Skip to main content

Full text of "HISTORY OF THE MISSIONS OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND IN INDIA AND AFRICA"

See other formats


This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 
to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 
publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 

We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 



at |http : //books . google . com/ 



f .• 



/ 



HISTORY OF THE MISSIONS. 

OF 

'She Jftee ffihtiKk of ^coUani ' , 

IN INDIA AND AFRICA. 

BY THE 

REV. ROBERT HUNTER, M.A., 

FORMERLY MISSIONARY AT NAGPORE. 



WITH PREFATORY NOTE 

BY THE REV. CHARLES J. BROWN, D.D., EDINBURGH. 




LONDON: 
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; 

EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK, 



1873- 



/ 1 




PREFATORY NOTE. 



CAN imagine the question suggesting itself, why, 
if any note of recommendation were to be 
prefixed to this History of our Missions, it 
should not have been written by the Mis- 
sionary, still spared with us, whose judgment, on all pos- 
sible accounts, is entitled to carry, and does carry, such 
pre-eminent weight. Certainly no one can read even a 
small part of the volume without finding its merits to be so 
great, and its fitness to awaken interest in our Missions to 
manifest, that Dr Duff, had other reasons not stood in the 
way, would, with his whole heart, and in the strongest 
terms, have commended the work to public attention. 
It will easily occur to the reader, however, that Dr Duff 
might naturally shrink from eulogizing a work in which 
his own career necessarily occupies a prominent place. 
The volume having been thus placed in my hands, I 
only wish that I were able to commend it more effectually. 
From the regard I have these many years enter- 
tained for the author's high Christian character, com- 
bined with rare learning and genius, I anticipated, on 
hearing that he was engaged with a history of our Missions, 
a work of value. But my anticipations have been far more 



IV PREFATORY NOTE, 

than realized. The book is one of rivetting interest. No 
cold statistics, no wearisome enumerations, -no compilations 
from forgotten documents, are here, but a graphic and 
rapid, yet thoroughly careful and reliable, story of a grand 
Mission work, embracing a lengthened period, extending 
over a considerable portion of the heathen world, interwoven 
with events of the greatest importance in the history also 
of the Church at home, and stamped throughout with 
traces of the Lord's glorious and gracious hand. 

I anticipate for the volume a wide circulation. It 
will supply an important desideratum in connection with 
our Missions. Furnishing their friends and supporters 
with an invaluable permanent record of their history from 
the first, it will thus, and otherwise, tend powerfully to 
stimulate and deepen their prayerful interest in them. And 
it cannot fail to endear them also to friends of Christian 
Missions in other branches of the Church, who may not 
hitherto have happened to become much acquainted with 
them. 

CHAS. J. BROWN. 



PREFACE. 




BRIEF continuous history of the Free Church 
Missions in India and Africa has long been felt 
to be a desideratum; and about a couple of 
years ago, friends deeply interested in the 
evangelization of the heathen world, and whose judgment 
was deserving of the utmost respect, applied to the writer, 
inviting him to undertake the volume which now, with 
all humility, he sends forth. The primary authorities 
on which the greater part of the narrative is based are the 
Reports of the Scottish and Glasgow Missionary Societies ; 
the successive series of the Missionary Record, from its origin 
in May 1838 to the present time; the Scottish Christian 
Instructor ; with various other works. Sundry facts in the 
early part of the volume were taken from " Brown's History 
of the Propagation of Christianity since the Reformation ;" 
and for portions of the geographical descriptions, obligation 
is acknowledged to Thornton's " Gazetteer of India." When 
unable to obtain proper details of important events, published 
imperfectly at the time, or not published at all, the writer 
sought information, and with success, from more than one 



Vi PREFACE, 

of his missionary fathers or brethren.* Certain geographical 
scenes and historical incidents he describes with the autho- 
rity of an eye-witness, and he has uniformly expressed 
opinions with a freedom which he would not have ventured 
to employ had he not lived for a considerable period (eight 
years and four months) on Indian soil, and as one of the 
agents in a Free Church mission. 

Some explanation is required regarding the method, or 
rather methods, of spelling oriental words adopted in the 
work. In India, two rival systems, that of Dr Gilchrist, 
and that of Sir William Jones, have long contended for the 
mastery, and have managed between them to reduce the 
spelling of Eastern words to a chaotic state. Dr Gilchrist, 
caring nothing whether he spelled oriental words philosophi- 
cally or unphilosophically, provided only that home leaders 
pronounced them with some approach to accuracy, had no 
scruple in inserting two vowels where the oriental languages 
had but one, if two were needful to keep the untravelled 
Englishman out of error. On this system, Ettirajulu becomes 
Ettirajooloo, and in the latter form will be correctly pro- 
nounced. Sir William Jones, with a sterner adherence to 
philosophy, assigned a letter in the Roman character, with 
or without a diacritical point to each oriental sound. t 



* No mention will be found in- the volume of Lai Behari De's baptism. The 
writer could find no record of it made at the time. Quite recently, however, \it has 
learned that Lai Behari, then a distinguished student m the institution, was admitted 
to the Church by the Rev. Dr Thomas Smith, not long after the latter gentleman re* 
turned from the Cape in December 1842. Lai Behari's subsequent history will b6 
found in the body of the volume. 

t On his system — 

a is pronounced like a at the beginning and end of America, 
a' ,, a in far or in star. 

i ,, i in sit. 

i' „ i in police. 



Some missionaries spell on the one system, others on the 
other ; and the author has shrunk from introducing unifor- 
mity, knowing that it could not be attained without altering 
the aspect of many familiar words. A little reflection will 
enable the home reader in any case to ascertain on which 
of the rival systems a particular word is spelled, and to 
pronounce accordingly. 

The best thanks of the writer are due to the Rev. Dr 
Charles Brown for his very kind prefatory note. They are 
due also to Mr Robert Young of the Foreign Mission Office, 
ioT his self-sacrifice in forbearing to develop his excellent little 
publication on the Foreign Missions of the Free Church 
into a larger volume, though requested to do so by many 
friends, and awaiting instead the appearance of the present 
work. 

Finally, deep gratitude must be expressed to various 
gentlemen in the India Office in London for the exceeding 
courtesy with which they met the author's application for 
information on certain specific points respecting the results 
of the recent Indian census. The following carefully pre- 
pared answer to his queries, forwarded to him by Charles 
C. Prinsep, Esq., at the request of the Under Secretary of 



u is pronounced like u in full, 
u in rule. 
ey in whey, 
ui in guile, 
o in stone. 
ow in cow. 

The other vowels and dipthongs require no explanation. — Asiatic Researches^ 
vol. I. Stevenson's Mahratia Oramma^ (i843)» PP. 4-9- Dr Duff's treatise on 
" The Representation of Indian Alphabets in Roman Character,*' Caicuita Christian 
Observer^ vol. m., 1834 ; also reprinted in a separate volume, along with someoth^ 
papers, under the editorship of Monier Williams, of Oxford University. Londop, 
Longmans, 1859. 



VIU 



PREFACE. 



State for India, and bearing date 5th April 1873, is of 
special value : — 

STATEMENT sicowing the population according to the recent census 

OF 1871-72 OF THE FOLLOWING PROVINCES AND TOWNS OF BRITISH INDIA. 



British India. 


Taken from 

Census of 1871-72 

as reported. 


Taken from 
Administration 
Report of 1871-72 
(latest received.) 


India, 

Ceylon (census of 1871), 
Madras Presidency, ... 
Central Provinces, ... 
Bombay Presidency (estimated,, 

Madras City, 
Bombay City, 
Poonah City, 
Nagpore City, 
Kamptee, ... 

Seetabuldee, 

Chanda Town, 

Bundara Town, 
Chindwara Town. ... 


« 
t2,405,287 
31.173.577 
9,224.82s 
13,983,998 

^ ^,397,552 
) No returns 
5 as yet. 


X 

85.661 
50,930 

18,706 
13,383 
9^185 



It is the wish and prayer of the author that the present 
humble volume, notwithstanding its imperfections, may, 
with the Divine blessing, be helpful in increasing the in- 
terest felt in Foreign Missions, and may lead to more earnest 
supplication and increased effort for the evangelisation of 
the heathen world. 

ROBERT HUNTER. 



* Cannot be given ; all returns not yet received. 

t Taken from Board of Trade Returns. A British Colonial possession not under 
Indian administration. 
X Estimate as per Census of 1864 — 816,562. 
\ Not showa ; probably included with Nagpore. 



CONTENTS. 



SECTION I.— HOME OPERATIONS. 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. THE SCOTTISH CHURCH IN ITS SLEEP AND IN ITS 

AWAKING ...... I 

II. A MISSIONARY SOUGHT AND FOUND . . .II 

III. A DARK PROVIDENCE OVERRULED FOR MUCH GOOD . 1$ 

IV. THE DISRUPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES . . 20 

V. SHALL THERE BE RETREAT ? . . . .2$ 

VL ARRANGEMENTS SINCE THE MUTINIES . . .39 

SECTION IL— CALCUTTA. 

I. INDIA, AND ESPECIALLY BENGAL . . .46 

II. THE FIRST CAMPAIGN . . . . .54 

IIL THE INSTITUTION IN NEW HANDS . . .71 

IV. THE YEARS PRECEDING THE DISRUPTION . . 76 

V. THE DISRUPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES . . 80 

VI. EXCITING SCENES . . . . .88 

VII. SORROW AND JOY— NATURAL DEATHS AND SPIRITUAL 

BIRTHS ....... 96 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. 

VIII. THE MISSION AFTER DR DUFF'S TEMPORARY RECALL TO 
EUROPE ...... 

IX. THE MISSION AFTER DR DUFF's RETURN TO CALCUTTA 
X. THE MISSION AFTER DR EWART's DEATH 
XI. THE MISSION AFTER DR DUFF's FINAL DEPARTURE 
XII. THE MISSION AFTER DR MITCHELL'S ARRIVAL 



104 
114 



SECTION III.— MADRAS. 



I. THE PLACE AND PEOPLE . 
II. THE FOUNDATIONS LAID . 

III. SPLENDID FIRST FRUITS . 

IV. THE DISRUPTION PERIOD . 
V. THE LONGED-FOR TIME OF REAPING 

VI. THE CHARTER X>F FEMALE EMANCIPATION 

Vn. A CHEQUERED NARRATIVE 

VIII. THE MISSION AFTER THE DEATH OF ITS FOUNDER 

IX. FRESH APPOINTMENTS .... 



149 

160 

163 
167 
172 
185 
195 



SECTION IV.— BOMBAY. 

I. THE MAHRATTA COUNTRY AND ITS PRESENT CAPITAL . 202 

II. THE SOJOURN AT BANKOTE AND HURNEE . . 205 
III. TRANSFER OF THE MISSION TO BOMBAY , . . 209 

IV. THE BOMBAY INSTITUTION AND ITS EARLIEST FRUITS . 212 

V. THE DISRUPTION AND ITS EFFECTS . . .221 

VI. FROM THE RETURN OF DR WILSON . . . 226 

VIL AFTER MR NESBIT'S DEATH .... 24O 



CONTENTS, 



XI 



SECTION v.— POONAH. 

CHAP. 

I. tOONAH IN ITS PALMY DAYS 
II. A SEED " IN WEAKNESS SOWN " . 

III. AFTER THE DISRUPTION . 

IV. FATHER AND SON COADJUTORS IN THE MISSION 

V. AFTER THE MUTINIES 

VI. AFTER MR MITCHELL'S DEATH 
VIL SATTARA . . . 

Vlli. THE RURAL MISSION AT INDAPORE AND JAULNA 



251 

266 
270 
276 
280 
282 



SECTION VI.— NAGPORE. 



I. THE PLACE AND PEOPLE ..... 289 

II. THE COMMENCEMENT OF OPERATIONS . . . 292 

III. THE CASTE STRUGGLE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES . . 298 

IV. FALL OF THE NAGPORE KINGDOM . . . 3IO 
V. LAMENTATION AND WOE , . . . • 317 

VL THE MISSION AFTER THE DEATH OF ITS FOUNDER . 32I 



SECTION VII.-MISSIONS TO THE WILD TRIBES. 



THE SANTHAL MISSION. 

I, THE PEOPLE .... 

II. COMMENCEMENT OF OPERATIONS . 



. 330 



xu 



CONTENTS, 



THE GOND MISSION. 

CHAP. 

I. THE PEOPLE AND THE DISTRICTS THEY INHABIT 
II. COMxMENCEMENT OF THE WORK . 

THE WARALI MISSION .... 



PAGE 

334 
336 



SECTION VIII.— CAFFRARIA. 

I. SOUTHERN AFRICA AND ITS INHABITANTS 
II. TAKING POSSESSION 
III. WAR 
IV. SEPARATION 
V. AGAIN WAR 
VI. THE INTERVAL OF PEACE 
VII. THE LAST AND GREATEST WAR 
VIIL AFTER THE RESTORATION OF PEACE 
IX. A *' PROPHET " AND HIS TIMES 

X. MR Stewart's report on the missions 

XI. THE settlement ON THE TOLENI 
XII. THE NATAL AND GORDON MISSIONS 
CONCLUSION 
ALPHABETICAL INDEX 



338 

343 
347 
350 
353 
356 
359 
362 

365 
370 
374 
376 
378 
381 



SECTION I. 

HOME OPERATIONS, 




CHAPTER I. 

THE SCOTTISH CHURCH IN ITS SLEEP AND IN ITS 
AWAKING. 

[HURCHES, like individuals, are accustomed to 
sleep, when their energies have been exhausted 
by arduous labour and strong excitement. After 
the great Reformation struggle, which in one form 
or other lasted nearly two centuries, had come 
at length to a close, all the churches which had been en- 
gaged in it, fatigued by their protracted exertions, sunk 
into lethargy.* The Church of Scotland, among the rest, 

* Before the lethargy now spoken of had become fully established, evangeHstic 
efforts of an interesting character were put forth in connection with the ill-fated 
•* Darien Scheme.'* 

When the colony to Darien was first set on foot, two ministers, Messrs James and 
Scott, were sent out, but of these one died on the passage, and the other soon 
after landing. The council wrote home asking that the vacancies might be promptly 
filled, and in 1690 the Commission of the General Assembly "missioned" Messrs Alex- 
ander Shields, Francis Borland, Archibald Stobo, and Alexander Dalgleish, to pro- 
ceed to the new colony and look after the Scotch settlers ; besides which, they were 
particularly enjoined to labour among the natives for their instruction and conver- 
sion. In 1700 the Assembly sent them a letter, in which the following sentence occurs : 
-^" The Lord will, according to His promise, make the ends of the earth see His sal- 
vation, and we hoi>e will yet honour you and this Church from which you are sent to 
carry His name among the heathen." Mr Dalgleish died like a predecessor on the 
passage, and owing to the irreligion and licentiousness of the settlers, the other 
ministers did not effect much either for them or for the Indian aborigines. Dr 
M'Crie's Memoirs of Veitch and Bryson, pp. 236-241, Acts of Assembly, 1700. 
Edinburgh Christian Instructor, 1819, pp. 476-478. 



2 HOME OPERATIONS. 

no sooner found that under God the glorious revolution 
of 1688 had terminated, for the time at least, her struggles 
and her sufferings, than she flung herself down to seek 
repose, and sunk ere long into a slumber so profound that it 
looked the image, and seemed as if it would terminate in the 
reality, of death. With some brief and partial awakings, that 
sleep continued for about a century. There were those who 
whispered in the ear of the slumbering Church, as in that of 
an ancient prophet, " What meanest thou, O sleeper ? arise 
and call upon thy God," but no very audible response was 
elicited. 

During the time of fitful and partial awaking already spoken 
of, some little evangelistic work was done, but it diminished 
instead of increased as time wore on, till finally the duty of 
extending the Redeemer's kingdom ceased to be discharged, 
and its binding obligation, though nominally acknowledged, 
was virtually denied.* 

Though it is not true in nature, it is so in human his- 
tory, that the darkest hour is generally the one just before 
the dawn, and so it proved in the case now under con- 
sideration. 

In Divine providence, the French Revolution rudely dis- 
turbed the slumbers of the Church, and when in 1792 and 
1793, t^c terrible atrocities perpetrated by the Jacobin faction 
showed the depth of cruelty of which unregenerate man is 

♦ An abstract of these efforts is given in the preface to the Missionary Record for 
July 1839 to December 1841. That preface bears date ist December 1841. Omitting the 
measures designed to assist continental or colonial Churches, they are the follovring: 
— " The establishment of corresponding missionary boards at Boston in 1732, at New 
York in 1741, at New Jersey in 1754, the school at Lebanon [Connecticut] for raising 
missionaries to the Indian tribes, and for which in 1767 the Church ordered a general 
collection which amounted to upwards of ;^25oo ; . . the sending out many" [were 
there really many ?] " missionaries to foreign parts, among whom were the celebrated 
Brainerd and Kirkland, who laboured with such success among the Oneyda, Seneca, 
and Tuscorora Indians, the endeavours made in 1774 to enlighten the barbarous 
tribes of Africa by means entirely parallel to those we are now employing for India — 
viz., raising of native teachers who had been led by the Spirit of God to desire the 
work — ^these, and many similar things that might easily be specified, demonstrate that 
our fathers understood full well the obligations of missionary duty." 

The paragraph here quoted, which was evidently designed to make the most of 
the Church s efforts during the eighteenth century, is followed by an admission 
that a time succeeded during which it became indifferent to missions, a melancholy 
fact too well supported by evidence to permit of its being denied or explained 
away. 



ORIGIN OF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 3 

capable, even when he talks of universal brotherhood, and 
stands forth as the nominal advocate for freedom, the long- 
protracted lethargy of the Scottish Church was all but brought 
to an end. She began to arouse herself, though unable for 
a time to resume her old activity. 

The strong reaction in favour of vital religion produced 
by the operation of the Spirit of God at the time, and in the 
circumstances now described, was accompanied by a consi- 
derable outburst of the missionary spirit, an element in which, 
with all their zeal, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had 
been somewhat deficient. Two societies started into life in 
the northern part of the island, both destined to do good 
in the world. They were called the Glasgow and the Scot- 
tish Missionary Societies. The Glasgow Missionary Society 
was founded on the 9th February 1796, the venerable Dr 
Robert Balfour being its first secretary. One destined to 
be afterwards very prominent in its management, Dr John 
Love, was then in London acting as secretary to the London 
Missionary Society, which had been formed during the 
previous year. 

The Scottish Missionary Society was begun, like the sister 
association, in February 1796, and the first meeting in Edin- 
burgh, which was under the presidency of the celebrated Dr 
Erskine, was in March of the same year. Soon afterwards it 
sent out circulars throughout the country, which excited much 
discussion, and led to the transmission of three overtures to 
the General Assembly of 1796, one from the Synod of Fife, a 
second from the Sjmod of Moray, and a third from an indi- 
vidual called WiUiam M*Bean. The overture from the Fife 
Synod ran thus : — 

'* That the Assembly consider of the most effectual method by 
which the Church of Scotland may contribute to the diffusion of the 
gospel.'^ 

That from the Synod of Moray was thus worded : — 

•* That it be recommended to such members of the Synod as shall 



4 HOME OPERATIONS, 

attend the next General Assembly, to use their influence and endeavours 
for promoting an Act of Assembly for a general collection throughout 
the Church, to aid the several societies for propagating the gospel among 
the heathen nations. " 

That signed William M*Bean was in the following terms : — 

" It is humbly overtured to the General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
land, that in respect a very laudable zeal for spreading the gospel to 
heathen countries has appeared both in Scotland and England, the 
Assembly should encourage this most important and desirable object by 
appointing a general collection over the Church, or adopting whatever 
other method may appear to them most desirable. " 

The evangelical party wished the three overtures to be 
discussed separately, but the moderates combined them, the 
evident intention being that, the discovery of legal or other 
difficulties in the way of making the collection proposed in 
two of them, might be pleaded as an excuse for ignoring the 
obviously unobjectionable proposals of the third. It was in 
connection with these overtures that the celebrated mis- 
sionary, or rather anti-missionary, debate took place in the 
Assembly of 1796. 

Mr George Hamilton, minister of Gladsmuir, stood forth 
as the mouth-piece of those who, though nominally friendly, 
were really hostile to missionary enterprise. 

** To spread abroad," he said, " the knowledge of the gospel among 
barbarous and heathen nations seems to be highly preposterous, in so 
far as it aifticipates, nay, it even reverses, the order of nature. Men 
must be polished and refined in their manners before they can be pro- 
perly enlightened in religious truths. Philosophy and learning must, in 
the nature of things, take the precedence." 

There follows next, as might be anticipated, a panegyric 
on the "simple virtues" of the untutored Indian, "virtues,'* 
it may be remarked, which, however prominent they may be 
in the pages of novelists, do not bulk at all so largely in the 
descriptive narratives of those who have been much brought 
in contact with the red men of America. Of course, how- 
ever, Mr Hamilton knew the untutored Indian solely by 
report After the eulogy on his "virtues" already com- 
mented on, the anti-missionary speaker thus proceeded — 

(391) 



THE ANTI-MISSIONARY ASSEMBLY, $ 

** But go — engraft on his simple manners the customs, refinement, 
and may I not add, some of the vices of civilised society, and the 
influence of that religion which you give as a compensation for the dis- 
advantages attending such a communication will not refine his morals 
nor ensure his happiness." 

As will be remembered, Mr Hamilton had indirectly 
made the important admission, that while in his view it 
would be out of place to send the gospel to a rude heathen 
people, it would, to say the least, not be objectionable that 
its claims should be commended to a land, if any such 
existed, which had already made some progress in philo- 
sophy and learning. But as he goes forward, he, in forget- 
fulness of consistency, withdraws this concession. Speak- 
ing of a country like that now described, he says — 

** But even suppose such a nation could be found, I should still have 
weighty objections against sending missionaries thither. Why should 
we scatter our forces, and spend our strength on foreign service, when 
our utmost vigilance — our unbroken strength — is required at home. 
While there remains at home a single individual without the means of 
religious knowledge, to propagate it abroad would be improper and 
absurd." 

He was very much against the proposal that a collection 
should be made for foreign missions, saying — 

" For such improper conduct censure is too small a mark of disappro- 
bation ; it would no doubt be a legal subject of penal prosecution. * 

Of course he did not wish the discredit of standing forth 
as an open enemy of missions, and therefore finished — 

* * Upon the whole, while we pray for the propagation of the gospel, 
and patiently await its period, let us unite in resolutely rejecting these 
overtures. " 

The well-known Dr Carlyle of Inveresk seconded Mr 
Hamilton's anti-missionary motion. Readers will under- 
stand, without any explanation, the amount of spiritual 
weight which a minister of the Carlyle type was likely to 
bring to any cause which he espoused. Dr Hill, the mode- 
rate leader, framed a motion more decorous than Mr 
Hamilton's, but still on the same side ; and the two, being 
combined together, were carried by a majority of 58 to 44. 

(891) 2 



6 HOME OPERATIONS. 

The motion on the evangelical side, which was thus nega- 
tived, was couched in the following mild terms — 

"The Assembly appoint a Committee to take the subject of the 
overtures into consideration, and to report to next Assembly. " 

But mild as it was, it had in the eyes of the moderate 
party this fatal defect — that it all but pledged the Church to 
action, while they wished to do nothing. It is worthy of note, 
also, that 102 seem a small number to have voted on a 
question so momentous as whether the Saviour's express 
commands to make disciples of all nations were or were not 
to be ignored (Brown's "History of Missions," vol. ii., p. 
475). As Dr Hetherington mentions in his history, the Mr 
Hamilton who made the anti-missionary speech in 1796 
was afterwards honoured with the degree of D.D., and 
elected to the Chair of the Assembly.* 

Every Church should, in its corporate capacity, be a mis- 
sionary Church, and no one has a right to delegate its duty in 
this respect to societies ; but if Churches are unfaithful to their 
trust, societies which discharge it for them are entitled to the 
warmest thanks of Christians, and after the melancholy 
debate of 1796, the hopes of the pious portion of the 
Scottish community centred in the new societies formed in 
the early part of that year. These were unsectarian in their 
constitution, and were supported both by Christians inside 
and outside the Established Church. Each rendered good 
service to the evangelical cause. 

When the Glasgow Society came into existence on the 
9th February 1796, Dr John Love, as already stated, was in 
the English metropolis, acting as secretary to the London 
Missionary Society, but he settled in Anderston parish 
in the year 1800, and from that time on to his death, which 

* In 1852, the Nagpore missionaries were requested by a young Indian officer to 
address his servants on the claims of Christianity, which accordingly they did. The 
gentleman in question was said to be a grandson of one of those who figured most 
prominently in opposition to missions in the Assembly of 1796. How little did 
the grandfather foresee that in a few years a lineal descendant of his would make 
such a request I 



THE GLASGOW MISSIONARY SOCIETY. J 

occurred in 1825, he was one of the chief men in the Glas- 
gow Association. 

The Society's first efforts were directed towards the 
country near Sierra Leone, two portions of which were 
successively occupied ; but in the one case the agents 
despatched failed to fulfil the expectations formed of them, 
and in the other the unhealthiness of the climate soon 
carried them off by death. The next attempt was made in 
the direction of the Foulah country, in the interior of Wes- 
tern Africa, the London and Scottish Missionary Societies 
both co-operating in the enterprise ; but this effort also 
ended in failure. 

After these heavy discouragements the Glasgow Society 
attempted nothing independently for many years, but con- 
fined itself to raising funds and distributing them among 
other missionary bodies. 

On the 1 6th June 1819, there occurred that earthquake 
in Cutch, which has been rendered classical by the promi- 
nence given it in LyelFs "Principles of Geology ;" and next 
year the constituents of the Glasgow Society, pitying the 
poor people exposed to the danger of being swallowed up 
alive in such catastrophes, memorialised the Committee to 
send out a mission to the banks of the Indus. The matter 
was so nearly assuming a practical form, that in the same 
year (1820) Dr Love penned a pamphlet commending the 
proposal, but difficulties arose which prevented its being 
carried out. 

At length the attention of the directors was turned to 
Southern Africa. When Cape Colony was taken by the 
British from the Dutch, they found that their predecessors 
had set up a Presbyterian establishment there, which could 
not easily be displaced. It was, however, deemed politic to 
supply vacancies in its ministry as they arose from Scotland 
instead of from Holland; and about 1820, the Rev. Dr 
Thorn', one of the leading men in the Cape establishment, 
was despatched to Scotland for a supply of ministers. He 



8 HO.\fE OPERATIONS. 

communicated with the directors of the Glasgow Missionary 
Society, then in quest of a sphere in which they might com- 
mence operations, and strongly urged on them the claims of 
Cafifraria. They were convinced by his arguments, and 
resolved to send out agents immediately to that region. 

On the 29th May 1821, the Rev. W. R. Thomson and 
John Bennie were designated as missionaries to Caffraria. 
On the 5th March 1823, the Rev. John Ross was set apart 
to the same field. 

Similarly, the Scottish Missionary Society sent out 
labourers to the Sussoo country in West Africa, to Russia, 
to India, and to Jamaica. To the West of India were 
despatched in succession the Rev. Donald Mitchell, who 
survived but a short time, the Rev. John Cooper, the Rev. 
Alex. Crawford, the Rev. John Stevenson, the Rev. James 
Mitchell, afterwards of Poonah, with the Rev. Robert 
Nesbit and the Rev. John Wilson, both, as is well known, 
subsequently of Bombay. The Rev. James Mitchell was 
ordained in August 1822 ; the Rev. Mr Nesbit on the 13th 
December 1826'; and the Rev. John Wilson on June 24, 
1828. 

Whilst the Scottish Missionary Society was engaged in 
sending to the Bombay Presidency men destined ultimately 
to achieve great results there, events were already in train 
for bringing the Church of Scotland in her corporate 
capacity into the field. So early as 18 18, a celebrated 
Scottish minister, the Rev. Dr Inglis, in Church policy a 
"moderate," but in other respects with strong leanings 
towards evangelism, had begun to revolve in his mind the 
Church's duty with respect to the heathen world. Year by 
year the theme occupied an increased measure of his atten- 
tion, till at length, in 1824, he felt constrained to lay his 
views on the subject before the General Assembly. 

In May of that year (1824) the Assembly took into con- 
sideration certain overtures which had been addressed to it, 
regarding the evangelisation of the heathen world. After a 



INDIA SUGGESTED AS A MISSION FIELD, , Q 

lengthened explanation on the subject, from the Rev. Dr 
Inglis, the following motion was unanimously adopted : — 

" That the Assembly approve the general purpose and object of these 
overtures, appomt a Committee to devise and report to next Assembly 
a specific plan for the accomplishment of that object, and reserve for 
the consideration of next Assembly the means of providing the requisite 
funds, by appointing an extraordinary collection, as well as by opening 
a public subscription, for the accomplishment of that pious and benevo- 
lent object." * 

Of this Committee, the convener was Dr Inglis, to whom, 
under God, great credit is due for the happy result to which 
the debate led. It was the high character which he bore 
for piety, candour, and sound judgment, and the relation in 
which he stood to both parties in the house, which procured 
for foreign missions a hearing which, perhaps, they would 
not have otherwise received j nor should it be forgotten 
that, as evangelism had been slowly but surely gaining 
ground during the quarter of a century and more which had 
elapsed since the anti-missionary Assembly of 1796, the 
repetition of the melancholy spectacle then presented had 
become morally impossible. 

The same year (1824) an important memorial arrived 
from the East, bearing date Calcutta, December 1823, and 
signed by Mr, afterwards Dr Bryce.t It urged the Church to 
establish a mission in Calcutta, and ultimately proved of 

* The General Assembly had, the day before, carried an equally unanimous motion 
in favour of home missions. Instead of home and foreign missions being antagon- 
istic, their interests rise and fall together. 

t In explaining how this gentleman came to be located in the Indian capital, 
it is necessary to glance back for a moment at an event, or rather series of 
events, which occurred in 1813. During that year, the East India Company's 
charter, which as usual had been granted only for a period of twenty years, re- 
el uired renewal, and petitions flowed into Parliament from various quarters, ui^ng 
it to extort fresh concessions from the Leadenhall Street magnates. At the 
suggestion of the elder Dr M'Crie and Sir Henry Moncreiff, father of the pre- 
sent baronet, the Scottish Church put in a claim to have a Presbyterian chaplain 
appointed at each of the Indian Presidency seats. Reporting this occurrence, 
Dr Horace Hayman Wilson finishes a sentence of his Indian History (the con- 
tinuation of Mill's great work) with the memorable words, '* The majority of the 
British resident in India being Scotch, and of the Presbyterian communion." 
Though his startling statement was somewhat exaggerated, yet it was not very 
far beyond the truth. The appointment of a Presbyterian chaplain at each of the 
Presidency seats was therefore conceded, and Dr Bryce was the representative 
of the Scottish Church in Calcutta, in December 1823, the date to which we have 
come. 



10 HOME OPERATIONS. 

historic importance, for it powerfully turned the attention of 
the Church to India, the most eligible missionary field* we 
hesitate not to say, in the whole world. But to. return to 
Dr Inglis and his committee. In May 182 5, they reported 
their opinion to be — 

" That, in the first instance, at least, it would be desirable to make 
one or other of the British provinces in India the field of labour ; that 
it would be desirable to establish, in the first instance, one central 
seminary of education, with branch schools, in the surrounding country, 
for behalf of the children of the native population, under the charge of 
a head master, who ought to be an ordained minister of our National 
Church, and not less than two additional teachers from this country, to- 
gether with a certain number of additional teachers, to be selected by 
the head master, from those natives who had previously received the 
requisite education ; that the head master ought to embrace opportu- 
nities, as they occur, to recommend the gospel of Christ to the faith 
and acceptance of those to whom he finds access ; that, with this view, 
he ought to court the society of those natives more especially who have 
already received a liberal education, and, if encouraged by them, ought 
to put into their hands such tracts illustrative of the import, the evi- 
dences, and the history of the Christian faith as may be sent to him for 
that purpose, under the authority of the General Assembly, and ought 
also to preach from time to time in the hearing of such persons, or 
others who may be induced to attend him, either in the hall of the 
seminary over which he presides, or in such other convenient place as 
may be afforded him." 

This report was penned by Dr Inglis, and met with the 
high approval of the Assembly. In 1826 a pastoral address 
was issued, Dr Inglis being its author, which powerfully urged 
the claims of foreign missions. 

That year an effort was made to obtain a general collec- 
tion, no one having taken the odium of repeating the menace 
of a legal prosecution, so pointedly insisted on in 1796. 
If, as is fair, one measures the amount of missionary zeal 
diffused at any period throughout a church by the contribu- 
tions which its members make for the heathen world, then 
the Church of Scotland, as it was in 1826, must be denied 
all but the most moderate amount of commendation. A 
collection, as has been already stated, was made, to which 
it must now be added that the result was as follows : — 

" Out of more than 900 parish churches and $5 chapels of ease, col- 



^'r:^^' DR CHALMERS AT ST ANDRE WS^ 1 1 

- lectioitt were made in no more than 59 parish churches and 16 chapels ; 
that the subscriptions amounted in extraordinary donations to about 
£300, and the annual contributions to about ^90 " ! 

The collection, in short, had been a failure. By the next 
year, however (1827), considerable improvement had taken 
place, and it was found that the time had come for search- 
ing out a missionary. 



CHAPTER 11. 

A MISSIONARY SOUGHT AND FOUND. 

To understand how it was that a missionary was nearly 
ready, and might, if sought for, be found, at the very time 
when the Church was anxious to commence operations in 
Calcutta, it is necessary to go back to that well-known event 
in the history of Dr Chalmers, when the great divine, to 
the astonishment of not a few, and with the heavy censure 
of some, allowed himself to be translated from the pastorate 
in Glasgow, which he had filled with such distinction, to 
what the public thought the much less influential position of 
Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in St Andrews* 
University. But ** wisdom is justified of her children," and 
the results which flowed from the sojourn of Dr Chalmers 
in the Fifeshire University, could ill have been spared by 
Christendom. One great service which he rendered in his 
new situation — and a service it was which, perhaps, no 
other person in Scotland was so competent to perform — 
was, that " in a series of lectures in the Town Hall, he 
popularised the history and objects of missions, and ren- 
dered that one of the most fashionable themes which had 
been nauseated before." One of the first among the students 
to come under the spell of Dr Chalmers' master-mind was 
John Urquhart, who, with his immediate friends, founded 
a small and half-private missionary society among the 



12 HOME OPERATIONS. 

Students. Of this association the secretary was Robert 
Nesbit, whilst the librarian was Alexander DufF. During 
the session of 1824-25, the small society was developed 
into the more general association, called the St Andrews' 
University Missionary Society. 

When the Church had fully resolved to send out a mis- 
sionary, Dr Inglis and the Missionary Committee sought 
assistance from the theological professors and ministers of 
the Church in finding a suitable candidate for the very re- 
sponsible office. Among others who received a letter on the 
subject was Principal Haldane, of St Andrews' University, 
who thought Alexander Duff, then within a year of licence, 
the most qualified of all the students to undertake the found- 
ing of a mission, and urged him to allow himself to be 
nominated for the duty. Mr Duff was, however, unwilling 
to allow his name to be brought forward, feeling diffident 
of his ability rightly to discharge so great a trust About 
a year afterwards, when he was on trials for licence, a 
second application was made to him, this time by the Rev. 
Dr Ferrie, of Kilconquhar, Professor of Civil History, who 
had received a letter on the subject from a member of the 
Foreign Mission Committee. Thus a second time solicited, 
Mr Duff viewed the matter in all its bearings, and, after 
serious and even agonising thought, sought and obtained a 
conference with Dr Chalmers : and finally, having received 
a satisfactory answer to a question which he put with regard 
to the amount of liberty he should have to carry out such 
methods of operation as might commend themselves to his 
mind, he intimated his acceptance of the call offered him by 
the committee.* The appointment was confirmed by the 

* Dr Duff was bom on the 35th April 1806, at the old farmhouse of Auchnahyle, 
since replaced by a more modem building, about a mile from the little village of 
Pitlochrie, in the parish of Moulin, in the uplands of Perthshire. Towards the end 
of the i8th century a considerable religious awakening took place in the parish of 
Moulin, then under the spiritual care of the Rev. Dr Stewart, afterwards of the 
Canongate Church, Edinburgh. Among those who came_ under very serious im- 
pressions was the elder Mr Duff, who did all that was in his power for the spiritual 
Denefit of his distinguished son. The latter once wrote — '* Into a general know- 
ledge of the objects and progress of modern missions I was initiated from my earlie " 
youth by my late revered father, whose catholic spirit rejoiced in tracing th6 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND S FIRST MISSIONARY, 1 3 

Assembly of 1829, and on 12th August of the same year 
the Church of Scotland*s first missionary to the heathen 
world was ordained in St George's Church, Edinburgh, the 
Rev. Dr Chalmers preaching and delivering the subsequent 
address with his wonted ability and fervour. 

On the 30th July Mr Duff had been united in marriage 
to the daughter of the late W. Drysdale of Edinburgh, Dr 
Inglis officiating on the interesting occasion, and about the 
middle of October the bridegroom and bride went on board 
the Lady Holland, East Indiaman, at Portsmouth, and sailed 
for the distant land, to the evangelisation of which their best 
energies were in future to be consecrated. 

Speaking of a vessel which had departed for the East, a 
poet says — 

" On India's long expecting strand 
Her sails were never furled." 

And his language is painfully appropriate to the ill-fated 
Lady Holland. On the night of Saturday, 13th February 
1830, she struck on the desolate and uninhabited Dassen 
Island, about thirty miles to the north of Cape Town. In 
the good providence of God, Mr and Mrs Duff, with the 
remaining passengers and the crew, succeeded in reaching 
the shore,* but the vessel herself became a total wreck. 

triumph of the gospel in different lands, and in connection with the different branches 
of the Christian Church. Pictures of Juggernaut and other heathen idols he was 
wont to exhibit, accompanying the exhibition with copious explanations well fitted 
to create a feeling of horror towards idolatry, and of compassion towards the poor 
blinded idolators, and intermixing the whole with statements of the love of Jesus." 
The future missionary received his education at the parish school of Kirkmichael, 
twelve miles from Moulin, then under an excellent teacher. Next he attended the 
Perth Academy, and finally gained a scholarship in the University of St Andrews, 
where he highly distinguished himself. His forte was classics, and he kept at the 
head of his Greek and Latin classes. At the end of his arts' curriculum, he took the 
degree of M.A. — {Friend 0/ India^ Dec 31, 1863.) One of his teachers at the Uni- 
versity was the profound classical scholar, John Hunter. Another of them. Pro- 
fessor Alexander, said in the Assembly of 1842 that he had the honour of having 
Dr Duff under his care as a student at the University of St Andrews, and he then 
gave high promise of future eminence. Yet another of them. Principal Haldane, 
spoke of the honour he felt in having him as one of his pupils. It was when attend- 
ing the Moral Philosophy Class in 1823-1824 that he first became a student of Dr 
Chalmers. On finishing his arts' curriculum, he entered the Divinity Hall of St 
Mary's College. His farther career is traced in the ordinary narrative. 

* Mr, afterwards Sir Henry Durand, so distinguished for intellect, courage, 
administrative ability, and Christian character, was also on board the Leuly Holland 
at the time of her shipwreck. 



1 4 . HOME OPERA TIONS. 

Everything Mr Duff had brought with him from his native 
land, including 800 distinct works, and sadder still, his 
manuscripts, which once lost could never be replaced, 
perished in this catastrophe, the single exception being a 
" Bagster's Comprehensive Bible and Psalm Book," which 
owed its preservation to the fact that those kind friends who 
had given it to the missionary at parting had considerately 
packed it in a stout leather covering. As he stood in soli- 
tude musing on that wild and barren strand, he saw, in the 
remarkable providence which had befallen him, an intima- 
tion divinely conveyed that henceforth he should not allow 
even the study of books and literary composition to inter- 
fere with his supreme attachment to the Bible, or mar the 
singleness of aim with which he devoted himself to the 
evangelisation of that great land for which he desired to 
labour so long as his life continued. The new vessel in 
which he proceeded on his way had well-nigh foundered in 
a storm off the Mauritius, and was finally dashed ashore in 
a cyclone at the mouth of the Ganges. Thus early was the 
Church made aware that ** perils in the sea " are a charac- 
teristic of missionary as they were of apostolic voyaging. 

Notwithstanding all the dangers and difficulties which Mr 
and Mrs Duff had been called to encounter during their 
protracted voyage of between seven and eight months, they 
reached Calcutta on the evening of Wednesday, 27th May 
1830, though, in those days of slow postal transmission of 
intelligence, it was long before their safety was known to the 
Church at home. 

Reserving all notice of Mr Duff's operations in Calcutta 
to a subsequent portion of the volume, we continue the 
narrative of proceedings at home. Nothing quickens mis- 
sionary zeal more than to know that the campaign has 
actually been commenced ; and when the Scottish Church 
felt that in its corporate capacity it had unfurled the 
standard of the Cross in, or, as it believed, near the 
Indian capital, the difficulty of obtaining funds was con- 



INCREASE OF THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT, 1 5 

siderably diminished. In May 1831, or about a year after 
Mr DufF had reached Calcutta, a colleague was ordained to 
proceed to his assistance — we refer to the Rev. W. S. 
Mackay. In 1833, Dr Inglis communicated the joyous 
intelligence that a third missionary might be appointed, as 
the committee might now calculate on an income from all 
sources of ;^ 12 00 a year. In the reply which came from the 
East there was found the remarkable sentence — " Oh, do 
not fix on ;^i2oo a year as your maximum. Put down 
;^ 10,000 a year as your minimum, and from that rise up 
indefinitely without fixing any maximum at all." When the 
letter containing this notable sentence was handed about 
among the members of the Home Committee for perusal, 
one of the most respected of their number was so astonished, 
that on the margin he made the following entry with his 
pencil : — " What ! is the man mad ? Has the Indian sun 
turned his head ?" — {Free Church Missionary Record, 1867, 
p. 154.) The ;^io,ooo were never reached in pre-Disruption 
times, but the Free Church had not proceeded far on its 
career before it attained that annual revenue permanently. 

The increase of funds intimated by Dr Inglis enabled the 
Church to appoint a third missionary to Calcutta — the Rev. 
David Ewart. He was ordained in July 1834. With his 
departure for the East a well-defined period of the Home 
Church's missionary history comes to an end. 



CHAPTER III. 

A DARK PROVIDENCE OVERRULED FOR MUCH GOOD. 

July 1834, as has already been stated, was the date of Mr 
Ewart's ordination. In that very same month and year, 
though the Church did not know it till afterwards, the first 
missionary was lying on a sick-bed at Calcutta, grievously 



1 6 HOME OPERATIONS, 

afflicted with one of the formidable diseases of the East — 
Indian dysentery. In the providence of God his life, 
though for some time in serious peril, was ultimately pre- 
served, but a peremptory medical mandate required his 
temporary return home to recruit his shattered constitution. 
He therefore prepared to return as Mr Ewart made ready 
to go out. What seemed a heavy calamity was soon, how- 
ever, found to be a blessing in disguise, for his efforts while 
at home greatly aided in arousing the Scottish Church to 
some faint appreciation of the grandeur and importance of 
the work to which she had set her hand in the East, and con- 
stituted quite an epoch in the history of Scottish missions. 

The efforts now spoken of were inaugurated by a magni- 
ficent oration, which he delivered in the Assembly of 1835. 
We have heard members who were present speak of the great 
effect which it produced, one sober-minded minister telling 
us how it affected him to tears. Of course those who were 
absent were anxious to have the speech at once published, 
though a printed oration can never give an adequate idea of 
spoken eloquence. An edition of 10,000 copies was con- 
sequently struck off, and was exhausted in a few months, 
and a second one speedily followed. It was subsequently 
reprinted along with other addresses in 1850. Soon after 
its delivery in 1835, its author received from Marischal Col- 
lege, Aberdeen, the degree of D.D. 

With the rise of a missionary spirit in the Church of Scot- 
land, the societies formed in 1796 were of less utility than 
formerly. If the pious people who in that year united to send 
missionaries had entertained the faintest hope of inducing the 
several denominations in their corporate capacities to seek 
the evangelisation of heathendom, they would in all proba- 
bility have deemed it unnecessary to form societies at all. 
When the Church of Scotland commenced its Indian mission 
in 1829, it drew from the societies some of the subscribers 
who belonged to the Establishment. When the United 
Presbyterian Church set up missions of its own, which it 



BREAK UP OF THE SOCIETIES. IJ 

did in January 1835, it similarly carried away some of the 
Dissenting subscribers, whilst the breaking out of the 
Voluntary controversy rendered it now difficult for those 
who remained to act in perfect harmony. The palmy days 
of the societies were evidently over. One result of this 
altered state of things was that, with the cordial consent of 
the directors of the Scottish Missionary Society, the Rev. 
Messrs James Mitchell, Robert Nesbit, and John Wilson 
were transferred to the Establishment in the month of 
August 1835. Thus, in a single day, the Indian mission- 
aries of the Scottish Church became doubled in number. 
Moreover, the Church was represented now not at one Pre- 
sidency merely, but at two. Bombay was provided for as 
well as Calcutta, and Madras only was neglected. Before 
1836 had far run its course an effort was made to supply 
this manifest want, and Mr Anderson, whose soul had been 
so fired with reading Dr Duff's Assembly speech that he was 
constrained to devote himself to the evangelisation of India, 
was accepted as missionary to Madras. He was ordained 
on the 13th of July. 

In December 1837, the Glasgow Missionary Society was 
divided into two sections, the one holding and the other 
rejecting the Establishment principle. The former was 
called the Glasgow Missionary Society, adhering to the 
Church of Scotland, and the other the Glasgow African 
Missionary Society. The missionaries, catechists, teachers, 
and converts were asked to choose to what section of the 
old association they would adhere, and an amicable division 
was made of the property at the several stations. 

It was a melancholy circumstance that, while Dr Duff was 
able to bring intelligence of great and good work done 
among the young men of Calcutta, no similar work had yet 
been found practicable among the other sex, who were 
doomed by tyrannical prejudice to remain in ignorance, it 
being declared criminal for them to acquire knowledge. A 
Christian officer of the Bombay army — Major St Clair 



1 8 HOME OPERATIONS, 

Jameson, a brother of the late Sheriff Jameson — was so 
impressed with the necessity of attempting, on however 
small a scale, to alter this sad state of things, that in 1838 
he formed the Ladies' Society for Female Education in 
India. 

With the spirit of enterprise now prevailing, the Church 
could not think of resting satisfied with transferring mis- 
sionaries from the charge of one committee to another, or 
of commencing such societies as that for the benefit 
of the females of India, or even of occupying a new and 
important station like Madras. It felt also the need of 
strengthening the missions already begun. In 1837 there 
appeared a pamphlet, entitled " Statement of Reasons for 
Accepting a Call to go to India as a Missionary." It was 
from the pen of the Rev. John Macdonald, then a minister 
in Chadwell Street, Pentonville, London, and son of the 
Rev. Dr Macdonald, of Ferintosh, so well known and highly 
valued as the apostle of the Highlands, or the apostle of 
the North. It was Dr Duff who had pressed on him the 
claims of the heathen world. He departed in the fall of the 
same year for Calcutta, there to find work, influence, and a 
grave. In July 1838 the Rev. John Murray Mitchell, who 
had been a distinguished student at Marischal College, was 
ordained to Bombay; Robert Johnston, on the 5th Sep- 
tember of the same year, to Madras; the Rev. Thomas 
Smith, in May 1839, to Calcutta ; and the Rev. John Braid- 
wood, on the 6th August 1840, to Madras. Mr Braidwood 
was specially the missionary of the students of theology in 
Edinburgh. Meanwhile the Glasgow Society continued its 
labours in Caffraria, though from the limited means at its 
command, it was only at comparatively remote intervals 
that it was able to send a missionary forth ; but imme- 
diately after it had been severed into two portions, the 
section of it adhering to the Establishment despatched 
the Rev. William Govan, who was ordained on the ist 
July 1840, with instructions to found a seminary for the 



DR DUFFS FIRST HOME CAMPAIGN, I9 

CafFres. The number of missionaries sent out by the 
Church of Scotland between 1835 and 1840 will show 
how remarkably the evangelistic spirit was gaining power.* 
Under God the prime mover in this much-needed revival 
had been Dr Duff, whose exertions for India had been 
very great Her had addressed seventy-one presbyteries 
and synods, as also hundreds of congregations, besides 
repeatedly preaching or speaking in London and other 
centres of influence in the South. Finally, by dint of great 
energy, he in four months penned the largest of all his 
works — ** India, and Indian Missions" — in which, after 
giving an account of the system of Hindooism, especially 
as it exists in Bengal, and penning the most moving appeals 
in favour of the evangelistic enterprise, he, in an appendix 
to which the future historians of India will eagerly turn, gives 
an extremely interesting account of the first four brilliant 
years of the Calcutta mission. This work issued, he again 
bade adieu to his Church and his native land, and, crossing 
the ocean without any of those perils which he had been 
called to encounter during his first voyage, safely reached 
Calcutta in May i840.t 

• Another indication of this was the issue of a new series oii\it Missionary Record^ 
a quarto, costing 3d., or if stamped 4d. per number, which enabled the Church to 
present the missionary intelligence received from abroad in more detail than for- 
merly. The last number of the old series was published in April 1839, the first of 
the new in July of the same year. 

t After Dr Duff's departure the mission funds slightly retrograded. There were 
collected — 

Between ist August 1838 and 20th May 1839, £sA37i is. lod. 

„ „ 1839 „ 1840, /5241, 14s. lod. 

„ „ 1840 ,, 1841, £a^>9o, OS. od. 

„ 1841 „ 1842, ;£4i58, OS. od. 

'-Missionary Report for 1840, p. 340. 



20 HOME OPERATIONS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE DISRUPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 

It is now universally admitted that an event of world- 
wide importance occurred when, on the memorable i8th of 
May 1843, the doors of St Andrew's Church, Edinburgh, 
were suddenly flung open, and several hundred members of 
Assembly marched forth, thus severing their connection 
with the Establishment, once almost the idol of their hearts. 
Many considerations which, had they been aware of them, 
would have furnished a certain amount of consolation in 
the anxious circumstances, were then unknown to the 
spiritual heroes. To one of these it is now needful to allude. 
The seceding party had not been informed what course 
would be adopted by the missionaries when the Church, 
whose ambassadors they were, became severed into two. 
The Convocation, which met in September 1842, appointed 
a Provisional Committee to communicate with them, the 
Rev. Charles Brown being its convener, and a letter was 
despatched on the 2nd May 1843, "in prospect of the 
disruption of the Church, which is now inevitable." Care- 
fully abstaining from any effort to bias the conscientious 
decision which the Scottish ecclesiastical ambassadors to the 
Jews and Gentiles might form, the committee, with remark- 
able prescience of the future, stated that it would still be 
one of the chief objects of the Church, when disestablished, 
to maintain, and there could scarcely be a doubt largely 
increase, her missions abroad. When the Disruption oc- 
curred, the Rev. Dr Brunton, convener of the Foreign Mis- 
sions' Committee, first of the united Church, and now of 
those who remained, in the Establishment, also sought the 
adherence of the missionaries, honourably abstaining, how- 
ever, from any attempts unduly to bias their decision. In 
those days there was no railroad through the Egyptian 



MISSIONARIES PRONOUNCE FOR FREE CHURCH, 21 

desert, and none in India, nor did the electric telegraph 
to the East exist to flash questions and answers to and fro 
almost with the rapidity of thought. Both parties had to 
exercise patience, not merely for weeks but for months, and 
during some time the Free Church Missionary Record came 
out with extracts from Duffs " India, and India Missions," 
and other publications, instead of with intelligence from 
himself and his colleagues. Had the reason of the 
silence not been known, it would have appeared ominous, 
but the true explanation was not far to seek. Friends dis- 
tant about a quarter of the circumference of the world did 
not know that a Disruption had occurred, and therefore they 
sent their letters to the old quarter. At last replies came 
from the nearest of the Indian stations — Bombay and 
Poonah — stating that all the missionaries there adhered to 
the Free Church. Subsequent mails brought in letters from 
Calcutta, from Madras, and from CafFraria, conveying the 
adherence of all the missionaries there. That the Jewish 
missionaries had come to the same decision was known 
before, so that at length it became possible to announce, as 
was done at the Assembly of 1844, that all the Church's mis- 
sionaries, both Jews and Gentiles, as well as the agents of 
the Glasgow Missionary Society in Caffreland, had decided 
on casting in their lot with the Free Church. Successes of 
a remarkable character, however, are almost sure to increase 
the responsibilities which have to be met, and the accession 
of the missionaries necessarily involved a heavy drain on 
the finances of the infant Church, already compelled to face 
an outlay of the most colossal proportions. The sum total 
in the mission treasury was then but ;^327. It is a wonder 
there was so much, for the day on which it had been fixed 
that the first collection for India should be made had not 
yet arrived, and the ;^327 had come from some thoughtful 
friends of the Church and its operations abroad, who had 
wisely resolved not to wait for the time of the collection, but 
to send in their money at once. The faith was great and 

(391) 3 



22 HOME OPERATIOhS. 

noble which led the Church, in humble dependence upon her 
Divine Head, to pledge herself to maintain, and, if possible, 
to extend her foreign missions — and that at a time when 
churches, manses, schools, everything — ^had to be replaced 
at home. 

There were heavy losses of property in India, though not 
for a moment to be compared with those in Scotland, in 
consequence of the Disruption. The Calcutta buildings and 
library — the former raised chiefly through Dr Duff^s powerful 
influence, and the latter generally believed to have been a gift 
to himself personally — had to be surrendered ; so also had the 
recently-completed premises at Bombay. We entertain the 
strong conviction, that in all disruptions of churches or so- 
cieties, the property which has been accumulated by the joint 
efforts of the members should be divided between them, in 
place of being given to one party only ; and that no Church 
or no individual should accept anything to which there is not 
a moral as well as a legal claim* Had such a division as was 
proposed by the Free Church been adopted by both parties 
at the Disruption, the Calcutta and Bombay missions would 
not have lost everything as they did. The Madras mission 
had no buildings of its own in that city in 1843 > i^ therefore 
escaped losses like those which took place at the sister 
presidencies. Thus happily situated, it did to the Church 
at home a thoughtful and most generous deed. It raised 
funds for its entire maintenance from friends in or near 
Madras, and, casting its support on these, cost the home 
Church not a farthing during the first year after the Dis- 
ruption. 

The missionary zeal and devotedness of that Church were 
now to be shown in another way, and the promise redeemed 
that not merely should the existing stations be maintained, 
but that, if possible, there should be an increase of their 
number. In the year 1842 (we think it was), a lady of 
deeply Christian character, then at Jaulna, in the Nizam's 
country, lay on a sick bed, and in near view of the eternal 



CAPTAIN HILL S GREA T GIFT, 23 

world. She wished a large sum of money to be devoted to 
the establishment of a mission in Central India, the spiritual 
destitution of which she had with much sorrow observed. 
Soon afterwards she breathed her last, and was with the 
Saviour to whom her supreme affections had been given. Her 
husband, Capt. Hill, had it in his power to carry out or to set 
aside the request of his dying partner.* What a worldly man 
would have done in the circumstances no one can well 
doubt, — he would have ignored the suggestion which had 
been given. Very different, indeed, was the conduct of Cap- 
tain Hill. Himself deeply pious, and very deeply interested 
in the evangelisation of India, he, though not wealthy, im- 
mediately took steps to offer ;^25oo, in three per cent, 
consols, to the evangelical body which he believed would 
be the most likely to establish an efficient mission in 
Central India. Though himself a member of the English 
Church, yet his sympathies were unsectarian, and having 
been struck with the energy of the Scotch missionaries, and 
the success which had attended their exertions, he resolved 
to give the Christian denomination which had sent them 
out the first offer. He entered into correspondence on the 
subject with the Rev. Dr Wilson of Bombay, who laid the 
proposal before the Committee, himself supporting it strongly. 
They being also in its favour, communicated it to the- Church 
at large in the Missionary Record ior September 1842. It was 
already decided that the location of the proposed mission 
should be the Nagpore country, either at Kamptee or 
Nagpore. 

Before the proposal had been considered, the Disruption 
took place, and Captain Hill had to consider to which 
section of the now dissevered Church he should renew his 
offer. Observing that all the missionaries whose efficiency 
he had noted went with the Free Church, he, as was natural, 
deemed it the best entitled to receive his bounty, and, fear- 
ful as were the financial responsibilities which it had to face 

* Free Church Missionary Record, 1858, p. 127. 



24 HOME OPERATIONS, 

at home, it, before 1843 had passed away, with admirable 
faith accepted the offer made to it, and proceeded imme- 
diately to establish a Nagpore mission, 

A missionary was soaght and found in the person of 
the Rev. Stephen Hislop, who, in 1844, when he was 
offered the Nagpore appointment, had just completed his 
theological course.* So soon as Dr Wilson intimated the 
appointment of Mr Hislop to Nagpore, Captain Hill trans- 
ferred to the Free Church Committee the sum which he had 
so generously offered, ;^25oo, adding interest from the very 
day when he had commenced correspondence with the 
Church on the subject. This brought the amount up to 
;^2674 15s. 2d. of stock. t Only the interest was to be ex- 
pended, not the principal. 

Almost immediately afterwards a notable advance was 
made in another quarter. In 1844, the Glasgow Missionary 
Society offered its Caffrarian stations to the Free Church.J 
The transfer was sanctioned by the General Assembly of 
1844, and the missions were handed over with much cor- 
diality on both sides, and entirely free from debt. When 
this change in the relations of the Caffre missionaries took 
place, the Glasgow India Association on behalf of Female 
Education'in South Africa forbore to dissolve, determining, 

I ♦ Mr Hislop was born at Dunse, in Berwickshire, on the 8th of September 1817. 
He received his elementary education in his native town. Subsequently he became 
a student at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, where he attained con- 
siderable distinction. His theological training was commenced at the latter seat of 
learning, and was completed, after the Disruption, at the New College. 

t In the letter handing this munificent sum over, Captain Hill says : — " Now is my 
mind at ease respecting the final appropriation of this money. I thank the Lord that 
from the time He put it into my heart to place the money at your disposal for a mis- 
sion in these parts, I have had much peace of mind. I was assured that the desire 
came from God ; and His grace has supported me throughout, and enables me to say, 
* All things are of Thee, O Lord, and of Thine own have I given Thee.' " 

It may be added that Captain Hill subsequently rose to eminence in his profession. 
Left by some mismanagement in the second Burmese war, in the town of Pegu, iso- 
lated from the rest of the British army, the place was siurounded by the enemy, to the 
number, it was believed, of 8000, when, putting himself at the head of 400 Europeans 
and a few natives, he gained four victories over the semi-barbarian besiegers, and suc- 
ceeded in holding the place till it was relieved. He is now Major-General Sir William 
Hill, and resides in London, where he is zealously engaged in promoting Christian 
female education in India, his deep interest in that country having remained with him 
during every part of his long and honourable career. 

X In 1847, the stations of the Glasgow African Missionary Society were transferred 
to the United Presbyterian Church. 



A FINANCIAL CRISIS. 2$ 

on the contrary, to maintain and even extend their opera- 
tions as the condition of the other sex advanced. The 
Free Church, soon after accepting the Caffre missions, 
thought of superadding to them a station at Capetown, and 
about February 1846, the Rev. WilUam Gorrie, and in 
April of the same year, the Rev. Ebenezer Miller, were 
ordained missionaries to Capetown. Thus energetically did 
the Free Church push forward her operations abroad no less 
than at home, in the year immediately succeeding the 
Disruption. 



CHAPTER V. 

SHALL THERE BE RETREAT? 

The recent movements had been somewhat too rapid for 
the funds of the Mission. At the end of the financial year 
1844, the Committee had a balance on hand of ^(^48^0, 
15s. lo^d. By 1845 it had diminished tO;^i433, 7s. 2d. 
In 1846 there was a deficiency of ;^39, 19s. 6d., which, 
increasing with appalling rapidity, became jCs^S^y ^4^- 2d. 
in 1847. To meet this highly unsatisfactory state of things, 
the General Assembly enjoined that there should be a col- 
lecting week, during which ;^i 0,000 should, if possible, be 
raised, the surplus, after paying the debt, being appUed to 
form the nucleus of a fund for supplying mission buildings 
at the several stations, as well as supporting native cate- 
chists and preachers. The collecting week in July, with 
some donations from England, produced ;^55oo, which 
removed the immediate difficulties of the Committee ; but 
as the causes from which these had arisen still remained in 
potent operation, they again almost immediately returned. 
In March 1848, it became known that the revenues of the 
Home and Foreign Mission, taken together, would fall 
short of the expenditure by nearly ;^5ooo. In the emer- 
gency, the Free Church ladies made a great effort, and 



26 HOME OPERATIONS. 

raising the ;^5ooo, gave ^3000 to the Foreign Missions 
Committee, which cleared off all their debt except about 
^300. But if nothing further were done it was manifest 
that the relief would be only temporary. In their report to 
the Assembly of 1848 the Committee showed that, while 
their ordinary revenue seemed to have settled down at 
^7300, their fixed annual expenditure, exclusive of casual- 
ties and buildings, was ;^97oo, leaving a yearly deficit of 
^2400.* Retrenchment in these circumstances being 
inevitable (unless, indeed, the income could be largely 
increased), the Acting Committee had proposed to discon- 
tinue the Caffre Missions, especially broken up as they were 
by the War, but the General Committee, at a meeting held 
on the 29th February, had refused to sanction the arrange- 
ment. It had also been proposed to transfer the Cape 
Mission to the Colonial Committee. This last measure 
was one so natural that it was likely to meet with general 
acceptance ; but, the thought of sacrificing a mission of long 
standing like the Caffrarian one, was one evidently not to be 
lightly entertained. Before any Foreign Mission field then 
occupied should be abandoned, a year of grace was given, 
extending from the Assembly of 1848 to that of 1849, 
during which it was hoped that there might be a great 
increase in the revenue of the mission. The collection that 
year was what it was meant to be — an extraordinary one — 
and, with a donation of ;^iooo, it was sufficient to meet 
the current expenditure for the year. But it was felt 

• The revenue of the Foreign Mission Fund from the Disruption to 1848 stood 
thus :— 

For the year ending March 1844, ;^ 6,402 17 o 

„ „ 1845,.... 7.282 7 9 

„ „ 1846,.... 7,356 14 3 

>t ., 1847,.... 7,333 18 7 

„ „ 1848, 10,023 O II 

of which, however, ;C3ooo was a special donation from ladies connected Mrith the 
Free Chiu-ch. Excluding this exceptional gift, the income for 1848 was £^o1^, os. 
xid. Thus it will be perceived that the income had settled down at a few tens or 
hundreds of pounds above ;C7ooo per annum. The fixed annual expenditure, on 
the contrary, exclusive of casualties and buildings, was ;^9756, os. 4d., and there 
was a consequent annual deficit, even excluding the charge for interest, of between 
two and three thousand pounds. — Free Church Missionary Record ^ 1847-1848, 
P' 475- 



DR duff's recall. 2J 

to be doubtful whether the advance made in circum- 
stances fitted to call forth unwonted exertions could be 
expected periodically ; and if it could not, then the crisis 
averted for the time would speedily return. It had been 
prudently resolved to give the Assembly's Commission autho- 
rity to examine how the Foreign Mission finance then 
stood. The result being still unsatisfactory, the Commission 
directed the Committee to prepare a scheme for a reduced 
expenditure, suitable to its probable income, and submit 
their plan to next General Assembly. At the Assembly of 
1849, consequently, the Committee officially reported that 
the dates at which the three most recent missions were 
first noticed in their minutes were as follows : — Nagpore, 
6th October 1843; the Glasgow Society's Missions, 17th 
May 1844 ; and the Cape Missions, 30th June 1845. The 
Committee left it to the Assembly to decide which of these 
should be abandoned. The transference of the Cape Mis- 
sion to the Colonial Committee was easily agreed to, but 
the Assembly could not find in its heart to abandon either 
CafFraria or Nagpore.* After the matter had been debated 
at length, the heroic and Christian resolve was made not to 
go back a step, but to take some new method of increasing 
the income. 

On the lamented death of the Rev. Dr Chalmers, which took 
place on the 31st May 1847, private friends in this country 
began to sound Dr Duff as to whether he would accept the 
vacant chair of theology if elected to it by the Church. He 
discouraged the idea to the uttermost, and for about a year 
not much was heard of it. At the end of that period, how- 
ever, it arose anew, and this time very publicly. During 
the autumn of 1848 it was discussed by Presbyteries, 
Synods, and ultimately by the Commission of Assembly. A 
considerable majority were in its favour, though a formal 

* At this crisis more than one of the missionaries or assistant missionaries pre 
posed temporariKr or permanently to reduce their incomes, in the hope of somewhat 
aiding the Church in its financial embarrassments. 



28 HOME OPERATIONS, 

decision could not be arrived at until the Assembly met in 
May. The home proceedings, of course, were speedily 
reported in India, and alarm was expressed mainly by those 
who did not know Dr Duff's devotion to the great cause to 
which he had consecrated his life, and addresses from all 
quarters poured in upon him, deprecating the step he was 
about to be invited to take.* In these circumstances he 
thought it expedient to address a letter to his missionary 
colleagues, asking their counsel, when they, without mutual 
consultation, yet without a dissentient voice, advised him to 
decline the chair, but to yield to a unanimous request sent 
him by the Committ,ee that he would return home for a 
period on a purely missionary enterprise. This advice coin- 
cided exactly with Dr Duff's own convictions of duty, and 
in a letter to Dr Tweedie, dated March 6, 1849, ^^ nega- 
tived the proposal about the theological chair before it 
could go before the Assembly, but intimated his acceptance 
of the Committee's invitation to return temporarily, and, 
if possible, communicate an impulse like that of 1835 
to Foreign Missions. He asked and received permission 
before returning to visit the leading Indian stations, that he 
might understand their needs. 

Leaving Calcutta for Southern India early in April, he 
wrote from Madras on the 26th. Visiting the principal 
mission stations to the south, such as Tranquebar, Nega- 
patam, Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Madura, Tinnevelly, and Tra- 
vancore, he wrote from Trivandrum June 26th. Crossing 
to Ceylon, he visited Colombo and other mission stations 
there ; and leaving Point de Galle on July 26th, reached 
Calcutta on 6th August. After effecting several arrange- 
ments there, he left on 5th October 1849 for Northern 
India, visiting all the missions at the principal stations as 
he went along. His journey extended. as far in a northerly 

• Among those who sent strongly- worded addresses of respect and aflfection, 
were students of the instituiion, converts not merely of the Free Church but of 
p(her missions, the East Indian community, &c. &c. 



RAJAHGOPAUL IN THE ASSEMBLY, 29 

direction as Kotghur, on the Sutlej, forty miles beyond 
Simla. He spent a week with the late Sir Henry Lawrence 
at Lahore, where he obtained information of all kinds 
regarding the Punjaub. On the 31st December, he left by 
boat Ferozepore on the Sutlej, and in about a month after- 
wards the Rev. Dr Wilson, by pre-arrangement, met him at 
Sehwan, in Central Scinde, and escorted him by the way of 
Hydrabad (not the one in the Deccan, but that near the 
Indus), the Run of Cutch, Goozerat, and Surat, to Bombay, 
which he left by steamer on the 17th of March 1850, 
reaching Southampton on the 23d April. 

That year the missionary element was very prominent in 
the Supreme Court of the Free Church. Not merely did 
Dr Duff make more than one of his great speeches, but Mr 
Anderson of Madras addressed the house, as did Rajah- 
gopaul from the same presidency seat, and Mr Nesbit, from 
Bombay. Rajahgopaul, as was natural, attracted great 
notice. The Editor of the WitnesSy commenting on the 
appearance which the Hindoo stranger made in the Assem- 
bly, said — 

" One of the most remarkable speeches which has been made in the 
Assembly was that by the young Indian convert and minister, Rajah- 
gopaul. When we saw him present himself to the overwhelmingly 
large Assembly, such was the impression made upon us by his diminu- 
tive figure that we felt he was about to attempt what was utterly beyond 
his physical powers. The impression was heightened by his slim build, 
and dark and somewhat sickly countenance. But he had not spoken 
two minutes till this impression was completely dispelled. All that 
appeared to us, judging with the eye of a European, as defects in his 
appearance,* were speedily forgotten in* the force of his oratory. His 
features began to glow with animation, a wondrous power seemed to 
pervade and breath through all his frame, and his tones rang clear and 
full through the remotest comer of the great hall. Nor did we less 
admire his intellectual power.*' 

This Assembly had not to hear a discouraging financial 
report from the Foreign Missions Committee, as its three 
predecessors had done. There had been raised during the 
year no less a sum than ;^i2,328, iis. id., or about ;^5ooo 
above the average, the moving power which had led to this 



30 HOME OPERATIONS, 

encouraging result having been the desire to make sure that 
no reason might remain for suppressing a mission. Besides 
the ordinary revenue, Mr Anderson had raised ;^8ooo for 
the mission buildings in Madras, making upwards of 
;£■! 5,000 in all. 

Still it was felt that if this advance were to be made per- 
manent, there must be an alteration in the mode of raising 
funds. So early as 1847, the Committee appear to have 
been revolving in their minds some plan more productive 
and stable than that of a mere annual collection, for in their 
report presented to the Assembly in that year they say — 

"Your Committee cannot conceal their apprehension that their 
present difficulties arise from a cause which, under the existing arrange- 
ment, is likely to be of permanent operation, and that they can only be 
effectually removed by an equally permanent organisation for increasing 
their annual revenue." 

On his way home, Dr Duflf, in meditating on the subject, 
made up his mind that the only eflfective plan was that of 
congregational associations, with a regular staff of col- 
lectors, and regular quarterly subscriptions. This plan, 
therefore, he earnestly pressed on the Foreign Missions 
Committee. But as, at first, many were opposed to it, on 
the ground that it might interfere with other existing organi- 
sations, he urged that a Synod of the Church might be se- 
lected for an experiment, on the success or failure of which 
future operations might be made to depend ; and named 
that of Perth, as it contained within its bounds Highland 
and Lowland districts, with specimens of every variety of 
population — civic and rural, agricultural, pastoral, and 
manufacturing. To this suggestion the Assembly of 1850 
agreed — the details of the scheme, with its requisite work- 
ing machinery, being left to Dr Duflf and those who might 
follow him, aided by the light which experience might impart. 
He commenced operations on the loth July 1850, in the 
Free Church of Blairgowrie— that of the Rev. Robert 
Macdonald, now of North Leith — being assured that from 



FOREiGN MISSION ASSOCIA TIONS. 3 1 

him he would meet a hearty welcome ; then, going from 
congregation to congregation, until he had exhausted the 
whole Synod, he persuaded every one, without exception, to 
enter into the associational plan. After his return from 
Perthshire, in November, Dr Duflf addressed the Commis- 
sion of Assembly, and by an array of statistical and other 
statements satisfied it that, while the plan was eminently 
successful as regarded Foreign Missions, it in no way 
interfered with the prosperity of any other scheme. 
Continuing the work during several successive years, he 
visited most parts of Scotland, extending his journey to 
the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and almost everywhere 
inducing the majority of the ministers and congregations to 
adopt the associational plan. 

The Assembly report for 1852 mentioned the formation 
of 150 associations; that of 1853, 354; 1854, 404; 1855, 
407 ; 1856, 436 ; 1857, 498 ; 1858, 548 ; 1859, 552 ; 1865, 
565 ; and 1872, 616. 

The system has in most respects worked admirably, the 
sum raised by an association in any locality being, as a rule, 
three or four times as much as the old collection produced, 
and now the scandal of microscopic giving to the foreign 
field is mainly confined to the minority of congregations 
which still depend upon the old collection.* In this 

* How great that scandal in some cases is, the subjoined statistics will show. 

In addressing the Assembly, which met in May 1866, Dr.DufF gave the result of 
an elaborate investigation made by Mr Braidwood with respect to the rate of giving 
to Foreign Missions prevalent in the Free Church. 

"There are/' he said, "in the Free Church of Scotland 848 churches and 72 

mission stations In the 848 charges in connection with the Free Church at 

present — leaving out stations— the membership is 247,472 Of the 848 

congregations of the Free Church, .... 6 charges, containing 2733 members, 
have contributed above 5s. each member ; 17 charges, containing 7569 members, 
have contributed from 3s. to 5s. each member ; 21 charges, containing 9094 members, 
have contributed from 2s. to 3s. each member ; 50 charges, con|ainmg 19.176 mem- 
bers, have contributed from i7d. to 2s. each member ; 55 charges, containing 
17^986 members, have contributed from 13d. to i7d. each member ; 47 charges, con- 
taining 13,822 members, have contributed from iid. to 13d. each member ; 78 
charges, containing 21,327 members, have contributed from gd. to iid. each member; 
88 charges, containing 28,029 members, have contributed from 7d. to 9d. each mem- 
ber ; X19 charges, containing 32,407 members, have contributed from 56. to 7d. each 
member ; 126 charges, containing 34,753 members, have contributed from 3d. to sd. 
each member ; 79 charges, containing 22,327 members, have contributed 2d. and a 
fraction each member ; 72 charges, containing 15,848 members, have contributed id. 



kc: 

iIki 

Coi I 

tllC ; 

satic 

lectc- 

futiin 

that (> 

and h< 

popuLi' 

manufar 




AN UNRIGHTEOUS LA W ASSAILED, 33 

measure was being discussed, which had long been urged by 
the missionaries, as demanded alike by justice and the 
highest interests of Christianity in Asia. In the Hindoo 
kingdoms of the East, there was no proper comprehension 
of the rights of conscience ; and any one leaving the Brah- 
manic faith was punished for the so-called crime by being 
deprived of his ancestral property. We are inclined to 
think that the Mohammedans can never have allowed this 
law to be enforced against them, but that, though yet more 
intolerant themselves, they must have protected Hindoo 
converts to the Koran from all effective persecution on the 
part of their former co-religionists. It was different with 
the British. They for a time enforced the Hindoo intolerant 
enactment, though many of them must have felt qualms of 
conscience on finding themselves made the instruments of 
persecution. About the year 1830, the Rev. Dr Wilson, of 
Bombay, began to agitate for the abolition of the enactment 
now mentioned, and he ultimately stirred up the rest of the 
Bombay missionaries on the subject Shortly after he com- 
menced his operations, an able pamphlet on the subject was 
drawn up for the Bengal missionaries by Dr Duflf, assisted 
by Rev. W. H. Pearce, of the Baptist union. Mr Stewart, 
of Madras, addressed the Church Missionary Society on the 
same question, and Lord Bexley directed the attention of 
the Board of Directors and the Board of Control to the 
subject Lord Ellenborough considered that the Govern- 
ment in India could do all that was requisite. It was 
understood that instructions were sent out to Lord William 
Bentinck^ requesting him to provide a remedy for the evils 
complained of, and he, nothing loth — for he was a man of a 
troe reforming spirit — put an end to the intolerant law, 
though not in the best possible way, by a clause which, in 
1832, he inserted in the Bengal code. But, unhappily, this 
left matters as before in Calcutta city, which was under the 
Jurisdiction of her Majesty's Supreme Court, as were also 
Mactaui and Bombay, besides which the governors of 



34 HOME OPERATIONS, 

the two latter presidencies, if in their power, failed to do 
their duty, by imitating the enlightened example of Lord 
William Bentinck. By Act No. XXI. of 1850, the Earl of 
Dalhousie, with his Council, abolished the intolerant law by 
providing that — 

**So much of any law or usage now in force within the territories 
subject to the Government of the East India Company as inflicts on any 
person forfeiture of rights or property, or may be held in any way to 
impair or affect any right of inheritance, by reason of his or her 
renouncing or having been excluded from the communion of any religion, 
or being deprived of caste, shall cease to be enforced as law in the 
Courts of the East India Company, and in the Courts established by 
royal charter within the said territories." 

As some of the natives of Madras and Calcutta were 
clamouring for the repeal of this righteous enactment, the 
Synod of Perth, after hearing an address from Dr Duff, 
sent an overture to the Assembly, galling its attention to 
the subject, and the Assembly very cordially petitioned 
the Legislature firmly to maintain the new regulation. 
The Hindoo opposition soon after died away, and permanent 
gain was achieved to the great cause of religious liberty. 

In 1853, when the subject of renewing the East India 
Compan/s charter was before Parliament, Dr Duflf was 
examined before a committee of the House of Lords on the 
practical working of law and justice in India, especially in 
Bengal, and on the whole subject of Indian education. 
His evidence on these important topics, extending to a 
considerable length, was published in the Parliamentary 
Blue Book issued at the time. 

The last year that Dr Duflf was at home. Sir Charles 
Wood (now Lord Halifax) issued an exceedingly enlightened 
educational despatch, which will render his name immortal, 
and ultimately place him on a pedestal of honour, from 
which some of the now celebrated Indian warriors will be 
displaced. It is believed, on what may be reckoned good 
authority, that the influence of Dr Duflf tended in no slight 
degree to procure the issue of this statesman-like despatch ; 



THE CELEBRA TED EDUCA TION DESPA TCH, 3 5 

that, moreover, before it was drawn up, he was consulted in 
regard to some of the more important points on which it 
was meant to touch, and supplied some of the most valu- 
able materials which it embodies. The despatch in question 
dealt with Indian education both in its higher and in its 
lower grades. With respect to the former, it established a 
university at each of the presidencies on the model of the 
celebrated London one, granting them the power of confer- 
ring degrees. With these universities, which, it should be 
understood, are not teaching, but, like the University of 
London, examining bodies, the government colleges, where 
instruction is actually communicated, were at once affiliated. 
But, as fairness required, the affiliation did not stop there. 
It extended to high-class seminaries and institutions, by 
whomsoever taught. On this point the despatch descended 
to particulars. 

Sec. 37. " Those which, like the Parental Academy, are conducted 
by East Indians, Bishop's College, the General Assembly's Institution, 
Dr DufTs College, the Baptist "College at Serampore, and other institu- 
tions under the superintendence of different religious bodies and mis- 
sionary societies, will at once supply a considerable number of educa- 
tional establishments, worthy of being affiliated to the universities, and 
of occupying the highest place in the scale of general instruction.** 

The senates of these universities were not to be composed 
simply of State officials, but to these were to be added men 
unconnected with Government, who had shown an interest 
in education. 

Sec. 34. " The additional members should be so selected as to give 
all those who represent the different systems of education which will be 
carried on in the affiliated institutions — including natives of India, of all 
religious persuasions, who possess the confidence of the native commu- 
nities — a fair voice on the senates.'* 

At the same time, pecuniary aid was to be given to others 
than the State schools, the Government simply buying good 
secular education from any teachers who might be able to 
produce the article, at the same time forbearing to take 
cognisance of their religious faith. 



36 HOME OPERATIONS, 

Sec. 52. ** We have resolved to adopt in India the system of grants- 
in-aid, which has been carried out in this country with very great 
success." 

Sec. 53. "The system of grants-in-aid which we propose to establish 
in India, will be based on an entire abstinence from interference with 
the religious instruction conveyed in the schools assisted." 

The writer is of opinion that the action of Government 
with regard to public education should be regulated by the 
circumstances of each individual country, and he strongly 
holds the view that the scheme sketched in the educational 
despatch of 1854 exactly met the case of India. He thinks 
that it was wise to affiliate the Free Church institutions to 
the Indian universities, and to accept the grants-in-aid. 

Towards the end of 1854, Dr Duff considered that the 
home work, on account of which he had agreed temporarily 
to leave India, was well-nigh accomplished. But before 
returning, he felt it his duty to respond to pressing invita- 
tions which had reached him from different parties in the 
United States and Canada. Accordingly, about the end of 
January 1854, he sailed from Liverpool, and, after a very 
tempestuous voyage, safely reached New York on the 15 th 
February. As might have been anticipated, his reception 
was of the most gratifying character. One, writing after the 
missionary had been some little time in America, uses the 
following language : — " From New York to Washington, and 
thence by Pittsburgh and Cincinnati to St Louis, and thence 
by Chicago and Detroit to and through the Canadas, and 
by the way of Boston back again to New York, his route 
has been a constant ovation." A scene witnessed on this 
tour was so remarkable that it must be presented to the 
reader. It occurred while Dr Duflf was at Washington, and 
was thus described by an eye-witness : — 

" By the invitation of the senior chaplain, the Rev. Henry Slicer, and 
at the request of several members of both Houses («>., of Congress), Dr 
Duff preached in the Capitol last Sabbath forenoon (March 19, 1854). 
As early as nine a.m. groups of anxious hearers might be seen assembling 
on the lawn, and long before the appointed hour every seat was occu- 
pied, and every passage and hall within hearing filled to overflowing. 



DR duff's AMERICAN VISIT. 3/ 

Among the congregation I noticed the President and his lady, the 
Speaker of the House, several of the heads of departments, and a large 
representation of both Houses of Congress, and the literati and profes- 
sional men of the city and district. I saw there also several mhiisters 
and laymen who had travelled from Georgetown, Alexandria, Baltimore, 
Philadelphia, and New York, to hear the gospel from the lips of this 
minister of Christ Rarely, indeed, are Christ's ambassadors favoured 
with such a congregation. But the preacher saw neither literati nor 
legislators, senators nor president. An assemblage of dying sinners 
was before him, and a dispensation of the gospel was committed to him. 
To convince them of sin, and to make a full offer of God's salvation, 
was his business. His message from God unto them was, * Friends and 
brethren, I dare not compromise this matter with your consciences ; I 
must wash my hands of the blood of souls.' This evidently was his aim." 

Before Dr DufF left the Western Continent, there were 
put into his hands, as a testimony of personal affection and 
esteem, about jQ^ooo for mission buildings in Calcutta, 
while soon after his return the University of New York 
conferred on him the degree of LL.D. 

It was Dr Duff's intention to proceed at once to India on 
his return from America, but serious affection of the nervous 
system, produced by the mental exertion he had put forth 
and the exciting scenes through which he had passed, 
necessitated his taking a season of rest. He was sent to 
the shores of the Mediterranean, whence he made a trip to 
Palestine, and finding himself by the autumn of 1855 suffi- 
ciently recruited to return to the East, he sailed for India, 
and, landing at Bombay, went by the way of Poonah and 
Nagpore to Calcutta, which he reached on the i6th Feb- 
ruary 1856. The elaborate statements which he furnished 
respecting the condition of all the Free Church stations 
which he had visited, mainly constituted the report to the 
Assembly of 1856. 

The important results which flowed from Dr Duflf's second 
visit home, have led us to give a prominence to it even in 
this brief narrative. Had we space, we should also give 
some details regarding the home work of other missionaries, 
whom loss of health compelled, under medical advice, to 
repair for a season to their native country. All of them 

(891) , 4 



38 HOME OPERATIONS, 

assisted, so far as their time and strength would admit, in 
various ways ; and in cases where mission buildings were 
required at the several stations, they had to thank friends 
in the home Church for aiding them liberally, even when 
local claims were great and pressing. 

In 185 1, the first medical missionary went out to India, 
his destination being Calcutta. In 1856, Dr Paterson was 
designated to Madras, and the sending forth of skilful 
medical men, to labour side by side with the ministerial 
brethren, has ever since been regarded as a duty never to 
be forgotten. 

It would be tedious to mention here the new missionaries 
sent forth by the Free Church from time to time ; they will 
find mention more appropriately in the succeeding portions 
of the work. Only when some important home result flowed 
from their nomination, shall we take note of their appointment. 

