unlawful. His 
mind can be gathered from the following extracts from 
letters to his sister May : 

January 4, 1890. 

I fear I haven't time to write on vows. I feel gene- 
rally : 

A. That short dispensable vows should hardly be called 
vows. So great a term is not needed for the thing. 

B. That permanent, lifelong vows are right under 
circumstances and acceptable to God. Why not ? I have 
seen no reason. I should not be concerned to deny that 
they are in a sense a confession of weakness, but we are 
weak. Also I think they should be dispensable, either by 
those who take them proprio motu or by the Church. . . . 

1 Bishop Designate of Lahore (1899). 



224 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

Again, a real vocation to win souls for God during 
such length of life as God shall give sealed not by a vow 
but by an inner intention ; to be set aside, if at all, not by 
some public dispensation, but by God's Providence altering 
circumstances and calling elsewhere is the true foundation 
of a worker at St. Andrew's or St. Hilda's. 

From the first he was anxious to preserve the due 
balance between the work and the life. In a letter to 
Canon Stanton (dated St. Andrew's House, February 21, 
1888) he wrote : 

So our numbers are going up. May our increase be 
intensive as well as extensive, as dear old Dr. Kaye (of 
Lincoln) used to say. 

This was the impression made upon the more thought- 
ful Japanese, one of them using the following simile : ' I 
see that, like two wings of a bird, religion and intellectual 
study must be kept up together.' 

The members were from the first housed with the 
Bishop, who, when in Tokyo, always resided at St. 
Andrew's House until his marriage in 1893. 

It is not possible here, owing to want of space, to do 
more than refer very generally to their work, interesting 
and important as it has been and is. 

Three or four main objects have been kept in view from 
the first : 

1. To train the native ministry, by whom ultimately 
Japan must be won for Christ. 

2. To organise lectures and classes by means of which 
Christ and His claims may be brought before the people. 

3. To itinerate in or near Tokyo. 

4. To open up other strong centres, as opportunities 
offered and means allowed. 

Writing to the Guild of St. Paul from Tokyo, July 5, 
1 889, the Bishop reports : 

i. A Divinity School is the first charge of St. Andrew's. 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 22$ 

Of this school Mr. King is now principal. This position 
gives him the opportunity, which I have no doubt will be 
very well used, of influencing a large number of the future 
clergy of the Japanese Church. Of course lectures are 
frequent and on many subjects, but the aim of the school 
is not merely to carry on a course of instruction, but to 
create a tone and atmosphere, and maintain a life. To 
the fulness of this life daily matins in St. Andrew's 
Church, compline in my private chapel, walks with their 
teachers, Sunday afternoons in the drawing room of 
St. Andrew's House, private talks in this or that study, all 
alike contribute. 

2. By the side of the Theological School there ought 
to be an institution for more general instruction. The 
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has recently 
promised 25O/. to meet 4OO/., if this can be obtained from 
other sources. Meanwhile a night school, which owes its 
origination and its prosperity mainly to Mr. Cholmondeley, 
partially fills the gap. Mr. Freese is now in charge of the 
Church of the Holy Cross, Kyobashi. 

3. Tokyo is the centre of a very populous country 
district. As you know, it is also itself one of the great 
cities of the world, whether estimated by population or 
area. Alike in the city and country, active evangelisation 
ought to be carried on from centres like St. Andrew's, the 
Church of the Ascension, the Church of the Holy Cross, 
&c., or villages like Shimo-fuku-da. Those who are to 
carry on this evangelisation must not be hampered by 
educational work. 

Kyobashi, Ushigome, and Mita, three districts of the 
great city of Tokyo, were placed under the care of St. 
Andrew's Mission. Each has a small church and native 
congregation supplemented by direct evangelistic work, 
and in each full parochial life is maintained, together with 
such agencies as dispensaries, preaching stations, and classes 
for inquirers and catechumens. 

It was not till the end of 1894 that the Bishop, writing 
to Mr. Lefroy at Delhi, could report : 

I have just established my first out-station of St. 
Andrew's Mission, but no further off from the centre than 

Q 



226 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

one of the districts of Tokyo. A ' strong centre ' with 
several such offshoots is what I am aiming at. 