This rule, however, does not excuse us from mentioning 
that, in 1852, the Ladies' Society sent out Mr and Mrs 
Fordyce to Calcutta, in 1856, they were compelled to 
return, Mrs Fordyce being ordered home, and the work 
being such as a gentleman could not undertake alone. On 
revisiting Scotland, Mr Fordyce went through a large portion 
of it, under the auspices of the Ladies' Society, advocating 
female education in India. About the same time, he 
started the Eastern Females' Friend^ a small periodical, to 
support the cause which he had at heart. Through his 
untiring advocacy, the income of the society largely increased, 
and much greater prominence than before began to be 
given to this very important department of evangelistic 
duty. An essential part of the original programme of the 
mission was the raising up of native preachers, who should 
carry the gospel to their countrymen, and who might be 
expected to be a cheaper, and, in some respects, a more 
effective agency than foreign missionaries from Europe. By 
1857, several of these had completed their studies, and it 
became an object to decide what their precise sphere of 



THE MISSIONARY CONFERENCE OF l^6l, j^ 

labour should be. The Assembly, on the suggestion of the 
Foreign Mission Committee, adopted, we think wisely, the 
suggestion that native congregations should be organised 
without delay, and should be encouraged to call native 
pastors. This and the next Assembly also took steps to 
have lay* teachers appointed to the several institutions. 
Some difference of opinion was excited as to whether it was 
expedient to affiliate the institutions to the Indian uni- 
versities commenced in 1857, but the general opinion 
seemed to be in its favour. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ARRANGEMENTS SINCE THE MUTINIES. 

There is no need here to describe the appalling year 1857. 
Though the Indian mutinies for a time proved a serious 
impediment to the work in India, yet they were overruled 
to produce this good effect, — that they turned the attention 
of the Church powerfully to the degraded moral condition 
of India. The mission funds had been ia debt at the 
Assembly of 1857, before the mutiny at Meerut could 
become known, jQ^o^^. In that of 1858, the increased 
interest in Indian affairs, produced by the calamities in the 
East, had enabled the committee to pay it off, and even 
then left them some funds in hand. 

The evening of Wednesday, 20th November, and the 
whole of Thursday 21st, 1861, were profitably occupied 
with a missionary conference, one good result of which was 
that, whereas before it met there was a difficulty in supply- 
ing some vacant places in the East, volunteers for the work 
sprung up after it had sat. At the conference desires were 
expressed in favour of more direct preaching to the heathen 

* The word lay is in some respects an objectionable one, but it is difficult to find 
another term, and we use it, therefore, for convenience sake. 



40 HOME OPERATIONS, 

masses, especially by the native ministers, and an impulse 
was given to the formation of such rural missions as have 
since sprung into existence. Even before the conference, 
one of these had been commenced at Mahanad, in Bengal, 
by the Calcutta missionaries. 

In addition to the Monthly Record, a quarterly paper had 
for some years been published, but it was discontinued in 
1862. That year steps were taken to originate a fund for 
the widows and orphans of missionaries. Donations and 
legacies were solicited for it, but in April 1868, the com- 
plaint was uttered that none had been received. 

Efforts were at the same time made to give a new impulse 
to the Church's missionary periodicals. The Record, as 
published for seven years after the Disruption, was of 
quarto size, and so much on the same model as that which 
for some time previously had been issued by the united 
Church, that the two could without difficulty be bound 
together. In 1843, the Free Missionary Record co^i three- 
pence unstamped, and fourpence stamped, as its prede- 
cessor had done. In December 1848, its circulation was 
between 14,000 and 15,000. In July 1846, the price was 
reduced to three-halfpence unstamped, and twopence-half- 
penny stamped. It was well conducted, and it was not 
creditable to the friends of missions that this reduction in 
price failed permanently to increase the number of the 
subscribers, which, indeed, slightly retrograded, instead of 
going forward. In August 1850, the quarto was exchanged 
for the octavo size, which the publication has since retained, 
and instead of being confined as before to a record of what 
was doing in the purely missionary branches of the Church's 
operations, it now embraced them all. The circulation of 
the quarto, during 1850, had averaged a trifle under 13,000 
copies monthly. Of the first number of the octavo, 30,000 
copies were struck off. As, however, the copies of a first 
number printed are no proper criterion of what the perma- 
nent sale will be, it is more important to notice that, in 



THE RECORDS. 4 1 

1 85 1 and 1852, between 30,000 and 40,000 were disposed 
of monthly, a great increase on the circulation of the old 
quarto. The editors were Messrs Nixon, Wilson, and 
Lumsden, who discharged their important trust well. Still, 
as a rule, it is expedient that there shall be but one respon- 
sible editor to a publication, and the Assembly of 1853 
requested the Rev. Dr Wylie to undertake the superin- 
tendence of the Record, In the preface to the volume for 
1855-6, p. iv., he mentions that when his aid was solicited, 
the periodical was going down at the rate of 500 copies a 
month, and that its continued existence was in peril. In 
1854, the circulation was between 21,000 and 22,000 copies. 
— Missionary Record, 1853, 1854, pp. 293, 294. 

In the preface to the volume for 1856-7, it was mentioned 
that it had risen during the previous- year 2300 — namely, 
from 18,260 to 20,560. At the end of 1861, Dr Wylie 
resigned, and was succeeded by Mr Mackenzie of Dun- 
fermline, who retained it till his lamented death in June 10, 
1869. In 1.86 1, the effort was made to issue the Record as 
a weekly periodical, at a penny a number, but it was found 
expedient speedily to resort to a monthly issue only. One 
disadvantage attending the weekly publication was, that 
the numbers became soiled or lost, and were not all forth- 
coming to be bound at the end of the year. In 1866, the 
Record had a circulation of 30,000; in 1867, 31,000; in 
1S68, 33,500; and in 1871, 34,000. These high numbers 
are eminently creditable to the present editor, the Rev. 
Norman L. Walker. 

Under the able management of Mr William Dickson, the 
Childref^i Missionary Recordhzsior many years had a wonder- 
fully large and increasing circulation. In May 1846, 30,000 
of it were sold ; in February 1847, 3S>ooo ; in 1849, about 
40,000 ; in 1852, 39,000; in 1868, 46,000 ; in 1871, 53,000. 

When the Disruption took place, the missionaries felt 
very sorry to bid adieu to the Rev. Dr Brunton, who had 
treated them with great kindness and consideration while 



42 HOME OPERATIONS, 

he was their official superior. After the separation in 1843, 
Dr Gordon was convener of the Free Church Foreign 
Mission Comniittee, and retained the office till 1846. . Then 
Dr James Buchanan followed till 1847. Subsequently, Dr 
Tweedie undertook the responsible trust, and continued to 
discharge it with admirable zeal and devotion for the long 
period of fifteen years.* 

After Dr Tweedie-s departure, Dr Hanna held office for a 
short time, but was not able to continue in it, in conse- 
quence of his literary engagements, and the Assembly of 
1863 unanimously resolved to invite Dr Duff home to 
assume the permanent convenership. The members were 
not at the time aware that the health of that very eminent 
missionary was just about to fail, and that he was on the 
eve of being medically advised to quit Calcutta finally. The 
invitation, therefore, reached him at a very opportune time ; 
and having, after a severe mental struggle, accepted it, he 
returned home, first, however, visiting most of his brethren 
in India and Africa, to learn the state of the several missions 
before he became their official head. Between the resig- 
nation of Dr Hanna and the arrival of Dr Duff in the 
autumn of 1864, Dr Candlish temporarily acted as convener. 
The salary offered Dr Duff was ;^4oo per annum ; but a 
small annuity, afterwards to be spoken of, sufficing for his 
moderate wants, he, in April 1865, generously proposed to 
resign the income attached to the convenership, and dis- 
charge the duties of the office gratuitously. The Assembly 
of 1865 unhesitatingly demurred to the proposal, feehng 
that Dr Duff was acting far too generously; but he was 
firm on the point, and was finally allowed to carry out the 
act of self-sacrifice on which he had resolved. 

♦ The Rev. W. K. Tweedie was ordained, in 1832, minister of the Scottish Church, 
London Wall. Four years later he was translated to the South Church, Aberdeen. 
He and the late Rev. A. D. Davidson, D.D., were considered to be unquestionably 
the best preachers then in the city. In 1842 Dr (then Mr Tweedie), was translated 
to the Tolbooth Church, Edinburgh. He died on the 24th March 1863, after a short 
but excruciating illness. Notwithstanding the bodily pain he suffered, his end, 
spiritually viewed, was perfect peace. The name of no purely home minister of the 
Free Church is so thoroughly identified with foreign missions as that of Dr Tweedie. 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 43 

At the time when the Assembly of 1863 invited him 
home, the funds were again somewhat in debt, but the 
ladies made a special effort to clear oflf arrears, and not 
hand him over an embarrassed exchequer on his assuming 
the responsibilities of office. 

In turning attention to the arrangements from time to 
time made for the direction of the missions, grateful men- 
tion should be made of the services rendered by the late 
Mr Henry Tod, W.S., who for many years was secretary to 
the committee ; so also must deep obligation be expressed 
for the valuable and painstaking labour of Mr Robert Young, 
the Association Secretary, who from his youth up has given 
his best powers to the mission. 

In 1864, a number of ** old Indians" met in Edinburgh 
during the Assembly week, and founded a society for sup- 
plying religious ordinances to Europeans in our Eastern 
empire. Dr Kenneth Macqueen, the virtual originator, 
became the first secretary, and the Rev. Mr Fordyce, 
formerly of Calcutta, is now its highly efficient commis- 
sioner at Simla, whence, partly by itineracy continued during 
six months in the year, and partly through the publication 
of a religious periodical called the Mountain Echoes^ he 
exerts very extensive influence in India. 

Till 1865, there had been two ladies' societies — one for 
India, and the other for Africa, the latter drawing its chief 
support from the West of Scotland, while the former did 
so from the country generally. In 1865, the two societies 
were formally amalgamated together, and the united asso- 
ciation thus formed was declared an integral part of the 
foreign mission, doing for the female part of the population 
in India and Caffraria what the ordinary operations accom- 
plished for the stronger sex. Next year, the hon. secretary 
of the society proposed that an effort should be made to 
induce every female communicant in the Free Church (and 
he estimated their number at 130,000) to join the society, 



44 UOME OPERATIONS. 

paying each one shilling a year. This would raise ;^65oo, 
or treble the former revenue. 

In 1864, it was calculated that, from the Disruption till 
that period, the Tree Church had raised for foreign missions 
no less a sum than ;^356,247, os. 4d. 

So long ago as the time when Dr Duff was passing as a 
student through the divinity classes in St Andrews' Univer- 
sity, it struck him as a want that there was no professorate 
of missions. — {Missionary Record, 1866-7, p. 149.) In a 
letter of his to Dr Gordon, published in the Missionary 
Record for 1844, p. 126, he reverted to the subject. In the 
Assembly Report for 1862, the proposal was again mooted, 
but it was not till 1865 that practical steps were taken for 
hs realisation. The Assembly of the last-mentioned year 
unanimously approved of it, and appointed a committee 
to make the necessary arrangements. Dr Duff was of 
opinion that not merely should there be va professorship of 
evangelistic theology, but that a missionary institute should be 
combined with it, of which the professor should be the official 
head. Through his exertions, ;;^i 0,000 were contributed in 
1866 by fourteen or fifteen gentlemen to endow the chair. 
The voice of the Free Church, speaking through its presby- 
teries, unanimously designated Dr Duff for the proposed 
office, and, on the very cordial invitation of the Assembly 
in 1867, he accepted it, refusing, however, to draw any 
income from it, but giving over the money designed for 
himself to the proposed Missionary Institute. In March 
1868, a letter was received from Professor Piatt, of Berlin, 
asking information regarding the professorship and institute, 
and mentioning that in all probability something on the 
model of them would speedily be attempted at the Prussian 
(now the German) capital. 

At the earnest suggestion and recommendation of Dr 
Duff, the Assemblies of 1866 and 1867 empowered the 
Foreign Mission Committee to raise a large fund for erect- 
ing mission buildings at the several stations in India and 



MISSION BUILDINQS, 45 

Africa; and on the 17th March 1868, the committee issued 
a special appeal on the subject. After careful calculation, 
the sum required was fixed at ;^5o,ooo. The first effort 
was made in Glasgow, where one hundred subscribers gave 
among them ;^i 0,000. One headed the list with ;£'iooo, 
six followed with ;^5oo each, eight with ;^25o, and so on. 
By the Assembly of 1870, ;^3o,ooo had been promised, of 
which ;^i 6,304 had been actually paid. The ;^5 0,000 had 
not been completed by April 1873. 

How vast the growth of missionary feeling within the 
limits of Scotland since the anti-evangelistic debate in the 
Assembly of 1796! 



SECTION II. 

CALCUTTA. 




CHAPTER I. 

INDIA, AND ESPECIALLY BENGAL. 

lONTINENTAL INDIA, measured from the 
northern extremity of the Punjaub to Cape 
Comorin in the south, is about 1830 miles 
long. Its breadth from Kurrachee in the west 
to the eastern extremity of Assam, is about the same. A 
line drawn 1830 miles south from Edinburgh, would reach 
the commencement of the Sahara, and another of the same 
length, east slightly north from the Scottish capital, would 
extend to Revel, in the Gulf of Finland. The area of India 
is about 1,558,254 square miles (Blue-Book No. dZ^ year 
1870). That of Europe, excluding the semi - Asiatic 
countries of Russia and Turkey, is about 1,500,625 square 
miles, so that the area of India is somewhat greater 
than that of Europe with Russia and Turkey omitted. The 
population was long ago estimated by the Rev. Dr Wilson 
of Bombay at 200,000,000, and recent researches have 
shown that his estimate, once believed too high, is beneath 
rather than above the truth. There are 240 millions of 
inhabitants, if not more, in India. 



ARYANS AND TURANIANS. 47 

The ethnology of the country is interesting. To under- 
stand it our readers must first obtain clear ideas of. the 
meaning attached to the terms Aryan and Turanian. At a 
period of very considerable antiquity, say not less than 1700 
years before the Christian era, there seems to have lived in 
or neg,r Bactria a nation from which the Brahmans, the 
Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Teutons, 
the Celts, the Sclavonians, and some other races ultimately 
sprung, and the several peoples now spoken of are closely 
akin,* It is this ancient nation and its modem branches 
that ethnologists denominate Aryan. It became settled and 
semi-civihsed while yet the other nations were wandering 
hordes. To the latter was applied the name Turan, signi- 
fying in Sanscrit swift, hence a nomad. Modem ethnologists 
have adopted the term, and are accustomed to call most of 
the non-Aryan and non-Semitic Asiatics Turanian. The 
Turanians are nearly identical with the Mongolians of earlier 
writers, with this exception, that the Chinese now figure as 
a race by themselves, in place of being ranked as a mere 
sub-division of the Mongolians. 

The aborigines of India entered it at a very remote 
period of antiquity, apparently in two streams — one, from 
the north-west, proper Turanian, and akin to Tartar ; and 
the other, from the north-east, an overflowing from China. t 

* Their languages are still allied to each other both in words and in grammatical 
inflections. Thus the Sanscrit word for ten is dahaj while all know that the corre- 
sponding term in Greek is deka : the Mahratta tnoMoos or tnanooshyn^ meaning a 
many reminds us of English ; hora signifies an houTy not merely in Latin but in 
Sanscrit, while the seventh^ in the former language septimus^ is in the latter 
sapHmi. Similarly the inflexions are akin, thus— 

SANSCRIT. GRBEK. 

Singular x. dadi-mi dido-mi 

2. dadi-si dido-s 

3. dadS*ti dido-ti 
Dual X. dad-vas 

2. dat-thas dido-ton 

3. dat-tas dido-ton 

Plural I. dad-mas dido-mes [dido-men ?] 

2. dat-tha dido-te 

3. dada-ti dido-nti 
-^Bo^fs Comparative Grammar^ Vol. 11. (1845), p. 673. 

t With regard to the importance of the latter stream, see Mr W. W. Hunter's 
" Comparative Dictionary of the Languages of India and High Asia." London : 
Trubner. z868, pp. 20, 22, 28. 



48 CALCUTTA, 

In our view, there probably was a second influx of Tura- 
nians, who' conquered some of the first comers, and reduced 
them to all but a servile state. Those thus subdued now 
constitute the Mahars — the Mangs,&c., of Bombay, the Dheds 
of Surat, the Pariahs of Madras, the Shanars of Tinnevelly, 
the Chandalas of Bengal, and other outcasts, now occupying 
the very lowest position in Hindoo society. A portion of 
the aborigines, however, refused to subinit to the invaders, 
and fleeing to the jungles and mountains, succeeded in per- 
manently maintaining their independence. These are 
the wild tribes, about 200 in number. * Some of the best 
known of them are the Gonds, the Khoonds, the Koles, 
and the Santhals. The conquering section of the Turanians 
ultimately underwent a fate only less hard than that which 
they had inflicted on the aborigines. At least twelve 
or fourteen centuries before the Christian era, a section of 
the Aryan nation left Bactria, and entered India. They 
occupied first a part and then the whole of the Punjaub. 
Pushing forward step by step during the succeeding cen- 
turies, they at last held all the country north of the 
Nerbudda. After a long halt there they passed the river as 
conquerors, and finally succeeded in establishing their 
domination over the Turanians, who till then had been 
masters in the land. Elated by this success, they refused to 
intermarry or even eat with their predecessors in India, and 
constituted three castes of their own — the Brahmans or 
sacred order, the Kshatriyas or warriors, and the Vaisyas 
or merchants, while their immediate predecessors, of 
Turanian descent, were placed beneath the rest, and called 
Sudras. Finally, the Brahmans, apparently at a compara- 
tively recent period, manufactured shasters or portions of 
shasters, professedly divine, which alleged that Hindoo 
caste, the offspring, it will be observed, of military conquest, 
was of religious origin ; or to be more specific, that the 

* See Hunter's *' Comparative Dictionary of the Languages of India and High 
Asia," p, 2. 



THE INDIAN CASTES AND RACES. 49 

Brahmans came out of the mouth of God to instruct men ; 
the warriors from His arms, to defend them ; the Vaisyas 
from His stomach, to feed them ; and the Sudras from His 
feet, to serve them. The outcastes, whether living as the 
lowest class in settled society, or maintaining their inde- 
pendence in mountains and forests, were considered as 
beneath even that servile race who * came out of the feet of 
God.' What their origin was the Brahmans, so far as we 
know, have not been obliging enough to explain. For 
about ten centuries — or from 300 B.C. to 700 a.d. — the 
Buddhists contended manfully, and for a long time with 
thorough success, against this gigantic system of exclusive- 
ness and priestcraft, but being driven out of India about 
the latter date, they left the field to their rivals, and the 
caste system became thoroughly dominant, and attained & 
strength of which even at this day it has been but partially 
divested, though it has not succeeded in permanently 
enforcing its worst laws, owing to the establishment first of 
Mussulman and then of Christian rule in the land. The 
Mohammedan conquest of India was made about eight cen- 
turies ago, and the Moslem population in its four sub-divi- 
sions of Sheiks or disciples (mostly low caste Hindoo 
converts), Syuds, or men at least nominally descended from 
the " Prophet," Moguls (chiefly Tartars and other Tura- 
nians), and Pathans (Aryan AfFghans), now constitute at 
least one-fifth portion of the whole population in India, 
though till lately they were erroneously estimated at only an 
eighth. 

To turn now to Bengal proper. The word is a very 
ambiguous one. It may mean the Bengal Presidency, 
which till a few years ago extended from the mouth of the 
Ganges to the eastern boundary of Aflfghanistan, or it may 
signify that most fertile land, flat as a carpet, which consti- 
tutes the delta of the magnificent Ganges and Brahma- 
pootra rivers with the parts adjacent. 

The Bengalee race was never more graphically described 



5X) CALCUTTA, 

than by Lord Macaulay in the following brilliant pas- 
sage : — 

"The physical organisation of the Bengali is feeble even to effe- 
minacy. He lives in a constant vapour bath. His pursuits are seden- 
tary, his limbs delicate, his movements languid. During many ages he 
has been trampled on by men of bolder and more hardy breeds. 
Courage, independence, and veracity are qualities to which his consti- 
tution and his situation are equally unfavourable. His mind bears a 
singular analogy to his body. It is weak even to helplessness for pur- 
poses of manly resistance, but its suppleness and its tact move the 
children of sterner climes to admiration, not unmingled with contempt. 
All those arts which are the natural defence of the weak, are more 
familiar to this subtle race than they were to -the Ionian of the time of 
Juvenal or to the Jews of the darkest ages. What the horns are to the 
bui&lo, what the paw is to the tiger, what the sting is to the bee, what 
beauty, according to the old Greek song, is to woman— deceit is to the 
Bengali. Large promises, smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circum- 
stantial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, forgery, are the weapons, offen- 
sive and defensive, of the people of the Lower Ganges. All these 
millions do not furnish one sepoy to the armies of the Company, But 
as usurers, as money-changers, as sharp legal practitioners, no class of 
human beings can bear a comparison with them. With all his softness, 
the Bengali is by ho means placable in his enmities, or prone to pity. 
The pertinacity with which he adheres to his purposes yields only to the 
immediate pressure of fear. Nor does he lack a certain kind of courage 
which is often wanting in his masters. To inevitable suffering he is 
sometimes foimd to oppose a passive fortitude, such as Stoics attri- 
buted to their ideal sage. A European warrior, who rushes on the 
battery of cannon with a loud hurrah, would shriek under the surgeon's 
knife, and fall into an agony of despair at the sentence of death. But 
the Bengali who could see his country overrun, lus house laid in ashes, 
his children murdered or dishonoured, without having the spirit to 
strike one blow, has yet been known to endure torture with the fnrmness 
of a Mutius, and to mount the scaffold with the steady step and even 
pulse of Algernon Sidney." 

There is a certain dash of caricature in this description ; 
and yet it is so close to reality that if we were asked to point 
out an epithet entirely unsupported by fact, we should fail 
to do so. It is needful, however, to explain that Macaulay 
uses the word Bengalee in a very restricted sense. He 
means by it not a native of the Bengal presidency in general, 
but an inhabitant of the parts near the mouth of the Ganges, 
and he, moreover, not of Mussulman but of Hindoo descent. 
Bengalees, using the word in this limited sense, are the most 



THE HINDOOS AND MUSSULMANS OF BENGAL. 5 1 

unwarlike of men. In the thirteenth century they allowed 
the Mohammedan General, Bukhtiyar Khil'ijy to conquer 
their country in one single campaign, and then went placidly 
on as a down-trodden race for 555 years more. Even then 
it was not they, but the handful of British in that region, who 
rose in arms against the Mussulman domination, and for the 
liberty which they now enjoy the Bengalee Hindoos are 
indebted to our countrymen. Some consequences, inte- 
resting in a missionary point of view, flow from the facts 
now mentioned. Having emancipated' instead of enslaved 
the Bengalee Hindoos, we have warrant for expecting that 
they will be more ready to examine the claims of our reli- 
gion, than if our political relations with them had been of 
a contrary character. The Mussulmans, again, we should 
expect to manifest great prejudice against our faith, arising 
from the fact that to the old feud, which began at least as 
early as the crusades, has been added a new cause of quarrel 
— in other words, they do and must feel annoyed that 
having, when first we came to Bengal, found them ruling 
there, we smote their dominion dowij. Another conse- 
quence, important in its missionary bearing, follows natu- 
rally from the long and firmly-established Mussulman rule 
in Bengal — namely, that special difficulties have there been 
found in obtaining the attendance of caste girls at school, 
from the retirement in which the female part of the com- 
munity are kept. The Hindoos, we believe, to some extent 
at least, borrowed the practice of secluding females from the 
Mussulmans, adopting it either from the desire of imitating 
their masters, or with the view of sheltering their wives and 
daughters from Moslem outrage. To use a mathematical 
expression — as a rule, the seclusion of women in any portion 
of India is in the direct ratio of the strength possessed by 
the Mohammedans in that region ; and since the submis- 
sive Bengalees bowed their necks more thoroughly and for 
a longer time than the other Hindoo races to the iron yoke 
imposed on them by the followers of the ** Prophet," the 



52 CALCUTTA. 

difficulties in the way of female education were necessarily 
found greater there than elsewhere. There was just one 
counteracting circumstance — proximity to the seat of the 
Supreme Government necessarily tends to the disintegration 
of all obsolete customs, whatever the causes from which 
they may originally have sprung. 

The census for 187 1, if the information regarding it sent 
home by the correspondent of the Times, under date Cal- 
cutta, August 13, 1872, and published in the number of 
that paper for September 11, is correct, will reveal some 
startling and wholly unexpected facts. In the Administra- 
tive Report for 187 1, the population under the Lieutenant- 
Governor of Bengal — in other words, that resident within 
Bengal proper, Behar, Orissa, Assam, andTenasserim, was esti- 
mated at 42,680,000. This number the census is expected 
to raise to 66,856,859 ! thus adding about the population 
of England and Wales at a single stroke of the pen. Almost 
as startling is another statement, that the Mohamme- 
dans in the districts east of Calcutta amount to above 
21,000,000. If this be confirmed, then, as before stated, the 
ordinary estimate, that the Indian Mussulmans constitute no 
more than one-eighth of the entire population, must be con- 
siderably modified. 

To turn now from Bengal to Calcutta. This very 
important city, the capital, not of India simply, but of Asia, 
has grown up with mushroom rapidity. In 1700, certain 
villages occupying the site of the present city were trans- 
ferred to the British, in return for a present made to a son 
of the Emperor Aurungzebe. One of these villages, con- 
taining an old temple of the goddess Kali or Cali, gave 
name to Calcutta. 

Whilst the population of the Indian provinces has gene- 
rally been found popularly under-estimated when a proper 
census has been taken, it has been exactly the reverse with 
the Indian cities. The population of Calcutta proper was 
wont to be estimated at between 600,000 and 700,000, or even 



CALCUTTA CITY, 53 

more. The census of last year makes it 447,601. Of these, 
291,194 are Hindoos; 133,131 Mohammedans; 21,356 
Christians — European, East Indian, and Native ; the rest 
consists of Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Chinese, Parsis, and 
"Asiatics." The total number of Hindoo males able to 
read and write is 65,215, or i in 3 ; and of Hindoo 
females, 4,497, or i in 23 — the corresponding numbers as 
regards Mohammedans being 14,011, or i in 7 ; and 896, 
or I in 41. It is proper to add that the above aggregate of 
447,601 includes only the population of the city of Calcutta 
proper within the old Mahratta ditch, and under the juris- 
diction of the Supreme Court. Were the densely-peopled 
suburbs included, as in the case of most of our home cities, 
the sum total would stand at 892,429. Howrah alone, on 
the opposite side of the river, has now a population of 
about 100,000. 

The Rev. John Robson, giving his first impressions of the 
city as he saw it in 1868, speaks of the European quarter as 
consisting of splendid buildings, broad streets, spacious 
squares, and a magnificent esplanade. In painful contrast 
with this was the native town, which was miserable and 
squalid in the extreme. The religious aspect of the city 
he also describes as quite peculiar. The Pundits of 
Benares call it the Christian city, and this, he says, is the 
idea which its first appearance would suggest. 

** Symbols of idolatrous worship," he adds, " are absent, and idola- 
trous temples few and obscure. Nearly all the prominent religious 
buildings are churches, most of them designed for the European popu- 
lation, which in, this, as in everything else, seems to knock the 
natives into the background. Large and powerful educational 
institutions, idol temples, neglected and decaying, and a few small 
native churches — such are the types of the present state of missions in 
Calcutta." — Free Church Missionary Record^ 1868, p. 127. 

It must, however, be remembered that this description 
applies to the year 1868, and not to 1830, when our narra- 
tive commences. 

(301) 5 



54 CALCUTTA. 

To some it may appear astounding that the native part 
of what has been proudly designated " the city of palaces " 
should consist of edifices so exceedingly humble as those 
described in the quotation by Mr Robson. All wonder 
will, however, cease if it be correctly apprehended that 
India — which, if her splendid resources were properly 
developed, would be one of the very richest countries on 
the globe — is at present extremely poor. There are wealthy 
natives within her borders, but the mass of her people are 
indigent. The average income of the natives is about a 
seventh part of that possessed by our countrymen here ; * 
or to be more specific, if the average income of the British 
at home, estimating 4^ to a family, is about ;^i23, is. 6d., 
then that of the Hindoos is a trifle under ;^i8.t There is 
not a rich heathen country existing at present. Compared 
with Christian lands, they are all miserably poor, and when 
they receive the gospel, they will find it bring along with 
it temporal prosperity in this world no less than the promise 
of the life to come. 

The facts now mentioned regarding India, and its most 
populous province, will be found to have a more or less 
direct bearing on the history of the missions, to which, 
without further delay, we now must return. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FIRST CAMPAIGN. 

The circumstances in which the Church of Scotland 
first came to the resolution of embarking in her corporate 

• We have founded this opinion, partly on observation and partly on the fact that, 
speaking broadly, whilst thirty millions of British pay >f 70,000,000 of imperial taxes, 
the same number of Hindoos pay only ;^ 10,000,000, or a seventh as much. 

t Mr Dudley Baxter, in 1867, calculated the income of Britain at ;^ 82 1,379,000, 
which, allowing 4I to a family, a more accurate estimate than the common one, 5, 
would amount to the sum for each stated in the text. 



DR DUFF DE VISES HIS CELEDRA TED PLAN. S 5 

capacity in a mission to Bengal, and the appointment of the 
Rev. Alexander Duff as her first missionary, have been de- 
tailed in the earlier portion of the work. We pass now in 
imagination to Calcutta, where Mr and Mrs Duff landed on 
the evening of 27th May 1830, safe, and in comparative 
health, notwithstanding that they had been between seven 
and eight months on the voyage, and during that period had 
been wrecked, not once but twice. 

The Assembly of 1 82 9 had resolved, among other missionary 
operations, to found an institution for higher education, 
and they had named as the place where they wished it 
located the province of Bengal ; not in the city of Calcutta, 
but somewhere within an easily accessible distance from it, 
leaving entirely to Mr Duff's discretion everything concerning 
the subject-matter to be taught, the system of tuition, the media 
of instruction, the organisation and discipline, &c., &c. Dr 
Inglis' plan, adopted by the Assembly, of commencing an in- 
stitution, was, we believe, a very wise one, but the latter could 
never have become powerful if placed, as was wished, outside 
of Calcutta. At no place except the Eastern metropolis 
itself did a sufficient desire for a high education exist, to 
furnish pupils enough for such an institution. Mr Duff, with 
the sagacity of genius, soon found this out, and as the re- 
sult of many inquiries, succeeded in at last convincing the 
Committee at home that he acted wisely in setting aside the 
instructions he had received as to placing the institution in a 
provincial part of Bengal, and in commencing it where alone 
it could be successful — in the capital. Another great rock 
was now in mid-channel, past which he must successfully 
steer, if the institution were to reach the haven of extensive 
influence to which it was intended that it should arrive. To 
speak without a figure. The locality for the institution 
being now settled rightly, it was requisite next to make no 
mistake as to the language in which the higher instruction 
was to be communicated, for if mistake were committed, the 
seminary would fail, at least for many years, to rise into 



5 6 CALCUTTA, 

power. What language, then, should be used in the insti- 
tution ? Bengalee, would be the natural answer ; but those 
acquainted with India know that a great error would have 
I been committed, had the institution been simply a vernacular 

I one. The Bengalee was then an uncultivated language, 

I with a trifling literature. Besides, the acquisition of it not 

I being the road to wealth, most parents would not have cared 

to send their children to learn it, or if they had, they would 
^ have taken them away at the age of 1 2 or 13, and despatched 

\ them elsewhere to study English. Then, should Sanscrit 

be used for communicating the higher knowledge to Hindoo 
[ boys, and Arabic and Persian for those of Mussulmans, as 

[ Government officials and learned orientalists urged ? If so, 

) then for years, if not even permanently, the institution would 

have fallen into the hands of bigoted Pundits and Moulavis, 
[ who would have rendered it useless for Christian purposes. 

Only on one condition could it become powerful and really of 
1 importance for Christian ends, — that condition was, that the 

' language taught in it should be English. Again Mr Duff 

• was right in his decision. It was marvellous that a missionary 

so young and inexperienced should have found his way amid 
advices the most contradictory to conclusions so sound as 
these. It can be attributed only to the sagacity of genius, 
[ acting on its own convictions, after fervent prayer for the 

divine direction. 
M It is right, however, to remark , that, while the English 
► language was chosen as affording the most effectual medium 

for communicating a knowledge of the higher departments 
of literature, science, and Christian theology, the vernacular 
tongue was from the first regarded as alone available for 
imparting an elementary education to the mass of the people. 
The former, or English, was declared to be the fittest 
medium of distribution to the highly-educated few, and the 
latter, or Bengalee, the only adequate medium of distribu- 
tion to the ordinarily-educated many. Accordingly, that 



THE INSTITUTION OPENED. 5/ 

the pupils might be able to turn their acquirements to good 
account for the enlightenment of the many, a Bengalee de- 
partment was, from the very outset, conjoined with the 
English, and all the pupils were constrained to give a due 
proportion of their time and attention to the former as well 
as the latter. 

The plan of operations settled, no time was lost in taking 
action, and a tolerably-sized hall in an old building in the 
central part of the native town was hired as a school-room. It 
had once been occupied as a Hindoo college, and afterwards 
used as a chapel by native Unitarians, or rather Vedantists. 
Rammohun Roy, the celebrated Hindoo reformer, had pro- 
mised his assistance in obtaining pupils to commence with, 
and on Monday, 12th July (1830), a note was sent to him, 
stating that it would be a favour if he would send the young 
men he had spoken of on the morrow. He fulfilled his en- 
gagement, and at the appointed time five appeared. The 
nature of the intended school was explained to them, and 
they went away highly satisfied. On Wednesday, about 20 
more arrived, and, after a conference with the missionary, 
departed also favourably impressed. On Thursday, 80 more 
came, and as there was room in the building hired for no 
more than 1 20 at a time, it was unnecessary to wait for an 
increase of candidates. Next day, however, the plan re- 
solved on required modification, for 200 more pupils ap- 
peared, and put forth the most moving importunity not to 
be turned away. What, in these circumstances, could be 
done ? If the senior classes were to meet at one portion of 
the day, and the junior ones at another, then 240 instead 
of 120 could be accommodated. To reduce the candidates 
to this number, it was intimated that only written applica- 
tions for admission would be attended to, and that none 
would be enrolled as pupils who did not promptly pay for 
books and bind themselves to stay at the school a rea- 
sonable length of time, so as to profit by the instruc- 



58 CALCUTTA. 

tions communicated. 250 complied with these conditions, 
and by alternating the classes, room was made for them 
all.* 

The institution was opened on Monday the 2d August, 
1830. There was at first no college department, the most 
advanced youths — about 40 in number — being able to do 
no more than spell words of two syllables ; but with the high 
genius for teaching possessed by the Church of Scotland's first 
missionary, and on the intellectual system on which he acted, 
as practised by Mr Wood of Edinburgh, and afterwards more 
fully by Mr Stow of Glasgow, but considerably modified, 
so as to adapt it to oriental ways and habits, the progress 

r of the pupils was extremely rapid. One-third were above 

the age of 20, and one-fourth were Brahmans. It was a 
critical moment in the history of the institution when 100 
New Testaments were, after explanation, put into the hands 
of the scholars, but only three or four left in consequence. 

^ The first passage read was the Lord's Prayer, which was 

afterwards daily offered up for some time at the opening of 

i 

\ . 

* As it was really an astounding phenomenon that Hindoo parents should entrust 

their children in large numbers to an instructor who made no secret of his intention 

to convert them to another faith, it is interesting to inquire into the motives which 

induced them to act in a manner which at first sig;ht seems so unaccountable. In 

> India, offices requiring* a knowledge of English m those who fill them are much 

\ better paid than those of which the duties can be discharged by natives acquainted 

only with their vernacular. No caste in India are more intellectual, and none more 

ambitious, than the Brahmans. When English began to be taught in the Hindoo 

I college, a number of Brahmans and other high-caste parents sent their children, but 

f •,. many could not afford the fee, being exceedingly poor. ^ This was the class which 

\ furnished so many and so ea^er applicants for admission into the Calcutta institution, 

/ and in taking what an impartial spectator would call a most perilous step, they would 

reason in such a fashion as this: — "The education gratuitously offered in the new 

^ school may at last procure for our sons much more lucrative appointments than if 

k they knew only Bengalee ; and as for the peril of their apostatising from Hindooisra 

and becoming Christians, — why, there is little likelihood of their doing anything so 

• * foolish and smfuL" Thus much for the parents, but the sons from the first occupied 

higher ground. Partly sharing the worldly views of their fathers and mothers, 

they had also more worthy aims. A Hindoo boy, from 12 to 15, especially of the 

Brahmanic caste, possesses a deep love of knowled^fe for its own sake. Whilst an 

average English boy cares for little but play at the time of life spoken of, his oriental 

compeer gives his most earnest attention to study ; but it is painful to be obliged to add 

* that often, on reaching a somewhat more advanced age, he plunges into vice to an 

V extent which deadens his intellectual as well as his moral powers, and the boy who 

at 15 had keen intellectual tastes, is stupid and uninteresting at 25. Notwithstand- 
f ing this discouraging circumstance, Hindoo youths are extremely interesting pupils 

to teach, and in many ways gratify the heart of every missionary who has them 
y under his charge. 



PLACE OF THE BIBLE IN THE INSTITUTION, 59 

the institution, till the pupils were far enough advanced, in- 
tellectually, to follow an extemporaneous prayer. The 
* Prodigal Son ' followed next, and then the 13th chapter 
of ist Corinthians. Lastly, the New Testament, and after 
a time the whole Bible was systematically studied.* 



• It may be of good service to record Mr Duff's own statement of his use of 
the Bible as a class-book, in his work on " India, and India Missions/' upwards of 
30 years ago : — *' Here must we state, once for all, that while from the very first the 
Bible itself was thus made a school and class-book, it was so made distinctly, 
avowedly y and exclusively ^ for religious and devotional exercises, with the view of 
bringing all the faculties of the soul into contact with the life and spirit and 
quickenine influence of Jehovah's holy oracles ; and never, never for the parsing, 
syntactical, and sundry other grammatical exercises which, we fear, is but too com- 
mon. We know of none more likely to lower the Bible from its unapproachable 
eminence of sacredness, as *^ the Book^' * the Book of books:* and we have never 
ceased, and, through God's blessing, never will cease, humhiy but resolutely to lift 
up our solemn protest against it. We would not wish on this subject, any more than 
on any other, to advocate an untenable, or impracticable, or dangerous extreme. 
We would pray, on the one hand, to be delivered fropa the Pharisaic idolatry which 
would hold up to the nations the very papyrus or parchment on which the words of 
inspiration are written, exclaiming, ' Behold the Book ! fall down ye before it and 
worship it ;' instead of crying aloud, ' Behold your God revealing Himself through 
the medium of His Written Word ; fall ye down and worship before Him.' So, on 
the other hand, we would pray to be delivered from the Sadducean latitudinarianisra 
or indifference which would strip the written Word of all its sacredness, by mingling 
it up with the parsings, construmgs, correctings, trappings, ferular visitations, and 
all the other irreverent bustle of pedagogal gymnastics. On the frontispiece of their 
Bible the Jews were wont to inscribe, in flaming characters, the exclamation of fear and 
astonishment extorted from Jacob by the vision of Jehovah at Bethel—^' How dread- 
ful is this place ! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of 
heaven 1' On which the great Owen most appropriately remarked, 'So ought we 
to look upon the Word with a holy awe and reverence of^the presence of God.' But 
if any scheme could be devised more cunning than another, by which, under the 
semblance of honouring and magnifying it as a school-book, we could succeed in di- 
vesting the perusal and contemplation of it of a// ' holy awe and reverence ' of God's 
presence, it is the very practice which has now been reprobated — reprobated, not so 
much from abstract considerations as from painful experience of its most blight- 
ing effects. If the Bible is to be made a school and class-book — and rather, 
infinitely rather, let us decide on the banishment of grammars, and geographies, 
and all popularised excerpts consecrated exclusively to science and the muses, 
from our schools, than suffer it to be dislodged by the ^reat anti-Christian con- 
federacy from its throne of rightful supremacy in wieldmg the sceptre over the 
entire educational realm ; — if the Bible, we say, is to be made a school and class- 
book, let it not be evacuated of its divine significance, by being turned into com- 
mon use, for testing the rules and laws of every self-elected dictator in the ancient 
domain of speech. Let it not be lowered from its regal dignity to dance attendance 
and serve as a humble vassal at the outer portals of knowledge. Let it be ever 
maintained in the right ascension of its sacredness — the meridian altitude of its 
spiritual power. Let it be gratefully studied as the Book of Life : let it be joyfully 
consulted as the chart of heaven : let its holy oracles be listened to with profoundest 
awe : let its cheering revelations be welcomed and hailed as the brightest rays from 
* the ancient glory : ' let its statutes, testimonies, and righteous judgments be im- 
plicitly submitted to as the unchanging ordinances of the King of kings ; and then, 
and then only^ will that best of books— the Bible— be allowed to promote the grand 
design for which it was by Heaven bestowed. Then, and then only, will it be duly 
reverenced — the God who gave it duly honoured— the myriads of young immortals 
trained in educational seminaries duly quickened and edified, — fortified for the vicis- 
situdes of time, and ripened for the hosannahs of eternity." 



6o CALCUTTA. 

The more intellectual of the youths were in ecstacies 
of delight on account of the new world of knowledge 
which was opening before them, and the head teacher was 
the same that the Lord had so manifestly prospered his 
way.* This joy was summarily checked one morning when 
the missionary, reaching the loved scene of his labours, saw 
a beggarly array of empty benches staring him in the face, 
in place of the animated countenances from which he had 
expected to receive a greeting. Only about half-a-dozen 
pupils were in the school in place of the hundred and more 
whom he had calculated on finding assembled. On asking 
for an explanation, one of the pupils drew out from beneath 
his dress a copy of that highly-orthodox Bengalee paper, 

* Here it is proper to npte how another difficulty had been overcome. At first, 
no school-books could be had except those published by the Calcutta School Book 
Society ; and from these all knowledge of a religious character had been systemati- 
cally excluded. Now, it must be obvious that the very young — those who knew 
not the English alphabet, or knew no more than the alphabet of their mother-tongue 
— could not read a portion of the Bible either in English or Bengalee. What, then, 
was to be done ? Were these to be left wholly without religious instruction until 
they had advanced so far as to be able freely and intelligently to peruse the Scrip- 
tures ? If so, a year or two might intervene, and, so far as reading was concerned, 
hundreds, in the course o( time, might quit the institution as ignorant of divine 
truth, and as much inunersed in heathen darkness, as when they entered it. What, 
then, was to be done ? What was the remedy ? If there were any, how was it to 
be applied ? Here is Dr Dufif's own account of the matter, as contained in his 
work on " India, and India Missions" : — "The remedy devised was simple, and, as 
the result proved, efifective. It consisted in the compilation of a progressive series 
of three new elementaiy school-books, entitled 'English Instructor, 'No. I., II., and 
III., each consisting of two distinct divisions or parts, which might be denominated 
the cotnmon and the religious. The Jirst part was composed of appropriate lessons, 
of the most miscellaneous character, — partly original, partly selected, and partly al- 
tered, abridged, or compiled from the contents of pre-existing school-books. Into 
this division all manner of topics were introduced, calculated to- arrest the attention, 
excite the curiosity, and summon into vigorous exercise the conceptive and other in- 
tellectual faculties. Here, too, all orthographical, etymological, syntactical, and 
prosodial exercises were carried on with the most boundless freedom, — without any 
risk of jarring with that solemnity of feeling which the very name of Deity ought ever 
to inspire, — without dislocating any doctrine of faith, or linking it with grotesque, in- 
congruous, or painful associations, — without trenching by a single intrusive move- 
ment on any one province of sacredness. The second division in each number of 
the series was devoted exclusively to religious topics. These portions were read, 
not for the purpose of grammatically mastering" the English language, but for the 
sake of gathering up the doctrines and precepts, warnings and promises, examples 
and lessons therein taught, exhibited, or enforced. They were treated, therefore, 
purely as means instrumentally designed to awaken the conscience and variously 
influence and impress the heart. Thus, by the separate perusal of a small portion 
of each division daily, there arose a happy combination of lingual and literal acqui- 
sition, and of those nobler exercises which tended to promote moral and religious 
improvement." Here it may be added that, ever since, these " Instructors " nave 
been used as class-books in the Central Institution and Branch schools, as well as 
in most of the other mission English schools in Bengal. 



THE CHUNDRIKA AND ITS TEACHING. 6 J 

the Chundrika (or moon-effulgence), established a year 
or two before, to defend the burning of widows alive. 
The school, it appeared, had received notice in its columns, 
apropos of the discovery which had been made, that some 
of the pupils were fast losing faith in Hindooism, owing to 
the instructions which they had been receiving. Parents 
were therefore ordered to withdraw their children from the 
school, under pain of excommunication by the Dhartna 
Sabha* or Holy Synod, of which the distinguished editor 
was himself secretary. If any should disregard this warning, 
and still go to the school placed under a ban, then the case 
might be met by the hoisting of a yellow flag upon the 
building, to warn passers by of the moral plague that raged 
within. The appearance of the empty benches, hitherto an 
enigma, was now at once explained, and the only question 
which remained for solution was the practical one. What was 
to be done ? The missionary wisely resolved to do nothing, 
and, after intimating that he would go on with the institu- 
tion if half-a-dozen, or even one, attended, he placidly pro- 
ceeded with the lessons as if nothing had happened. A 
few of the missing youths reappeared in the afternoon, and 
in little more than a week all but three or four had returned. 
The Chundrika^ of course, thundered out a new anathema ; 
but its effects were far inferior to those produced by the 
former effusion, and at last the most furious philippic which 
it could send forth did not perceptibly affect the institution. 
It rose rapidly into eminence : the first examination, which 
was held at the end of twelve months from its opening, was a 
great success \ and Lord William Bentinck, who was then 
Governor-General, declared some time afterwards that it 
had " produced unparalleled results." 

Towards the close of 1831 the Rev. William Sinclair 
Mackay arrived from Europe as a second missionary. t This 

* The Dharma Sabha had been instituted shortly before, to defend Sutte^, and 
contained within its membership most of the influential Hindoo gentlemen in 
Calcutta. 

t William S Mackay was born at Thurso, in Caithness, in the year 2807. His 



62 CALCUTTA, 

relieved Mr Duff of a portion of his daily labour in the in- 
stitution, and enabled him to throw himself more fully into 
a great variety of religious and philanthropic operations, all 
bearing on the temporal and spiritual welfare of the natives. 
The Tract and Bible Societies occupied much of his time 
and attention. His papers, written at that time on the most 
approved mode of representing Oriental alphabets in Roman 
characters, have been again and again reprinted in India 
and England ; and he had his full share, both theoretically 
and practically, in the discussions which paved the way for 
Lord Macaulay's famous minute, and Lord William Ben- 
tinck's decisive decree in favour of Anglicanism and against 
Orientalism. Another series of operations commenced soon 
after Mr Duff's arrival, and was carried on parallel with 
those formerly described. 

In 182 1 the Government had founded a Sanscrit College 
for the sons of Brahman s, with two wings attached for 
the instruction of other natives in the English language 
and literature, mainly with the view of raising up a body of 
qualified scholars who might translate selected portions of 
European literature and science into the learned languages 
of India, in which alone it was thought that such knowledge 
could or ought to be conveyed to the higher and more in- 
fluential classes, while it considered itself precluded from 
introducing Christianity. The result was that many of its 
young men, taught by their English education to despise 
Hindooism, assumed without inquiring that Christianity 
would, if examined, prove equally vulnerable. They became 
Deists, nay, many avowed themselves Atheists, while some 
cast off all the restraints of moral obligation. In August 
1830, soon after Mr Duff's arrival, he succeeded in inducing 

college education was obtained at one of the Aberdeen Universities, where he held 
a high place in the prize list. Subsequently he went to complete his studies at St 
Andrews, where he came under the magnetic influence of Dr Chalmers. When he 
arrived in Calcutta, towards the end of 1831, he was not much above twenty-four 
years of age. Dr Duff and he had been fellow-students in St Andrews before either 
sailed for India. Thus he was one of the St Andrews group of students of whom 
so many became missionaries. 



EXPLOSION OF BIGOTRY, 63 

a number of these to agree to attend a weekly course of lec- 
tures on the Evidences and Doctrines of the Christian 
Faith. The Rev. Mr Dealtry, a Church of England chap- 
lain, afterwards Archdeacon of Calcutta, and last of all 
Bishop of Madras, with the Rev. Messrs Hill and Adam, of 
the London Missionary Society, agreed to take part in the 
course. The place of meeting was to be the lower room 
of Dr Duff's house, which was conveniently situated in the 
heart of the native town, near the Government College. 
The first part of the course, to consist of lectures on the 
Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, was under- 
taken by Mr Duff; but by mutual agreement Mr Hill 
delivered the first or introductory lecture, and at that time 
there never was a second. A violent outburst of bigotry 
on the part of the Hindoo community constrained the 
directors of the college to turn their attention to the events 
then in progress, and these worthies issued an edict for- 
bidding the students, on the pain of their high displeasure, 
to attend the lectures, though what right they had to in- 
terfere in the matter it was difficult to perceive. The 
European press soon made them ashamed of their tyran- 
nical order, and it was rescinded, but not until it had 
produced remarkable results. The young men, forbidden 
to go to the lectures, proceeded to set up debating societies 
among themselves, where (and we honour them for it) 
no one was required to argue against his conscientious 
convictions. Mr Dufif was a constant visitor at these 
gatherings, and was greatly struck by what he saw and 
heard. He thus speaks on the subject : — 

" To a British-bom subject the free use in debate of the English lan- 
guage by these olive-complexioned and bronze -coloured children of the 
East, on their own soil, and at the distance of thousands of miles from 
the British shores, presented something indescribably novel, and even 
affecting. Nor was the effect at all diminished, but rather greatly 
heightened, when ever and anon, after the fashion of publi<r speakers in 
our own land, the sentiments delivered were fortified by oral quotations 
from English authors. If the subject was historical, Robertson and 
Gibbon were appealed to ; if political, Adam Smith and Jeremy Ben- 



64 CALCUTTA, 

tham ; if scientific, Newton and Davy ; if religious, Hume and Thomas 
Paine ;* if metaphysical, Locke and Reid, Dugald Stewart and Brown. 
The whole was frequently interspersed and enlivened by passages cited 
from some of our most popular English poets, particularly Byron and 
Sir Walter Scott. And more than once were my ears greeted with the 
sound of Scotch rhymes from the poems of Robert Bums. It would 
not be possible to pourtray the effect produced on the mind of a Scotch- 
man, when, on the banks of the Ganges, one of the sons of Brahma, in 
reviewing the unnatural institution of caste in alienating man from man, 
and in looking forward to the period in which knowledge by its trans- 
forming power would make the lowest type of man feel itself to be of 
the same species as the highest, clearly gave utterance in an apparent 
ecstacy of delight to these characteristic lines : — 

* For a' that and a' that. 

It 's comin* yet for a* that. 
That man to man the world o'er 

Shall brothers be for a' that.*" 

Not merely debating societies, but newspapers, with the 
young Bengalees as editors, came into notice. We have 
already had occasion to mention one periodical, the Chund- 
rikuy the organ of the ultra-Conservative party of Hindoo 
religionists, but with that paper the young illuminati were at 
daggers drawn. Their organs were two, the Gyanafieshun^ 
in Bengalee, and the Inquirer^ in English, while an inter- 
mediate party, the Vedantists, who, perceiving the absurdities 
of the easily-refuted Pooranas, on which modem Hindooism 
is founded, fell back on the less vulnerable ancient Vedas, 
addressed the public through means of the Coumudee, The 
severely orthodox Hindoos looked on the Liberals with 
intense hatred, and a single spark might at any time pro- 
duce an explosion. 

Youthful imprudence was ere long to supply that spark. 
On the evening of the 23d August 1831 a considerable 
number of the young illuminati took their way to the 
family house of their friend, Krishna Mohun Banerjee, 
editor of the Inquirer, Though he was not at home they 

♦ A bookseller in the United States of America, who had heard that there was a 
party among the Bengalees likely to purchase the " Age of Reason," sent a large 
supply out. When a ship brought a thousand of them to Calcutta they were sold 
at the beginning for one rupee a copy, but the demand for them ultimately became 
so great that five rupee; instead of one were ultimately asked and obtained. 



A UNIQUE DRAMA. 65 

had no scruple in taking possession of the room in which 
they had been accustomed to meet for discussion. The 
presence of that knot of congenial spirits, one and all of 
revolutionary tendencies, coupled with the absence of the 
more sober-minded editor, was not unattended with peril to 
Hindooism ; and as their enthusiasm was gradually raised 
to the pitch for action, they unanimously resolved to commit 
what was held to be the unpardonable sin by partaking of 
beef. A roasted portion of what was believed to be the 
unhallowed food being ordered from the bazaar, they each 
and all ate a portion of it, and were engaged in this fearful 
work when the editor returned home. Young Brahmans, 
as most if not all of them were, do not generally like beef 
the first time they taste it, which was probably the reason 
why some of the unclean substance remained when the 
repast was finished. How to dispose of this uneaten 
remnant was of course a question, and some impulsive 
spirit in the company solved it too summarily, on the spur 
of the moment, by seizing the beef in his hand and letting 
it fly into the compound or courtyard of a highly orthodox 
Brahman who lived next door. The holy man was within 
his residence when the projectile descended, and if he 
entertained any doubt as to its character he was at once 
enlightened by the exegetical remark with which its flight 
was accompanied, " There is beef ! There is beef ! " 
Aroused by the ominous sound, which boded that, according 
to caste law, his premises were hopelessly defiled, he rushed 
forth at the head of his servants and violently assaulted the 
editor and his friends. The young men did not attempt 
to defend what they had done, but made an apology for the 
past, promised amendment for the future, and hoped that 
the irate Brahman might now feel satisfied. Need it be 
added that this expectation was wholly disappointed. Their 
conduct was soon noised abroad through Calcutta, and it is 
not to be wondered at, that wherever the outrage was re- 
ported great excitement followed, and the determination 



66 CALCUTTA. 

was evinced once for all to grapple with the unbelieving 
crew, and reduce them to obedience. The relatives of 
the editor were ordered to expel him from the parental 
abode, unless he humbly recanted his errors and engaged 
never more to use his pen against his ancestral faith. It is 
very creditable to him that he refused to make the required 
recantation, and preferred to be ejected from his home at 
midnight and encounter personal risk from the excited mob 
in the street. As his friends had most of them broken 
caste by putting the unclean thing to their lips, they too 
were pretty severely dealt with by their relatives, urged on 
by the more bigoted Hindoos. 

All parties in Calcutta watched with eager interest the 
progress of the strange drama now described, and among 
others Mr Duff, who was of opinion that the persecuted 
young men might, in their distress, examine the claims of 
the gospel with a candour which they probably would not 
have manifested had the course of their lives run more 
smoothly. He therefore asked a mutual friend to bring 
Krishna Mohun to his house. The young Brahman came, 
on which the missionary expressed deep sympathy with him 
in the sufferings which he had endured, and, after gaining 
his confidence, succeeded in convincing him that as a 
professed inquirer after truth, he was bound to search into 
and candidly examine the claims of Christianity, and that 
he was not warranted in setting it aside unless he first 
proved its evidences to be unsatisfactory. Krishna then 
made so favourable a report to his youthful friends and fol- 
lowers respecting this first interview with the missionary, that 
they resolved to hold weekly meetings at his house for 
religious instruction and discussion ; but before farther 
arrangements were quite completed new trials had first to 
be encountered. On the 28th September, Krishna had to 
depart hurriedly from his new abode to escape personal 
assault, though about a month had elapsed since the beef 
affair, and now not a Hindoo in all Calcutta dared to give 



DR DUFF AND THE UNBELIEVERS. Cj 

him shelter, so that he had no resource left but to take up 
his residence in a European lodging-house. Next evening 
Mr Duff went thither to pay him a visit, and found him 
surrounded by his friends, who were joining him in de- 
nouncing popular Hindooism, and vowing that in future 
they would proceed to greater lengths against it than they 
had done in the past. In their present state of isolation 
and distress they hstened to the European visitor while he 
showed them that the great European reformers, Luther, 
Calvin, Knox, and others, constructed as well as destroyed. 
They, as Bengalee reformers, must do the same if their 
exertions were to be really beneficial to their countrymen. 
Finally, after much reasoning and many appeals, they were 
persuaded to attend at his house, for a weekly lecture, on 
Tuesday, and seek religious instruction, opportunity also 
being afforded for subsequent discussion. This second 
course Mr Duff had to undertake single-handed, and carry 
it on from beginning to end without assistance or co-opera- 
tion on the part of any other. At first from forty to sixty 
came, most of them behaving very well, while a small 
minority were proud, forward, rude, boisterous, and often 
grossly insulting. Besides the youths, for whom the lectures 
were primarily designed, other Hindoos in considerable 
numbers, as well as East Indians and Europeans, attended 
to witness the unwonted spectacle. The first series of lec- 
tures and discussions was regarding the initial truth of 
all religion — the being of a God. His attributes were next 
established, after which followed the evidences of natural 
and then of revealed religion ; and, last of all, a full state- 
ment and exposition of the doctrines of the Christian faith, 
with earnest appeals to the conscience. 

One of the most forward and reckless of the young men 
who attended the lectures was called Mohesh Ghose. When 
he came to them in November 183 1, he did not really 
expect to receive any religious benefit from what he heard, 
but he believed he would have the opportunity of exposing 



68 CALCUTTA. , . .' 

what he considered to be the irrational and superstitious 
fallacies of the missionary. Step by step, however, he 
found himself driven from Atheism and from Deism, first to 
a general acknowledgment of Christianity, and then, through 
the special working of the Spirit of God, to the accept- 
ance of the gospel with his heart. He was baptized on tlie 
26th August 1832, but, strange to say, not by his spiritual 
father, but by an Episcopal clergyman, with whom he had 
not previously had any connection, whilst in the first pub- 
lished statement of his conversion he did not make those 
acknowledgments which justice, no less than gratitude, 
required of the deep obligations under which he lay to the 
Presbyterian missionary. For this omission, however, he 
subsequently apologised, with expressions of deep regret, in 
the columns of the Calcutta Christian Observer* 

Krishna Mohun was present when the sacred rite was 
administered, and, in commenting on the incident in the 
Inquirer^ he wrote in a spirit so different from that which 
of old had animated him, that it was evident he was now 
himself a Christian. Shortly afterwards he was baptized by 
Mr Duff, in his lecture room, amid a dense crowd of natives, 
East Indians, and Europeans, and has ever since been a 
pillar of the native Church pf India, and the author of 
several able and masterly works alike in English and Ben- 
galee. After some time he was led, from circumstances, 
to connect himself with the Church of England, of which 
he became an ordained clergyman and professor in Bishop's 
College. Before conversion he was a Kulin Brahman.+ 

* Of this periodical, which for upwards of thirty years rendered great and im- 
portant service to the cause of evaneclical Christianity in India, there were at the 
outset three joint editors — Mr Duff naving charge of the general department for 
original articles, &c., Mr Hill of the review, and Mr Gogerly of the intelligence de- 
partment. 

t There are grades of dignity in the Brahmanic caste, the Kulins occupying the 
very apex of the pyramid. So high are they supposed to be, that it is deemed a 
great honour for a Brahmin girl to obtain one of them for a husband, a foolish fancy 
of which many Kulin scoundrels take cruel advantage by marrying indefinite num- 
bers of young women ail over the country, of course obtaining, if possible, a dowry 
with each, and then quartering themselves for long periods of time on father-in-law 
after father-in-law with as little shame as the professional mendicants in the streets. 



HIGHLY IMPORTANT BAPTISMS. 69 

When he led the phalanx of unbelief, he owed his position 
as leader among the young illuminati to the strength of his 
intellect, and he is so thoroughly master of the English 
tongue that when he pens an article in a quarterly re- 
view no one would ever suppose that it was written by a 
Hindoo. 

Early one morning, about the beginning of December 
1832, another of the young men, Gopinath Nandi by name, 
entered Mr Duff's study, and, sitting down, remained quite 
silent for about a quarter of an hour, as if burdened with 
some great grief. At length gaining utterance, he asked, 
"Can I be saved? Shall 1 have the privilege of being 
called a son of God, and a servant of Jesus Christ ? Shall 
I be admitted into the holy family ?" " Believe in the Lord 
Jesus Christ," was the reply, " and thou shalt be saved." 
Before the interview terminated, the burden was removed, 
and Gopinath was rejoicing in. his Lord and Saviour. He 
was soon after admitted into the Church of Christ by bap- 
tism, Mr Duff administering the ordinance. A year or two 
afterwards, Gopinath proceeded to the north-west provinces, 
and there became a distinguished and successful missionary 
of the Cross.* These baptisms being the first of the kind 
which had ever occurred in India, produced a profound 
sensation alike in the native and European communities. 
By that time, Atheism had almost, if not altogether, disap- 
peared from among the young men, and Deism was much 
less rampant than formerly. Not merely had three been 
baptized, but many who still remained nominally Hindoo, 
with more or less straightforwardness acknowledged the 
claims of Christianity. Of these, however, some were after 
a time admitted into the Church of Christ by baptism. 
About the beginning of 1833, Mr Duff commenced two 
courses of lectures — one for converts and others whose 
objections to the Bible he had been enabled previously to 

♦ In 1833, a pious officer at Futtehpore, in Upper India, set up a school at that 
station, and applied to Mr Duff for a teacher. Gopinath was sent, and laboured 
in the north-west till his death. We shall meet with him again in the history. 
(891) 6 



70 CALCUTTA. 

remove, and g. second for those less advanced. A Bengalee 
service was also instituted soon afterwards, and other means 
were taken for accomplishing the ends contemplated in the 
establishment of the mission. It received extension also in 
a remarkable way. Soon after Mr Duff's arrival in Calcutta, 
the late Rajah Rammohun Roy, introduced him to a family of 
wealthy zemindars (landowners), consisting of four brothers, 
with the family name of Chaudri, who lived happily together 
on their ancestral estate at Taki, forty-five miles east of 
Calcutta, Visits paid by some of these to the Calcutta 
institution, and subsequent intercourse with Mr Duff, led to 
their making a request that he would found a school at 
Taki on the same model as that in Calcutta. After a visit 
to the place, in which he received a right princely welcome, 
he agreed to the proposal, and suggested a site for the con- 
templated buildings. The Chaudris, by a legal instrument, 
bound themselves and their heirs to pay the main charges of 
the schools, amounting to about ;^3oo a year, at the same 
time leaving to Mr Duff the whole management of the educa- 
tion. The institution was opened with due ceremony on 
the 13th June 1832. In the second year of its existence, great 
floods swept away about 50,000 natives in Lower Bengal, and 
fearful pestilence completed the work of destruction. The 
school suffered severely, but it rose again into power when 
the calamities terminated. — {Missionary Record, 1838-39, pp. 
81, 109, and 132.) Quite early in the history of the mission, 
one of the secretaries of the supreme government wrote — 

** How numerous are the instances in which visitors to the General 
Assembly's celebrated academy have caught the spirit of the plan, and 
been induced, on their return to their respective districts, to form the 
nucleus of similar institutions ! " 

In 1833, the first fruits of the institution in the conversion 
of souls were reaped with great gladness, a young man, 
called Anundo Chunder Majundar, having on that day 
been admitted into the Christian Church.* Not long 

* Anundo, in 1834, accompanied Mr Groves to England, and, on returning to the 
£ast, became a catechist of the London Missionary Society. He died in 1841. 



MESSRS MA CJCA Y AND £ WART. 7 1 

afterwards, other converts were obtained from the institu- 
tion. But we must not anticipate. 

As a rule, the first four years of a mission are a sowing 
rather than a reaping time, and the campaign now described 
stands quite alone for the brilliance of its results. But just 
when past successes were most vividly inspiring hope of 
new and yet greater victories, an unexpected and afflictive 
providence terminated the campaign. Oftener than once, 
during the currency of the events now described, Mr Duffs 
health had threatened to break down under the load of his 
manifold labours and anxieties,* and finally, towards the 
end of July 1834,^ he was ordered home at two days' notice 
to save his life, then in imminent danger, and departed, 
leaving his colleague, Mr Mackay, in sole charge of the 
mission. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE INSTITUTION IN NEW HANDS. 

Before 1834 closed, another missionary had arrived from 
home — the Rev. David Ewartf Though the absence of 
Mr Duff was necessarily an incalculable loss to the mission, 
yet the institution continued to flourish in the hands of 
Messrs Mackay and Ewart. Mr Mackay was a man of 
modest, retiring character, exquisite taste, a fine balance of 
mental faculties and varied accomplishments. The earthly 
tenement in which these qualities were enshrined was, how- 
ever, from the first feeble, and the trying cUmate of Bengal 
soon broke it down. The Rev. David Ewart, when he first 
went to India, was a young man of ruddy complexion, and 

* To his manifold missionary and other labours was superadded, for a twelve- 
month, the charge of the Scotch Church, after Dr Bryce had left on furlough for 
Scotland, and before the arrival of Mr, now Dr, Charles. 

t Mr Ewart was born 24th September 1806, at the farm of Uppier Balloch, in the 
parish of Alyth, and within a mi!e of the town of Alyth. He was afterwards a 
student at St Andrews along with Messrs Duff and Mackay. 



72 CALCUTTA. 

with a physical frame which enabled him to undergo great 
fatigue. Punctual as clockwork, he might be seen day by 
day proceeding to the institution, in which his chief duty 
lay, prepared to labour with untiring energy, and a patience 
and good temper that never flagged, great qualities for 
keeping an institution going in India, or any other land. 

On the 7th March 1835, the Governor-General, Lord 
William Bentinck, whose reforming ardour had not been 
exhausted by the great measure which will for ever im- 
mortalise his name — the abolition of Suttee — initiated an 
important revolution in the attitude of Government towards 
sound education in India. Hitherto the patronage of the 
Government had been almost exclusively confined to schools 
and colleges designed for the inculcation of so-called oriental 
knowledge, which in the main consisted of false science 
and false religion. But a first step was taken to altering 
this state of things when, at the date mentioned above, 
the Governor-General declared that — 

** The great object of the British Government ought to be the promo- 
tion of European literature and science among the natives of India, and 
that all the funds appropriated for the purpose of education would be 
best employed in English education alone." 

At that time, be it observed, the funds given for the pro- 
motion of education were unhappily very limited, so that it 
was needful to make a choice among the competing systems 
of education ; and Lord William chose that which was likely 
soonest to produce great results. His decree, it need scarcely 
be pointed out, was well fitted to give a fresh impulse to the 
educational operations of the Calcutta mission. 

One institution which this decree at once called into life 
was the Medical College, with a full staff" of professors, 
whose prelections were to be in English, with, however, a 
vernacular department for humbler practitioners. This was 
founded on the ruins of the medical class, previously con- 
ducted chiefly for Mohammedans, through the medium of 
Arabic. A very interesting point connected with its 



THE CASE OF D W ARK AN A TH BHOSEi 73 

establishment is thus told by the Friend of India for 
December 31, 1863 : — 

** The most striking practical proof of the great social changes set in 
motion by Dr Duff is seen in the history of the Medical College. Dr 
John Tytler kept a medical school, in which he taught the natives 
anatomy from models of the human body. Dr Duff declared that a 
thorough English education dispelled the prejudices which Dr Tytler 
recognised, and challenged him to try the experiment on his own highest 
class. To the Government deputation which questioned the class on 
the subject, the first student, a Brahmin, said he had no objection to 
touch a dead body when studying anatomy. The rest of the class 
agreed, and the battle was won by the establishment of the Medical 
College." 

The words used by the Brahmin with regard to the idea of 
his caste being defiled by touching a dead body for scientific 
purposes were: "Oh, that's all prejudice, prejudice!" — 
Missionary Record^ 183 7-1 841, p. 236. 

In 1837, a remarkable baptism occurred — thatDf Dwar- 
kanath Bhose, a pupil in the institution, about seventeen 
years old. Dwarkanath, having been suspected of leanings 
towards Christianity, was thrown into a palanquin and taken 
to his father's country house, two days' journey from Cal- 
cutta, where iron chains were put upon his legs to prevent 
his escape. Some time afterwards he was released, and, 
returning to school, applied for baptism. A second time he 
was carried off, but again escaped. An attorney's letter was 
sent demanding his surrender, but no notice was taken of 
it. Two or three days subsequently, when he was out in a 
carriage with Mr Ewart, the horse was thrown down by a 
band of ruffians, and Dwarkanath carried off. Legal pro- 
ceedings were taken in consequence, in which effective 
assistance was gratuitously rendered by Mr Leith, barrister, 
and Dwarkanath was ultimately released. He was baptized 
on the 1 8th February 1837.* 

On the 17th February 1838, the Rev. John and Mrs 

* After Dwarkanath had completed his literary education, he entered the Medical 
College of Calcutta, and so highly distinguished himself, that he was chosen as one 
«)f four students to be sent to London by the Bengal Government, for the purpose ol 
tinishing, under the best professors existing, their medical education. On returning, 
he became a member of the native Free Church congrc^gatiun in Calcutta. 



74 CALCUTTA, 

Macdonald arrived to the assistance of the mission.* Mr 
Macdonald was a man of great and even stem fidelity to 
principle, the terror of open sinners and of inconsistent 
Christian professors, but prized exceedingly by those to 
whom religion was all in all. Though feeling the necessity 
of having secular subjects taught, and taught well, in the 
institution, yet personally he desired, as a minister of the 
gospel, to confine himself to the one great theme, and 
employment of a congenial character was found for him in 
the theological department of the institution. 

His services in the mission were soon highly indispensable; 
for in 1838, Mr Mackay's health so utterly gave way, that 
when by medical advice he took ship for Van Dieman's 
Land, neither he nor his friends had much expectation of 
his surviving the voyage. 

In 1839, two very remarkable baptisms took place in 
connection with the mission. They were those of Mahendra 
Lai Basakf and Khoilas Chunder Mookerjee. % When Ma- 



* John Macdonald was bom in Edinburgh on the 17th February 1807. His 
father was at that period minister of the Gaelic Church in the Scottish capital, but 
was subsequently translated to Ferintosh, in a fragment of Nairnshire, everywhere 
surrounded by Ross-shire districts. There he made such wide-spread efforts for the 
evangelisation of the Celtic population, that he came to be designated the apostle of 
the North. The son was educated at King^s College, Aberdfeen, whete he highly 
distinguished himself, the most notable of his intellectual achievements being that 
he gained the Huttonian prize, which constituted him what in the South wou!d be 
called the senior wrangler of his year. He was licenced on 6th January 1830. In 
October 1830, he took charge of a small Scottish congregation then worshipping in 
Chadwell Street, Pentonville, London, and on the 17th March 1831 was ordained 
its pastor. Coming under the powerful spell of Dr Duft's eloquence during the visit 
of the latter to London, his missionary leanings became known, and he was in con- 
sequunce invited by the General Assembly's committee to go to Calcutu. Accept- 
ing the call he, on the 19th December 1837, left for the East in a ship called the 
Marion. 

t Mahendra was born in September 1822, and entered the institution abput 1831. 
Soon after he was removed to the Hindoo college, but was ere long permitted to 
return again to the institution. In 1838, he came under powerful religious impres- 
sions, which became known to his friends, and led to his being deprived of his 
books and plied with the exhortations of interested Brahmins. All was, however, 
without avail. Then it was said that, at the suggestion of a very near relative, his 
" friends" tried to seduce him into vice, well knowing that this would imfit him for 
being admitted into a holy religion. The disreputable plot failed, and, as men- 
tioned in the text, he was at length baptized. Mahendra possessed great intellect. 
He was the gold medallist of his year at the institution, and some new demonstra- 
tions which he made of Euclid's problems elicited the warm commendation of Pro- 
fessor Wallace, who then filled the mathematical chair in Edinburgh University. 

X Khoilas was a native of Kulahasho village, twenty-four miles westward of Cal- 
cutta. He was bom in 1821. His father was a Kulin Brahmin. He entered the 



MAHENDRA AND K HOI LAS, 7$ 

hendra came seeking baptism, his father did all in his power 
to induce him to return home. At first he admitted him to 
be above sixteen ; but on learning that in that case he had 
an indisputable right to judge ipx himself, he altered his 
statement, and reduced the age to fifteen years and some 
months. No legal proceedings were attempted, and Ma- 
hendra was baptized on the 8th March 1839. 

Khoilas first came to the Mission-house in April 1839. 
His friends hacj been taking him to some idolatrous cere- 
mony, with which he felt that he must have nothing to do, 
on which he suddenly escaped from them on the road, fled 
to his spiritual instructors, and asked for baptism. His 
native friends could not for a long time induce him to leave, 
till at length, in the simplicity of his heart, he believed two 
baboos, because " they were educated men and had English 
manners," and went with them to his father's house, on their 
solemn promise that they would bring him back in an hour 
or two. The result might have been conjectured. He was 
carried off as a prisoner and kept in captivity three months 
in a house far away from Calcutta. But he remained firm 
during this trying period, and at last escaping again to the 
Mission-house, was publicly baptized in the hall of the insti- 
tution in August 1839. 

Soon afterwards a young Brahmin, called Chundra Kumar 
Roy, asked baptism. He was about eighteen years of age, 
but not possessed of much mental ability. 

On Sunday, i8th August 1839, the Rev. Thomas Smith 
(now the Rev. Dr Smith, of Cowgatehead) reached Cal- 
cutta;* and towards the end of the same year, Mr Mackay 
was again back at his post, with his health considerably 
recruited, f 

institution in X833. He was not so much able as gentle, tractable, and attentive to 
his studies. 

* On the 8th March, Mr Smith was ordained by the Presbytery of Edinburgh— 
Dr Duff, who was then at home, presiding and officiating on the occasion. The 
very eloquent sermon and addresses then delivered were published, by request, 
under the title of *' Missions the Chief End of the Church." 

t Mr Mackay, when he was in Van Dieman's Land, made a very favourable im- 
pression on the governor, Sir John Franklin, ultimately destined to become a martyr 



^6 CALCUTTA, 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE YEARS PRECEDING THE DISRUPTION. 

In May 1840, Dr Duff returned in recruited health from 
Scotland. Larger buildings having by this time been 
obtained through his exertions while at home for the in- 
stitution, it was no longer under the restraint as to num- 
bers which it had originally been, and in place of 300 there 
were now 800 pupils in attendance. By January 1841 they 
increased to 870. 

The reforming governor, Lord William Bentinck, was no 
longer in India, and his successor. Lord Auckland, had not 
approved of his predecessor's educational decree, but had 
made a retrograde movement, which, for the time at least, 
arrested the severance of the Government from oriental error. 
A series of letters, strongly deprecating this reactionary step, 
was addressed to its noble originator by Dr Duff, and led to a 
warm and even vehement discussion between the advocates 
of Orientalism and Occidentalism, which ended by the adop- 
tion of some practical measures that went far to neutralise 
the force of the Governor-General's unhappy decree. 

In 1840, Miss Laing arrived from Europe as the agent of 
the Scottish Ladies' Society for promoting Female Education 
in India, commenced the year before. An orphan refuge 
for girls had been begun on a humble scale a short time 
before by Mrs Charles, wife of the Rev. Dr Charles, then 

of science in the polar regions. He also so sained the hearts of the colonists, that 
they wished him to remain among them as their pastor, but he felt that his proper 
sphere was Calcutta, where there was in progress what he believed to be " the most 
important work now carrying on on the earth." Ho-left Hobart Town on December 
i3» 1839- . On his return voyage, he was shipwrecked on the coast of Orissa, about 
twenty miles south of False Point, on the evening of February 15, 1840. " For 
myself," he wrote, " I looked upon death as inevitable. To me, though not in that 
form, the prospect had long been familiar, and then, as ever, my chief regret was 
that I had done so little for Christ, and given so much of my heart and time to the 
world." At length a native vessel, of eighty or ninety tons, picked the crew and 
passengers off the wreck, and ultimately transferred them to a British ship, which 
brought them to Calcutta. 



SIEGE OF THE MISSION HOUSE, yj 

senior Presbyterian chaplain at Calcutta. The girls now 
spoken of were given in charge to Miss Laing, and more 
having been sent her, another lady, Miss Saville, was sent 
from home to her assistance, arriving on nth December 
1842. 

It was an extremely gratifying circumstance that an effort 
should have commenced for the small section of the Cal- 
cutta females who alone were accessible at that time to 
missionary effort. Meanwhile, the institution was producing, 
under the operation of the Divine Spirit, the results which 
had been contemplated in its establishment. News came 
from Futtehghur, in the north-west provinces, that baptism 
had been administered there to a young man called 
Kalichum Dutt, who had been for four years in the institu- 
tion ; and some time afterwards more spiritual fruit was 
gathered, and this time, it is gratifying to add, by those who 
had sown the seed. On the 2d November 1841, a young 
Brahmin of 18, Jagadishwar Bhattacharjya, who had for 
some time been applying for admission to the Church, 
appeared at the Mission-house. His relatives, as is usual 
on such occasions, tried by moving entreaties to shake his 
resolution to become a Christian, but the inquirer, though 
naturally soft and yielding, was firm as a rock in adhering to 
his purpose. Next day the matter was noised abroad over 
Calcutta, and the day being one marked by an unusual 
conjunction of the planets, and therefore, in the opinion of 
the astrologers, sure to be attended with some great cala- 
mity, excitement arose, and violence was attempted. 
Thousands surrounded the Mission-house in a state of rage 
and fury, so that Dr Duff had to apply to the police for a 
protective force. In these circumstances, it was found 
necessary to baptize Jagadishwar at once, to show the 
assailants that he was finally lost to Hindooism. At one 
o'clock, consequently, he was led out into the institution, 
and the younger boys being dismissed, while the elder ones 
were retained, he was solemnly baptized on making a pro- 



78 CALCUTTA, 

fession of his faith, and throwing down, in presence of all the 
spectators, his poita or sacred thread, a symbol designed to 
indicate that he flung from him all the caste privileges no 
less than the faith of Brahmanism When the pupils, on 
being dismissed, all concurred in reporting that the deed 
was done, the mob besieging the Mission-house melted 
away, and quiet was in consequence restored. Only about 
' sixty pupils were removed from the institution in conse- 
quence of this baptism, and a few weeks sufficed to restore 
it to its pristine strength. 

On Wednesday, 19th January 1842, another Brahman, 
Prasanna Kumar Chatterji, was admitted into the Christian 
Church. 

On Sabbath, 3d July 1842, at the ordinary evening ser- 
vice at the institution, Madhab Chandra Basak, a young 
man of the same standing as Jagadishwar, was baptized, 
after passing through the dreadful ordeal common on 
such occasions. An interesting fact connected with this 
case was, that about a hundred native students from the 
higher classes of the institution, from the Hindoo College, 
or from other seminaries, were present at the administration 
of the sacred ordinance, and behaved most decorously. 
Notwithstanding what had occurred, there were sixty more 
candidates for admission into the institution next day, 
being the first Monday of the month, when fresh names 
are enrolled. Madhab was not long a member of the 
Church on earth. He died on the 17th February 1843, 
of consumption, at Kishnagur, whither he had been 
sent for change of air. Jagadishwar and Prasanna, who 
had gone with him to take care of him, watched over him 
with affectionate care, till he no longer required human 
kindness. 

About the same time word came that the Rev. Mr 
Bowley, a Church of England missionary at Chunar, on the 
Ganges, had baptized a young man, formerly a pupil in the 
General Assembly's institution. This was at least the third 



BRANCH INSTITUTION AT TAKI. 79 

known instance in which pupils of Dr Duff's had received 
the sealing rite in the upper provinces. Facts of this 
kind, which afterwards became more numerous, require to 
be taken into account in estimating the success of the 
institution. 

Not merely were there new accessions to the native 
Church, but there were within its fold aspirants to the 
ministry, and on the loth March 184-2, Mahendra and 
Khoilas, after a searching examination, were set apart as 
full catechists. 

Though the completion of the new buildings had given 
an impulse to the institution, so that its pupils had risen to 
900 on the roll, with 700 in daily attendance, yet it was 
resolved to push forward into the country districts, espe- 
cially as spheres were required within which Mahendra and 
Khoilas might labour for the Redeemer. In the early part 
of 1842, Ghospara, the residence of the head of the re- 
markable sect of the Karta Bhojas, or worshippers of 
the Creator, on the left bank of the Ganges, about 
thirty miles above Calcutta, was, after much inquiry 
and a personal survey of the locality, selected by Dr Duff 
for occupation, and by January 1843, ^^^ premises which 
had been erected were ready for the commencement of 
operations. About the same time means were taken to 
occupy Culna.* It will be remembered that the mission 
already had a school at Taki. To manage this more effi- 
ciently a teacher, then unordained, was despatched from 
home. This devoted labourer, Mr, now the Rev. Mr Fyfe, 

* Culna is about fifty miles north from Calcutta, on the right bank of the 
Hooghly. It contains about 30,000 inhabitants. It derives importance from being 
the port of Burdwan, the outlet by which rice and other grain, cotton, &c., are 
exported from that fertile district. About 1842, the Church of England sent a mis- 
sionary thither, but in 1841 removed him to the district of Kishnagur, where a 
remarkable movement had taken place among the Karta Bhoja» ; and the Culna 
premises, by an arrangement with Dr Duff, were sold to the Scottish mission The 
Glasgow Ladies' Association bought them, designing them to be a station for 
Mahendra. Till he was ready to occupy it, Mr Chill, a European brought up in 
India, was to commence operations there. It may .seem strange that a Ladies' Asso- 
ciation in Scotland should so actively interfere in Bengal mission work ; the reason 
was, that the Association had generously agreed to support Mahendra, while the 
Church of St Stephen's, Edinburgh, with equal liberality, undertook for Khoilas. 



80 CALCUTTA. 

Still remains in connection with the mission. The ordained 
labourers were all at their posts, Mr Smith, who had been 
compelled by ill health to leave on December 17, 1841, for 
the Cape of Good Hope, having returned on the 13th 
December 1842, and all was proceeding smoothly and satis- 
factorily as the mission neared the crisis of the Disruption. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DISRUPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 

As has already been stated, all the ordained missionaries of 
the Scottish Establishment seceded with the party who at 
the Disruption became the Free Church. The hope was 
entertained that there might be an arrangement about an 
equitable division of the property at Calcutta, Bombay, and 
other stations, but law was insisted upon, or rather, the repre- 
sentatives of the Established Church thought it equitable to 
take everything that they could claim by mere technicalities 
of law, and strip their adversaries as bare as possible. The 
mission, therefore, lost the Calcutta buildings, for which the 
money had been obtained mainly through the earnest 
pleadings of Dr Duff when at home ; nay, more, the library 
and philosophical apparatus had to be surrendered, though 
with good reason believed by Dr Duff to have been in- 
tended by the donors as a personal gift to himself. It is 
not, however, buildings, books, or apparatus which consti- 
tute an evangelistic agency, but human souls, and Mr Fyfe, 
with all the other teachers, cast in their lot, as did the entire 
mass of the pupils, with the retiring missionaries. Miss 
Laing took the same side, and on the ist November, had 
to give up all the original orphans, while her assistant, 
Miss Saville, sided with the Establishment, and was at once 
promoted to fill the office vacated by her principal. 