Writing the same year to the Guild of St. Paul the 
Bishop could report progress with thankfulness chastened 
by a sober realisation of the still inadequate forces at his 
disposal. 

With American Church Mission, S.P.G., C.M.S., St. 
Andrew's, St. Hilda's (both of which are now in full 
work), Mrs. Kirkes' house (itself a centre of manifold 
influence for highest good among the upper classes, which 
could be set moving by no other means, and no one else in 
like manner, so far as I am aware), the Ladies' Institute 
(where mistresses enter at Easter on the second period of 
their very important work), the Mission of the Ladies' 
Association of S.P.G., &c., Tokyo is now a centre where 
all forms and methods of missionary endeavour are 
represented. And yet how small a portion of its vast 
population even know that we are here ! How much some 
portions of the work which is going on need strengthening 
and developing. May God send us more workers ! May 
He give us who are here more self-denial, more faith, more 
real love of Christ and the people. You will ask this for us. 

Three years later (July 28, 1894), writing from 
Hakone, the Bishop described as ' a really important step 
in advance ' the arrangement by which the Rev. L. B. 
Cholmondeley and his colleague (the Rev. W. F. Madeley) 
went to reside in the district of Ushigome : 

It will bring the mission into closer contact with the 
people of an important district than has hitherto been 
possible, and I do not doubt that, with God's blessing, 
results will follow. Though work has been carried on in 
Ushigome for many years, the number of Christians is as 
yet very small, and for the most part they are, I fear, 
individually weak in faith and knowledge. Japanese clergy 
and catechists, without the support of European mission- 
aries close at hand, have failed to correct this state of 
affairs. It is one instance among many of the necessity of 
close co-operation between foreign and native workers, 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 227 

upon which I very often insist, if the Church's work is to be 
well done during the present generation. Hereafter, as the 
Japanese character strengthens and its many good elements 
are developed under the influence of Christian grace and 
teaching, whole districts may be handed over entirely to 
native hands. But, unless in very rare cases, as yet this 
cannot safely be done. If the European is all but helpless 
without his Japanese colleague, on the other hand he 
supplies the experience and knowledge and faculty of 
perseverance, without which Japanese workers make but 
slow progress. 

But let us not mistake what this means. It means a 
far larger number of European workers than if it were 
wise to work on another principle. Out-stations must 
be manned and yet the central mission not be depleted. 
To confine our thoughts to our own missions. Four 
European clergy, with their Japanese colleagues, are the 
least that can carry on the work in Shiba. The present 
staff at St. Andrew's Mission, after Mr. King's return in 
the autumn, will exactly provide this minimum number. 
But other furloughs will be due before very long. If, then, 
Ushigome is to be maintained as well as .the central 
mission at Shiba, some increase is very desirable. May 
God send us the men of His choice ! 

But Ushigome is only one of half a dozen populous 
districts in South Tokyo, in several of which branch 
houses might well be at once established. With our 
present staff this is of course impossible. But what a 
vista is thus opened to us of possible extension as the 
years go on ! We need not, indeed, as a guild look forward 
to occupying the whole ground. Our two great societies 
will in time, I hope, both extend their operations. 1 But I 
am quite sure that a large part of the work must be done 
by us if it is to be done at all through English Christians. 
Let us be thankful that it is so. What more could we ask 
than to be allowed a share in bringing the light of Christ's 
Gospel and the fellowship of His Church to men and 

1 The C.M.S. have responded to the Bishop's appeal, and have 
strengthened their staff in the capital ; but the S. P. G. Mission, on the other 
hand, has been gradually weakened in numbers until its sole ' foreign ' repre- 
sentative in the present diocese of South Tokyo is Archdeacon Shaw, although 
it is responsible for the income of the two Bishops of South Tokyo and Osaka. 
The C. M.S. is responsible for the income of the two Bishops of Kiushiu and 
Yezo. 

Q 2 



228 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

\vomen who otherwise must live on in the darkness and 
isolation of heathenism ? Where could a nobler field be 
found on which to concentrate all the energies of the 
Church's service than such a centre of human activity and 
interest as is the capital of Japan ? l 

Before giving an account of the other Associated Mis- 
sion founded by the Bishop that of St. Hilda for women 
workers it will be well to give some description of the 
women of Japan and of the openings for work among them. 

On this point a paper 2 recently written in excellent 
English by Miss Tsuda, a Japanese lady professor in the 
Peeresses' and Normal Schools at Tokyo, gives us full and 
accurate information. She reminds us that ' it is no easy 
task to give a true estimate of the present condition of 
women in Japan, and of the place they occupy, since every 
year and month brings important changes.' But an 
abstract of her sketch of the past and hopes for the future 
will be read with interest. 

Miss Tsuda asserts that the women of old Japan 
always held a position unique in the East. History as far 
back as it goes has given an honourable place to women. 
Five Empresses have ruled in their own right. A woman 
was the first historian. Artists of rare skill and scholarship 
may be counted among the sex. The old ideas regarding 
women were enlightened ones, and it is outside influences 
which have tended to lower the old standard. The spread 

1 It is sad to have to record that since the Bishop wrote these glowing 
words in the justifiable expectation that the Church at home would not fail to 
rise to so great an opportunity, only one graduate from England (a layman, 
Mr. C. H. Basil Woodd, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge) has joined St. 
Andrew's Mission, and the only other recruit has been the Rev. W. C. 
Gemmill, graduate of Trinity University, Toronto, who joined the mission as 
a layman and has since been ordained to the diaconate and priesthood. 

Published in the Japan Daily Mail (November 1898). I am indebted for 
this summary to Mrs. Edward Bickersteth, a personal friend of Miss Tsuda. 
This gifted Japanese Christian lady during the winter of 1898-9 visited 
England, where she made many friends. 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 22Q 

of Buddhism, the introduction of Chinese literature, and, 
above all, the strong influence of the Confucian scholars have 
brought about this change, until in the sixteenth century 
the Japanese woman had sunk down from her former 
position of respect and equality. History has left us little 
account of women for the four hundred years that followed. 
The home was a sealed one hidden from outside gaze. 
Here, in quiet and seclusion, the young girl grew up under 
the strict doctrine of the Chinese sages. Implicitly 
obedient to her parents in childhood, when married she 
served her husband as her master, and in old age, leaning 
on sons who took their father's place, she taught the same 
doctrines to her daughters that she had held all her life, 
mpressing on them her standard of duty and right, of 
gentleness, sacrifice, and abnegation. Then the women of 
old Japan had few educational advantages. They were 
not, however, without some training, and, except in the 
lowest classes, received instruction in the written language. 
The daughters of the nobility were instructed in reading, 
writing, poetry, Japanese history, and in some cases 
Chinese. In addition, they learned music, the tea cere- 
mony, etiquette, flower arrangement, and incense burning. 
In the middle classes among the daughters of the retainers 
(samurai] very much the same course of study with the 
addition of more Chinese was pursued. A knowledge of 
sewing and household work was indispensable, and often 
composed the greater part of training. The daughters of 
the lower classes (merchants, farmers, artisans) were far 
less educated. In the cities they gained the bare rudi- 
ments of reading and writing, but sometimes spent much 
time on music and dancing. In the country the days 
were too much filled with labour in the field or at the 
loom to leave time for study of any sort. This 
limited education was in keeping with the narrow life of 



230 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

those days. The special attention paid to etiquette and 
moral training, the keen sense of duty, loyalty, and honour 
early instilled into the mind, tended to produce women 
who, though not intellectually trained, were not without 
moral responsibility and dignity mingled with gentleness 
and sweetness of disposition. In the educational problems 
of the day for women none is more perplexing than the 
difficulty of keeping the beauty and refinement of the old 
system with the broader and new ideas and the freedom of 
thought and 'action which come from the culture of the 
intellectual powers. Changes have come quickly since the 
Revolution of 1 868. The first official step was the establish- 
ment of public primary schools for boys and girls all over 
Japan in 1869. In 1872 the Educational Department 
established the Tokyo Girls' School, the first Government 
school for girls. In 1874 it established the Higher Normal 
School for girls. In 1886 was established, by H.I.H. the 
Empress, the Peeresses' School for the daughters of the 
nobility, the first girls' school for the higher classes. As 
regards the social position of woman in Japan, it cannot be 
denied that for many years the laws and government of 
the day had little regard for her ; laws regarding her were 
very few, simply because she was a factor not worth con- 
sidering. Marriage and divorce have been left to custom 
in lack of civil codes on such matters. Still, here too there 
are signs of change in the right direction. In the two 
principal religions of Japan, Shintoism and Buddhism, 
women have had little part or influence, except as earnest 
believers and devotees. Buddhism has always looked 
down on woman. She has been regarded as full of sin 
and impurity, and not allowed to visit holy places, as 
she defiled' them. Shintoism gives a better position to 
woman, but Shintoism has only a shadowy influence over 
the people. 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 231 