DISRUPTION TRIALS, 8 1 

On the 13th August 1843, ^ disruption took place also in 
the Calcutta Presbyterian Church, Dr DufF, his colleagues, 
and many of the members, withdrawing from its com- 
munion, and taking steps to form an organisation of their 
own. All the jiative converts left with their spiritual in- 
structors. Everything had to be begun anew, and unless 
vast energy were put forth, the disruption crisis would prove 
also the disruption catastrophe. 

The first step was to apply for the temporary use of a 
large room in which divine service in English might be 
commenced; and the Freemasons' Hall was at first 
obtained for the purpose,* and there, by Dr Duff preaching 
in the forenoon, and Mr Macdonald in the evening, the 
Free Church of Calcutta was inaugurated. 

But the Masons, with little respect for the rights of 
conscience, soon ejected the congregation from it by a 
majority of one vote. An application was next made to 
Government for one of the side-rooms connected with 
the Town Hall, which elicited an evasive reply. At this 
the managers of the Parental Academic Institution (now 
the Doveton College), established and supported by the East 
Indian community, generously came forward, and offered 
the use of their hall, which was cheerfully accepted. A site 
was obtained at the corner of Wellesley Square, near the 

* This inauguration was rendered memorable by the baptism of a convert, who 
has since proved an eminent minister of Christ — tlie Rev. Behari Lai Singh. His 
father, a Kajput by birth, had come from Central India and settled in Calcutta. He 
had two boys, who were both sent for education to the institution. There, along 
with general studies, they acquired a thorough knowledge of the Bible. The elder 
of the two left the institution for the North-west, and falling in with a Church of 
England missionary, was by him baptized. The younger, BehaH Lai, among other 
exercises, wrote a remarkable essay on the Evidences of Christianity. Having 
obtained the appointment of head-master of a Government school in Jubbulpoi e, on 
the Nerbuddan, with a handsome salary, he went thither to occupy his new charget 
intellectually convinced of the truth of Christianity, but without heart-conversion to 
God. There, through the blessing of the Holy Spirit, his head knowledge was 
turned into heart convictions. He, therefore, resolved to resign his situation and 
come to Calcutu for Christian baptism and further instruction, though distinctly 
warned that while a student in the mission he could only obtain subsistence allow- 
ance, which did not exceed a tenth part of his salary in Jubbuipore. In the face of 
this warning, however, he determined to come. On the morning of Sabbath, 13th 
August, he arrived at the Mission-house ; and on the evening of that day, in the 
Freemasons' Hall, Mr Macdonald had the joy of administering to him the sealing 
ordinance. 



82 CALCUTTA. 

Government Mohammedan College, and after ;^iooo had 
been paid for it, ;^26oo remained as the nucleus of a 
building fund. Mr Macdonald officiated as temporary 
pastor. The missionaries would have addressed themselves 
with equal vigour to the task of obtaining new mission pre- 
mises, had they been able to convince themselves that the 
Establishment would not on any terms consent to their 
retention of the former buildings, but to the last they 
refused to believe that the liberal proposals of the Free 
Church on the subject would be sternly refused. At length, 
a letter which reached Calcutta on January 22, 1844, 
dashed all their hopes on the subject, and let them know 
that they were face to face with perhaps the greatest diffi- 
culty they had ever had to encounter in the East. Native 
houses, as a rule, are bamboo and mud huts, while the 
great houses of wealthy natives are family mansion-houses, 
which, as a rule, they will on no account let to Europeans ; 
and where to obtain a building to accommodate nearly 1000 
pupils it puzzled the missionaries to know. Yet no edifice 
less than this would suffice, for at the examination held a few 
days before, the roll — which was always expurgated on the 
ist of each month, every scholar who had been absent 
during the whole of the previous month without satisfactory 
explanation being remorselessly struck out — had on it 893 
names in the school, and 36 in the college department — or 
929 in all. Happily it was vacation time, and thus a few 
precious days were given to look out for new school rooms. 
Not merely the missionaries and converts, but the senior 
pupils hunted up and down the native city, in the hope that 
the uninhabited mansion of some baboo (native gentleman 
or nobleman) might be found to let or to sell. At last, 
after long and tantalising disappointment, a huge pile of 
building in the form of a square, in the aristocratic Nim- 
tollah Street, excited hopes, and these grew bright when 
it became understood that the proprietress, a widow whose 
husband had become bankrupt, occupied only the Zenana 



NEGO TIA TIONS FOR NE W PREMISES. 8 3 

or female apartments attached as a wing to the square, and 
could, if she pleased, without detriment to herself, let the 
square building itself, which was on a scale of sufficient 
magnitude to accommodate looo pupils. The widow, through 
her only son, who was wont to come to Dr Duff on friendly 
visits, and was favourable to the letting of the house, was 
led to feel that it would be for her pecuniary advantage 
to consent to the proposals made to her, but her guru^ or 
family priest, and other Brahmans soon put evil suggestions 
into her mind. Might not, said they, the Europeans eat 
beef within the building, and thus hopelessly defile it ? Of 
course they might, and probably would. For this, there- 
fore, and other reasons, she suddenly changed her mind, 
and after saying that she would let the premises, said next, 
with yet more decision, that she would not The mis- 
sionaries were greatly cast down on receiving this intelli- 
gence, but they consoled themselves by purchasing a very 
eligible site in the same street, which had then unexpectedly 
come into the market, for permanent premises, though, of 
course, this would not satisfy their present necessity. To 
their surprise and gratification, a letter was received from 
the widow's European man of business, who was led to take 
an interest in the matter through the late excellent Mr R. 
Rose, a tried friend of the mission, stating that the lady had 
again changed her mind, and that she was willing to let the 
square building on condition that no beef should be eaten 
therein, that she should be allowed to remove the sacred 
mud floor of the temple part of it, and leave the vacuity to 
be filled up by the missionaries anyway they pleased. A 
deed of lease for five years was prepared ; and early next 
morning Dr Duff, with Mr Rose and the man of business, 
hurried to the house, — the widow, behind the purdah, 
authorising her mark to be annexed to the deed, and Dr 
Duflf signing it in behalf of the mission. With deep thank- 
fulness to the Disposer of all events, they closed with her 
offer. It was now felt that, for the time at least, the crisis 



84 CALCUTTA. 

was at an end. The heathens of the old bigoted party were 
greatly depressed in spirits on finding that the institution 
was, after all, to go on, whilst the pupils, actual and pro- 
spective, were proportionately elated. 

On Monday, the 4th March 1844, the institution opened 
with teachers, monitors, and 791 pupils present on a roll of 
upwards of 1000, only it was now in NimtoUah Street, and 
not, as previously, in Comwallis Square. Nor was the 
library entirely destitute of books. Friends, European and 
native, had made donations collectively amounting to about 
1 100 volumes, whilst a Hcrschell's ten-foot telescope, also 
presented to the mission by Mr Stewart, son of Dr Stewart, 
formerly of Moulin, Dingwall, and the Canongate, Edin- 
burgh, became the nucleus of a fresh set of apparatus. 

The Disruption affected most of the branch stations, as 
well as the central institution and church. Khoilas and 
Mahendra had gone to occupy Ghospara in June 1843, 
before the news of the Disruption had reached India. 
Some time afterwards, the St Stephen's congregation of the 
Established Church claimed, and in November 1844 ob- 
tained, the buildings there, the two catechists being with- 
drawn. An arrangement was come to, by which the Free 
Church was allowed to retain Culna, the one fragment of 
salvage from the great Disruption wreck. Taki it was beyond 
the power of the Establishment to meddle with, belonging 
as it did to Hindoo zemindars, and not to the mission. 
Shortly after the Disruption, the baboos, finding the place 
very unhealthy for European teachers, removed the school 
to Baranagur, the seat of their town residence, a populous 
suburb on the Hooghly, north of Calcutta. After the 
transfer, it contained 200 scholars. The teacher, Mr 
Fyfe, was a devoted man, and, in 1844, he applied to be 
received as a candidate for the ministry. In that year, also, 
Jagadishwar Bhattacharjya, Prasunna Kumar Chatterjee, 
and Lai Behari De, made a similar application. 

In May 1844, there appeared the first number of the 



BAPTISM OF FIVE JE WISH CONVERTS. 8$ 

Calcutta Review^ a quarterly which has continued till now, 
discussing Indian affairs with an amount of knowledge 
which our home quarterlies are not in circumstances to 
rival.* 

On the last Sabbath of July 1844, Gobindo, a young 
man who had for years previously been a student in the 
institution, received the sealing rite, and on December 8th of 
the same year, high hopes were raised by the admission into 
the Church of five Jewish converts. A man of that nationality, 
called Isaac, had been brought into intercourse with Captain 
Roxburgh, a member of the Church of England, and subse- 
quently of the Free Church. In this way, some desire was 
awakened in his mind to inquire into the truth of Christi- 
anity. Eventually he was led to apply to the missionaries, 
bringing three others of the same nationality along with him. 
Isaac himself was a rabbi ; another, of patriarchal age and 
aspect, was called Abraham ; a third was a young man named 
Joseph ; a fourth was Joseph's wife, and the daughter of 
old Abraham. It was soon arranged that they should come 
every Sunday morning to Dr Duff's house, and bring along 
with them as many more of their race as could be induced 
to attend. In point of fact, about a dozen, on an average, 
were wont to come in for biblical instruction. The first 
grand object was to search the Scriptures, and prove from 
them that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah promised to 
the fathers. The varied processes by which this examina- 

. * The projector of the Calcutta Revteiv was the celebrated Indian historian, Mr 
(now Sir John) Kaye. After the publication of two or three numbers, he was 
obliged to leave India in bad health. Dr Duff, who, before it was actually started, 
had a^^reed, on certain conditions with regard to its friendly bearing towards 
Christianity and Christian missions, to be a regular contributor, now became sole 
editor, and he continued to retain the arduous and responsible office till he left India 
in 1849, when he was succeeded by Mr (afterwards Dr) Mackay. Dr Mackay 
c >mposed beautifully, but his health was at all times feeble, and finding that he was 
unable to bring out the numbers with perfect punctuality, he resigned, and was 
succeeded by Mr (now Dr) Thomas Smith, who held the editorship for some 
years. The missionaries powerfully supported Christian truth in the Review^ while 
that important organ of public opinion was in their hands. It was a high compli- 
ment to their talents when it was temporarily given over to them, and, indeed, out- 
side the senatus of a university, it would not be easy to find in the same institution 
three men associated together, who in succession were adjudged worthy of editing a 
first-class quarterly review. 

(391) 7 



86 CALCUTTA, 

tion was carried on cannot be detailed here. Suffice it to 
say that, after a time, the first four that came were led to 
rejoice that in Jesus Christ they had found the true Messiah, 
the Redeemer of the world. And believing in Him with the 
whole heart, they were by Dr Duff, on the evening of the day 
already referred to, joyfully admitted into the Christian 
Church. The rabbi then held up his infant daughter for 
baptism, and would have presented also his little boy, had the 
child not been carried off from his house by a mob of ruffian 
Jews, and retained, so that a writ of habeas corpus was 
necessary for his recovery. In 1848, two of the converts, 
Abraham and Isaac, died within a few days of each other. 
And nothing could well exceed the strength of their faith in 
the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, and the triumphant 
joy of their exit to be for ever with Him in glory. 

The first examination of the institution in Nimtollah 
Street was felt to be of much interest, on account of the 
danger so recently escaped. Owing to its distance from the 
European part of the city, and other reasons, it was held in 
the Town Hall, on Friday, 27 th December 1844, when, 
excluding about 200 from Baranagur, there were upwards of 
1 200 present, there being on the roll of the central institution 
1257 — namely, 1142 in the school, and 115 in the college 
department, with 21^^ in that of Baranagur. The average 
attendance in the central institution during the year had 
been 910 ; the greatest number present at any one time, 988. 
The day after the institution was opened, 1019 were actually 
present. These were splendid statistics, and were all the 
more remarkable that they were reached at so early a period 
after the Disruption. 

Shortly before this. Sir Henry Hardinge, the Governor- 
General, in Council had issued an order of a very enhghtened 
character, designed at once to give an impulse to the cause 
of education in Bengal, and obtain for the public service 
more efficient agents than had hitherto been possessed. 
Till this time, in selecting young men to fill official situations, 



A LIBERAL ENACTMENT ILLIBERALLY TREATED. Z^ 

even the alumni of the Government colleges had been 
thoughtlessly, if not even designedly, overlooked ; whilst the 
case was worse with the most distinguished students in the 
missionary institutions. Sir Henry, feeling the injustice and 
impolicy of this arrangement, enjoined that for the future, 
when a situation had to be filled up, and there were a 
number of candidates for it, preference should be given to 
those who had received a liberal education. The conductors 
of non-governmental institutions were, at the same time, 
invited to send in lists drawn up according to a prescribed 
form, of the most deserving young men under their care, 
that, after proper inquiry, these might rank with the best 
alumni of the Government schools and colleges as eligible 
candidates for public situations. Nor was it simply to high 
and well paid offices that this order was to refer. If a man 
who could read, and a second who could not, applied 
together for the same humble post under Government, then, 
other qualifications being equal, the reader was to be pre- 
ferred. Complaints were made by the missionaries of the 
manner in which subordinates, jealous of their influence as 
educationists, prescribed such subjects for examination as 
would necessarily put students in an institution like Dr 
Duff's at a serious disadvantage, and how they succeeded in 
rendering the gazetting system, conceived with such liberality 
and fairness, a dead letter. That the complaints of the 
missionaries were well founded, was publicly admitted by 
the home authorities. In Sir Charles Wood's celebrated 
education despatch, published in 1854, the following frank 
admission is made : — 

Sec. 74. " We shall not enter upon the causes which, as we foresaw, 
have led to the failure of that part of the resolutions which provided for 
the annual submission to Government of lists of meritorious students. 
It is sufficient for our present purpose to observe that no more than 
forty-six persons have been gazetted in Bengal up to this time, all 0/ 
whom were students in the Governmeftt colleges.^' [The italics are ours.] 

The gazetting system was consequently abolished. Had 
it been impartially worked, it would have been of great value 



88 CALCUTTA. 

not simply to the educated natives, but to Government; 
and great discredit attaches to those who accorded, even to 
the alumni of Government colleges, only a fraction of their 
rights, and denied to the pupils of the great missionary 
institutions every atom of the justice which was their due. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EXCITING SCENES. 

The missionaries had looked forward with eager joy to the 
time when Khoilas and Mahendra would stand forth as 
heralds of the Cross to their countrymen, and their first 
efforts for the conversion of souls were in all respects 
encouraging. It pleased God, however, to summon His 
servants to another sphere than that for which their earthly 
instructors had designed them. Early in 1844, Khoilas* 
health had begun to give way, and in the month of March, 
of the same year, an attack of cholera so thoroughly 
prostrated him, that he expected to go, and, losing all fear 
of death, repeated the first verse of the hymn beginning — 

" The hour of my departure's come.** 
Though he nominally recovered, the disease left his consti- 
tution so shattered, that he fell into an atrophic decline. 
When death visibly drew nigh, he manifested perfect tran- 
quillity of soul and firm faith in his Saviour ; and finally, at 
one in the morning of the 26th February 1845, "without 
a sigh, a struggle, a movement of any sort in his attenuated 
bodily frame, his spirit quietly departed unto the Lord.'* 
The Rev. Mr Macdonald, of Calcutta, wrote a memoir of 
him, in which he expresses the confidence he had in the 
thorough Christian character of this native disciple. 

Less than two months more saw the gifted Mahendra on 
his deathbed. He was cut off by cholera on the 26th 



THE BARREN FIELD YIELDS FRUITS. 89 

February 1845. During his brief illness, his brain was 
affected and his mind wandered, but even then salvation by 
Christ and missionary work among his countrymen were 
the subject of his incoherent speeches. During intervals of 
calmness, he gave most satisfactory evidence of his faith, 
often repeating, ** I am not afraid to die ; oh, no. I know 
in whom I have believed. I am ready to die — to die with- 
out any regret — resting on my Saviour ! " * 

If 1845 was marked by such mournful events as the deaths 
of Khoilas and Mahendra, exciting incidents of another 
character were to render it for ever memorable. 

It is almost a rule in the Church of Christ that, when the 
followers of the Redeemer become exceedingly impressed 
with the barrenness of the spiritual field they cultivate, and 
are driven to prayer on the subject, plants of grace are just 
about to spring up. On January 20, 1845, Mr Macdonald 
wrote lamenting that out of all the pupils actually attending 
the institution during the previous year, not one had been 
baptized, the young man admitted into the church in July 
having ceased to be a student five years before. He had no 
suspicion when he penned this lament that within a few hours 
a great and exciting drama of conversions from tlie institu- 
tion was just about to begin. The day after Mr Macdonald 
wrote his letter, Guru Das Mitra, one of the most promis- 
ing among the pupils, came to the Mission -house as an 
inquirer, and was shortly afterwards baptized. Next a case 
of conversion with romantic accompaniments, occurred in 
connection with the mission. A young man — called Umesh 
Chandra Sirkar, a student in the institution, whose father was 
dewan, or chief counsellor of a rajah — had secret leanings 
towards Christianity ; and when about sixteen years old, he 
began to teach his " wife," or rather the girl betrothed to 

• The high mathematical ability of Mahendra has already been mentioned. Nor 
was this all. He distinguished himself in logic, metaphysics, theology, &c Indeed, 
he had a mind capable of grappling with any subject He was, moreover, an excel- 
lent teacher, but, above all, he was a real missionary of the Cross. Bengal lost much 
when it lost Mahendra. 



go CALCUTTA. 

him, and who was now about ten years old. This required 
to be done in a covert manner, for female education among 
the higher classes was then looked upon as a crime. The 
young couple sat up secretly till one or two o'clock in the 
morning, engaged in study, she being the pupil and her 
betrothed husband the teacher. Presently, through the 
instrumentality of these instructions, the young girl became 
a convert, and now a good reader in Bengali On perus- 
ing that portion of the " Pilgrim's Progress '* which speaks 
of the flight of Christian from the City of Destruction, she 
felt that her own and her ** husband's " case was mirrored 
forth, and proposed that they should forthwith escape from 
the heathen household in which they lived to Dr Duff's 
residence, as at that time there was no Mission-house. The 
husband hesitated for a little, but finally consented to the 
project Hindoo females are so fenced round in the East, 
that for a time the pair could not obtain the opportunity 
for departure which they sought. At last on a great festival 
day, which happened to be the Sabbath, when friends 
were off their guard, Umesh and his wife succeeded in 
effecting their escape. Both stood firm against all efforts of 
the relatives, and the rajah, who visited Dr Duff''s house in 
state, to induce them to return home ; and Sir Lawrence 
Peel, cousin of the statesman, perceiving the falsehood of the 
affidavits which represented the young couple as detained 
against their will by the missionary, refused a writ of habeas 
corpus. They were baptized by Dr Duff in his house on 
April 27, 1845, to prevent the violent assault which was fully 
meditated and planned had they been taken to the church. 
On Monday, May 5th, a young man, called Bykanta 
Nath, came for baptism, and was sent by Dr Duff to Mr 
Thomas Smith's house for protection, as it was farther from 
the native city. The brother came soon afterwards, and, 
says Mr Smith — 

" Such a scene as ensued I never witnessed before, and such a day, I 
trust, I shall never be called to pass again. The ingenuity and deter- 



THE FULL TIDE OF BLESSING, 9 1 

mination of Brajanath (the heathen brother) were beyond anything I 
could have conceived. With the exception of a few minutes that he 
threw himself down on the floor, and fell asleep from perfect exhaustion, 
he never ceased, from five in the morning till seven in the evening, to ply 
his brother with all manner of arguments and solicitations. Blandish- 
ments, reproaches, and threats, arguments and abuse, he used with a 
d^^ee of rhetorical effect which our greatest orators might well envy." 

All, however, was without avail ; Bykanta stood firm. The 
same scene was repeated for two hours next morning, but 
again without result. Then, in the absence of Mr Smith at 
the institution, the brother persuaded Bykanta to see his 
aunt, who was in a palanquin outside the gate, being afraid 
to enter for fear of caste defilement, and who, it was repre- 
sented, had eaten nothing since she left home. All this of 
course was a plot, and no sooner did the young man sit 
down on the side of the palanquin than he was forced into it 
and carried away. A Dr Balfour, then at Mr Smith's, with 
Jagadishwar and a servant, followed to prevent the seizure, 
but they were overpowered by about thirty natives, and had 
the mortification of witnessing the young man carried off. 
A writ of habeas corpus was obtained, but to render the law 
without effect the brother against whom it was issued and 
the convert were removed to the house of a wealthy baboo, 
where every effort was made to pervert the conscience or 
corrupt the morals of the young man with the view of pre- 
venting his being baptized. He came nobly through this 
trying ordeal, and it becoming dangerous, with the writ 
of habeas corpus in force, to keep him permanently in con- 
finement, there was no help for it at last except to let him 
return to the mission. 

Whilst Mr Smith was hunting one evening for Bykanta, he 
went into the house of a Brahman of his own acquaintance, 
and wished to be conducted to the residence of a pupil 
called Banko Behari Basu, living in the vicinity, who had 
reported that he had held an interview with the missing 
convert, whom he found in his house crying and in chains. 
The domestics of the Brahman soon returned, not with 



92 CALCUTTA. 

intelligence as to where Banko lived, but with himself. 
On seeing him Mr Smith, merely for the sake of saying 
something till he could take him out and speak with him 
privately, put the question — 

" * Well, Banko, are you not afraid to come out on so dark a night ? ' 
* Oh, no,' was his reply. * What,* said Mr Smith, * are you not afraid 
that I should take you and make you a Christian ? You know your 
countrymen always say that we make Christians by force/ * It is to 
be a Christian that I wish,' was his earnest reply. * I am a Christian. 
I do not want to have anything more to do with Hindooism.* * What,' 
said the Brahman, * you leave Hindooism ? You leave our religion ? 
Why will you do that?* * Because,* said he, *your religion is full of 
idolatry, and superstition, and wickedness.* " 

Of course the Brahman forthwith reported all this to an 
uncle with whom Banko was staying, his father and mother 
being dead, on which the youth was summoned into the 
presence- of his relatives, and informed that he must either 
abjure Christianity or quit the house for ever. He chose 
the latter side of the alternative, went to Mr Smith's, 
obtained shelter, and on -Wednesday the 13th May was 
baptized by Mr Ewart. On Sabbath, the i8th, another 
student, Harish Chandra, came forward, and was bap- 
tized on the 25 th by Mr Macdonald. Finally, on Saturday, 
31st May, a young man, Benemadab, who had been 
removed from the institution about three years before, 
presented himself as a candidate for the sacred rite. He 
was baptized on the ist July. Thus, before 1845 was half 
finished, no fewer than seven young men from the institu- 
tion had either been baptized or were just about to be so. 

One does not require either to wonder or complain that 
great excitement arose in Calcutta, and the cry of Hindooism 
in danger was raised. The seven were looked upon as the 
normal products of the teaching in the institution, while it 
was alleged, and it must be confessed with justice, that a 
great many more of the young men were Christians in heart, 
and were restrained only by fear from soliciting baptism. 
In every street, in every bazaar, wherever a knot of Hindoos 
gathered to converse, the recent baptisms were the subject 



A BABOO COMES TO THE FRONT. 93 

of conversation. All missionaries were bad, the Free 
Church ones were worst of all, and as for Dr Duff, no un- 
cultivated savage, no beast of prey, was more to be dreaded. 
In the alarm that prevailed all sects and sections of the 
Hindoo community, the stiffly orthodox Dharma Sabha, the 
Vedantist Brahma Sabha, that founded by the late Rammo- 
han Roy, and the Tattwabodhini Sabha, yet more remote 
fronh popular Hindooism, all made common cause. Meet- 
ing after meeting took place, and numerous schemes were 
discussed for preventing further baptisms. At length a pro- 
ject was set on foot which, it was believed, would buttress 
Hindooism, and render it less vulnerable to the assaults of 
the Free Church or other missions. There was in the 
Indian community a baboo, the venerated Muti Lai Sil,* 
believed to be what worldly people call " worth " half 
a million sterling. A son of this gentleman had been 
at the Hindoo College, but being made to stand up on a 
form for some petty offence, his father thought this an 
insult to himself — the semi-millionaire — and wished the 
teacher reprimanded. Not succeeding according to his 
desires, he withdrew the pupil from the college, and set up a 
seminary of his own. Wishing to put it in charge of men 
who would abstain from introducing any Christianity into 
it (one might be even a full millionaire without being deeply 
read in Church history), he selected the Jesuits of St Xavier's 
College as people who could be thoroughly trusted in such 
a matter. Eight short months saw a rupture between the 
allies. Sil charged the Jesuit fathers with violating their 
engagement not to teach Romanism to the pupils, and, 
with the promptitude of a Bismarck, turned them out. It 
was hard to supply the lack of efficient service which this 
act of discipline produced, and the seminary fell to a low 
ebb. A gentleman of such public spirit and unimpeachable 
orthodoxy was clearly the very person whom the crisis re- 
quired, and accordingly when it was intimated at a public 

* This word is pronounced like the Enj^lish one, ual. 



94 CALCUTTA. 

meeting that the baboo, Muti Lai Sil, would come to the 
rescue of endangered Hindooism, the plaudits which arose 
were loud and long. Sil undertook to give up a spacious 
mansion near the Free Church institution for the establish- 
ment of an anti-missionary college, whilst for its current 
expenses, when it started, he would subscribe what would 
come to about ;;^5oo annually. He would be gratified if 
they would name the new seminary Sil's ^Free College. 
They would not. Great as Sil's doings had been, there 
were others worthy of all honour too. Some present at 
the meeting had promised a clear donation of ;;^iooo, be- 
sides monthly subscriptions. They were not disposed to 
sink their names in that of SiL On hearing this that 
gentleman gave way, and consented that the new college 
should be called the Hindoo Charitable Institution. Nay, 
more, till the confederates were ready to act with efficiency, 
he would transfer his seminary (the ex-Jesuit one) to the 
building which he had given up, and would take in addi- 
tional pupils till the whole number amounted to a thousand. 
He would give a donation to it of ;;^3 0,000, and an annual 
contribution of ;;^i2oo. (Thunders of applause.) The 
transfer was made on Monday, the 2d June 1845, and Sil's 
Free College, or Sil's College, was inaugurated in presence 
of the Rajahs Radhakant Deb and Bahadur, with other 
Calcutta magnates. Then all the force of the Hindoo 
sabhas (synods and societies), and of Hindooism generally, 
was brought to bear on the parents of the pupils attending 
the Free Church and other missionary seminaries, to compel 
them to withdraw their sons and send them to SiPs. After 
many parents had succumbed their boys still held out, but 
finally most of them were either intimidated, or in some 
cases literally starved, into a surrender. As the rise or fall 
of the barometer indicates the character of the weather pre- 
vailing, so the increase or decrease of the pupils in attendance 
on a mission seminary affords a wonderfully correct idea of 
the amount of anti-evangelistic feeling in the native com- 



THE FINALE AT LEAST FOR A TIME. 95 

munity at any particular time, and we are astonished to find 
that the daily attendance fell only about 300. On the 7th 
of May there were 916 present, and on the 31st 618, but 
most of those withdrawn were from the highest or most 
advanced classes. Still what may be called the mission 
barometer was correct in its indications. It unequivocally 
pointed to very serious storm, but still storm which would 
pass away before long. At a meeting of all the pupils in 
the hall of the institution, Dr Duff told them to inform their 
parents, guardians, and neighbours that no diminution of 
numbers would make them desist from their labours, and 
that they might as well wait till the great Ganges rolled 
away and became dry land, as wait till they closed the insti- 
tution. A few years later the Friend of India had an article 
drawing attention to the state of the institution opened 
under Sil's auspices with such a flourish of triumphs. Hap- 
pily for its permanence the donations had been funded 
and yielded interest, but the annual contributions had 
rapidly diminished as time rolled on. Teachers had re- 
quired to be dismissed through want of funds to con- 
tinue to pay them, and yet the sight of their dismissal 
had not brought new subscribers or elicited actual money 
from the old. If the Friend was right — and we never saw 
any contradiction given to its allegations — the monthly 
subscriptions from the whole of Calcutta — the wealthiest 
city, it may be mentioned, in Asia — amounted to seven 
rupees, while the collector who went round with the book 
received eight for his services. In short, if we may be per- 
mitted to present the matter algebraically, the total monthly 
contributions to the college, stated in rupees, amounted to 
minus one. 

Meanwhile the Free Church institution was recovering 
its strength. At the examination of 31st December 1845, 
1049 were on the roll, of whom 76 were in the college de- 
partment Four months previously the convert Prasanna, 
formerly a Kulin Brahman, but who, happily for his minis- 



96 CALCUTTA, 

terial prospects, was the " husband of one wife," succeeded 
in carrying that one wife off from her village in a boat, she 
having been hitherto detained by her relatives against both 
his will and her own. On the 2d June she and the wife of 
another convert, Gobindo, were baptized together ; but if the 
Church was thus increased, it had about a couple of months 
previously sustained a diminution, Benemadab and Harish,. 
two of the seven converts of 1845, having been perverted 
to Romanism, being the only converts ever so perverted. 
This untoward event quickened the desires which had before 
been felt for the erection of a converts* home, and in the 
course of three days, contributions, on personal application 
by Dr Duff, to the amount of upwards of 10,000 rupees 
(^1000), mostly from Christians unconnected with the Free 
Church, were obtained for the purpose. The building was 
ready for use about May 1847. Except the two perverts 
all the others baptized were true to their professions, and on 
26th May 1846 four of them, Jagadishwar, Lai Behari De, 
Prasanna, and Behari LaI Singh were appointed catechists, 
as one stage of progress towards the holy ministry. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SORROW AND JOY — NATURAL DEATH AND SPIRITUAL BIRTHS. 

For sixteen years from the time that Dr Duff had gone 
forth as the first of the Church of Scotland's missionaries to 
the East, there had not been a single death among the or- 
dained European labourers at any of the Indian stations. 
In the ordinary course of providence this very favourable 
state of things could not be expected to last much longer, 
though only the omniscient Disposer of all events knew who 
would be the first to fall. 

On the morning of Wednesday, 25th August 1847, the 



DEATH OF THE REV, MR MACDONALD, 97 

Rev. Mr Macdonald, of Calcutta, went to the institution in 
his usual good health and buoyancy of spirits. His prayer 
for the conversion of the pupils, always fervent, was this 
time, as reported by Dr DufF, peculiarly solemn. The same 
evening he had a faint attack of fever, and in consequence 
remained at home from the institution next day. In the 
evening the fever returned upon him more strongly, and then 
for some little time subsequently, while tolerably well during 
the day, he was sleepless at night, and occasionally slightly 
delirious. Besides fever, he complained of a dull pain in 
his head, which rendered consecutive mental operations im- 
possible. On Tuesday, 31st, he seemed a great deal better, 
and, rising from his bed without assistance, walked into 
his study, and sat down at the table to enjoy the morning 
breeze. Soon after he began to feel drowsy. The doctor, 
when he came, recommended him to encourage this inclina- 
tion, and requested Mrs Macdonald to get the Venetians 
shut, and keep everything perfectly quiet. To the surprise 
of his friends, who to this time had never suspected serious 
danger, what supervened was not sleep but coma. When 
the medical man returned at noon, his practised eye enabled 
him speedily to discern the real state of his patient, and, 
giving strong remedies, and calling in fresh professional 
assistance, he did everything in his power to ward off the 
fatal result. But he found all his efforts vain, and at four 
in the afternoon communicated the sad intelligence that the 
case was hopeless. Two hours previously to this, Mr Mac- 
donald had become wholly unconscious, and showed no 
signs of life except heavy, stertorous breathing. At five 
minutes after the midnight which ushered in Wednesday the 
I St September, the heavy breathing ceased, and, **with a 
look holy, peaceful, and serene," lie passed away. On 
the following Sabbath his funeral sermon was preached by 
Dr Duff, to a deeply solemnised audience. The praise of 
Mr Macdonald of Calcutta is in all the Churches. He was 
a most devoted man of God, faithful and fearless in carryirg 



98 CALCUTTA, 

out his convictions of duty, and yet not morose, as many 
worldlings who held aloof from him thought, but with a 
joyous and even playful spirit He left behind him a widow 
and seven children, for whose temporary support a fund was 
raised. 

Mr Macdonald's remarkable prayer for the conversion of 
the pupils has already been noticed. The day after it was 
presented, Mr Ardwise, at that time teacher of the Barana- 
gar school, came to the Mission-house, bringing with him 
three students — Prankristo Ganguly, Kalidas Chakrabarta, 
and Surja Kumar Mukerji, all Brahmans, who, after long 
deliberation, had resolved to apply for baptism. Surja 
failed in the hour of trial, but Prankristo and Kalidas nobly 
passed through the terrible ordeal to which they were sub- 
jected by their relatives. In the afternoon of the same day, 
a fourth pupil of the Baranagar school, called Jodu Nath 
Baneijya, a Brahman like the others, arrived at the Mission- 
house, and stood firm against all efforts to induce him to 
return home. On Sabbath, the 5th September — the one 
on which funeral sermons were being preached for Mr Mac- 
donald — Dr Dufif baptized the three Brahman converts, 
along with an up-country Sudra, 27 years of age, in presence 
of the congregation which assembled in the evening, sorrow 
and joy being thus strangely commingled, as, indeed, they 
ever are in the Christian life. 

These baptisms, with one which occurred about the same 
time in connection with the Established Church of Scot- 
land's mission, galvanised the languishing confederacy into 
fresh life. 

On Sabbath, 19th September, a meeting was held to con- 
cert measures to stay the further progress of conversion. 
About 2000 attended* including Hindoos of all shades of 
thought, from the venerable men of ultra-conservative ten- 
dencies, who sighed for the * good old times,* when widows 
were burnt alive, agreeably to the holy shasters, to young 
Bengalees, who, when it could be slily done, ordered a 



GREAT OUTBURST OF WRATH, 99 

beefsteak and champagne at Wilson's or Spence*s, and 
having thus really finished their own castes beyond the pos- 
sibility of redemption, then thanked Gk)d that they were not 
wicked like those Christian converts who broke caste from 
conscientious motives. All Calcutta discussed the same 
questions as those which had been debated at the meeting, 
and various measures were publicly or privately suggested, 
one of them, which clearly emanated from a very practical, 
rather than a very pious mind, being to hire bludgeon-men 
(a too common Bengalee practice), and beat Dr Dufif nearly, 
if not quite, to death, — the evening fixed on being that of 
Sunday, when it was known that he would be returning in 
the dark through some narrow crooked lanes, from the in- 
stitution, where he always preached on Sabbath evening. 
The friends of the distinguished missionary counselled him 
to take care how he walked out, especially after dark, whilst 
he himself wrote to a well-meaning and influential baboo, 
stating that he would go out as freely as ever, whether by 
night or by day, in discharge of his ordinary duties ; 
showing how silly it was to think that even if the Hindoos 
succeeded in murdering him, his martyr death would be ad- 
vantageous to their cause ; and proposing a public discussion, 
as the claims of the two faiths could be settled only by 
argument and not by clubs. The baboo deemed discretion 
the better part of valour ; but an Irishman called Tuite, who 
had figured at Waterloo, seems to have felt his military and 
national instincts revive on finding that a contemplated 
battle was likely to fall through for want of a combatant, 
and not reflecting on the tremendous responsibility which 
in the sight of God he assumed, intimated his intention of 
heading the anti-Christian confederacy. A deputation was 
sent to Dr Dufl", challenging him to a private discussion. 
He, however, very properly insisted that the discussion 
should be public, and offered for the purpose the great hall 
of his institution, which was conveniently situated, and was 
capable of accommodating one thousand hearers. To this 



100 CALCUTTA, 

his Opponents were at first averse, but finally they jrielded the 
point To prevent a confused rambling over many subjects 
without hope of reaching a definite result, it was arranged that 
Dr Duff should deliver a series of weekly lectures on the 
evidences and doctrines of revealed rehgion, announcing the 
subject a week beforehand, so that all might come fully pre- 
pared with their objections. After every one had spoken, 
Dr Duff was to conclude with a general reply. For upwards 
of two months these lectures and discussions were regularly 
carried on amid crowded audiences. Gradually one after 
another of the native champions, being fairly silenced, gave 
up attending. At last the European leader himself disap- 
peared ; and Dr Duff, finding himself left in possession of 
the field, wound up earlier than he had anticipated with a 
concluding lecture and appeal. It is satisfactory to add 
that the Irishman subsequently sent Dr Duff a letter, ex- 
pressing regret for the part he had acted in the an ti- Christian 
crusade just described. It may also be added that, not- 
withstanding the outpourings of profanity and blasphemy on 
the part of some of the native speakers, these lectures and 
discussions did a vast deal of good. For a time, at least, 
they cleared a grossly foul irreligious atmosphere : atheism, 
materialism, and many other anti-Christian isms were driven 
from public view into their darksome hiding-places ; while 
the faith of the sincere was strengthened, and the convictions 
of the timid and wavering greatly confirmed. 

Before the close of the year another deeply interesting 
case of baptism occurred. Shib Chunder Banerjya, a Brah- 
man of the highest caste, was a student of the Hindu 
Government College. He had got hold of a New Testament 
when very young, and was so struck with the beauty of its 
teaching, and so impressed, that, when a heathen boy of 13, 
he repeated the Lord's Prayer in his devotions, instead of 
the Hindu prayers, all unknown to his idolatrous relatives. 
He had convictions of sin, but these passed away, and 
he turned and fought against Christianity. Though a student 



SHIB CHUNDER BANERJYA. lOI 

at the Hindu College, however, he attended a class in Dr 
DufPs house on Sabbath mornings, intended for young men 
like himself, and by this, Shib Chunder experienced the re- 
turn and deepening of convictions of sin, — he came to feel 
himself lost^ — his language was, " I am a lost man ; Chris- 
tianity may be true, and I may be saved ; if it is not, I am 
no worse ; / am lost; I will inquire/' Singularly enough, 
in his father's house he found some Christian works — how 
they came there he never knew — Doddridge, Romaine, 
Searle. He used, on returning from Dr Duff's class (which 
he attended without the knowledge of his heathen relatives), 
after partaking of the family meal, to shut himself up in a 
carriage that stood unused in his father's courtyard. There 
he spent the day in meditation, prayer, and reading — study- 
ing his Bible and the above-named books. As the day de- 
clined, he emerged from his place of concealment and set out 
for the institution, the doors of which were always open long 
before the Sabbath evening lecture began. Sometimes an 
hour or two would be spent in prayer and reading of the 
Word, wandering from room to room, and pouring forth 
the agonising desires of his heart to God for pardon and 
light Then came the lecture, from which he always derived 
profit. Finally he went home (after such a Sabbath-da/s 
exercise as is not often known even in a Christian land), 
encouraged to go on, though yet nominally a heathen. At 
length peace and light came : Shib Chunder was baptized 
towards the close of 1847, and ever since has held on his 
way devotedly, earnestly, consistently. He is a powerful 
and impressive speaker. Holding an important office under 
Grovernment, he unremittingly devotes all his spare time 
and strength to the blessed work of evangelising his 
countrymen. 

The examination of Mr Laing's orphanage, which took 
place on 7 th December, showed how thoroughly it had re- 
covered from Disruption losses. After the original orphans 
were surrendered, only five girls remained. Now, however, 

(891) 8 



I02 CALCUTTA, 

there were 36 — all boarders. Besides this, a day-school 
had been estabhshed for East Indian and Hindoo girls, and 
had been connected with the orphanage. On the evening 
of the examination day, seven of the orphans, all giving 
credible evidence of conversion, were baptized. One was 
a Jewess, the other six were Hindoos. 

Despite the Tuite controversy, 1848 opened hopefully. 
Readers may remember that in 1845, a young man, Surji, 
who was then seeking baptism, gave way in the hour of trial. 
He returned in January 1848, and was admitted to the 
Church on the 26th of that month. He stated that he had 
not conformed to Hindooism while living among idolaters. 
During 1848, the mission developed in various directions. 
Early in the year it occupied a new station at Bansberia [pro- 
perly Bangsabari], seven miles beyond the town of Hooghly. 
The Tatwa-bodhini, or Vedantist society, had a school there ; 
but a financial crisis in Calcutta compelled them to sell it, 
and the mission, through the exertions of Dr Duff (assisted 
by Mr Rose), became the purchasers. It derived importance 
from having in its immediate vicinity a holy place called 
Tribeni, visited at one season of the year by about 50,000 
pilgrims. Mr Chill, and Jagadishwar, were sent thither, 
Messrs Fyfe and Prasanna having gone shortly before to 
Culna, while Behari Lai Singh became attached to the Free 
Church congregation in Calcutta. 

Before the middle of the year five more orphans were 
baptized from Mr Laing's institution, twelve within eight 
months. The importance of this institution to the mission 
was very great, and the loyalty of the young men (Kulin 
Brahmans and others) in choosing as partners nominally low 
caste, but really well educated, girls from, the boarding 
school, rather than maidens of long pedigree, crass ignorance, 
and idolatrous belief, shows the sincerity with which these 
youths had embraced the Christian faith. Shortly after- 
wards, or to be more specific, on Saturday, loth June 1848, 
a young man from the institution, Dinanath Adhya by 



THE CALCUTTA FREE CHURCH. IO3 

name, who was awakened by a discourse of Dr Duflf's, in 
the text " My son, give me thy heart," came to the Mission- 
house, and after being subjected by his relatives to the 
usual ordeal, was baptized on Sabbath the i8th. 

Sunday, the 13th August, was a day worthy of being 
for ever remembered by the mission. It was the fifth anni- 
versary of the Calcutta disruption, and was signalised by 
the opening of the Free Church which that event necessi- 
tated. The congregation which had all along been charac- 
terised by a liberality well nigh unparalleled, had been sub- 
jected to severe trial in connection with the building of the 
church, but this now only enhanced the thankful rejoicing.* 

On Sabbath, ist October 1848, a purely Bengalee churcli 
was commenced under the pastorate of Mr Ewart. The 
vernacular was exceedingly acceptable to such members as 
Khoilas' and Mahendra's widows. Some of Miss Laings 
senior girls, many of the pupils . from the institution, with 
other Hindoos, more or less regularly attended. On the 
loth November 1848, the mission was strengthened by 
the arrival of Mr and Mrs Sinclalrj the former having been 
appointed to succeed Mr Macdonald. The pupils under the 
charge of the mission had increased during the year. In 
1847 the average on the roll of the institution had been 
1066 j in 1848 it was 11 54, besides which there were about 
200 (three-fourths of them Brahmans) at Culna, 200 at 
Bansberia, and 150 at Baranagar, or about 1700 in all, 
not taking into account Miss Laing's orphanage, and a 
school founded by Mrs Ewart for Jewish and Armenian 



* The purchase for ;^xooo of a site for the Free Church has already been men- 
tioned. After noble subscriptions to the building fund had been obtained, the 
erection of the edifice commenced. By January 1846 it was far advanced towards 
completion, when the roof fell in with a terrible crash, crushing the pillars of poor 
Indian brick which supported it, and totally pounding them to dust. Examination 
showed that the walls had been so injured by the wrench which they had received, 
that they required to be taken down and the building commenced anew at an in- 
creased expense, about equal to that at which the estimate had been made for its 
first erection. On the second plan an iron roof was put on the walls, requiring no 
pillars for its support, and finally, the church was opened at an' expense first and last, 
of about ;£x3,ooo. Mr Macdonald was the temporary pastor for three years, after 
which Mr Mackail took its spiritual, oversight. 



104 CALCUTTA, 

girls. The attainment of these great results had been facili- 
tated by the fact, that the excitement which marked the 
latter part of 1847 ^^d been succeeded by profound apathy, 
it being a law of social life, that a calm succeeding a tem- 
pest is as deep as the previous storm was severe. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE MISSION AFTER DR DUFF*S TEMPORARY RECALL TO 
EUROPE. 

The movement for the recall of Dr Duff to fill the theo- 
logical chair, left vacant by the death of the great Dr 
Chalmers, the decided rejection by the missionary of the 
tempting invitation, his* consent to return home on a 
temporary enterprise of a solely missionary character, and 
the routes by which he journeyed to obtain full acquaintance 
with the wants of the several mission stations, have already 
been narrated in the home section of this volume. It is 
unnecessary to repeat them here, and we proceed at once 
to the narrative of occurrences in the Calcutta mission dur- 
ing the period which we have now reached. 

It commenced hopefully on the 26th April 1849, just 
after Dr Duffs departure for the south of India. Mr Smith 
baptized a Brahman called Chandra Kanta Chuckerbutty, 
and on the 2d May, admitted into the church a low caste 
native, Ishwar Chandra Sircar, whose daughter, a little girl 
of six or seven, was placed in Miss Laing's orphanage. 
Ishwar died a few months afterwards. Dwarkanath Das 
Basu, once a pupil of the institution, and then a student of 
medicine in London, where he was baptized, on his return 
became a communicant in the Calcutta Free Church. 

Shortly after* the events now spoken of, when Dr Duflf 
had returned from Ceylon, and previous to his de- 



CHIN SURAH OCCUPIED, I OS 

parture for the Punjaub, an important step forward was 
taken by the occupation of Chinsurah, formerly the capital 
of the Dutch possessions in Bengal* On the 20th August 

1849, ^^ opened the chapel generously given over to 
the Free Church by the London Missionary Society. At 
the communion held in connection with the opening 
service, there were twenty-five participants. Next day an 
English school was opened by him, when 350 promising 
youths ^at once presented themselves for admission. At 
first Mr Fyfe took charge of it, leaving Culna where he had 
laboured immediately before to Prasanna, but in August 

1850, the Rev. Ebenezer Miller arrived from Capetown to 
become its superintendent.f The development of the 
Chinsurah school or institution was extremely rapid. So early 
as the time when the Assembly Report for 1849 ^^^ penned, 
it had about 600 names on the roll. At all the stations 
taken together, there were then 2300. 

The same year (1849), Banku Behari Basu, Baikanta 
Nath De, Uma Charan Ghosh, Dinanath and Guru Das 
Mitra, all five converts of the mission, addressed a letter 
to the Presbytery of Calcutta, expressing their desire to 
study for the ministry, and were accepted as probationary 
catechists. 

In the early years of a mission, an individual baptism is of 
so much importance that, even in a brief sketch like the 
present, it requires to be recorded ; but after admissions 

• Chinsurah is situated about twenty-five miles north of Calcutta, on the right 
bank of the Hooghly, that is, the same bank as that on which Culna and Bansberia 
stand. Chinsurah and Hooghly, the latter at one time the capital of the Portuguese 
territory in Bengal, really constitute but one town with about 50,000 inhabitants. 
The London Missionary Society had cultivated it for about fifty years, but with so 
little fruit, that towards the end of 1848 they intimated their intention of occupying 
it no more. The chapel, costing ;^iooo, chiefly raised on the spot, was offered by 
the London Missionary Society to the Free Church as a gift, on condition that the 
pure Calvinistic doctrines, agreeably to the terms of the title-deed, should ever con- 
tinue to be preached in it, but Dr Duff recommended that, as a very small return 
for so much kindness, ;^i5o contributed by the home Society to the edifice, should 
be refunded. This accordingly was done. 

t Scarcely had Mr Miller reached his destination, when he was subjected to a 



Tery heavy trial ; his wife, a highly gifted lady, having been cut off by cholera 
within forty-eight hours of their arrival at Chinsurah. Some short poems which she 
wrote shortly l^fore, showed at once her powers and her piety, and made one feel 
that she might have done much for India had she been spared in life. 



I06 CALCUTTA, 

into the Church grow more numerous, the significance of 
each one— viewed in its relation to the progress of the work 
— becomes less. In future, then, we shall only record those 
specially interesting or important. In 1850, a Kulin 
Brahman, Shyama Charan Mookerjee, was admitted into 
the Church. He aimed at supporting himself honourably 
by iron-founding, to which he was then serving an appren- 
ticeship. On 17 th October of the same year, a Brahmanee, 
called Priya, Guru Das Mitras*s wife, was baptized; on 
29th December, a Mussulman, named Muhammad Bakar, 
and early in 185 1, another convert from the same faith, 
called Ele Bua, were admitted to the Church. The educa- 
tional statistics of the mission on January 6, 185 1, stood 
as follows : — 

The Calcutta Institution on the roll . 1328* 

Chinsurah 740 

Bansberia 204 

Cuhia 200 

2472 

Mrs Ewart's female school for Jewesses, Greeks, 

and Armenians + . . . . 104 

Miss Laing's, about .... 60 

Jagadishwar's wife's, about ... 20 

In Behari Lai's " pay-school" . . . 154—338 

Grand total . . . 2810 

In looking at these figures, the large numbers to which 

* This high number is the more remarkable that not long before the Hindoos had 
been excited about four conversions which took place in connection with the London 
Missionary Society's institution at Bhowanipore, in the south of Calputta — an insti* 
tution, it may be remarked in passing, framed on the model of Dr Duft's. They had 
in consequence been discussing whether some method might not be adopted of 
receiving back into caste any Christian converts who might wish to re-enter Hindoo 
society. The period will come, though we think it is not vet very near, when the 
way back into caste will be made extremely easy. The probable effect of this inno- 
vation will be the very opposite of what those half-liberal Hindoos who advocate it 
expect The reform will strike a mortal blow at caste, instead of reviving its power. 
For every one who walks back into caste, a hundred at least will ning off its 
trammels, being encouraged to do this from knowing that they may remain outside 
in freedom as long as they like, and yet be welcomed back with open arms whenever 
they are pleased to return. 

t A little incident connected with Mrs Ewart's school is worthy of being mentioned 
here.^ The Bible, it need scarcely be stated, was used in the classes. On account 
of this, the chief rabbi anathematised the school, with the effect of making the young 
Jewesses withdraw. Mrs Ewart was informed that they would be sent back if she 
would not require them to read the New Testament. She felt that the demand was 
one which she dared not grant, and stood firm. By and by the rabbi himself gave 
way, and wished his own two granddaughters to be placed under her tuition. 



BAPTISMS, 107 

Chinsurah has already attained are very notable, and a point 
which the figures will not reveal is worth attention — the extent 
to which the converts of the mission were becoming helpful 
in its operations. When these statistics were published, 
Prasanna was at Chinsurah, Jagadishwar at Bansberia, and 
Lai Behari De, without European aid at Culna. On 12 th 
November 185 1, the three senior catechists just named 
were licensed to the ministry, after passing a very satisfactory 
examination. 

Some months previously (on Wednesday, July 185 1), Mr 
Mackay had baptized two young men, called Bhabun Mohan 
Basu and Ramchandra Basu, cousins, and both pupils from 
the institution. The missionaries in Calcutta, with fine 
brotherly feeling, used as a rule to take baptisms in turns, the 
minister of the Free Church also for this purpose being re- 
garded as one of the fraternity; and on 6th August, Mr Ewart 
admitted into the Church a learned Mussulman, rather past 
the meridian of life, called Maulavi Abdulla. The importance 
of this latter case will be apparent when it is mentioned that 
a Maulavi among the Moslems holds the same position and 
exerts the same influence as a clergyman, or perhaps even a 
theological professor among ourselves. On 28th December 
185 1, Mr Ewart baptized a Brahman, aged upwards of twenty, 
called Samacharan Bhatturjya, with a Sudra, the latter com- 
paratively uneducated. Mr Mackay, writing in July 1852, 
says that, including children, there had been seven baptisms 
during the week. The only one of these which requires 
special notice is that of two young men, Chandra Kant 
Mitra, and Khoilas Chandra Ghosh. Khoilas was the 
first fruit of Jagadishwar's missionary life. On September 
I, another Khoilas (Khoilas Chandra Kundu) was baptized. 
He was one of the most distinguished pupils in the institu- 
tion, and his mother — a real woman — preferred her natural 
aflfection for him to her reputation with her co-religionists, 
broke her caste, took up her residence, with the welcome 
approval of the missionaries, along with her son, and was to 



I08 CALCUTTA. 

him a loving mother as before. Only one case of the same 
nature had previously occurred since the commencement of 
the mission. On 26th .December 1852, a first year's college 
student, Golab Chandra Biswas, was baptized, and some of 
his fellow-pupils came to see his admission into the Church, 
clubbing together to pay the hire of conveyance for the 
purpose. 

Here we must interrupt the narrative of accessions to the 
Church, to mtimate some changes in the European agency 
of the mission. In 1852, the Ladies' Society for Female 
Education in India took the opportunity of Miss Laing's 
temporary return home to recruit her health, to carry out a 
design which had been talked of years before, of sending out 
a married missionary. Mr and Mrs Fordyce arrived in that 
year to take charge of the female orphanage. On the 29th 
December of the same year (1852), a breach in the ranks of 
the European labourers was made by the death of the Rev. 
David Sinclair, after a very brief illness.* As Mr Mac- 
donald's removal was speedily followed by baptisms, so on 
the very day of Mr Sinclair's decease, a young man applied 
for admission to the Church, and was shortly afterwards 
received. Mr Sinclair's place in the Calcutta mission was 
supplied by the Rev. Thomas Gardiner, who reached the 
Indian capital on the 29th May 1853, accompanied by the 
Rev. John Milne, formerly and subsequently of Perth, the 
latter having been sent out to take charge of the Calcutta 
church, which ill health had some time previously caused 
Mr Mackail to resign. Just before their coming, there had 

• Mr Sinclair was a man of very decided ability, who, during his student days at 
the divinity hall, had his mind firmly made up to offer himself as an Indian mission- 
ary. He was appointed, as we have already mentioned, to Calcutta, to succeed the 
sainted Mr Macdonald. There he laboured with all conscientiousness till within a 
few days of his death. For some months previous to his removal, it was manifest 
that his constitution was undergoing a change. He became suddenly and remark- 
ably stout, but as this was attended oy an increased instead of a diminished capacity 
for work, it was regarded as a hopeful sign. Presently, however, his breathing 
became affected, and he was in consequence confined to his house. Three weeks 
later, at the age of thirty years and nine months, his spirit passed away. An 
extremely serene and i>eaceful expression remained on his features after his departure. 
Mr Mackay was of opinion that disease of the heart, followed by dropsy of the upper 
part of the chest and neck, was the cause of di.- solution. 



MORE SPIRITUAL FRUIT. IO9 

again been numerous and important accessions to the 
Church. From Barisberia had come two inquirers, Shrinath 
Ghosh and Kumar Raya, who were baptized, as were also 
Gour Chandra Sheeb and Brajanath Mitra, selected from 
various applicants connected with the Calcutta institution. 
The case of Brajanath was specially interesting. His father 
was a lineal descendant of the former Rajah of Calcutta, 
and as such received a pension from Government. It was 
a very anxious day at the mission when Brajanath sought 
and found shelter within it, and the ordeal to which he was 
subjected by his father and his other relatives was un- 
wontedly severe. But, supported apparently by divine 
grace, he passed through it successfully. Soon after the 
arrival oif Messrs Gardiner and Milne, a young man, Ishan 
Chandra Ghosh, was baptized. Mr Smith, on Wednesday 
the 8th of June, admitted two Kayasts (of a respectable 
Sudra caste) into the Church, and on Sabbath, 12th, imme- 
diately after the induction of Mr Milne, Mr Gardiner 
administered the sealing rite to Barada Prasad Chakrabutti, 
a young Brahmin. On Wednesday, 6th July, Mr Milne 
baptized a young man, Mudhu Sudan Singh, nephew of 
the Rajah Radhakant Deb, the head of the Hindoo orthodox 
or bigoted party, making nineteen in all since the commence- 
ment of the year — an unprecedented number. On 7 th De- 
cember, Rajendra Chandra Chandra, the gold medallist of his 
year in the Calcutta institution, was baptized. More than 
twelve months before, he had become a medical student. 
Some of our readers may possibly remember seeing him sub- 
sequently during a visit which he paid to this country. 
With his admission into the Church, the harvest of souls 
from among the young men of the institution intermitted foi* 
eight months, though two of the girls from the orphanage 
were added to the congregation on 8th March 1854. The 
fruits which had been reaped had anew excited the alarms 
of the heathen party, and, less feeble than of old, they 
supported an opposition institution called the Hindoo 



no CALCUTTA. 

Metropolitan College, which, with affiliated branch schools, 
rose in the early part of 1854 to have 11 00 names on the 
roll, and all of paying pupils. Independently of the ex- 
clusion of Christianity, one popular feature about this 
establishment was that it charged much lower fees than the 
Government college. But notwithstanding these efforts to 
damage the mission institution, the latter lost no more than 
260 pupils, and had still more than 1000 on its roll ; nor 
was it long before it again recovered its numbers. 

After the eight months' lull in the admissions into the 
Church from among the young men, a new series began, 
and continued with little intermission to the end of the 
year. The following was the list given up to November 8 : — 

1. Bishnu Charan Ch^tturjya, baptized August 16, 1854, 

2. R^j Krishna Banurjya, August 23. 

3. Kamini, wife of Jadunath Banurjya, August 27. 

4. Prasanna, wife of Shib Chandra Bannerijya, October i, 

5. Jadunath Chatturjya, October 15. 

6. Ishan Chandra Mukharjya, October 22. 

7. K^darnath De, October 31. 

8. Kali Padwa Chattarjya, November 8. 

All but No. 7 were of the Brahmanic caste. Nos. 3 and 4 were 
Brahrainees, the wives of converts, and Nos. i and 2 were Kulins. No. 
7 was the first fruit of Chinsurah to Christ 

The series of important baptisms did not cease with the last 
in this list. That of Ommur Nath Pul, an ex-pupil of the 
institution, took place on 26th November 1854, followed 
after a brief interval by those of Nabin Chandra Ghosh, Ishan 
Chandra Sircar, and Jogindra Nath Basu, succeeded soon 
afterwards by another unnamed. Jogindra was brought 
before the magistrates, but was allowed to go where he 
pleased. The six last baptisms now mentioned were all 
from Chinsurah, a fact which is worthy of special attention. 
Some are of opinion that the establishment of institutions 
like the Calcutta one for the evangelisation of Indian cities 
is a much less effective method of spreading the gospel 
than preaching in the streets of those cities. From the year 
1798, on for half a century, devoted missionaries had 



THE ZENANA SCHEME, III 

preached in the streets of Chinsurah without apparent 
effect, whilst an institution was blessed to gain, within little 
more than a tenth of that time, a whole cluster of important 
baptisms. The writer strongly holds that no system has 
been found equal to the institution one for dealing with the 
caste hierarchy of the Indian cities, the chief successes of 
preaching having been among the outcaste aborigines, 
whether subdued as the Pariahs, the Mahars, and the 
Shanars, or nearly independent, as the Coles and the San- 
thals. The 850 pupils who were on the roll at Chinsurah 
on 1 8th December 1854, were, in our view, a more hopeful 
sphere than a fluctuating street assembly for the operations 
of a mission. 

Not to interrupt the series of baptisms, we omitted to 
mention the laying of the foundation-stone of new and per- 
manent mission buildings, which took place on Thursday, 
27th July 1854, in presence of a great concourse of natives, 
and the arrival from home, on 15th January 1855, of 
the Rev. Mr Pourie, a new labourer appointed to the 
mission,* but as a few months later Mr Mackay had to 
return home temporarily, a second time in bad health, the 
gain was more apparent than real in the number of Euro- 
pean labourers. Loss of health also compelled Mr Miller 
of Chinsurah shortly afterwards to pay a brief visit to Aus- 
tralia. 

The year 1855 was signalised not merely in the history 
of the Calcutta Free Church Mission, but in that of India 
itself, by the successful commencement of what is now 
popularly called the zenana scheme. Zenana is the Bengal 
word for what the Mohammedans of Turkey call the harem 
— the apartments in which women are secluded. The 
zenana scheme proposed to induce native grandees to allow 

♦ Mr Pourie was born at Kirktown of Newtyle, Forfarshire, about twelve miles 
from Dundee, on the oth October 1824. He was converted through the instrumen- 
tality of the Rev. Mr (afterwards the Rev. Dr) Roxburgh. He distinguished 
himself at the New College. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Glasgow on 
38th November 1854. 



112 CALCUTTA, 

European or native Christian governesses to enter those 
virtual prison-chambers, and give their inmates as much 
religious and secular instruction as the head of the house 
would tolerate. The subject had, from time to time, led to 
inquiry on the part of the friends of native improvement 
So long ago as 1840, the Rev. Thomas, now the Rev. Dr 
Thomas Smith, wrote an article in the Calcutta Christian 
Observer^ recommending what in its essential features was 
the zenana scheme. Chiefly with a view of testing its 
practicability, he issued a series of queries to Mrs Wilson, 
of Agurpara, the lady who is believed to have done more 
than any other for female education in Bengal. But so 
inveterate was the hostility to female education among the 
higher and better classes of natives, that no effectual steps 
could then be attempted. English education, however, as 
Dr Duff had long before predicted, was rapidly and power- 
fully preparing the way for its realisation. 

For nearly fifteen years no practical response was elicited 
to Mr Smith's formal proposal, till at last, in the early part 
of 1855, Mr Fordyce adopted it, and with assistance from 
its author, unexpectedly succeeded in putting it in practical 
operation. So early, indeed, as in his report for 1853, pub- 
lished soon after the beginning of 1854, Mr Fordyce had dis- 
tinctly alluded to the subject. In the report for 1854, issued 
early in 1855, he intimates the commencement of the zenana 
scheme, and, wonderful to tell, on the satisfactory principle 
that the native gentlemen who availed themselves of the 
services which the governesses rendered should pay the 
greater part of the expenses. In the report for 1855, i^ is 
said that the scheme has " hitherto been a successful experi- 
ment." At the General Conference of the Bengal Mis- 
sionaries, held in Calcutta in September 1855, Mr Fordyce, 
on the 7th of the month, submitted a paper in which he 
mentioned that the realisation of the zenana scheme had 
commenced, and that it had succeeded admirably these six 
months. The conference, in their resolution passed after 



ORDINATION OF NATIVE CONVERTS, II3 

hearing this paper, recorded their conviction that the 
scheme was entitled to " hearty support," and that it was 
"capable of large extension, at least in Calcutta." Early in 
1856, the failure of Mrs Fordyce's health compelled her 
husband to return home.* 

Up to the beginning of July, the year 1855 was unfruit- 
ful in baptisms, but soon afterwards a Kulin Brahman called 
Banerjya or Banerjee, was baptized, after undergoing the 
usual ordeal. Other baptisms of less importance followed 
ere long. 

The passing of the Education Act of 1854, mentioned at 
more length in the home section of the work, was of course 
marked with great joy and thankfulness by the missionaries, 
who eagerly waited for the regulations on which grants-in- 
aid were obtainable. Before many months elapsed it was 
understood that the Government would bestow its aid not 
to supersede, but to supplement voluntary effort, and that 
probably nothing would be given to Calcutta city, as it was 
believed that education of all kinds could be carried on 
efficiently there without pecuniary assistance from the civil 
authorities. 

On 9th September 1855, an event, long looked forward to 
with eager interest, was, in the providence of God, permitted 
to occur ; three native converts, Jagadishwar, Prasanna, and 
Lai Behari De, were ordained to the office of the holy 
ministry. 

♦ In a pamphlet called *' Christianity in India," being a speech delivered by Mr 
George Smith, editor of the Friend of India^ at a meeting in 1864 of the Ladies' 
Society for Female Education in India, Mr Smith says : — " But it is the chief glory 
of your society, that the Rev. Mr Fordyce, when your agent, was die first to form 
and develop the now famous zenana mission." 

In a footnote Mr Smith adds :— " In his 'Brief Review of Ten Years' Missionary 
Labour in India,' Dr Mullens speaks of Mr Fordyce as having * endeavoured to set 
on foot zenana schools,' and declared that the effort proved somewhat premature. 
I was cognisant of the first dawn, and subsequent realisation of the plan, and must 
in justice declare, that so far from being premature, Mr Fordyce worked the plan 
most successfully, to the moment of his departure from India, and left it in charge 
of his trained agent, so that it continued till the accomplished Mrs Mtdlens brought 
all her precious experience to bear upon it. Her daughter and other ladies, mar- 
ried and unmarried, carry it on in Calcutta, and Lady Frere has introduced it into 
Bombay.— y^r^tf Church Missionary Record^ Augi*st 1864, pp. 583, 584. 



1 14 CALCUTTA, 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE MISSION AFTER DR DUFF's RETURN TO CALCUTTA. 

Late on the evening of Saturday, i6th February 1856, the 
Rev. Dr DufF reached Calcutta, having landed some time 
before at Bombay, and crossed India byway of Mahabalesh- 
war and Sattara, Poonah and Nagpote, Mirzapore and 
Benares. A kind providence had watched over him on his 
journey, which had not been quite free from peril ; for in- 
stance, to the north of Sattara, a pair of bullocks, drawing a 
covered cart with Dr Duff inside, rolled with it and him 
over a small precipice, by which considerable bodily injury 
was sustained. About the same time the Rev. J. S. 
Beaumont, ordained on December ii, 1855, arrived to 
the assistance of the mission, and it was possible for Mr 
Smith to be spared for a little and go home, on the invita- 
tion of the committee, on furlough, after about seventeen 
years* service. This was the first instance of a practice 
which should be universal, namely, to invite a missionary 
temporarily home after a certain number of years service, 
without waiting till his health actually breaks down. Whilst 
the majority of the Free Church labourers expect more 
from their institution work than they do from their ordinary 
street preaching, they are always glad to address themselves 
to the latter, when other engagements will permit, and for 
upwards of two years Mr Smith and the catechist, Sheeb 
Chunder, had been accustomed to go out to a village near 
Calcutta, and preach to the people there every Lord's-day. 
On Mr Smith's departure for Europe, Mr Gardiner took his 
place, and prosecuted the work with much spirit. The 
same year (1856) a church was opened at Tribeni; it cost 
about £so, raised chiefly by Dr Bruce's congregation in 
Edinburgh. About 200 or 250 natives came to the in- 
augural services. About the same time it was resolved to 



DR DUFFS LABOURS OUTSIDE THE INSTITUTION, II5 

open a station for a purely vernacular mission, at the large 
village of Mahanad, about twelve miles in a straight line 
north-west of Chin surah and Bansberia.* 

In September 1856, ill-health compelled the Rev. Mr 
Ewart for a season to leave India, after twenty-two years 
unbroken and very laborious service. But the head of the 
mission was in himself a hostt 

Early in 1857, first Mr MaCkay, and afterwards Mr Smith, 

* There was speedily such a pressure brought to bear upon the missionaries, by the 
villagers of Mahanad, to induce them to set up an Enghsh school, that one had at 
last to be established, in which, however, fees were demanded. By the end of 1858 
it had ninety-two pupils. 

f On his return to Calcutta early in 1856, the directors of the Doveton College 
(founded and supported by the East Indian community), of which he had been pre- 
viously the visitor, wished him to accept the honorary office of patron. To this he 
strongly objected, on the ground that that dignity had always before been held by 
one of the great officers of State, such as the late Lord Metcalfe, and that it would 
be incongruous were it now to be accepted by an humble missionary. To this the 
decisive reply of the East Indian representatives was, that he had conferred on their 
institution and community generally, ampler benefits than all the great men put 
together had done. They therefore pressed him to accept of the office as a token 
of their personal respect and gratitude. At last Dr Duff yielded, and the proceed- 
ings of the East Indian body, at the time of his fina) departure, abundantly proved 
that in his hands the trust had been no sinecure. 

About the same time Lord Canning, who had just before succeeded the Marquis 
of Dalhousie, appointed Dr Duff a member of the committee charged with the re- 
sponsible task of preparing a draft constitution and regulations, as also a course of 
studies for the Calcutta university, about to be established in consequence of the 
educational despatch of 1854. Of this committee Sir John Peter Grant, then a mem- 
ber of the Indian Supreme Council, and now Governor of Jamaica, was president. 
Having already, in his evidence before the House of Lords, in connection with the 
educational despatch, recommended the establishment of Indian universities, DrDuff 
MOW threw himself heart and soul into the duties which had devolved upon the com- 
mittee. From his long experience of Oriental education, his counsels and sugges- 
tions were received with deference, and, being usually adopted, in whole or parr, 
stamped their impress on the results ultimately reached. At his instance, and in 
consequence of his persistent advocacy, the committee, by a majority, recommended 
that among the subjects of examination for university degrees which should be 
deemed compulsory, the department of ancient history should include that of the 
Jews as well as of the Greeks and Romans — in short, the Old Testament historv ; 
and that among the optional studies for examination, should be comprehended the 
arguments in support of revealed religion, as presented in " Paley's Evidences " and 
" Butler's Analogy.** The admission of these important topics was sanctioned by 
the Indian government, and finally confirmed by the authorities at home. 

When, soon afterwards, the university of Calcutta was established, Dr DufF was 
nominated one of the fellows, and a member of the Senate ; he was several times 
chosen as President or Dean of the Faculty of Arts ; and during the whole subse- 

§uent period of his residence in India, was annually elected a member of the 
yndicate, or small governing body of the university. In this latter capacity he was 
enabled to.exert an influence nearly all potent, in choosing proper text-books in the 
different branches of study for degrees, and in the literary and philosophic depart- 
ments. One noteworthy triumph m this direction^ was his selection of a series of 
standard works, which, being adopted by all affiliated colleges and their feeders, 
tended without any direct interference to banish from native institutions an immense 
amount of trashy and even vicious productions, and to substitute in their place sound 
and wholesome works on literature and philosophy. The importance and beneficial 
tendency of such a result on India, can scarcely be over-estimated. 



Il6 CALCUTTA, 

returned to Calcutta. The former was sent to Chinsurah 
to supply the place of Mr Miller, who had been compelled 
to leave again in bad health for Australia, and who died on 
the passage of cholera. Shortly before this, or, to be more 
specific, on the i8th November 1856, Mr Fyfe had been 
licensed to the ministry. 

In March 1857, the mission premises, which had been 
for some time in process of erection in Nimtollah Street, 
were opened, though not quite finished, in order that ;£^25o 
a year, paid for the spacious native mansion occupied since 
1844, might be saved at as early a period as possible. It 
was a really magnificent structure, and had cost about 
;^i 5,000, raised by Dr Duff, when at home, in nearly 
equal proportions from friends in Scotland, England, and 
America. 

Soon afterwards the young Maharajah Scindia, aged about 
twenty-seven, who had an enlightened Brahman minister, 
and a still more enlightened Christian resident, the late 
Colonel MTherson, visited the institution, and was so taken 
with it that the Rajah and the premier resolved to set one 
of the same kind up on returning to Gwalior.* Some years 
previously the Ameers of Scinde had similarly visited the 
institution. 

In May 1857, Dr Duff's institution for high caste girls 
began. The orphans at Miss Laing's were boarders, but 
the establishment now commenced was, by way of advance 
on the zenana system, a high caste girls' day school. A 
Brahman in Nimtollah Street gave an apartment in his 
own house for the purpose, and stood tolerably well against 
the persecution to which he thus subjected himself at the 
hands of the intolerant party. Miss Toogood, who had been 
a zenana teacher, took general charge of the school, and a 
Pundit connected with the institution devoted his spare 
hours to her assistance — teaching in the school, and visiting 

* Scindia behaved exceedingly well during the mutinies. His fidelity to us was 
beyond all praise. . Had he gone against us, and Joined Nana Sahib, a Mahratta 
like himself, the whole of the Mahratta race might have risen. 



THE MUTINIES AND REBELLION. 11/ 

the homes of the pupils, to mitigate or remove the still 
strongly cherished prejudices of the mothers and other aged 
female relatives. Conveyances were provided to take them 
to and from school, a measure which led to their numbers 
being immediately doubled. In. the face of many and great 
difficulties the school continued to prosper, notwithstanding 
the essentially Christian character of its education, till it 
acquired a fixed and permanent footing. 

A baptism in May 1857 is interesting, from the fact that 
it was performed by Lai Behar De at Culna. The neophyte 
was a pupil of the school at that station. 

Just before the massacre broke out a very interesting 
experiment was tried at Chinsurah. Mr Mackay wrote : — 

** I came here to witness our first experiment in taking fees. We 
fixed them at the low rate — low even for Bengal — of 6d. monthly. 
520 scholars paid. The highest two classes are not to be charged." 

At the examination of 24th December 1857, it was men- 
tioned that the imposition of fees, with the opening of 
government schools in the vicinity of the Chinsurah institu- 
tion, had reduced the latter to about 500 pupils on the roll. 
A seventh youth had meanwhile been baptized there. 

It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader what sort 
of a year 1857 was. When the news of the massacres at 
Meerut and Delhi reached the Indian capital, and when it 
began to be whispered about that the large force of Bengal 
sepoys in the vicinity of Calcutta, aided by the Mussulmans 
of the city, had planned an effort to destroy the Europeans 
in one day, a panic arose among our countr)nnen. They 
began to repair to places of safety, armed themselves 
with muskets, swords, and other weapons, and prepared to 
sell their lives as dearly as possible if it came to the worst. 
The house of Dr Duff was in the heart of the native city, 
and therefore peculiarly liable to be attacked, yet, though 
rumours of fresh plots and threatened attacks were daily cir- 
culated, he would not quit it to seek a place of greater safety, 
and a gracious providence watched over his life. On another 

(391) 9 



Il8 CALCUTTA, 

day nearly every family in Chinsurah, Hooghly, and Bandel 
fled for shelter to cantonments, yet Mr Mackay, with his wife 
and family, all of them bowed down with sorrow owing to 
the death of one of the household, remained at home, 
nearly if not quite unconscious of the fact that the rest of 
the Christian community had fled. Next day two European 
soldiers entered the house, and, laying down a couple of 
muskets, enjoined Mr Mackay to defend himself and his 
family if necessity arose ; but he believed the alarm ground- 
less, and that night slept soundly and in peace. The 
disarming of the native troops soon afterwards restored 
confidence. As the political cyclone went on, Dr Duff" 
penned a series of letters on the subject to the convener of 
the Foreign Mission Committee.* These, written in the 
midst of the excitement caused by the arrival of one item 
of disastrous intelligence after another from the agitated 
upper provinces, were subsequently collected and given to 
the world, under the heading, " The Indian Rebellion : its 
Causes and Results." A Series of Letters by the Rev. A. 
Duff; D.D., LL.D., Calcutta. London, 1858. 

Evangelistic work went on even during the depth of the 
mutinies and the accompanying rebellion. On the 23d of 
June (1857) Mr Gardiner baptized a young man amid the 
Calcutta panic and the din of Juggernath's festival. But 

* When the tidings of the mutiny at Meerut, immediately followed by the capture 
of Delhi, with the attendant massacres, first reached home, the mass even of the 
thinking population in this country, having no conception on how insecure a founda- 
tion our Indian empire then rested, entirely failed to appreciate the magnitude of 
the crisis. The case of Madeline Smithy whose trial was in progress in Edinburgh, 
almost entirely occupied the attention of the Scottish public, who seemed scarcely to 
have a thought left for the life-and-dcath struggle then in progress in the East. Even 
when the second series of telegrams had arrived, bringing fourteen days' later intelli- 
gence, and opening with the ominous announcement, *' the mutiny continues to 
spread among the troops of the Bengal army ; 30,000 sepoys during the past fort- 
night have deserted their colours," the generality of men cried *' Peacf, peace," 
when there was no peace : and even the leading journal of the empire attempted to 
allay anxiety by assuming that the 30,000 revolted sepoys had very few of them any 
mtention of encountering us in battle — all that they mtendeii to do was to disperse 
peaceably to their village homes. In these circumstances, the letters of Dr Duff, 
which exhibited the peril in its full magnitude, and pointed out that day by day the 
outbreak more nearly approached the proportions of a great Mussulman rebellion, 
had no slight influence in dissipating the false security that prevailed, and making 
it plain that Britain must put forth all her strength if she wished to retain possession 
of her Indian empire. 



THE MUTINIES AND REBELLION, I IQ 

the mission had much to contend with during those eventful 
years. One minor difficulty was, that it could scarcely pay 
its way. Many of its most liberal supporters, men who had 
done much for the material and moral welfare of the natives, 
had been ruthlessly murdered ; the charitable had a channel 
for most of their available means in the necessity of feeding 
and clothing the European fugitives from the upper pro- 
vinces, all of them for the time being destitute, and some 
more or less desperately wounded ; while, finally, a few 
people illogically and unjustifiably resolved to give nothing 
more to missions on account of the murderous deeds which 
the unconverted Mohammedans and Hindoos had per- 
petrated. Among the fugitives from the upper* provinces 
was- the Rev. Gopinath Nandi, who gave his spiritual father 
a most harrowing account of the sufferings he and his family 
had endured. First they had suffered insults and injuries 
at the hands of the disloyal villagers, and next had been in 
the fair way of becoming martyrs for the Christian faith 
when they fell into the hands of an upstart Mussulman 
Moulavi, then wielding the power of life and death at Alla- 
habad. Their destruction, it is believed, was imminent, when 
the appearance of the gallant General Neil, at the head of a 
small European force, so alarmed the Mussulman persecu- 
tors that, without taking time to immolate Gopinath, they 
made a precipitate flight. In 1857 the health of Miss Laing 
was so afi'ected by the scenes among which she was com- 
pelled to live that she resigned the orphanage, of which Mr 
and Mrs Pourie took charge. Some time later Mr Pourie 
succeeded Mr Milne in the pastorate of the Free Church, a 
similar cause having necessitated his return home. Mr 
Pourie's induction took place on the 14th November 1858. 
That year also the health of Mr Thomas Smith failed, and 
he was ordered permanently home, as was Mr Gardiner in 
May 1859. 

When the first examination of Dr Duft's high-caste girls' 
school was held — which it was in the house of a leading 



120 CALCUTTA, 

Calcutta baboo— there were sixty-two on the roll. Besides 
European ladies and gentlemen, several of the native nobility 
and gentry were present. A Kulin Brahman gave seventy- 
two rupees for scholarships, and another native seventy-five 
rupees as a subscription to the school. 

On 29th December 1858, Dr Ewart again reached Cal- 
cutta from home. 

It was a remarkable proof of confidence in the Christian 
missionaries, as well as in the permanence of British rule in 
the East, that even while the struggle with the mutineers 
and rebels was still in progress, important baptisms took 
place. Of the neophytes then admitted to the Church, 
some were students in the institution, some were wives or 
other relatives of former converts, two were heathen teachers 
in the branch schools, one was an old playmate of Lai 
Behari De, and, stranger and more satisfactory still, another 
was a Mohammedan Moulavi, joint proprietor of one of the 
Calcutta mosques. 

The native Christian agents of the mission were unhappily 
reduced in number about this time, ill health and the great 
demand for educated natives thinning the ranks both of the 
probationary and of the full catechists. About two years 
previously, there had been nine native aspirants to the 
ministry — namely, one probationer, Behari Lai Singh; six 
full catechists — i. Guru Das Mitra; 2, Dinanath Adhya; 
3, Baikantha Nath De ; 4, Bhagabati Charan Mukerjya ; 5, 
Kali Das Chakrabarti ; and 6, Sheeb Chunder Banerjya ; 
and two probationary catechists — Gobinda Chandra Das, 
and Ishan Chandra Banerjya. Of these the probationer, 
Behari Lai, was in Europe for his health.* Guru Das Mitra 
had been obliged to go to the north-west also in quest of 

* We have heard, on good authority, that Behari was a devoted and successful 
labourer while in the Calcutta mission. After returning to India, he, with the 
sanction of Dr Duff and his brethren, was engaged as mi<;sionary to the English 
Pfesb^terian Church, and went under their auspices to Rampore Bauleah, the capital 
of Rajshahye, on the Ganges, about 122 miles north of Calcutta. The duties of his 
responsible office there he has well discharged from the date of his appointment till 
Jlpw. 



THE NATIVE CHURCH, 121 

health, but had not resigned his office. Dinanath Adhya 
had resigned, and been appointed a deputy magistrate, on a 
salary of 200 rupees a month, more than three times as 
much, if we mistake not, as he had from the mission. Kali 
Das. had resigned, and accepted secular employment. 
Bhagabati had resigned on account of ill health, and died 
soon after at Benares of hemorrhage, produced by the 
rupture of blood vessels in his lungs. Sheeb Chunder had 
resigned, and accepted secular employment, not, however, 
from failing interest in ministerial work, but from a high- 
minded and commendable desire to preach the gospel from 
an independent position, and free of charge to the mission. 
He has since conscientiously carried out this resolve. The 
only full catechist remaining actually in the service of the 
mission at the time referred to was Baikantha Nath De. 
The two probationary catechists, however, did so still, and 
the three ordained native ministers. There were, in addi- 
tion, various Christian converts teaching in the different 
schools, of whom at least three were desirous of coming for- 
ward as catechists. The resignations now spoken of, though 
painful, were not, we think, an unmixed evil. We doubt 
whether the Church at home would be able to support an 
indefinite number of native Christian agents in the East ; 
and if some, after mature and prayerful thought, consider 
their vocation to be secular, rather than spiritual, their sup- 
port of ordinances, and their personal efforts for Christ, 
ought within a certain time to aid materially in building up 
self-sustaining native churches — an achievement the import- 
ance of which it were difficult to over-estimate. 

The depth of one's piety may at times be tested by his 
contributions to religious objects, and, in this point of view, 
it is well worthy of note that in 1859 Rajendra, the medical 
practitioner, sent ;£2o donation to the fnission. Apropos 
of the question of finance, it should be mentioned that fees 
had for some time been introduced into the mission schools, 
with the exception of those designed for girls, and with the 



122 CALCUTTA, 

exception also of the college department in the Calcutta 
institution. The sum was small — four annas, or sixpence 
per month; but it must be remembered that the pupils, 
though mostly of high caste, were generally poor, and the 
competition of non-Christian seminaries with the institution 
was exceedingly severe. In 1859, Bansberia received a 
grant-in-aid from Government of about 150 rupees a month, 
or about ;^i8o a year. Early in that year, a "lay" 
European teacher had arrived from Europe on an engage- 
ment to labour for three years ; and on 29th April i860, 
Mr Fyfe was ordained to the ministry. 

Not long afterwards a dreadful blow came upon the mis- 
sion. On Saturday morning, the 8th September i860, Dr 
Ewart was seized with cholera, and on Sabbath the 9th, 
at 4.30 P.M., he fell asleep in Jesus. Next morning, Miss 
Don, a young lady who had been sent out to teach in Mrs 
Ewart*s school, arriving in March i860, and who had been 
vigorously engaged in her duties there on Saturday, was 
seized with the same fell disease, and after lingering on till 
Thursday afternoon, also expired. Dr Ewart's talents, 
though good, were not very brilliant ; but his modesty, his 
quiet, unobtrusive piety, his loving spirit, his untiring exer- 
tions for the welfare of all with whom he was brought in 
contact, and especially the natives of India to whom he had 
been sent, greatly endeared him to all who knew him.* 
During the time that the terrible disease — cholera — had him 
in its grasp, he was, as Mr Macleod Wylie writes, ** most 
fatherly and affectionate." "At the funeral, also," Mr Wylie 
adds, " mourning was real." 

Lai Behari De, speaking of Dr Ewart in 1856, when, 
after twenty-two years continuous labour, he was temporarily 
going home for health, said that he remembered him in 
1834 when he came from Scotland — 



* The writer thinks it may be well to mention that he once boarded for sereral 
months in the same house with Dr and Mrs Ewart, and had ample opportunity of 
witaessing their high missionary character. 



THE LOSS OF DR EWART. 123 

" A stout and sturdy young man, robust, and ruddy, the very image 
of health itself." ** Ever since David Ewart joined the mission," Lai 
went on to say, ** he has worked on at the rate of six hours, and some- 
times seven hours, daily. Willingly would I delineate to you the 
features of his character, his exhaustless patience, his unfailing kmdness, 
his boundless charity, thinking no evil, hoping all things, believing all 
things, enduring all things, his honesty, his plain downrightness, if I 
may be allowed to use the expression. Willingly, too, would I pourtray, 
if 1 could, the overflowing kindness of his heart ; that which impelled 
him, by a sort of intuitive benevolence, to assist the poor student 
with food, clothing, and books, to weep with those that wept, and 
rejoice with those that rejoiced. I have seen him sit up all night at the 
bedside of a sick student. I have seen him fan that student with his 
own hand, attending on him and nursing him as if that native lad 
were his only son. I have seen that stout-hearted Scotchman — a man 
of genuine Scotch stalwartness — weep like a child in grief at the death 
of a favourite scholar and convert. I have seen him at all seasons 
wending his way through our gulleys to the home of a sick or troubled 
scholar. I have found him on the bank of the Ganges, there adminis- 
tering consolation to a pupil then on the borders of eternity." — Free 
Church Missionary Record^ Jan. I, 1857, p. J 26. 

The Bengal mission lost a vast deal when it lost Dr Ewart. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE MISSION AFTER DR EWART*S DEATH. 

At the examination of the Calcutta institution, held at the 
close of i860, Sir Bartle Frere, the representative member 
for the Bombay Presidency in the Supreme Council of 
India, and afterwards Governor of Bombay, was in the 
chair. He eulogised the plan of the institution, and the 
way that plan had been and was then carried out.* Among 
some baptisms which occurred in 1861, one was that of a 

■ * An American missionary from the Madras Presidency, who visited the institution 
some months subsequently, gave a lively account of what he witnessed. The classes 
were numerous— Thus in the 21st there were 250 bright little fellows. Some other 
points which he noted are, we believe, peculiar to Calcutta. One was that most of 
the pupils wore shoes (European, not native ones, he means). Yet more remark- 
able, scarcely one scholar had a sectarian mark on his forehead. This would have 
been regarded in Madras as a renunciation of Hindooism, and could the whole 
pupils have been transported bodily to that presidency seat, people there would have 
taken them for a company of professing Christians. 



124 CALCUTTA, 

young man educated in a goverament college, who had 
bought a Bible for the express purpose of refuting it ; but 
the self- evidencing power of the Word of God was such that 
his careful study of it resulted in his conversion. He was 
baptized on the 20th January 1861. Chinsurah had been 
somewhat barren of spiritual fruits for two or three years, 
but the Spirit of God again graciously visited it early in 
1 86 1, and baptisms anew took place. In the Assembly 
report of 1862, the number of pupils under instruction 
in the central and branch stations of the Bengal Free 
Church Mission stood at the amazing number of 3577.* 
On 17th March 1861, Lai Behari De was inducted into the 
pastorate of the Bengalee native Church in Cornwallis 
Square ; but, on the other hand, about the same time Dr 
Duflf had to mourn over the death of one of his earliest 
converts, the Rev. Gopinath Nandi,t the native missionary 
so nearly martyred during the mutinies and rebellion of 
1857, and of whom Dr Duif said, that he loved him as 
his own soul. 

At the examination of 23d November 1861, Colonel 
(afterwards Sir Henry) Durand presided. He was at that 
time Foreign Secretary to the Indian Government. Imme- 
diately afterwards, the high-caste girls' school was examined. 
Colonel Durand and Sir Bartle Frere giving admirable and 
encouraging addresses. The girls' school, since its com- 

Males. Females. Total. 

* In Calcutta, 1512 an J723 

,, Chinsurah, 700 80 780 

„ Bansbcria,. ...... 323 45 368 

,1 Culna^ 227 95 322 

„ Mahanad,, 201 83 284 

3063 514 3577 

t After tranquiUity was restored in Upper India, Gopinath returned to his station 
at Futtehpore. In March 1861, he had an attack of a dangerous internal malady to 
■which he had long been subject. A surgical operation naving been proposed, a 
friend asked him if he had any arrangements to make, as the doctor said the opera- 
tion was a very delicate one, and in most cases proved fatal. On this he ad(k;d a 
codicil to his will. ** I am not afraid to die," he said ; " I can trust that Jesus whom 
I have often preached to others." The operation proved fatal, and early next 
morning, the 23rd November 1861, his spirit passed away. After the death of Gopi- 
nath Nandi, the Rev. Krishna Mohan Banerjee was the only survivor of the con- 
verts of 1832. 



DR DUFF^S LABOURS AND INFLUENCE. 125 

mencement five years previously, had attained to a state of 
high efficiency, and maintained an average of about sixty 
pupils. 

On the ist February 1862, the Rev. Dr Mackay, who 
had been Dr Duff's companion in labour from an early 
period, was compelled by ill health once more to leave for 
Europe. This time he was destined to see the East no 
more. His constitution had been shattered beyond the 
possibility of recovery. He died in September 1865, i^ 
humble dependence on the merits of his Saviour. On his 
departure the only European labourers left were Dr Duff* 
and Mr Fyfe at Calcutta, with Mr Beaumont at Chinsurah. 
Help from home was, however, at hand. On 15th Feb- 
ruary, just a fortnight after Mr Mackay left Calcutta, the 
Rev. Kenneth Sommerled Macdonald, ordained by the 
Presbytery of Abertarff on the 8th of the previous month, 

The reputation of Dr Duff continually brought him into very important work of 
a missionary character outside the institution. Take the following as a notable 
instance of what has now been stated :— In 1859, the Bethune Society (called after 
the Hon. Mr Bethune, JLaw Member of the Supreme Council, and President of the 
old Government Board of Education, and designed to commemorate the valuable 
services he had rendered to the cause of education and native improvement gene- 
rally) had, from various causes, greatly declined. This was the principal literary, 
philosophical, and scientific society of the educated natives, Hindoo and Moham- 
medan. A vacancy having taken place in the presidency of the Society, its directors, 
supported by the unanimous vote of its members, showed their confidence in Dr 
Duff by pressing him to accept the vacant office. Dr Duff made it a condition of 
hisxomplying with their request, that they should abrogate or modify one of their 
fundamental rules, which seemed adverse to religion. He sought liberty for himself 
and others fully to introduce the subject of natural theology, as well as to make re- 
spectful allusion, as circumstances might suggest, to the historic facts of Christianity, 
and to the lives and labours of those men and women who had been its advocates m 
the world. All this being cordially assented to, he accepted the office he was invited 
to fill, on which the society immediately revived, and rapidly rose into importance. 
It was, on his suggestion, divided into six sections for the more vigorous prosecu- 
tion of important departments pf research. Its meeting^ came to be attended by 
the very elite of European and native society, who took part, not merely as hearers, 
but as speakers. One of the six sections was designed for prosecuting the chief 
subjects of what has been called the science of sociolo^ ; another, female education, 
&c. The essays, papers, and discussions on these topics helped, so far as the natives 
were concerned, to prepare an easy way for subsequent more extensive efforts in 
the same direction. The remarkably able and free discussion on female education 
did much to break down the icy barriers which had impeded progress in that direc- 
tion. A digest of the proceedings of the first two years of Dr DufFs presidentship, 
with specimens of essays, &c., has been published in a handsome octavo volume. 
Many native rajahs and other leading men, though not members, often attended, 
and were invited to address the Society. Among these was the Rajah of Benares, 
who was then a member of the Govern or- General's Legislative Council. So struck 
was he with wliat he saw and heard, that on his return to the sacred city he called 
together a public meeting of the inhabitants, formed a society on the model of the 
Bethime one, and became its first president. 



126 CALCUTTA. 

reached his destination, accompanied by Mr Gilbert 
Grange Ross, to succeed Mr Thomson, whose term of 
office had expired. 

The baptisms about this period presented an interesting 
feature. Not merely had it to be recorded that A or B, a 
pupil from the institution, was baptized, but that the Chris- 
tian teacher of this or that branch school had arrived at 
Calcutta, bringing with him a senior pupil, or possibly more 
than one, for baptism. Then, again, it had to be stated 
that some wife, seized by her relatives when her husband 
was baptized, had managed to rejoin him, despite all efforts 
to keep her back.* Another fact, and one of much signi- 
ficance, is that young widows showed themselves more 
ready than other Hindoo women to embrace the truth. 
Hindooism not merely forbids a woman to marry, and, if 
she is a Brahmanee, suggests that she should bum herself 
alive, but it assigns to her the most menial offices, and 
makes her the despised drudge of the family. Nor must it 
be forgotten that the so-called widow may be a little girl, 
who has never seen her husband except at a distance, and 
whose connection with him has been simply betrothal 
When light penetrates into the recesses of Hindoo house- 
holds, the widow-drudges will in increasing numbers become 
Christians, their first attraction to the foreign faith being 
that it emancipates them from the bondage in which they 
are enthralled by their own. As bearing on this subject, 
take the following remarkable narrative : — On the evening 
of Sabbath, 6th June 1862, a young man appeared at the 
mission, guiding thither a widow of fourteen. They stated 
that they had come from Mahanad. Jagadishwar's wife, 
formerly one of the pupils in Miss Laing's Orphanage, had 

* The missionaries very properly proceed on the Scripture rule that baptism does 
not divorce a convert from the wife married when both were in heathenism. The 
convert is exhorted to wait, and wait, and yet again to wait, without marrying 
another : and in 1862, Dr Duff mentioned it as the experience of the Bengal mission 
that in every case the wife sooner or later managed, despite all opposition, to join 
or rejoin her husband, virtually using the speech of Ruth when cleaving to Naomi 
— •' Whither thou goest I will go, and whither thou lodgest I will lodge ; thy people 
shall be my people, and thy God my God.** 



MORE FRUITS, \2J 

instructed her at the Mahanad girls' school When she 
was thought too old to go thither any longer, she was com- 
pelled to desist from attending ; but on being removed, she 
managed to write for Christian books. The gospels and 
some tracts were in consequence sent her, and apparently 
proved the means of her conversion. The young man who 
had consented to act as her guide felt that by this step he 
had so deeply compromised himself that he was likely to be 
subjected to very bad treatment if he returned, and he made 
up his mind to go back no more. He had a severe ordeal 
to sustain from his relatives when they came, but he stood 
firm, and was baptized on the nth June 1862. The girl 
and the wife of one of the Christian teachers received the 
sealing ordinance together by the hand of Jagadishwar, on 
the 6th July of the same year.* That month and the next 
there were no fewer than ten baptisms, either at Calcutta or 
at the branch istations. One of the cases was specially 
interesting. It was that of a young man of twenty-five, 
Lucky Narayan Bhose, brought up at a government school 
at Howrah, and who, having a situation on the railway, was 
able to support himself by his own exertions. He had 
begun to teach young men before his baptism. On re- 
turning after the rite had been administered, he found his 
house barred against him, the title-deeds of it stolen, and his 
neighbours, and even his wife, set against him. After all 
private means of obtaining redress had been taken without 
eiFect, he was obliged to apply to the magistrate, who at 
once did what justice required in the case. Besides those 
baptized, there was an applicant for the sealing rite fi*om 
Mahanad, who, though he stood firm against the impor- 
tunities of his friends, and would not return with them, yet 
was so affected by their violence that he went into hysteri- 
cal convulsions. In his weakness he sought relief in 
prayer. 

In Mr Mullens' statistics, published in 1852, and in those 

* When a girl came up for baptism she was placed in the female Orphanage. 



128 CALCUTTA. 

issued ten years later, the converts of the mission still resi- 
dent in Calcutta stood as follows : — 

Calcutta Free Church. — In 1852, communicants, 27 ; native 
Christians, 87. Converts added in ten years, 64. In 1862, com- 
municants, 84 ; native Christians, 196. 

On 1 6th October 1862, the Rev. Mr Don was ordained 
by the Free Presbytery of Glasgow, and leaving soon after- 
wards for Calcutta, with Dr Robson as medical missionary, 
arrived at his destination before the close of 1862. At the 
examination with which that year concluded, there were 
1530 on the roll— 183 of them in the college department 
The hero of Magdala, Sir Robert Napier, then a member of 
the Supreme Executive and Legislative Councils, presided, 
and the following year Lady Elgin, wife of the Governor- 
General, visited the institution. Her ladyship came in 
state, with the vice-regal carriage and outriders. In a 
country so respectful of rank as India, such a visit as that 
now described is unquestionably helpful to a mission. 

About 1 86 1 an arrangement had been come to with the 
missionary committee at home, by which they consented to 
pay ;^6oo a-year to the Calcutta Central Institution, and 
thus set free the local funds for the extension of the work 
in the villages. In 1863 it was resolved to make Mahanad, 
founded six years before, the centre of very systematic opera- 
tions. The country for twelve miles around it was, there- 
fore, carefully surveyed by Dr Duff, and was considered to 
have about 130,000 inhabitants. It was resolved to plant 
schools under Christian teachers as nearly as possible four 
miles distant from each other over this area. Nay more, it 
was sought to a certain extent to subsidise the indigenous 
heathen schools on this essential condition, that their teachers 
consented to introduce the mission school text-books in 
place of the wretched works they had formerly placed in the 
hands of their pupils, as well as agreeing in other ways to 
allow the missionaries a measure of control over their ope- 
rations. 



DR DUFF^S LAST DAYS IN BENGAL. 129 

Whilst these arrangements were in progress, Dr Dud's 
health completely broke down, and he was pronounced 
permanently unfit to continue his "labours in the Indian 
plains. That very formidable disease, tropical dysentery, 
had driven him from Calcutta in July 1834; in identically 
the same month of 1863, it necessitated his departure again. 
He had thought of retiring to a hill station, like Darjeeling, 
but the Church justly considered that he could be of far 
more use in Edinburgh than there, and sent him, as already 
mentioned in the first part of this work, a unanimous and 
pressing invitation to return home. After a great mental 
struggle, he, in consequence of the decidedly adverse medical 
judgment, consented to quit the East and accept the office of 
Convener of the Foreign Missions Committee ; and having 
staved off the immediate danger to life, by a voyage in the 
China seas and Indian archipelago, then prepared to wind up 
his affairs in Calcutta and return home. After visiting Madras 
and Bombay, he, on the 20th December 1863, finally quitted 
Calcutta, among a shower of letters and addresses from all 
classes of the native and European communities, testifying 
to the affection and respect in which he was held. Some of 
his converts travelled 180 or 200 miles, with the express 
object of bidding him adieu. An incident which occurred 
on the eve of his departure will show the potent effect 
which a few simple words from him were capable of pro- 
ducing in the Christian society which had known his man- 
ner of life. At a special prayer meeting held before his 
departure, he mentioned that six places had been selected 
in the Mahanad district as centres of operations. Each 
school would cost about 4000 rupees, of which the govern- 
ment would probably pay one half. Might not six gentle- 
men give ;£^2oo a-piece, ;£'i2oo in all, and allow the schools 
at once to be proceeded with ? On the Saturday following 
two gentlemen sent in their names for ;£'2oo a-piece, two 
more came forward soon afterwards, and a telegram sent 
after Dr Duff before his vessel could get out of the river 



130 CALCUTTA. 

told him that a sixth had been obtained. Leaving him to 
proceed homewards via the Cape of Good Hope,* we put 
on record the testimony of an able Christian gentleman, as 
to the influence the Church of Scotland's first missionary- 
had been divinely enabled to exercise throughout India, 
during the period that he resided within its borders. 

A letter dated Serampore, December 18, 1862, addressed 
originally to the Friend of India, and reprinted in the Free 
Church Record iox March 2, 1863, stated that the writer, 
a Free Church elder, had come from Scotland nine years 
before, somewhat prejudiced against Dr Duff's system of 
operations, but that personal observation had since made 
him become strongly in its favour. He proceeds : — 

** If a system is to be judged of by only such results as can be ex- 
pressed by statistics, then I assert that the educational system has made 
more converts from Hindooism properly so called, than the other. If 
it be judged of by its actual results in the character of the converts, in 
their influence on heathenism, in their value to the growing but yet 
future civilisation of the country, and in that impalpable but, to my 
mind, plain preparation of Hindu society for a national Christianity of 
its own, like the preparation of the ancient world in the first three 
centuries, before the secular power became Christian, then I declare 
that there is no comparison between the value of the educational over 
the evangelising system. So strongly do I feel on this point, and so 
much stronger does daily experience make my conviction, that I should 
wish to see every white educated missionary sent to the Hindoos and 
Mohammedans proper of India a teacher, with the view of raising 
native preachers, and indirectly leavening society, rather than a wayside 
or even parish preacher, speaking daily to the people in their own 
tongue. In a word, I consider the principles of Dr Duffs system 
almost perfect for Hindooism as it is, and for the building of a native 
Church of the future." 

After mentioning one or two details in which he considers 

the institutional system susceptible of improvement, he thus 

proceeds again : — 

** I have had peculiar opportunities, during nine years, for watching 
and helping on the progress of education in India, and for studying its 

♦ From Cape Town Dr Duff proceeded eastward through the colony, visiting the 
Moravian and all oiher mission stations ; our own missions in Caffraria, the French 
mission in Basuto land beyond the great Orange River, and entering Natal from the 
north, returned from Durban by steamer to Cape Town. The experience thus 
acquired of South African missions has now been turned to good account in his office 
as Convener of the Foreign Mission Committee. 



APPRECIATION OF HIS CHARACTER AND WORK, I3I 

past history. As a university examiner for four out of seven years, I 
have reason to know well in what position it is in Bengal ; and I say 
this, that whatever may be Dr DufTs claim to the reverence and grati- 
tude of the Church, whose most illustrious missionary he is, his title to 
the gratitude of the government and people of India, for his influence 
on education, is far greater. With a full knowledge of the facts, with 
a personal knowledge of them for nine years, I declare that all that is 
good, useful, and healthy in education in Northern India, for the past 
thirty years, is due to him. Had he not been a missionary at all, he 
would have done more for the conversion of India by this influence, 
than many missionaries. In this aspect— and I speak the cold language 
of fact — Dr Duff has been a greater benefactor to India than any man 
I can name. He and the system with which his name is identified, have 
left their stamp on the most critical period, embracing more than a 
generation of Indian history." 

After the departure of Dr DufF, a gentleman raised among 
the friends of our missionary a sum of money which he 
would have offered as an absolute personal gift, had he not 
feared from his knowledge of Dr Duff's character that it 
would not be accepted. He therefore permanently invested 
it in name of trustees, under the designation of the " Duff 
Memorial Fund," the interest of it to be given to the illus- 
trious evangelist while he lives \ and when at length that event 
shall arrive which all wish may yet be very long deferred, 
then it is to be appropriated in all time coming to the benefit 
of disabled missionaries, or in aiding in the support of 
widows and children of missionaries, whose lives have been 
spent in the cause. With other money raised in Calcutta 
in memory of its distinguished missionary, four handsome 
university scholarships have been estabhshed bearing his 
name, two to be bestowed on pupils from the Free Church 
Institute, one on those of other denominations, and one on 
an alumnus of the Government Colleges. The Bethune 
Society also contributed ;^2oo for a full-length portrait of 
their former president. The final departure of Dr Duff 
naturally constituted an epoch in the history of the Bengal 
mission. 



132 CALCUTTA. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE MISSION AFTER DR DUFF'S FINAL DEPARTURE. 

The mission, under its new management, was not long in 
obtaining tokens of the Divine favour, though a portion of 
the fruit reaped sprung from seed sown during the previous 
period, or at the out stations. The Missionary Record for 
April 1864 intimated six baptisms. One, Jodu Nath Das, 
was a brother of Lucky Nath Das, and was a third convert 
within twelve months from Mr Macdonald's visits to Howrah. 
Another was the poor Brahman youth, driven temporarily 
out of his mind by the violence of his relatives ; and the 
other four were an illustration of what probably will become 
common yet — the baptism of groups of friends. This grati- 
fying spectacle was witnessed at Mahanad on the 24th of 
January 1864, there being there and then admitted to 
the Church four young men — Ramchundra Das, aged 
27, head master of a government school, his brother and 
cousin, and a convert from Mohammedanism, a friend and 
associate of the other three. Some months later, a very 
promising youth, Behari Lai Chandra, was baptized. When 
his proclivities towards Christianity had manifested them- 
selves at home, he had been put in confinement by his 
father and other Hindoos, and he had such difficulty in 
escaping that when he presented himself at the Mission- 
house it was almost in a state of nudity. He offered him- 
self as a candidate for the ministry, as did also another 
convert called Kally, who had been baptized some time 
before. Shortly afterwards a girl, Kalyani, was baptized. 
Her case was specially interesting. She was the first fruit 
of Dr Duff's caste-girls' school, and her instructress, the 
new teacher, Mrs Ch^tturjya, was herself the first female 
convert of fhe mission. On Saturday evening, 3d Septem- 



STRUGGLES. 1 33 

ber 1864, there arrived from Culna three candidates for 
baptism, Pana Lai Basu, aged 19; Kumish Behari Basu, 
aged 17; and Monshur Ghose, 16^. Their mothers and 
friends came down and made efforts, though vainly, to 
induce them to return home. 

"'One Sabbath evening,' Mr Fyfe writes, 'one of them struck her- 
self with bricks and made the blood flow profusely from her forehead 
and temples. She seized her son frantically, and called for a knife to 
cut her own throat, so that I was obliged to send for a palkee and order 
her friends to take her away. She has been back several times, but has 
been quieter than she was the first time.' " 

Scarcely any young man is baptized without having been 
first informed that his mother is dying or will kill herself 
whenever she hears that the rite has been administered. It 
is extremely rare, however, for the most dreadful threats to 
be even partially fulfilled. The case mentioned by Mr Fyfe 
is one of a very exceptional character. The first impulse 
of a kind heart is to say, do not baptize any youth whose 
relatives so acutely feel the apostacy of one they love from 
their ancestral faith. To which the reply is, that first it 
would not be right to do what is asked. The human con- 
science is so infinitely important that one must not violate 
its dictates even at the bidding of a mother. And, secondly, 
it would not be expedient. Once let it be known that female 
demonstrations could prevent a reception into the Church, 
and the wily and selfish priests would take care that not 
even one baptism would in future occur. On every occasion 
they would order up battalions of females, with instructions 
to flourish knives, and say that they would sacrifice their 
lives unless the baptism were stayed. In this, as in all 
other cases, the path of duty, even when it cannot be trod 
without exquisite pain, is the path of safety, and no one is 
warranted to turn from it, at the bidding of expediency, to 
the right hand or the left. The surrender of one of the 
Mahanad converts, Kumedhi, was demanded in a lawyer's 
letter, and intimation was made that if he were not at once 

(891) 10 



134 



CALCUTTA. 



given up, application would be made for a writ of habeas 
corpus. In these circumstances Kumedhi's baptism was 
delayed a week. By that time it was inferred that the 
lawyer's threat was a mere brutum fulmen^ which might 
with safety be ignored ; the young man was therefore bap- 
tized without further delay on the i8th September 1864. 
Scarcely were these three Culna baptisms over than three 
other youths appeared from the same place on the same 
errand. Two were at once admitted into the Church, while 
the baptism of the third was delayed owing to a threat of 
application for a writ of habeas corpus in his case. 

** * It was/ says Mr Macdonald, 'actually taken out, but not served, 
as I understand, because the counsel or attorney engaged by them (the 
natives), in considering the case in connection with the recent cases in 
Bombay and the Punjaub, came to the conckision that there was no 
hope of success, and consequently advised his clients to proceed no 
further. The young man was then baptized.* " 

Shortly after these joyous events one of another character 
tried the faith and the fortitude of the missionaries — the 
destruction of a great portion of the mission buildings, both 
in the metropolis and the out stations, on the 5th October 
1864, by a cyclone.* 

By the prompt and liberal response of the home Church 
to an appeal on the subject, issued by Dr Duff in name of 
the committee, money was obtained to repair the damage 
done by the cyclone. One most interesting discovery 
which came out in connection with the cyclone was that 
there were baboos now so enlightened, in one respect at 
least, that they were willing to give up the idol halls in 

* Happily we have scarcely any experience here as to what a cyclone means, the 
heat being \oti moderate and the rotation of the earth not rapid enough in our lati- 
tude to create a genuine British cyclone, though the feeble remains of some which have 
originated in the Carribean Sea occasionally visit our shores. The word cyclone, 
from the Greek #Cj)«cXof, a circle, was coined by Mr Piddington, of Calcutta, in 
1848, in lieu of the naturalised Spanish term hurricane. It was meant to express 
what before had been discovered by other observers, that the dreadful storms which 
devastate certain regions in the warmer latitudes are rotatory in their movement. 
Unhappil3r the Bay of Bengal is one of their chosen seats, and it is to be feared that 
at uncertain intervals the mission buildings at Calcutta, and perhaps at Madras, 
will be damaged by cyclones. 



SATISFACTORY FINANCE. I3S 

their houses for the temporary accommodation of Christian 
schools. How astonishing that men of such good sense did 
not take the opportunity to bundle out their idols once and 
for all ! 

At the end of 1864, Sir John Lawrence, then Viceroy of 
India, presided at the examination. Never had any of his 
predecessors done so. 

We mentioned some time ago the introduction of fees 
into the institution and branch schools. Those had gradu- 
ally increased, till in the mission report to the Assembly in 
1865, it was stated that those in the central institution 
amounted to nearly ;£iooo a year, and those in Chinsurah 
to jQs^Zi los., besides about ;^20 for a small preparatory 
school. In fact, Chinsurah was almost self-supporting. 
The natural effect of the fees was, of course, to reduce the 
number of pupils, yet there were 3135 remaining. Sixteen 
adult baptisms had taken place during the year, two of them 
being those of students from the highest class in the institu- 
tion. The number baptized since the commencement of 
the mission had been upwards of 170, most of whom, if 
living, still remained connected with the Church. The 
deacons' court of the native congregation intimated that 
;^i22 had been contributed during the year, and they re- 
solved, from 1st July 1865, to declare the congregation self- 
supporting, and take no more money from Scotland. It was 
believed that there was not a native church in all India 
which raised so much per annum for Christian purposes. 
Baboo Vishnoo Chandra Chattuijya deserves great credit 
for having been the chief agent in bringing this satisfactory 
state of things about 

In June 1863, a youth called Hem Nath Bhose, a few 
months short of 16, had sought baptism. A writ of habeas 
corpus was taken out by the relatives against Dr Duff and 
Mr De. The judge did not examine the youth to ascertain 
whether or not he had discretion, but gave him up to his 
father. In July 1865, he again returned to the Mission- 



136 CALCUTTA. 

house, and on the i6th of that month was baptized. The 
father attempted to stop the administration of the ordinance 
by alleging that his son was a person of bad character, but 
no credit was given to his statements. As there had been 
discussions on this case in the newspapers, a great crowd 
assembled to witness the baptism. They attempted to carry 
off the neophyte, but failed. When the rite was about to 
be administered, shouts and yells, with cries of " Haribol " * 
arose, both from the back benches in the church, and from 
the crowd outside; but a heavy shower of rain just then 
coming on and clearing the street, the service was completed 
in comparative peace. Complaint was made against those 
who had disturbed the public worship, and a reward was 
offered for their detection. 

At the baptism of a young man called Behari Lai Bhose, 
a student in the first year's college department, which soon 
afterwards took place, ten girls from the orphanage were 
brought into the church to help the psalmody. Among 
'other baptisms which soon afterwards occurred, one was 
that of a widow of 18 or 19, but looking older on account 
of the hardships she had undergone. A few months later 
another widow, this one aged 48, was baptized. 

A lecture on Jesus Christ, delivered on the 5th May 1866, 
by the Baboo Keshub Chandra Sen, the head of the 
progressive party of the Brahma Sumaj,t having in it 
passages in which our holy faith was referred to in a friendly 
manner, the conservative Brahmas proceeded to assail the 

* Haribol, literally, Say Han, that is, Krishna. 

t The leading divisions of the Hindoo Shastras are the Vedas and the Pooranas ; 
the former being very ancient, while the latter are comparatively modern. Both 
are pantheistic, but the Pooranas, from their gross idolatry, are by far the more 
vulnerable of the two. Hence the more enlightened Hindoos at Calcutta and other 
centres of modem thought are becoming a little ashamed of the Pooranas, and not 
yet being willing to embrace Christisuiity, fall back on the Vedas, and call them- 
selves Vedantists. They are not very candid in the use of these ancient bodies, for 
they rationalise awav any statement in them which they do not like. The modern 
Vedantist sect in Calcutta was founded by Rammohun Roy, and is generally called 
the Brahma Sabha ([pronounced Brahma Subha], or Sumaj, from Brahm, not the 
first person of the triad, but a certain abstraction, destitute of qualities, believed to 
be in a manner the essence of God. About the date to which our history has come, 
the Sabha, or Society, had broken into two or three — the old men bemg, as was 
a»tura\, more conservative than the younger ones. The latter were under the 



CONTROVERSIAL LECTURES, 1 37 

doctrine of Jesus, evidently in dread of its further advance 
in the community. A gentleman of eminent talent and ac- 
complishments — Baboo Grish Chandra Ghose — announced 
and delivered a lecture on what he called the decline of 
Christianity. The lecture being long, there was no time to 
reply to it at the close ; but Dr Robson at once announced 
that he would do so next evening, in the hall of the Free 
Church Institution, which he did. Mr Macdonald intimated 
and delivered a second lecture on the Testimony of Baboo 
Grish Chandra Ghose, an enemy, in favour of Christianity" 
and against deism. Grish's lecture opened the columns of 
both divisions of the Brahma Sumaj to letters on the subject, 
and thus the discussion was profitably prolonged. The 
excitement was kept up by two baptisms. The one was 
that of a Brahman of the Bhattacharjya class, aged i8, who 
had been several years in the institution, having learned 
English after with difficulty obtaining his father's consent to 
do so, the worthy Bengalee saying that our language was 
" an unclean tongue, an unholy study, that will lead to your 
corruption and ruin/* The young man now spoken of was 
baptized by Mr Don on the 5 th August 1866. The other, 
though baptized in connection with the London Missionary 
Society, had obtained his Christian knowledge in the Free 
Church Institution. The practice of replying in the Hall of 
the Free Church Institution to attacks on Christianity made 
elsewhere, has been continued since with manifold advan- 
tages to the cause of truth. 

One of the largest and wealthiest villages in the Mahanad 
district is Akhna. In it is a flourishing girls' school, and a 
zenana one, with about 20 in attendance, for adult females. 
Half-a-dozen of the zenana pupils expressed their desire to 
embrace Christianity. On this becoming known, their 

leadership of the well-known Keshub Chandra Sen, who derived, it cannot be doubted, 
from the Bible, and not from the Vedas, his two doctrines of the fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of man. Edward Irving had become famous by introducing 
the expression, "The fatherhood of God," into a prayer, long before Keshub stood 
forth as a religious teacher. 



138 CALCUTTA. 

relatives, of course, took means to prevent their carrying 
out their conscientious convictions. Two of the females, 
however, escaped and sought shelter in the mission, — an 
exploit in the case of timid and high-born dames who had 
never left the secluded precincts of the zenana, of unprece- 
dented boldness and courage. Both of them were young 
widows* Their ages were respectively 16 and 20. Their 
names were Biraji Bosu and Bidhumukhi Bosu. Both were 
baptized on July 29th, 1866. 

One of the most formidable obstacles which retard the 
progress of Christianity in India is the separation of members 
of families, necessitated by the caste system. This being 
so, it is a matter of the deepest thankfulness when cases 
occur in which a whole family are brought, one after another, 
into the Church. Such a case occurred in connection with 
the Bengal mission. The baptism of the baboo Lucky 
Narayan Das, from Howrah, with the loss and recovery of 
his wife, have been already recorded. All his family were 
within a few years subsequently converted to Christ. Lucky 
himself said — 

"On the 17th August 1862, I was baptized; my wife on the 4th 
January 1863 ; and then my youngest brother, Jodu Nath Das, on 
the 6th December 1863 ; and my neighbour, Lucky Monie Mittra 
(widow), on the 23rd July 1865." 

Baikanta Nath Das, the last of the family, was admitted 
into the Church on the 15th July 1866. When it becomes 
common for households of caste Hindoos to come into the 
Christian Church, leaving no member outside in heathenism, 
the triumph of the gospel will not be much longer delayed. 

In April 1867, the Rev. J. Pourie, pastor of the Calcutta 
Free Church, was obliged to leave that city under medical 
advice for Australia, where he died the same year.t 

♦ See page 126. 

t The liberalitv of the Calcutta Free Church had been almost, if not altogether, 
unparalleled. The membership is not large, and yet between Augtist 1843 and 
31st August 1863 it raised ^62,308. The pastor's stipend was ;C6oo, and in 1863 a 
manse was beine built which was expected to cost A3000 or £4,000. There was a 
fund called the furlough and sick-leave fund, which amounted Xa£^^oot and also a 



THE REV. DR MURRAY MITCHELL. 1 39 

About October 1867, word reached home that Lai Behari 
De had resigned the pastoral charge of the Bengalee Church, 
and entered the Government Education Service ; that when 
Dr Robson's term of service expired he would not renew it, 
but would take a situation under the Government, or com- 
mence private practice ; that Mr Fyfe would soon require 
temporarily to return home on account of his health ; and, 
finally, that the health of Mr Pourie, the pastor of the Free 
Church, had hopelessly broken down. It was perceived 
that another crisis in the history of the mission had arrived. 
In the emergency, the Rev. Dr Murray Mitchell, at the 
request of the Foreign Missions Committee, resigned his 
pastoral charge at Broughty Ferry, and proceeded tempo- 
rarily to Calcutta, leaving Southampton with Mrs Mitchell 
by the first mail steamer in December 1367, and arriving 
early in the following year, 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE MISSION AFTER DR MITCHELL*S ARRIVAL. 

The intellect, scholarship, refinement, and long missionary 
experience of Dr Mitchell rendered him the most fitting 
person that could be found to aid the Bengal mission in an 
emergency, and he went forth prepared to give assistance in 
any department of the work in which his services might be 
most required. Just before his arrival, the Calcutta Church 
had been filled up, the congregation having preferred 
promptly calling Mr Don, one of the missionaries, to sending 
home instructions to look out for a pastor. "'*' Dr Mitchell 

retiring fund and a widows' and orphans' fund. No symptoms had appeared of 
diminished zeal. During the years 1862-63, ;^374o, 8s. had been raised, of which 
;^2338 had been contributed to the mission. 

* The liberality of this church still continued. When Mr Pourie was absent from 
ill health in Australia, his attached flock gave him his full salary, which had been 
raised some time previously to between ;^7oo and ;^8oo. In 1871, it was stated that, 
since 1844, it had raised ;C85»ooo. It had also three Sabbath schools, with 37 
teachers and 335 pupils. 



I40 CALCUTTA. 

when he came, therefore, gave his main strength to the 

mission. 

It had some weeks before sustained serious losses from a 

second cyclone, in various respects more destructive than that 

of 1864. The buildings at the branch stations had some of 

them suffered considerably, and those in Comwallis Square 

had also been partially injured 

"All the masonry of our institution," wrote Mr "FyiQ, "stood the 
storm well, except a little observatory on the roof, which is so much 
damaged that it must be taken down altogether. We will not think of 
rebuilding it. Some of the doors were smashed in pieces, and many of 
the windows destroyed." 

Dr Mitchell did not confine his labours to Calcutta, but 
made extensive missionary tours in Bengal, the Santhal 
country, Nagpore, the North-West Provinces, and the Pun- 
jaub. He and Mr Don also, as members of the Calcutta 
University, exerted their influence and gave their suffrages 
in favour of such a course of education as they believed best 
for the intellectual and moral training of the students. They 
aided in carrying, by a majority of one, the retention of 
"Abercromby on the Mental and Moral Sciences " against 
some gentlemen in the University Council, who wished it 
expelled from the list of text-books for examination. Dr 
George Smith, of the Friend of India, powerfully supported 
the missionaries with his pen in this struggle. 

In 1869, the Christian Vernacular Education Society 
intimated their intention of taking up as "a circle of 
schools" the adult night ones established at Mahanad. 
This was to be done, not by superseding the native system, 
but by furnishing improved books and systematic inspection. 
In 1869, there were thirteen adults baptized in connection 
with the mission. At the examination which concluded the 
operations of that year. Sir Richard Temple presided. In 
1870, the baptisms were under average, being only five, 
but in the mysterious working of the Spirit of God, there 
are ebbs and flows in the number of admissions to the 
Church in each Indian mission. Two of the five were 



POSITION OF THE MISSION, I4I 

Mussulmans. A young man, Selin-u-Din, employed as an 
evangelist, having betaken himself to secular employment, 
Kh urban Ali, one of the five new converts, was appointed 
his successor. 

Mr Beaumont of Chinsurah,* and Mr and Mrsi Fyfe,t 
having been compelled by ill health to return to Europe, 
first the Rev. James Robertson, and subsequently the Rev. 
John Hector, were appointed to Bengal, and arrived, the 
former in the fall of 1871, and the latter early in 1872. J 

In July 1 87 1, Dr Mitchell baptized Adwaito Charan, a 
" native doctor," that is, one who had received a fair medical 
education through the medium of his own Bengalee. It was 
thought that he would in all likelihood assist Dr Templeton 
in the San thai mission. A few months later baptism was 
administered to a young Mussulman, Sultan Hossein, who 
was the son of a man of high position at the Court of 
Lucknow while a Court was still there, but who died while 
** Sultan" was very young. 

But we must hasten to a close. In the Assembly Report 
for 1872, it was stated that the Bengal mission had 2967 
pupils. There were 137 in full communion with the native 
Church. The operations 'of the mission were superintended 
by a large committee on the spot, with the Rev. J. D. 
Don as chairman, and as many as twenty "laymen" 
members. Mr Robertson having examined the orphanage 
and found two or three girls comparatively advanced in 
knowledge, bethought him of establishing a normal class, 
and educating them as teachers. Eight are now in the 
normal class. Lord Northbrook, in his inquiries with 



* Mr Beaumont, with the sanction of the committee, subsequently transferred his 
services to Poonah. 

t Mrs Fyfe died shortly afterwards of paralysis. She had devotedly laboured 
thirty years with her husband in the East. 

X The Rev. James Robertson was ordained by the Free Presbytery of Turriff, on 
8th June 1871, and the Rev. John Hector by that of Aberdeen, on the 14th December 
1871. The former sailed for Liverpool on a8th September 1871, with Dr Templeton» 
of the Santhal mission, and the latter on the 26th February 1872. The steam vessels 
in which they embarked belonged to the Messrs Smith of Glasgow, to whose honour 
it should be mentioned that they made a handsome reduction in the passage money. 



. 1 



142 CALCUTTA. 

respect to the state of education in Calcutta, visited several 
of the seminaries, and, among others, our own institution. 

Early in 1872, Mr Macdonald, after ten years' service in 
the East, returned on furlough to his native land. In addi- 
tion to his labours in preaching and teaching, he had used 
the literary gift which he possessed in editing two periodicals, 
as well as several English classics, including Reid's " Inquiry 
into the Human Mind," The classics were designed for 
the use of schools. 

No one, we think, can read the foregoing narrative without 
perceiving that through every vicissitude the mission has 
been making way. Even in severe trials there has been 
much to encourage. One of the heaviest afflictions it has 
ever had to undergo has been the acceptance by some of its 
native agents of secular employment. Yet how much good 
these may yet be able to effect in the several spheres 
which they fill may be judged of from the three following 
instances : — 

The Rev. Lai Behari De, formerly pastor of the native 
Church at Calcutta, is now attached to the Hooghly College 
in the immediate vicinity of Chinsurah. He has established 
a Presbyterian service in English for the Europeans and 
natives. At the opening, on ijth Febmary 1872, forty 
attended, the majority being East Indians, with a good 
sprinkling of Bengali native Christians and a few Europeans. 
We should have preferred that the service had been in 
Bengalee, as a native convert is ** debtor," in the Scriptural 
sense, to his own heathen countrymen first. But we are 
glad to welcome missionary efforts in any direction. 

Sheeb Chunder Banerjya, it may be remembered, resigned 
his situation as catechist 4n 1859, but resolved to continue 
preaching without receiving salary from the mission. In 
both respects he has done as he said. The only income he 
has since had for spiritual work was from a strange source. 
In 1850 a native, called Mookerjya, had been baptized 
hy Dr Mackay. In November 1865, he employed Sheeb 



THE EFFECT OF SCATTERING ARBOAD, I43 

Chunder, then in the Government service, as an evangeHst, 
undertaking, if he resigned, to provide his entire support 
Mookerjya was in partnership with a Mr Clark, their firm 
being called that of Messrs Clark and Mookerjya. — Free 
Church Missionary Record for March 1867. 

Sheeb Chunder* is still in the Government service in the 
financial department, and having to accompany the Gover- 
nor-General to Simla, he lately wrote in these terms to the 
Rev. Dr Thomas Smith, who, as our readers will recall, was 
for a considerable time his associate in village preaching : — 

**By grace I am saved, by grace I am fed, by grace I work at my 
desk ; for every, even the least mercy of a temporal kind, I am indebted 
to the free grace of God in Christ Jesus my blessed Lord. '* Of his 
official duties, he says that they are ** invested with a sacramental value, 
because the Holy Spirit alone helps me to do my work, not as men- 
pleasers, but as a service to the living God," He adds, " I have the 
exceeding high privilege of ministering to a temporary congregation of 
natives, brethren of different denominations. Every Lord's day we 
have service both in Bengalee and Hindoostanee, I do not, of course, 
administer the Lord's Supper to my temporary flock. One week my 
esteemed friend, Mr Fordyce, doestnat for me."— -^r^^ Church Mission" 
ary Record, 187 1, p. 199. 

Not merely acceptance of secular employment, but ill- 
hfealth has sometimes removed the mission converts from 
Calcutta. Among those who departed on this account was 
Kali Das Chakrabutti. 

The dry air of the upper provinces, which is much less 
deleterious to the human frame than the muggy atmosphere 
of the Gangetic delta, restored his health. Now he is 
located at Bhawalpore, a half-independent state, ruled over 
by a branch of the Scindian Ameers. There he has estab- 
lished a school attended by about 130 boys, for whose use 
he has published two small books in the Bhawalpore dialect, 
one in the Hindi and the other in the Persian character. 

* He is generally called Banerjya, but we prefer terming him Sheeb Chunder. 
Among ourselves, the first name is, as every one knows, the Christian one, and the 
second the surname ; but the Hindoos adopt a different system. As a rule, when 
there are three names, the first is the youth's own, the second is his father's, and the 
third is that of the family or clan. We may be wrong, but we interpret the name 
which has suggested these remarks to mean, Sheeb, son of Chunder, of the Baner- 
jya clan. 



144 CALCUTTA, 

He behaved also with true Christian philanthropy during a 
recent famine. As we learn from the Missionary Record 
for January 1872, he recently wrote in warmly affectionate 
language to his spiritual father, Dr Duff. It is not simply 
in Calcutta, — it is in Bengal, the north-western provinces, the 
Punjaub, indeed, all over India, that one must look for the 
converts, and the old pupils of the Calcutta mission. 

The foregoing being only a sketch, the labours of the 
missionaries in connection with the central institution and 
its branches have been chiefly noted. But it would be 
doing great injustice to them and their converts, to suppose 
that these labours were confined to the institution and 
its branches. From the first, Dr Duft's view on the sub- 
ject was, that when the educational staff was sufficient in 
number, one half the missionary's time and strength should 
be devoted to institution work, and the other half to 
miscellaneous mission work, according to the varying 
tastes, predilections, or aptitudes of the several agents. At 
times the supply of labourers admitted of the scheme being 
fully carried out. At other times, from ill-health or tem- 
porary absence, or death, it could only be partially realised. 
But, from first to last, by most of the missionaries, a vast 
deal of miscellaneous evangelistic work was accomplished, in 
the way of holding private classes for religious instruction, 
on week days and Sabbath days, preaching in the Institu- 
tion Hall or in bungalow chapels ; lecturing to the educated 
natives ; visiting for evangelistic purposes various localities 
in the native city or country districts in the neighbourhood 
of Calcutta, or making itinerating tours into the interior 
during the long vacations ; preparing Christian school books, 
religious tracts, translations of religious works, &c. ; while 
by native teachers, catechists, preachers, and ordained 
ministers, the gospel has been extensively proclaimed 
through large and often far-distant zillahs and villages, to 
hundreds of thousands of all classes, alike Mohammedan 
and Hindoo. 



SECTION III. 
MADRAS. 




CHAPTER I. 

THE PLACE AND PEOPLE. 

[HE Madras presidency is inferior in importance 
only to that of Bengal. Its greatest length, 
which is from north-east to south-west, is 
about 950 miles, while its greatest breadth, 
measured at right angles to the former line, is about 450. 
It has 1727 miles of coast, an enormous amount for its area, 
but unhappily there is everywhere a notable absence of 
good harbours. 

By the census of 1872, so far as the exact details have as 
yet been ascertained, the population of the Madras presi- 
dency was 31,250,000, nearly as great as that of the United 
Kingdom. The leading Hindoo races are the Tamuls and 
the Teloogoos. 

The Tamuls are undoubtedly of Turanian descent. They 
have a certain affinity to the Tartars, and a language of 
Beloochistan, the Brahui, in many points resembles the 
Tamul. The Gond tongue does so likewise, and there can 
be no question that the Tamuls once extended much 
farther north than at present, and that they were gradually 
forced southward by the Brahman Aryan invaders. They 
now occupy the east side of India, from a few miles north of 



146 MADRAS. 

Madras city, to near Cape Comorin. They have overflowed 
also into Ceylon, and extend over the whole northern and 
eastern portions of that island. Living so far south, they 
are the darkest coloured of the great Indian races, indivi- 
duals being occasionally met with not very distinguishable in 
hue, or even in thickness of lips, from some negroes ; but 
even in such exceptional cases, there is no danger of con- 
founding the two races, one unmistakeable distinction be- 
tween them being the long straight hair of the Tamulian, 
as contrasted with the woolly-like natural curls of the negro. 
Perhaps one-fifth of the Tamul-speaking people are Pariahs, 
an aboriginal race, which, submitting to the caste Tamu- 
lians, were by them thrust down to the very base of the social 
pyramid. These Tamul Pariahs have shown a remarkable 
aptitude for what may be called domestication. Multitudes 
of them become servants to Europeans, and no Hindoo 
seems so much at home among pots, pans, kettles, and 
other culinary utensils, as a Tamul Pariah. Associating as 
those Pariahs do largely with Europeans, and speaking as 
many of them do either broken or tolerably good English, 
they are fast coming under the influence of Christianity, and 
at no very remote period will, we hope, come over to it, 
not as now individually or by families, but in masses. The 
caste and no-caste Tamulians are together no fewer than 
ten or twelve millions. 

The Teloogoos are allied to the l^amuls in race, but differ 
from them physically to a greater extent than one would 
expect who knows how much they are akin. The Teloo- 
goos are more handsome than their Tamul brethren ; in- 
deed, it is wonderful how many men of fine features one 
sees among them, and that, be it observed, though they are 
of Turanian descent, and allied to Tartars. Their language 
is melodious in sound ; their country is north of that occu- 
pied by the Tamuls ; their numbers may be from ten to 
thirteen millions. 



MADRAS CITY. I47 

When first the British began to mingle in the politics of 
the Coromandel country, they found that the governing 
authority was in the hands neither of Tamuls nor of Teloo- 
goos, but of Mussulmans. There, as elsewhere, we smote 
the Mohammedan tyranny down, and emancipated the 
Hindoos from their oppressive sway. In offering the gospel 
then to the latter, we appear before them in favourable cir- 
cumstances; whilst, on the contrary, the Mohammedans, 
even if they had no religious quarrel with us, have this cause 
of alienation, that they cannot forget the mortal injury which 
their political power suffered at our hands. 

To speak next of Madras city. Its situation is a very 
unfavourable one for a maritime capital, from the unhappy 
circumstance that it is destitute of a proper harbour, and to 
make one would be exceedingly difficult, if not even imprac- 
ticable. Hence ships which visit the city require to lie in 
the open roadstead, some distance from the shore, and ever 
and anon haul up their anchors, or even cut their cables 
and stand out to sea, when a tempest from the north-east 
threatens to heave them ashore. Madras grew up originally 
under the sheltering ramparts of Fort St George, which is 
still kept in good repair. The fort is on the shore, north and 
north-east of the city, which, measured from the northern 
extremity of the fort, extends along the margin of the ocean 
southward about 9 miles, with an average breadth inland, 
at right angles to this line, of 2J, increased in one place to 
3f miles. The area is considered to be about 30 square 
miles, or about a fourth that, of London; but this large 
expanse is not closely set with houses — it has within it 
numerous gardens and other open spaces. The population 
was for some time officially estimated at 720,000. Whilst, 
however, as already stated, conjectures as to the population 
of the several Indian provinces generally fall beneath the 
truth, guesses as to the number of inhabitants in the cities 
as a rule, exceed it, and the Madras Administration Report 



148 MADRAS. 

for 1 86 2- 1 863, gave the following as the population of the 
city:* — 

Europeans and IndoEuropeans . . . 16,368 

Native Christians^ 21,839 

Hindoos, 325,678 

Mussulmans, ...... 63,886 

Total, . . . 437,771 

—Parliamentary Blue Book, No. 68, for 1870. 

If the Europeans and the East Indians be omitted, then 
the inhabitants of Madras are mainly Tamuls, Teloogoos, 
and Mussulmans. The two former races profess Hindooism, 
and are in caste nomenclature Sudras, dominated over by 
the lordly Aryan Brahmans. The latter, however, were 
long in reaching Southern India, and do not even yet 
swarm there as they do in places less remote from their 
primeval seats. When the late Mr Hislop went temporarily 
from Nagpore to Madras, one of the features in the latter 
place which greatly struck him was the comparative fewness 
of Brahmans in the streets. Those astute men seem to have 
made a considerable blunder in their method of dealing 
with the Southern presidency seat. They have hitherto 
looked on it as a place of no peculiar sanctity, whereas 
they should have declared it an extremely holy spot, and in- 
vited Brahmans thither from all quarters to keep the Sudras 
from being led away to Christianity. We trust that it is 
now too late for them to think of correcting the error. The 
Mohammedans of Madras reside chiefly in a part of the city 
called Triplicane, which runs from the fort southward, and 
therefore parallel to the sea coast, from which, however, it 
is separated by a bend in the river Koom. Excepting 
only Calcutta, there is no more important spot in India for 
the establishment of a great mission than Madras. 

* See the Carnatic Telegraph for November 26, 1862, or the overland summary 
of the Bombay Gazette for X2th December 1863. 



THE REV. JOHN ANDERSON, 1 49 

CHAPTER 11. 

THE FOUNDATIONS LAID. 

The impassioned eloquence of Dr Duff during his first visit 
to his native land had stirred up such an interest in his educa- 
tional system of operations in the East, that an ardent desire 
arose for the establishment of " institutions" on the model of 
the Calcutta one at the other presidency seats. There being 
already missionaries at Bombay, it was easy to take imme- 
diate action there ; and, as we shall afterwards see, a school 
of Dr Wilson's, commenced in 1832, was removed to the 
fort and opened on a larger scale, with the view of develop- 
ing it into an "institution." Then the turn of Madras 
naturally came, but, of course, little could be done till first 
a missionary was sought and found. The influence of Dr 
Duff's great speech in the Assembly of 1835 had, however, 
told powerfully on the mind of a licentiate of the Church, 
then living on the banks of the Nith, near Dumfries, and 
the afterwards renowned John Anderson had consecrated 
himself to evangelistic work in India.* He was prepared 
to undertake the conduct of the Madras mission, and being 
ordained in St George's Church, Edinburgh, on July 13th, 

1836, left soon afterwards for his destination. 

Before proceeding to his own proper sphere, he visited 
Calcutta to see the working of the institution there. He 
arrived at the Bengal capital on the 27 th December 1836, 
and received hospitality from the Rev. Mr Mackay, who, 
during Dr Duff's absence in Europe, was head of the mis- 
sion. He finally reached Madras on the 22nd February 

1837. At that time he was in his 32nd year, a period of 



♦ John Anderson was born at the farm of Craig, in the parish of Kirkpatrick- 
Durnam, in Kirkcudbrightshire, on the 23d of May 1805. He distinguished himself 
iighly at the University of Edinburgh. When in his 22nd year, he gamed a prize for 
the best Latin poem on Hannibal's passage of the Alps, though four students, ulti- 



mately de>tined to be profcs^iors, were in his class, and either were or might have 
been competitors. 

(301) 1 1 



ISO MADRAS. 

life considerably more advanced than that at which most of 
the Free Church missionaries have proceeded to the East, 
but this was a decided advantage to any one going to com- 
mence operations in a new and untried sphere. 

The germ from which the great Madras institution ulti- 
mately developed was already in existence when Mr 
Anderson first reached that presidency seat. In June 1835 
the Rev. Messrs Bowie and Lawrie, Scotch chaplains at 
Madras, had founded what was called St Andrew's School, 
the name being probably taken from that of the so-called 
patron saint of Scotland. On Mr Anderson's arrival this 
school was placed under his care, and, removing it to the 
native city, he re-opened it on the 3rd of April 1837, with an 
attendance of fifty-nine pupils.* In doing so, he made no 
secret of his intention to aim at the conversion of the 
pupils to Christianity, and let it be distinctly known that 
this was the very purpose the Foreign Mission Committee 
had in view in sending him and his brethren out. His first 
circular is an extremely straightforward document ; and if, 
when conversions took place in the school, some of the 
natives professed to feel amazed, as if some strange thing 
had happened, they certainly could not in justice complain 
that they were left without previous warning of what was 
likely to occur. 

" ' It is/ said the circular, * the wish of the committee of the Indian 
mission to establish a school at each of the three presidencies as the 
most important stations in India for the advancement of their object.' 

" The object is simply to convey, through the channel of a good 
education, as great an amount of truth as possible to the native mind, 
especially of Bible truth. Every branch of knowledge communicated is 
to be made subservient to this desirable end. The ultimate object is 
that these institutions shall be a normal seminary, in which native 
teachers and preachers may be trained up to convey to their benighted 
countrymen the benefit of a sound education, and the blessings of the 
gospel of Christ. " 

Despite the unfurling of the Christian flag thus conspicu- 

• There had once been 150, but the admission of a Pariah, whom the School Com- 
mittee (to their honour be it said) had refused to expel, had brought it down cou- 
siderably. — Madras Native Herald {or October 9, 1847, p. 2. 



THE CASTE STRUGGLE, I5I 

ously, the zealous and efficient teaching of Mr Anderson 
began to produce its natural effects, and by December 22, 
1838, the attendance of pupils had advanced from 59 to 
277. The course of an Indian mission school, like that of 
true love, never yet did run smooth, and presently rocks 
appeared in mid-channel, and rapids presented themselves 
with broken water, so that the faithless were tempted to 
doubt whether the former placidity of movement would 
ever return. To speak less figuratively, scarcely had the 
mission began to make progress when troubles arose. The 
first was caused by a renewal of the old caste struggle. 
Two Pariah boys had found their way into the school under 
false colours, and when they were discovered some of the 
caste youths and their friends wished the expulsion of the 
intruders. Mr Anderson could not in conscience comply 
with their request, and about 100 of his pupils in conse- 
quence left. Ten of these were received into the Native 
Education Society's* School, the European Committee of 
which — who evidently fell into the error of supposing caste 
and worldly rank the same* — stating that they deemed it 
right to afford an asylum " when the feelings of a boy were 
shocked by his being associated with persons of an inferior 
class of life." The caste struggle was more severe than it 
would have been had the intolerant heathen party not 
obtained European countenance ; but Mr Anderson finally 
achieved the victory, for in a few months the places of the 
boys who had left him on the Pariah question were supplied 
by new comers, whilst the committee of the rival school was 
partly broken up by the secession of four eminent Christians 
from its ranks. His triumph struck a blow at the caste 
system in Madras, from which it has never recovered. 
When a missionary feels himself embarked in a caste 

* By caste law men of the highest rank, unless by birth Hindoos, are on the level 
of Pariahs, if not even lower, and the humblest Sudra should be above associating 
with tie Governor-General of India. Mr Anderson was as much a Pariah as the 
boys whose expulsion was demanded, so also were the European members of the 
Native Education Society's Committee. 



152 MADRAS, 

Struggle in which he dare not j-ield, it is good policy for 
him to begin operations in another quarter, provided he be 
strong enough in men to act with effect in two places at 
once. It wonderfully helps to keep him in good spirits, and 
make him feel that his Divine Master's work is going forward 
in his hands, if when a door is partially closed against him 
in his first sphere, he can so arrange that one shall be flung 
wide open for him in a second. Mr Anderson perceived 
this, and when, to his sorrow, the Madras school suffered on 
account of the struggle about the Pariah boys,* he looked 
out for another locality at which he might establish a school 
and commence operations. But before any effective action 
could be taken, it was needful that a colleague should come 
to him from Scotland. It was destined that he should not 
wait long for this coveted boon. 

On the 24th January 1839, the Lady Flora Indiaman 
cast anchor off Madras, and Mr Anderson boarding her and 
hastening into her cabin, there met and gave a hearty 
welcome to his old college friend, Robert Johnston, who 
had come as a second missionary.! Independently of this 
affection for each other, begun at home, diversity of tempera- 
ment rendered them admirably fitted to work together in 
harmony. Mr Anderson was the Luther, and Mr Johnston 
the Melancthon, of the Madras mission. The Rev. Mr 
Braidwood, of Madras, in the memoir of them which he 
wrote after their deaths, happily designated them "true 
yoke-fellows in the mission field.** 

The coming of Mr Johnston so much strengthened the mis- 
sion that it was resolved to push forward and occupy a new 
station. Conjeveram was the place selected for the purpose. 

Conjeveram, or the golden city, sometimes called the 
Benares of the South, lies about forty-two miles south-west of 

* See note to page 151. 

t Robert Johnston was bom at Craigieburn Wood, near Moffat, on the i6th 

December 1807. He was licenced by the Presbytery of Edinburgh in the year 1835, 

became a home missionary at Wallaceiown, Ayr, m July 1837, and was ordained 

DJissionary to Madras on the sth September 1838 —Free Chinch Missionary 

AWar//, 1852-1853, p. 260 ; Braidwood's **Tnie Yokefellows," p. 17. 



CONJEVERAM AND CHINGLEPUT, I53 

Madras. It is said by one of our missionaries to remind a 
Scotchman of Kirkcaldy, the reason being that its main 
street, which, moreover, constitutes the chief portion of the 
place, is about three miles in length. There is an upper or 
great, and a lower or Httle, Conjeveram. At the former is 
a Sivavite temple, dedicated to the god Yagambar, and said 
to have connected with it about a hundred dancing girls. 
At the latter is a Vishnuvite one, sacred to Vurdarajulu. 
The ordinary population of the two Conjeverams, taken 
together, is under 20,000, a number, however, which at the 
great annual festival in May is so swelled by devotees from 
all quarters, that it reaches from 100,000 to 200,000. 

On the 29th of May 1839, Mr Anderson boldly opened a 
Christian school at this great focus of idolatry, while the 
great annual festival was going on. In default of a better 
place, he had to commence operations in one end of the 
collector's stable. When he began, he had only eight or 
ten scholars, but by the end of two months, the pupils had 
increased to forty, all of whom paid a considerable fee. 
First fever and then cholera prostrated the devoted mis- 
sionary, and for a time it looked as if the Conjeveram enter- 
prise would cost him his precious life. In the good provi- 
dence of God, however, he was ultimately restored to health. 
When he first introduced the Bible into the Conjeveram 
school, some influential natives begged that the step he was 
taking might be delayed for a year, but he wisely declined 
acceding to their request, knowing full well that if he 
granted the delay sought, the difficulty of ultimately doing 
what was right would during the interval have increased, 
instead of diminishing. 

Shortly afterwards, W. A. Morehead, Esq., set up a school 
at Chingleput, which before long he, with the approbation 
and concurrence of the native committee, gave over to the 
mission {Madras Native Herald for 1847, pp. 32, 33). Chin- 
gleput is situated about thirty-five miles from Madras, on the 
great southern road to Trichinopoly. It has a fort of some 



154 MADRAS. 

celebrity in the history of India, " with a rampart and ditch 
two miles in circumference. The latter is wide and deep, 
and is constantly filled with water, which during the. rainy 
season expands to a spacious lake *' {Madras Almanac for 
i^39» P' 407)' Chingleput is a zillah, or what in English 
we should call a county town. Thornton, in 1857, esti- 
mated the population of the zillah at 583,462.* 

In August 1840, the mission received another school, one 
at Nellore, with property nearly sufficient for its mainten- 
ance, the donor being Dr Cooper, the gentleman by whom 
it was originated. It was then taught by Mr Paezold, who 
was brought down for three months to Madras, and initiated 
into the method of teaching pursued in the parent institu- 
tion. While Conjeveram, Chingleput, and even Madras 
itself, were in the Tamul country, Nellore was a Teloogoo 
town. At the time when the mission commenced opera- 
tions there, it was believed to have about 20,000 Hindoo 
inhabitants, with a considerable number of Mohammedans. 
It was about 100 miles north of Madras, and is capital of a 
zillah containing, in 1857, 935,690 inhabitants. 

On the 8th of March 1841, a branch school was established 
at Triplicane, the Mohammedan suburb of Madras, and 
designed chiefly for Moslem youth. Its teacher was Mr 
Whitely, who for many years subsequently was a very effi- 
cient agent of the mission. 

On the 15th January 1841, just before the opening of the 
Triplicane branch school, the Rev. John Braidwood, who 
had been ordained on August 6, 1840, as a missionary to 
Madras, arrived with Mrs Braidwood in the Lady Flora, One 
of the first departments of mission work with which he and 
his partner became associated, was an early effort in favour 
of female education. The details are worth putting on 

* Speaking of the circumstances in which the operations of the Madras mission 
were commenced at Conjeveram and Chingleput, Mr Anderson said — " Had it not 
been for the struggle about caste in our institution in 1838, the Comeveram school 
would never have been started, nor probably that at Chingleput. The difficulty at 
the centre gave occasion to the estabfishment or adoption of these schools." — 
-^a^ras Native Herald lot October 9, 1847, p. 5. 



FEMALE EDUCATION, 155 

record. In 1839, Major St Clair Jameson offered a prize 
of ICO rupees for the best essay written by a youth in each 
of the three missionary institutions on the subject of native 
female education, and the best method of elevating the con- 
dition of the Hindoo women. Some of the abler youths 
in the Madras institution resolved to compete for this prize, 
and in the first ardour of their temporary enthusiasm at- 
tempted to teach their wives and other female relatives, but 
meeting with opposition from the ladies whom they designed 
to instruct, they soon gave up the task in weariness or 
despair. Discussion, however, and essay writing on female 
education in 1839 and 1840, prepared the way for action at 
a not very remote period. When Mr and Mrs Braidwood 
first arrived, they lived in the part of Madras called Roya- 
pooram. While there some girls, including a few of caste, 
were induced to attend at their house for instruction ; but 
on their removing to Black Town to be nearer the institu- 
tion, the incipient girls' school had to be temporarily given 
up, and exciting events, to be detailed in the next chapter, 
prevented its immediate resumption. (See Madras Native 
Herald^ October 21, 1848, pp. 227-229). 



CHAPTER in. 

SPLENDID FIRST FRUITS. 

When Mr Anderson had laboured for nearly four years 
without visible fruit in the conversion of souls, one of the 
pupils, a Teloogoo youth called Ettirajooloo was confined 
to his house, in order to prevent his continuing to attend 
school. He wrote to Mr Anderson in the following terms : 
— " Because I have felt the sweetness of the Almighty's 
word, I wish to know what I am to do to be saved." He 
earnestly entreated the missionaries to pray for him that he 
might be allowed to return to school and receive baptism^ 



156 MADRAS. 

Before this case came to an issue two others had arisen. 
They were those of the now celebrated P. Rajahgopaul and 
A. Venkataramiah. 

Rajahgopaul was a Sudra of the respectable Moodeliar 
caste. He was about eighteen years of age, and had been 
inquiring for more than a year. On his applying for bap- 
tism, Mr Anderson asked if he was prepared to give up his 
mother, his sisters, and his all for Christ On his replying 
that he was, " Well," said Mr Anderson, " I am prepared to 
give up my school for you." — Free Church Missionary 
Record^ October 1855, p. 61. 

To give some details next regarding Venkataramiah. In 
the south of India is a caste called Chatanees, which 
technically considered is Sudra, yet is deemed one of much 
respectability. Some of the Chatanees are said to be mag- 
nificent looking men, and are known by a peculiar fillet 
which encircles their brows, no less than by their well- 
stamped features. It was to this caste that Venkataramiah 
belonged. He was grandson to the registrar of the petty 
court. Hearing, in 1839, that a missionary, the Rev. 
Robert Johnston, eminent for his mathematical attain- 
ments, had just arrived from Scotland, he resolved to 
embrace the opportunity of prosecuting the study of the 
science just named, steeling his mind and heart all the 
while against the religious teaching with which the scientific 
lessons might be accompanied. He knew neither the 
necessities and aspirations of his own soul nor the power of 
the truth with which he was about to be brought in contact, 
and in about a couple of years after entering school he was 
a candidate for baptism. He and his companion, Rajah- 
gopaul were by far the most intelligent and interesting 
pupils belonging to the first class in the institution. — Free 
Church Missionary Record^ 1862-3, pp. 1-3. 

When the relatives received intelligence that Rajahgopaul 
and Venkataramiah had applied for baptism, they, as was 
natural, came to the Mission-house, and for two hours — from 



THE FIRST THREE CONVERTS. 1 57 

9 to II A.M., did all that was in their power to induce them 
to return home. Mr Anderson said that their appeals to 
the youths and to him were more trying to flesh and blood 
than anything he had ever before witnessed, and their look 
of despair and their silence when the young men remained, 
as they did, firm, " might have moved a heart of stone to 
pity them." The relatives then applied to the chief 
magistrate, J. H. Bell, Esq., stating of course falsely that 
the youths were forcibly detained, on hearing which Mr 
Anderson at once proceeded with them to the police office, 
that Mr Bell might question them as to whether or not they 
were free. On being asked where they wished to go, they 
without the least hesitation replied that they desired to go 
with Mr Anderson, and were permitted to do as they said. 

Rajahgopaul and Venkataramiah were baptized by Mr 
Anderson on the evening of Sabbath, June 20th, 1841. 
Both being of the Tamul race, their admission to the sealing 
ordinance was the commencement of a Tamul church in 
connection with the Madras mission. 

But where all this time was Ettirajooloo ? Still kept 
away from school and more strictly guarded than before, 
but yet having his communications with the outer world so 
far open that he obtained intelligence of the baptisms. At 
last he managed to make his escape, and arrived at the 
Mission-house with the marks of the scourge upon his face. 

He was baptized by Mr Anderson on the 3rd of August 
1 841, and thus the foundation of a Teloogoo no less than 
of a Tamul church was laid.* — Free Church Missionary 
Record, 1852-3, p. 32. 

It need scarcely be added that the institution and the 
branch schools suffered severely in consequence of these 
baptisms. " We are reduced," said Mr Anderson, " to a 
handful,'* and in making this intimation, he simply stated 
what was the sober truth. 400 scholars were scattered, of 

* Mr Anderson said of Ettirajooloo — " He is quite the delight of us all— he is so 
modest, humble, and simple, and full of desires for souls, especially for the lambs.** 



158 AfADRAS. 

whom 100 could read the Bible, and readily follow an 
English discourse. Only 30 or 40 remained. In the tem- 
porary destruction of the institution, a heathen school, 
called after its founder, Patcheappah's, rose into power, and 
about 70,000 Hindoo inhabitants of Madras petitioned 
Lord Elphinstone to establish a High School and Univer- 
sity. Were the converts worth purchasing at so tremen- 
dous a cost? They were undoubtedly. As Mr Anderson 
well said, " A school ceases to be missionary, if men shrink 
from the thing they have been seeking and desiring, and 
the Churches of Christ have been praying for." — Madras 
Native Herald iox October 9, 1847, P- 6. 

When Mr Anderson saw the young men, for whose 
spiritual and temporal welfare he had travailed, scattered 
here and there, and knew how slight was the probability of 
some of them at least ever returning to the institution, he 
conceived the happy thought of starting a periodical for 
their benefit, and commenced the Madras Native Herald, 
It was published fortnightly, the price being six rupees a 
year, paid in advance. By the end of 184 1, it had obtained 
more than 200 subscribers. It was carried on for many 
years, and not merely gave minute details regarding the ever- 
varying phases of the mission history, but advocated Chris- 
tian truth and assailed idolatry in the most vigorous manner. 
It also afforded a considerable stimulus to the Christian 
converts, and other advanced pupils of the institution, by 
publishing their essays and discussions in its pages. Many 
of our readers have doubtless in former years perused with 
no slight interest the Madras Native Herald, 

The institution was not long in recovering from the 
shocks it had sustained through means of the recent bap- 
tisms. By November 20, 1841, there were again about 100 
youths in daily attendance, on a rdU of 1 20 ; and when, on 
the 6th January 1842, the annual examination took place, 
278 pupils were present — only sixteen fewer than on a 
previous occasion twelve months before. At this examina- 



FRESH BAPTISMS. 1 59 

tion Sir Edward Gambier, the Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court, presided, as he had done two years previously, and 
vigorously defended the missionaries from the charge of 
having in any way dealt unfairly with the natives in aiming 
at their conversion. 

About the same time offers came from the St George's 
(Rev. Dr Candlish's) and the New North (the Rev. Chas. 
Brown's) congregations, to undertake the support of the 
first three converts, who now, it should be added, were 
looking forward to the ministry. 

On Sabbath, 8th May 1842, another baptism took place. 
It was that of a young man from the institution called 
Soobaroyan, a Moodelly, eighteen years of age, who was a 
friend of Ettirajooloo's, and had doubtless been partly 
influenced by his example in seeking admission into the 
Church. Before the rite was administered, he had stood 
against the most passionate entreaties of his father to return 
home — nay, he had been acquitted of a frivolous charge 
brought against him in a court of law by his unnatural 
parent, with the view of preventing him from becoming a 
Christian. Yet, notwithstanding these proofs of sincerity, 
he was finally decoyed away by his relatives, and was lost 
to the mission. 

In July of the same year, S. P. Ramanoojooloo, a 
Naidoo, who had long appeared very near the kingdom of 
heaven, was brought to a decision through means of a so- 
called accident by which his arm was broken. He was of 
more mature age than some of the converts, being about 24 
when he asked for baptism. The ordinance was administered 
on 1 6th July 1842. Expectations were entertained that he 
would render good service to the Christian cause, for he 
had already done valuable work as teacher of the Conje- 
veram school, besides writing a prize essay entitled, 
" Woman as she is in India." Two days after his baptism 
the shrieks of his mother so affected him, that to comfort 
her he returned home, declaring, however, that he had no 



l6o MADRAS. 

intention of renouncing Christianity. Rather more than a 
fortnight afterwards, Soobaroyan returned to the Mission- 
house, but soon again departed as before. 

The baptisms of 1842 were by no means so detrimental 
to the school attendance as those of 1841 had been. When 
the examination of the institution took place on the sth 
January 1843, the total number of pupils under charge of the 
mission was between 500 and 600, though these were not 
so far advanced as those who had been in attendance before 
the shattering of 1841. At this examination, Sir Edward 
Gambier was again present, whilst the chair was occupied 
by the Governor of Madras, the Marquis of Tweeddale, who 
brought the Marchioness with him and remained three hours, 
manifesting unaffected interest in all that took place, and, 
by that interest, encouraging the missionaries to go for- 
ward in the trying but glorious work in which they were 
engaged. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DISRUPTION PERIOD. 

At the Disruption the three Madras missionaries, as has 
already been stated, ceased to be connected with the Scottish 
Establishment, and cast in their lot with the Free Church. 
It now became an advantage to them that they had hitherto 
conducted their operations almost exclusively in hired 
buildings, as it prevented such a loss of property as had to 
be sustained by their brethren at Calcutta and Bombay. In 
conjunction with the financial board, they gave noble assist- 
ance to the Church with which their convictions went, by 
relieving its sorely-burdened finances of their maintenance 
for a year. During that period they were paid from local 
funds, contributed to the extent of about 15,000 rupees 
— ^JSoo sterling — by those who admired the fidelity to 



FEMALE EDUCA TION, 1 6 1 

conscience and the spirit of self-sacrifice which characterised 
the Disruption heroes. One subscriber's name requires 
special mention— A. F. Bruce, Esq., commenced contri- 
buting at the rate of 3000 rupees (;^3oo) annually ! to the 
mission. 

The same year, 1843, was notable in another respect, 
namely, for the commencement, in very hopeful circum- 
stances, of female education under the supervision of the 
Free Church labourers. The discussions on this subject 
carried on in 1839 and 1840, and Mr Braidwood'a effort in 
1 84 1, have already been noted. When the discussions now 
spoken of took place, there was not one caste female in 
any Bible day-school in Madras {F, C,M,R,, 185 1, 1852, 
p. 306). In May 1843, ^ communication was received by 
the Madras labourers from those who afterwards became the 
Free Church Ladies' Society for P'emale Education in India, 
offering help, and expressing the wish that a beginning 
were made in the great work which they were associated 
together to promote. Mr Anderson, at the time, thought the 
project impracticable {Madras Native Herald^ 1847, p. 10); 
but through the wives of two of the East Indian teachers, he, 
in September 1843, made the attempt, and was unexpectedly 
successful. True, the commencement was on a very small 
scale, only five pupils having been present on the day of 
opening.* On May i8th, 1844, there were 17 native caste- 
girls in attendance at Madras, and seven in Triplicane, which 
Mr Anderson called "an encouraging number!" Evidently 
he had no conception, at that early period, of the great and 
rapid development which female education was soon to 
attain, under the auspices of the mission. Soon, however, 
an omen of future success presented itself, for in 1844 the 

*One pie — that is, half-farthing per day — was eiven to all who came in time, and a 
second to such as excelled in diligence, and books were bestowed gratis (/' . C. M. 
R.f 1854, 1855, p. 262). Some object to any payment, direct or indirect, in such 
cases ; but, in the opinion of the writer, a temporary recourse to such expedients is 
perfectly legitimate, and in practice it has worked well, having aided in overcoming, 
more quickly than would otherwise have been possible, the great difficulties attendant 
on ihe first efforts made for female education. 



1 62 MADRAS, 

Hindoos themselves began to set up schools for the educa- 
tion of native girls. 

On Friday, 29th March 1844, a Jaina* Brahman, Vis- 
wanauthan, aged 17, was baptized,t and on the subsequent 
Saturday, and again on Monday forenoon, Calastree and 
Arjunun came seeking admission into the Church, but both 
after a time gave way. Neither had received the sealing 
ordinance. On Friday evening, the 12th of July of the same 
year, S. P. Ramanoojooloo returned to the mission, bringing 
with him his wife, Aleemalummah, and, openly confessing 
. the apostacy of which he had been guilty, was readmitted to 
the Church. Mrs Braidwood gave special attention to the 
instruction of Aleemalummah, as well as to that of Mary, 
an interesting native Christian girl. On Wednesday, 28th 
August 1844, Arjun, already mentioned, who had come 
to the mission the morning before, was baptized, but secretly 
departed again the same evening. A work of grace having 
for some time appeared to be in progress in the hearts of 
Aleemalummah and Mary, already mentioned as receiving 
special instruction, the former was baptized on the last 
Sabbath of the year 1844. She was the first female convert 
from Hindooism received by the missionaries into the Church, 
and was about 20 years old. Some fruits were almost imme- 
diately afterwards obtained from Triplicane branch school 
— ^Appasawmy, a Naidoo youth of 19, receiving his instruc- 
tion there, who had solicited baptism the previous April, 
but again drawn back, having again appeared, and this time 
been admitted into the Church. 

The mission had now become so strong that it could 
stand events like those just recorded without such heavy 

• ITie Jainas are a sect of Indian religionists whose tenets are akin to those held 
by the Buddhists. They are tender of animal life. Their architecture is elaborately 
ornate. Many of the native Indian bankers are Jainas. 

t Viswanauthan did not ultimately fulfil the expectations which his baptism had 
excited. On the ist October 1848, he burst a blood-vessel when returning from the 
church, and was in avenr humbled frame of mind. The missionaries showed him 
much kindness, yet in Januarjr 1849, a few months after his recovery, he secretly 
ieft the mission and went to reside with a Roman Catholic priest at Rayapooram, 
though he had been studying for the Free Church ministry. 



A SOWING TIME. 1 63 

losses as those which took place in 184 1. At the examina- 
tion which took place on 7 th January 1845, 39^ pupils were 
present, whilst in all the schools taken together there were 
no fewer than 840 on the rolls. Sir Edward Gambier, the 
Hon. Justice Burton, and Bishop Spencer were present, and 
spoke in a manner befitting the Christian gentlemen which 
they were. 

On 13th November 1845, Mr Anderson wrote, "We have 
had no conversions this year, but much outward prosperity." 
To home readers the conjunction of ideas may appear strange, 
but there is in reality a close logical connection between 
them. Sowing and reaping times alternate in an Indian 
mission. While all is tranquil, the pupils steadily increase 
in numbers, and much precious seed is sown in their minds. 
Then, in God's good time, reaping comes. Some promising 
student, giving evidence that he has become the object of 
Divine grace, seeks and is granted admittance into the 
Church. On this being noised abroad, the parents of the 
scholars become alarmed, lest the example should prove 
contagious, and hurry their sons away. The numbers in 
the institution greatly fall, and of those who are withdrawn, 
some of the most advanced never return. Those alternate 
periods of sowing and reaping are known in every mission, 
and a faithful labourer, while doing all in his power to sow 
precious seed during the time of much outward prosperity, 
when baptisms are withheld, at once longs for and dreads a 
time of reaping. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE LONGED-FOR TIME OF REAPING. 

The -'outward prosperity'* mentioned in the previous 
chapter; went on till about the middle of 1846, without any 
conversions from among the heathen to bring it to a close. 



164 MADRAS, 

Not that during the interval, the mission had been without 
tokens of the Divine favour. About six Europeans had been 
awakened under the preaching of the Word in English ; 
early in 1846, Rajahgopaul, Venkataramiah, and Ettirajooloo 
had been licensed as preachers; and during 1845, ^^ less 
than ;^36oo had been subscribed to the mission by friends 
in India, ;£i6oo of it for schools, and ;^2ooo for a building 
fund. 

Still there was reason for sorrow and humiliation, for there 
had not been native baptisms. An alteration in this re- 
spect was now, in the goodness of God, to take place. 
On the 8th of April 1846, a young man called Ponumbalum 
appeared at the Mission-house, having walked thither 
no less than thirty-five miles. His convictions in favour of 
Christianity were of long standing. Ten years before, 
when he was only fourteen, he had sought ^baptism from the 
Rev. Mr Winslow, but, with other boys, had been carried off 
by a heathen mob. Five different times did his relatives 
put forth all their efforts to induce him to return home, but 
he stood firm as a rock, and was admitted into the congre- 
gation on the 17 th of May. Four days previously, two other 
youths, Ramanoojum and C. Sungeeve, were received into 
the Church on the 3rd of June, and a fourth, R. Soondrum, 
on the 17th. A few months later, three others appeared, 
Davanaygum, Govindoo, and Ragavooloo, and on the lotli 
September a fourth, called S. R. Soondrum — making eight in 
all. 

One of these eight, Ragavooloo, was a Brahman, and the 
Hindoos, feeling that the loss of a young man belonging to 
the sacred caste would be a considerable blow to their faith, 
induced the relatives to apply for a writ of habeas corpus 
against Mr Anderson. The result which followed was as 
gratifying to the supporters of missions as it was disappoint- 
ing to the Brah manic party. Sir William Burton, the judge 
who tried the case, showed that the one object which a 
Aa/'/fas corJ)us writ was designed to serve was to set the 



DlSCJiETION AND NOT AGE, 165 

person, in whose favour it was sought, free from illegal 
restraint. He was simply allowed to go where he pleased, 
provided he possessed discretion to be trusted to take care 
of himself. The legal phrase, age of discretion, was not a 
good one, for it was not so much age, as the actual attain- 
ment of discretion, which the court had to ascertain before 
deciding that a youth was entitled to be his own master. 
In England the law allows a child of fourteen to appoint its 
own guardian, and there was even a case in which the court 
refused to deliver one less than fourteen to its father. There 
was reason to believe that Ragavooloo, though of srhall 
stature and juvenile aspect, was seventeen years of age, 
though his relatives declared him only twelve. A circum- 
stance which threw doubt on the statements of the family 
was, that no horoscope had been produced, though one must 
have been made at a Brahman boy's birth.* 

The judge having ascertained by personally questioning 
him, that he was possessed of discretion enough to be 
allowed to live where he pleased, asked him where he 
wanted to go, on which he replied, to Mr Anderson. 
Means were then taken to enable him to carry out his wish, 
which it was very difficult to do in the face of the riotous 
Hindoo mob, some three or four thousand strong, the 
majority being Brahmans. In vain did the police attempt 
to clear the street in front of the court-house to let the 
people out ; the multitude simply shifted their ground, and 
that not so much from fear of the official authorities, as from 
the variation, in their own opinion, as to the door by which 
Ragavooloo would come out. It was manifest that when 
he did make his appearance, the Brahmans would attempt 
to seize him, and he was therefore kept in the court-house 
till a late hour in the evening. As even then there were 

* It was pretty plain that no such complaint would reouire to be made in any 
future case. Any one who knows India, would at once be aware that in other 
habeas cor^tts prosecutions instituted to prevent the baptism of Brahman youths, 
horoscopes would uniformly be produced, though whether they were old and gen- 
uine, or had been manufactured a few days previously to deceive the court, would 
always require careful scrutiny. 

(891) 12 



1 66 AfADRAS. 

no signs of dispersion, a coach was so placed at the sheriff's 
office as if possible to draw off the attention of the populace, 
while Mr Anderson's own vehicle was being drawn up in an 
adjacent enclosure, which communicated with the court- 
house. The Rev. Mr Braidwood, the deputy sheriff, the 
chief constable, and Ragavooloo, entered this latter con- 
veyance, and the shutters of it having been closed on all 
sides, the coachman received orders to drive to the mission. 
Before, however, he had emerged through the gateway into 
the street, the mob became aware of the manoeuvre in pro- 
gress, and made a rush at the vehicle, with the object of 
seizing the horse's head. On this the coachman caused the 
animal to rear, plunge, and then set off at full gallop, the Brah- 
mans and others running behind, shouting and throwing 
stones. The coachman was struck repeatedly, but he re- 
solutely kept his seat and did his duty to the last. When the 
coach entered the mission enclosure, a body of police, 
stationed there for the purpose, closed the gate, and remain- 
ing inside, prepared to defend the place against assault. 
Afterwards the deputy sheriff was escorted back to his office, 
and the R-ev. Mr Anderson conveyed in safety from the 
court-house home. The mob gradually dispersed, and 
before long the storm had been succeeded by a calm. On 
Wednesday, 23rd September 1846, Ragavooloo was bap- 
tized, along with three other youths, Davanagum, Govin- 
drajooloo, and S. R. Soondrum.* 

The eight baptisms now reported greatly stirred up the 
heathen, who, however, failed to remove more than 300 

* It is painful to add, that Ragavooloo showed himself an unstable convert, and 
having, in August 1847, been taken into court a second time, under a writ of habeas 
cotfust he, after a fifteen minutes' interview with his father, granted him by the 
juage, elected to return to his heathen home. This choice, painful as it was to the 
missionaries, confirmed, instead of invalidating, Sir William Burton's exposition of 
the law, as to the right which a young man possessing discretion has to judge for 
himself as to where he should reside. 