Miss Tsuda, herself a Christian and Church-woman of 
many years' standing, concludes her article thus : 

Christianity has done, and is doing much, for the eleva- 
tion of woman. It will do more. It will raise the Japan- 
ese woman socially, will exalt her home, will purify the 
social and moral evils that work against her, will give her 
a higher code of morals, and an ideal of womanhood which 
in the present age is unknown. 

No wonder, then, that the Bishop was strongly con- 
vinced of the necessity for strengthening and extending 
the existing work among Japanese women, and to this end 
he established St. Hilda's Mission. The progress and 
development of this mission lay very near his heart. 
Within six months of his arrival in Japan he wrote to 
Canon Stanton from Kobe : 

November 27, 1886. 

One line by way of supplement to mine of last week. 
I referred only, I think, to the University Mission which I 
propose : but I hope also to have a new Ladies' Mission 
in Tokyo. This will in time, I hope, draw workers from 
the Bishop of Truro's very excellent sisterhood at Truro, 1 
though as yet the number of sisters is too small for them to 
undertake foreign work. The Bishop (Dr. Wilkinson) has, 
however, suggested that any ladies coming for mission work 
to Tokyo might with advantage spend a few weeks or 
months at the Truro sisterhood before starting and this 
I should like them to do, if possible. The Bishop has also 
put me in communication with a very admirable worker 
in his diocese, who proposes to undertake mission work 
in Japan. 

On March 12, 1887, he wrote to his old Diocesan, 
Bishop French of Lahore : 

My dear Bishop, Many months have run by since I 
wrote to you. I meant to have been a better correspon- 
dent. Almost the whole time has been spent in moving 
from place to place and in short visitations. Japan is 

1 Community of the Epiphany. 



232 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

though it looks small in the map immense, double the 
length of England, and many places difficult of access for 
large parts of the year owing to snow in the passes, and 
always requiring much time to be spent en route. The 
faith is certainly making itself felt through God's good 
Spirit throughout the land. Little congregations are being 
gathered even in quite remote parts, and the people recog- 
nise, as in the early days, that Christianity raises the moral 
tone of its professors, and not seldom has turned them 
markedly from lives of notorious wickedness to lives which 
even heathen note to be holy and attractive. It is largely 
by means of such witnesses that the Gospel is being made 
known. 

I have also spent much time in all the correspondence 
and work that is necessary in the attempt to start several 
new missions one a brotherhood, one an associated Ladies' 
Mission which may develop into a sisterhood, and yet 
another the charge of a Japanese Ladies' High School, 
for which the University (of Tokyo) professors asked me to 
obtain teachers. I hope all three of them may be at work 
by the end of the year, or in a year's time but the Uni- 
versity Mission cannot hope for anything like the Delhi staff. 

The desire to establish a women's mission connected 
with the honoured name of St. Hilda had first come to him 
when at Delhi, for he felt strongly the truth of Bishop 
Lightfoot's strictures on the Church's folly in trying to do 
her work ' with only one arm,' as he phrased it. Writing 
to Canon Stanton on November 2, 1887, Bishop Bickersteth 
says : 

Japan is an instance of the folly of trying to establish 
large Anglican missions without a Bishop. It is quite 
inconceivable that had there been a Bishop here ten years 
ago they should have been allowed to go on without 
any adequate effort to develop ladies' work, and thus have 
been utterly distanced by the American Nonconformist 
bodies. However, 1 cannot be thankful enough for the re- 
sponse which has been made to my appeals in this respect. 