Ragavooloo, who had eaten with Christians, could not be re-admitted into caste. 
He was, in consequence, compelled to remain without position in the Hindoo com- 
munity, now a tool in the hands of the Brahmansfor attacking the mission, and now 
going thither himself aiid confessing how little his spirit was at ease. Ultimately 
ne returned to his Christian instructors. 



VVOJ^A- OF GRACE AMONG THE GIRLS. 16/ 

pupils from the schools. They, at the same time, sent a 
memorial to the Court of Directors, wherein they begged 
that they might be saved from " the fangs of the mission- 
aries," the plain meaning of which was, that the court 
should prevent parents sending their children to such schools 
as they pleased, and aid in coercing young men who had 
lost faith in Hindooism, into professing to believe what they 
deemed untrue. Of course the court could not possibly 
have granted the wishes of the intolerant memorialists, and 
the petition was void of effect. 

At a communion which occurred soon after the eight 
baptisms, twenty-one natives sat down at the table, fifteen 
of them, including a female, being converts of the mission. 
The same year (1846) three of them, Messrs Venkataramiah, 
Rajahgopaul, and Ettirajooloo, were licensed as preachers, 
and on December 15, the institution was removed to new 
premises on the esplanade, affording better accommodation 
than those previously occupied. 

• 1846 had been a notable year in the history of the mis- 
sion; 1847, ii^ the providence of God, was destined to be 
quite as remarkable. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CHARTER OF FEMALE EMANCIPATION. 

In February 1847, two of the first class in the girls' school 
at Madras, Unnum and Mooniatta by name, came under 
conviction of sin through means of direct appeals made by 
Mr Anderson to the consciences of the pupils. The same 
effect was produced next month on two others, called 
Venkatlutchmoo and Yaygah, and shortly afterwards on a 
fifth girl, called Mungah. On Wednesday, the 7 th of April, 
Unnum and Mooniatta, hearing that they were to be married 
(of course without any reference to their own feelings) to 



1 68 MADRAS. 

heathen men, became convinced that if they foiled to carrj- 
out their religious convictions now, they would probably 
never be permitted to do sa They therefore took refuge 
in the Mission-house, and, in the circumstances, were gladly 
received.* That same evening Unnum's grandmother, 
Ummariee Ummah, was sent for, and came. She was a fine 
grey-haired old Moodeelly, and having herself some leanings 
towards Christianity, was with little difficulty persuaded to 
place her granddaughter, and indeed herself, under the 
guardianship of the missionaries.t The youngest of her grand- 
sons consented to do so likewise, while the two elder went 
off to avoid eating " Pariah rice." By Pariah they meant 
European, Europeans, as already stated, being on the Hindoo 
system Pariahs, or, if it be possible, even something lower. 
Mooniatta's mother, Jyalanda, accompanied by other rela- 
tives, arrived on Thursday in a half-frantic state, and having 
failed to induce the daughter to return home, and remain 
contented to be an idolatress, applied in forma pauperis for 
a writ of habeas carpus against Mr Anderson. That same 
Thursday there arrived two of the other girls — ^Yenkat- 
lutchmoo and Yaygah — an act of wonderful courage on their 
part, as heathens — armed with stones, sticks, and iron bars 
— ^were already in front of the Mission-house, and were 
restrained only by the presence of the chief magistrate and 
the police from proceeding to open violence. Next day 
(Friday) there was another arrival — that of Mungab. The 
first pair — Unnum and Mooniatta — ^were 1 amul girls ; the 
three who followed — Venkatlutchmoo, Yaygah, and Mungah 
— were Teloogoos. J The ages of the five ranged from eleven 

* On the 29th January T847, ^^^ many days before the case of the girls b^an. Mr 
Anderson was married to Miss Margaret Locher, originally from Switzerland. She 
came out to India in 1845, sent by the Ladies' Society of the Scottish Establishment. 
Next year she joined the Free Church. 

t Unnum's grandmother was baptized on the 9th January 1848, and received the 
name of Sarah. 

X Before the coming of the five girls, there were already in the Mission-house, with 
the sanction of their guardians, three others — viz., a native Protestant girl of twelve, 
called Mary, a Roman Catholic of the same age, named Ummanee, and a child of 
Sfven, Shunmoogum, who had been placed under Mr Anderson's charge by Sir 
William Burton. With the'five new comers, there were eight in all. 



THE CASE OF AfOONlATTA. 1 69 

to thirteen years. All had been in the girls' school more 
than two years, and some of them more than three. Each 
had for more than a year been studying the gospels in 
English, having previously read them in her own language. 
The trials of the three Teloogoo girls from their relatives 
were moderate, and they had little difficulty in standing 
their ground. 

Of course, the events which have just been related pro- 
duced great excitement throughout Madras, and struck what 
to the short-sighted might appear a fatal blow at the cause 
of Christian female education. Of 170 girls who had been 
in the school before Unnum and Mooniatta came seeking 
baptism, only three — two Hindoos and a native Protestant 
— returned on the morrow (Thursday). On Friday no more 
than one came, and on Saturday even that one, terrified 
apparently by the loneliness of the place, stayed away. By 
the end of the same week, the attendance of girls at Tripli- 
cane had fallen from a hundred to thirty-eight, and the 
schools of all the other missions had suffered severely. The 
costs had been heavy, but if in providence all went well, the 
gain would be much more than worth the price paid for its 
attainment. Under God, everything would depend on the 
result of the legal proceedings in the case of Mooniatta. 

Jyalanda, her mother, obtained the writ which she sought. 
It was directed against Mr Anderson, and required him to 
appear on the 20th inst., bringing with him Mooniatta. 
The demand was of course met with cheerful obedience. 
When the day came, a horoscope was presented on the part 
of the mother, to prove that her daughter was only seven 
years eight months and twenty-seven days old ; but the 
judge saw good reason for believing the horoscope forged, 
and forming the opinion that Mooniatta was — what she 
appeared to be—somewhat more than twelve years old. He 
intimated that, by the English law which was administered 
in the Madras Supreme Court, the girl was entitled to go 
where she pleased, provided that she possessed sufficient 



I/O MADRAS. 

discretion to make a choice. To decide whether or not she 
possessed the discretion spoken of, and whether the desire 
to become a Christian was a youthful whim or a fixed 
resolve, he proceeded publicly to question her in the follow- 
ing fashion : — 

** * Whether,' asked Sir William, ' do you wish to go to Mr Anderson's 
or to your mother's ? * Af. — * I like to go to Mr Anderson's.' 

*• Sir W. — Now consider. Ansi^'er truly. You were bom to your 
mother, your mother suckled you at her breast, she carried you about 
when you were a litde child, she gare you food and clothes, she put you 
to a good school ; now, what is the reason that you wish to leave her, 
and go to another place ? * M. — * If I go home, they vrill force me to 
worship idols made by men ; they have eyes, but they see not ; ears have 
they, but they hear not ; a month have they, but they speak not. I 
wish to go to a place where I can be saved.' " 

Being fiirther questioned as to her religious belief, she 
was answering very satisfactorily, when her brother suddenly 
seized her first by the hand, and then by the back of the 
neck, making her scream with terror. The chief magistrate 
and half-a-dozen others forced him after a struggle to quit 
his hold, and he was committed to prison for contempt of 
court This terminated the proceedings for the time being, 
and the court broke up, after it had been intimated that 
the decision would be postponed till the 3rd May, that Sir 
Edward Gambier, the Chief-Justice, might have an oppor- 
tunity of forming an opinion on the important question 
involved. 

When the 3rd of May came, Sir Edward Gambier, who 
had privately questioned Mooniatta for about three-quarters 
of an hour, with the view of testing whether or not she was 
possessed of discretion, concurred with Sir William Burton 
in declaring her entitled to go where she pleased, on which 
she, without hesitation, decided to return with Mr Anderson 
to the mission. Some weeks subsequently, Mooniatta's 
mother and brother, at the instigation of some influential 
Hindoos, who again were doubtless counselled, or at least 
instructed, by European lawyers, applied to Sir Edward 
Gambier for a new writ of habeas corpus in the case, found- 



GREAT LEGAL VICTORY. I /I 

ing their demand on the statute of George III., chap. 142, 
sect. 12, which provides that the rights of fathers of families, 
according to the Hindoo law, shall be regarded. Both 
judges, however, considered that Mooniatta's case had been 
properly decided on English law, the Hindoo code not being 
in force within the limits of the Supreme Court, except in 
the case of contracts and inheritance. The writ was there- 
fore refused. The view taken by the Madras judges in 
the Mooniatta case was confirmed a few months later by 
the decision of the Chief-Justice of Calcutta in that of 
Radhakant Dutt* 

The decision of the Madras judges in Mooniatta's case 
was of incalculable importance to the cause of missions. It 
was the very charter of Indian female emancipation. 

But to return to the narrative. The five girls who came 
to the Mission-house in the exciting circumstances described, 
were carefully, instructed for another six months, and then 
publicly baptized by Mr Anderson on the 20th October. 
Unnum was named Joanna ; Mooniatta, Ruth ; Venkat- 
lutchmoo, Lydia; Yaygah, Rachel; and Mungah, Elizabeth. 
It is very difficult for a missionary to resist the sometimes 
pressing requests of his converts that they may be allowed 
to assume Christian names, instead of those by which they 
have hitherto been known, yet it is impossible to avoid 
feeling a certain measure of regret that the name of Mooni- 
atta should have been suppressed after that young but 
heroic confessor had made it celebrated through the length 
and breadth of India. 

Those who had predicted that the coming of the five 

• If some readers are of opinion that twelve is a very early age for Hindoo girls to 
separate from their relatives with the view of seeking baptism, they should give due 
weight to two facts not universally known, and even when known apt to be for- 
gotten. The first is, that orientals are physically and mentally precocious, and that 
a Hindoo girl of twelve is as far advanced as an English one of fourteen, it not even 
more. The second is, that Hindoo girls are married at so early an a^e : and when 
they go to live in their husband's houses, are so certain to be denied libertv of con- 
science, that if they are not allowed to seek baptism at or soon after the age of 
twelve, they, in most cases, will never be permitted to do it for the whole remainder 
of their lives 



172 MADRAS. 

girls to the Mission-house would strike a heavy, if not even 
a mortal blow, at the great cause of female Christian educa- 
tion, were proved by the event not to possess the penetra- 
tion of seers. By tiie 9th of July, twenty-three girls had 
come back to the Madras, and fifty to the Triplicane school; 
and on 23rd December 1847, the examination day, there 
were actually present 118 from Madras and 99 from 
Triplicane. 



CHAPTER VII. 

A CHEQUERED NARRATIVE. 

Writing on August 14, 1847, Mr Anderson mentions the 
baptism of three young men — Narasimayah,* a Brahman 
of 20 ; Humoogum, a youth of 17 ; and Ramasawmy, an 
orphan lad of 13, the admission of the last named to the 
Church being sanctioned by his heathen protector.f 

In the Assembly Report for 1848 it was stated that the 
native congregation at Madras consisted, including children, 
of thirty-four souls, of whom twenty-four were communi- 
cants. By this time there was just as much apathy among 
the Hindoos as the year before there had been excitement 
Hence the numbers in attendance at the schools rapidly 
increased. In the Assembly Report they figured as about 
900, more than 250 of them being caste girls ; by August 
15th they had risen to 11 00, 300 of them girls of caste ; by 
October 15th there were 11 50; and in April 1849 there 
were 1322 in daily attendance, 273 of them girls. 

On the 15th of that month Mr Anderson, whose healtli 
for the two or three years previous had been declining, was 

* About a year subsequently a Brahman convert of the same name, we presume 
this one, was cut off from the Church. 

t Writing on November 13, a few months afier these were received, Mr Anderson 
said — " During the last six years I have baptized twenty-five souls directly from the 
Hindoos of different castes ; three h^ive gone bnck in that time to their relatives and 
their gods ; six of the twenty-five had been caaie females." 



THE 25 7W BORDERERS, 1 73 

under the necessity of embarking for Europe. He took 
with him one of the converts, Rajahgopaul, whose deep 
piety and modesty were such that he was not likely to be 
spoiled by the attentions which he was sure, to receive in 
Europe. Mrs Anderson nobly stayed behind to look after the 
female converts of the mission. Dr DufF and Mr Hawkins 
had arrived from Calcutta a few hours before, and Dr Duff 
and Mr Braidwood stood on the shore till the Rev. Mr Ander- 
son, the Rev. Mr Johnston, Rajahgopaul, Mr Hawkins, and a 
lady had been conveyed through the surf in a Masoolah boat 
and put on board the steamer. Mr Johnston soon after- 
wards returned to act as head of the mission, whilst its 
energetic founder sojourned for a time amid the bracing 
atmosphere and the Christian society of his native land. 

The Rev. Mr Johnston, writing on November 14, 1849, 
stated that no conversions of which he and his colleague 
knew had taken place in the institution for more than two 
years ; but information was received that two young men 
who had received their first impressions in the institution 
had been baptized, the one at Bombay and the other at 
Belgaum. The second of these, Sabapauty by name, with 
the sanction of the Rev. Joseph Taylor, of Belgaum, who 
had admitted him into the Church, came with his wife, 
Ummanee, to place himself under the charge of the Madras 
mission. On their arrival they were received into Mr 
Braidwood's house. Nor had the missionaries, during the 
two years of barrenness now mentioned, been without 
tokens of the Spirit's presence. Far from it. A work of 
grace had been begun through their instrumentality among 
the 25th Borderers, a European regiment then stationed at 
Madras. Nor were they by any means labouring fruitlessly 
among the natives. There was granted them a precious 
sowing time that they might in due season reap. Numbers 
increased both in the institution and branch schools when- 
e^'er the alarms caused by baptisms had had time to subside. 
On July 9, there were 1 200 in all the schools, of whom 430 



174 MI ADR AS. 

were at ^ladras and 305 at Triplicane. Three (mt four 
moDths later there were 1400, and in the report to the 
Assembly in 1850 they were esdmated at between 1600 
and 1700. 

The Home Committee had strongly feh the necessity of 
sending out a new missionary to rehere Messrs Johnston 
and Braidwood, now sorely overtasked, bat none could be 
promptly obtained. In the emergency, they requested the 
Rev. Stephen Htslop, of Nagp<M^ temporarily to proceed 
to Madras, if his own sense of duty, guided by local know- 
ledge, permitted him to take the step. He, in consequence, 
left Nagpore with his wife and his two children on the 15th of 
April 1850, and reached Madras on the i8th of May. The 
spiritual barrenness which for some time had existed was 
now passing away, more than one inquirer appeared, and 
on 26th June 1850 a Teloc^oo youth called Moodookrish- 
num was baptized. The loss of pupils which resulted was 
only about eighty. 

While Mr Anderson, with his spiritual son Rajahgopaul, 
was at home, his heart was all the while with the Madras 
mission, and on the 12th December 1849 he issued a cir- 
cular,* asking ^2000 to be added to ;;^30oo already raised 
on the spot for the enlargement of the mission premises. 
Further consideration showed that not ;;^2ooo but ^3000 
would be needed — namely, ;;^i5oo to provide suitable 
accommodation for the male converts, and an equal sum 
for the eleven girls. The response which these appeals 

* Some (acts mentioned by Mr Ander>on in this appeal possess much interest. 
He said that since 1841 thirty-six Hindoos hai been converted through the instru- 
mentality of the institution, though six had been baptized by other missions. Since 
1844, fifteen female converts had been baptized. About a hundred Europeans had 
apparently received spiritual blessing since the Disruption through the instrumentality 
of the Madras labourers. During thirteen years ;Ci6,ooo had been subscribed to the 
mission by Christians of all denominations, £(>ooo of it since the Disruption. The 
money received from home had been ^^10,000, £6000 of it since the same date. In 
a letter from Venkataramiab, of date December 14, 1849, it was mentioned that the 

Eledged income of the subscribers to the schools was about 6ouo rupees per annum, 
ut the actual expenditure was twice as great. We may add that some time before} 
in answer to an appeal from Mr Anderson, a Glasgow Ladies' Society agreed to raise 
£^%, or half salary of a native probationer in Madras, the remainder to be raised m 
India. 



DEATH OF MR JOHNSTON, IJ^ 

elicited showed the interest which Scotland felt in the 
mission with which Mr Anderson was connected. Instead 
o^;^3ooo> ;^3ioo were promptly obtained, though a great 
effort was in progress at the same time permanently to raise 
the annual revenue of the Foreign Missions Committee. 
On Saturday, 19th October 1850, Mr Anderson and Rajah- 
gopaul embarked at Southampton for Madras, and reached 
their destination on Sabbath morning, the ist of December. 
With them was Mrs Anderson's sister, Mrs Locher, sent- 
out by the Ladies' Committee, but who was scarcely more 
than four months in Madras before she died of cholera. 

At the examination of the female schools, held on Friday, 
20th December 1850, Sir William Burton came spontane- 
ously and took the chair, while at that of the institution, on 
7 th January 1851, the Right Hon. Sir Henry Pottinger, 
Governor of Madras, was for the first time present, and 
remained an hour and a half. There were then 1800 pupils 
connected with the mission, 439 of them caste girls, though 
most of the latter were very poor ; 633 were actually pre- 
sent, 235 of them from Triplicane ; 86 were Mohammedans. 
When the examination of the female schools took place, 
Ruth (formerly Mooniatta) was about to be married, and 
Sir William Burton left for her 100 rupees to enable her to 
furnish her house. 

On 17th February 1851, Mr Johnston, who had for some 
time been in a consumption, was taken with spitting of 
blood from the lungs, followed by a severe and more 
alarming attack in the evening. By advice of his medical 
attendants he sailed for Europe on the 22nd of the same 
month, being then so weak that he had to be hoisted on 
board the steamboat in a palanquin.* He was destined to 
see India no more. Partly to supply his place the Rev. 
James Drummond came out, arriving on the 24th May, but 

♦ Mr Johnston rallied considerably, as most missionaries do, during the homeward 
voyage, but he could not maintain the strength gained, and, after the usual improve- 
ments and relapses which mark the progress of coasumption, he quietly fell asleep in 
Jesus in the house of Lady Foulis, in Edinburgh, on the 22nd March 1853. 



176 MADRAS. 

his constitution was found unaclapted to the climate, and, 
having been oftener than once laid up with fever, he had, by 
medical advice, permanently to quit India within six months 
of his landing. Before it was known that this would be the 
case, Mr Hislop, with the sanction of the Home Committee, 
and his colleagues at Madras, had quitted the southern 
presidency seat in May 185 1, to return to his much-loved 
station of Nagpore. 

The native preachers, Venkataramiah, Rajahgopaul, and 
Ettirajooloo were now becoming almost as helpful as Euro- 
pean labourers could have been to the mission. They were 
preaching to large audiences of their countrymen Sabbath 
by Sabbath. Three years before this Rajah's audience 
was stated to be about 150. Now there were between 300 
and 400, 200 and more being adults. Next we read that, 
on 19th October 185 1, adding together the audiences at 
Madras and Triplicane, the one addressed by Venka, the 
other by Ettiraje, Rajahgopaul catechising, there were 
nearly 800 present, the great majority being idolaters 
belonging to all castes from the Brahman to the Pariah. 
By September 1852, there were 1000 ; a year later, iioo ; 
by the end of 1853, ^^^^ > ^^^ ^X ^^^ termination of 1855, 
2000. But we anticipate. So early as 1848, the three 
native brethren had conducted the Thursday evening ser- 
vice with the Borderers, and that with much acceptance. 
Having thus made full proof of their gifts, they, on the 12th 
December 185 1, were ordained native missionaries to the 
heathen. 

Between May and October of that year, there were 
several baptisms. Two were native girls — Aleemaloo, aged 
13, and Streerungum, in her 13th year. One was a Teloo- 
goo youth in his i6th or 17th year. All three had some 
trials to undergo from their relatives, but went through them 
nobly. There followed next a man of 35, Tachamenon, 
who, twelve years before, had been a student in the insti- 
tution. He had a good situation in the Sudr Adawlut (or 



EFFICIENCY OF THE MISSION, 1 77 

Supreme Court of Judicature), and with his wife was bap- 
tized. The female school at Madras was not affected as 
much as might have been expected by the baptism of the 
two girls. It fell only from 170 to 140. The father of Sun- 
geeve, a convert, was soon afterwards baptized. 

The exceeding efficiency of the mission at this period 
was shown by the fact mentioned in connection with the 
examination of December 22, 185 1, by the Madras *S^^<r/«- 
/t?r, namely, that while the pupils on the rolls of the several 
mission schools amounted to nearly 2300, ** the Government 
High School, with all its special recommendations and pro- 
spects, numbers a handful of scholars scarcely increasing." 
Making every allowance for the fact that the fees in the 
Government school were high for a poor people like the 
Hindoos, whilst the mission schools were at that time free, 
nothing but great teachmg ability and Christian zeal could 
have enabled the Free Church labourers and their Euro- 
pean, East Indian, and native assistants, so completely to 
distance their rivals. Alas I that very zeal was wasting 
away the agents, and, in February 1852, Mr Braid wood was 
compelled by failing health to return temporarily to Britain, 
while Mr Anderson was believed to have heart complaint, 
and fears were entertained that at any moment he might 
fall down in presence of his friends. New labourers were 
urgently required, and it was matter for thankfulness that 
they were obtained. On the 26th July 1852, the Free 
Presbytery of Edinburgh ordained the Rev. Robert B. 
Blyth and the Rev. Alexander B. Campbell to Madras, and 
the new labourers, sailing in the screw steamer Indiana on 
the 15th September, reached Madras on the 27th November, 
and at once threw their whole souls into the work of the 
mission. Much that the missionaries saw during the first 
few weeks of their residence in India must have impressed 
them deeply.* For instance, when on December 22, the 

* One peculiarity of Indian academic life seems greatly to have struck Mr Blyth 
He says :— " More than once when I have threatened to keep in a class wnich had 



178 JiAD£AS. 

frt^mlr.Tition of the femak: schools w^s LeJd ai Madras, 25 
buZock bandvcs (caniares or ligrt carts 1, ea^di freighted 
woh girls, arrired from Tiiplicane — a spectaoc even more 
rtwsurkaiAc than that of the van xnd omnibns loads of chil- 
dreii Dov so frieqaectlj met with in connection with school 
treats at home: A few dajrs later the new misskmanes 
would not fail to note that at the examinatioQ of die insd- 
totion the chav was occupied by the GoremoTy Sir Henry 
Potdnger. A few months later, a beantifbl little incident 
occurred in connection with the mission. On the 26th 
A{ml 1853, Mary Aime, a prot^ of & William Barton's, 
was married to a young but steady and promising convert, 
call Moodookrishnum. Sir William and Lady Barton asked 
permission to be present at the marriage feast, and were^ 
of coarse, joyfully admitted. £ight}'-three sat down. In 
the course of some remarks which he made cm the occasion. 
Sir William used the following language : — 

" I rejoice to be present on this ocxaaon. Every time I have been 
in this hall, it has suways been with a feeling of pecoliar pleasure. I 
have been present at your examinations, I have been here at baptisms 
and other services, and now I am present on this fesdve occasion. I 
have always felt my heart greatly elevated by the communion I have 
enjoyed in this place. It is so difierent from the society of the world. 
We cannot but expect trials and sorrows on earth, but such hours as 
these are like green spots in the wilderness, and remind one of the 
intercourse of another and holier world. May God shower down His 
best biasings on all your labours." 

Mr Campbell, in a letter which he wrote on nth Octo- 
ber 1853, stated that he had recently been brought to 
death's door, having been affected with incipient inflamma- 
tion of the heart In anticipation of losing his life at so 
early a period of his residence in the East, he yet in no 
degree felt regret that he had become a missionary. 

**IIow few ministers at home," he moralised, "during a long life- 
time, have ten or twelve really anxious souls concerning whom they have 

not been giving sattffaction, and to impose upon them another hour or half-hour of 
tuition, I have found the proposal so generally palatable to the offenders that it 
had to be abandoned, for the simple reason that instead of being, as was intended, 
an Infliction, which it is very widely thought to be in Scotland, it was hailed as a 
boon." 



BAPTISMS, 179 

good hope that God has begun within them an imperishable work of 
grace ! Crowded into the brief period I have been here (scarcely a 
year), I have seen as many souls gathered from among the heathen ; 
and to behold such a triumph of the word and work of God, is it not 
enough to make one for ever grateful that he was permitted to take a 
part in the work of such a glorious harvest day ? " 

During the period referred to, seven baptisms had taken 
place in one single evening ; natural affection, however, 
subsequently led one of these then admitted to return to his 
relatives. Of the remaining five, who were all baptized on 
the i8th September 1853, Abdool Khader, an Arab, aged 
25, had for twelve years been connected with the schools, 
and was now a monitor at Triplicane ; Kanacaswamy, aged 
20, Coopaswamy, 19, and Parthasarathy, 20, were all Hindoo 
youths from the institution ; while the fifth, Elminalee, aged 
13, was one of the best girls in the first class of the female 
day school. Abdool brought with him his wife, Abassibee, 
and her little niece, Zenobee ; the former was a bigoted Mus- 
sulmanee. "She," said Mr Anderson, "fights hard fqr the 
Prophet, but he [her husband] has great hopes of succeeding." 

On Sabbath the 13th November 1853, about a month 
after the date of Mr Campbell's letter, there were three 
more baptisms — those of R. M. Bauboo Naidoo, one of the 
best monitors in the Triplicane school, and two Teloogoo 
youths of nineteen — Soobrayaloo and Parthasarathy. 

Writing on 13th December 1853, Mr Anderson said — 

" We have fifteen native families now — seven living in the Mission 
house, and eight out of it." 

When on the evening of the first Sabbath of 1854 the 
communion was held, forty-three native converts sat down. 
There were, besides, four at Nellore, and four now with 
other missiens — in all fifty-two. 

On the 26th January 1854, the Rev. James Miller Macin- 
tosh — who had been ordained on the 13th, and had sailed 
from Southampton on the 20th, of the previous December 
— arrived to the assistance of the mission. 

Baptisms still went on. On the 14th May 1854, no fewer 



l80 MADRAS, 

than eleven converts were admitted to the Church simul- 
taneously. One of these was Abassibee, the wife of Abdool 
Khader, a bigoted Mussulman, it will be remembered, 
only eight months before. Another was a Mohammedan — 
Abdool AH, teacher of the girls' school at Nellore. Other 
two were Chingleput girls, who, when the missionaries 
declined to take them along with themselves to Madras, 
spiritedly set off alone, and, after travelling thirty-five miles, 
arrived at midnight. One of them was a Tamul girl, called 
Devanee, and the other a sensitive and shrinking Marathee 
caste girl, called Yana Baee. There were also four other 
pupils from Mr Anderson's boarding school. There was a 
Malayalim pilgrim on his route to Benares, who, after visit- 
ing his relations in the native Church, went no farther on 
his way to the so-called sacred place. There was a Mood- 
elly youth from a heathen school, but of the whole eleven 
none was in one respect so remarkable as the youth Naga- 
lingum. He had been brought up in a heathen school, but 
Christian books, though felt to be dangerous, were used, 
those of heathen manufacture being so miserably poor. 
One passage which he had to read in course was that in 
Psalm 115, which denounces idolatry, the one, we mean, 
beginning, "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of 
men's hands." He was so impressed that he cried out in 
the class — " I will be a Christian," on which the heathen 
teacher administered a round of castigation to the whole 
class by way of eradicating any proclivities towards apostacy 
from Hindooism with which they might secretly be possessed. 
By April 1854, Nagalingum's convictions had become so 
mature that he fled to the mission, and was baptized, as 
already mentioned, with other ten converts on the 14th 
May. He was heir to property worth about ;^7ooo, and 
being but fourteen years of age, was not likely to be given 
up by his heathen friends without a struggle. Some months 
after his admission to the Church, a writ of habeas corpus 
was taken out against Mr Anderson by Naga's relatives. 



ANOTHER LEGAL TRIUMPH. l8l 

The reason why they had not done so earlier was, that they 
waited till Sir William Burton should b6 absent, and the 
Chief- Justice, Sir Christopher Rawlinson, should return from 
the hills, that they might ascertain by experiment whether 
the discretion doctrine was simply an idiosyncrasy of the 
former gentleman, or really English law. The result dashed 
all their hopes. Mr Anderson appeared in Court with 
Nagalingum, without waiting for the issue of the writ 
against him, on which Sir Christopher questioned Naga just 
as Sir William Burton would have done, and finding him 
possessed of discretion, allowed him, though only a little 
above fourteen, to go where he pleased.* This case recalls 
former ones at Madras, and apropos of them, it may be 
remembered, that when Nagalingum's case occurred, 
Ragoovoloo was living in charge of the mission, and Moon- 
iatta, now the wife of Appaswamy, a divinity student, looking 
forward to speedy license, was the mother of two children. 

On 9th June 1854, the Free Presbytery of Madras re- 
solved to ask the Foreign Mission Committee's permission 
to take four students of divinity on trials for license, and 
admit other six young men as divinity students. Soon 
afterwards, two native Romanists were baptized. Both had 
been pupils in Protestant schools, the former in that of the 
Church of England at Trichinopoly, and the latter in that 
of the Free Church at Kamptee. Of three medical students 
— Appiah, Rotundo Vailoo, and Veerabuthrum — who had 
some little time before been mentioned as inquirers, one 
Rotundo Vailoo, it was stated, had been three years in the 
school at Nagpore [Kamptee ?]. 

The s^me year (1854), while Abdool Khader was preach- 
ing to his former co-religionists, the latter eked out what was 
wanting in their arguments by throwing brickbats, t even 

♦ It may be remembered that in the case of Hem Nath Bhose, Dr Duff and Lai 
Behari De were denounced from the bench by Sir Mordaunt WcHs for receiving a 
young man considerably older than Nagalingum, and who at Madras would have 
been allowed to go where he pleased. Surely fresh legislation is needed to remove 
these anomalies. 

t In i860, a Mussulman inquirer, called Mustapha, then soliciting baptism from 

(301) 1 3 



1 82 MADRAS. 

while they were inside the mission premises. It was needful 
to check this method of pnxredore at the outset, and one of 
the rioters was punished with a month, and a second with a 
(palter of a jrear s imprisonment The excitement at Trip- 
licane temponuily increased the audience of both the native 
missionaries, so that at that station, on one Sabbath, 1271 
were present, and at Madras 1657. Adding 300 for Nelloie, 
where Ettirajooloo had for some time before been labouring, 
nearly 2000 natives must have heard the gospel from the 
lips of the native missionaries that Sabbath-day. 

On the last Sabbath of 1854, Venkataramiah baptized two 
natives— one a heathen, and the other a Romish woman ; 
and when the same evening the communion was ad- 
ministered, there sat down at the sacred table ninety-five 
persons, of whom sixt\--two were natives, male and female. 
In December of the same year, there were 2381 pupils in 
the several schools of the mission. 300 of them Moham- 
medans. At the examination of the institution, held on the 
5th January of the following year, the chair was occupied 
by the Governor of Madras, Lord Harris. Six da}'s later, 
the Rev. William Moffat, who had received ordination on 
the 28th November 1854, arrived to the assistance of the 
mission. Permission having been given to license the four 
divinity students whose case had been laid before the home 
Committee, Messrs J. Frost, S. Ramanoojum, R. Soondnim, 
and C. Appaswamy, were, early in 1855, admitted to the 
status and responsibilit}- of probationers in connection with 
the mission. 

About the same time three young men, perfect strangers 
to the Madras labourers, suddenly came seeking baptism: 
They stated that they had travelled for the purpose 200 
miles. They were of good caste, and spoke their native 

the Madras brethren, was told by his brother that had he know-n b*-forehand his 
design of going to the mission, then " rather than we would have allowed you to 
become a Christian, we would have chopped you in pieces.** A Large section of the 
Mussulman community, in every country which they inhabit, are as remorselessly 
intolerant as this ferocious youth. 



DEATH OF MR ANDERSON. 1 83 

language — the Tamul — well They received the boon which 
they sought, the ordinance being administered at the same 
time to a female convert from Romanism.* 

In the month of March 1855, it became known to Drs 
Lorimer and Blacklock, Mr Anderson's medical attendants, 
that the revered founder of the mission, who had for some 
time been in bad health, and of late had been seized by re- 
mittent fever, was rapidly nearing his end. The colleagues 
of the dying missionary requested Dr Lorimer to intimate 
to him that in all human probability his dissolution was ap- 
proaching. " I thank you, beloved friend," was the reply, 
" for making so simple and direct a statement. It ndakes 
me lean on the Lord entirely, and love my heavenly Father 
more, Jesus my Saviour, the mission and all in it, and my 
loving and faithful wife. I feel that the mission will never 
want men to labour, or means, or converts, or institutions. 
People of all denominations will support it, for the Lord has 
His hand here." Then, meditating a little longer, he said, 
"And so we shall ever be with the Lord." "The redemp- 
tion which is in Christ Jesus." 

For two or three days after he lingered on in great weak- 
ness, counselling those around him, and consoling them in 
the prospect of his removal. Then after his strong frame 
had struggled awhile with death, release was granted, and 
on Sabbath, 25th March 1855, his spirit was with the 
Saviour whom he had loved so well. His loss was mourned, 
not merely by his colleagues and his converts, or even by 
the Church which had sent him forth, but by every one who 
cared for the evangelization of India, and knew to what 
extent that one object had occupied all his energies. Nay, 
the heathen themselves, who at times had so bitterly op- 
posed him, knew how great was his worth, and could not 
but feel regret when he passed away. 

* There is a difference of opinion among missionaries as to whether converts from 
Romanism should be re-baptized. It will be perceived that the Madras brethren 
administered the rite anew, not acknowledging the validity of what had been pre- 
viously done. 



184 AfADRAS. 

" I was told latdy," said Mrs Anderson, " that eren the heathen 
mothers were telling their children that the benefactor of the Hindoos 
had died. They all understood that he loved them, for his heart was 
open to every one." 

In a funeral sermon for him, preached by the Rev. Thomas 
Clark, then of Bombay, now of Odessa, that keen and ac- 
curate observer of character speaks of a Saturday afternoon 
and evening he once spent in the Free Church Mission at 
Madras, and the evidence he then had of the " rich spiritual 
endowments of our missionary, in all their astonishing 
variety and magnitude." On that, as on other Saturday 
evenings, the whole converts of the mission were assembled 
for social intercourse, and mental and moral improvement. 
At Mr Anderson's request, one after another stood up and 
dehvered his sentiments on some important topic connected 
with the work at Madras, while, as Mr Clark says — 

" In the midst of the speakers Mr Anderson sat, ejaculating a word 
better than that employed by the speaker here, correcting a sentiment, 
at another time adding an illustration, and anon giving a mead of 
judicious praise, all accomplished with such tact, being dropped, as it 
were, parenthetically, so as seldom to stop the orator, scarcely even to 
embarrass him, and with such love and b^uning joy as stimulated these 
youths to unbare their touched spirits freely and fully. This was a great 
discipline ; and on the next day, which was the Lord's, each went forth 
into the byeways and centres of concourse to their countrymen, fortified 
and encouraged to proclaim boldly the doctrine of Jesus Christ."* — 
Oriental Christian Spectator, '855, pp. 146, 147. 

It will afford some evidence of the estimation in which 
Mr Anderson was held by the Europeans in the East, when 
it is mentioned that between the time of the Disruption and 
that of his death — or rather till the end of 1854, about three 
months before his death — there were contributed to the 
Madras mission no less than 199,022 rupees, or in sterling 
money, nearly ^^20,000. 



SALAY STREET, 1 8$ 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE MISSION AFTER THE DEATH OF ITS FOUNDER. 

When Mr Anderson died, four ordained European mission- 
aries remained to carry on the work. Two of these, Messrs 
Blyth and Campbell, had been less than three years in India, 
whilst the other two had been only a few weeks. There was 
hope, however, that Mr Braidwood * would soon arrive from 
home. 

One of the recent converts, Soondrum Moorthy by name, 
had an uncle who took a leading part in a gathering of 
bigots at Salay Street, and signalised himself by parodying 
Christian worship. Soondrum, after a time, went back to 
this man, and was induced by him to seek restoration to 
his former status in the Hindoo community. This originated 
a caste controversy like that described in our Calcutta nar- 
rative, a minority wishing to make the way back into Hin- 
dooism easy, while the great mass of the pundits and the 
people stood stiffly to the teachings of the Shasters on the 
subject, and would by no means consent to take an erring 
sheep back again into the fold. The missionaries were very 
desirous to set up a preacKing-hall in or near that same 
Salay Street, where the camp of the enemy was pitched. 

In June 1855, Venkataramiah baptized four young men, 
one if not two of them being Brahmans. Two inquirers 
also presented themselves, — Paramasiven,tfrom the Govem- 

* In an appeal issued by Mr Braidwood while at home, it was stated that "the 
sum of ;^64oo altogether would place the mission on a permanent and effective 
footing as to buildings." In a subsequent communication he added that there were 
required — i, a mission-house, to accommodate two European missionaries, with a 
house for converts attached to it ; 2, an institution for males, serving at once the 
ends of an infant college, a normal seminary, and a school for boys ; 3, an institu- 
tion for females ; and, 4, a preaching-hall. The estimated cost of the whole was 
;£^930o ; but when what Mr Anderson had raised at home, and the contributions 
from India were deducted, the sum was reduced to ;^3ioo. — Missionary Record^ 
August 1854, pp. 14, 15. 

t The case of Paramasiven was interesting. He w.is the third son of 



late Sudr Ameen (chief native judge), at Chingleput, a worthy man, who kept his chil- 
dren from idolatry, and sent them to the mission school. He had studied the Bible, 
though not connecting himself with the Christian Church. 



r ?6 ICJLZS^Li. 

tnenr rliga: Scficiu iz Mlidrssi. .mi: r-i^igia2r. from Nellofe. 
Hicherto 2Z. ^ jLiL.vg : ;it z:im. rre qcr-garnn^ !iad been bgpdird 
ar iLKiras. bur wfien. rie nor nse -jccarr^i it was resohred 
rrrar tac nte yirwrif be jcnmrisacr-d e ±e inqrErcf s own 
y;f*7riiL. As nrigbc bave besi i.TTirrra^gd. rie nrst case in 
tzj^ new IbcalicT wss 2> trric^ <nLe. A joong man. called 
Vgr garaiTicgTm,, was r-csrsd irrnr) tbe MssEOOrboose at 
VcLLcrre. dt Xessts M - ifirrf-^ sii jzc EuTzrajooucxx Applica- 
tiod bein^ made to loe m5ty'i>tn t e , cbe joadi was 
sTTTmoEed a> tbe cntrfrerrr 'caart-hoasel As he was pio- 
fecmrg tbfifTer wicri hs scirinal zistnctor. the populace 
attempted to seize fmn, bet rriiTed. diocgh their attacJt was 
Tcry determined and rkiient- He witnessed a good coo- 
iessuxi in me coazt-hoase, and was scbseqaendr bapdzed 
at Veflore. He was die &st coaTett oc the Madras missioii 
who reoeiTed the spaTfng cyrffnance away from the central 
station. Soon after die yocnh now miaidoned came as an 
inqairer, Tattiah and h^ wife, the f<Kmer aboat 20 years 
of ^^ followed his example, bat gave war when trial be- 
came severe. The heathen were forkxis, and threatened an 
attack <Hi the Mission-house. Till biptians l^ccHne common 
at the oat-stations, there will be always more excitement 
and danger of riot when they take place there, than at the 
leading centres of cirilisation. 

The death of Mr Anderson, and the exertions of Mr 
Braid wood at home, had stirred the Charch up to send out 
considerable reinforcements to Madras. On the 1 6th Octo- 
\}CT 1855, the Rev. Alexander Macallum, and on the next 
month the Rev. John G. Cooper, were ordained to Madras. 
Mr Macallum reached his destination on Sabbath, 2nd De- 
ccml^cr 1855, Mr Cooper on Saturday, the 29th of the same 
month, and Mr Braidwood himself on Monday, 28th January 
1856. Never was the mission before, and never has it 
since, been so strong in men as it was after their arrivaL 
There was a possibility now of commencing fresh depart- 
ments of missionary work, and Mr Blyth, proceeding to 



A MEDICAL MISSIONARY, 1 87 

Chingleput, remained there for a considerable time training 
certain of the converts, sent to him for the purpose, for 
evangelistic work in the villages. Soon after Mr Anderson's 
death a school to which the mission had been pledged was 
commenced at a place called Goodoor, ninety miles north 
of Madras, and t\yenty-two south of Nellore, but it had 
ultimately to be discontinued for want of funds. In June 
1856 the village of Wallajahabad, thirty-eight miles south- 
west from Madras, was occupied, Major Brett having given 
a house and " godowns," with 200 rupees annually, at the 
same time expressing the wish that they would begin a 
school. His desire being gladly acceded to, there were soon 
a hundred boys in attendance. A girls' school was then 
started, and had speedily twenty-six pupils. In 1856 also, 
Mr Huffton, who had been nineteen years a labourer in con- 
nection with the mission, was directed to conamence a female 
school in a purely native part of Madras. He did so, and 
though he gave no fee, but, on the contrary, made the girls 
pay for their books, he had soon twenty in attendance. At 
the examination of the institution, held at the end of 1855 
or the beginning of 1856, Lord Harris had presided, and 
the following year the chair was occupied by that fast friend 
of the mission. Sir William Burton. Some time before this 
Jatter event Dr Paterson, son of the "missionary of Kil- 
many," had arrived at Madras, sent out partly by the 
Medical Missionary Society and partly by the Free Church 
Committee, but, on the other hand, Mr Moffat had about 
the same time to return home, so that the number of the 
Free Church labourers was not really increased. 

In all parts of India there was more or less of severe trial 
in 1857, the year of the mutinies, whtn the natives were not 
sure whether the British Government in the East would 
continue or pass away. Before it had far advanced the 
Chetties, a bigoted caste of nativesjj)ulled down the new 
preaching hall then being erected in their neighbourhood, 
and which was to cost the mission not ^300, as originally 



1 88 , MAD J? AS. 

expected, but £S^o. The hall, however, was ultimately 
built. Then Abdool Khader, the Arab convert, returned 
to his people. First his wife was seduced away from him 
and married to a Mohammedan, and finally he himself 
was induced to depart. He re -embraced Islam on the 
loth June, about a month after the mutinies at Meerut 
and the proclamation of a Mohammedan emperor at DelhL 
Madras was mercifully spared from the massacres which 
took place almost through the length and breadth of the 
Bengal Presidency, though apprehensions were entertained, 
especially with regard to a possible rise of the Triplicane 
Mohammedans,* during their great annual festival of the 
Mohurrum. The mission was obliged for a time to inter- 
mit its preaching in the portion of Madras inhabited by the 
exciteable followers of " the Prophet." 

Baptisms went on as usual during the mutinies. For 
instance, on Sabbath, 12th July, when the danger to India 
was about the greatest, Chinnamah, Lady Foulis' late ayah 
(nurse), was baptized by Venkataramiah, receiving the name 
of Eliza Foulis Anderson. So also were Krishna Raj 00, a 
Vishnuvite, from Trevandrum, Mungah, now Elizabeth 
Stark, and Bayee, now Jane Laughton, the two last being 
girls from Mr Anderson's boarding school. One of these, 
however, Jane Laughton, died a few days subsequently of 
intermittent fever. On November 29th a young Moodelly, 
called Saganathen, was baptized by Mr Campbell. It was 
a remarkable testimony of the confidence which was reposed 
in the missionaries, even during the years of the mutinies, 
that, at the examination of the institution which took place, 
again under the presidency of Lord Harris, on the i6th . 

* Lord Harris, the Governor of Madras, took the best precautions he could 
against this very possible, not to say probable, contingency. Mr Braid wood thus 
describes the arrangements which were adopted :— " Six troops of horse artillery are 
ready to dash upon the insurgents if they dare to show themselves ; the volunteers, 
cavalry, and infantry, raised from among the Christian inhabitants, keep watch 
night and day ; a body of mariners and seamen assist in garrisoning Fort St George ; 
the European troops here patrol the streets with loaded muskets ; and a war steamer 
is lying off the roads ready to hurl its 64 pounders into Triplicane, the great Moham* 
medaji suburb.'* 



ADVERSE LEGAL DECISION, 1 89 

December 1857, it was stated that on the rolls of all the 
schools taken together there were 2555 pupils, of whom 
240 were Mohammedans. 

Next year (1858) the Rev. Mr Cooper proceeded to the 
assistance of the Nagpore mission. Soon afterwards word 
was brought that three Chetties, Appavoo, Patcha, and 
Narayan, who had been baptized about three years b'efore, 
and who had been advised, in May 1857, to return to their 
village, Poothor, about a hundred miles from Madras, had 
set up a school, and were teaching it with zeal and energy. 

On 20th July 1858, Rajahgopaul was called to be pastor 
of the Madras Native Church. 

" *Many of the native converts,' says Mr Braid wood, 'would have 
preferred a European pastor, both because it was through this instru- 
mentality they were brought to the knowledge of the Saviour, and 
because they found it so much easier to pay their respect there than to 
any one of themselves, however eminent in gifts and graces,* " 

Then there was the perplexity about the almost equal 
claims of Rajahgopaul and Venkataramiah. The latter had 
the more powerful intellect, while the former was the softest 
and most winning, and on him the choice fell. 

We have not space to record all the applications for bap- 
tism which took place in connection with the mission, 
but prominence requires to be assigned to one case — 
that of a Chetty called Narrainswamy. The young man 
having taken refuge in the Mission - house, stood firm 
against all the efforts made by his friends to induce him to 
depart. A writ of habeas corpus was then applied for and 
granted. The young man believed himself to be 16, 
whilst the relations maintained that he was only 13, and 
the judge, Sir Christopher Rawlinson, the same who had 
allowed Nagalingum to go where he pleased, declared that 
the recent case of Alicia Race, decided by Lord Campbell, 
had extended the parental authority to 14, and left the time 
between that and 21 a debatable ground. Believing the 
relations' statement that the youth was only 13, he directed 



igO MADRAS, 

him to be restored to his father. This decision was a great 
blow to the mission from its bearing not so much on the 
case of boys as of girls. No caste girl is allowed to be at 
school till she is 14, and she is sure to be denied liberty of 
conscience at home. At a missionary conference held at 
Ootacamund, those present expressed the wish that an Act 
were passed, declaring that boys should be free to receive 
baptism after 14, and girls after 12. The latter age may 
appear very young, but it must be remembered that the 
nations of the East are far more precocious than the races 
inhabiting colder regions, girls in India often being mothers 
at, or even a little earlier than 13. If not allowed to be 
baptized at 12, they, will, in all probability, be under the 
control of a husband immediately afterwards, and will neyer 
be allowed to enter the Church at alL 

In 1858, a panic connected with conversions having 
arisen, the central female school in Madras was scattered. 
A side school was then set up in the locality from which 
most of the scholars were drawn, to recover the runaways. 
At the end of the year there were sixty in attendance. 

Considerable changes occurred in 1858-59 in the European 
agency of the mission. Before the middle of 1858, the Rev. 
Mr Blyth was compelled to return home, and was ultimately 
declared incapable of resuming his labours in India. • On 
5th April 1859, Mr Macintosh had similarly to return, and, 
as it proved, permanently. Towards the close of 1858, Mrs 
Anderson had to leave temporarily for Europe ; and tjiough 
Mr and Mrs Moffat returned from home on the .25th 
November 1858, the former died from congestion of the liver 
on the 3d August 1859, and his afflicted partner came 
back to her native land. In death the Rev. Mr Moffat was 
able to repose his soul upon the Saviour, and his colleagues, 
greatly mourned his loss. 

Amid these vicissitudes, however, the work of the mission 
steadily made way, some events of considerable interest 
occurring about this time. Our readers will not have for- 



NA G A LING UM AND R UTHNUM, 1 9 1 

gotten the youth Narrainswamy Chetty, given up to his 
father by Sir Christopher Rawlinson. Contrary to all caste 
law, the youth, after the purgations and washings of a day, 
was admitted to the, family table. After all, however, the 
Chetties, though proud of their social dignity, are only, 
according to Hindoo notions, low caste Sudras. Brahmans 
would probably have been more particular. About a year 
afterwards, Narrainswamy, being now, even by his relatives* 
admissions in court, upwards of 14, returned to the mission. 

It was not only in his case that the stringency of caste 
law was relaxed. About the end of March 1859, Nagalin- 
gum went back to his grandfather's house to see whether he' 
would be allowed to live there as a Christian. For a time 
he was kindly received, even though Chevgidroyen, his 
elder cousin, had a few days previously gone to the 
Mission-house as an applicant for baptism. By and by, 
however, Naga found that liberty of conscience was being 
gradually denied him, and he again returned to his spiritual 
fathers. His temporary presence among his heathen rela- 
tives was not without benefit to the Church. He had 
diffused a favourable feeling towards Christianity throughout 
the minds of several among those with whom he had asso- 
ciated, and this was one reason why he had been unable 
permanently to remain at home. All missionaries will be 
delighted when the relaxation of caste law renders it pos- 
sible for converts to remain at home, and prevents those 
painful separations in families which heathen intolerance 
now necessitates when conversions take place in India. 

Just before Naga's return home, a very remarkable case 
had begun. In the middle of March 1859, his youngest 
cousin, a youth called Ruthnum, wished to be received into 
the Mission-house, with the view of his receiving baptism. 
As it was impossible to prove him more than 14, it was 
felt that he could not be permitted to remain, after Sir 
Christopher Rawlinson's late decision, so he had to return 
to his relations. They, speedily perceiving his leanings 



192 MADRAS, 

towards Christianity, had him removed from Madras, and 
sent to a place some hundred miles off, in the south of 
India, Not long afterwards, he reappeared at the Mission- 
house, quite drenched with sea water, and again begged to 
be taken in. On being asked how he had travelled and 
why he was so wet, he told a thoroughly romantic and 
quite trustworthy story. He had escaped from the village 
and managed to elude those who started in pursuit of hira, 
on one occasion successfully concealing himself in one side 
of a town while they were in the other. On reaching 
Pondicherry, he had pledged his gold earrings, and with the 
money thus obtained, hired a catamaran (a native raft made 
of three logs of wood tied together), and boldly launching 
with it on the ocean, sailed 100 miles to Madras, being 
for the fifty hours of his adventurous voyage without sleep 
and without fresh water. His arrival took place the day 
after Mr Moffat's death, and helped to relieve the sadness of 
that period of bereavement. But what was to be done with 
Ruthnum now that he had come ? It would have been very 
hard to send him away again. It was, therefore, resolved ^ 
at all hazards to grant his request. No legal proceedings 
followed, and he was baptized.* 

On 3rd March 1859, the evangelistic hall, designed as a 
preaching station among the heathen (the one which the 
Chetties pulled down when it was in process of erection), 
was opened, and on the 6th June of the same year, the 
foundation stone of the "Anderson Church" was laid. 

♦ It is painful to add that Ruthnum's steadfastness was not what might have 
been expected from the resolution and enterprise which so wonderfully characterised 
the commencement of his Christian career. Following the example of his relative, 
Nagalingum, he after a time visited home, designing while there still to carry out 
his religious convictions. Subsequently he returned again to the mission. Several 
such visits to his relatives were paid, and then in i86x, in place of seeing himself, 
Mr Campbell received the following letter : — 

"Dear Sir, — 1 have made up my mind to stay with my people altogether, con- 
sequently I must bid and take from you a farewell separation. For all your 
unwearied kindnesses to me, accept my gratitude and esteem. Farewell. 

"I am, 

" Yours affectionately, 

"C. Ruthnum." 
—Frt* Church Missionary Record^ 1862-1863, p. 51. 



CHOLERA. 193 

Hitherto the English worship had been held in the hall of 
the institution. There were at that time no fewer than 
thirteen weekly vernacular services in connection with the 
mission, besides the daily ones at Dr Paterson's dispensary.* 
At the public examination of the female schools in Decem- 
ber 1859, Mr Campbell showed how open the door now 
was for the education of the Madras girls, and a generous 
civilian present at once intimated that he would give ^i<^ 
a-month to set up a new female school. The pupils in it 
from the first paid for their books, and gave a small fee 
besides. The same generous civilian soon after promised 
;^io more a-month on hearing that the want of that sum 
would necessitate the extinction of some vernacular schools 
in the mission. 

The Rev. Mr Blake having been ordained to Madras on 
14th December 1859, reached his destination on 8th Feb- 
ruary 1 860. Mr Houston, a European teacher, arrived from 
home about the same time ; but losses counterbalanced 
these gains. Soon afterwards, Mr Braidwood was ordered 
home — it was feared permanently — and bereavement again 
was sent upon the mission. 

In i860, cholera — no unusual circumstance — broke out 
among the pilgrims assembled at the Conjeveram festival ; 
and as they dispersed, they carried the disease wherever they 
went, making wholesale slaughter along their whole line of 
route, t It reached Wallajahbad, where Mr Frost, who was 
then just about to receive ordination, nobly refusing to 

♦ In the report read by Mr Campbell at the examination of the institution on 
20th November 1859, ^^ ^^^ mentioned that, though a monthly fee was now exacted, 
yet on the rolls of all the schools were 268^ pupils — namely, 1924 boys and 761 girls. 
565 pupils studied -at the central institution. Dr Paterson mentioned that there 
had been 6000 new patients at the dispensary during the year. The native com- 
municants in Rajahgopaul's church were 87. 

t The experience of London in 1866 almost definitely showed — what had been sus- 
pected before — that the most potent cause of cholera m a year when the atmosphere 
favours a development of the disease is the drinking of impure water. As bearing 
on the subject of the Conjeveram outbreak, it is remarkable that Mr Campbell of 
Madras, in his letter of nth July, says — •* We had no rain for upwards of six months, 
and the state 0/ the tanks and wells was dreadful in the extremey It may be 
added that the imm^se masses of pilgrims, partly ignorant, partly contemptuous, of 
sanitary law, destroy the water of every snallow river near which they encamp, 
which IS one main reason why cholera is so contitiually found in their train. 



194 MADRAS. 

desert his post, died of the disease on the nth July 
i860. 

On 9th September, Mustapha, a Syud, or descendant .of 
the " Prophet,*' was baptized. 

That same year, as Mr Campbell mentioned, the pice 
system was abolished in all the female schools, and without 
affecting the attendance. In fact, at the end of the year 
there were 809 on the roll of all the girls' schools. Dr 
M*Queen said that the effect of the change of system was 
simply to bring girls from higher grades of society than 
before, as if the better classes *' had scorned to participate 
in a gratuitous benefaction.'* 

At the exaniinatipn of the female schools at the end of 
1 86 1, Lady Denison, wife of the Governor of Madras, was 
in the chair. At the examination of the institution. Sir 
William Denison himself would have presided, had he not 
been prevented by ill health. In his absence, the Chief- 
Justice, Sir CoUey Scotland, took the chair. The pupils in 
all the schools were 2473 ; there were 132 teachers. From 
December i860 to November 1861, Rs. 4810. 10. 11, or 
more than a thousand rupees above last year's receipts, and 
an equivalent to a quarter of the whole expenditure of the 
mission — the salaries of the European labourers excepted^ — 
had been paid for fees. In many of the schools, the charge 
had been raised from eight to twelve annas a month. 

On the 15th January 1862, the Rev. Mr and Mrs 
Campbell were obliged to leave on a temporary visit to 
Britain, the health of Mrs Campbell having suffered very 
severely from her residence in the East. 

Soon afterwards, a great trial was sent upon the Madras 
mission. Mr M*Callum had for some time been in poor 
health, complaining chiefly of debility. He was advised to 
seek rest for a time at Bangalore station, on the table land 
of Southern India, and started for the purpose on Tuesday, 
June loth. On the night of the nth, he became alarmingly 
ill, it is believed of apoplexy, and died at the house of Mr 



CHRISTIAN PROPRIETOR OF A TEMPLE, I95 

Rice, of the London Missionary Society, half an hour after 
his fatal seizure. Mr Houston, one of the Madras mission 
teachers, had accompanied him on his journey, but could 
do nothing to alleviate his sufferings. He had laboured 
with his whole soul for the good of India, and left behind 
him a great blank in the mission when he died.* 



CHAPTER IX. 

FRESH APPOINTMENTS. 

When the intelligence of Mr M*Callum's death reached 
home, Mr Campbell felt it his duty at once to return for a 
time to Madras. A new missionary, and one of signal 
ability — the Rev. William Miller — was ordained by the 
Presbytery of Edinburgh on the 22nd October 1862, and 
accompanied Mr Campbell to the East Mr James Houston, 
the teacher, having laboured for three years in the mission, 
resigned in 1863 from ill health, and Dr Carslaw, M.D., 
was appointed his successor. 

In the early part of 1863, a decision of the Supreme 
Court gave Nagalingum the whole of his property, amount- 
ing to between ;£2o,ooo and ;£30,ooo. Two-thirds of the 
money were to be paid at once, and the remaining third 
on his grandfather's death. By this verdict, oddly enough 
Naga became the undoubted proprietor of the temple and 
god in his native village, about six miles from Madras. 
The temple was of granite, and the ** god " about the size of 

* Mr M 'Galium was of mature age when, in November 1844, he entered the Univer- 
sity of Edinburgh. He gained a prize or two while there, but was not what is some- 
times called a prize-man. When at the New College, he was president of the Mis- 
sionary Society. He, Mr Campbell, and Mr Blyth, offered themselves together to 
the Indian work. But at first Mr M 'Galium was forbidden by his medical advisers 
to go to the East. On this he became a missionary for Dr Tweedie's congregation 
in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, having before been an elder in Pilrig congrega- 
tion. He often preached to crowds on the Castle Esplanade. Referring to the Lawn- 
market, he said— "I go to my work as joyously as the Australian to his diggings. 
I like my Master, and I love my work." The features in his character were "great 
simplicity, integrity, love, and true unfeigned faith in the Lord Jjsus." — Missionary. 
Record, October 1862. . 



196 MADRAS. 

a man. A deputation from the leading inhabitants waited 
upon him, requesting him to make them a present of the 
temple and idol; but at Mr Campbell's suggestion, he 
resolved to do nothing rashly, and intimated that he would 
take time to consider his decision. 

In 1863, Ettirajooloo resigned his situation at Nellore. 
When Mr Campbell saw the Madras mission again in good 
hands, and in a prosperous condition, he returned home to 
complete his furlough ; and his wife's health being such that 
she was for ever prohibited from returning to Madras, he very 
reluctantly terminated his direct connection with the mission. 
Mr Blake being then at Nellore, there was for the next 
eighteen months only one ordained European labourer — Mr 
Miller — and he new to India. In intimate alliance with 
him, however, was Dr Paterson, the medical missionary, 
assisted by Caleb, a native baptized on 17th June 1855, and 
another convert. The members of the financial board also 
rendered assistance, it being their practice to visit the 
dispensary week about, and there confess their Saviour. 
The native converts also rendered aid. Two of them — 
Bauboo, now a native preacher, and his friend, Paramasiven, 
a divinity student — between them carried on a monthly 
periodical, called the Lamp of Life, Bauboo also intimated 
his intention of introducing the zenana scheme into Madras. 

Whilst singlehanded, Mr Miller had also to grapple with 
financial difficulties, the revenue of the mission no longer 
sufficing for its expenditure. Among the measures of re- 
trenchment which he carried out, was the discontinuance of 
the Madras Native Herald as a " periodical." It involved 
a loss of ;£^3o annually, which could not be spared. He 
intimated his intention of bringing it out again as an occa- 
sional paper, when facts or incidents connected with the 
mission required to be made known. The Herald ceased 
to appear statedly at the end of 1863. By the end of 1864, 
owing to the retrenchments which Mr Miller had carried 
out, the mission was free of debt, though it had been heavily 



DR PATERSON, 1 9/ 

burdened when he arrived from home. Before the end of 
1863, two missionaries — the Rev. W. Stevenson and the 
Rev. John Macmillan — had arrived to his aid. But in 1863 
the, health of Mr Blake necessitated his finally quitting the 
tropics.* The services of a European missionary not sent 
from home were for a time obtained, the Rev. Mr Metzger, 
a German, formerly connected with the Basle mission, on 
the Malabar coast, having accepted the charge of Chingle- 
putt to supply the place of Pararnasiven, who had resigned. 
Being an adept in the native languages, he devoted a great 
part of his time to itinerant preaching. 

When Mr Blake was obliged, from ill health, to quit 
Nellore, first Rajaligopaul, and afterwards Venkataramiah, 
took charge of it. There were then about twenty com- 
municants, with several baptized non-communicants. Rajah 
while there baptized several people. 

We have not yet given the prominence to the labours of 
Dr Paterson which their importance deserves. He was a 
very effective medical missionary. About the early part of 
1865 he and Mrs Paterson gained access to the interior 
of native households, from which ordinary Europeans are 
excluded. The subsequent year he had fifteen young men 
in his class training for dispensaries. The class was unsec- 
tarian, and its students were drawn from all Christian deno- 
minations. By 1870 he had sent forth twelve educated 
natives to be medical missionaries in their own districts, 
and diffuse abroad the benefits they had received. 
At that time he had two dispensaries, one in Blacktown, 
the other at Royapooram. The average daily attendance 
was 120, and during the year no fewer than 43,000 

* Mr Stevenson was ordained by the Free Presbytery of Perth on the evening of 
the 4th, and Mr Macmillan by that pf Aberdeen on the evening of the loth, October 
1863. They sailed together for Southampton on, 4th November of the same year. 
Mr, with Mrs Blake, reached home, via the Cape, about the end of 1864. Subse- 
quently Mr Blake became a missionary to the Maories, and is now in a pastoral 
charge in New Zealand. 

t In 1871, the state of Mrs Metzger's health compelled her husband to leave 
India. In doing so, he intimated that he would probably enter the service of the 
Protestant Church of Wurtemberg. 

(891) 14 



198 MADRAS, 

persons were directed to the Physician of Souls. There was 
also a small hospital, into which fifty-three natives had been 
admitted during the year. Worn out with his toils, Dr 
Paterson left India in 187 1, and died soon after reaching 
home. Dr William Elder was appointed his successor. 

Our readers may remember various cases mentioned in 
connection with the Calcutta mission in which widows, 
specially degraded by heathen custom, showed a greater 
disposition than other females to embrace the truth. In 
this point of view, a case which occurred at Chingleput is 
worthy of record. A young woman, called Runganayaghee 
or Rungam, about 19 years of age, applied for baptism at 
that station on the 9th April 1867, and after enduring a 
certain ordeal from her relatives, which she met with firm- 
ness, was then passed on to Mrs Anderson at Madras. 

Before the end of 1867 a distinguished student of Aber- 
deen University, Mr George M. Rae, ordained on June 
28th, arrived from home. Early in 1868 Mr Miller had 
temporarily to return to Europe. He delivered a very effec- 
tive address in the Assembly, and before 1869 had far 
advanced was again at his post in India. 

In 1 87 1 Mr William Ross, a third year's divinity student, 
was sent out to India to supply a vacant teachership and 
professorship of mathematics in the Free Church Institu- 
tion. He was despatched on the understanding that he 
should complete his studies in India, and be licensed 
and ordained by the local Presbytery. Dr William Elder, 
already mentioned, accompanied him to the East. They 
sailed from Plymouth on the ist October, in the Messrs 
Greens' new steamer Viceroy, 

The same year a generous friend gave ;£iooo to the 
library of the institution, and the Home Committee added 
a grant of ;^ 100 to build a room for its accommodation. 

When, at the close of 187 1, the examination of the day 
and boarding schools took place. Lady Napier, wife of the 
Governor, presided, whilst another distinguished personage 



FEES, 199 

of the same surname, Lord Napier of Magdala, was among 
the visitors. Eight schools were then sustained by the mis- 
sion, with an attendance of 784 girls. ;£ii4 had been 
received in fees during the year. Sixteen girls, all native 
Christians, had passed the Government examination for 
female teachers' certificates, and the name of one of these 
appeared in the highest grade. In the early part of 1872 
Mrs Anderson resigned the boarding-school on account of 
indifferent health, but as she will continue to reside in 
Madras, her services will still be available to the mission 
cause. Miss Jane Sloan has been appointed her successor. 
In 1869 and 1870, sometime after Mr Miller's return 
from Europe, he penned a series of remarkably interesting 
letters, published in the Missionary Record, in which he gave 
minute details regarding the institution, and his manner of 
life in Madras. He stated that the 300 pupils who were in 
the institution some years ago have now developed into 
800 in 21 distinct classes. In the lowest school there 
are about 300 Hindoo to 60 Mohammedan pupils. • So 
little love for learning have the Mohammedans that the 
fees imposed upon them have not been heightened for 
years, while those in the Hindoo classes have been regu- 
larly increased. In the Mohammedan classes they are two 
annas a month (an anna is about ijd.). In the Hindoo 
classes, again, three or four times that amount is cheer- 
fully paid. In the months of January and July, when alone 
converts are received into the upper school, there are always 
numerous applications for admission ; only some of which 
can be attended to for want of room. In the upper school, 
one portion of the senior department of the institution, there 
are nominally five classes, but as one of these is divided 
into three portions, there are, properly speaking, eight. Mr 
Miller contrasts the school department as it was in 1870, 
when he wrote, with its condition seven years before — 

** About which time it was that the institution, after a considerable 
interval of decay, began that progress towards a good position in the 
community, and a powerful influence upon it, which has continued ever 



200 MADRAS, 

since. * It is only the school department,' he proceeds, * that can be 
fairly compared with the state of matters seven years ago, for there 
existed no college classes at all until a year or two after that date. . . . 
At the time referred to the fee was a uniform one of four annas — that 
is, 6d. a month, with an entrance fee for each new pupil, on his admis- 
sion, of double that sum. The proceeds of both together were less, on 
the average, than ninety rupees, or £f) a month, since payment was 
neither very universal nor very regular. Since then the fee has been 
repeatedly raised, especially in the higher classes. In a portion of the 
lower schools it is not yet more than double what it used to be, or is. 
monthly ; but as the classes rise the fee goes up to is. 6d., 2s., 3s., and 
in the college department to 58. — that is, 24 rupees a month. Thus, 
even in the upper school, it stands at six times, and in the college at 
ten times, what could be obtained seven years ago. There has been a 
corresponding rise of the admission fee, and altogether the £g has risen 
now to about £^o, or, in round numbers, instead of contributing £100 
a year to its own support^ the institution contributes £^00. . . . As 
years pass it may be hoped that farther steady progress will be made in 
this direction. But even what has been attained is gratifying, especially 
since such a point has been reached already that these fees, together 
with the grants obtained from Government, meet all the expenses of 
the institution, except the salaries of such European missionaries as are 
employed in it.' " 

That the working of the college department may be un- 
derstood, it is necessary to understand the constitution of 
the Madras University. The University of Madras was 
called into existence in 1857. It consists of a Chancellor, 
Vice-Chancellor, and Fellows ; the last numbering at present 
nearly 60, and containing representatives of every class of 
educated men, natives as well as Europeans. Various 
missionaries are fellows. The body of fellows is denominated 
the Senate. There are four examinations — the entrance, or 
matriculation one ; the first examination in arts ; the degree 
examination for B.A. ; and the M.A. examination. Few 
go forward to these higher trials of scholarship. It is for 
the lowest of the examinations — the matriculation one — 
that the highest of the school classes in the Free Church 
Institution are preparing. Many of those who are successful 
in this first trial of strength give up study and go into active 
life ; others enter the classes in the college department of the 
institution, which are affiliated to the University, and are 
considered an integral part of it. In these advanced classes 
they prepare for the higher examinations. 



CHRISTIAN TEACHING. 201 

Since the institution of universities at the several presi- 
dency seats, the missionaries have had to encounter a new 
and very formidable difficulty. The examinations for the 
universities, not even excepting the first or matriculation 
one, are really severe, — in this respect resembling those in 
the University of London, on the model of which the 
Indian universities were framed. Hence, the young men 
are so preoccupied with intellectual toil and ambition, that 
less spiritual fruit is reaped from among them than formerly, 
though the Bible is as steadily and as zealously taught as 
ever it was. Would it, then, be expedient to dissever the 
institution wholly from the University — abandon intellectual, 
ambition, and be contented with moral and spiritual fruit ? 
Assuredly not, we would say. It is Mr Miller's opinion, 
that if this course were adopted, only a few children would 
remain as pupils in the institution, and in consequence it 
would cease to exert any powerful influence on the com- 
munity. 

The missionaries, we think, are acting wisely in leaving 
the institution still affiliated to the University, and teaching 
the Bible, as they and their predecessors have uniformly 
done, with conscientious and loving zeal. That, even under 
the new and more onerous conditions, they are meeting with 
a large measure of success, in their endeavours to commu- 
nicate Scripture knowledge, was recently evinced in a 
gratifying manner by an incident which occurred. A Mr 
Cator having liberally given prizes for Christian knowledge, 
to be competed for in Madras, natives were, of course, at a 
disadvantage compared with Europeans and East Indian 
youths. Yet the pupils of the Madras Free Church Institu- 
tion gained three of the ten prizes, and eight out of forty-four 
certificates of merit They were the only natives who were 
successful in the competition. 

It was a great day for the whole southern portion of India 
when Mr Anderson founded the Madras mission. 



SECTION IV. 
BO MBA Y. 




CHAPTER I. 

THE MAHRATTA COUNTRY AND ITS PRESENT CAPITAL. 

|OMBAY, Poonah, Nagpore, Sattara, Indapore, 
Jaulna, Bankote, and Hurnee — names which 
it will be needful to bring before the reader as 
the narrative proceeds — are all in the Mahratta 
country. The region now spoken of constitutes a triangle, 
of which the base runs along the shore of the Indian Ocean, 
from about the mouth of the Taptee on the north, to Goa 
on the south, while the apex falls inland about 50 miles 
beyond Nagpore. The region is naturally divided into two, 
distinguished from each other by well-marked characteristics. 
All who have studied the map of India know, that nearly 
parallel to the western coast of that country, and not many 
miles distant from it, there runs a gigantic chain of moun- 
tains. This great basaltic range the natives call the Syha- 
drees, while Europeans denominate it the Western Ghauts, 
interpreting Ghaut to mean mountain, whereas its primary 
signification is, mountain-pass. The narrow strip of broken 
territory between the Ghauts and the sea, is called the 
Concan, while the table-land above them, sloping away 
south-eastward towards the distant Bay of Bengal, receives 
the name of Deccan. 



THE M AH R ATT A RACE, 203 

The Mahratta-speaking population of India number at 
least 10,000,000. Ethnologically viewed, the term Mah- 
rattas, in our opinion, includes three races. The first are 
the Mahars, who are taller and stronger than the ordinary 
Mahrattas, and are (we agree with Dr Wilson in considering) 
the remains of a once very powerful aboriginal tribe, now, 
however, subdued. The second race, higher than the 
former in dignity, is the ordinary Mahratta one, consisting, 
its royal families not excepted, of Sudras, or low-castes. 
They are not, as a rule, handsome. They look plebeian in 
features, and are about the colour of a cup of tea or coffee 
after the cream has been put in. The third and highest 
race is the Brahman one, which is exclusively Aryan, whereas 
there is reason to believe that the Mahrattas, and yet more 
the Mahars, were originally Turanian. The prowess in 
battle of the Mahrattas of all kinds is indisputable. Under 
their great leader, Seevajee, they flung off the Mohammedan 
yoke under which, like the rest of the Hindoos, they had 
for centuries groaned ; and, having done so, they attempted 
next to grasp the empire of India for themselves. Having 
struggled for it first with the Mohammedans, they did so 
next with ourselves, and at the commencement of the 19th 
century it was still undecided which of the contending 
powers would succeed in grasping the sceptre. It was a 
blessing of inconceivable importance to India that the divine 
decision w^s in favour of the British ; for, considering that 
Mahratta rule was a frightful sort of tyranny, one shudders 
to think of the consequences which would have resulted to 
India, had it fallen into Mahratta hands. Nana Sahib 
was a Mahratta, born at Kurwar, 24 miles from Sattara; and 
in the year 1858, Mr Aitken, then a missionary in the latter 
city, wrote that he never met with a Mahratta, except his 
own pupils, who censured anything which the Nana had 
done. As in other cases, we would now point out the mis- 
sionary bearing of the political facts presented above. In 
Bengal, as already mentioned, the British did not strike 



204 BOMBAY. 

down a kingdom ruled by Hindoos, but emancipated the 
people of that race and faith from Mussulman tyranny. The 
same thing happened at Madras. At Bombay, however, it 
was diflferent In that presidency, and the regions adjacent, 
we met the Mahrattas in battle when their power was great, 
and their ambition at its highest, and smote their empire 
down. In presenting our religion for their acceptance, then, 
we do so in unfavourable circumstances, inasmuch as we 
were first their rivals and then their conquerors, and the 
triumphs of the gospel may be expected to be less rapid in 
the west of India than in most other parts of the country. 
Another unfavourable circumstance is that, as Mr J. M. 
Mitchell says in his "Life of the Rev. R. Nesbit" — 
"Missions were commenced in Western India about 50 
years later than in Bengal, and a full century later than in 
Madras." For these and other reasons which might be ad- 
duced, the Bombay missionaries have had a sphere of special 
difficulty. There is, however, one counteracting circumstance, 
namely this, that if, as we believe, female seclusion in India 
is of Mohammedan more than Hindoo origin, then, 
reasoning d priori, a vigorous Hindoo race, who were not 
very long under the Mohammedan yoke, and who ultimately 
cast off that yoke by their own unaided exertions, will not 
probably seclude their females so much as the Tamuls and 
Teloogoos of Madras, and, above all, as the Bengalees of 
Calcutta ; hence, female schools will be found more prac- 
ticable at Bombay than at the other presidency seats. 

To limit our attention now to Bombay city. The island 
so named is more naturally fitted to be a capital than either 
Calcutta or Madras, its chief drawback being that its area 
is too small for the population upon it, and therefore house 
rent goes up, and up, and up, till it reaches a fabulous 
height, with the result of huddling the people together and 
causing a heavy death-rate. The population of Bombay by 
the census of ist February 1864, as given in the Parliamen- 
tary Blue Book, No. 68 for 1870, was as follows : — 



BOMBAY CITY AND PRESIDENCY, 20S 

Europeans, 8,415 

Indo-PIuropeans, IjSqi 

Native Christians, I9>903 

Jews, 2,872 

Africans, 2,074 

Chinese, 358 

Parsees, 49>20 1 

Brahmans, 30,604 

Buddhists, 8,021 

Bhatia, 21,771 

Hindoos, 523.974 

Lingayat, 1,598 

Mussulmans,.. 145,880 

816,562 
The Bombay presidency contains 13,983,998 inhabitants. 
The city, in addition to being the head of the presidency 
which bears its name, is admirably situated for operating 
upon Africa, Arabia, and the countries up the Persian Gulf 
Despite the disadvantages against which the evangelist has 
there to contend, it is an exceedingly important and desir- 
able mission field. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SOJOURN AT BANKOTE AND HURNEE. 

In or immediately before 1822, the Scottish Missionary 
Society resolved to commence operations in the west of 
India, influenced by the consideration that while there were 
upwards of eighty labourers in th^ presidencies of Bengal 
and Madras, no more than six were stationed within that of 
Bombay. Their first missionary was the Rev. Donald 
Mitchell, who arrived in January 1823,* but died about 

* Mr Donald Mitchell had already passed through unusual and varied experience. 
The son of a Scottish minister^ he had contemplated himself embracing the sacred 
prufession, but while at the Divinity Hall he beean to depart from the Confession of 
Faith, and ultimately sank into Socinianism. Abandoning the further prosecution 
of his theological studies, he sought and obtained a commission in the East India 
Company's service. In the providence of God his regiment was cantoned at Surat, 
where the European missionaries of the London Society were the means of leading 
him back to evangelical truth. Never till now had he experienced its power 



206 BOMB A Y. 

eight months subsequently. Shortly before his lamented de- 
cease, there arrived three others labourers, the Rev. Messrs 
John Cooper, James Mitchell,* and Alexander Crawford, 
the little band being increased not long afterwards by the 
coming, on the 17th February 1824, of the Rev. John 
Stevenson. All these missionaries were married, and thus 
they had female assistance from the first in carrying on their 
work. The intention had been that they should per- 
manently settle in Poonah, the proper Mahratta capital, but 
the Government would not hear of such a proposal. They 
thought that it might dangerously excite the Brahmans 
and other Mahrattas who had engaged in a struggle 
for supremacy with the British only seven years before. 
Thus baffled, the missionaries felt it to be a question 
where they should go. They thought of Bombay, but to 
a certain extent that field seemed pre-occupied, there having 
been there an American mission from the end of 18 14 
or the beginning of 18 15, and one belonging to the Church 
of England from 1820. They therefore turned aside to the 
much less promising sphere of the Southern Concan. Two 
stations within the region just named were soon after 
occupied, the one at the town of Bankote, about sixty miles 
south of Bombay, and the other at Hurnee, fourteen miles 
still further south. After acquiring the language, the 
missionaries preached t© the adult native population, for 
whose benefit also they composed and circulated tracts. 
Perceiving the wretched character of the heathen verna- 
cular schools, they sought, if the teachers would allow it, 
to improve them, and by 1827 had under their nominal 

upon his conscience. Resigning his commission and returning home, he 
completed his studies, and then offered himself to the directors of the Scottish Mis- 
sionary Society for evangelistic work in India. He was, Dr J. Murray Mitchell 
thinks, the first person seriously to turn the attention of the directors to the para- 
mount claims of India. — Life of Mr Nesbit^ pp. 63, 64 

• James Mitchell was bom in the year 1800, in the vicinity of Stirling. Removing 
thence to Leith, he became connected with the congregation of the well-known Dr 
Colquhoun, where, especially in the Sabbath-school, his attention was directed to 
the claims of missions. Against the remonstrances of his relatives he resolved to 
devote himself to the work, and, after receiving a considerable measure of academic 
training, was ordained in August 1822, as a missionary to India.— J^r^^ Church 
Missionary Record^ June 1866, pp. j, 2. 



VERNACULAR SCHOOLS. 20/ 

control eighty distinct schools, with about three thousand 
pupils, a certain proportion of them being Brahmans. Nay, 
more, some few girls came along with the boys ; and by the 
15th March 1824, the announcement was made to the 
Society that the missionaries were taking measures to erect 
"a school-room solely for the reception of girls." By 1827, 
wonderful to relate, the female pupils exceeded 300. The 
boys' schools were found almost valueless for direct Christian 
ends. It is quite easy to explain why this should be so. 
Nine-tenths of all the heathen teachers in India so de- 
cidedly prefer their pockets to their creed that they would 
feel no scruple at all in handing over their schools to a 
missionary, allowing him to teach Christianity or anything 
else that he pleased, provided that they were employed as 
his assistants, their department being to train the pupils in 
arithmetic and the mechanical art of reading. The bargain 
is an excellent one for the missionary, provided he do not 
take over a greater number of schools than he and his 
Christian agents can efficiently control. If he be too 
ambitious in this respect, then heathen dominates over 
Christian influence in his schools, and the Hindoo teacher 
has the better of the bargain. Eighty schools were too many 
for four men properly to superintend, and therefore it was 
that they rendered the mission little direct service. Indi- 
rectly, however, they did an immensity of good. They 
taught the Government of Bombay, what it did not know 
before, that even in remote districts, native teachers and native 
pupils, many of both being Brahmans, would, if courteously 
invited, place themselves under European superintendence, 
fearing no evil. The lesson being turned to good account, 
the Government set up vernacular schools of its own in 
many of the Mahratta villages. 

On the 4th June 1827, the Rev. Robert Nesbit* took 

* Mr Nesbit was born at the village of Bowsden, in the county of Durham, on 
the 22nd of March 1803. His father, a small farmer, was elder in a Presbyterian 
Church. The son came under the influence of Dr Chalmers' fervid oratory while 
he was at St Andrews, but it was not till he became tutor in the family of Mr 



208 BOMBAY, 

ship at Portsmouth, to proceed to the assistance of the 
mission. He arrived in Bombay on September 1 9, and soon 
afterwards proceeded to the Southern Concan, where, being 
an admirable linguist, he, in the incredibly brief space of 
three and a half months, began to talk Marathi, so as to be 
pretty well understood. 

The comparative ineligibility of the thinly-peopled and 
rugged Concan as a field of operations, continued to be felt, 
and as, after all, two weak missions were not sufficient to 
preoccupy a city so important as Bombay, the Scottish 
evangelists resolved to despatch one of their number thither, 
and on the 26th December 1827, Mr Stevenson was sent 
to this new and promising field. 

On February 13, 1829, the mission received a splendid 
reinforcement by the arrival of the Rev. John (now the Rev. 
Dr) Wilson, in himself a host, accompanied by the first Mrs 
Wilson.* After remaining for some months in the Southern 
Concan, he removed in November of the year he came out 
to Bombay. Other events had signalised 1829. There had 
been admissions to the Church both from among the Hin- 
doos and the Portuguese; but, on the other hand, Mr 
Crawford had been compelled by ill health to return to 
Europe. 

In December 1827, the Bombay Tract and Book Society 
was founded at that presidency seat on a catholic basis, and 
in 1830 Mr Nesbit composed for it a tract called the True 
Atonement, which in 1855 had passed through twelve 

Groves of Exeter, that he formed the resolution of destining his life to foreign mis- 
sions. He had been licensed by the Presbytery of Caithness before going to 
Exeter, and after returning he offered himself to the Scottish Missionary Society, 
and being accepted, was ordained by the Presbytery of St Andrews on the 15th 
December 1826. 

* John Wilson waa born in Lauder, and taught for a time in the school of Horn- 
dean. He was ordained one of the Scottish Missionary Society's agents in 
Western India on the 34th June 1828. On the 13th of August in the same year, he 
was married to MisK Marijaret Bayne, daughter of the Rev. Kenneth Bayne of 
Greenock. On the 30th, the Wilsons embarked for London at Newhaven, the 
(iranton pier, we believe, not then being built. On the 14th September they 
commenced their voyage to India. With the exception of a wild and perilous 
night, during which their vessel was in danger of being flung ashore, in Table Bay, 
during a south-easterly gale, their voyage to India was not unpleasant. 



MR WILSON SETTLES IN BOMBAY. 2O9 

editions, and has since gone through a great many more. 
It has been translated also into Guzerathi. Deeply evan- 
gelical as Mr Nesbit's little tractate is, and admirably 
adapted as it has proved to the native mind, it has already 
effected much good, and its career of usefulness is not yet 
nearly run. 

At the end of 1830, Mr Cooper removed with his family 
to the Neilgherry hills, mainly for the sake of his wife, 
then in very feeble, health. The lady derived comparatively 
little benefit from the measure, and before long she gra- 
dually sunk and died. Soon afterwards sickness compelled 
her husband permanently to return home. Some of our 
readers may have known him many years later, as the 
United Presbyterian minister of Fala, on the south-eastern 
boundary line of Midlothian. 

Messrs Mitchell and Stevenson having preached to the 
people of Poonah in the year 1829, and been well received, 
Mr Stevenson removed thither about 1831 j and on the 8th 
August of the same year, Mr Nesbit, under medical advice, 
joined him there, the dry atmosphere of the old Mahratta 
capital being more healthful than the hot muggy air of 
Humee. When it was found that Poonah was really open, 
and that the missionaries were likely permanently to retain 
their footing there, the operations at Bankote and Humee 
were allowed to come to an end. 



CHAPTER HI. 

TRANSFER OF THE MISSION TO BOMBAY. 