The first two members of the new Associated Mission 
arrived at Yokohama early on Sunday, December 4. 1887. 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 233 

The following day they were admitted by the Bishop to be 
members of St. Hilda's Associated Mission. The Bishop 
wrote : 

In the words of admission I have tried to bring out the 
idea of life. Buddhism is all about dying, and I have 
referred to their life in Christ's life, leading to the eternal 
life of those for whom they work. 

The form of admission is as follows : 

The Bishop shall give to the person to be admitted a 
cross, saying, ' Receive and wear this cross in token that 
thou wilt die daily to self and in newness of life serve the 
Risen Christ, who gave His Life for men, that He might 
bring many unto Life eternal.' 

Here far more than in the case of St. Andrew's Mission 
the Bishop had to buy his wisdom by experience. St. 
Andrew's was avowedly formed on the same lines as the 
Cambridge Mission at Delhi, but there was no precedent 
for a Women's Associated Mission founded and worked on 
the same lines. 

Simple rules were framed from the first, but it was not 
till March 1892 that the Bishop put his hand and seal to 
the Rule (exterior and interior) of St. Hilda's Mission. 

Of the Exterior Rule A it is sufficient to state that 
Clause 2 provided that 'those approved as candidates 
shall stay at the House of the Community of the Epiphany, 
Truro, for six weeks.' In Clause 3 the Bishop again tried 
to secure that ' deep should answer to deep,' as he had 
done years before in arranging that prayer should be 
offered at Cambridge and at Delhi as far as possible at 
the same time. It provides that ' the Community of the 
Epiphany shall be daily remembered in the prayers of the 
members of the mission, and they likewise shall be prayed 
for daily by the sisters.' 

Of Exterior Rule B Clause 2 provides that ' a Bishop 



234 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

or priest shall be chosen as warden, subject to the sanction 
of the Bishop of the diocese and the patron of St. Paul's 
Guild.' 

Clause 4 that ' each new member shall be admitted 
by a service in chapel, which shall not be held (except 
under exceptional circumstances) until after a probation 
of one year.' 

Clause 5, that 'the members of the mission shall yearly 
on St. Hilda's Day (November 17) elect one of their 
number to be Member- in-Charge if approved for the office 
by the Warden.' 

Clause 7, that ' a chapter shall he held at least once in 
two months at which all important matters affecting the 
welfare and development of the mission shall be dis- 
cussed.' 

Clause 10, that 'services shall be held in the chapel of 
the Mission House three times a day ; in the morning a 
shortened form of Matins (in Japanese) shall be said ; at 
midday Sext (in English), with special collects and heads 
for intercession, with space for silent prayer ; in the evening 
Compline (in Japanese) ; and also that the members shall, 
as far as their work allows, attend the services in the 
Church of St. Andrew, Shiba.' 

Clause 11, that ' members shall not accept invitations 
into society, but that they may receive visits from and pay 
visits to their friends subject to the claims of the work.' 

Clause 14, that 'silence shall be kept as far as possible 
on the stairs and in the passages of the Mission House ; 
also throughout the house before Matins and after 
Compline.' 

Clause 17 that (a) 'each member shall consider it a 
point of duty to take sufficient exercise, relaxation, food, 
and rest, and to avoid overwork, remembering that bodily 
health is a gift of God, and essential to some forms of work 
for Him. 

(b) That ' each member is entitled, subject to the 
exigencies of the work, after six [now altered to five] 
years' work in the mission, to one year's furlough in 
England.' 

The object of the Interior Rule is stated to be 'to 
glorify God by obeying His call and doing His will 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 235 

in all things.' Its closing words, which are highly charac- 
teristic of the founder, may be quoted : 

In a life of rule and ordered service, be careful to main- 
tain the freedom and gladness of the children of God, 
through habitual remembrance of His presence and the 
forgiveness of all your sins through the cross of Jesus 
Christ. 

It is plain that the mission thus organised was largely 
dependent for its success on the care with which can- 
didates were selected in England. The Bishop accordingly 
was constant in stating and re-stating his ideal and his 
suggestions for guidance in this selection. 1 I therefore 
have put together from his letters to me some of the points 
which he used to lay down. 