The scene now shifts to Bombay city, to which, it will be 
remembered, Mr Stevenson had been despatched sometime 
before. Thither went also Mr and Mrs Wilson on the 26th 
November 1829, having first visited Bankote and other 
places. They had already made such progress in the 



2IO BO.\fBAY, 

Mahratta language, as to be able to use it with some effect 
The linguistic powers of Dr Wilson are now universally 
known. Immediately on reaching the Western presidency 
seat, he began to converse with the natives and preach to 
them, besides taking measures for the establishment of 
schools. In 1830 he commenced to issue an exceedingly 
valuable monthly periodical in English, called the Oriental 
Christian Spectator, Only a few years have elapsed since 
it came to an end.* In the Oriental Christian Spectator 
for July and August 1 831, he reviewed a work by "Elisaeus," 
translated by Mr C. F. Newmann, on the History of Vartan, 
and the religious wars among the Persians. In this re- 
view he made some strictures on the Parsee doctrines, 
which led to a controversy between him and some professors 
of that faith. His researches into Parseeism were ultimately 
to assume large proportions, and lead to important results. 
It was not only with the Parsees that he entered into friendly 
controversy — he did so also with the Hindoos and the 
Mohammedans. To the former he addressed his First and 
his Second Exposure of Hindooism, the former penned in 
1832, in reply to Mora Bhutt Dandekara, while the latter, 
of which a copy now lies before us, bears date Bombay, 
October 1834. The amazing literary activity of Mr Wilson 
at this period of his career, will be apparent when it is 
mentioned that, at the end of the " Second Exposure," the 
following works from his pen are advertised (independently 
of the First Exposure in Marathi, and the Second in English 
and Marathi : — " The Rudiments of Hebrew Grammar in 
Marathi," price four rupees bound, but sold at half price to 
native Israelites ; " Idiomatical Exercises, illustrative of 
English and Marathi," five rupees; second edition of a 
** Lecture on the Vandidad Sade (the Scripture of the Parsees), 
delivered to the people of that faith on the 19th and 24th 
June 1833," price one rupee stitched ; and finally, ** A Refu- 

* A complete series of the Oriental Christian Spectator \iov\^ be a boon to any 
library in the country. So far as the writer's obser>'ation has extended, there » 
not one in the splendid British Museum collection. 



FEMALE EDUCA TION. 2 1 1 

tation of Mohammedanism, in reply to Haji Muhammad 
Hashim," price half a rupee stitched, or one rupee bound. 
Besides these literary efforts, Mr Wilson had made extensive 
tours in the Concan Deccan and other places, all this 
having been effected within the first six years of his residence 
in India. 

Meanwhile his partner in life had been the reverse of 
idle. In addition to assisting her husband by writing in the 
Oriental Christian Spectator^ and in other ways, she had 
been successful in her efforts to promote female education. 
On the 29th December 1829, she opened a small female 
school A quarter of a year later she had fifty-three scholars, 
and in yet another quarter of a year she had six schools, 
with 120 pupils. In 1832 the girls under her charge 
amounted to 175. In July 1833, a message arrived from 
home, which, had it been obeyed, would have terminated 
the enterprise so hopefully begun — the directors of the 
Scottish Missionary Society, alarmed by the diminution 
of their pecuniary resources, having ordered the curtailment 
of operations, including the dismissal of all the pupils in 
the schools. The injunction was not acted upon, and in 
January, 1834, Mrs Wilson's girls amounted to about 200. 

Her cqadjutor in setting up, and for a time maintaining 
the female schools, had been Mrs Mitchell of Bankote, who, 
however, died at Dhapuli on the 17 th January 1832. Mrs 
Wilson herself, not long afterwards, lost her health, and 
finally entered into her rest on the 19th April 1835. A 
memoir of her from the pen of her distinguished husband, 
has made her talents and her moral worth known to the 
Church at large. 

As already mentioned,.in August 1835, the Rev. Messrs 
James Mitchell, R. Nesbit, and John Wilson, were, on their 
own application, amicably transferred from the Scottish 
Missionary Society to the Church of Scotland, and the 
second period of the Presbyterian Mission in Western India 
came to an end. 



212 BOMBAY. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE BOMBAY " INSTITUTION" AND ITS EARLIEST FRUITS. 

The great success which had attended the Church of Scot- 
land's Institution, founded by Dr Duff at Calcutta, had 
created the desire, both at home and in India, that a 
seminary or school and college of the same kind should 
be begun, with as little delay as possible, at the other pre- 
sidency seats. 

So early as 1832, some pious European gentlemen in 
Bombay had set up in the mission premises in the fort an 
English school, which " Mr Wilson undertook to organise 
and superintend." On the ist December 1835 it was trans- 
ferred to the Church of Scotland, and was at first deno- 
minated the Scottish Mission School. On the return of Mr 
Nesbit to Bombay, on the 7 th February 1837, after an 
absence from India, for the recovery of his health, of two 
years and a month, he took a house in the fort, constituting 
in reality a portion of the same building as that in which 
the school was accommodated. His health was not yet 
re-established, and in the hope of improving it, as well as 
effecting missionary results in another quarter, his friends 
some months later sent him to Ceylon, to found a Presby- 
terian Church in the island. Returning properly recruited, 
in February 1838, he was now able to labour with full 
efficiency. In November of the same year the Rev. John 
Murray Mitchell, a distinguished graduate of Marischal 
College, arrived from Scotland, having been ordained just 
after completing his theological curriculum. The arrivaJ of 
these labourers rendered it possible to organise the school 
on a more extended basis than at first, and it became known 
as the General Assembly's Institution. 

Ten days after the Scottish school was estabUshed by Dr 
Wilson, in December 1835, a Parsee boy, apparently be* 



PARSEE INQUIRERS. 2 1 3 

tween 13 and 14 years of age, was enrolled as a scholar, 
giving his name as Dhanjibhai Nauroji. On the 12th Feb- 
ruary of the subsequent year (1836) another youth of the 
same nationality became a pupil, and was entered in the 
catalogue as Hormasdji Pestonji. These were not the only 
Parsee boys at school, but of all who were in attendance 
they are the most worthy of mention. On the 13th October 
1838, a teacher in the institution, Mr Thomas Smith by 
name (of course not the Calcutta missionary), addressed a 
letter to Dr Wilson, in which he expressed his belief that 
Dhanjibhai was already in a state of grace, and intimated 
that the young Parsee was desirous of baptism. A series of 
conferences with the inquirer himself convinced Dr Wilson 
that the favourable opinion given of his spiritual state was 
correct, but still no action was taken during the long period 
of eight months, so anxious was the missionary, on more 
accounts than one, to proceed cautiously in a matter of 
such delicacy. At last the movements of two other Parsee 
young men rendered it impossible further to delay the crisis. 
Framji Bomanji and Hormasdji Pestonji were bosom friends, 
and coming, apparently about the same time, under the 
influence of the truth, they had agreed, after communicating 
their state and feelings to Dr Wilson, to request that they 
might be baptized together. Man proposes, but God dis- 
poses j and instead of the close friends entering the Church 
in company, and remaining permanently linked together in 
the bonds of Christian affection, they were destined to be 
severed, apparently never to meet again in the world. When 
the announced intention of Hormasdji's family immediately 
to remove from Bombay, taking him along with them, ren- 
dered it necessary for the friends at once to carry out the 
step they had resolved on, Hormasdji succeeded in reaching 
the Mission-house, while Framji fell into the hands of his 
caste people, and was never allowed to see his instructors 
any more. 

When Dhanjibhi heard what had taken place, he felt 

(391) 15 



214 BOMBAY. 

that he had not a moment to lose if he wished to retain the 
hope of receiving baptism, and he too fled to the Mission- 
iiouse. The Parsee community of Bombay now became 
greatly excited. Though their faith was one vulnerable at 
a hundred points, yet they had laid the flattering unction 
to their souls, that no young Parsee, however carefully 
instructed in Christianity, would ever think of forsaking 
Zoroastrianism. Now that they had been rudely unde- 
ceived, they, or at least a large number of them, gave way 
to blind fury, and, casting off" even the pretence of respect- 
ing freedom of conscience, showed themselves prepared, if 
needful, to use violence both to the converts and their 
instructors. On Monday, 30th May 183$, they made an 
effort to carry off" Hormasdji from Dr Wilson's house, but 
the domestics, the Mahratta teachers and others, hearing 
the noise, rushed to the rescue, and prevented the outrage 
being completed. Foiled in this endeavour, the defeated 
party went off", but immediately afterwards returned with a 
policeman to arrest Hormasdji on a ridiculous charge, said 
to be disapproved even by the relatives, that he had carried 
away some of the family jewels. This eff"ort proved equally 
abortive with the last. Dhanjibhai also was compelled 
to pass through exceedingly trying scenes. His friends, 
accompanied by a messenger of the Parsee Panchdyit (San- 
hedrim), came in quest of him, and required him to retiu"n 
with them, but neither tears, lamentations, nor entreaties 
could shake his firm purpose to be a Christian. On Wed- 
nesday evening, ist May, he was baptized, after making a 
profession of his faith, and laying upon the table his Kusti, 
or sacred thread, the badge of his caste. Hormasdji, at 
the same time, declared himself also a Christian, and laid 
his Kusti aside, though his baptism was deferred till Sab- 
bath, the 5 th of May. 

Legal proceedings had meanwhile been commenced 
against Dr Wilson. When threatened with violence, he 
had informed his intended assailants that the constitutional 



NOBLE CONDUCT OF DHANJIBHAL 2 1 S 

method of procedure was for them to appeal to the law, 
and, taking him at his word, they had filed affidavits before 
the Supreme Courts, and obtained two writs of habeas 
corpus, the one requiring Dhanjibhai, and the other Hor- 
masdji, to be produced before the Chief Justice, that it 
might be ascertained whether they were under illegal re- 
straint. Counter affidavits were immediately prepared on 
the part of the missionaries and their friends, to show 
that the Parsee youths had all along been free to return 
home if they pleased. The writ requiring the production 
of Hormasdji was ultimately cancelled, but that relating 
to Dhanjibhai went to proof. The first appearance in 
Court was on the 6th of May, the proceedings on that 
day closing with the declaration that, till the case ended, 
Dhanjibhai might go where he pleased. On being ques- 
tioned by the judge as to what his intentions were, he, 
in the face of all that was powerful, wealthy, venerable, 
or dangerous among his countrymen arrayed against him, 
modestly, but firmly, declared his intention of going 
with Dr Wilson. The missionary just named soon after 
came out of the Court, accompanied by the two Parsees, 
and entered his carriage. On seeing him the mob became 
excited, and some of the Zoroastrians caught the wheels 
of the vehicle and attempted to prevent it from starting ; 
but, mainly owing to the exertions of several European 
gentlemen who were present, the endeavour failed. When, 
at length, the conveyance moved off, the baser part of the 
Parsees ran behind it, shouting " seize, kill," while the more 
respectable of the caste, feeling ashamed of such conduct, 
held aloof. 

When the case again came before the Court, which it did 
on the 1 6th of May, the police were on the alert, and the 
military had received orders to be in readiness, if their ser- 
vices should be required. Happily, however, the tranquil- 
lity on this occasion remained unbroken ; and when Dhan- 
jibhai a second time stood nobly true to his convictions, he 



2l6 BOMBAY. 

was finally allowed to go where he pleased. This time Dr 
Wilson and he were able to return to the Mission-house in 
comparative safety. 

The Parsees had already resolved to take other steps, 
with the view (of course, certain to be disappointed) of pre- 
venting future conversions. The first of these was a per- 
fectly legitimate one, namely, to withdraw the youths 
belonging to their caste, if they could induce the parents to 
listen to them, from Christian seminaries, and send them to 
Zoroastrian schools, which they proposed to establish. 
Their second resolve was one which would not have been 
adopted by them, had they understood the great and sacred 
principle of religious liberty. It was to prepare and send 
off a petition to Government, which, when it appeared and 
was read, came popularly to be termed the Anti-conversion 
Memorial. Its prayer was that there should be some restraint 
put on the establishment of mission-schools ; that no mis- 
sionary should tamper with the faith of a child under 21 
years of age [16, it should be mentioned, is the age which 
Hindoo law considers that of majority] ; and, 

" Further, that if any person after the age of 21 years shall become 
a convert to the Christian or other faith, he shall not be capable of 
exercising any power or control over his wife or children, and also shall 
be liable to provide a reasonable sum for their maintenance, and also 
shall forfeit all right and title to inherit the family or ancestral property 
of his parents, except such portion thereof as may be bequeathed to 
him by will, and that the provisions of the Act may be guarded by 
proper penalties, to be enforced in any court of justice in India." 

It was a satisfactory circumstance, that out of a population 
of about 250,000 peoplie then resident in Bombay, only 21 15 
signatures could be obtained to this intolerant petition. 
Its fate might have been predicted beforehand — the Bombay 
Government, to which it was addressed, would not lend its 
countenance to persecution. The only unsatisfactory part 
of the answer returned to the memorialists was one in which 
it was intimated that consideration would be given to the 
request that missionary movements might be restrained, 



DR Wilson's PARSER RESEARCHES, 217 

especially at sacred places; but, happily, the Supreme 
Government put all right by declaring that ** his Lordship 
in Council cannot deem it to be necessary or proper to pro- 
hibit the resort of missionaries to any places to which other 
British subjects may without offence have access." * 

The legal proceedings now described, and the failure of 
the anti-conversion memorial, had a great and lasting effect 
on the minds of the Parsees, the Hindoos, and other orien- 
tals, not in Bombay merely, but throughout India. They 
gave them a first lesson on the principles of religious 
liberty. 

Of course a heavy price was paid for the advantages 
gained. For many years not a single Parsee boy entered 
the institution. Of 284 pupils in attendance, all but 50 
were taken away, and those who remained were almost ex- 
clusively Christians. The vernacular schools also felt the 
violence of the storm, and friendly intercourse which had 
begun with the Government students came, for a time at 
least, to an end. Yet we hesitate not to say, that the 
advantages gained were worth even this heavy price. 

Though the possibility of Dr Wilson's acting on the 
Parsees by scholastic means was for the time being at an 
end, yet his pen continued free. The sermon which he 
preached, from the text Isaiah xlv. 5, 7, 8, on occasion of 
Dhanjibhai's baptism, is of a very remarkable character, 
and the notes on Parseeism with which it is illustrated are 
so amazingly learned, that it has been doubted whether a 
single Parsee could be found who knew as much of Zoroas- 
trianism as Dr Wilson put into the tiny volume containing 
his sermon. Nor is this his only work on the Parsee faith. 
He published a much larger volume on the subject in 1843. 
This most elaborate and valuable production attracted the 
notice of the "Institut" of France, and led to its author 
obtaining an honour accorded to very few ministers of any 

* The answer of the Supreme Government was communicated to the memorialists 
in a letter signed, " W. R. Norris, secretary to Government. Bombay Castle, xoth 
April 1840." 



2l8 BOMBAY. 

Church^that of his being elected F.R.S., or fellow of the 
Royal Society of London, he having before for some years 
been President of the Bombay branch of the Royal 
Asiatic Society. But we must not anticipate. 

In addition to the two Parsees, two Armenians and a 
Roman Catholic were admitted to the Church in the year 
1839. The institution was beginning to recover from the 
shock it had sustained through means of the Parsee bap- 
tisms. On the 30th January 1840, there were again 146 
upon the roll, with an actual attendance of 100. Early in 
that year the missionaries were gladdened by a visit from 
Dr Duff, then on the way from Europe to his own sphere of 
labour. On the 6th April Mr Aitken arrived from home as 
a lay-teacher. Soon aifterwards, a Persian Armenian, for- 
merly a Zoroastrian, was admitted to the Church. 

The Irish Presb>'terian Synod having come to the resolu- 
tion of commencing operations among the natives of India, 
chose, mainly at Dr Wilson's suggestion, the peninsula of 
Kattiwar, in Guzerat, as the sphere for their labours. When 
the Rev. Messrs (James) Glasgow and Kerr, the two mission- 
aries sent out, arrived at Bombay, Dr Wilson received them 
with his wonted cordiality, and kindly promised to escort 
them to their destination. While they were all at Rajkote, 
in Kattiwar, on the 9th August 1 841, Mr Kerr was attacked 
by jungle fever. Dr Wilson was seized with the same 
dangerous malady four days later. Mr Kerr died on the 
29th August, while Dr Wilson was for a long time in immi- 
nent danger, but ultimately, in the good providence of God, 
recovered. The heathen servants who had accompanied 
the missionary deserted him in his distress, being afraid of 
taking the infection ; but Dhanjibhai, regardless of peril to 
himself, nobly remained to minister to his spiritual father. 
Captain Le-Grand Jacob also, the acting political agent in 
Kattiwar, showed great kindness. Dr Wilson reached 
Bombay on the 28th September, and had very shortly after- 
wards to sustain, like his colleagues and others in the 



HORMASDjfS DAUGHTER RECOVERED. 2l9 

mission, a fresh trial, for in October, Miss Anna Bayne, his 
wife's sister, was removed by death.* 

Notwithstanding all this, the work made progress. A 
trifling grant from home enabled the Bombay labourers to 
extend their operations among the interesting Beni-Israel, 
who were estimated at 5000, 7000, or 8000 in number; two 
scholarships were founded in the institution ; a girl from the 
boarding-school was baptized; two female teachers had 
arrived from home ; and the mission buildings, for which 
funds had been raised partly in Scotland and partly in 
India, were fast advancing, and promise was given of their 
speedy completion. 

An event of very considerable importance to the cause 
of missions, happened in the early part of 1843. When 
Hormasdji became a Christian, his wife remained with her 
caste people, who prevented her husband from seeing hfer, 
and ultimately married her to another man, though it is 
believed that her affections still remained with Hormasdji. 
His infant daughter Bachoobai, had also been kept back 
from him, but now that she was growing up into girlhood, 
her father and the missionaries very properly resolved to 
attempt her recovery. An application was made to the 
Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus^ and the judges, 
as was expected, ruled without a shadow of hesitation, that 
the child should be given to her father. The Parsee news- 
papers were furious at the decision. Whilst writing of it and 
the previous verdict, Mr Nesbit said — 

"The Parsee and every other native community are now made 
aware of two great laws affecting the interests of converts to Christi- 
anity. 

" I. Every person of sufficient age to judge for himself (the term is, 
I believe, fourteen years), is allowed without any legal penalty to follow 
his own choice in matters of religion. 

** 2. A father, by changing his religion, does not forfeit his claim to 

• On the 2Sth June 1839, Mr Nesbit was married to Miss Hay Bayne, sister of 
the first Mrs Wilson, who nad come out as a female teacher. She was a gifted and 
highly pious lady, as was the Miss Anna Bayne, whose death has now been 
recorded. 



220 BOMBAY. 

the jjuardianship of his children. A third law was announced from the 
bench, although delay has unhappily frustrated its actual exemplifica- 
tion in this particular case. Marriage is not dissolved by what may be 
termed the apostacy of one of the parties. If they be pleased to dwell 
with each other, no third party is allowed to interfere. 

A very interesting episode in the history of the Bombay 
mission, now requires to be told. When Dr Wolflf visited 
Abyssinia, he and Mr Isenberg persuaded an influential 
native of that country to send two of his sons to Bombay 
for instruction. The names of the young men were Gabru 
and Maricha Warke. Arriving in April 1837, they were 
placed under the charge of Dr Wilson, in whose house they 
lived for four years and eight months. Possessed, as they 
were, of great intellectual ability, they made rapid progress 
in their studies, though they had not heard a word of 
English till about the time that they departed from their 
native land. Now that Dr Wilson was about to return for 
a season home, he thought that the time had come for 
sending the Warkes back to their native country, where, 
from their intellect, their knowledge, and the evidences of 
piety they exhibited, he hoped they might be able to do 
much good. It was arranged that they should accompany 
him as far as Aden in Arabia, and remain there till a vessel 
could be met with, sailing to the Abyssinian coast. 

Another pupil of the institution, it was planned, should 
go with Dr Wilson on the homeward voyage. This was 
Dhanjibhai, who, having offered himself, and commenced 
his studies for, the ministry, now desired to finish them at 
the New College in Edinburgh. These arrangements were 
carried out. On the 2nd January 1843, Dr Wilson left Bom- 
bay to proceed to Europe, taking with him Dhanji and the 
Abyssinians. The latter were left at Aden, whilst the rest 
of the party continued their journey to the west. On their 
route they visited Palestine, Dr Wilson making numerous 
observations there and elsewhere, both on the places 
and on the several peoples inhabiting them, which were 
afterwards published in his excellent " Lands of the Bible. ** 



BAPTISM OF NARA VAN SHESHADRI. 22 1 

After finally quitting the soil of Asia, the travellers pursued 
their way to Constantinople and Pesth, and, in the good 
providence of God, reached Scotland in safety on the 23d 
September of the Disruption year. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DISRUPTION AND ITS EFFECTS. 

The adherence of all the Bombay missionaries to the Free 
Church involved, as at Calcutta, the loss of valuable mission 
buildings. Those in process of erection at the western 
presidency seat were being roofed in, when the event which 
severed them from the missionaries took place, thus dashing 
from them the cup of anticipated pleasure, when it was 
almost at their lips.* 

The Rev. Dr Stevenson, now a government chaplain in 
Bombay, adhered to the Establishment, but the four ruling 
elders in his congregation, with sixty out of the seventy-five 
communicants, disapproving of this step, applied temporarily 
for ordinances to the Free Church missionaries, and sent 
home money for the passage out of a permanent pastor. 

On the evening of Wednesday, 13th September 1843, a 
great and joyous event took place. We refer to the bap- 
tism of a Mahratta Brahman, Narayan Sheshadri, a dis- 
tinguished pupil in the institution, and who has since proved 
himself to be one of the most valuable converts ever given 
to an Indian mission. Next day the Brahmans of the city 
met, and resolved to excommunicate all parents who should 
in future send their sons to the institution. A certain 

* Writing on Jun€ 16, 1843, regarding the expected loss of the mission premises 
at Bombay and Calcutta, Mr Nesbit said :— " Sad it is that so much vahiable pro- 
perty should fall into the hands of those for whom it was never desiened. But faith 
listens to the ancient narrative, and stills and stays the mind. ' What shall we do 
for the hundred talents which I have |^ven to the army of Israel ? ' Apd the man 
of God answered, Jehovah is able to give thee much more than this." 



222 BOMBAY. 

tragic element was soon after mingled with the joy felt on 
account of the late addition to the list of converts. 
Narayan had a younger brother, a few months above twelve 
years of age, " one of the sweetest and most intelligent 
boys," Mr Nesbit said, ** that I have ever seen." This boy, 
whose name was Shripat Sheshadri, but was sometimes 
called Dada as a name of endearment, was known to share 
his elder brother Narayan's religious views, and was there- 
fore put under restraint by his father. He escaped to the 
Mission-house, where shelter was given him, though he was 
not deemed as yet quite a fit subject for baptism. TTie 
father seemed disposed to let him remain, but, urged by his 
caste people, he was at last induced to apply for a writ of 
habeas corpus against Mr Nesbit. The result was, that on 
3d November, by order of the Court, Shripat was given up 
to his father. Considering his youth, the decision is in no 
respect a wonderful one, but there can scarcely be two 
opinions as to the want of acquaintance with the human 
soul shown by the puisne judge. Sir Erskine Perry, in 
declaring, as he did, that the religious convictions oi a boy 
of twelve were " not worth a farthing." When the sentence 
was pronounced, and Shripat heard that he was to be sur- 
rendered, he suddenly rose up, and with tears in his eyes, 
addressing the judge, asked. But am I to be compelled to 
worship idols? To this puzzling question no answer was 
returned. 

The restoration of Shripat to his father stirred up a 
curious caste difficulty which was not settled for years. 
Having eaten in the Mission-house, he had lost his Brah- 
manic caste, and eminent expounders of the Hindoo feith 
were consulted as to whether there was any method of re- 
storing him to his former status. According to the Hindoo 
law when fairly interpreted, there was no such method, and 
so the vast majority of the pundits felt and said. A small 
minority, however, felt how awkward it would at times 
prove for caste interest if any one who ate forbidden food, 



CASE OF SHRIPAT SHESHADRI, 22^ 

or what was the same thing, unobjectionable food with for- 
bidden people, were allowed no place for repentance, but 
were left an outcaste for life. They fraternised with the 
father and Shripat, and a schism threatened to arise among 
the Mahratta Brahmans all over Western India. Despite 
plain indications of an approaching explosion of wrath on 
the part of the orthodox, the liberals still held upon their 
way. They feasted one company of Brahmans after ano- 
ther in the hope of changing their views ; and one of their 
number, at the suggestion of the rest, took means for the 
ceremonial puri^cation of the youth, who had been carried 
to ** the sacred city " of Benares for the purpose. It is 
understood that up to this period he had continued to avow 
his Christian convictions, and refused to be "purified." But 
ultimately he seems to have consented to the process, and 
the ceremonies were actually carried out. The last act of 
the drama had not, however, yet come, for such an outburst 
of rage took place against the liberals when it was known 
that the heretical deed had actually been done, that they 
were obliged summarily to retrace their footsteps and admit 
that they had grievously err^d.* Not merely was Shripat 
thrust out of caste anew, but his father, who had eaten with 
him, shared the same fate. The case of the erring liberals 
then came up for consideration. They were let oflf more 
easily than was expected, because they were somewhat too 
powerful to render it expedient to drive them to extremity ; 
besides which then: judges felt that they had^not been suffi- 
ciently watchful over their own caste purity, but many of 
them had eaten with one who had eaten with another, who 
again had eaten with a third who had eaten with one of the 
proscribed. They therefore contented themselves with 

* When it was decided that Shripat could not be readmitted to caste, and that alt 
who had acted on the contrary belief must receive punishment, the bigoted party 
whose opinion had thus been endorsed by the highest authorities were much elated 
with their triumph. They made great illuminations, causing lamps of clarified 
butter to be lighted in all the temples. '* No such joy," said a native paper, ''was 
experienced by Brahmans, even when Vishnoo, having become incarnate as a fish, 
rescued the Vedas from the hands of Shunkasoor." 



224 BOMBA Y. 

requiring their delinquent brethren to confess . their fault 
and swallow water in which an idol had been washed, and 
the right foot of a Brahman or two had been dipped. Still 
a scapegoat (metaphorical, we mean, not literal) was neces- 
sary; and one was found in the person of that rash or 
misguided Brahman who had purified Shripat. For him 
potions, besmearings, ablutions, many and frightful, were 
prescribed. He, knowing that it would be at his peril if he 
dared to reclaim, had no resource left, except with as good 
a grace as he could muster to submit to the discipline. 

When Shripat became somewhat more advanced in years, 
he might, without further interference, have returned to the 
mission, but the compliance with idolatrous practice to 
which he had yielded after his surrender, had so affected his 
moral and spiritual nature, that he had lost all desire 
to become a Christian, and he returned to his spiritual 
instructors no more. 

In September 1844, Mr Henderson, a professor in the 
Elphinstone College at Bombay, a Government educational 
institution from which Christian teaching was excluded, 
feeling dissatisfied with the results which he saw produced 
by the secular education which alone he was allowed to 
communicate, resigned his professorate, and was on appli- 
cation received into the mission as a teacher on about half 
the salary which he had formerly enjoyed. He stated that 
the young men he had left were nearly all sceptics, and were 
most of them disaffected to the British Government. The 
remarkable conscientiousness which Mr Henderson showed 
is beyond all praise. He began his labours in the mission 
on 2d January 1846. 

As the institution was partially recovering from the shock 
which it had sustained in consequence of Narayan and 
Shripat*s cases, the female schools received a similar blow, 
owing to the baptism of a girl, aged 14, called Maina. She 
had been asked to take part in some idolatrous ceremony, 
and had nobly refused to do it. When she applied for 



ORDINA TION OF DHANJIBHAI, 22 5 

baptism her caste people made every effort to induce her to 
remain in heathenism, but all in vain. She afterwards 
rendered great service to the mission. About the same time 
a widow of the Parwari caste was baptized with her little 
boy, nearly two years old. 

In April 1845, the Rev. J. Garden Fraser, who had been 
ordained by the Presbytery of Edinburgh on the 23d January 
previous, arrived at Bombay to be pastor of the Free 
Church. It will be remembered that the erection of a 
building, and the provision of a stipend for the minister, had 
been resolved on when the Bombay disruption took place. 
The work had been prosecuted with great ardour, and till 
Mr Fraser came the missionaries had conducted the services 
in the Free Church congregation.* 

In April of the same year the Abyssinian youths returned 
for a season from their country to Bombay. 

In 1846, Mrs Seitz, a Christian lady, offered her gratui- 
tous services to the mission as a female teacher. Her offer 
was thankfully accepted. The boarding-school, with an 
orphanage for girls, then in its infancy, was put under her 
care, and through her untiring exertion soon reached vigo- 
rous maturity. 

On the nth December of the same year, Dhanjibhai 
was ordained a missionary in Canonmills Hall, Edinburgh, 
Dr Candlish preaching and presiding on the occasion to an 
immense concourse of people. That month, also, Hor- 
masdji was licenced by the Presbytery of Bombay. It had 
admitted one of the mission teachers, Mr Henry Pitt 
Cassidy, to the same spiritual office on the 5th of August. 

On 29th December 1846, a pupil of very interesting 
character, Bala Gopal Joshi, was received into the Church. 
Bala was a Mahratta Brahman, who commenced his edu- 

* So early as October 31, 1843, Mr Nesbit was able to intimate that 0558 rupees, 
or taking in the Sustentation Fund, desip;ned to last two years, x7,ooo or 18,000 rupees, 
had been subscribed for the Bombay Church. The eround, it was afterwards stated, 
cost about 13,000 rupees, of which about three-fourths were given by one gentleman, 
Mr M'CuIIoch, of the house of Ritchie, Stewart, & Co. In addition to his contri- 
bution to the site, he subscribed also 5000 rupees to the Church. 



226 BOMBA \\ 

cation at Poonah under the superintendence of Mr James 
Mitchell and Mr Wazir Beg, but afterwards removed to 
Bombay to enjoy a scholarship in connection with the insti- 
tutioa There he came much in contact with Mr Murray 
Mitchell, who treated him with great kindness. It was 
thought best to send him to Poonah to be baptized, partly 
that he might produce an impression upon his former asso- 
ciates there, and partly to avoid casting back again the 
Bombay institution, which was now recovering its numbers, 
and had even obtained a Parsee pupil, the first since 1839. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FROM THE RETURN OF DR WILSON. 

On February 14, 1847, Mr J. Murray Mitchell, who had been 
a short time in Europe, returned to Bombay. Dhanjibhai 
arrived a few days later, and Dr Wilson on the 8th November. 

About this time the Bombay Tract Society recommended 
that tracts should in all cases be sold instead of given away. 
The change which was produced on the aspect of the whole 
publications themselves, when it was found needful to make 
them attract purchasers, was truly wonderful, and all the 
missions from Bombay to Nagpore which adopted the prac- 
tice of selling instead of distributing tracts were loud in 
praise of the reform. Mr Mitchell, and, indeed, the Bombay 
Missionaries in general, had a great deal to do with the 
Tract Society. 

During the year 1847 only two baptisms took place in 
the mission. One was that of a girl, Lakshmi, from Mrs 
Seitz's boarding-school. 

Early in 1 848 Professor Henderson and Dr Wilson, when 
visiting the island of Salsette, were attacked by bees, and 
almost stung to death. That identical species of bees Dr 



DEATHS IN THE MISSION. 22J 

Wilson had previously seen in Palestine. It is a most for- 
midable creature, and is probably the hornet of Scripture 
which drove the Amorites out of their old possessions. — 
(Exod. xxiii. 28, Deut. vii. 20, Joshua xj^iv. 12.) 

Early in 1848 Mrs Nesbit, who had for some time been 
wasting away with consumption, became so alarmingly ill 
that it was needful that she should go on a sea voyage. It 
was too late. She died on the i8th May, her husband, who 
had accompanied her, seeing her mortal remains committed 
to the deep, and then proceeding homewards for a season 
to recruit his health. 

On 5th July Hormasdji was ordained, and, considering 
the tenacity of purpose shown by the Parsees, it is remark- 
able that a few days previously a Zoroastrian, with his wife 
and child, had solicited baptism. They came from Yezd, in 
Persia, where a remnant of the Parsees, saved from Moslem 
massacre, still keep their sacred fire burning. The in- 
quirers had two children, one of whom, a girl, was placed in 
Mrs Seitz's boarding-school. During this, as during the 
preceding year, there were but two adult baptisms. 

Early in 1849 Professor Henderson was compelled, by ill 
health, to return to Europe. He died of epilepsy at Barn- 
staple in May 1850, his valuable services in connection 
with the institution having continued for little more than 
three years. 

On the 1st March 1849, Gabru and Maricha Warke re- 
turned again to Abyssinia. They sailed from Bombay in an 
Arab vessel. They were very kindly received by King 
Wobi, who gave them presents, including two lions, a favour 
never granted to a subject before.* 

* In November 1851 Dr Wilson intimated that the two Abyssinians had a school 
with Afteen pupils in their native land. In 1854 Gabru returned, by request of Dr 
Wilson, for a snort time to Bombay, after six years' absence. He stated that there 
were then sixty boys in the school. 

In the report of the Bombay mission, presented to the General Assembly of 1869, 
allusion was made to the services rendered to the British expedition to Abyssinia 
by Gabru and Maricha Warke, then recognised councillors of the Prince of Tigr^. 
*' These services/' it was added, "have been warmly acknowledged by the illustrious 
leader of that expedition. Lord Napier of Magdala, in his telegrams and despniches 
addressed to the authorities in England and in India, and which have already 



228 BOMBAY, 

In February 1850, a girl, called Suggunie, a pupil of the 
French boarding-school, was baptized. 

At the examination of the institution, on 15th March 
1850, the numbers were as follow : — 

Hindoos, Ill 

Mohammedans, 9 

Parsee, I 

Israelites and Jews, 19 

Romanists, &c., 108 

248 

Pupils in Marathi and Guzerathi boys' schools, . . 433 
Girls' schools, . . 545 

1226 

On the 26th of May 1850, Dr Wilson baptized an African 
girl called Yesima, whose case was interesting. She had 
been rescued, when an infant, from an x\rab slaver, and 
had been brought up first in the school for destitute girls, 
and afterwards under that so well conducted by Mrs Seitz. 
The same year the mission obtained a very valuable acces- 
sion to the number of its converts in the person of Mr 
Vincente Avelino de Cunha, a young man of Portuguese 
descent, formerly a Romanist, but who, becoming a Free 
Churchman from conviction, sat down at the communion 
table for the first time on the nth August 1850. He had 
been three years in the institution, partly as a teacher and 
partly as a pupil* At the succeeding examination he read 

past before^ the eye of the public." The following is another testimony in the 
same direction. It is from an able and interesting work, entitled " The Campaign 
in Abyssinia/* by R. E. Shepherd, Esq , M. A., Special Correspondent of the Times 
0/ India : — " Fortunately for himself and for us, Prince Kassa rejected the overtures 
made to him from Egypt and Turkey, determining to stand by the English. How 
far he may have been induced to do so by the two Tigreans educated at Bombay« 
Maricha Warke and his brother Gabru, and how much the nation owes to Dr 
Wilson on that account, it is impossible to say. The belief that, in connection with 
the campaign in Abyssinia. England owed more to the Free Church of Scotland's 
Missionary Institution in Bombay than it does to any institution in the Presidency, 
the Government itself, and the commissariat department not excepted, was enter- 
tained by not a few." 

• The Portuguese were our European predecessors in the empire of at least the 
sea-coast along a great part of Western and Southern India. The seat of their 
dominion being at Goa, in the Concan, it naturally fell to the Bombay missionaries 
to deal with tliem, and it is interesting to note that they and the Irish Romanists in 
India are at feud, the Portuguese wisely claimin|: some sort of ecclesiastical inde- 
pendence, and the Irish there, as everywhere, bemg the blinded slaves of the Pope. 



SCHOLARSHIPS. 229 

^n ess^y criticising " Hume's Treatise on Miracles/' which 
contained reasoning of so powerful a character as quite tp 
amaze Major Le Grand Jacob, who was then presiding. The 
same year a young Brahman, called John Sham Rao, for- 
merly a pupil in the Free Church Institution at Bombay, w^§ 
baptized by the Canara missionaries. 

In 1850 also, Mr M. Mitchell published a little \vork of 
great utility, called " Letters to Indian Youth on the Evi- 
dences of the Christian Religion, with a ^rief Examination 
of the Evidences of Hindooisip, Par^eeism, and Zoroas- 
trianism." Dr Mitchell recently found the volume now 
spoken of used in many schools in the Bei^al Presidency. 
It would be found of interest in this country, a,nd residers 
would learn a good deal from it, especially from ^he chap- 
ters on the Hindoo, Mohammedan, and Parsee feiths. 

The Bombay institution had in various respects to en- 
counter more formidable obstacles than the sister estab- 
lishments at the presidency seats. About 1850, howeyert 
one of these impediipents was rendered less for^iidable^ the 
reason being, that the Government begap to demand feei^ 
from the pupils in its college, as had long been done fit 
Calcutta and Madras. Stijl, they were fixed very low. Iq 
all parts of India a Government scholar }ias patronage ai)4 
other advantage^ denied those, though in some cases ^bler 
students, who ^e^ instruction at the h^ndi^ of the mission- 
aries ; ^nd if ^e manifests any considerable amount of 
talent or diligence, he easily obtains a scholarship for his 
support. Again and again the missionaries felt constrained 
to ask their friends to found scholarships in the several in- 
stitutions. Nowhere was the necessity greater than in 
Bombay; and, about this time. Captain Davidson gave 
;;^ioo to found a scholarship, and Major Le Grand Jacob, 
Major Purves, and others, subsequently followed the good 
example set.* The institution also was removed to better 

* Even after the exertion^ of these kind friends, the Bombay mission in February 
185a had but ^27 a-year for scholarships, against £joo per annum in the Govem- 

(391) 16 



230 BOMBAY, 

premises — no unimportant change, for in such a climate, to 
work in small badly ventilated rooms, is detrimental in no 
. slight degree to both pupils and teachers. A considerable 
advance on the numbers in attendance now took place, 
chiefly in consequence of the favourable circumstances just 
detailed.* 

On 4th May 1851, Mr Nesbit arrived at Bombay from 
Europe, within two days of the third anniversary of his 
departure. The institution, as already mentioned, had been 
removed to better premises, but there was little doubt that 
rents would rise year by year over Bombay island, already 
too limited in extent for its continually increasing inhabi- 
tants, in which case there was no guarantee that sooner or 
later the mission might not have to pay so large a sum for 
a hired building, as to render it ruinous to continue in it 
longer, t It was therefore wisely resolved that application 
should be made for assistance, to erect premises which 
should be the property of the Church, and independent of 
all fluctuations in rental. Mr Nesbit, when at home, having 
on the 5th June 1850 obtained the committee's sanction to 
the project, issued an appeal, in which he stated that the 
buildings lost at the Disruption cost ;^8ooo, but though no 
sum was formally indicated, he evidently expected a much 
smaller amount for the humbler edifice which was to supply 
its place. ;^3ooo were obtained, though to complete this 

ment College. It is a wonder that, in these circumstances, the former was still able 
to obtain pupils at all. 

* At the examination in the early part of 1851, the numbers on the roll were as 
follow: — 

Hindoos, 142 

Mohammedans, 7 

Parsee i 

Israelites and Jews, 23 

Christians, Romanists, Armenians, and Protestants, 105 

Total in the Institution, 278 

In the Marathi and Guzerathi Boys' Schools, 392 

Do. do. Girls' Schools, 554 

1224 

Dr Wilson compared the statistics of the schools as they were when he returned 

from Europe, in the beginning of November 1847, and again in May 1851 : — 

Nov. 1847. May 1851. 

Institution, . . 253. Institution, . . . 278. 

Total, . . . 1 135. Total, . . . 1224. 

Hindoos in the institution, 90. Hindoos in the institution, 142. 



THE CASE OF SAL 23 f 

sum he had been compelled to stay in Europe, after he would 
fain have been back in India. A subscription had, mean- 
while, been set on foot in Bombay to supplement this fund, 
and had been successful, though the comparatively limited 
society connected with the Free Church then had, since the 
Disruption, subscribed 60,000 rupees for congregational and 
other purposes, besides liberally supporting the mission. 

On 3rd November 1851, Dr Wilson was able to intimate 
an important addition to the Church, being that of an Indian 
Portuguese convert from Romanism, called Louis Caetano.* 
He had obtained four of the minor orders in the Popish 
College of Rochelle, in Goa, and had a brother and an uncle 
Romish priests. Mr Vincent de Cunha, the former Por- 
tuguese convert, was going on well, and had made consider- 
able progress in his studies for the ministry. Mr Peyton, 
now of Portsoy, was a divinity student with him; Mr Narayan 
Sheshadri had been licenced on the 23rd September 185 1, 
and the probationer, Mr Cassidy, having some time before 
become a Baptist, no longer retained his direct connection 
with the mission. Among the interesting pupils at the in- 
stitution were three Chaldean Christians from Mesopotamia. 
In the report to the Assembly of 1852, it was stated that 
there were 13 1 7 pupils in charge of the mission, of whom 
302 were in the institution. Of the 302, 158 were Hindoos. 
The girls under instruction were 559. That year, 1852, 
was a notable one in the mission history, from a legal con- 
test which took plac^ while it was in progress for the great 
cause of reHgious liberty. The teacher of the mission 
school at Colaba was a Hindoo, called Vithu or Wittoo 
Satwaji, who had abandoned idolatry, and though unbap- 
tized, had leanings to Christianity. He had a daughter 
called Sai, who had reached the age of between fourteen or 
fifteen, without having been married or even betrothed to 
any heathen. On Wednesday, 26th May 1852, a large band 

* Subsequently to this, in 1855, he set up a school in Goa, which was attended by 
thirty -five pupils. 



232 BOMBAY. 

of Vithu's caste people lawlessly entered his house, and 
threatening him with death if he interfered, carried o& his 
daughter, Sai, to marry her against her and her father's 
will to an idolatrous Hindoo. By the assistance of the 
police, Sai was recovered, and to render her abduction more 
difficult, she was placed under Mrs Seitz's care. Next the 
grandmother of Sai, prompted, there can be litde doubt, by 
Brahmanic priests, applied to Sir Erskine Perry for a writ of 
habeas carpus^ making allegations which, it is almost unneces- 
sary to add, broke down when put to proof. The Chief- 
Justice said, " The only point appears to be, the girl being 
fourteen years of age, to ask her where she wishes to go." 
After some legal fencing this was done, when she promptly 
elected to go with her father, and returned with him to the 
mission. It will be perceived that the age of freedom, which 
was sixteen when the case of Shripat Sheshadri had been 
tried before the same judge, had by 1852 been lowered to 
fourteen. On i8th July 1852, Sai was baptized. An 
orphan of seventeen, called Sakhu, who for some time had 
been in the boarding-school, was baptized about the same 
time. 

Some are disposed to sneer at the little result produced 
by missionary exertion in India, but it is remarkable that, 
in every part of that vast country, the priests are not con- 
temptuous, but fearful of the missionaries and their work. It 
might be supposed that in the Mahratta country, where, 
from various causes already explained, there has been less 
advance than in some other regions in India, the Brahmans 
would look with complacency on the defences which idola- 
try possesses against Christian assault, but in reality it is 
the reverse. Just before the Sai case went into the law- 
court, Mr Nesbit mentioned a remarkable utterance by a 
great champion of Hindooism, called Gungadhur Shastree 
(Shastree it may be mentioned, signifies learned in the 
Shasters). 

** Hindooism," said Gungadhur, "iV sick unto death ; lamjullyper- 



A MOHAMMEDAN CONVERT. 233 

sutukd that it must perish; still, while life remains, let us minister to it 
as we best can. I have written this book " (one in defence of Hindoo- 
ism) " that it may prove a useful medicine. And if it be so fated, then 
possibly the patient may even yet recover." 

Other races besides the Hindoo one were becoming af- 
fected through Christian teaching. The Rev. J. M. Mitchell, 
writing in 1852, mentioned that during the last twenty years, 
the " Beni-Israer* of Western India had risen from gross 
idolatry to something like an intelligent acquaintance with 
the Word of God, though there had been no actual con- 
versions to Christianity from their ranks. 

The Mohammedans, who, as a rule, did not condescend 
to patronise even Government schools, but remained proud 
of an ignorance which was daily making them fall lower and 
lower in the social scale, and putting the Hindoos over their 
heads, had not been much affected by Christianity, yet 
solitary conversions from their creed were ever and anon 
obtained. On 2Sth July 1852, a very interesting Moslem, 
called Haji Ghulam Hyder [Hiji means one who has made 
a pilgrimage to Mecca, or some other "holy place"], was 
baptized. The neophyte altered his name, and made it 
Haji Ghulam Mashiah, meaning Haji, the servant of the 
Messiah. He was the first-fruits of Scinde to Christ, the 
means of his conversion having been Dr Wilson's preacliing 
in that region when he went thither to meet Dr Duff. The 
Bombay missionaries, it may be mentioned, have all along 
made longer and more frequent preaching tours than their 
brethren at the other presidencies, who have had a larger 
sphere at head-quarters among the English-speaking natives, 
and not only the case of Haji, but several others, show that 
these tours have been spiritually blessed. Men who heard 
the gospel in remote villages followed the preacher to 
Bombay, or sent sons to be instructed by him, or in other 
ways showed that the Word addressed to them had not been 
without effect. Take the following example. In 1838, the 
Rev. Dr Wilson, accompanied by Dr Smyttan, made a 



234 BOMBAY. 

tour to A junta, preaching in the village. A young man, 
called Manaji, was impressed, though he took no steps at 
the time to act upon his convictions. A long time subse- 
quently, however, he removed to Bombay, and, after re- 
maining for about two years in the Mission-house, was 
baptized with his infant child on 12th December 1852. In 
the year before his baptism, Dr Wilson and he had journeyed 
to Ajanta, where they succeeded in persuading Manaji's 
wife to repair to Bombay, bringing with her her fovu- children, 
her two youthful sons-in-law, and a nephew. Of the four 
children, three were girls, and two of them being of suitable 
age to enter Mrs Seitz's boarding-school, were placed there, 
that they might receive instruction. Soon after his baptism, 
Manaji was temporarily despatched to the province of 
Khandesh, that he might set up a Bible stand at a fair. 

In speaking of the influence exerted by the mission on 
the country districts, it should be mentioned, that while 
about half the pupils in the institution belonged to Bombay 
and its neighbourhood, the other half were drawn from all 
the provinces of the presidency, or even, like the Abyssinians 
and Chaldeans already mentioned, from foreign lands. 
Rays from the light displayed at Bombay have entered 
Persia, Arabia, and even remote Africa. 

On the ist October 1852, the erection of the permanent 
mission premises was begun. The institution had shortly 
before been removed to a building near the site of the con- 
templated edifice, the effect being an increase of about 70 
on the number of the pupils. At the end of 1852, 1413 
young people were receiving instruction from the mission. 
There were 33 native communicants, and 24 baptized adhe- 
rents, with several children of converts not baptized. Seven 
native adults had received the sealing rite during 1852, or, 
counting from the Assembly of 1852 to that of 1853, eight. 
The latter was the largest number which had been received 
in any one year hitherto since the establishment of the 
mission. 



AfR NESBITS TEACHING, 235 

When Mr Clark passed through Bombay on his route to 
Agra, he visited the institution, and in a letter dated 4th 
March 1853, gave the following graphic account of Mr 
Nesbit^s teaching : — 

" Mr Nesbit's class of senior lads was indeed a wonder to look upon. 
All races — ^native and immigrant were there — ^Jew, Mussulman, Hindu, 
Parsee, and Portuguese, in their distinct costumes, and nothing could 
be more exciting than the way in which Mr Nesbit played off one 
against the other — Parsee confounding Hindoo or Mussulman, Mussul- 
man both, while Jew cut short the argument of all three, and became a 
victim in turn to the Scripture logic of his opponents. Our missionary 
guided all this, and his voice rose amid all this intellectual and moral 
affray, at every moment, in the mild accents of Christian conviction, 
shooting many a powerful shaft, and counselling all by the spirit of 
wisdom, unconquerable temper, and gentle irony which shone through 
all the discourse. Nothing could match the keenness of the native 
features during the exercise, and for this reason above all, that the 
results of every lesson point to a terrible crisis in their lives, if followed 
out, and it is ever threatening to be so.*' 

On the 29th April 1853, Ramchandra, a Mahratta properly 
so called,* was baptized. He was about 20 years of age. 
Another interesting case of conversion took place soon 
afterwards. It was that of a Milanese Italian, called Signor 
Enrico Antongini, who for some time had been in a mer- 
cantile office in Bombay. Brought up in Popery, he had 
been led to see the errors of that system, and wished to 
renounce them. He sat down with the Presbyterian con- 
gregation on the 7th October 1853, having come to the 
conclusion that its method of administering the ordinance 
more nearly conformed to Scripture precedent than the 
system of kneeling which he saw to be the practice in 
some other quarters. 

Just before this, on the 6th September, the native Church 
had sustained a severe blow in the death of Bala Gopal, 
baptized in 1846. Bala possessed great intellect, as evinced 
by the fact of his having carried off the highest bursary in 

• The Mahrattas were originally kunbees (farmers), dhungurs (shepherds), or other 
Indian castes, but having distineuished themselves above their compeers, even to 
the extent of seating at least half-a-dozen of their number on as many thrones, they 
denied their lowly origin, and professed to belong to the Kshatriya, or warrior 
caste. 



236 BOMBA Y. 

the Grand Medical College. He was studying there, not 
with the view of entering on private practice, but with the 
intention of becoming a medical missionary ; but it was not 
the will of God that he should be allowed to render service 
of this description. He died possessed of firm faith in Jesus, 
and in perfect peace. Great lamentations were made for 
him, and his funeral was attended not only by members and 
pupils of the Free Church mission, but by representatives 
from the several Christian denominations in Bombay. 
About the end of 1853, the mission had another heavy loss 
to sustain in the resignation, from ill health, of Mrs Seitz, 
who for many years — and, if we mistake not, from first to 
last, gratuitously — had conducted the boarding-school with 
great efficiency. Her pupils — at least, the senior ones — 
knew English almost as well as their native tongue, and 
could sing beautifully, Mr Cassidy having been their in- 
structor in the latter department of effort. On Mrs Seitz's 
resignation, her oldest scholar, Maina, who had been miwried 
in the previous January to Mr Vincent le Cunha, took her 
place. 

About the same time the institution was favoured with a 
visit from the Rajah of Dhar, a petty Rajpoot state, Which 
strangely enough remained unswallowed up by the powerful 
Mahratta sovereignties in the vicinity. The Dhar Raja was 
about 26 years of age. He expressed himself as much 
gratified with what he had seen, and gave a donation of 
500 rupees to the institution. 

About this date, also, a young Chaldean Christiati, called 
Antonius Gabriel, from Merdin, in Mesopotamia, renounced 
Popery, and was received into the communion of the native 
Church. 

We have not for some time had occasion to mention Mr 
Dhanjibhai. Dhanji had gone to Surat, about 154 ftiiles 
from Bombay, no doubt partly influenced by the fact that, 
next to Bombay, Surat has the greatest number of Parsee 
inhabitants of any city in India. Not finding proper access 



MR BABA PADMANJL 2yf 

to his former co-religionists, he addressed himself to the 
outcaste Dheds, who, in the Guzerat province, correspond 
exactly to the Mahars and Mangs of the Mahratta country, 
and the Pariahs of Madras. He established veinacular 
schools for their benefit, and, though they did not tnuch car6 
for education, yet persuaded some of them to send th6ir 
children. In 1852, 130 boys and 20 girls were under in- 
struction. On the 30th April 1854, Mr iDhanjibhai reaped 
the first-fruits of his labour among the outcastes, having on 
that Sabbath baptized two Dheds, namely, a teacher and a 
pupil in one of the schools. Another pupil would have 
been admitted at the same time, had not his relatives carried 
him off. The Dhed teacher baptized was called Bhan4 
Ruttan, and the pupil Devla Ruttan.* In addition to his 
labour among the Hindoo outcastes, he was engaged, along 
with Dr Wilson, Hormasdji, and other missionaries, in 
making a jubilee revision of the Guzerathi Bible. Guzerathi, 
it should be mentioned, is the language which for some 
centuries back has been the vernacular one to the Indian 
Parsees. 

In the Assembly Report for 1854, it was mentioned that 
there were 348 pupils in the institution, 525 in the boys' 
Marathi and Guzerathi schools, and 486 girls — total, 1354. 

On the 3rd September 1854, Mr Baba Padmanji, aged 23, 
the most distinguished pupil in the institution, received 
baptism at Belgaum. He had commenced his education 
there, after which he had removed to Bombay to the Free 
Church institution to carry it on. On receiving baptism, 
which, as stated, was administered at Belgaum, he returned 
to the presidency seat and became of great value to the Free 
Church mission. It was remarkable that even the native 
community, the ranks of which he had deserted, admitted 
him to be a young man of high moral character. The same 
month the mission was strengthened by the arrival from 

* Other baptisms took place in connection with these schools in after years, and 
it is to be regretted that they had ultimately to be given up for want of funds. 



238 BOMBAY. 

Agra of the Rev. Thomas Grieve Clark, who had received a 
call to the pastorate of the Free Church, which had beea 
vacant for the two years preceding, during which time the 
missionaries had supplied its pulpit. The induction took 
place on Friday, 6th October 1854, and on Wednesday the 
I ith, and the following week, the Rev. Narayan Sheshadri 
was ordained a missionary. When licenced, Mr Nesbit had 
borne a high testimony to his worth, saying of him — " It 
was touching to think that we could not recall to mind a 
blot or backsliding in any part of his course.'* 

1855 was a very eventful year in the history of the mis- 
sion. It opened well, for on the 7th January Dr Wilson bap- 
tized a convert from Mohammedanism, with a young Hindoo, 
and the three children of the latter. Another joyous event 
followed -soon afterwards, for on the 13th April the classes 
were transferred to the new buildings which had been 
erected for the institution. They had cost about ;^6ooo, 
and were of capacity enough to accommodate 800 pupils. 
Unhappily, 8000 rupees of debt still remained upon them. 
During the year immediately preceding, there had been 
baptized 1 2 adults with 5 children, and there were now of 
old and young about 100 in the native Church. 

On the 7 th July, Dr Wilson baptized a man called Ismail 
Ibrahim the first Bohora,* so far as was known, who had 
ever embraced Christianity. He was about 46 years of age. 

On the 31st of March 1855, Mr Nesbit was united in 
marriage to Miss Marion Marshall, eldest daughter of Claud 
Marshall, Esq., of Greenock, but death speedily dissolved 
the union. On Thursday, 26th July of the same year, Mr 
Nesbit had continued his labours in the institution till 5 
P.M., the usual hour for the dismissal of the college division. 

* Every one who has been in India is quite familiar with the aspect of the Moham- 
medan pedlers called Bohoras, whom he has seen times without number unfolding 
their baskets and exhibiting their wares to the feminine portion of the household, 
and habitually asking for each article two or three times as much as they expect or 
are entitled to receive. They are generally looked on as an intensely worldly class 
of men, and though continually in contact with Christians, are yet little disposed to 
embrace Christianity. 



DEATH OF MR NESBIT, 239 

He had not felt very well during the afternoon, but he did 
not anticipate serious danger. Though he knew it not, 
cholera in a malignant form had seized him, and after a 
night of terrible agony which barely left him the ability to 
express his undiminished trust in the Saviour, his immortal 
spirit at ten next morning passed away. About 400 Euro- 
peans and a great crowd of natives attended his funeral, 
and, says a spectator — 

" To see the children and those of extreme age crying at the grave 
was a day never to be forgotten : natives of all classes, Hindoos, 
Parsees, and Mohammedans, without distinction, all shed tears, nay, 
even cried loudly ovct the dust of their departed friend and well- 
wisher." 

No wonder, for a more loving spirit than Robert Nesbit, 
especially in his later years, it would have been difficult any- 
where to find. His conscientiousness, too, was very notable, 
as was his insight into the human heart. Hormasdji 
Pestonji once took Mr Nesbit for a god on account of what 
appeared the infallible rectitude of his judgments, and was 
not convinced of his mistake till the fancied divinity 
charged him with a fault which he was conscious he had 
not committed. The missionary whose loss was deplored 
was, while he lived, the best of all the European missionaries 
in Western India as a Mahratta speaker, his pronunciation 
being faultless. On this point the Rev. Narayan Sheshadri 
gave emphatic testimony. He said — 

" I, myself a Brahman, do not remember a single word during so 
many years that he mispronounced. It was just the other day the 
Pundit of our institution told me that if Mr Nesbit spoke Marathi from 
within a screen, even Brahmans from without would not be able to 
detect that a foreigner was speaking." 

Only four months and a day elapsed between the removal 
of Mr Anderson at Madras and that of Mr Nesbit at 
Bombay. 

Just before Mr Nesbit's death, the female boarding- 
school had been placed in charge of Mr and Mrs Nesbit, 
and his widow resolved to remain and carry on the work 
which she had begun. 



240 BOMBAY. 

CHAPTER VII. 

AFTER MR NESBIT*S DEATH. 

The place of Mr Nesbit was supplied, so far as a new- 
comer could fill it, by the arrival of the Rev. Adam White,* 
who, with Mrs White, reached Bombay early in 1856. 
They came at an interesting period of the mission's history. 
During the year 1855, no fewer than 18 adults and 7 
children had been admitted into the native Church,t which 
now contained 126 persons — namely, 55 in full communion, 
42 baptized adherents, and 29 unbaptized children of con- 
verts, with wards and catechumens of the mission. Soon 
after Mr White's arrival, there occurred the baptism of 
Ganpat Rao Raghunath, aged 18, a Parbhu, a very respect- 
able Sudra caste, and who, moreover, had been the inc^t 
distinguished pupil at the late examination of the institu- 
tion. Nor was it long before Mr White was called to be an 
actor in one of those exciting scenes of which'so many tove 
occurred in connection with our missions in the East 

At the end of April 1856, while Dr and Mrs Wilson mert 
absent at Mahabaleshwar, during the school vacation, four 
Parsee youths, students in the Elphinstone Institutioin ^(thc 
Government college or seminary in Bombay, visited Mr 
White, seeking religious instruction. After repeated interviews 
had taken place with these interesting youths, they sent a joint 
letter to Messrs Wilson and White asking for baptism. . They 
were admitted into the Mission-house on Monday, i6th Jime. 
Great excitement of course arose among a people so jealous 

• Mr Adam White was bom in Aberdeen on the igth May 1829. He distin- 
guished himself highly at the Grammar School of his native city, and afterwards at 
Marischal College. He was ordained a missionary in the Free West Church, Aber- 
deen, on the 29th November 1855, and sailed with Mrs White for Bombay on the 4th 
Jantiary 1856. 

t One was a t^rahman, Vasadeva Pant, aged 28, from the small state of Sawamt 
Wadi. He was baptized by Narayan Sheshadri on the loth September 1855. 



FJiOFESSOB ARDASEER FRAMJEE, 24 1 

of apostacies from their ranks as the Parsees, and the most 
pertinacious efforts were made to persuade the young men 
to leave. Violence, it is believed, would have been re- 
sorted to, had not several native policemen, under the 
guidance of a European constable, kept watch over the 
house night and day. After a time, three of the youths 
gave way, but the fourth, Bairamji Kersasji, remained firm, 
and was baptized on the 31st August. On resuming his 
attendance at the institution, he required for a time to be 
escorted by a policeman. It was a satisfactory circum- 
stance that in this new contest with the Parsees, the Hin- 
doos and even the Mohammedans were said mostly to 
sympathise with the xxussion. When the excitement of the 
Parsees had so far subsided that they were able to reflect 
calmly on the occurrence which had taken place, they were 
puzzled to know how students, brought up at an institution 
from which religion was carefully excluded, could have 
become friendly to Christianity, and they, in violent letters 
to the native newspapers, denounced Mr Ardaseer Framjee,a 
Parsee Professor in the Elphinstone institution, as the cause 
of the mischief. According to them he had violated the 
injunction which prohibited him from teaching Christianity 
to the pupils. When the Government learned that these 
charges were being made, they very properly ordered an 
inquiry. The result was most gratifying. Not merely were 
the statements that Mr Framjee had taught Christianity 
proved without foundation, but the principle was laid down 
that it was not any violation of duty for a teacher to give 
simple explanations of such portions of British classics read 
in the school as referred to Christianity. This concession the 
mission had long been fruitlessly seeking to obtain. All the 
Parsee boys, excepting one, were removed from the institu- 
tion, and the wonder is that even one was allowed to remain. 
Baptisms in a mission often come in clusters, with inter- 
vals of greater or less continuance between ; and on the 6th 
July, not long after the Parsee gain, Dhanjibhai baptized 



242 BOMB A Y, 

a lad of 1 8, called Rama Kalgan, and about the same time 
Dr Wilson baptized a girl called Sakhu. Again, on the 
26th, the same distinguished missionary baptized one of his 
servants. On the 17th October, Dr Wilson wrote that a few 
days previously a young man of a very important Moham- 
medan family had come to the Mission-house seeking bap- 
tism. His name was Sayad Husan Medinyah, — Sayad, as 
already explained, signifying that he was a descendant of 
the " Prophet," and Medinyah that he came from Medina. 
His relatives, fearing for their personal safety if the excited 
multitude in the mosques should hear what had taken place, 
concealed the loss of the youth, and Dr Wilson asked and 
obtained the presence at the Mission-house of a European 
constable and a native policeman in plain clothes. But, 
wonderful to relate, the Mohammedans behaved with fair- 
ness. They took the perfectly legitimate course of bringing 
up their ablest controversialists to argue with the convert ; 
and when the efforts of these Moulavis failed they gave the 
matter up, and allowed the young man to receive the seal- 
ing rite. On Sabbath, 9th November, Dr Wilson baptized 
two important natives — one a Seikh, Khan Singh, from the 
Punjaub, and the other a Mussulman moonshee (teacheJ of 
languages), named Ashraf Khan. Finally, another Parsee, 
Shapurji Edalji, who had come and gone once before, re- 
appeared at the Mission-house, and this time remained. 
These successes, of course, told on the institution and branch 
schools, and at the examination, held on the 12th Decem- 
ber, there were on the roll 212 in the English department, 
being loi less than during the previous year. Adding the 
vernacular schools, there were still left with the mission 
1068 pupils. It is a wonder there were so many, for the 
recent excitement had made the natives found several 
schools of their own. 

On the 7th December, a few days before this examina- 
tion, the Rev. James Wardrop Gardner, with Mrs Gardner, 
arrived to the assistance of the mission. He was not long 



MOSLEM AND PARSER BAPTISMS, 243 

in India before he saw some of the difficulties with which 
missionaries have to contend. On i6th January 1857 a 
venerable Mohammedan Sayad, came seeking baptism. 
Some excitement in consequence arose, bigots having pre- 
sented themselves to try and induce the wife to desert her 
husband. They were unsuccessful, but the risk of their 
proceeding to violence was so considerable that additional 
protection had to be obtained for the Mission-house. 

Loss of health compelled the Rev. Mr Murray Mitchell 
to leave, on the evening of the i6th January 1857, for his 
native country. 

On the 8th February 1857 Sayad Husan, the Moham- 
medan already mentioned, and the Parsee, Shapurji Edalji, 
were baptized. Both were students in the same class of 
the Elphinstone Institution, and both had for their teacher 
Ardaseer Framjee. The plan of keeping the Parsee boys 
away from the Free Church Institution, and sending them 
only to places where the Bible was not taught, had evidently 
failed to keep them from Christianity. Many of the Parsees 
fathers had, however, become a good deal modified from 
what they or their predecessors had been twenty years 
before. On May 26, 1857, a Parsee brought his two sons 
to Dr Wilson, and asked him to instruct them in Chris- 
tianity, undertaking, at the same time, to provide for their 
support while they were at their studies. Dr Wilson, it 
need scarcely be added, accepted the trust, only amazed 
that it had ever been made. But soon afterwards there 
was evidence that such friendliness to Christianity was rare 
in the community from which he came. A young Parsee 
having taken refuge in the Mission-house with the view of 
embracing the gospel, was induced to return home on a 
solemn promise made by his relatives that if he did so he 
would be allowed to attend school, but, as might have been 
anticipated, the missionaries saw him no more. 

About the end of 1857, whilst the excitement about the 
sepoy mutinies was still very great, Dr Wilson baptized a 



244 BOMB A K. 

woman called Yelabai, mother-in-law of one of the conYerts, 
Gourabai, a pupil of Mrs Wilson's female schools, and 
Maniram Motiram, a Marwadi,* the first of his caste who 
has received the sealing rite. A few months later a Syrian 
Catholic t convert, called Mr Michael Joseph, was admitted 
to the communion. After four other baptisms, the particu- 
lars of which need not be detailed, the Native Free Church 
at Bombay consisted, on the 24th December 1858, of 83 
communicants, or, including adherents, of 161 souls. 

About the 17 th December 1858, Mr White started for 
Nagpore ; and on 20th January 1859 the Rev. Mr Aitken, 
of Sattara, arrived at Bombay. 

The native Church had in it much spiritual life. Its 
members were taking steps to erect a fabric of their own for 
the worship of God, with two manses for native pastors. Of 
the 3550 rupees raised for the purpose, 2450 rupees, to be 
paid by instalments, came from the native brethren. Euro- 
pean aid had, however, largely to be solicited, as the total 
cost of the buildings, it was estimated, would be about 
30,000 rupees. On the 24th July 1859, the Rev. Dhanjibhai 
Nauroji, Mr Baba Padmanji, and Mr Bapu Masd^ were 
elected elders. It was a remarkable proof how completely 
O^^te feeling had gone down, that Bapu, though originally 
a Mahar, was elected almost unanimously. At that tiqie 
Dhanjibhai was editing a Guzerathi and Narayan She^hadri, 
a Mahratta periodical. 

Not long afterwards the leanings towards Christianity 
of a Parsee youth, called Merwanji, being observed by hii^ 
relatives, they removed him to Surat, to be out of the 
way of the Bombay missionaries, but, meeting with the 
Irish brethren there, he made known his case to them, and 
was baptized by one of them, the Rev. Dr Glasgow. The 
mention of the Irish brethren naturally recalls Dr Wilson's 

* Marwadis, as their name implies, come from the province of Marwar, in Raj' 
pootana* They are the great bankers of India. 

t For many centuries there has existed on the coast of Malabar a small Syrian 
colony. The Romish missionaries have led a number of these Syrians to Popery. 



LOSS OF AMBROU MISSION HOUSE. 2^$ 

journey to Guzerat in 1841, to introduce them when they 
first came out to their sphere of labour. A similar journey 
was made by him in 1859, to introduce the United Pres- 
byterian brethren, Messrs Shoolbred and Steele, to their 
appointed sphere of exertion in Rajpootana. On this 
journey he found two former pupils of his, one English 
translator and reporter of news to his Highness the Gui- 
cowar, and the other educational tutor to his brother. 

Towards the end of 1859 Dr Murray Mitchell was again 
at his post in the mission. In January i860 the Rev. Mr 
Carlyle, late of Brechin, arrived to take charge of the 
European Church, the Rev. Mr Stothert came on the nth 
February as an additional missionary, and a short time 
afterwards Mr Dewar arrived as teacher. Great changes 
had taken place in India since Mr Mitchell had left it two 
years before, and he especially remarked on the alienation 
from the Europeans shown by the natives on account of 
the war of races which for some time had prevailed. 

Soon after this Dr Hugh Miller, an excellent elder in the 
Bombay congregation, undertook to raise ;£'25oo for the 
native Church and manse schemes already mentioned ; and 
James Burns, Esq., of Glasgow, promised to contribute 
;£'5oo, on condition that the buildings were opened free of 
debt 

Among the baptisms which occurred in i860, was that of 
a man called Rama MuUari, aged thirty-four, first hospital 
assistant at Dhapuli, who with his daughter, a nice intelli- 
gent girl of seven or eight, was admitted into the Church in 
April of that year. 

Though in most respects Bombay is placed more favour- 
ably for a capital than either Calcutta or Madras, yet, as 
before mentioned, it has one great disadvantage, that being, 
as these are not, an island, and an island of very limited 
area, rents rise very rapidly, as population increasingly 
crowds into the small space. In 1861, the Mission-house 
at Ambroli had to be given up, the rent demanded for it 

(891) 17 



246 BOMBAY. 

being now £$0 a month = ;f 360 a year. Great sorrow was 
felt by Dr Wilson on quitting it, after he had resided there 
for thirty-one years. But the work of Christ still proceeded. 
In October 1861, Dr Wilson stated that, since the com- 
mencement of that year, twelve adults and two children had 
been baptized. Several of these were females, and two 
were Rajput men. 

On the 23d January 1862, Mr Joseph Dewar, the teacher, 
died when he had been less than two years away from home. 
He left a widow and child to deplore his loss. 

At the Assembly of 1862,* there were in the institution 
421 pupils — 301 studying through the medium, of English, 
and 1 20 through that of the Indian languages. There were 
in Kalyan no studying English and Marathi; the district 
vernacular boys' schools had 233 ; the girls were 433. In 
all there were about 1200 pupils. The native Church had 
87 members, and there had been baptized since the com- 
mencement of the mission, 115. 

Our limited space will not, as a rule, permit us to give 
the details of each convert's work, but room must be forced 
for a notable enterprise performed by Mr Mikhail Joseph, a 
native of Bagdad, but led to the truth in connection with 
the Bombay mission. This man made a daring journey 
through that focus of Moslem bigotry — Arabia, visiting 
Mokha, Sana, and even Mareb, the last mentioned place 
believed to have been the seat of the Queen of Sheba, who 
visited Solomon. Mikhail sold on this tour no fewer than 
243 copies of the Scriptures. 

In the Assembly Report for 1864, it was mentioned that, 
during the previous twelve months, ten persons had been 
added to the native Church. Four were females from the 
boarding-school, one was a young man from the institution, 
and several were Mohammedans. Moslem converts are 
always both difficult and important to obtain ; and for the 

* In 1857, bad health had compelled Mr Clark to return to Europe ; and in x86t, 
the same cause necessitated the resignation of his successor. Rev. Mr Cailyle. 



RURAL MISSIONS. 247 

encouragement of those called to labour among that un- 
tractable race of men, it may be mentioned that, in the 
opinion of Dr Murray Mitchell, effete Mohammedanism 
disappears and gives way to Christianity faster than exploded 
Hindooism or Parseeism. — Free Church Missionary Record^ 
i860, p. 199. 

In the years 1865 and 1866, an effort was made to use 
the native preachers and catechists for more systematic 
aggression on the heathenism of the village population and 
the wild tribes. A catechist, with his young wife, was sent 
to Rutnagherry, in the Southern Concan, not far from the 
place where the Scottish mission had first been established. 
Mr H. Bruce Boswell, of the Civil Service, kindly undertook 
to provide for their support while he continued at the 
station. The Parsee convert, Shapurji Edalji, was sent out 
towards the close of 1865 to commence a mission among 
the Waralis. Further details with regard to the latter enter- 
prise will be found in a subsequent part of the volume. 

For some time previously, a catechist had laboured at 
Mahabuleshwar, an Indian sanatorium on the Western 
Ghauts, between 4000 and 5000 feet above the sea level 
Mahabuleshwar means ** lord of great force," and is not 
misnamed, for all around the hills are broken up into an 
endless succession of perpendicular cliffs one or two thou- 
sand feet high. The rainfall is 300 inches during the year. 
There are about eighty European residents. The catechist 
superintends a small vernacular school. 

In 1867, new buildings were completed for the female 
boarding-school. Whilst at home, Mrs Nesbit had raised 
for the purpose ;£'30oo. The Government gave ;£'25oo. 
The same year a great friend and benefactress of the female 
schools — the second Mrs Wilson of Bombay — died, greatly 
lamented by a wide circle of Europeans and natives who 
had known her worth. When, in 1868, her distinguished 
husband had completed his fortieth year of missionary 
life, the community in Bombay commemorated the event 



248 BOMB A Y. 

by a cordial demonstration. A subscription was made, of 
which it was designed that so long as he lived he should 
enjoy the interest, while afterwards it should be employed 
to found a philological lectureship. The amount contributed 
was 21,000 rupees. The Right Hon. Sir Seymour Fitz- 
gerald, Governor of Bombay, presided, being on the right 
of Dr Wilson, while on his left was Sir Richard Couch, the 
Chief-Justice. Among the subscribers were Churchmen and 
Dissenters, Roman Catholics, Hebrews, Hindoos, Parsees, 
and Mohammedans. A religious tone pervaded the meet- 
ing. It should be mentioned, that when in 1857 the 
Bombay University was founded, Dr Wilson was one of the 
original fellows named in the Act of Incorporation. He 
took a leading part in framing and revising the bye-laws 
and regulations for the government of the University, and 
for the arrangement, extension, and balance of the studies 
to be prescribed. He had from the beginning been 
examiner in Sanscrit, Persian, and the vernacular languages; 
had been a member of the Syndicate since its proper work 
commenced, and for nearly six years head of the Faculty of 
Arts as dean, and since September of the previous year vice- 
chancellor. It was stated by one of the speakers that Dr 
Wilson had enjoyed the respect of every successive governor 
of Bombay from Sir John Malcolm to Sir Seymour Fitzgerald. 

The native church edifice for which the subscriptions had 
been made, was opened for divine worship on Sabbath, 28th 
February 1869. Dhanjibhai preached in the morning in 
Hindustani, and afterwards baptized a woman. Narayan 
preached in the evening in Marathi. A collection was taken 
at each diet of worship, and amounted to 500 rupees. 

On 6th July 1869, the Rev. William Stephen was ordained 
by the Free Presbytery of Aberdeen a missionary to Bombay; 
and on Friday, the 23d of the same month, he left Glasgow 
for his destination in the City ofAmoy, being a free passenger, 
though the proprietors, Messrs George Smith & Sons, were 
not members of the Free Church. 



DR WILSON MOD ERA TOR OF ASSEMBL Y. 249 

An interesting baptism was soon after intimated. A 
pupil, called Jayakar, had highly distinguished himself in 
the college department of the Free Church institution at 
Bombay. He then entered on the study of medicine ; and 
obtaining what was called a travelling fellowship— that is, 
a fellowship designed to support him in England if he 
wished to continue his studies there — he came to this 
country, and entered the Royal College of Surgeons in 
London. Returning to his native land as Dr Jayakar, he 
was baptized at Ahmedabad by Mr Wallace of the Irish 
Presbyterian Mission, and wrote intimating the gratifying 
fact to Dhanjibhai and Dr Wilson. Early in 1850, there was 
another important baptism. There was a Brahman who 
had been a pupil in the Free Church institution for seven 
years, and was almost embracing Christianity while pursuing 
his studies. Fear of his friends, however, held him back ; 
and on leaving for the Northern Concan, he was still nomi- 
nally a heathen. But the ministrations of the Free Church 
catechist then connected with the Warali mission was 
blessed to him, and he was baptized by Dr Wilson. Soon 
afterwards, Dr Wilson departed for Scotland to recruit his 
health, by a temporary sojourn in the bracing atmosphere of 
home. The Church having conferred on him the highest 
honour it had in its power to bestow, by placing him, in 
1870, in the chair of the General Assembly, he mentioned 
various interesting facts in his Moderator's speech. Bombay, 
he stated, had not had the same pecuniary grants from 
home as some other stations. The two Abyssinian youths 
were now recognised counsellors of Prince K^ssk of Tigre. 
The services which they had rendered to the British army 
under Lord Napier of Magdala had been publicly acknow- 
ledged, and were of great importance, though they could 
not be particularly specified. Other pupils from Abyssinia 
were at present under his care. From the Lake Country, 
near the remote sources of the Nile, Dr Livingstone had 
brought him young men to Bombay, who, after receiving 



2SO BOMBAY. 

icstmctioo, had been bopdxed. FinaDfytiiejr had left India 
for Afiica vith Dr lii iug s lo pe . 

Dnrii^the abscnceof Dr Wilson, Mr Dhanjibhai annoonced 
a bapdsm of great importance. It was that of a young man 
mbose £aher was president of the Tbeistical AssodatioD 
of Bombar, the eqniralent of the Calcatta Biahman Snmaj. 
His first religions impressions were produced dirongh h^ 
connection with a native, who used to read the Scnptnres 
and ofler np prajer in his iamilT, bot who to the last 
remained unbapiized. Dr Charles Biown^s work on ^ The 
Gloryof Christ," was also of ose to him. He was to proceed 
immediately to England to compete for a Civil Service 
appointment 

Towards the end of 187 r, Mr Stothert was obliged tem- 
porarily to retom to Scotland in bad health, whilst Dr 
Wilson departed for the East, desirous while life and strength 
remained to labour, as for more than forty eventful jeais he 
already had done, for the evangelisation of India. 



SECTION V. 

POONAH. 




CHAPTER I. 

POONAH IN ITS PALMY DAYS. 

|OONAH becomes first traceable in history in a.d. 
1604. In that year the city and the districts 
adjacent, were given as z.jaghire^ or royal grant, 
free from tribute, to a Mahratta called Malolee, 
the donor being the rajah or sultan of Ahmednugger, then 
an independent state. When the Ahmednugger kingdom 
broke up, the grant of Poonah was continued by the Mo- 
hammedan rulers of Beejapoor, into whose hands that por- 
tion of India had passed. The grandson of Malolee was 
the celebrated Seevajee, who threw off the Mussulman yoke 
and founded the Mahraita empire. In 1673 the bold 
chieftain took Sattara, which, in 1698, became the seat of 
the Mahratta government Oriental dynasties generally 
lose vigour in three generations, and Saho, the grandson of 
Seevajee, was a man of little energy or ability. Nominally 
the second, but really the first, in what modem politicians 
would call his Ministry, was a functionary called Peishwa or 
leader, and in 1749, Balajee Rao, an astute Brahman, who 
then filled the office, played " mayor of the palace " to his 
feeble master, as the French Pepin did to the last of the 



252 POOXAH. 

Merovingian kings. In other words, the Peishwa succeeded 
in inducing Saho to transfer to him all the power of the 
state, the peishwaship, moreover, being formally declared to 
be hereditary in his family. This amazingly short-sighted 
arrangement being made, the imbecile monarch died, and 
his descendants were kept in nominal dignity, but really 
imprisoned at Sattara, while each of the successive Peish- 
was obtained from his caged sovereign the permission to 
reign in his name, which was tantamount to saying in his 
stead. The first of the really supreme Peishwas transferred 
the seat of government to Poonah, which, in consequence, 
became the most important city under Mahratta sway. A 
great contest took place in 1803 between the Mahrattas 
and ourselves, for the empire of India, and the struggle was 
renewed in 18 17. From the latter of these dates, Poonah 
has been directly under British authority, the last of the 
Peishwas, who acted to our government most treacherously, 
having been defeated in batde, and then hunted up and 
down Western India as a fugitive, till at length he sur- 
rendered, on being promised a magnificent pension. He 
ultimately died at Bithoor, on the Ganges, near Cawnpore, 
after adopting the infamous Nana Sahib as his son and 
heir. 

Poonah was supposed to have had a population of about 
150,000 during the palmy days of the Peishwas. It has 
not so many now. The general opinion is, that during the 
period to which the succeeding narrative refers, its inhabi- 
tants may have amounted to about 100,000. The Peish- 
was, as already mentioned, were Brahmans, hence the sacred 
order constitute a large proportion of the Poonah popula- 
tion. This, coupled with its former celebrity, makes it a 
place of great importance. Nor are Brahmans and Mah- 
rattas the only dignitaries. Situated as it is, 1823 feet above 
the sea level, and with spurs from the Western Ghauts in 
its immediate vicinity, to which retreat can be made when 
the heat becomes unpleasant in the city, Poonah is one 



FIRS T PRE A CHING A T POONAH. 253 

of the sanataria of Bombay, and is often visited by Euro- 
peans from the Western presidency seat, not excepting the 
governor himself. Apart from these birds of passage, the 
European population of Poonah is very considerable, from 
the fact that there must always be there a garrison suffi- 
ciently large to prevent any rise in arms on the part of those 
admirers of the " good old times," who might wish to try 
anew the pleasant paths of conquest and plunder. 

These and other considerations show that Poonah was 
a place suitable for the establishment of a powerful mission, 
and which the Christian Church did well to occupy at the 
earliest practicable date. 



CHAPTER II. 

A SEED " IN WEAKNESS SOWN." 

As already mentioned, the Scottish Missionary Society had 
from the first conteriiplated making Poonah the centre of 
its operations in India, but had been prevented doing so 
by the Government, which feared that the Brahmans would 
not endure the heralds of the cross at the old seat of Mah- 
ratta supremacy. For about six years then, after the com- 
mencement of the work in the Concan, the labourers there 
considered Poonah a forbidden spot, but at length, in 1829, 
Messrs Mitchell and Stevenson ventured thither, and, con- 
trary to expectation, were exceedingly well received. The 
common people heard them gladly, and though, as was in- 
evitable in that nest of Brahmans, the lordly caste at times 
sought to lower or to drive the audiences away from hearing 
the seductive voices of the western preachers, the Sudra 
Mahrattas took their own way in the matter, and remained 
to hear what the Padrees ♦ had to say. As in the case of 

* Padree is a word borrowed originally from the Portuguese, who, as is well 
known, use it for the Romish priests, Father A. or Father B. The Hindoos have 
given the term a more extended signification, and apply it to all missionaries and 
other ministers. 



254 POONAH. 

the village schools, the Government showed a praiseworthy 
readiness to act on any new enlightenment which it might 
receive, and it no longer objected to the establishment of 
a mission at Poonah. 

Sometime after Poonah was taken by the British, our 
Government in 182 1 set up within it a Sanscrit College, 
which none but Brahmans were permitted to attend. The 
commissioner who instituted it stated — 

" That he had not taken any measures towards the introduction of 
any branches of European science, but had endeavoured to direct the 
attention of the college principally to such parts of their own skasiras 
as are not only more useful in themselves, but will best prepare their 
minds for a gradual reception of more valuable instruction at a future 
time." — Missionary Record, January 1843, p. 176. 

Such was the opinion which the Government entertained 
as to the opposition the Poonah Brahmans were likely to 
oflfer to the introduction among them of even the most 
homeopathic dozes of true science. 

To this hotbed of bigotry, Mr Stevenson proceeded in 
1830, to lay the foundations of a mission. Whether or not 
he made progress in breaking up the fallow ground in the 
native field — a sphere was open to him among his own 
countrymen, for Poonah was the largest military station in 
the whole presidency. He succeeded, shortly after his 
arrival, in bringing together a congregation of Presbyterian 
soldiers. 

On the 8th August 1831, Mr Nesbit, by medical advice, 
left Humee to join him, and on arriving, shared with him 
not merely the missionary but the pastoral work. 

In 1832 Mr Stevenson set up a school, which, however, 
was transferred to the Government a few months subse- 
quently. Even after this change, it for some time bore 
marks of its missionary origin, by having religious instruc- 
tion communicated to the pupils. Mr Nesbit spoke very 
disparagingly of the converts of the mission, many of whom 
also he said had apostatised. Encouragement came to the 
missionaries, however, from a quarter from which they had 



THE REV, JAMES MITCHELL SETTLES IN POONAH, 25$ 

not expected it, for the European soldiers, among whom 
they laboured, highly appreciated their ministrations, and 
in 1832 an awakening occurred among them, almost reach- 
ing the proportions of a home revival. In 1833 sickness 
drove Mr Stevenson from Poonah to Calcutta, and on his 
return in May in that year, Mr Nesbit was compelled to go 
to Bombay for medical advice, with regard to a painful 
affection apparently in the ear, but really, as afterwards 
appeared, in the throat ; a discovery which explains the 
mystery why it was always aggravated after preaching. 
For sometime previously he had been unable to use his 
voice, and had been shut up to employ his pen more and 
more in the service of the mission. 