Four characteristics are essential in all candidates for 
St. Hilda's Mission. 

1. Piety. 

2. Sociability in the sense of being able to live happily 
in a community. 

3. Strong Church principle. 

4. Refinement. 

The absence of the first of these disqualifies for all 
missions, and any of the four for St. Hilda's and like similar 
Community missions. I have re-written the St. Hilda's 
Rule, and have tried to make it more comprehensive, so 
that anyone may understand by studying it what is our 
practice (on confession &c.), and what kind of life I set 
before them as an ideal. Would that I myself were nearer 
what I ask them to aim at. 

Again, ' One is almost tempted to say that without a 
really strong, loving, religious head or mother, Community 
missions cannot prosper.' 

Again, in regard to the social position of the candi- 
dates : 

1 Candidates were interviewed by myself as Commissary, by Bishop 
Wilkinson (now Bishop of St. Andrews), and then by the Mother Superior of 
the Community of the Epiphany. 



236 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

They should be taken from the gentle walks of life. 
One reason is that the candidates you select are sure to draw 
others from the same rank and avocations they have been in 
themselves. Another that manners are a real missionary 
poiver in Japan. A third is that we are aiming at (though 
owing to failures it is only beginning) a life as well as a 
mission in Japan, and for this people of different ranks do 
not permanently or for any length of time coalesce. It 
might be the higher thing if it were not so, and I can 
imagine an argument that spiritual sympathies should 
render it unnecessary, yet sisterhoods get out of the 
difficulty by their second orders, and all somehow or other 
recognise the principle, and, though I regret it in some 
ways, I fear we must too. For permanent life and work 
together people must, it seems, we being what we are, 
have something of like training and hold views which are 
not mutually exclusive. This holds good in a parish as 
regards a vicar and his curates, though not of course in the 
wider area of a Church. 

Again : 

The only hope of building up a Community mission of 
women is to get people well agreed already, and also well 
taught in the faith, and holding it on its Church as well 
as on its evangelical side with some firmness. Of course I 
do not mean that these conditions ensure peace and 
progress, but where they are absent the hope is very small 
indeed. 

Again, with regard to one who had been described as 
' pious and energetic, and beginning to feel that there may 
be some solid truth in Church doctrine,' and who was 
wishful to go to St. Hilda's, if not as a member, at least as 
an associate, or even as a long-time visitor, he wrote : 

A person in her position is not in a fit frame of mind 
to work for God among the heathen. First of all, she 
must decide whether the new lights of truth which are 
beginning to break in upon her are ignes fatui or sun's 
rays. Till she has done this, she will necessarily be so 
unsettled in her own mind as to be wholly unfit to 
contribute to the life of a community and to co-operate in 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 237 

its work. Her critical faculties will be sure to be dominant, 
when her sympathy should be the leading trait. For 
mission work we need persons whose mind is made up on 
the leading points alike for personal and corporate religion, 
and the place for their decision is not Japan but England. 
It is suggested that I might teach her Church doctrine, 
but even if I had a moment to spare for such work St. 
Hilda's would be the wrong place. Our workers ought to 
have behind them if possible an even tenor of life, certainly 
a matureness according to their years in their own 
principles. And this is above all the case at St. Hilda's, 
where we have no large body of workers into which to 
engulf a stray person of a different type, and are only 
beginning, owing to failures in the past, to generate a truly 
healthy spiritual atmosphere and to build up a life. More- 
over, a ' long-timed ' visitor or an associate should be more 
not less in touch with the others than a member, because 
she is less under rule, and therefore her words and ways 
are more free to do mischief if they do not do good. The 
' associate ' plan is not in order to get persons into the 
community whose views would otherwise exclude them, 
but for those who cannot presumably give their lives to 
the work. I am revising the rule to make this more 
clear. 