Soon after Mr Stevenson's return from Calcutta he termi- 
nated his direct connection with the mission, and entered 
the service of the East India^ Company as a chaplain. 
In 1834, also, Mr Nesbit was obliged by the affection of 
his " ear," which, despite surgical treatment, still continued, 
to go to recruit his physical frame at the Cape of Good 
Hope. Though absent from Poonah, he still in eflfect 
preached there, for a short time previously he, at the request 
of the European congregation, had published a volume of 
excellent sermons, well fitted both to commend and to vin- 
dicate the truth. 

The reason for occupying the Southern Concan having in 
large measure ceased when Poonah became accessible, and 
the mission being compelled to make a choice between the 
two, as it was not strong enough in men to occupy both, 
Mr James Mitchell proceeded to Poonah to supply Mr 
Nesbit's place, and the Southern Concan was abandoned. 
Mr Mitchell was of a more hopeful temperament than Mr 
Nesbit, and though he could not work more faithfully, yet 
he did so more cheerfully than his talented predecessor had 
done. 

In 1835, as already stated, Mr James Mitchell, and the 
other agents of the Scottish Missionary Society in Western 



256 FOONAH. 

India, transferred their services to the Established Church. 
The change did not in any way affect the operations of the 
mission. 

When Mr Nesbit returned from the Cape of Good Hope, 
he settled at Bombay, and it was not till January 1839 that 
he again saw Poonah. On visiting it at that date, he was 
agreeably disappointed to see the progress which had been 
made during the interval. The small native Church had 
begun to increase considerably, and a commencement had 
been made of an English school, the nucleus of the present 
institution. Converts, servants, inmates of the poorhouse, 
teachers of schools, pupils, and strangers, gathered for the 
Mahratta service, constituted a large congregation, and he 
records that he never before had spoken to one with so 
much freedom and delight. The first and most trying 
period of the Poonah mission was indeed over. A realisation 
had taken place of the promise or prophecy — 

** The heavenly dew shall nourish 
The seed in weakness sown ; '* 

and whilst the Government were afraid to give the inhabi- 
tants of Poonah the boon of European science, the mission 
had boldly, and with an encouraging measure of success, 
bestowed on them the greater blessing of Christianity. 

Though Mr Mitchell taught with much zeal in the school, 
yet he had a great love for vernacular preaching. One 
place where he successfully exercised his gifts in this respect 
was the poorhouse, from which, first and last, he reaped 
no inconsiderable fruit. So early as 1839, we find among 
three baptisms recorded as having taken place on Sabbath, 
loth November of that year, one from the " poor asylum." 

The next year (1840) Mr James Aitken, an unordained 
teacher, was sent out to assist Mr Mitchell. He reached 
Bombay on the 9th April. Besides Messrs Mitchell and 
Aitken, another agent was in connection with the mission — 
Mr W. Drake, who was stationed at Indapore,* 84 miles 

* At that time Indapore was supposed to contain about 6000 inhabitants. A Mr 



THE ZENANA SCHEME ANTICIPATED, 2$y 

E.S.E. of Poonah. Including his pupils, there were in con- 
nection with the mission no fewer than 15 schools — 11 for 
boys and 5 for girls. The average attendance in the former 
was about 500, and in the latter about 90 — 590 in all. 

In a letter by Mr James Mitchell, of Poonah, published 
in the Missionary Record for 1842, p. 152, there is a fore- 
shadowing of something very like the zenana scheme. He 
says — 

** Mrs Mitchell has lately begun visiting in the families of some of the 
girls and others. A few days ago she had rather an interesting inter- 
view with the females of one of the chief pundits in Poonah, a man of 
the highest rank, both as a Sirdar (nobleman) and a Brahman. They 
were so taken with the interview that the pundit called yesterday to ask 
her to repeat the visit. I hope that thus my long-cherished views, of 
female missionaries carrying the gospel into the bosoms of the families 
in the higher as well as the lower grades of society, are about to be 
realised. May the Lord be with us, and give us wisdom and discretion 
in the attempt." 

The foundations of the Poonah mission had been securely 

laid, and a considerable part of the superstructure reared, 

before the testing period of the Disruption. 



CHAPTER III. 

AFTER THE DISRUPTION. 

The Disruption made little difference on the Poonah 
mission. The whole establishment — agents, converts, and 
pupils, with Messrs Mitchell and Aitken at their head — 
simply went over to the Free Church, and as there was no 
property to lose,* were able, without unpleasant controversy, 
to proceed with their work as before. On July 17th, 1844, 
Mr Aitken received ordination, and on 28th January 1845, 

Price had established schools in and around Indapore, before Mr Drake's arrival. 
Mr Drake, in 1842, had four schools in that neighbourhood, in as many villages, 
with 100 pupils in all. 

• In an appeal issued in 1850, the Rev. Mr Nesbit said, "The mission premises 
at Poonah, tne gift of private liberality on the spot, to the extent of about £,\^oo, 
have hai>pily not been affected by the Disruption." 



2S8 POONAH. 

Miss Joanna Shaw arrived from Europe, as assistant to her 
sister, Mrs Mitchell, who was superintendent of the female 
schools. In 1845, Mr Aitken, who found the dry air of the 
Deccan too stimulating, had to remove to the moister climate 
of Bombay, and soon afterwards to make a temporary return 
to Europe. From the Assembly report we learn that no 
baptisms had taken place during the year 1 844-1 845, but 
tliat the schools were flourishing. There were in the 

English schools about 125 

5 Marathi boys* schools „ 365 

5 Marathi girls' „ ,, no 

Indapore „ ,, 160 

760 

A year later there were about 200 at Indapore, or 800 in 
all It will be observed that the expression is " English 
schools," in the plural There were two of them — one in the 
bazaar, among the population brought a good deal in con- 
tact with the English, and who therefore felt some faint 
desire to acquire our tongue ;* and the other in the native 
city. Great advantage would have been reaped from an 
amalgamation of the schools, had that been possible, and 
one was tried soon afterwards, but it was premature, and 
the old arrangement had for a time to be reverted to. In 
the infancy of English education in a Hindoo city, the com- 
modity requires almost to be carried to the doors of the 
recipients, else they will not trouble themselves about it 
It is not till the demand for our language becomes extensive 
and strong that a bazaar and a city school can be combined 
without a serious reduction in the attendance.t As we could 
have known, without being told it, the numbers at the bazaar 
school were greater than those at the city one. Yet the 
city school was, in some important respects, the more im- 
portant one ; for, ist, it was attended chiefly by Brahmans, 

* The bazaar was called the Camp bazaar, or the Sudder, that is, the chief bazaar, 
and was about a mile from the city. The population was ver^ mixed and migiatory. 

t When the two English schools were temporarily united m 1845, their aggregate 
number, 125, was reduced to 90. 



RURAL MISSIONS, 259 

while the bazaar pupils were mostly low caste camp fol- 
lowers ; and, 2nd, the students in the city school belonged 
to the permanent population, whereas those in the bazaar 
one were here this year and gone the next. At the Assembly 
of 1845,* there were in the Poonah native Church 20 adults 
and II baptized children. That year the Governor of 
Bombay, Sir George Arthur, presided at the examination, as 
he had done once before, and expressed himself highly 
gratified with the system of education pursued, and the re- 
sults which had been attained. Several baptisms took place 
about this time, besides which a native Romanist was ad- 
mitted to the communion. Even in Poonah, the very seat 
of the old Mahratta Peishwas, there were, in the bazaar at 
least, Tamul-speaking people, mostly belonging to that 
domesticated race— the Madras pariahs. The Romanist, 
who we presume was at first a Tamul pariah, was employed 
to teach a vernacular school, using his native tongue, and 
his sincerity was evinced by his accepting 10 rupees a month 
as teacher, when he might possibly have obtained 15 or 20 
as a gentleman's servant. Soon afterwards, Wazir Beg, then 
the most important native teacher the mission possessed, 
was offered the head mastership of Dharwar Government 
school, with 100 rupees monthly of salary, but declined the 
offer. 

At this time we find in Mr Mitchell's arrangements a 
quiet anticipation of what are now termed rural missions. 
For instance, in 1846 he had the convert Shewanath located 
at a village called Kotrur. A second one, Appa, was at 
Little Kondwa, two miles from Poonah, teaching a school 
with twenty children. Gopalla, the younger of two Brah- 

* It is always interesting to the student of human progress to see how historic 
scenes repeat themselves, and that in different regions of the world. Readers will 
remember how poor students of the Reformation period, and Luther himself among 
the number, had to beg bread from door to door, to aid in their support whilst they 

Erosecuted their studies. The same scene is reproduced even yet in Poonah- In 
is report for 1845, Mr Mitchell mentions the very interesting uict that some of the 
Brahman boys literally beg for support whilst under instruction, calling at the houses 
of a certain number of their richer caste people about dinner*time, and obtaining a 
little rice from each. The scanty supplies of nee thus obtained keep them in food for 
the whole day, and leave them free to devote a number of hours to their lessons. 



26o POONAH, 

man converts baptized a little before, was directed to com- 
mence operations at a place a mile further off, whilst the 
other Brahman still remained as a pupil in the English 
school. 

We have already had occasion to mention an act of self- 
sacrifice on the part of Mr Wazir Beg, teacher of one of the 
English schools. Whereunto such devotion in the interests of 
the mission tended it required no diviner to forecast. He 
applied for baptism, and on Friday, i8th September 1846, sent 
off a very interesting letter to his father, who was messman of 
H.M. 22nd Regiment, then in Bombay, intimating what was 
about to take place. Next day, with Wazir Beg's concur- 
rence, the fact of the intended baptism was intimated in the 
school, and in consequence soon became mooted abroad in 
the city. His friends and relatives assembled and attempted 
by entreaties and denunciations to shake his resolution. 
One man, in the true spirit of the Mussulman faith, de- 
clared that whatever the consequence, he would murder 
him if he embraced Christianity, and then, with oriental 
infirmity oi purpose, failed when the time came to cany out 
his nefarious threat. Another man, learned and respectable, 
told him that but for the English Government he should 
have lost his head instantly, and that he, the said learned 
man, would have been the first to demand such an execu- 
tion, a fact probably correct, but most discreditable to the 
Mussulman religion. On the Sabbath, the intended bap- 
tism day, the ** faithful," especially of the rougher sort, 
presented themselves in numbers at the Mission-house, and 
finally the father made his appearance from Bombay, having 
posted up to Poonah on receiving the letter. Wazir Beg 
was persuaded to return temporarily home, and would, 
doubtless, for ever have been prevented from receiving bap- 
tism had not the magistrate, on being appealed to, inquired 
into the case, and finding that illegal restraint was being 
exercised, set the convert at liberty. He was baptized at 
II A.M. on Thursday, 24th September. It is satisfactory to 



BAPTISM OF WAZIR BEG, 26 1 

add that the Mussulman father behaved in a proper manner 
to his son after his baptism, giving him such of his clothes 
as had been left at home, and a valuable gold watch and 
chain which he had some time before presented to him ; 
and, wonderful to tell, the Mussulmans did not afterwards 
mob him as he was going and coming to school. Wazir 
Beg, at the time of his admission into the church, was about 
22 years old. His talents were of a high order. He was a 
good Persian scholar, had attended a little to Arabic, and 
lately begun Greek. His whole education had been 
received at the mission school in Poonah, where he had 
been first a pupil and then a teacher. The schools suf- 
fered less than might have been anticipated from Wazir 
Beg's case. There were 130 pupils before it happened, and 
107 after, but the pupils taken away were those most 
advanced in their studies. 

Of the other baptisms during the year 1846, two claim' 
special notice. One was that of Bala Gopal, mentioned at 
length in connection with Bombay. Bala had been for three 
years a pupil in the Poonah mission school when, in Octo- 
ber 1845, he accompanied Mr Murray Mitchell to enjoy a 
scholarship there. It was thought well that he should be 
baptized at Poonah, that he might set a good example to his 
old class-fellows, and also might save the important Bombay 
institution from the shock which, in all probability, it would 
have received had the news been spread abroad that an- 
other of its Brahmanic pupils had been baptized. The 
second case was that of a Parsee called Rustomji Nauroji, 
who was in gaol, by sentence of a court-martial, and had to 
be brought to church from the prison for the purpose of 
having the rite administered. His baptism and that of Bala 
Gopal took place on Sabbath, 27th December 1846. That 
year was one of death at Poonah. Mr Mitchell wrote in 
August 1846 that in the two months previously the cholera 
had cut off about a third of the population. 

An interesting point connected with the girls' day schools 

(301) 18 



262 POONAH. 

was this — that there were in them pupils from the best 
Brahmanic families. We do not think any one would have 
ventured to anticipate this when first the capital of the 
Peishwas became the seat of a mission. The boarding- 
school girls, again, were either outcastes or children de- 
serted by their parents, but notwithstanding this, the estab- 
lishment of such a school was a great advantage for the 
pupils being brought up in a Christian way, and having no 
contact with heathenism, were many of them led to the truth 
and baptized. For instance, on May ii, 1847, Mr Mitchell 
intimated the baptism of a boarding-school girl called Giiji, 
about 14 or 15 years of age. The native church now con- 
sisted of 24 communicants, 6 of whom were employed 
in the work of the mission. Some time afterwards, there 
was an election of elders in the native church, and Mr Cas- 
sidy, an Indo-Briton, and Wazir Beg and Vitoba, native 
converts, were regularly ordained to the oversight of the 
native church, which, towards the close of 1848, had 28 in 
full communion. Mr Cassidy was teacher of the bazaar 
English school, and Mr Wazir Beg of the city one. In 
July 1849, the former contained 90 pupils and the latter 50. 
As a specimen of the devotion to mission work which one 
of these elders, Mr Cassidy, exhibited, it may be mentioned 
that when, in 1849, the local funds were so inadequate to 
the support of the schools that it was seriously proposed to 
give some of them up, and simultaneously with this, the 
foreign mission finances of the home Church were so 
seriously embarrassed that the question was mooted whether 
it might not be needful to abandon either Nagpore or Caf- 
fraria, Mr Cassidy * came generously forward and oflfered for 
the year between July 1849 and July 1850 to accept 50 
instead of 150 rupees a month. . About the former of these 
dates, he thus wrote to Mr Mitchell — 

*'My mother and I have been thinking of thd proposal to give up 

* In 1851, Mr Cassidy having adopted Baptist views, ceased connection with the 
Free Church mission. 



THE '' DAKSHINA'' REMODELLED, 263 

the African mission, and find that we may live at a much less expense 
than we do now. We can afford to give £\oo this year for that pur-' 
pose, from June 1849 to J""^ 1850. ;^50 will be quite sufficient for 
our maintenance. . . . Should be we able, we shall assist still further to 
support our brethren in Africa. There is nothing which has so much 
distressed us as this proposal. Should it be carried out, I shall never 
feel happy with any amount of salary. " 

On 24th July 1850, it was recorded that during the by- 
gone year Mr Cassidy had subscribed;^! 50 to the mission. 
The Indapore branch of the operations was now flourishing. 
There were there 350 pupils ; the Government had given 
the use of a school house, while the Paiet (mayor or pro- 
vost) of the village of Limgaum, a man called Shivaram, 
had been baptized. 

From the report to the Assembly of 1850 we learn that 
between 1836 and that time 42 adult baptisms had taken 
place in connection with the mission. Deaths and removals, 
however, had prevented the communicants from rising 
above 29. 

Whilst the successive Peishwas were in their glory at 
Poonah, they were in the habit of annually dispensing a 
dakshina or gratuity to their caste people, the Brahmans. 
In some years this ill-advised expenditure amounted to 
^£30,000 sterling. When our Government obtained the 
country it continued the dakshina, though ,on a reduced 
scale, paying away only about 30,000 rupees, or ;;^3ooo 
sterling a year. The money was given nominally for the 
encouragement of learning, by which was meant Sanscrit ; 
but it produced little result even in the study of that tongue, 
owing to the fact that a Brahman, who had once become a 
recipient of the gratuity, continued to be a pensioner year 
by year to the end of his life. In most instances, of course, 
the oriental love of indolence overcame him at once when he 
found himself with an independent salary for life, and in too 
many cases he at once ceased to study Sanscrit, or anything 
else. It was supposed that the Government, the members 
of which were too astute not to see this scandal', only re- 



264 POONAH, 

quired a gentle pressure to be put upon them by the more 
enlightened natives to induce them to remodel the dakshina. 
Towards the end of 1849 that pressure came from some 
enlightened and aspiring young men, chiefly old scholars of 
Mr James Mitchell's. These petitioned the Government 
for permission, on certain conditions, to share in the annual 
money distribution, given nominally for the encouragement 
of learning. They wished that it might be dispensed to 
those who produced the best original works in Marathi, or 
the best translation from that language into English, though 
they were so tender of vested interests that they desired 
the recipients of the dakshina to enjoy it as long as they 
lived, and that change should be gradually introduced 
as the present incumbents died out. Need it be added 
that the Brahmans of the old school, though treated with 
such tenderness, stood aghast at a proposal so dreadful 
as that Government patronage should be transferred from 
drones to working bees ! They threatened to excommuni- 
cate the young men if they did not at once withdraw the 
petition they were preparing, and the youthful literati were 
obliged to obey. It is in circumstances like these that the 
value of a free press most markedly shines forth. The 
newspaper editors got hold of the suppressed petition, and 
published it with strongly favourable comments, and before 
long the Government, thus informed of the state of affairs, 
granted the prayer of the unpresented petition, and re- 
modelled the dakshina* This narrative affords one out 
of many illustrations which might be brought forward, that 
the mere statistics of the baptisms from an institution gives 
no adequate criterion of the amount of influence it is exert- 
ing on the community and on legislation. 

The influence of the mission was observable in another 
way. Of the converts who acted as subordinate agents, 
three — Narayan Keshawa, Gopal Keshawa, and Appa Nasi- 

* In 1852 no fewer than sixty-nine vernacular works, though most of them, it 
must be confessed, translations, were handed in by competitors for a share in the 
remodelled doAshina. 



A BHEEL CHIEF. 26$ 

kar — were converted Brahmans j and in 1852 Mr Mitchell 
mentioned that all the Brahman converts in connection 
with the Free Church in Bombay, and the American mission 
at Ahmednugger, were originally from Poonah, and that 
the former had received their first Christian instruction, if 
not even their first impressions, in one of the Poonah mis- 
sion English schools. 

In 1850, a chief of the predatory tribe called Bheels, 
aged 16 or 17, who derived a revenue from a number of 
villages, into the full possession of which he was to come 
in about two years, was brought to Poonah for education 
in the Government College, his hereditary karbarie, or 
manager of the estate, who, moreover, was his cousin, 
accompanying him to the city. They were placed in 
charge of Mr Wazir Beg, who had leave to give them what 
instruction he pleased, and who possessed such influence 
over them that they attended his daily family worship, and 
even at times accompanied him to church. 

Soon afterwards, if not even as early as this, the mission 
had a European congregation of between 200 and 300, 
mostly soldiers, with about thirty communicants. Mr James 
Mitchell and his coadjutors felt it difficult, nay, even im- 
possible, properly to attend to all the varied departments 
of effort carried on in connection with the Poonah mission, 
and in the early part of July 185 1, the Free Presbytery of 
Bombay resolved tp send relays of its Presidency members 
to render assistance at Poonah. Mr J. Murray Mitchell 
was the first to go thither. The arrangement now men- 
tioned continued for many years, and, while effective for its 
primary object, it carried with it this further advantage, that 
when the strength of the Bombay labourers became worn 
out through the exhausting nature of the climate in which 
they ordinarily resided, the drier and more bracing atmo- 
sphere of Poonah again recruited their energy. 

In June 1852 a young Brahman, long in the Poonah 
institution, and for some time employed as a monitor, was 



266 POONAH, 

baptized by the American labourers at Sattara, another 
proof, if indeed another were needed, of the great and 
growing importance of the educational work carried on by 
the Poonah mission. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FATHER AND SON COADJUTORS IN THE MISSION. 

On August 10, 1852, the Rev. William Kinnaird Mitchell 
was ordained a missionary to Poonah, where his father had 
so long laboured, and, with Mrs Mitchell, reached the old 
Mahratta capital on the 20th January 1853. There was 
need for an increase of Christian agents, for unbelief was 
alarmingly prevalent among the alumni of the Government 
College, whose education had rendered them too enlightened 
to believe in Hindooism, while it had left them wholly 
ignorant of the claims which can be brought forward on 
strong evidence in favour of Christianity. The youths of 
intellectual vigour, but sceptical tendencies, who swarmed 
in Poonah, were only a few of them natives of the place \ 
the city, being in a manner a university seat, drew the ablest 
and most ambitious young men from all the Mahratta coun- 
try, and it was a noble work to lead them, so far as man 
could do it, in the direction of religious truth. At this time 
the English congregation already mentioned had become 
yet larger and more influential. It afforded a noble 
sphere for Christian effort. Writing on 9th May 1853, 
Mr Kinnaird Mitchell said that the* day previously about 
400 soldiers belonging to the 78th Regiment had been pre- 
sent at the morning service, making, with others, about 450 
present, while in the evening there were about 150. 

Towards the end of the year the Rev. James Mitchell 
iras compelled to repair to Europe for the restoration of his 



FEMALE DEVOTION TO CHRIST. 267 

health, which had suffered from thirty years' arduous labour 
in India, and the Rev. J. Murray Mitchell proceeded to 
Poonah temporarily to occupy his place. The departure 
for a time of Mr James Mitchell evoked the warmest feel- 
ings of respect and affection for him from all the converts, 
the pupils, and the friends of the mission. 

In December 1853 Mr Wazir Beg* was licenced a 
preacher. On the 27th January following he opened a 
Hindustani school for Mohammedans in the city. About 
forty boys joined it, a large number, considering; the peculiar 
difficulty everywhere found to induce Mohammedans to 
consent to receive education, especially if imbued with 
Christianity. 

On Sabbath, 16th July 1854, Mr Murray Mitchell baptized 
a middle-aged woman, called Jijibai, of very respectable 
caste, but not of much intelligence. For a time, Mr 
Mitchell hesitated to administer the sealing rite, op accoupt 
of the limited knowledge the inquirer showed pf the histo- 
rical portion of the Bible. But his scruples were overcome 
by the affection she showed for Jesus. " I know nothing,** 
said she ; '* I am as dull as a clod^ but I clasp the feet of 
Jesus, I clasp them to my breast.*' Her husband was a 
Christian, having been baptized in 185 1. It is the practice 
of Hindoo families while they work to relieve the tedium pf 
their occupation by singing ; their ditties on such occasiops 
are always grossly idolatrous, and sometimes morally offen- 
sive. Mr Mitchell requested her husband to write down 
verbatim the words which she now sung, and he related 
that they were these : — 

** To my poor house a stranger has come, 
Even King Jesus, the darling of heaven, 
« I run to bid Him welcome. 

* About a year afterwards Mr Wacir Beg visited Scotland. He ultimately joined 
the United Presbyterian Church, and is now, we believe, in Australia. He lately 
published an excellent book on Presbyterian ism, and we were j^lad to perceive, 
from a donation of his, if we rightly remember, o( £$ to the Poonah mission, that he 
had not forgotten the institution in which he had received the great boon of a reli^ 
gious education. 



268 POONAM. 

** With gods of stone what more have I to do I 
I clasp my Saviour's feet ; 
My soul clings to Jesus. 

" The Lord of all is my Father now, 
Jesus is my brother now, 
I shall not want. 

*' Since I clasped Thy feet to my bosom, 
Rich, rich am I, O Jesus ! 
Oh, leave me never I " 

When the examination of the mission school was in pro- 
gress in 1854, Lord Elphinstone, the Governor of Bombay, 
entered unsolicited, and remained a full hour, taking deep 
interest in the proceedings. Whilst explaining that his visit 
was in no respect official, he yet personally expressed his 
warm wish for the prosperity of the Poonah and the other 
institutions designed to spread the truth. 

The same year two very interesting baptisms took place. 
One of the most courageous Christian officers in India was 
Brigadier Mackenzie, who with his talented lady has done 
much to spread the gospel in the East Having been one 
of the heroes and prisoners in Afifghanistan, during our 
disastrous occupation of that mountain region, he had many 
acquaintances and friends quite outside the Indian empire. 
Among others there was a Persian, or Kuzzilbash,* called 
Aga Mohammed Khan, whom the brigadier placed in 
charge of the Poonah mission about the year 1850. Four 
years later the Aga was baptized, and his wife, formerly a 
bigoted Mussulmanee, but now giving good evidence of her 
having received the truth in the love of it, was admitted 
into the Church along with her husband in November 1854. 
The ancestors of Aga Mohammed had been high in the 
service of Nadir Shah, when that ferocious conqueror wag in 
the zenith of his fame. 

Under Mr Murray Mitchell's auspices, the institution 

*• The Kuzzilbashes of AfTghanistan were followers of the celebrated Persian con- 

aiieror, Nadir Shah. Most of them were, to a certain extent, on the British side 
uring^e Affghan struggle. 



PJiOGRESS. 269 

wonderfully flourished. In 1855, he mentioned that there 
were now in it 250 pupils. It was, therefore, unpleasantly 
crowded. Adding those from the vernacular schools, there 
were altogether about 900 pupils under instruction. In the 
fall of 1855, the Rev. James Mitchell again returned to 
Poonah. While at home, he had issued an appeal* for funds 
to supply some of the wants of the mission. ;^iooo were 
asked for additional buildings, between ;^4oo and ;^5oo 
for apparatus, and from twenty to thirty scholarships at 
jQ^, I OS. each per annum. Though of what was sought 
only a portion was at the time obtained, yet his visit home 
proved an aid to the Poonah mission. t A new source of 
income about this time became available, though at first it 
was but of trifling amount ; in other words, most of the 
vernacular pupils began to pay fees. None could yet be 
exacted from the students of English in the institution, 
because the pupils in the Government College paid none, 
and had the benefit of eighty scholarships. 

At the examination of the Poonah institution, at the end 
of 1855, both the Revs. Dr Duff and Wilson were present. 
Dr Dufl" spoke for an hour and a quarter an address 
described as well fitted to conciliate and impress the 
audience, which was one of a very interesting character, 
consisting as it did of the elite of the Government College 
youth, all the native professors who knew English, and the 
mission pupils. . 

On the 24th of February 1856, regular Marathi preaching 
in the city in a large room was begun, and a commodious 
hall fitted for the institution was rented from a high 
Brahman — a wonderful thing to occur in such a focus of 
caste pride as Poonah. The boarding-school was also 
flourishing. Mr Kinnaird Mitchell mentioned that the 

* In the apoeal, Mr Mitchell mentioned that of the zoo,ooo inhabitants, more than 
30,000 were Brahmans. 

t When Mr Mitchell left home, £63,^ had been collected for btiildines, and eight or 
ten scholarships of £j^ zos. each annually had been obtained. The number was 
afterwards increased to twelve. 



270 POONAH, 

girls were occupied about an equal time in lessons and at 
work, and regularly took a walk across the beautiful plain 
before the mission premises under the care of their matron 
and peon.* They are kept in constant employment, as 
several ladies — some of them from a distance — send orders 
to be executed in school. At the ladies* bazaar, the speci- 
mens of crochet and sewing were approved, and, what was 
better, purchased. 

In November 1856, Mr Mitchell baptized two adult 
women, both of good caste, and about the same time the 
missionaries were greatly gratified to learn that the magis* 
trate, Mr Duncan Davidson, had prohibited the cruel and 
superstitious practice of hook swinging throughout the 
Poonah coUectoiatc.t 

About the end of 1856, the mission sustained a loss by 
the return to Europe by medical orders of the Rev. W. 
Kinnaird Mitchell, and that with little hope of his ever 
being able to return to India. The Rev. James Wardrop 
Gardner, ordained on October i, 1856, was sent out in his 
room* 



CHAPTER V. 

AFTER THE MUTINIES. 

Everywhere in India, during 1857! and 1858, there was 
an uprising of the adherents of the false faiths in that land 
against Christians. As a specimen of the disposition tfaea 

* The word peon is very difficult to translate. In fact, there is n« eonrespondinc 
term in the English language. Peons are petty native officials, who wear belts as a 
badge of their connection with Government, or with some respectable autlumty. 
Policemen, beadles, and janitors, are all peons in the East. 

t A coUectorate, it should be mentioned, is about the size of an En^sh county, or 
shire. 

X In connection with the mutinies, it maybe remarked, that the 78th Highlanders* 
who did good service in protecting Calcutta, and fought with great bravery in all 
General Havelock's battles, had shortly before been attendants on the mission 
Church in Poonah. General Havelock himself, though a Baptist, was n hearer of 
Mr Mitchell's for several years when at Poonah, and communicated with the 
Presbyterian ZQw^f zziXxon.— Missionary Record ^ Feb. 1858. 



PERSECUTION OF A NATIVE PREACHER. 27I 

prevalent to maltreat the professors of our holy religion, the 
following incident deserves record : — A convert of the 
Bombay mission, called Mr Ramachandra, being originally 
from the Deccan, found the relaxing air of the Concan 
hurtful to his health, and removed in consequence tempo- 
rarily to Poonah, where he taught a class in the institution, 
besides preaching in the streets. A number of young men 
returning from a Government office found him engaged 
in the latter duty, and attacked him, pulling him about and 
casting him again and again on the ground, launching at 
him all the while the most abusive language. They were 
even heard to say that could they find him by himself 
without any protection, they would kill him ontright. Hap- 
pily there appeared at this critical moment constables, who 
not merely rescued Ramachandra, but arrested some of his 
assailants, and took them to prison. The head of the city 
police, a Parsee, was, as Mr Mitchell gladly acknowledged, 
most anxious that all connected with the mission should 
receive adequate protection. A native preacher, it should 
be added, is much more likely to be assaulted when he is 
labouring alone than when he has the companionship of a 
European missionary. 

In the report to the Assembly of 1859, it was mentioned 
that there were 856 pupils in the Poonah schools, that four 
adult baptisms had taken place during the year, and that 
the native Church now consisted of forty-five members. At 
the end of the year. Lord Elphinstone was again at the exa- 
mination, and this tim€ gave the prizes away. There were 
then 289 names on the roll of the institution. 

In one of the early months of i860, Mr James Mitchell 
was again ordered home. Before departing, he, on the 13th 
May, baptized no fewer than thirteen converts. Three 
were girls from the boarding-school, and the rest inquirers 
either from the general population, or from the poor asylum. 
As on the former occasion, the Rev. Dr J. Murray Mitchell 
supplied his place at Poonah. 



272 POONAH. 

The mission had led the way in female education, but by 
this time the natives themselves were more and more 
decidedly engaging in the work, and one of the Poonah 
Sirdars (noblemen), Moro Rughoonath Dhumdherrey, Esq., 
handed over a school to the superintendence of the Free 
Church agents, whilst continuing to pay its expenses.* 
With this addition, the female scholars in charge of the 
mission were, at the examination on Friday, 31st August 
i860, 187. All castes were admissible, though at that time 
there happened to be no outcastes in the schools. The 
pupils were chiefly Brahman and Marathi girls, with a few 
Mussulmanees. 

Mr MitchelFs great ability as a teacher told on the mis- 
sion, as it had done on the previous occasion, and on the 
26th October i860, he was able to intimate that there were 
about 440 studying English in the institution, more than 
two- thirds of them Brahmans. Upwards of 100 more 
were learning Marathi. A school at Indapore was peti- 
tioned for by the inhabitants — the former one having been 
abandoned ; and so eager were the people for it, that they 
intimated their willingness to pay fees, as did the Mussul- 
mans of Poonah, if a Hindoostanee school were set up. 
Even without these additions, the mission had then under 
its charge about 800 pupils, there having been an increase 
of between 200 and 300 since Mr Murray Mitchell's arrival 
from Bombay, a few months before. By the Assembly of 
1 86 1, the pupils were 976. The female scholars had in- 
creased to fully 250, being an augmentation of sixty during 
the previous year. 

On November 5, Dr Murray Mitchell admitted to the 
Church a man and his wife. The wife was the Ayah (seiyant) 

* The female schools of the mission were then six in number, viz. : — 

Pupils. 
X. The Orphanage and Boarding School in the mission ** compound," 34 



3. One day school in the Sudder Bazaar, containing • • • 35 

'5 
X87 



3, 4, and 5. Three schools in the city, Z03 

6. More Kughoonath Dhumdherrey 's school. 



INTERIOR OF THE INSTITUTION. 2/3 

of a lady, and had visited England. The man, Premdas, 
was a Gosavi (religious mendicant), aged apparently about 
46, and who had numerous disciples, whose minds must 
naturally have been affected by the departure from Hin- 
doo! sm of their teacher. Three boarding-school girls had 
shortly before been baptized. 

About this time a party of visitors having gone to see the 
institution, one of their number, a lady, gave a graphic 
description of what she witnessed. The building, as she 
learned, had once been the dwelling of the chief officer of 
the court of the Peishwa, and when once she and her com- 
panions had made their way along the dark and narrow pas- 
sage into the hall, they found the latter spacious enough. 
A row of pillars ran down the centre, supporting the ceiling, 
both pillars and ceiling being carved in the most elaborate 
style, in a dark wood of high polish. This contrasted finely 
with the white-washed walls and the white dresses of the 
boys, who were ranged in two or three rows along the whole 
length of the building. The intelligence they showed was 
very remarkable. On a question being asked by one of the 
party as to the caste of the boys, Dr Mitchell addressing 
*the class, said — ** Let all the Mussulmans stand up.'* One 
or two stood up. " Let all who are not Brahmans stand 
up." Again a very few got up. ** Now, let the Brahmans 
stand up," whereupon nearly the whole sprung to their feet, 
seeming to think it a very good joke. 

On the 28th September 1862, a girl called Ramee, aged 
twelve, from the boarding-school, died. She had been 
found by the police abandoned, in a very neglected state, 
at a place called Kandala, about eighty miles from Poonah. 
The. police, who believed that she had been stolen from her 
parents, not knowing where to send her, gave her to the 
missionaries. She was at first afraid to look any one in the 
face, but by and by, encouraged by kindness, she gave her 
narrative, which was a painful one. She had been in the 
hands of gypsies, who, finding that she was not 'an apt 



274 POONAM. 

enough scholar for their purpose, branded and then aban- 
doned her. The Juvenile Missionary Association in Dr 
Tweedie*s congregation, at the suggestion of Mrs James 
Cunningham, undertook her support She seemed after 
a time to come under the influence of divine grace, and was 
baptized in the early part of 1862, but before the end of 
the year, she became a great sufferer from boils, and finally 
died, as already mentioned, on the 28th September. 

On the nth January 1863, Mr James Mitchell baptized 
four natives. One of these was a blind man, of Mussulman 
extraction. Another was a Kunbi cultivator, a third was 
a woman also of the Kunbi caste, who took refuge in the 
Mission-house, having on her way thrown her household 
gods into a well. 

The sphere among the young Brahmans of Poonah had 
now become so great and important, that it was necessary 
that further aid should be sent from home, and Mr John 
Small, who for four years ' previously had been teacher ot 
the Free Church school at Aberuthven, having been ap- 
pointed to the Poonah institution, left Gravesend in the 
Windsor Castle on the 27th July 1863. He reached 
Poonah on Wednesday, 7th December. 

On 7th September 1864, a young man called Krishna, 
of the Goundi or Mason caste, was baptized. He had pre- 
viously stood against the efforts of his female relatives and 
others to shake his resolution. With their tears, loud 
outcries, falling at the feet, tearing of hair, &c., in short, such 
a spectacle as deeply affects a European missionary, 
Krishna was but little moved, believing it to be in the main 
hypocritical acting, " That it was so in this case," says Mr 
James Mitchell, " seemed very evident ; for when they found 
that, notwithstanding all their waitings, he (Krishna) stood 
firm, they changed their tactics and poured on him all the 
imprecations and curses they could devise." His wife and 
child were taken from him as a punishment for his embrac- 
ing Christianity. 



DEATH OF REV, JAMES MITCHELL, 275 

At the annual examination of the girls' schools, Lady 
Frere, wife of Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of Bombay, was 
present, as were his Highness the ex- Ameer of Scinde, the 
sons of Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, the Hon. Jugannath 
Shunkersett, and other influential natives. The mission 
had then one female boarding and six day schools, with an 
aggregate of 310 pupils. In the former were twenty-three 
boarders and seven day scholars. Formerly Mrs Mitchell 
was the superintendent, but now Mrs Gardner had taken her 
place. 

On 1 2th March 1865, Mr Mitchell baptized two people. 
The case of one was interesting. He was originally of the 
Kayasta (writer) caste, a very respectable one in India, 
and containing among its members, Chundu Lai, then prime 
minister of the Hyderabad State. He had become a Gosavi 
(a religious monk and mendicant), but becoming disgusted 
with this mode of life, had again betaken himself to secular 
employment. He was about thirty-five years of age when 
he was baptized. 

One source of support for the female schools at Poonah 
arose from boxes of fancy work sent out by the Ladies* 
Society and other friends at home. These were forwarded 
alternately to Poonah and Nagpore, or were shared between 
the two ; and at one of the sales — that held towards the end 
of 1865— Sir Bartle and Miss Frere, with the stafif of the 
former, came and made purchases. ;^24o were realised. 
About the same time the Rev. Mr with Mrs Angus arrived 
at Bombay, on his road to Poonah, where, however, in 
providence, it was ordered that he should supply a vacancy 
instead of adding another to the number of the ordained 
missionaries. 

In 1866, the long missionary career of Mr James Mitchell 
came to a close. He expired on the heights of Matheran 
on the 28th of March, after a short illness. 

" lie died," says the Rev. Dr Wilson, •* in the full exercise of all his 
mental and spiritual faculties, and in the possession of perfect rest and 



276 POONAH. 

peace in Jesus, and joy in the salvation of his God. Mrs Mitchell, his 
eldest daughter, Dr Fraser, and Mr Small were present with him when 
the solemn event occurred, and they were all (jreatly comforted by wit- 
nessing the triumph of his faith in the Redeemer." 

Mr Mitchell was the oldest of the missionaries. He was 
about sixty-six when he died ; and with the exception of 
two short visits home, had laboured in India continuously 
for the long period of forty-three years. Though his talents 
were not remarkable, yet his perseverance in labour, his 
amiability, and his devoted piety, won all around him, and 
sincere regret was expressed by many, from Sir Bartle Frere, 
Governor of Bombay, downwards, when the news arrived of 
his death. A forecast of this sorrow was given when he was 
compelled to go temporarily home in 1853. A correspon- 
dent thus wrote of him — 

**His praise is on all sides around. It is quite astonishing to find 
one who long occupied, in several respects, a critical and difficult post 
all alone, and evidently was never afraid to raise his testimony on behalf 
of the highest principle, universally esteemed and beloved. His down- 
right candour made all respect him, even in rebuke, and his warm heart 
made him a bosom friend of many through the presidency, but especially 
in and around Poonah. The native congregation look on him emphati- 
cally as a father, and many were the tears shed at his departure. ..." 



CHAPTER VI. 

AFTER MR MITCHELL'S DEATH. 

After the death of Mr James Mitchell, Mr Gardner became 
the head of the Poonah mission, with Mr Angus, recently 
arrived, and Mr Small, an unordained missionary teacher. 
A girl — Savitri — soon afterwards baptized from the board- 
ing school, took the name of Margaret Mitchell, in grateful 
remembrance of Mrs James Mitchell, who had been very 
kind to her ; whilst another, who had been found standing 
solitary and helpless in the mission ** compound" in i860, 
and who, from her wild, gipsy-like character, had been called 



GRAMTS'IN-AID, 2/7 

Topsy, after the negress of that name in Mrs Beecher 
Stowe's well-known fiction, " Uncle Tom's Cabin,'* was, at 
her own request, called Maria Cunningham — Maria, after 
Mrs Murray Mitchell, who placed her in the school, and 
Cunningham, in gratitude to Mrs James Cunningham of 
Edinburgh, who had sent her support. Of three baptisms 
(not from the boarding school) which took place soon after- 
wards, two were interesting from this circumstance, that the 
man Bapoo was a Mahratta, properly so called, and con- 
nected with the noble family of Shirakay, and his wife 
Gunga, with the royal house of Bhonslah. 

Before the end of 1866, Government had begun to give 
grants to the educational operations of the mission, a boon 
which might have been expected to be bestowed some 
years before. The sums paid were — 





Rupees. 


Anilas. 


Central Institution . 


2419 





Mussulman School . 


53 


8 


City Marathi School . 


109 





Camp Marathi School 


46 






Total . . . 2627 8 

Or about £262, 14s. 6d. sterling. Nothing was bestowed 
on the female schools ; in fact, nothing had been asked, for 
it was felt to be useless, unless certain Government rules 
for grants-in-aid first underwent modification. Though 
unassisted, the girls' schools were doing a good work, and 
elicited the comm^dation of Miss Carpenter when she 
visited them in company with Sir Alexander and Lady 
Grant. The boarding-school was very helpful to the Church, 
nine of the elder girls being communicants, and acting in a 
manner befitting their profession. A woman who had 
received her first religious impression when in the service of 
Lady Grant, was admitted to the Church by baptism, Sir 
Alexander and Lady Grant, with Miss Carpenter, being 
present on the interesting occasion. 

On Sabbath, 4th November 1866, a session was formed 

(891) 19 



278 POONAH. 

for the native Church, Dr Wilson having previously come 
to Poonah for the purpose of ordaining elders. Those set 
apart on the occasion were the Rev. Mr Gardner, the Rev. 
Mr Angus, and Mr Bapu Bhairava. The last named is the 
only one of the three who has not yet been introduced to 
our readers* notice. He was an old man of seventy-five, a 
sub-overseer and account keeper of the Poonah Camp Pool's 
Asylum. He died next year, "calling on the name of 
Christ, and saying he was going home." 

In June 1867, the Rev. James Patcrson, a Free Church 
minister, who had been shortly before appointed harbour 
missionary in Bombay, visited Poonah, and addressed 
the pupils assembled for a religious service or Sabbath- 
school on the Lord's-day morning. Mr Paterson suggested 
that the addresses should be continued, if possible, a variety 
of speakers being secured. The suggestion being acted on, 
Dr Young spoke on Sabbath morning, July 7, and Colonel 
Field on the 14th. The novelty of an officer of high rank 
coming to address the students drew together a number of 
young men from the Government College no less than from 
the mission institution, to whom the Colonel spoke with 
great power and faithfulness. On the 21st, Captain Jacob 
made the address, on the 28th Colonel Phayre, the Quarter- 
master-General, and Colonel Kirby the week afterwards. 
The Rev. Narayan Sheshadri was to appear next, and then 
several officers were to take their turns. Other missions 
might well imitate this simple but highly promising method 
of laying the truth with effect before the opening minds of 
the Hindoo youths. 

Soon afterwards, loss of health compelled Mr Gardner 
of Poonah to pay a temporary visit home, from which he 
returned in 1869. Messrs Angus and Small had carried on 
the work with energy in his absence ; and the latter, having 
turned his thoughts towards the ministry, was studying with' 
the view of his becoming a missionary. His ordination 
took place in St Andrew's Church, Bombay, towards the 



THE OLD MISSION HOUSE TAKEN DOWN. 2/9 

close of 1869, his "trials " having been sustained with high 
approbation, especially his Marathi discourse, on which 
high encomiums were passed for its simplicity, its idiomatic 
purity, and the excellent pronunciation with which it was 
delivered. 

About the same time a mournful but inevitable adieu had 
to be paid to the old Mission -house. There the native 
Church had been cradled, and nurtyred in its infancy, till 
now it had grown up to the goodly stature of possessing 
about eighty communicants. For more than thirty years, 
also, the English congregation had met within the same 
building, and had contracted hallowed associations for the 
place in which they had assembled. Still there were 
reasons for bidding it adieu ; so after there had been a 
communion in the native congregation, presided over by the 
Rev, Baba Padmanji, who had recently been elected its 
pastor ; and after a second service — one with the English 
congregation — had concluded with the intimation that there 
would not be any more preaching there, the house was 
finally vacated. Soon the pickaxe and tlie hammers were 
at work upon the walls, and the process of demolition 
began. When the thatch and cloth ceiling were removed, 
and the daylight streamed in, it then became apparent that 
it had not been abandoned a day too soon, and that those 
who had for some time back been afraid to enter it were not 
without justification for their fears. The cracked and 
gaping walls, and the broken joists and rafters, showed that 
it would have been a tempting of providence to have 
remained any longer. A grant was obtained from the home 
Church to aid in the erection of a more substantial building. 
The new Mission-house was not long in being put up. 
When completed, it was occupied by Mr and Mrs Gardner. 
The new ^hurch, which was erected chiefly by means of 
contributions from friends in India, was opened for public 
worship on January 1, 187 1. 

In June 187 1, a pupil in the English school, called 



280 POONAH. 

Digambar, a milkman by caste, sought baptism, his rela- 
tives and friends behaving in the way of which the earlier 
history of the several missions furnishes so many painM 
instances, but which, it was hoped, was becoming rarer with 
the increase of enlightenment in the land. A short time 
afterwards, Mr Baba baptized a sepoy. 

That year, the Poonah mission sustained two serious 
losses : Mrs Angus, whp had admirably discharged her re- 
sponsible duties as the wife of a missionary, but had been 
sent to her native land to recruit her shattered health, died 
at Rothesay on the 26th September, and Mr Gardner, who 
had again been ordered to Europe, was so worn out by his 
labour in India that he was not likely to be again in a state 
to labour with effect in that land. On finding that he would 
be unable to return, the Rev. Mr Beaumont of Chinsurah, 
temporarily at home as an invalid, volunteered to transfer 
his services to the Poonah mission, and his offer being 
thankfully accepted by the Committee, he, with his wife, 
sailed for Bombay on 6th February of the ensuing year. 
Mrs Beaumont subsequently took charge of the boarding- 
school, to which, during many years, Mrs Gardner had ren- 
dei-ed most effective service. In the Assembly report for 
1872, the pupils of the Poonah mission were set down at 434. 

Who, when the Peishwas were in the height, of their 
glory, and the Mahratta confederacy had, in the opinion of 
some, a better prospect than ourselves of obtaining the 
sovereignty of India, would have dared to forecast the 
establishment, the progress, and ultimately the gratifying 
success of the Poonah mission ? 



CHAPTER VII. 

S ATTARA. 

The town of Sattara is situated in the Deccan, a little east 
from the Syhadree hills, about 115 miles in a straight line 



THE SATTARA MISSION. 28 1 

south-east from Bombay, and 55 south from Poonah. It was 
the capital of Seevajee and his immediate successors till the 
first of the independent Peishwas get up his court at 
Poonah. The town of Sattara is not large. It lies in a 
valley dominated by the fort, which is on the summit of an 
adjacent hill. On the death of the last Rajah in 1848 
without lineal descendents, the principality was held to 
lapse to the British Government. Then a claimant started 
up, and made great efforts here and in India to obtain the 
sovereignty, but all in vain. We saw him received at Nag- 
pore by the Rajah at a torch-light procession, in which there 
was a march of horses, some with silver and some with 
golden trappings, whilst the howdahs or seats on the backs 
of the elephants shone resplendent with crystal. But, not- 
withstanding all this display, the small British fort crowning 
Seetabuldee hill remained grimly silent, and would not by 
thundering forth a salute acknowledge the claimant king. 

Sattara was occupied by Mr Aitken about the year 
1850. He had some difficulty at times in raising money to 
carry on his operations, the European population being too 
small to furnish him with adequate supplies. Indeed, he 
was generally dependent on friends at a distance, and at one 
time received pecuniary assistance for his evangelistic work 
from Sir Henry Havelock, and at another from Mr (now Sir 
Bar tie) Frere. The whole labour of a school containing 
200 pupils for the most part devolved on himself. 

This school was for years held in a house so low that Mr 
Aitken's head nearly touched the roof, while the temperature 
occasionally stood at 1 1 5'. An effort was made to obtain a 
large building capable of accommodating 1000, which had 
been a residence of the late prime minister of the Rajah, 
but it was resolutely refused, that it might not be " polluted 
by a filthy beef-eater." In August 1852, however, Rajaduya, 
a youth whom the late Rajah of Sattara wished to adopt as 
his heir, came in great state to see the exaniination of the 
school. The British Commissioner advised him to become 



282 POONAH. 

a pupil, which he did, and then, beef-eating notwithstanding, 
the building so long refused was given, and that at the 
extremely moderate rate of ;;^i5 per annum. 

Towards the end of 1858, when it became evident that 
the health of Mr Hislop would speedily necessitate his tem- 
porary return to Europe, steps were taken to supply his place 
for a season. It was thought that the best method of 
meeting the difficulty would be to send Mr White to Nag- 
pore, bringing Mr Aitken to Bombay to supply his place,* 
and abandoning Sattara as a Free Church station. The 
arrangement was carried out, and Sattara was given up. We 
ar« not aware that Mr Aitken baptized any natives during 
the years in which he laboured there. The popular belief 
was that he demanded too high a standard from applicants 
for the sacred ordinance, and that they, becoming ultimately 
tired of waiting, asked and received baptism from other 
missions. No work done for Christ is ultimately abortive, 
and it cannot be doubted that there were and must have 
been permanent results from the temporary Sattara mission. 



CHAPTER VII r. 

THE RURAL MISSION AT INDAPORE AND JAULNA. 

Our own view is clear and decided that, for an attack on 
the caste hierarchy of the great Indian cities, street preach- 
ing has been found comparatively powerless, and that no 
method of evangelistic operations has in efficiency ap- 
proached the ** institution '* system. But India being 
an agricultural, and not a commercial, much less a manu- 
facturing country, the cities are proportionately far fewer in 
number, and, with a few exceptions, are smaller in popula- 
tion that those of Britain, so that the list of places in which 

♦ Mr Aitken's connection with the Free Church mission ceased in October 1868, 
and hs died in India in 1870. 



A RURAL MISSION PROJECTED. 283 

a powerful institution can exist (outside of Lower, Bengal at 
least) is very limited. The great mass of the Hindoos, then, 
must be evangelised by preaching. Though it is, of course, 
impossible to state spiritual results in mathematical formulae, 
yet founding our view on past experience, we believe it an 
approximation to the truth to say that the power of an 
efficiently conducted " institution " is in the direct ratio of 
the size of the city in which it exists, while the influence of 
preaching, as tested by the number and character of the 
baptisms, is in the inverse ratio of the magnitude of the 
town or village in which the gospel has been proclaimed. 
In other words, preaching has been more successful in the 
towns than in the cities, in the villages than in the towns, 
and in the hamlets tenanted by the wild tribes than in the 
villages. Again, while the success of the institutions has 
been mainly among Brahmans, or, at the least, Sudras of 
respectable position, that of preaching has been greatest 
among the despised outcastes, whether subdued and thrust 
down to the lowest part of Hindoo society, or still wild 
among the woods and hills. 

When, therefore, it was resolved to establish a mission in 
which preaching, specifically so called, should be the para- 
mount method of operations, the locality judiciously selected 
was among towns and villages, so much so that it was 
called, though not with perfect accuracy, "rural/* There 
had for a long time been, and there still continues to be, a 
mission of the very kind contemplated, that of the Ameri^ 
cans at Ahmednugger, in the Deccan. The brethren there, 
who at first gave prominence in their arrangements to educa- 
tion, afterwards completely altered their system, and directed 
almost their entire energies to preaching. In the Mis- 
sionary Record ioT January 1861 there was a letter from Dr 
J. Murray Mitchell, who, in company with Narayan Shes- 
hadri and two other converts, had just visited the Ahmed- 
nugger mission, on occasion of the jubilee of the American 
Board and was much struck by the sight, 300 out of the 



284 POONAH, 

400 and more* converts of the mission having come from 
the villages where they lived to take part in the celebration. 
Dr Mitchell expressed the strong desire that a similar mis- 
sion could be set up in the villages near Poonah. In the 
winter of 1 861-1862 he visited Jaulna, where two of the 
native agents of the Bombay Free Church Mission had 
laboured for several months, and found some fruits of their 
exertions still remaining t — {Free Church Missionary Record^ 
1863, p. 222). In a subsequent letter, dated January 23, 
1862, he said that a serious error, he thought, had been 
committed in allowing the work at Indapore and Jaulna to 
be interrupted, and stated that Mr Narayan Sheshadri would 
soon proceed to one or other of the stations just mentioned 
with the view of recommencing operations. Evidently Dr 
Mitchell was the prime mover in the revival of the mission 
over which the Rev. Narayan Sheshadri % now presides. In 
1862 also, Indapore was selected as the first seat of the 
mission, and in the month of May operations were actively 
commenced. § A vernacular school was set up, to which 
Mahars, after some demur, sent their children, and a col- 
porteur, Hira Singh, was sent to sell Testaments and tracts. 
Once a month Narayan preached to the British engineers 
and labourers employed on the railway at some distance 
from Indapore. After eight months' advocacy of female 
education, he next established a female school Three 
months after it was begun thirty-five were in attendance, 
all girls of caste. Narayan, in addition to taking the 
religious part of the teaching in the ordinary school, 
instructed also between sixty and eighty children of the 



♦ " The converts," Dr Mitchell says, "are above 400, and of late theirntunber 
has been rapidly increasing. The influence spreads among the lowest castes, but is 
hardly perceptible among the middle and upper classes." 

t One of these, Mr Haldane Jenwick, was sent to Jaulna as early as the autumn 
of 1855, and was supported by Christian officers at the station. 

X We remember with affection and esteem Narayan Sheshadri when we had 
Christian intercourse with him at Bombay many years ago, and, as before stated, 
believe him to be one of the most valuable converts which God has ever given to any 
Indian mission. 

i It was estimated that by this time Indapore had increased to 10,000 inhabitants. 



RURAL MISSION AT INDAPORE AND JAULNA. 28$ 

lower classes from the Word of God, in two ragged schools 
which he had set up. A rich Hindoo merchant soon after- 
wards paid for the establishment of a second female school. 
Two catechists, the one Premdas and the other the colpor- 
teur Hira Singh, were sent to labour in and around Jaulna.* 
. In 1863, Rawji Mulhari, a trained apothecary, who had 
served under Government for many years, and who, with 
his whole family, was baptized by Dr Murray Mitchell, 
was engaged by Mr Sheshadri as a native medical mis- 
sionary for Indapore and Jaulna. Indapore was divided 
into five districts for preaching purposes. In 1863 the 
baptism of a middle-aged Brahman, called Madhoo Rao 
Rajaram, was reported. He was originally of the immoral 
sect of Shaktas, or worshippers of the goddess Devi. In 
1864 Hira Singh's wife was received into the Church. 
Narayan reported that he was in the habit of keeping the 
week of prayer requested by the Evangelical Alliance. So 
utterly has he flung from him the fetters of caste pedigree 
that, speaking of the " higher" and the lower classes, he 
says — " I use this word for the sake of convenience, I 
myself acknowledge no such distinction." At the first 
Christian marriage which took place in the mission, about 
400, including the leading inhabitants, were invited to be 
present, and came, when Narayan showed them how much 
of British prosperity was to be traced to the honour acceded 
in our land to woman. An Anglo vernacular school was 
soon after set up in Indapore. 

Twice a year Narayan visited Jaulna, and found it more 
disposed to receive the truth than Indapore. In 1865 there 
were in the Church at Jaulna twenty-one in full communion, 
two suspended, twenty-three baptized children, and about 
twelve in the class of catechumens, That at Indapore, at 

• Jaulna is a cantonment 235 miles S W of Nagpore* a"d 2»o N.E. of Bombay 
The military force located there, which is under British officers, is designed to serve 
(or, if need be, to control) our ancient friend and^Uy the Nizam of Hyderabad. The 
population of Jaulna fluctuates according to the number of troops at the time there. 
In the native city of Jaulna there are about zo,ooo people, and at Khaderabad, 
two miles S. W. of the cantonment, about 7000 more. 



286 POONAH, 

the same time, consisted of ten members in full communion, 
eight baptized children, one suspended, and eight unbap- 
tized children, wards of the mission. 

On a visit to Jaulna in August 1863, Narayan baptized 
thirteen adults and five children, and on a second one, half 
a year later, eleven adults and five children. On the latter 
of these tours he asked contributions from some Europeans 
to enable him to set up schools at certain places along the 
line of route, and at Jaulna itself he wished to establish a 
school for the benefit of the converts, few of whom were 
able to read, or if they were too old to learn, at least for 
their children. Most of the converts, he stated, belonged 
to the lowest of the low, by which he meant that they were 
Mahar or Mang outcastes. The appeal was successful, and 
the normal school which he sought to establish was begun. 

It having been apparently urged upon Mr Narayan firom 
home that he should, if possible, try to make the several 
stations self-supporting, he said that if he were aided five 
years from the time he wrote — the end of 1865 or the 
beginning of 1866 — he might perhaps by that time succeed 
in doing so. His wife, he mentioned, understood farming, 
and, having secured a field, and entertaining expectations 
of obtaining two or three more, she had given him 75 
rupees {£t, ios.) in one year for missionary purposes, and 
45 (;^4> IOS.) the next The Church at Jaulna had by this 
time increased to sixty-two souls. 

In about four years from the first foundation of the mis- 
sion Mr Narayan became popular with the natives of Inda- 
pore. He was elected president of a charitable committee, 
and of a general library. Obtaining philosophical instru- 
ments from Scotland, he made use of them in lecturing to 
the people, and found them considerably to aid him in 
reaching their hearts. Another method which he employed 
of spreading the truth is worthy of adoption in other parts 
of India. Premdas had some poetic genius, which he used 
for the cause of the Redeemer, composing Christian hymns 



RURAL MISSION A T INDAPORE AND JA ULNA, 287 

and afterwards setting them to native tunes. There was in 
connection with the mission a blind man who had a sten- 
torian voice, as also had his wife. The Christian party, 
musically led by this couple, were wont to march through 
Jaulna, Khaderabad, and other places, singing Premdas' 
hymns, while some of their number accompanied the vocal 
effort with four-stringed instruments, cymbals, and a drum. 

No money was taken, though some was offered, lest the 
party might be mistaken for ordinary street "musicians. 
By the end of 1867 the Jaulna native congregation had 
116 members and adherents, eighty-eight of them in full 
communion. Twenty-three adults had been received dur- 
ing the year. Eleven of the 116 were from the Roman 
Catholic Church. As a large number of the converts had 
no hereditary right in the villages in which they resided, 
Mr Narayan thought it would be expedient to found for 
their use a Christian village. The Nizam's Prime Minister, 
the enlightened Sir Salar Jung, was favourable to the pro- 
ject, and granted land to be rent free for twenty-five years. 
The site chosen was on a most elevated spot, visible from 
afar. The village was to be built on sanitary principles. 
Its name was to be Bethel, and pecuniary aid, it was stated, 
would be required to enable its founder to sink half-a-dozen 
wells, erect a good church, a manse, two school-houses, one 
for boys and the other for girls, an inn for strangers to 
dwell in, a market shed, an industrial shed, and construct 
macadamised roads bordered with trees. It was proposed 
that the natives should build houses at their own expense, 
but ;£iooo were asked from the committee for the purposes 
now mentioned. They having their funds pledged to other 
enterprises were unable to grant Mr Narayan's request. 
The children in the Scottish Sabbath schools were, however, 
appealed to, ;^4oo being solicited from them to build two 
school-houses and dig a well. They responded with their 
wonted enthusiasm, and raised ;^42o in place of ;£400. 

In 1871, the Rev. Sidoba Bapuji Misal, an ordained 



288 POONAH. 

missionary of the American Mission in Western India, was 
engaged by Mr Sheshadri entirely on his own responsibility^ 
and was stationed at Oomrawuttee.* Finding his support 
burdensome, Mr Narayan wished the Committee to under- 
take it, which they did, but at the same time they expressed 
the hope that the native brethren would do all in their 
power "to develop the resources of the native Church in 
the direction of ministerial support" The Indapore and 
Jaulna mission has been managed with admirable fertility of 
resource, devotion, and success ; and if the varied plans of 
its conductor have at times had to be cut down, or even set 
aside, it must be remembered, that to an extent not easily 
understood in the East, the several Church Committees 
feel difficulty in raising, within a small country like Scotland, 
and from a people who mostly feel difficulty in meeting the 
wants of their own households, the sums required to carry 
on Christian operations in their own and in many other 
lands. Not the wish of the Foreign Mission Committee, 
but the limitation of the funds in their hands, circum- 
scribes their operations. Were the means at their command, 
they would gladly take steps at once to enter all the open 
doors existing around the several mission stations in the 
great and necessitous Indian land. 

* Oomrawuttee is a town — a great cotton mart. It was into this place that great 
qua itities of money poured during the American war, of which, if report is to be 
believed, some natives made so bad a u<;e, that they haid silver instead of iron wheels 
constructed for their carts to gratify their love of display 1 



SECTION VI. 

N AGP ORE. 




CHAPTER I. 

THE PLACE AND PEOPLE. 

jEASURED in a straight line, Nagpore is 390 
miles N.E., slightly E. of Poonah j and one is 
apt to leap to the conclusion, that being so 
much further into the interior than that upland 
city, it must occupy a position very elevated above the sea, 
and be semi-European in climate. A glance at the map ot 
India will instantly dissipate such an illusion. It will be 
perceived that the watershed for Western and Central India 
runs along the summits of the Western Ghauts, which are 
on an average but 45 miles from the Arabian sea ; and all 
the rivers flow S.E., descending from near Poonah, more or 
less in the Nagpore direction, till finally they are lost in the 
distant Bay of Bengal. While Poonah, as mentioned before, 
is 1823 feet above the sea-level, Nagpore is no more than 
930. It is remote from the great centres of European en- 
lightenment, being, if the measurement be made in mathe- 
matically straight lines, 440 miles from Bombay, 565 from 
Madras, and 605 from Calcutta. Situated not far from mid- 
way between the three presidency seats, it was from the first 
perceived that, when the time for holding a Presbyterian 



290 NAG PORE. 

Synod in India arrives, Nagpore is probably the spot where, 
for the first year at least, its sittings will take place. 

In many maps of India not yet withdrawn from circula- 
tion, a large territory figures in their central portion, with 
"Berar'' printed across it in capital letters. Of this king- 
dom, Nagpore is made the capital. This geographical 
arrangement has, however, been obsolete for a great many 
years. When an Anglo-Indian uses the word Berar, he 
means, not the Nagpore country, but a cotton-growing 
territory west of it, with Ellichpore for its capital 

The region ruled over by the late Nagpore king, or by 
Gond chieftains, at least nominally in vassalage to him, 
was 368 miles long, by 278 broad, and included an area of 
76,432 square miles. It was about 2^ times as large as 
Scotland, and considerably exceeded in extent England 
and Wales. The most civilized portion of the territory was 
divided into five soobahs or provinces : — i, Deogur below 
the Ghauts, capital, Nagpore j 2, Chanda, with a capital of 
the same name; 3, Wain-Gunga, capital, Bundara; 4, Deogur 
above the Ghauts, capital, Chindwara; and 5, Chutteesgur, 
with its chief town Raepore. Besides these settled provinces, 
there were numerous fiefs, many under semi-barbarian Gond 
chiefs. The largest of these was Bustar, an unexplored 
region covered with jungles, in which it was suspected that 
human sacrifices still lingered. By our Mussulman prede- 
cessors a large portion of the Nagpore country was called 
Gondwana, or the region of the Gonds. The advent of the 
Mahrattas was a comparatively recent event — it took place 
only between one and two hundred years ago. Now, the 
mass of the inhabitants in all the five settled provinces, ex- 
cept that of Chutteesgur, are Mahrattas. In 1825, a census 
was taken, and the relative proportion of the several races 
was found to be these : — Hindoos of the Brahmanic faith, 
2,120,795; Mussulmans, 58,368; Gonds, 291,603. It is 
supposed that there are now 4,650,000, or even four and 
three quarter millions. 



NAGPORE AND ITS VICINITY. 29 1 

Nagpore city is not more than 150 years old. It was, 
until lately, the capital of the Eastern Mahrattas, but since 
its annexation to the British empire, it has become the chief 
city of the Indian ** Central Provinces." It is shaped like 
the bow of a ship with the bowsprit still adhering, the latter 
being formed by a long suburb which projects from it on 
its north-eastern side. It is so thickly planted with trees 
that on some sides one travelling past it might mistake it 
for a forest, — indeed, but for the occasional glimpse of a 
house or a temple peering through the umbrageous foliage, 
even a somewhat keen observer might fall into this illusion. 
It is, or at least used to be, filthy, even for an Indian city — 
all sanitary law being systematically set at defiance. A 
census of Nagpore, made some years ago, fixed its popula- 
tion at 1 1 1,231, 2^ per cent, of them Mussulmans. West of 
Nagpore a mile and a half, and separated from it by a large 
tank, there rises the two-topped hill of Seetabuldee, me- 
morable for the gallant and ultimately successful defence 
which a small British and Sepoy force made there on the 
26th November 181 7, against the Arabs, aided finally by 
hosts of Mahratta cavalry, treacherously instigated by our 
nominal friend and ally, Appa Saheb, then Nagpore king, 
to attack and destroy the British, in a time of profound 
peace between the two governments. The Europeans at 
Nagpore do not live in that capital itself, but at Seetabuldee. 
The Mission-house was on the slope of the hill facing the 
city. Kamptee and Seetabuldee were British territory at a 
time when the whole region round was under native rule. 

The mass of the British and sepoy troops designed, while 
the Nagpore kingdom stood, to protect, or if need arose, 
to control the Rajah, were located, not at Seetabuldee, but 
ten miles north-east, at a place called Kamptee. That mili- 
tary cantonment stretches from north-west to south-east, 
along the right bank of the Kanhan River. Its population 
fluctuates according to the number of regiments which at 
any particular time happen to be there. On the 7 th April 



292 NAGPORE. 

1837, when the forces were above the average, the inhabi- 
tants of Kamptee and the villagers connected with it were 
stated at 41,659 souls, exclusive of a fluctuating population 
of 1410, and of 5000 persons from the country, who were 
supposed to attend the weekly markets.— ^/^it/w* Report; 
also Free Church Missionary Record {ox 1843, p. 67, 

On looking, before experience was obtained at the ad- 
vantages and disadvantages of Nagpore as a mission field, 
it was needful first to make a distinction between the ex- 
ceptional spots, Kamptee and Seetabuldee on the one hand, 
and the rest of the territory on the other. At Kamptee, 
and a portion of Seetabuldee, the Hindoo races with which 
the mission would necessarily be brought in contact were 
the Tamuls and Teloogoos, who, in Southern India, had 
been found so susceptible of Christian enlightenment, while 
everywhere else the race to be encountered would be the 
Mahrattas, who, chiefly from political causes explained in 
the first chapter on Bombay, have everywhere shown them- 
selves backward in receiving the truth. To the diflSculties 
at Bombay, Poonah, Sattara, and elsewhere, would inevit- 
ably be superadded others of a character not experienced 
by the brethren at the stations just mentioned, namely, that 
the ruling power was in the hands of a heathen instead of 
a Christian Government, and it was very questionable 
whether liberty of conscience would be granted, if any 
inquirer, important enough to be a sensible loss to Hindoo- 
ism or Mohammedanism, should seek admission into the 
Church of Christ. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE COMMENCEMENT OF OPERATIONS. 

The circumstances in which the resolution was formed to 
occupy Nagpore, have already been detailed in the early 



WRECK OF A GERMAN MISSION. 293 

portion of this volume. The Rev. Stephen Hislop, the first 
missionary, was ordained in Dr Candlish's church, on Thurs- 
day, September 4, 1844. He and Mrs Hislop (the latter 
called before her marriage Miss Erasma Hull), left South- 
ampton in the Great Liverpool steamer, on the 3rd Novem- 
ber 1844. They reached Bombay in safety on the 13 th 
December, and accompanied by Mr Murray Mitchell, ap- 
pointed by the Presbytery of Bombay to be their escort, 
arrived at Nagpore on the 13th of February 1845. Their 
route had been via Poonah, Ahmednugger, Aurungabad, 
and Jaulna; a distance, if allowance be made for the 
occasional tortuousness of the roads, considered to be about 
580 miles. The gentlemen performed the greater portion 
of it on horseback. Many friends welcomed them on their 
arrival, and among others Captain Hill, the generous founder 
of the mission. Three German artisans, Messrs Bartels, 
Apler, and Voss, then at Kamptee, became assistants to 
Mr Hislop. The two former had been saved when their 
companions perished in the wreck of an agricultural 
mission.* 

Messrs Apler and Voss were sent to Seetabuldee, with 
instructions, if possible, to make it a basis of operations 
against Nagpore city. Their first efforts were not encourag- 
ing. Most of our readers must have seen a representation 

* The occurrence briefly mentioned in the text was of a very tragic character. 
About the end of Z84Z, six Germans went out to India, under the. auspices of the 
late Pastor Gossner of Berlin, to found an agricultural mission colony among the 
Gonds of Oomercuntuk, upwards of 200 miles north-east from Nagpore. They 
reached their destination on the 26th February 1842. On the 25th March, a village 
for which they had negotiated was transferred to them by the natives. They pro- 
ceeded next to build a house, cultivating at the same time the fields which they 
had acquired. They were thus engaged in the middle of June, when the rainy 
season set in. Their house was not sufficiently far advanced to keep out water, and 
disease broke forth among them. Four out of the six died, within five days of each 
other. Among those who thus perished was Mr Losh, the one ordained agent of 
the mission, and the only member of the party who had any knowledge of the 
country. The two survivors, Messrs Bartels and Apler, made their way to ^ubbulpore, 
about 156 miles north-east of Nagpore. Afterwards, on the kind invitation of Cap- 
tain Hill, they set out for Kamptee, which they reached on the 4th February 1843. 
Ultimately, with the sanction of the Home Committee, they were associated with 
the Nagpore mission. Meanwhile a third German, Mr Voss, had arrived to reinforce 
the original party, and he also, finding the agricultural mission abapdoned, sought 
a connection with the Free Church and Mr Hislop.— -^rr«f Church Missionary 
Record, 1847 48, pp. 513, 5x4- ^^ 

(801) 20 



294 NAGPORB. 

of the ten incarnations of Vishnoo. Nine of these are con- 
sidered as already past, while the tenth is still to come. 
Some Brahmans and other Hindoos in Nagpore city and 
elsewhere, having formed the opinion that the tenth advent 
was immediately to be expected, broke their castes in pre* 
paration for the happy event, and from the Kalki avatar or 
incarnation which they waited for, they were termed 
Kalankees. The orthodox Hindoos considered their views 
as to the tenth advent erroneous, and their procedure in 
breaking their castes sin of the worst kind, and, in conse- 
quence, persecuted them considerably. It was just when 
the excitement was about the greatest, that Messrs Apler 
and Voss appeared upon the scene, and in the crass ignor- 
ance of the nature of Christianity then prevailing in the city, 
they too were dubbed Kalankees, and were supposed to 
aim at breaking castes, in preparation for the tenth avatar. 
Mr Voss returned from the city on one occasion, with the 
marks of four large stones upon his hat; these, it need 
Scarcely be added, had been flung at him by members of 
the orthodox party. In such circumstances it was deemed 
prudent for the German brethren to forbear entering the 
city for a time. Mr Bartels, who had been located at 
Kamptee, had a much more tranquil sphere. He was given 
the oversight of the small Tamul congregation, and the 
superintendence of the educational operations of the mission 
in Kamptee. It is necessary here to explain how these 
originally begun. 

When Mr Hislop first reached Kamptee, he found there 
a small Christian school, conducted on an unsectarian basis 
by a committee of officers. These gentlemen considered 
that the object for which they had commenced the school 
would best be served by transferring it to the mission, 
handing over along with it the building in which it was held. 
Before the committee took this decisive action they very 
properly sent a circular to those who had contributed to the 
erection of the original building, but failed to find among 



OPERA TIONS A T ICAMPTEE, 29S 

them a dissentient voice as to the propriety of the measure 
which they recommended. The original edifice speedily 
becoming too small for the school under its new manage- 
ment, was ultimately converted into a house for the teacher, 
and the mission built adjacent to it a new and larger one in 
which the school has ever since been conducted. Mr 
Bartels, as already mentioned, was requested to take charge 
of the Kamptee school when first the mission received it, 
and did so cheerfully, but alas ! his labour in it soon ter- 
minated. He died on the i6th August 1845. The im- 
pression made on Mr Voss by the fatality which seemed to 
track the footsteps of the Germans in Central India was 
such that it told on his physical and mental health. H^ left 
Nagpore for a mission in the Himalayas, and had ultimately 
to return to Europe. Only Mr Apler now remained with 
the Free Church mission. 

In default of other teachers Mr Hislop obtained from 
Bombay a highly-educated and able, but, unhappily, a non- 
Christian Hindoo called Sakharam Balkrishna, to conduct 
the secular teaching, while he himself gave his best efforts 
to the religious department. There were at this time 
fifty- seven scholars, some of them Europeans or Indo- 
Britains, but the great majority Hindoos. He ministered 
at the same time to Europeans, and was divinely enabled 
to do spiritual good to a young officer in the cantonment. 
Still, as the population of Kamptee was, properly speaking, 
foreign to Central India, and as, moreover, it almost 
totally changed every third year, Mr Hislop felt that he 
must direct his main efforts to Nagpore and the Mahrattas, 
and in anticipation of his speedily leaving Kamptee, the 
financial board of the mission paid 400 rupees to buy out 
of the army a pious corporal called Mr Liddel, who wished 
to be employed as a Christian teacher. The Kamptee school 
was put under his charge, and it was to accommodate 
him that the old building was converted into a residence. 

By this time the Kalankee storm had blown over, and on 



296 NAGPORE, 

the 2nd of May 1846, Mr Hislop, "with much fear and 
trembling, but yet looking to the Head of the Church, who 
disposeth all things for the advancement of His cause," 
opened a school in the city of Nagpore. The premises 
obtained were in the chief street — that which had in it the 
Rajah's palace. Commenting on this fact a few years later, 
a not very friendly Resident said complainingly, " You have 
taken the bull by the horns." There was no possibility or 
wish to deny that such had been the case ; but all things 
considered, the boldest policy is, as a rule, the safest in 
dealing with half-civilised Asiatics — the smallest symptom of 
timidity is generally fatal to an enterprise. When the school 
was first opened, 30 boys entered their names as scholars, 
and before long there were 70. A few wished to learn 
English, but the great majority cared for nothing but 
Mahratta. Sakharam, whose native language was Mahratta, 
removing from Kamptee, took the secular part of the instruc- 
tion in the Nagpore school, while Mr Hislop communicated 
the religious knowledge. He still visited Kamptee statedly 
to conduct religious services, and at one of these, on the 
4th June 1846, baptized his Tamul servant Mahankali, 
and Veerapa or Veeraswamy, servant of a Christian officer, 
Colonel Wynch. Both were Tamul Pariahs. Till Mahan- 
kali came under the power of the truth, he never thought 
of acquiring the art of reading ; but on becoming a 
Christian, he set to do so with great ardour, that he might 
read the Word of God himself, instead of being dependent 
on others for information as to its contents. Both Mahan- 
kali and Veerapa remained permanently in connection with 
the mission. 

A few months later, Mr Hislop took up his vigorous pen 
to expose the proceedings of the British authorities in 
choosing for the day when the Rajah was to be formally 
saluted a heathen festival called the Dusserah, when the 
king appeared, not in a civil, but in an ecclesiastical capa- 
city, going forth in state to worship a tree. No improve- 



FIIiST FRUIT OF THE EASTERN MAHRATTAS. 29/ 

ment resulted from Mr Hislop's efforts, but matters re- 
mained unchanged till the fall of the Nagpore monarchy 
left no king to salute. 

The present writer was ordained in the Free West 
Church, Aberdeen, on the 2 2d October 1846. Sailing from 
Southampton on the 3d January 1847, ^^ reached Bombay 
on the 14th February, and Nagpore on the 27 th March. 
It was arranged that he should be placed, not at Kamptee, 
but with Mr Hislop at Seetabuldee, that he might operate 
on Nagpore city. 

On Sabbath, the 25th July, Yadoji, ex-patel — that is, ex- 
mayor — of the village or small town of Vishnoor, on the 
Wurda river, 70 miles west of Nagpore, was baptized at 
Kamptee in' presence of the English congregation. His 
first religious impressions had been produced by reading a 
tract called the First Book for Children, and they had been 
deepened on a visit paid to him by Messrs Hislop and Apler 
during the school vacation at the end of 1846. Yadoji was 
the first fruit of the eastern Mahrattas to Christ. 

At the examination of Kamptee school on the 24th 
August 1847, there were 104 on the roll. Some were Euro- 
pean or East Indian girls, for whom an industrial depart- 
ment had been provided. At the end of 1847, there were 
still 104, of whom 93 were in attendance — viz., 19 girls and 
74 boys. There were 11 Europeans, 5 Mussulmans, i 
Parsee, and 63 Hindoos. Only 18 had been a year at 
school. That year there was a "mission tour with a tent to 
Chanda, about 85 miles south of Nagpore. 

On Sabbath, 26th March 1848, Apaya, a Teloogoo Pariah, 
and Perumal, a Tamul Pariah who took the name of Ben- 
jamin, were baptized at Kamptee. Apaya afterwards ren- 
dered the mission great service as colporteur. About 
fourteen months subsequently, Benjamin, falling sick, was 
coerced back into heathenism through the maltreatment he 
received from one of his relatives. On recovering, he 
compromised matters with his conscience by becoming a 



298 NAGPORR. 

RomanUt. On* the 28th May 1848, a Tamul Pariah, 
Ramaswamy, or David, was baptized. 

On the 1 8th May 1848, Mr Hislop was bitten by a mad 
dog. When one who has sustained an injury of this sort 
has the part affected carefully cauterised, hydrophobia 
scarcely ever results; but there is always the possibility 
that some of the poison may still be left in the wonnd, 
and it is not till at least six weeks have passed away without 
any symptoms showing the approach of the appalling disease 
that the sufferer can feel himself again safe. It was a 
weary time of waiting, and the depression natural in the 
circumstances was in no slight degree increased by a mourn- 
ful event which occurred during the interval One day, the 
excellent assistant-missionary, Mr Apler, was proceeding to 
the city, where he was tn the habit of preaching d^dly in the 
streets, though sometimes maltreated by the people. He 
unexpectedly observed that he was to a trifling extent 
spitting blood, and thought that though no danger was in all 
likelihood to be apprehended, yet it might be prudent to 
avoid exercising his voice in public that day. He there- 
fore returned home. That faint spitting of blood arose 
from inflammation of the lungs, which speedily became very 
fierce, and terminated his earthly existence on the 27th 
May. His wife left soon afterwards, and then there was not 
at Nagpore one survivor of the unhappy German mission. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CASTE STRUGGLE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 

A NUMBER of the best scholars in the Nagpore school were 
Mahratta Brahmans, some of whom had become consider- 
ably shaken in their heathenism by the Christian training 
which they had received. Side by side with these sat two 
boys from Seetabuldee, whose fathers, now members of the 



THE CASE OF BAB4 FANDURANG, Z99 

Church, had (Hriginally been Tamul Pariahs. Thip awAil 
fact came to be known by sundry jaew comers a$ yet ^^-png 
in their heathenism, and in the pride pf their casjte purity 
they made the demand that the ''Pariahs'' .^ould be 
expelled. The mission, of course, firmly declined apceding 
to their wish. On this they left school, and had they done 
no more than this, their bigotry would hare inflicted littie 
damage, and the matter would soon have been forgottien. 
But, on departing, they communicated the intelligence t# 
the city Brahmans that there were " Pariahs** in ihe Ni^gpore 
school, and a ukase in consequence came forth ^oin the 
chief priests, ordering the immediate withdrawal of all the 
Brahman pupils. It was impossible in the backwaxd state' 
of Nagpore society to jesist this mandate, and the Brahman 
youths who did not care whether there veve Pariahs in the 
school or not, were forced away« though there was no other 
place where they could nbtain European knowledge. 

After a time, one of the BraJunans, rcoiLoyed from instrucr 
tion^^Baba Panduismg, a youth aged fourteen yie§r$ and 
eight months'^iesolved to return la 5diH>ol, cost whaA the 
step might Of caste prejudice he lia4 none, br in heart 
he was a Christian, and he believed that not even his 
earthly father had any right to doom him to ignorance at 
the bidding of a sel^h heathen priesUiood. He resumed 
attendance at school, and would not cease it, even at tbe 
bidding of his father. Being puit in confinement at hooQie 
and cruelly treated, he considered that he had no resource 
but to seek shelter at the Mission-house, avow his Christian 
convictions, and solicit that he might be baptized. His 
father was sent for, and given every opportunity oi per- 
suading him to return hom;e,. but he was not permitted to 
itse violence. Baba stood ftrm against all endeavours to 
indnce him to leave, and plainly stated his intention of 
soliciting admission into the Church. On this the father 
complained to the Rajah, and the Rajah to the acting 
Resident, by whom the youth's immediate surrender was 



300 NAGPORE. 

demanded. Mr Hislop wrote explaining the circumstances 
in which Baba had come, and pointing out that he would 
in all probability be ill-treated if he returned to the city. A 
second demand came for his surrender, which was now 
stated to be required by existing treaties, one of which made 
the king absolute over his subjects, and another stipulated 
that his " discontented subjects *' should be given up. A 
promise was, however, given in this second letter that the 
British Resident would interpose for his protection. Not- 
withstanding this the youth, who, on being given up, wit- 
nessed a good confession before the Brahmanic and other 
dignitaries of the city, was placed in confinement by the 
Mahratta Government, no time, however remote, being 
mentioned for his release, and the opinion of some among 
the natives was that he would be imprisoned for life. An 
appeal was taken to the Governor-General in Council, but 
without eflfect ; and it was understood, though not definitely 
known, that the Court of Directors also approved of all that 
had been done by the local authority at Nagpore. Failing 
other means of redress, the aid of public opinion was next 
invoked, and very successfully. Both the religious and the 
secular press of India took up the case warmly ; and Baba 
was written out of his place of confinement on the iioth 
day from the time of his incarceration. On being released, 
he almost immediately reopened communication with the 
mission, though after a time it became manifest that he had 
suffered considerable moral injury during his confine- 
ment. 

If the interpretation put upon the letters of the acting 
Resident, and almost universally concurred in by the mis- 
sionaries, was correct, then there would be no possibility of 
admitting any Christian convert from Nagpore into the 
Church, unless, indeed, he were one so unimportant that no 
one thought of complaining against him to the native autho- 
rities. It was questionable whether, in these circumstances, 
it was worth while to continue the operations in Nagpore 



DEATH OF YADOJI. 30 1 

city, since, though sowing there was permitted, reaping was 
prohibited under heavy penalties. 

So completely were the camp followers in Kamptee and 
Seetabuldee severed by language, and even in sympathy, 
from the Mahrattas of Nagpore, that the former were not 
perceptibly affected by the case of Baba Pandurang ; and 
on the 19th November 1848, a Teloogoo carpenter (Cot- 
tingam, an objectionable name changed to Jacob), who 
worked in the Seetabuldee arsenal, was baptized, his mother 
and sister uttering threats, happily not carried out, of taking 
their lives whenever they heard that the baptism was com- - 
pleted. A few days subsequent to this new accession to the 
Church, Yadoji, the first Mahratta convert, went, with the 
sanction of the missionaries, to his village to escort his 
wife, who now professed her willingness to live with him, 
to Nagpore. He caught fever in passing through the 
jungle, and arrived in a dying state. Access to his own 
house was denied him, and he died m a cowshed, after 
testifying his faith in Christ. His last request, that his 
remains might be buried like those of a Christian and not 
burnt in the Hindoo fashion, was disregarded. He was 
burnt, and his ashes were thrown into the Wurda river, 
which runs past Vishnoor. 