The Bishop's general idea for a member of St. Hilda's 
may be well gathered from the following extract from a 
letter to his sister May, dated St. John's Day 1887 : 

The people we have [for St. Hilda's] should be spiritu- 
ally minded and prepared to take pains with their own 
spiritual life, regarding the work as the outcome of life (not 
vice -versa), formed in character or they cannot influence 
others and in all ways refined in thought and manner. 
If they are also able, and have some sparkle of originality 
about them, it will probably help them to strike out new 
paths for themselves. I do not mean the ' community 
idea' to crush out the individual. If it does, the highest 
work becomes impossible. Our duty here, utterly dis- 
tanced as far as numbers are concerned by American 
Nonconformity of all sorts and kinds, is to do what we can 
by God's grace of the highest and best. 

It will be gathered from these letters that offers for 



238 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

St. Hilda's Mission were frequent, and so they were. 
Writing (again to his sister May) on January 18, 1891, 
the Bishop referred to this as follows : 

Remember that an offer is less and less a criterion that 
a person is fit. It is so easy now to get about the world ; 
except for the distance from England, it is not harder or 
less agreeable to live in Tokyo than in London. Work (it 
is true) is in parts here hard and repulsive, but so it is in 
' Darkest England ' ; so that, taking all together, offers are 
likely to be frequent when maintenance is provided, and so 
can only be entertained if we have fullest proof of physical, 
mental, spiritual competence, besides the offer. The offer 
by itself goes for little, though it seems hard to say so. 
Also I feel more and more that the only persons who will 
really do for us are ladies from refined and religious 
homes. 

With regard to confession l with a view to receiving 
private absolution, the Bishop was often asked by candi- 
dates to declare his views, and they may be clearly 
gathered from the following extracts from his letters. 

The letters you have sent give me a fairly full view of 
the opinions of Miss - - (presumably those which she has 
been taught) on confession. 

I understand Miss to hold that, though not 

essential to salvation, confession is a means of grace, and 
that as such it should be pressed, though not enforced on 
all, as the ordinary channel among Catholic Christians of 
the forgiveness of sins. In this view there are several 
serious mistakes. Confession is not, except in the most 
indirect sense, a means of grace but a method of discipline, 
and therefore, like other methods of discipline, not useful 
for all. In this it differs from absolution, which is a 
covenanted means of grace and for all whether given, as 
commonly, in connection with the sacraments or apart 
from them, whether pronounced publicly or privately. It 
follows that the Christian who has received private abso- 
lution possesses no greater privilege, though possibly as an 
individual more comfort, than any other communicant. 

1 For a fuller statement of his views on this subject see chapter xi. , pp. 430-433. 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 239 

And again, that whether a particular person should or 
should not practise private confession must depend on 
their own circumstances and needs. 

I will not go further into the general question except to 

add that were the view which Miss has been taught 

correct, not only would Scripture language about forgive- 
ness, the sacraments, &c., be beyond explanation, but the 
whole Church would have been in error on this matter, 
theoretically, till late in the middle ages, and practically 
until the rise of the Jesuits. 

I cannot, then, both for her own sake and that of the 
mission, accept Miss - - as a member of St. Hilda's if I 
rightly understand her view of confession and she continues 
to hold it. It is true that I should not feel her holding 
this view an obstacle to her working in this diocese or to 
my supporting her, as I do many others in Japan who are 
only partially in agreement with me. But at St. Hilda's 
I act as warden as well as Bishop, and am responsible 
for the teaching given in a special degree. I wish the 
members to be, broadly speaking, prepared to accept my 
teaching, and if I am right Miss - - would feel herself 
precluded from doing so by conscientious convictions. I 
shall greatly regret losing Miss - , as her letters show an 
earnest and straightforward soul. She is also most right 
in holding that in the mission field the whole truth should 
be taught without prejudice. But in this instance she has 
been led to add to the Catholic faith and practice points 
which they do not contain. I hope she may feel at liberty 
to reconsider the matter. 



After reading the correspondence about Miss 

twice over carefully, it did not seem to me that there was 
any real choice left to me in the matter. As I understand 
it, Miss - - still holds that confession is, not a practice 
useful for some persons or some states and circumstances 
of life, but the ordinary condition of attaining to full 
spiritual life, and that as such it ought to be pressed by the 
clergy on all persons alike who come under their charge. 
But at the same time, as a 'self-sacrifice,' she proposes to 
keep this view in the background if I accept her as a 
member of St. Hilda's. Now I must say that, however 
well meant, this arrangement would be wholly wanting in 



240 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

moral honesty and is not one which I could possibly 
sanction or agree to. If confession is for all persons alike 
God's intended and prescribed way of obtaining forgiveness 
and peace, then those who are convinced of this cannot put 
such a truth on one side at pleasure. They are bound to 
teach it everywhere and by all means as they may have 
opportunity. Not to do so would be a sin against God 
and a grievous wrong to others. The view may be, as it 
is, neither Scriptural, primitive, nor catholic, but this would 
not alter their obligation as long as they held it. 

It will thus be seen that the mission was not on party 
lines, and the Bishop was well aware no one more so 
of the strength and weakness which such a fact implied. 
In a letter to Mr. Lefroy, dated Karuizawa, August 19, 
1895, he wrote : 

I am grieved that Cambridge is not sending you more 
men to Delhi. You certainly ought by this time to be 
stronger in numbers. The actual work you have in hand 
plainly demands it. I suppose that work which is not 
laid down on clearly marked party lines suffers in com- 
parison with work which follows them, or rather seems to 
suffer, for with actual success or failure numbers certainly 
have no necessary connection. But for the ' seeming to 
suffer ' you will probably lay your count with Lightfoot's 
saying, ' You will have done more for the world when you 
leave it.' By degrees though, notwithstanding, I do hope 
and trust you will reach to a dozen men. 

St. Hilda's Mission slowly but surely strengthened 
itself in the Lord, eight or ten English ladies joining 
within the first few years. Isobe San l and Sakai San, 
two Japanese ladies who came to be trained in evangelistic 
work, were also admitted as members of the mission in 
March 1892. Of this admission the Bishop wrote to his 
father : 

On Thursday I admitted two Japanese ladies as 
members of St. Hilda's Mission. This is a new step out 

1 Isobe San has since married the Rev. P. Yamada. 



MISSIONARY METHODS AND COMMUNITY MISSIONS 241 

here. They are not bound for life, but both hope to 
remain in the work. I used the same service (only in 
Japanese) as that with which the foreign members are 
admitted. 

The Bishop lost no time in providing for the proper 
housing of the mission. He secured a large site, and 
erected upon it a House for the workers and the High 
School (Ladies). This House 1 has twice been added to, 
and in the same compound stand the Training House for 
Mission Women, the Embroidery School, the Orphanage, 
and Orphanage School, while within a few minutes' walk 
is a dispensary which contains four beds for urgent cases. 
Some of these have been erected by the contributions of 
St. Paul's Guild (aided by grants from the Society for 
Promoting Christian Knowledge), and some are private 
gifts, the present Mission Women's Home being a memorial 
of Canon Thornton of Truro and one of his daughters, 
and the Orphanage and Orphanage School having been 
erected by the well-known lady traveller, Mrs. J. F. 
Bishop, F.R.G.S., in memory of her husband, Dr. John 
Bishop, whose name they bear. 

In a letter to the Guild of St. Paul from Tokushima, 
July 5, 1889, after referring to the growth of St. Hilda's 
in detail, and specially to the projected Training Home 
for Mission Women, the Bishop wrote : 

Let me only say that the native mission woman seems 
to me as necessary to the effectiveness of the foreign 
missionary lady as the catechist to the work of the foreign 
clergyman. This principle has only recently been under- 
stood, or at least acted upon ; homes for the training of 
such workers, who might be drawn surely from the higher 

1 One of the members, writing in August 1889, says : ' I wish you could see 
St. Hilda's House. It is beautifully situated and very spacious. I always say 
we ought to be specially good workers, for we certainly have a specially beauti- 
ful mission house, and special spiritual help in the care and prayers the 
mission receives at home and in Japan itself.' 

R 



242 BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH 

as well as or better than from the lower ranks of Eastern 
Society, are only just being established. 1 Our sister 
mission from the American Church has one such home 
at Osaka. The Church Missionary Society will establish 
one, I hope, shortly. The difficulty at first is to get persons 
to be trained, but this will be got over as congregations get 
more numerous and stronger. With this training wi