At the second examination of the Kamptee school, which 
was held on Saturday, 3d February 1849, there were on the 
roll 119 pupils, 20 of them girls ; 108 were present on the 
examination day. 

The notoriety which the case of Baba Pandurang gave to 
the fact that two boys originally of Pariah descent were in 
Nagpore school, rendered it impossible for the Brahman 
pupils to return as they wished, while it was a point of 
honour with the mission not to ask the two obnoxious youths 
to withdraw ; it was felt to be a matter of duty to retain them 
at whatever cost. A method, however, was suggested by a 
native friend interested in the case, of postponing to a more 
convenient season the remainder of the caste struggle. A 



302 NAOPORE, 

school was set up, on the 15th February 1849, in Sectabuldee, 
a place which, on other grounds, it was desirable to occupy so 
soon as it could conveniently be done, and the ex-^Pariahs, 
finding it much more convenient for them to go thither than 
to walk an additional mile and a half to Nagpore, spontane- 
ously transferred themselves to the new school, on which the 
chief Brahman and other high caste pupil$ returned to the 
Nagpore seminary. By and by, when the two boys became 
somewhat more advanced in their studies, they were re- 
quested to return to Nagpore. When they reappeared, all 
the senior pupils knew perfectly what th^y were, and a single 
rash word would have commenced a new ca^te stni^le. 
But tranquillity remained unbroken, because no pupil had 
the courage or the imprudence to say, "There are the 
Pariahs." 

On Sabbath, nth March 1849, Shrawan, the teacher of 
the Seetabuldee school, was baptised. He was of the 
the Mahratta Kunbi, or cultivator caste, and in some mea- 
sure supplied the place of the deceased Yadoji, wbo wa$ 
also a KunbL 

On the morning of Sabbath, and September 1849, ** the 
ordinary morning meeting for communicating instruction to 
the heathen pupils, the passage of Scripture taken up ia 
course having suggested the importance of female education, 
the missionary who was conducting the service made some 
strong remarks on the subject A young man present ex- 
claimed that if a girls' school were established, fais %\%V^ 
would attend. After further addresses from the missionaries, 
the school was opened on the loth September with &ve 
pupils, no payment, direct or indirect, having been* made to 
them for attending. By dint of desperate effort, the number 
was soon after got up from five to eighteen ; but Nagpore 
being in all respects half, if not even a whole, century 
behind the presidency seats in enlightenment, the schoc^ 
never rose into power. A romantic incident, however, took 
place in connection with it during the first twelve months of 



LULLOO BAL 303 

its existence. One day l^e teacher was suipriscd to find 
two girls of rank, about ten years old, present themselves 
for admittance. One was sister of the principal queen, and 
was called LuUoo Bai. She was much lighter in colour than 
the generality of Mahrattas. The other girl was her cousin, 
and was of somewhat darker tint. Both showed great 
ardour in the pursuit of knowledge ; and had they been 
allowed to remain a few months, would have made solid 
acquisitions. But as soon as the matter became noised 
abroad, bigoted relatives, as might have been anticipated, 
exerted a pressure to have the two girls removed from 
school ; and after LuUoo and her relative had been with- 
drawn, and had again returned tvro or three times, tiiey 
finally came no more. It was stated that Lulloo had been 
allowed a private tutor for a few days after her removal, to 
wean her from the pursuit of knowledge, of which she was 
so fond. Before leaving, she solved what all had felt to be 
a mystery-^the reason why she had been sent to school. 
Her sister, the chief queen, felt the absence of knowledge 
of the outward world which there was in the Zenana, and 
the enforced ignorance produced by the arrangement which 
forbade females, even oif the highest rank, to acquire the 
elements of reading, and therefore asked her sister Lulloo 
as yet too young to be put in confinement, to become a 
scholar in the school, and then returning to the palace to 
repeat all she was taught, and all that she heard and saw. 
This incident affords an illustration of the transcendent boon 
which the zenana system, when it becomes extensive, will 
prove to the secluded females of India. 

On nth April 1850, the native Church at Kamptee 
contained twenty*eight members, and that at Seetabuldee 
fifteen, with several adherents at both places. On the 
fitteenth, Mr Hislop left Nagpore with his wife and children 
to proceed to the assistance of the Madras mission, and he 
was absent till the 28th May 1851. The mission agency 
was further teduced by the death of Mr Liddel, the Kamptee 



304 NAGPORE. 

teacher, on the 19th August 1850, so that the only advance 
which could be made during the year was the opening of a 
new vernacular school in the Aditwari district of the city. 
This increased the aggregate number of the scholars ; and at 
the examination of the Nagpore and Seetabuldee schools, 
held on 14th December 1850, and presided over by Brigadier 
M'Leod, there were on the roll 216 pupils, of whom there 
were present — boys from Seetabuldee, 1 1 ; girls, 9 ; in all, 
152 ; of whom 35 were studying English and 117 Marathl 
Adding in the Kamptee pupils, there were 310 in all. 

In November 185 1, Major (afterwards Sir Henry) Durand 
came to act for a short time as Resident at Nagpore. He 
at once commenced the most friendly relations with the 
mission, and, though pressed for time, occupied the best 
part of two days in visiting the several schools in the city, 
concluding by presiding on 13th November at the examina- 
tion. 310 pupils were present, the number having been in- 
creased by the commencement of a new Mahratta school in 
the Budhwari district of Nagpore. 

When the missionaries were returning from their annual 
mission tour, which this year had been to the British canton- 
ment of Ellichpore, in Berar, west of the Nagpore country, 
they fell in, according to previous arrangement, with one of 
their native agents, a Tamul Christian called Samuel Hardy, 
who was selling tracts through the villages, and making some 
notes of the population of the several places, as an aid to 
ftiture operations. Having stated that he had met with im- 
wonted opposition, and that a storm against him seemed 
gathering, he was directed to cease asking any statistical 
questions, so that if a battle had to be fought for him, it 
should be on one simple issue, namely, the liberty to sell 
tracts. A few days later one of the missionaries, then 
teaching in Seetabuldee school, a quarter of a mile from the 
Mission-house, received a message to come home imme- 
diately, as Samuel had been brought in between two armed 
men as a prisoner. On obeying the summons^ he found 



ARREST OF SAMUEL HARDY. 30S 

that the one man had a musket conspicuously displayed, 
whilst the other bore in his hands a sword and shield. After 
all that had happened in the case of Baba Pandurang, the 
duty was clear of risking a great deal rather than losing 
Samuel. The missionary, after sending an express for his 
colleague, stood between the men and the city to which they 
were going, and informed them that Samuel was not one of 
the Rajah's people, but was a British subject, who was at that 
moment standing on a fragment of British soil, and that it 
was illegal to remove him against his will from the Indian 
empire into a foreign state. The awe which a white f^ce 
inspires among southern Asiatics is quite remarkable ; and 
instead of the men presenting their arms and rushing past, 
as they could easily have done, they held up their hands 
like children, and implored that they might be allowed to 
take their prisoner to the city — a request which, of course, 
was met by a resolute negative. This dead lock continued 
for nearly three quarters of an hour, at the end of which 
time Samuel said that he had made a promise to go with the 
men, and wished to fulfil it. " Why did you make such a 
promise ? " it was asked. " Because I should not have been 
brought to the mission if I had not given it." This, of 
course, totally altered the circumstances of the case. High 
approval was expressed of that Christian principle which 
when it has sworn to its hurt, " changeth not f and the 
men were told that they might march their prisoner to the 
city, only the missionary would accompany them as advo- 
cate. Just then his colleague arrived, with the intention of 
taking the same ground as to the illegality of removing a 
British subject from British soil, when he was informed of 
the promise, and said he too would go as advocate. It 
would have been no great hardship to have walked to the 
city, but there are times when a little ceremony is valuable 
in the East, and the bullock carriage was ordered out, that 
there might be at least a trifling show of dignity. The 
animals got in motion at their usual deliberate pace, the 



306 NAGPORE. 

armed men with the prisoner walking alongside, and a group 
of native Christians, gradually increasing in number, accom- 
panying the procession. On reaching the court where the 
case was to be tried, a polite message was sent requesting 
the presence of the magistrate, who had gone home for a 
time, but he did not make his appearance. At last a visit 
was paid to his abode, when, on hearing the nature of the 
case explained to him, he said that it was evidently one too 
important for him to try, and asked us to go to the Vakeel 
(native ambassador), then in the palace. The bullocks were 
yoked again, and presently drew up at the palace-gate. A 
polite message was sent, asking the Vakeel to meet us in 
the street. He wished the interview to be in the palace, 
which, unless in very unusual circumstances, an ordinary 
European is not allowed to visit Thus invited, the mis- 
sionaries entered. On reaching the lobby they were asked 
to take off their shoes, a request which was courteously but 
firmly declined, Mr Hislop explaining that the Europeans 
having removed one article of dress — their hats, and the 
Mahrattas one article — their shoes, the members of both 
nationalities were now on a footing of equality ; but if the 
British were required to remove a second article of dress, 
they then degraded their nation beneath the Mahratta 
power, whereas no true Briton admitted his nation to be 
inferior to any one inhabiting the world. The Mahrattas, 
after remaining obstinate for a time, gave way upon the 
shoe question, and on meeting the Vakeel, who stood with 
all the palace dignitaries around him, Mr Hislop pleaded 
for liberty of conscience with such consummate skill, that 
Samuel was given up, the missionaries becoming bail for 
his appearance if he were again required. Nay, more, liberty 
was obtained to sell tracts through the length and breadth 
of the Nagpore country. Mrs Hislop, and a pious officer 
who happened to call just after the bullock carriage had de- 
parted for the city, waited in painful anxiety till the result 
should be known, and became very uneasy when hour after 



MR MANSEL, 30/ 

hour passed without any intelligence how tnatters were pro- 
ceeding. At length the whole party, with the exception of 
the armed men, were seen returning, and much thankfulness 
was felt when the great success which it had pleased God to 
grant was reported. Next morning both the Vakeel and 
Mr Hislop communicated to the British officiating Resident 
what had taken place, but all having been directly settled 
the evening before, there was nothing left for the British 
representative. Captain Elliot, to do, except to comment, 
which he did in a friendly spirit, on the arrangements which 
had been made. 

On the 2oth February 1852, a sepoy called Veeraswamy, 
a Teloogoo by nation, was baptized. He had once been a 
turbulent man, but the transformation which divine grace 
made upon him was great and notable. 

A circular having been sent to the mission requesting in- 
formation as to instances of British connection with idolatry 
at Nagpore, that efforts for their removal might be made 
when the East India Company applied for the renewal of 
its charter in 1853, Mr Hislop took the frank course of 
mentioning to Mr Mansel,the Resident, what practices would 
require to be noticed in the reply sent to the circular, on 
which that gentleman, with great good feeling, intimated 
his intention of discontinuing some of the methods of coun- 
tenancing idolatry to which exception had been taken. He 
soon after presided at the examination of Nagpore and 
Seetabuldee schools, held on 14th December 1852. The 
establishment of two new Mahratta schools had considerably 
increased the aggregate of the pupils under instruction. 
There were now 531 on the roll, or adding in the Kamptee 
scholars, 611. 

On Wednesday, 6th July 1853, Pahar Singh, a Rajpoot, 
a high caste in the Hindoo community, the word literally 
meaning the sons of kings, Baba Pandurang, who had 
already suffered so much for the sake of Christ, and Ram- 
swami, one of the advanced Nagpore pupils, originally of 



308 NAGPORE. 

Pariah descent, but whose intellect and conscience had 
been greatly developed by the instruction he had received, 
were admitted into the Christian Church. 

The principles laid down in the case of Baba Pandurang 
were all but universally believed to preclude the possibility 
of receiving any other pupil from the Nagpore English school 
who might ask shelter in the Mission-house with the view 
of obtaining baptism, and there can be no question that the 
spectacle of the imprisoned youth struck terror into the 
pupils. At length, however, one of them, Ganu Lingapa, 
aged 17, whose father, a Teloogoo, long settled among the 
Mahrattas, was of the builder caste, felt that he could no 
longer restrain himself from seeking baptism, even though 
the application might lead to his immediate incarceration. 
An interview was therefore sought with Mr Mansel, who 
kindly promised to advise the Rajah to grant his subjects 
liberty of conscience, and meanwhile sanctioned the re- 
ception of Ganu into the Mission-house. The interview with 
Mr Mansel took place on the 29th July 1853, and when 
the missionaries returned home they found the youth had 
already taken the decisive step, his anxiety being such that 
he had not waited to hear whether or not there was a pro- 
bability that liberty of conscience would be granted. His 
relatives were immediately sent for, and hour after hour they 
made every effort to induce him to return home, but when 
evening came he still remained firm. As soon as it became 
dark, a riot, though not of formidable magnitude, took place, 
but the police being sent for induced the excited people to 
return home. Next morning the Vakeel, the same who 
had yielded liberty of conscience in Samuel's case, was 
asked, and promised, on the part of the Rajah's government, 
that the Mission-house should be protected till a decision 
was come to as to whether or not the King would grant the 
liberty of conscience which the Resident had strongly 
recommended him to concede. During the night, after 
the first riot, it was needful to take precautions against an 



<> 



THE MISSION HOUSE ATTACKED, 3O9 

attack during the hours of darkness, and, indeed, a person 
was detected skulking through the shrubs about midnight to 
see whether or not vigilance was maintained, but being imme- 
diately challenged he withdrew, and all went on peacefully 
till morning. Ganu had slept but little, and was now 
physically worn out, notwithstanding which he stood again 
hour after hour against the efforts made by his caste people 
to induce him to leave, till at length, about 2 p.m., the sad 
apprehension began to be entertained that unless he could 
obtain repose he would probably after a few hours give 
way. As the sun was within an hour of setting, another 
and more formidable riot began, there being then about 
350 people surrounding the house. Two hundred of these 
were in front, and the remaining 150 at one of the sides. 
It was the latter party which broke into uproar. Stones, 
some of them of magnitude, were hurled, the glass which 
occupied the upper half of the door was smashed to 
pieces, and the woodwork attacked by the mob, whose in- 
tention clearly was to effect an entrance. As it was evident 
that they could force their way in very speedily, it was 
deemed the most prudent course to go out, the sight of 
white faces often quelling a riot. When the missionaries 
presented themselves they were attacked, but the native 
Christians heroically fought a battle in their defence, and 
shielded them temporarily from injury. Yet the protection 
would have been but momentary had it not been that Ganu 
Lingapa at that instant finally gave way, and, with the 
remark, pronounced in sorrowful tones, " They are killing 
master," departed from the house. He attempted to keep 
out of the mob, but was captured and taken to the city. 
The leaders in the riot were native police in British pay, 
sepoys in British pay, and city people, to whom there came 
a message, though not really, the writer believes, from the 
palace, stating that it was the Rajah's orders that the 
Mission-house should now be attacked. A policeman and 
two sepoys were imprisoned for their share in this outrage, 
vwi) 21 



3IO NAGPORB, 

and the Nagpore Government being held responsible for 
having broken its promise to protect the Mission-house, 
had to send its Ambassador in broad daylight and pay 
down I GOO Nagpore rupees, about £2^^^ damages as an 
atonement for what had been done. After the necessary 
repairs on the house had been effected, and presents had 
been given to the native Christians who had rendered 
assistance, and some of whom had been hurt in the riot, 
the rest of the money was used for the public operations 
of the mission. Between two and three years afterwards 
Ganu Lingapa had a secret interview with Mr Hislop, and 
" made known his unabated desire to follow Christ," but he 
was cut off by cholera on the 25th April 1856, before he 
had taken practical steps to carry out his design. There is 
reason to believe that, despite his fall, in circumstances of 
exceeding trial, he was a true Christian. 

On 2nd November 1853 three natives were baptized. 
One, Bal Dewa, was a Rajpoot, a proteg^ of Brigadier 
Mackenzie. All were British subjects, and therefore they 
had not to encounter the formidable difficulties in the way of 
those inquirers whose less happy lot it was to reside under 
heathen rule in Nagpore city. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FALL OF THE NAGPORE KINGDOM. 

On the nth December 1853, Raghojee Bhonslah, the 
Rajah of Nagpore, died, and as he had no lineal de- 
scendants, and, it was said, no near relatives, and had, 
moreover, refused to adopt a son, his country was con- 
sidered to have lapsed to the paramount power ; and was 
declared an integral part of the British dominions. The 
lower six-sevenths of the people acquiesced in, if they did 



MR HISLOP ALL BUT MURDERED. 3 1 1 

not even desire, this arrangement, which shielded them from 
upper class tyranny; but the remaining seventh, constituting 
the Brahmans, the Mahratta nobility, and other influential 
classes, were, as might have been anticipated, opposed to 
what had been done. The country had before belonged to 
the British, but they had set up the late Rajah when he was 
a boy, and, to give him dignity, had brought from Calcutta 
and handed over to him the Nagpore crown jewels, which 
had been taken in war. The extinction of the native 
dynasty led to no excitement of any consequence, but 
when, as a consequence of that event, steps were taken, on 
the nth October 1854, to remove the jewels back to Cal- 
cutta, a riotous mob assembled before the palace, and when 
Mr Hislop was passing through it alone he was mistaken 
for one of the officers sent to bring the jewels away, was 
assaulted, and all but murdered. As he was lying on the 
ground almost at the last gasp, whilst a ferocious mob still 
continued to maltreat him, sarcastically shouting all the 
while, " Take the jewels, take the jewels,'' an old pupil, now 
grown to manhood, in the providence of God, happened to 
pass, and, recognising his revered teacher, explained to the 
people the mistake of identity which had been committed, 
on which most of the assailants seemed to feel regret for 
what they had done. But a small remnant, chiefly Mussul- 
mans, seemed disposed to complete the murder, on which 
the young man, running to a native military officer a few 
feet off, obtained a small number of sepoys, whom he 
brought to the scene of action. On their arrival the 
ruffianly Moslems precipitately fled, showing that, like 
assassins in general, they were as cowardly as they were 
cruel. Then a palanquin being procured Mr Hislop was 
put into it, and, escorted by natives with drawn swords, was 
successfully conducted past the palace, and taken out of the 
city to the Mission-house. The aspect he presented when 
carried home, none who witnessed it will ever forget. On 
his head were ten deep gashes, while all over his body were 



312 NAGPORR. 

bruises ; and the white dress he had worn was everywhere 
so saturated with blood, that it was only from a small part 
beneath the knee that its original colour could be inferred. 
The native doctor called in to shave the head of the appa- 
rently expiring sufferer fainted at the sight, and it required 
European nerve to do what was requisite in the case. Had 
he not naturally possessed a strong constitution, it is im- 
possible that he could have survived. 

During Mr Hislop's confinement to a couch, owing to the 
injuries received in the riot, the examination of the Nagpore 
and Seetabuldee schools was held on the 24th November. 
At that time the numbers on the roll, including those at 
Kamptee, were 725. Five hundred were present at the 
examination ; of those only 200 could be admitted at one 
time, for want of room, so that the remaining 300 had to 
remain outside. In the vacation which followed, the mis- 
sionaries visited the Puchmaree hills and Chindwara, after- 
wards to become the sphere of the Gond mission. 

On the 17th of May 1855, the writer of this work had, by 
medical order, to leave Nagpore for Europe. The oppor- 
tunity was embraced of issuing an appeal for funds to erect 
a building sufficiently large to accommodate the Nagpore 
and Seetabuldee pupils. The fall of the Mahratta Govern- 
ment having removed the hesitation, which till that time had 
been felt, to erect a structure which a law forbidding baptisms 
might at any time render useless for mission purposes, 
;^i2oo were now asked for the purpose, and, as pre- 
viously mentioned, were promptly obtained. Miss Barclay 
of Edinburgh having given the whole amount 

On 2nd March 1856, Mr Hislop baptized two women, 
one Teloogoo and the other Marathi; the latter was Shrawan*s 
mother. 

On a mission tour, undertaken at the commencement of 
1857, he spent a Sabbath at a village called Borgaum, the 
patel of which had been known to the mission for some 
years. This man was stated to have renounced idolatry, 



s 



A TTEMPTED MASSACRE. 3 1 3 

and to have been followed in this respect by many in his 
village, but he had not moral strength to break his caste 
and ask for baptism. The next Sabbath was spent at a 
village called Mitpanjura, where Ganpat Gir, an old pupil 
of the mission, was pateL The case of this youth was very 
remarkable. He had been adopted by a religious celibate, 
whose wealth he inherited, on condition of remaining un- 
married, and professing that type of Hindoo monkery 
which his spiritual father held and propagated. In heart 
Ganpat Gir was a Christian, who had in his house, and used 
often to read, the books he used when \t the Nagpore school, 
with other works which he had purchased from the mission, 
but he had not moral strength to resign his pecuniary for- 
tune, and renounce his provostship, for the sake of carrying 
out his conscientious convictions. Would that the grace 
of God would visit those two men. 

Mr Hislop was at his post during the dreadful mutinies 
and rebellion which will ever make the year 1857 memor- 
able. On Friday, the 12 th June, a Mohammedan called 
Fyze Buksh, long known and highly respected by the mis- 
sionaries, came to Mr Hislop under cover of the night, and 
advised him to send away his wife and family, as a massacre 
of the Europeans was intended by his co-religionists on an 
early day, though which it was he could not tell, as they 
distrusted him and kept him in as much ignorance as they 
could. The day was really the Wednesday following, and 
the massacre was to be carried out by a combination of 
up-country sepoys in the British regiments and the Mussul- 
mans of the city. A regiment deep in the plot, having had 
a hypocritical offer which it made to march at once against 
the mutineers, held as genuine and accepted, it was needful to 
anticipate the time when its departure would take place, by 
hastily moving forward the massacre from Wednesday to 
the Saturday preceding. The time was fixed for midnight, 
and the signal was to be the ascent of three fire balloons 
from the city. Mr Hislop had not failed to communicate 



314 NAG PORE. 

to the British authorities the intelligence he had received of 
the plot, but as no one knew the time when the massacre 
was to take place, there was danger that even yet the 
nefarious deed might be carried out. In the providence of 
God, however, two faithful sepoys of low caste, from 
Southern India, betrayed the plot ; at, nay, even beyond 
the eleventh hour, in the literal sense of the term, when the 
European natives were already in their beds, sleeping, as 
usual in that climate, with open doors, and the assassins, 
chiefly Mussulmans, were at their posts, and only watched 
for the ascent of the balloons to begin the work of mas- 
sacre. Mr Hislop was then at Kamptee, whither he had gone 
to be ready to preach on the morrow, but Mrs Hislop, and 
her littie girls, had like the rest of the Europeans to escape 
up Seetabuldee hill, and shelter themselves behind the can- 
nons of the small fort The few artillerymen present hav- 
ing by this time loaded the guns, and standing, prepared for 
action, the mutineers were too cowardly to proceed with 
their nefarious scheme. Had the Europeans at Nagpore 
been destroyed, Hyderabad in the Deccan was, it was 
stated, ready to have risen, in which case the whole Mad- 
ras presidency would soon have been in flames. Bombay 
would probably have imitated the bad example, and it 
might have been needful for our forces, when they arrived, 
to reconquer India instead of Bengal. It was an event of 
world-wide importance, that the intended massacre at Seeta- 
buldee was discovered and prevented when within an hour 
of its accomplishment that Saturday night. 

The writer having resigned on 3rd September 1857, the 
Madras mission was requested to send aid to Mr Hislop, 
as Mr Hislop had given it assistance some years before. It 
did so, and the Rev. John Cooper was despatched per- 
manently to Central India. He reached Nagpore in 1858. 
ShorUy after his arrival, Mr Hislop had temporarily to re- 
turn home to recruit his health. Before leaving he, on the 
igih September, baptized no fewer than seven converts. 



THE REV, ADAM WHITE. 315 

One was a Brahmanee girl, Baba Pandurang*s wife ; another 
was wife of Virapa, one of the first two converts of the 
mission ; two were Mahratta kunbis cultivators (the caste 
of Yadoji and Shrawan), and one was a Rajpoot, called 
Anand Singh. In November 1858, a Mahratta Brahman 
youth, called Narayan Vithul, who had been for many years 
a pupil in the city school, and whose father, while the native 
Government lasted, was what might be called its Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, came for baptism. After a time he went 
back to heathenism, but in i860, again returned to the 
mission. 

That Mr Cooper might not be left alone during Mr 
Hislop*s absence in Europe, the Rev. Adam White was 
requested to proceed to his assistance from Bombay. He 
did so, arriving on Thursday morning, 13th January 1859; 
but a few months later, a change of sentiment, with regard 
to the propriety of administering the sealing rite to infants^ 
led to his being re-baptized by Colonel Miller, then with 
his regiment in Central India. This step ultimately severed 
Mr White's direct connection with the Free Church mission.* 
Mr Stothert was sent from Bombay to occupy his place. 

Shortly before this Syed Imam Kureem-Ood-Deen, a 
Mohammedan from Southern India, had been baptized 
by Mr Cooper. He was then employed as an assistant in 
the Seetabuldee school. Among other baptisms which took 
place at this period, one was a sister of Anund Singh, the 
Rajpoot. They, with another of the same family, were 
orphans, placed by a pious officer, Major Arrow, in charge 
of the mission. 

* On leaving Na^pore, Mr White marked out for himself a district in the Syha- 
dree Hills, around Poorundhur, in the Poonah collectorate, which he made his 
centre of operations. There, about twenty miles south-east from Poonah city, he 
laboured during the four succeeding years, with exemplary zeal, till on the 16th 
May 1864, he was cut off by cholera, caught when ministering to the pilgrims dying 
of that disease at Sassoor. A widow and five children were left to mourn his loss. 
" Not slain by fanatics," said the Times of India, *'nor cut off by those who are 
supposed to hate a missionary, but a martyr to his own self-devoted love to the 
bodies and souls of the natives of this country ; Adam White, the pure and the 
single-eyed, has passed away to his rest. He has given up his life, as he gave up 
all, to the great cause of India's regeneration." 



3l6 NAGPORB. 

Mr Hislop left Britain in the fall of i860, and in due 
time safely reached his destination. Some time after his 
arrival, Mr Stothert returned to Bombay, after having been 
about two years in Central India. Mr Hislop said of him — 

** I know no missionary in India who has, within the same period, 
made greater attainments in the languages of the East. He has ac- 
quired a good knowledge of Maratbi, Urdu, and Sanscrit." 

On the 20th November 1861, about a week before his 
departure, Messrs Baba Pandurang and Ramswami 
Venkatachellum were licensed by the Presbytery of Bom- 
bay, which met at Nagpore for the purpose ; in other words, 
the three Nagpore missionaries were sufficient to form a 
quorum of the Presbytery, and execute business. 

The advance made between 1852 and 1862 may be esti- 
mated from the fact that, whereas in the former year the 
mission had under its charge 39 native Christians, 16 of 
them communicants, in the latter one it had 138 native 
Christians, of whom 47 were communicants. Not even in 
the narrative of the first years of the mission's history were 
we able to find space for every baptism, and now when 
these are beginning to multiply in a gratifying manner, our 
record of them must be even more imperfect. 

On 7th May 1862, Mr Temple (now Sir Richard Temple), 
brother of the present Bishop of Exeter, arrived as Commis- 
sioner, which is a modest term for what at home we should 
call governor, and the Hindoos would designate Rajah of 
Nagpore, and the Central Indian provinces generally. One 
of his first measures was to rescind an unhappy regulation 
made in 1855, proscribing Mahratta, the language of the 
province, and substituting Hindoostanee, the Mussulman 
language, in its room. The people were naturally very 
grateful for his restoring (what it was really an act of 
great tyranny ever to deprive them of) the use of their 
native tongue in the courts of law. Little or nothing had 
been done for the education of the province till Mr Temple's 
arrival, but he at once took steps to discharge the duty of 



MR \,N0 W SIR RICHARD} . TEMPlfB. 3 1 / 

the Government in this respect ; and finding that from the 
fact that the annexation of Nagpore was still a quite recent 
event, the desire for English, nay, for any kind of knowledge, 
was as yet very limited, and that there was no scope for two 
seminaries of a high order, he resolved to allow the mission 
to occupy the field, and gave a money donation to extend 
its operations. A warm personal friendship sprung up 
between him and Mr Hislop. The only school Mr Temple 
felt it right to set up was a normal one for the training of 
teachers. 

On 1 8th January 1863, the Nagpore female school, which 
for want of accommodation and other causes had become 
extinct, was reopened. Twenty-six pupils were learning 
Marathi under Mrs Hislop, while at Seetabuldee thirteen 
were acquiring Tamul and English under Mrs Cooper. 

About the beginning of August 1863, Mr Hislop baptized 
a Bengalee, whom he had visited in prison two or three 
times a week for seven months before. 



CHAPTER V. 

LAMENTATION AND WOE. 

To comprehend how the mournful event which we are now 
approaching occurred, it is needful to go back to some 
incidents which took place many years previously. In 
December 1847, as the missionaries were proceeding, during 
the month of annual school vacation, on a preaching tour 
to Chandah, they observed at Takulghat, about twenty 
miles south of Nagpore, a circle of large unhewn stones, 
with a detached stone outside facing the East. Further 
examination then, and on another occasion soon to be 
mentioned, revealed that there were about ninety-six such 
circles, some single, others double, all close together, and 
spread over an area of about four square miles. Whilst 



3l8 NAGPORE, 

they were looking at the circles, a group of Hindoos hap- 
pened to pass, and the senior missionary, pointing to the 
antiquities, put the question, ** What are these?" "Who 
knows ! " said one of the Asiatics, and that knot of people 
passed on. The next that came up were a party of holy 
men, apparently on pilgrimage. "What are these?" said 
the missionary again, pointing to the circles. " God knows ! " 
was the leader's reply, and that batch of people passed on. 
These answers not being deemed exhaustive of the inquiry, 
application was made about two years subsequently through 
the Resident to the Rajah, for permission to dig in the 
centre of some of the circles. A favourable answer being 
returned, excavations were made towards the close of 
January 1850, and there were found iron spear-heads and, 
still more interesting, an iron vessel like a frying-pan, with 
two rings for handles, and inside a mosaic work formed of 
pieces of tile, and enclosing what seemed to be the remains 
of extremely antique ashes of the dead. The hostility of a 
petty native official at Takulghat having prevented the 
excavations from being as complete as had been intended, 
it was felt that they should be resumed at some future time, 
but the pressure of mission work caused more than thirteen 
years to elapse before anything further was done. 

At last, in 1863, Mr Hislop, who was then on very 
friendly terms with Mr Temple, the commissioner, applied 
to him on the subject, and it was agreed that new excava- 
tions should be made in name of a society called the 
"Antiquarian and Scientific Society of the Central Pro- 
vinces," which had been inaugurated at Seetabuldee the 
month before. Accordingly, on the 3rd September 1863, Mr 
Hislop accompanied the commissioner to Boree, about 
three miles from Takulghat. On the 4th, the two rode 
over on horseback to the circles, and saw the new excava- 
tions commenced. When the time for returning to Boree 
approached, it was arranged that Mr Temple should go 
alone, while Mr Hislop remained behind to collect and 



DEA TH OF MR HI SLOP. 3 1 9 

classify some antiquities which had been found,* and to 
examine a native school (not belonging to the mission) at 
Takulghat, after which he would ride back to Boree, and 
he hoped in time for an eight o'clock dinner. A few 
minutes after the stipulated hour, instead of Mr Hislop 
appearing, a horse of the commissioner, which had been 
lent him for the day, came cantering up to the Boree camp 
without a rider, and alarm being in consequence excited, 
parties with torches were sent in quest of the missing mis- 
sionary. They looked for him along the road, and not 
finding him, went on to Takulghat. On learning in that 
village that Mr Hislop, after examining the school, had 
mounted the horse and cantered oflf in the direction of 
Boree, the probability of a fatal accident having occurred 
forced itself upon their attention, and on coming to a 
swollen stream which crossed the road, they proceeded to 
explore it carefully. It was not long before they discovered 
in the channel the body of the missionary lying under about 
three feet of water. Lifting it from its lowly resting-place, 
they took it on to Bore^. Medical aid was instantly pro- 
cured from the camp of the commissioner, and every effort 
made to restore animation, but without success. Indeed, 
it was painfully apparent from the first that the case was 
hopeless ; for Mr Hislop must have been submerged at half- 
past seven, or a quarter to eight, and it was not till after ten 
that he was discovered, t 

* The Rev. Dr Wilson of Bombay considers the remains, as did the late Mr Hislop, 
to be of Scythian origin, and the former even ventures to date them. He assigns 
them to that inroad of the Scythians into Western Asia which continued for twenty- 
eight years, as stated by Herodotus. [See his paper on the subject read before the 
Society]. 

t No eye saw him perish, but inquiry showed pretty clearly how the mournful 
catastrophe must have taken place. On the left hand of the road from Takulghat 
to Boree, and at no great distance from it, runs a river, which is joined by a minute 
tributary about a mfie from Takulghat, and two from Boree. This tributary has a 
deep channel, yawning open in the midst of cultivated fields. Ordinarily it is quite 
dry, or has in it a mere driblet of water ; but after rains, it becomes a deep and 
rapid stream. Moreover, when the adjacent river is in flood, it sends a backwater 
into the channel of the small tributary, and renders the latter formidable enough. No 
rain had fallen at Takulghat on the 4th September whilst Mr Temple and Mr Hislop 
were together, and it was with considerable surprise that the former found, as he 
rode up to the tributary in the afternoon, that instead of being, as it had been in the 
morning, a harmless nil, it was now a formidable abyss ot water from fifteen to 



320 NAGPORE, 

He was admirably adapted to be the pioneer in an evan- 
gelistic enterprise, and rendered good service to the cause 
of Christ in Central India. The estimation in which he was 
held by the Church, and the shock which his sudden death 
caused, were evinced by the very handsome subscription 
made for his widow and children of above ^^4000 from 
friends in India and at home. It is worth mentioning 
that Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, who had been his fellow-pas- 
senger when he was returning from Europe in 186 1, sub- 
scribed 500 rupees to the testimonial. It should be added 
that when Mr Hislop was on evangelistic tours, and when his 
mind required relaxation to keep it in tone, he made a 
number of scientific discoveries, especially in geology, which 
gave him a high reputation not merely in India, but m 
Europe.* 

It was a dark and mysterious providence which made a 
nameless backwater on an Indian river, itself unknown to 

eighteen feet broad, and ten feet in depth, rain having evidently fallen somewhere in 
the vicinity. On making this discovery, Mr Temple, with proper thoughtfulnessi 
placed a man at the point of danger to put Mr Hislop when he came on his guard 
against entering the water, and conduct him to a ford some distance up the stream: 
but, as is too frequently the case with Orientals, the person was not at the post of 
duty when the critical moment came- Vl^en thus Mr Hislop rode up in black night, 
there was no one to warn him of danger, and with his usual fearlessness, he rode 
into the water, thinking the depth to be as trifling as he had seen it to be in the 
morning. Examination showed that the horse must have been totally submerged. 
In all probability it then plunged and threw its rider, after which it succeeded in 
reaching the bank. Mournful to tell, Mr Hislop seems at one time to have reached 
the bank also, but vainly, for his corpse held with tenacity handfuU of grass. The 
officers of the Humane Society in London have discovered that the notion about a 
death-grasp in the drowning is a popular myth. As a rule, the hand of a person 
perishing in the water relaxes its hold as unconsciousness approaches ; and if it was 
different in the case of Mr Hislop, the probable reason is to be looked for in the 
abnormal energy of his character. Floods in the East, it should be added, often fsill 
as suddenly as they rise, and while there were about ten feet of water in the channd 
at the time that the searching party first crossed it, there were but three less than 
two hours subsequently when uie body was found. 

* When the news of Mr Hislop's death reached Britain, the writer was invited by 
a friend to be present at the next meeting of the Geological Society. When the 
meeting closed, several members very kindly expressed their sorrow for Mr Hislop's 
loss. Among those who did so were Sir Charles Lyell, Mr Leonard Homer, and 
Dr Falconer. In February 1864, Professor Ramsay, in his presidential address, gave 
an obituary notice of Mr Hislop, though not a fellow of the Geological Society, an 
honour, we believe, not till that time bestowed on any except Hugh Miller, though 
of late it has been repeated in the case of Mr Babbage, and possibly one or two more. 
There is a Nagpore mineral called Hisloptte ; several fossils have appended to them 
the specific name Hislopi, while one has Hislopianus ; and if it were possible that 
the Church which sent the first Nagpore missionary forth should ever forget him, the 
geological world would not allow his name to die. 



NE IV LABOURERS. 32 1 

fame, the means of summoning such a man to his rest. 
But the Divine arrangements are ever marked by infinite 
wisdom and love. " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good 
in Thy sight." 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE MISSION AFTER THfiT DEATH OF ITS FOUNDER. 

When Mr Temple intimated his intention of aiding the 
mission institution with Government money, Mr Hislop very 
strongly urged the Church to send out a European teacher to 
it without delay ; and, in the providence of God, it happened 
that the gentleman (Mr William Young), appointed on ac- 
count of his representation, was the first effective assistance 
which Mr Cooper received from home when he was left alone 
in the mission.* The Rev. James Dawson was soon after- 
wards appointed to succeed Mr Hislop, and being ordained, 
on the 6th October 1864, by the Presbytery of Edinburgh, 
sailed from Southampton on the 27th October. A second 
teacher having been applied for, Mr John Dalzielf was 
appointed, and sailed in the steamer of the 1 2th November. 

In 1864, a female orphanage was set up, for the support 
of which boxes of ladies* work have since been repeatedly 
sent by kind friends in this country. 

In 1864, Samuel Hardy, the same young man whose 
release from the heathen officers was narrated in an earlier 
chapter, returned to Seetabuldee, and was employed 6y Mr 
Cooper as a catechist in connection with the mission. He 
speaks Tamul, Teloogoo, Marathi, and Hindustani, and, not- 
withstanding his European name, is of the Tamul race. 

On Friday, 31st December 1864, Mr Dawson and Mr 

* Mr Young was for five years pupil teacher in the Free Church school of Insch, 
and for two years subsequently was in the Free Church Normal Seminary of Edin- 
burgh. He left Southampton on the 37th January 1864. 

t Mr Dalziel was formerly teacher oi a subscription school at Buclclyvie. 



322 NAGPORE, 

and Mrs Dalziel all arrived in safety. They had travelled 
370 miles by rail, and 160 more by the ordinary country 
vehicles. The first missionaries had to ride most of the way 
to Nagpore on horseback. The construction of the rail- 
way for 170 miles made it much more accessible. Nor was 
it only 170 miles that the railway was designed to extend. 
Measures were then being taken to bring it to Seetabuldee. 
A piece of land on which five houses had been built by one 
connected with the work, as the nucleus of a Christian 
village, had been given over to the mission in 1855. Now it 
was purchased for a railway terminus, compensation being 
given for the destruction of the so-called "village," or rather 
hamlet, and those who were thus displaced erected a second 
"village," nearer Nagpore than the first The party from 
Europe arrived just in time to be present at a feast given by 
C. Bernard, Esq., of the Civil Service, to the native Chris- 
tians. At this feast 150 sat down to a sumptuous repast, 
about 30 European gentlemen and ladies being present as 
spectators. Last year a similar feast had been given by R. 
M. Brereton, Esq. 

The year 1864 was one of great success in the mission. 
Including converts from Romanism, there were no fewer 
than 32 adults received into the Church, and 19 children. 
One was a Mahratta woman, Bajibai, widow of a Christian 
teacher, who had been associated with the mission almost 
from its commencement, but died in the faith of the gospel 
in March 1864 : the rest were mostly Tamulians connected 
with Southern India, who had come temporarily to the Nag- 
pore country with officers, or as camp-followers of the 
regiment. One was himself a Sepoy, another was a girl, 
aged 14, of Mohammedan parentage, who had been placed 
by an officer interested in her under Mrs Cooper's care, her 
father having died and her mother married again. Several 
of the other converts were connected more or less with 
the camp. The case of a man called Pandurang, baptized 
at Seetabuldee on July 29th, 1864, claims more special 



BAPTISMS, 323 

notice, from the bearing it had on the evangelisation of the 
Mahratta-speaking population. The Mahars and Maugs, 
subdued aborigines, now at the base of the Hindoo social 
system through the whole Mahratta country, would, if they 
were wise, lose no time in revolting in mass against the 
system which oppresses them ; and the day, we trust, is not 
very far distant when they will actually do so. Any symp- 
toms of a tendency in Mahars and Mangs to come over to 
Christianity is, therefore, a fact which may ere long become 
profoundly significant. In the fall of 1863, as Mr Cooper 
was about to escort Mrs Hislop to Bombay, six Mahars 
from the village of Dapewada, 16 miles off, appeared at See- 
tabuldee to ask for baptism. Only one, Dasru, the Kotwal 
of the village, was deemed fit for the rite, and it was ad- 
ministered to no more than him. The means of his conver- 
sion had been a New Testament and religious tracts, which 
he had obtained from the colporteur of the mission. 
Pandurang was another Mahar from the same village, where 
the gospel was evidently showing a tendency to root itself. 
Dasru was afterwards engaged as a colporteur. 

The succeeding year there were also somewhat numerous 
baptisms, one of them very important. The one was that 
of a monitor in the Kamptee schools — a Kanoji Brahman, 
aged 18, called Jankey Persad. The father, a venerable 
and stately looking old man, for three hours attempted to 
shake his resolution, but in vain. Till a late hour crowds 
of angry and boisterous acquaintances beset the school- 
house, and were only deterred from violence by the fear of 
losing their situations or their pensions if they created any 
disturbance in the cantonment. He was baptized on Sab- 
bath, 12th Febniary 1865. After the service was ended, a 
number of European friends (officers and others) shook him 
very warmly by the hand, congratulating him on the noble 
stand he had made, and urging him to constancy in his new 
profession. Another baptism deserves mention — that of a 
kayat (a writer-caste) called Jugalkeshore, from that great 



324 NAGPORE.. 

citadel of heathenism — Nagpore city. The preaching of 
Samuel Hardy was what first, under God, induced him to 
turn his attention to the truth. Mr Dawson baptized him 
on the 22nd January 1865. Of two baptisms on 19th March, 
one was that of a Mahratta Hindoo. 

When soon afterwards Mr Temple decided that the Go- 
vernment should commence a normal female school, the 
mission was applied to for a lady superintendent and a staff 
of teachers. 

On Sabbath, 21st May 1865, Arjun, a third Mahar from 
Dapewada, was baptized. 

Baba Pandurang, who for upwards of two years had been 
in charge of a mission-school set up before Mr Hislop's death, 
in the town of Chindwara, was now at Nagpore. John 
Chumpa, baptized about i860, afterwards became teacher 
of the Chindwara school. Mr Cooper, Mr Dawson, Baba 
Pandurang, and Samuel Hardy, did what they could to 
spread the gospel in Nagpore city, and writing in 1865, 
Baba said — 

'* Nagpore is not the Nagpore of 1845, when the first missionarjr 
arrived here. The days of strong prejudice have nearly vanished.*' 

A short time afterwards, he was taken with severe illness, 
apparently, by the description, cholera, and was supposed 
to be dying, but was able to trust his soul thoroughly to 
Christ in the prospect of dissolution. He received much 
loving attention from the native Christians, and ultimately, 
with the Divine blessing, recovered. 

A few months later the movement among the Mahar 
cultivators at Dapewada, now increased to seven, showed 
unmistakable symptoms of spreading among the Mahars 
of the neighbouring places. One of these, which now ob- 
tained a Christian representative, was Borgaum, we presume 
the village (for there are two in the vicinity of the same 
name) of which the patel had so long given up idolatry, 
and which is no more than 3^ miles north of Dapewada. 



NE W EDUCA TIONAL POLICY, 325 

While these baptisms were in progress, Mr Dawson admitted 
a young man called Mohun Lall, aged 18, a Sudra of the 
Lodi caste, who had been, till the excitement about Jankey 
Persad arose, a pupil in the Kamptee school, into the 
Church at that station. His companion, Ramchurn, had 
before been baptized. Ramchurn being a Rajpoot, an 
effort was made by his caste people to prevent his carrying 
out his convictions, and when, on Friday, i8th August 
1865, he took refuge with Mr Ramswami, one of the native 
preachers, an angry mob surrounded the house, and would 
have proceeded to violence had not the arrival of the police 
restored order. On the Sabbath following, he was baptized. 
The Kamptee school was flourishing under Ramswami's 
superintendence. There were 175 upon the roll. 

That same year Mr Cooper had to exercise discipline on 
some of the senior native Christians who had been dis- 
turbing the peace of the congregations of Kamptee and 
Seetabuldee, after which harmony and brotherly love were 
restored. 

In 1867 the Chief Commissioner officially thanked the 
two European teachers in the Nagpore institution, Messrs 
Young and Dalziel, and also Mr Cooper, a favourable 
report on their services having been made to him by the 
Director of Public Instruction. 

In 1868 a German missionary, Mr Lohr, came out from 
Europe to seek a sphere of labour, and was directed to the 
Satnami Chumars, an aboriginal people in the district of 
Chutteesgurh (the Thirty-six Forts), the most easterly and 
least civilised province of the late Nagpore kingdom, thus 
removing the excessive isolation, in that direction especially, 
of the Free Church mission. 

So long as Mr Temple was at Nagpore the Government, 
it will be remembered, set up no seminary of its own for 
boys, excepting only a normal one ; but in 1868, after his 
departure, a new policy was introduced, and it was con- 
sidered right that the inhabitants of Nagpore should have 

(391) 22 



326 NAGPORE. 

their choice between a Christian school on the one hand, 
and one or more of a purely secular character. The autho- 
rities there, therefore, with the sanction of the supreme 
government, set up two Anglo-vernacular schools. As the 
demand for English education was still very limited in the 
city, there were not enough students of English to fill three 
schools. The mission institution consequently suffered, and 
will continue to do so for a time, until the increasing de- 
mand for English will furnish scholars for all the three. 
Meanwhile Mr Cooper has done rightly in refusing to ele- 
minate the Christian element from the mission school 
That must be preserved in unimpaired integrity whatever 
vicissitudes may arise. 

At an old provincial capital called Bundara, forty miles 
east of Nagpore, and containing 13,000 or 14,000 inhabi- 
tants, a native Church had sprung up, and on a mission 
tour at the end of 1868, the communion was dispensed to 
twelve people, mostly natives, in the house of Mr De 
Rebella, formerly teacher of the mission school in Kamptee. 
The widow of Venkat Rao, one of these converts, was after- 
wards employed as zenana teacher under the auspices of 
the London Society for Female Education in India. 

Not long afterwards the mission sustained a severe loss 
in the death of John Chumpa, who had been a most self- 
sacrificing and valuable labourer.* 

The departure of Mr Dawson, in 1867, to commence the 
Gond mission, having made a blank in the list of Nagpore 
agency, the Rev. David Whitton was ordained to the station 
by the Free Presbytery of Arbroath, on the 13th July 1869. 
Mr Dalziel, the teacher, also was seeking license, and 
aspired to become a missionary. 

In 1870 failing health compelled Mr Cooper, under 
medical advice, to return for a season home. In 1872 he 
returned again to Central India. 

* We are sorry to find it stated that in April 1869 the Rev. Baba Pandurang^, and in 
March 1870 the Rev. Ramswami VenkatacheUum, ceased connection with the mi&sion. 



PRESENT STATE OF THE MISSION. 327 

Among the interesting baptisms which have taken place 
within the last four years, in connection with the Nagpore 
mission, may be mentioned those of Naganna, now Simon, 
a sepoy, like the former, of the 7 th Madras Native Infantry, 
baptized in 1868 ; a pupil of " Anundi Bai's girls' school'' 
(a day one); with four children from the orphanage, in 
1871. 

Last year (1872) there were 528 pupils in connection 
with the mission. The year before there were about forty- 
three girls in the boarding-school, with twenty-six in the 
day-school — in all, sixty-nine. Mrs Young, wife of one of 
the teachers in the institution, sad to tell, had died, and her 
husband, with three children, had returned home. The 
native Christian village on the new site has been com- 
pleted. Mr Cooper, as already mentioned, has returned 
after his necessary sojourn at home, and there is much 
that is hopeful for future progress in Central India. 



SECTION VII. 
MISSIONS TO THE WILD TRIBES. 



THE SANTHAL MISSION. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PEOPLE, 




|EFORE entering on the specific subject of the 
Santhal mission, a few remarks on the hill 
and jungle tribes of India in general may not 
be out of place. These tribes, as already men- 
tioned, are properly the oldest inhabitants of the country. 
In one very important respect they ard markedly superior 
to the dwellers on the plains ; they are, as a rule, truthful, 
while the ordinary Hindoos, with a few honourable excep- 
tions, are mendacious to an extent of which none but those 
who have had long personal experience of them can have 
the faintest conception. The wild tribes of the jungles and 
hills have never been converted either to Hindooism or 
Mohammedanism. Their religion is a simple fetichism, with 
a tendency to stain itself, where opportunity is afforded, 
with the crime and infatuation of human sacrifice. They 
have no 'caste, no hierarchy, no grudge against the British 
for native dynasties overthrown, and, humanly speaking, may 
be expected to enter the Church in large numbers, like the 



THE WILD TRIBES. 32^ 

Shanars of Tinnevelly and the Karens of Burmah, races of 
a very similar kind. But the tincture of Christianity which 
nominal converts will possess will be very slight, unless 
vernacular schools for combined religious and secular teach- 
ing be set up in the several villages or hamlets where the 
gospel is received. 

There is an important political reason why earnest efforts 
should be made immediately to evangelise the wild tribes. 
If, as is by no means improbable, they are brought over 
without very much delay in mass to nominal Christianity, 
then in the event of new mutinies or rebellions occurring, 
every range of hills would be inhabited by men with similar 
sympathies to our own, and would constitute a secure basis 
of military operations, for holding, or it might even be, 
recovering our position on the plains. Not that we would 
wish to hold India by force, if its people desired our depar- 
ture. If the time should ever arrive that India stood in the 
same relation to us as, prior to 1866, Venetia did to Austria, 
or as the Ionian Islands did to Britain just before we cut 
them- adrift in i860, it would be a folly and a crime to think 
of retaining it by force. But partial outbreaks might occur 
even when, as at present is the case, the majority of the 
people were in our favour, and therefore it is needful to 
look at the country with a militaiy as well as a missionary 
eye. 

As already mentioned, there are about 200 distinct 
mountain and jungle tribes in India, though they fall natu- 
rally into two great groups, and apparently only two — 
namely, those with a Tamul and those with a Chinese 
affinity. 

The Santhals seem to belong to the second of these 
divisions. When Dr and Mrs Murray Mitchell visited their 
country they made numerous interesting observations on 
their aspect and manner of life. 

"Physically,** says Mrs Mitchell, "the Santhals are a fine race. 
They are of a good height, well and Jrmly built, and broader-shouldered 



. 330 MISSIONS TO THE WILD TRIBES. 

than the Bengalees, and are more manly-looking. They have not the 
delicate features, however, nor the intellectual expression of either Ben- 
galees or Mahrattas, and they are by no means so fair as the latter. The 
curse of early marriage does not exist among them ; neither does poly- 
gamy. The women are not caged and shut up in zenanas, like their 
poor sisters in Bengal. They are bright, and frank, and happy-looking, 
though I cannot say they are handsome, and, of course, are a little like 
savages. 

"They are intensely superstitious, and believe in bhoots or spirits 
(rather demons), who are supposed to reside chiefly in trees. They 
have some vague idea of a great Being who is beneficent and good, but 
with him, because it is so, they have little or nothing to do. The 
bhoots are capricious and revengeful, and ever on the watch to do them 
hurt, therefore it is needful to propitiate them, and all the rites and 
ceremonies are performed in honour of the malignant beings. Their 
worship is entirely one of fear." — Missionary Record , 1871, p. 182. 

We should have conjectured that their religion was one 
of fear even had we not been told. The less civilised the 
nation or tribe, the farther is it from conceiving the glorious 
and consoling truth that God is love. 



CHAPTER 11. 

COMMENCEMENT OF OPERATIONS. 

The San thai mission was an offshoot from the great Cal- 
cutta one, though being at a much greater distance than 
Chinsurah, Culna, Mahanad, or such places from the central 
station, and being, moreover, specifically designed to benefit 
a jungle and hill tribe of unsubdued aborigines, it is better 
to give it a place of its own in the history. 

When at home, Dr Duff, in his missionary addresses 
throughout the country, had often drawn attention to the 
aboriginal tribes of India — their numbers, their characteris- 
tics, and the importance of efforts to evangelise them. In 
1849 he visited the Shanars of Tinnevelly, and in 1858-9 
the Karens of Burmah, with a view of noting the missionary 
operations carried on amongst them. At a later dat^, in a 



THE SANTHAL MISSION, 33 1 

communication which appeared in the Misswnary Record^ he 
says — 

"Most of the cold season of 1 861-1862 I spent among the' Koles 
in Chota Nagpore,* accompanying the chief commissioner, ColoneL 
Dalton, in his rounds through the district. Part of the cold season of 
1 862-1 863 was spent among the Santhals in the hill region between 
Chota-Nagpore and Rajmahal on the Ganges, making inquiries with a 
specific view towards the ultimate establishment of a mission among 
them. Several members of the Free Church in Calcutta were willing 
liberally to support such a mission.'' 

Application was then made to the Foreign Mission Com- 
mittee to undertake operations in the Santhal country, but 
want of funds prevented them from complying with the 
invitation. The matter, therefore, languished for a time. 
But by and by the increase of fees in the Calcutta institu- 
tion disengaged money which before had not been available 
for the extension of the operations, and the Rev. Dr 
Murray Mitchell was requested to visit the Santhal country 
and collect information. He did so in the cold season of 
1868-9, and reported favourably. He found the villages in 
which the Santhals lived cleaner than those occupied by the 
Hindoos. He considered that the Santhals and Koles 
together might amount to about four millions, and added 
that the rate at which the work was making progress among 
the Koles might be judged of by the fact that on one Sabbath 
he witnessed 94 baptisms, and on the next 64. A member 
of the Free Church of Calcutta who had extensive tea 
plantations in the neighbourhood of that country, offered to 
contribute jQi^o annually if the contemplated mission were 
actually set on foot. 

In these encouraging circumstances the Home Committee 
resolved to take action, and sent out the Rev. Archibald 
Templeton, M.B., who, in ' addition to his theological 
acquirements, had qualified himself as a medical practi- 

• This is not the Mahratta Nagpore, the seat of the Free Church mission, but a 
district about 350 miles further eastward. Chota is Hindostanee for little, and the 
general belief is that Chota Nagpore simply means Little Nagpore, but there is 
reason to think that the word is properly Chutia, and not Chota. 



332 MISSIONS TO THE WILD TRIBES. 

tioner. It was resolved that the centre of operations 
should be near Pachamba. In its vicinity is a small town 
for the numerous mechanics and officials sent out from 
Britain in connection with the East Indian railway. The 
route to it from Calcutta is through the colliery district — 
Raneegunge, and then on to Bancoorah, the latter station 
having for a few months prior to the mutinies been the seat 
of a mission under the Rev. Mr Stevenson, now of Pultney- 
town. The sacred mountain of Parisnath, a great place of 
Jaina pilgrimage, is not far from the seat of the mission. 

Dr Templeton took up his residence at Pachamba on 
15th December 187 1. He has not yet been long enough 
there to render it needful, with our limited space, to enter 
into further details respecting his work. 



THE GOND MISSION. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE PEOPLE AND THE DISTRICTS THEY INHABIT. 

The Gonds are an aboriginal race w^ho have seen better 
days. In the second century of the Christian era, they were 
known beyond the limits of Asia, if, as Dr Wilson of Bom- 
bay thinks, they are the people described by Ptolemy in his 
geography as the Gondalou 

** A glance," says Dr Murray Mitchell, *' shows the difference be- 
tween Gonds and Hindoos. The nose of the Gond is flatter and 
broader, very seldom prominent ; the ear is longer, the lips thicker, the 
mouth wider, the beard and moustache more scanty ; complexion a 
little darker. There is certainly not much beauty in a Gond face, but 
the expression is not unpleasing." 

Their language has a certain affinity to Tamul, and, like 
Tamul, is of the Turanian group of tongues. During the 
time when the Mogul empire was flourishing, the province 



THE GONDS, 333 

afterwards called Nagpore, or at least, a great part of it, 
was termed Gondwana, meaning the country of the Gonds, 
from its being in the main inhabited by that people. 
There had been four important Gond states north of the 
Godavery, with one south of that river, but gradually the 
Mussulmans succeeded in overthrowing most of them, whilst 
the Mahrattas, when they managed to establish themselves 
in Central India, completed the work which the Moham- 
medans had begun. So recent was the suppression of the 
Gond sovereignty near Nagpore itself, that the last Rajah 
of that race, or rather a descendant of his, was a pen- 
sioner of the late Nagpore Mahratta king. The personage 
in question had become a Mohammedan, but the great 
mass of the Gonds still retained their primeval faith. It 
was of an extremely nebulous character, consisting of the 
worship of stones and particular trees, and apparently of 
demigods, though how many, no one can exactly tell. If a 
circle be described around Nagpore city, with a radius of 
eighty miles, it will not enclose much except what is Hindoo ; 
but immediately beyond the circle, on the north-east and 
south-east, will be extensive districts inhabited chiefly by 
Gonds. They are all very far behind in civilisation, but 
there are great differences among them; the wildest, who, 
it is suspected, at a very recent period perpetrated the 
crime of human sacrifice, being in Bustar, a couple of hun- 
dred miles south-east of Nagpore. 

The most accessible of the Gonds are those of the north. 
An excursion to their country was made by the Nagpore 
missionaries in the winter of 1854-55. — Free Church Mis- 
sionary Record iox 1867, pp. 26, 50. 

The country round Nagpore itself is a table land about 
900 feet above the sea, sloping gradually south-east, towards 
the remote Bay of Bengal. The province of old was called 
Deogur below the Ghauts. Between forty and fifty miles 
north of Nagpore, the traveller encounters the Ghauts re- 
ferred to — a long connected trappean ridge, running east and 



334 MISSIONS TO THE WILD TRIBES. 

west, to get his bullock carriage and carts up which is the 
work of a great many hours. Once far enough inland, to 
lose sight of the Ghauts, which have proved such a deten- 
tion, the traveller finds himself on what looks a low plain, 
but is really a table-land, more than a thousand feet higher 
than the first. In short, he is in the old Nagpore province 
of Deogur above the Ghauts. The capital of the latter 
region is Chindwara, eighty- two miles north of Nagpore,* 
and 2 IOC feet above the level of the sea. About forty miles 
west of Chindwara is the magnificent sandstone range of 
the Puchmaree Hills, jagged like Spanish sierras, a great 
Gond region. 



CHAPTER II. 

COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORK. 

Towards the close of 1865, Mr Dawson of Nagpore, writ- 
ing to the convener, intimated that a mission to the Gonds 
was about to commence, and that Samuel Hardy would go 
as pioneer and explorer. Leaving his wife and five children 
temporarily under the care of his brother, he set out on 
Thursday, the 7th December 1865, for Chindwara, which 
was designed to be the headquarters of the mission. 

Chindwara contains a population, by the census of 1867, 
of about 10,000, of which, however, only 360 are hill 
tribemen. But in the district, which Dr Mitchell compared 
in size to a Scotch county, there are 128,252 Gonds, or 
about three-eighths of the entire population. Within a 
radius of six miles from the town of Chindwara, there are 
about seventy villages, with an aggregate of 10,000 inhabi- 
tants, about 4500 of them Gonds. 

* Thornton's Gazetteer^ usually very accurate, and to which we have been In- 
debted for a number of the geographical facts in this volume, is not correct in its 
statements regarding^ the position of Chindwara. It says that the town just named 
is eighty-two miles south of Saugor, and 167 north of Nagpore. It should havebeeo 
167 south of Saugor, and eighty-two north of Nagpore. 



THE GOND MISSION. 3 3 S 

In 1866 the Rev. James Dawson became the head of the 
Gond mission, Samuel Hardy acting as his second in com- 
mand. In 1867, Samuel's horsekeeper, and the wife and 
child of the latter, were baptized at Chindwara. Though 
to a certain extent the first fruits of the Gond mission, yet 
they were not properly speaking Gonds, but Mahars. Mr 
Dawson and his companion make long tours from Chind- 
wara, which they perform on horseback, buffaloes carrying 
their tent and furniture. On these tours they preach in the 
villages, sell tracts and Scripture portions, and use every 
means in their power of spreading the gospel. On a tour 
in 1867, which lasted twenty-seven days, i8s. were received 
for the Scripture portions and tracts sold, though we should 
conjecture that the principal purchasers were the Hindoos 
proper, the Gonds being unable to read. Next year, on a 
tour of six weeks, £2, 12s. 9d. were similarly obtained. In 
1868 a Teloogoo lad, called Rangaswamy, was baptized by 
Mr Dawson. During the period when he could not travel, 
he commenced a house to house visitation of Chindwara 
town, whilst Mrs Dawson set up a small girls' school with 
eight in attendance. In November 1869, the mission was 
visited by Dr Murray Mitchell of Calcutta, who stayed ten 
days, and before departing, wrote two most valuable letters 
regarding the Gonds and the missionary operations com- 
menced for their benefit. He showed the importance of 
labouring to evangelise them, amounting as they do to per- 
haps one and a half millions, or with some allied tribes, even 
two millions. He gave a vivid sketch of the missionaries 
as they appear in their travels, saying that Mr Dawson, who 
had hardly bestrode a horse before coming to India, is now 
quite an equestrian, and speeds over hill and plain, " as if 
to the manner born." " So does excellent Samuel Hardy, 
whose humble looking tattoo " (pony) " is always ready for 
its duty." Both Mr Dawson and Mr Hardy had by this 
time acquired Gondi, and found it make way for them to 
the hearts of the people. When not on more lengthened 



336 M/SSIONS TO THE WILD TRIBES, 

tours, they were accustomed to go forth in the morning to 
visit the villages, in one direction from Chindwara, retui-n- 
ing in the evening. The same process was repeated in 
another direction next day, and so on, till in a month the 
labourers had gyrated round the entire area of the district 
marked out for occupation. It was sought also to establish 
schools, but the Gonds were found very backward in a])- 
preciating the value of education. In 187 1 there were under 
charge of the mission twenty-four baptized adherents, of 
whom sixteen, mostly Hindoo, had been admitted on pro- 
fession of their faith. 

Mr Dawson's labours in connection with the language 
have been most praiseworthy. On the tour of 1854-55, and 
subsequently, Mr Hislop had made a collection of words, 
idioms, &c., and remarks on the Gond people, which were 
published shortly after his decease by his generous friend. 
Sir Richard Temple. This was almost the only aid Mr 
Dawson had in acquiring GondL Yet, in 1872, his literary 
works in connection with it were as follow : — 

I. Two Papers published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1870, 
which together form an outline Grammar and small Vocabulary in Gondi. 
2. The Gospel of John in Nagri (Sanscrit) Character, 1869. 3. The 
Book of Genesis in Roman character, 1870-72. 4. The Gospel of 
Matthew in Nagri, 1872. 5. The Gospel of Mark in Nagri ; and 6. Some 
materials for a larger grammar and dictionary. 

The Church will look with eager interest to the future 
development of the promising Gond mission. 



THE WARALI MISSIOISr. 

On the 22d December 1834, the Rev. Dr Wilson and Dr 
Smyttan, then visiting Umargaum, in the Northern Concan, 
fell in with men of uncouth appearance, who called them- 
selves Waralis, and were ascertained to be representatives 
of a wild jungle tribe. The gentlemen were interested to 



THE WAjRALI MISSION, 33f 

know more of them, and on 9th January 1839, Dr Wilson, 
Mr James Mitchell, and Mr Dhanjibhai — the last-named 
member of the party being then unbaptized — left Bombay, 
with the express intention of visiting the Waralis in their 
jungles. Travelling via Damaun, they soon reached the 
country of which they were in quest, and found much to 
interest them in the condition of its rude inhabitants. The 
peculiarities of the WaraUs were afterwards described in one 
of a series of papers on the wild tribes of Western India, 
contributed by Dr Wilson to the Missionary Record in the 
year 1841, and in a volume which he more recently published 
on the evangelisation of India. 

Towards the end of 1865, it was proposed to send as a 
missionary to the Warali tribe the Parsee convert, Shapurji 
Edulji, then awaiting license as a probationer; and in 
April 1866, he took his departure for the Northern Concan. 
Shapurji found the Waralis in a state of deplorable mental 
feebleness and ignorance. He stated that they could count 
no farther than twenty, and that even in this extremely 
limited effort at computation they made blunders. — Free 
Church Missionary Record^ January 1866, p. i. 

After a survey by Dr Wilson, Mr Stothert, and Dhanjibhai, 
the seat of the mission was temporarily fixed at $anjan, 
where the directors of the Baroda Railway Company gave 
a bungalow at a nominal rent. It was believed, however, 
that when another station was opened at a place called 
Col wad, on the sea coast, nine miles south from Sanjan, it 
would be found a better centre. — {Free Church Missionary 
Record^ September 1866, p. 1-3). In July floods drove 
Shapurji from Sanjan to Oomergaum. 

On Monday, 29th August 1866, Dr Wilson set out to 
visit Shapurji in the jungle. The latter was then alone, but 
in October of the same year he was joined by a medical 
catrchist, a Marathi teacher, and a colporteur. The Warali 
mission ^as since gone on, though as yet with inconsiderable 
success. 



SECTION VIII. 
CAFFRARIA. 




CHAPTER I. 

SOUTHERN AFRICA AND ITS INHABITANTS. 

IHE aspect presented by the southern portion of 
the great African continent, on maps at least, 
is familiar to even the humblest tyro in geo- 
graphy. The land rises from the great waste 
of waters formed by the commingling of the South Atlantic, 
the South Indian, and the Southern oceans, terrace appear- 
ing behind terrace, till table lands of considerable elevation 
are reached. Lying on the other side of the equator, it is 
winter in that region when it is summer with us, and summer 
there while we have winter, the periods of spring and 
autumn being similarly reversed.* It is not so generally 
known as it should be, that the table lands, and even the - 
deserts of hot countries, are not at all unhealthy places to 
dwell in, the intensely pure and dry atmosphere imparting 
to most people, and above all to those of sensitive nerve, 

* The hottest time of the year is the last half of January and the first half of 
February. In the month of February there are almost always heavy rains, which 
maybe called the latter rains, in contradistinction to others occtirring in '* spring^** 
or, to speak more specifically, about the zoth September. In the ordinary hot dayi^ 
which are but few, the thermometer does not rise above eighty degs. Two or three 
times in winter the hill-tops have snow upon them, but only for a few days. In 
upwards of thirty years, Mr Laingof Burnshill only once saw snow on the lowlands* 
and it vanished the same day on which it fell." — Frt* Church Missionary Record^ 
z86z, 1862, pp. 276, 977, 



HOTTENTOTS AND CAFFRES. 339 

an elasticity, a capacity for labour, and in some cases even 
a faint ruddiness of tint, all of which are totally wanting in 
the inhabitants of steaming tropical deltas. Hence, unless 
where decaying vegetable matter creates intermittent or 
other fevers, the upland portions of South Africa are health- 
ful for European settlers. Many years ago we cut out of a 
newspaper a paragraph exhibiting the mortality among our 
soldiers at the several stations throughout the world garri- 
soned by the British army. The deaths among a thousand 
soldiers in Britain were sixteen in a year, whilst Cape Town 
had but ten, and the eastern frontier of Cape Colony only 
nine, the last-named district being at that time the most 
healthy region in the world occupied by the British army. 

When our predecessors the Dutch first gained dominion 
in South Africa, they found that the native inhabitants of 
the districts earliest settled were of the Hottentot race. As 
their knowledge extended, they became aware that another 
tribe, or series of tribes, comprising the people now called 
Caflfres, occupied the region more to the eastward, and were 
in many respects superior to their Hottentot neighbours. 
When we supplanted the Dutch in the government of the 
Cape, and, imitating the annexation policy of our prede- 
cessors, proceeded to spread abroad in the land, we soon 
became acquainted with the Caffres, in war as well as in 
peace. 

Neither the Hottentots nor the CafFres are of the proper 
negro race, which is believed to extend no farther south 
than to the Tropic of Capricorn. Both, however, have the 
woolly hair of the ordinary negro. Why the Caffres should 
be so superior to the Hottentots is an ethnological puzzle. 
Some — taking into account the undoubted fact that there is 
a good deal of Arab blood among the aristocracy of Mada- 
gascar — suppose that the Arabs may have made their way 
also to Caffraria, and by intermarriages, improved the Caflfre 
race. In favour of this view may be adduced the remark- 
able fact that the Caflfres practise the rite of circumcision, 



340 CAFFRARIA. 

and make ceremonial distinction between things clean and 
unclean. In the opinion of others, these observances are 
of indigenous origin, and did not come, directly or indirectly, 
from the Arabs, or any other Semitic people. If so, then 
the fact must be accepted that it is possible for a race of 
semi-negro organisation to manifest intellect of an order 
which we are too apt to consider as the exclusive possession 
of the Aryan and Semitic families of mankind. 

The word Caflfre, Kaffir, or Kafir, is evidently of Moslem 
introduction. It signifies infidel, and is the contemptuous 
term applied by Mussulmans to all who are not believers 
in the so-called Arabian ** Prophet." The name by which 
the Caffres designate themselves is Aman-Xosa, meaning the 
people of Xosa, while the Hottentots are similarly called 
Aman-Ibranana, the people of Ibranan. The word Aman- 
Xosa has been transformed by European lips into Amakosa. 
The Caffres' own tradition is that they came originally from 
the north, an opinion, we should think, quite consistent with 
fact. — Free Church Missionary Record^ February 1848, pp. 

33o» 331- 

As^a people, they are tall and muscular. When not 
pressed by want of food, or excited by the presence of an 
enemy, they are indolent. Woman is degraded among 
them, being bought ^nd sold. They support themselves 
partly by agriculture, but chiefly by the produce of their 
herds of cattle. They have no towns, but live in small 
hamlets, or kraals, consisting on an average of about seven 
families each. These kraals are in some favourite spots so 
numerous, that there may be a population of seven or eight 
thousand, within an area of perhaps ten square miles. — 
{Free Church Missionary Record^ 1845-6, pp. 45, 46). Their 
huts are circular, like beehives.* 

* ** We have visited,** says Mrs Dalziel, writing in 1870, " a number of Caffre huts. 

. . They are exactly like bee-hives. The hut of a young couple we visited was 
twenty-five feet across, a good wooden table in the centre, where the fire is lighted 
when they have one, a wooden bed-frame with bedding, &c. Round by the walls 
were boxes with white covers over them, two stands for books, a looking-glass, some 
pictures on the walls, *' British Workman's Almanac," &c., the walls spotted with 
hiue paint, one chair ^and a stand for dv&l\e&. It was wonderful compared with some I 



CAFFRE LANGUAGE AND CUSTOMS, 34! 

As a specimen of the Caffre language, take the first three 
verses of Mark's gospel, which run thus : — 

** Ver. I. Inggualo yindaba-ezilungileyo zika-Yezu Kristu un-Nyana 
l<a-Tino. 2. Dzhe gobubaliweyo gu- Yesaya isandu-lelo, esiti, Bonake ! 
dayituma ingelosi yam pambi Kobuso, bako, eyabueca inthela yako, 
Isandi sodandulukayo ebugxwayibeni, Manikeniyin-gulugo inthlela, 
yenrKosi, nenz' inthlela zayo zilungi. — Free Church Missionary Record, 
1844, pp. 251, 252. 

The religious state of the heathen Caffres is in some 
respects without a parallel. They have not in all their 
country a single temple or a single idol. It is a matter of 
dispute whether or not they acknowledge a Supreme Being. 
No doubt could arise on the subject if they had any proper 
worship, and the uncertainty which exists is not to their 
credit. As is generally the case with those who disbelieve 
or but faintly acknowledge God, they are very superstitious. 
They are always afraid of being bewitched, and act with 
great inhumanity to any one whom they suspect of having 
done them this great injury. As the sequel will show, they 
are very prone to be deluded by false prophets. So are 
they also by rain-makers. It is more satisfactory to find 
that they have at least a faint belief in immortality, as 
shown by the fact that when their cattle die they bum the 
fat and bones, in the hope that the fumes ascending from 
the sacrifice may be grateful to deceased heroes, who, it is 
believed, occasionally become hungry and require to be thus 
fed. — Free Church Missionary Recordy 1854-1855, p. 256. 

Circumcision is performed, not on the 8th day as among 
the Jews, or in the 13th year as among the Arabs, but 
between 18 and 24. 

It is followed by a period of lawlessness and immorality, 
the neophytes living for four months in temporary huts 
which they erect, and being permitted to do exactly what is 
right in their own eyes. 

In 1848, the Rev. Mr Govan of the Lovedale seminary 

have seen, but at the best bad— no chimney, no windows. . . Sometimes holes in 
the wall for light, oftener not even that, only the door. „ . . The little children 
naked, the elder ones nearly so." — Free Church Missionary Record, 187X, p. 54* 
V891) 23 



342 CAFFRARIA, 

Stated that the shores of Caffraria, from the colony to Natal, 
extended nearly 400 miles, that the Natal country was about 
200, and that Caffre-speaking tribes stretched along the 
coast for some hundred miles further — how many, he did 
not know. He understood that messengers from a tribe 
near Delagoa Bay who came asking for a missionary spoke 
the Caffre tongue. Including the Zulus of Natal, he esti- 
mated the numbers known to use this form of speech at 
500,000. 

In missionary and other letters from Caifraria, the word 
Fingo or Fengu perpetually occurs, and the question is fre- 
quently asked — Who are the Fingoes ? A very clear answer 
is returned by the Rev. Dr Stewart of Lovedale. The 
Fingoes, as we learn from him and others, are a people of 
Caffre descent, who originally lived northward from most of 
the other tribes claiming the same affinity. Their power being 
broken in war by the conquering and cruel chiefs Chaka and 
Mazilikitse, they were compelled to flee to the south and 
seek an asylum with the rest of their- countrymen. The 
latter, with great want of political foresight, considered that 
it would be for their advantage to reduce the refugees to the 
position of a servile people, which accordingly they did. 
When, in 1835, a war was in progress between the Caffres 
and the British, the Fingoes, galled by the ill-treatment they 
had received from their so-called brethren, sided with the 
British, and were in consequence both set free and allowed 
to settle in the British territory. The political occurrences 
now mentioned were sure to carry with them these conse- 
quences, among others, that the Caffres, using the term now 
in its special sense, would be difficult to evangelise, as they 
would be sure to be prejudiced against the gospel, which 
they would regard as the faith of the conquerors who had 
humbled them, whilst the Fingoes would be more disposed 
to embrace the truth, as they would look at Christianity as 
the religion of those who had broken their fetters and set 
t\itm free. 



EARLY EFFORTS, , 343 

CHAPTER II. 

TAKING POSSESSION. 

So far as is known, the first missionary who ever set foot in 
Caffraria was a Dutch physician called Dr Vanderkemp, 
sent out with Dr Kircherer and other pious men by the 
London Society in 1798. The doctor, however, did not find 
a suitable place for a station, and returning to the vicinity 
of Algoa Bay, he founded a Hottentot settlement at a place 
called Bethelsdorp. — {CampbeWs Travels in South Africa^ 
3rd Edition, 1815, Advertisement, p. i; also p. 70, &c.) 
After a long interval, the same Society sent forth Mr Joseph 
Williams, who visited Caffraria in April 1816, and settled 
there with his family in June of the same year. His career 
was short, for he died in August 1818. After his decease, a 
Christian meeting was kept up by one of his converts called 
Unstikana, in a small kraal or hamlet, for nearly two 
years, till June 1820, when the place of Mr Williams was 
supplied by the arrival at Igwali of Mr Brownlee, with his 
family. This new lg.bourer, though he went out under the 
auspices of the London Missionary Society, was a Scotch- 
man from Clydesdale. In the month and year already 
mentioned — June 1820 — he formed the station of Chumie, 
on one of the tributaries of the Chumie river, about nine 
miles north by east of the place where the Lovedale semi- 
nary now stands. 

In our narrative of home operations we have mentioned 
the providential circumstances which ultimately induced the 
directors of the Glasgow Society to send a mission to Caf- 
fraria. A few additional details may here be superadded. 
In 1820, Mr W. R. Thomson, then a divinity student whose 
studies were nearly completed, had agreed, when licensed, 
to proceed to the Cape and become pastor to a small 



344 CAFFRARIA, 

colony of Scottish emigrants soon to sail from the Clyde in a 
ship called the Abeona, As the small sphere he was about 
to occupy would be insufficient to furnish him with full 
employment or adequate pecuniary support, the Glasgow 
Society, about September 1820, invited him to undertake on 
his arrival to give a portion of his time to evangelistic work 
among the Caffres, which he readily consented to do. 
Meanwhile, the Abeona, which had gone on in advance, 
was burnt in mid-ocean, and, sad to tell, the greater part of 
the emigrants perished either in the flames or in the sea. 
It was then decided that Mr Thomson should go out solely 
as a Caffre missionary, and on the 23rd January 182 1, he 
and Mr Bennie were " set apart " (not ordained) in Albion 
Street Chapel, Glasgow — the Rev. Mr M'Lean's. Mr 
Bennie was then in his 26th year. Mr Thomson was after- 
wards sent forward to London for ordination, whilst Mr 
Bennie accompanied him to Africa unordained. Sailing from 
Gravesend on the 29th April 1821, they arrived at Chumie 
on the 15th November of the same year, and obtained a 
warm welcome from Mr Brownlee.* — Edinburgh Christian 
Instructor, vol. xx. (182 1), pp. 765, 766. 

Speaking of the contented ignorance in which the people 
then dwelt, a missionary, Mr Robertson, said — 

"In 1 82 1, the people were very deeply plunged in ignorance, so 
much so that the young children had to be bribed with presents before 
they would come to school ; while in hiring themselves out, the 
people were content with buttons or beads for their services, and they 
would barter their cattle for the same trifling things." — Free Church 
Missionary Record^ 1872, pp. 50, 5 1. 

In July 1822, seven natives, six of whom had received 
their first religious impressions under Mr Williams' ministry, 
applied for baptism. Five of them, with seven children, 
soon afterwards received the sealing ordinance. The mis- 
sionaries were in the habit of naming those whom they 
admitted to their fellowship after their friends and patrons in 
the West of Scotland, and before the Caffre church had 

* Not long after this, the Wesleyans also commenced operations in Caffraria. 



REINFORCEMENTS, 345 

advanced beyond the state of infancy, it had in it a Robert 
Balfour, a John Love, an Elizabeth Love, with a Mary 
Ann and Charles Henry. 

On March 3rd, 1823, the Rev. John Ross received ordina- 
tion from the Presbytery of Hamilton, having been licensed 
by them shortly before. He soon afterwards left for Caf- 
fraria, taking with him a small Ruthven printing press. He 
arrived at the frontier in December 1823, and on the ist 
January 1824, a Presbytery was formed, consisting of Messrs 
Thomson and Ross, ministers ; and Mr Bennie, elder.* 

In 1824, soon after the coming of Mr Ross, the mission 
felt itself strong enough to occupy a new station, and did so 
at a place called Inchra, which was named Lovedale, after 
the Rev. Dr Love, of Glasgow. As we shall afterwards see, 
it is not the present Lovedale. Messrs Ross and Bennie 
were located at Inchra, while Messrs Brownlee and Thom- 
son remained at the Chumie.t Ere long there were fourteen 
candidates for baptism at the Chumie, and seven at the 
Inchra. 

About the beginning of 1826 one of the converts, Robert 
Balfour, became a missionary teacher, as did a second one, 
Charles Henry, soon afterwards ; and two natives, Joseph 
Williams and John Bums, were baptized. 

In December 1827 the mission was splendidly reinforced 
by the arrival from home of Mr and Mrs M^Lachlan, Mr 
and Mrs Chalmers, Mr and Mrs M*Diarmid, and Mr Weir, 
with his mother, Mrs Weir. J 

In 1828, Mr Ross and Mr M^Diarmid commenced a new 



* Ultimately, Mr Bennie received ministerial ordination from th« Presbytery thus 
formed. 

t Soon afterwards Mr Brownlee resigned Chumie to the care of the agents sent 
out by the Glasgow Society, and himself, removing to the banks of the Buffalo, 
formed a station on the spot which now constitutes the site of King William's 
Town. 

X Mr M'Lachlan went out as an ordained missionary connected with the Old 
Light Burghers, Mr Chalmers as a catechist from the Relief Church, and Messrs 
Weir and M'Diarmid as missionary mechanics or elders connected witl? the Church 
of Scotland. The severe indisposition of Mrs M'Lachlan soon afterwards compelled 
her and her husband to return home. He ultimately went to North America. — 
Glasgow Missionary Society Quarterly Intelligence, 1838, pp. 4, 5. 



346 CAFFRARIA, 

Station at a place on the Kat river, called by them Balfour. 
Soon afterwards they were driven from it by war. When 
peace was restored Mr Thomson, in 1829, ceased his direct 
connection with the mission, and settled as a minister at 
Balfour, which was now within the colony, and had been 
converted into a Hottentot settlement. 

May 1830 saw the commencement of Pirrie station, at a 
place called Quarkwebe, on a tributary of the Buffalo river. 
The eastern side of the Amatole hills, visited, as it is, by 
clouds from the South Indian Ocean, receives much rain, 
and is therefore well watered and fertile, while the more arid 
western side is dry and scorched. Pirrie is on the eastern 
or well-watered side, and is situated on the edge of a forest. 
When Pirrie was founded there was then a large Caffre 
population in the vicinity. 

On June 6th of the same year (1830) a station was 
founded at a place on the east bank of the Keiskamma 
river. It was called — after the Rev. Dr Burns, minister of 
the Barony parish in Glasgow — Burnshill. The station is 
situated on the face of a ridge, around the base of which 
the Keiskamma pursues its very winding course. It is one 
of the most beautiful spots in Caffraria. Almost opposite 
the station is a magnificent valley called the Amatoli, with 
ranges of hills on either side. On one of these, south-west 
from the station, the British, during one of the early Caffre 
wars, built a fort called Fort Cox, which was allowed to go 
into decay on their quitting that region at the end of the 
war. The kraals of the great chiefs Sutu and Sandilli were 
also in the immediate vicinity. — {Missionary Record^ Jan. 
1843, p. 184.) Messrs Chalmers* and M'Diarmid were the 
founders of Burnshill, and the first missionaries who laboured 
at the station. — Free Church Missionary Record^ 1867, 
P, 250. 

On the 31st August 1830, the Rev. James Laing was 

* On 3rd May 1832, Mr Chalmers was ordained, and he figures in future as the 
Rtv. W. Chalmers. 



THE WAR OF 1 835. 347 

ordained to Caffraria, and reached his destination before 
the end of the year. 

In July 1 83 1, Mr Ross went to labour at Pirrie station, 
with which his name has ever since been identified — Free 
Church Missionary Record^ 185 2-1 853, p. 5. 

On 8th July 1832, six females were baptized at Chumie. 
There were then seven communicants there. 

On August 24, 1834, a somewhat remarkable baptism 
took place — that of a Caffre called Vimbe, named John 
Muir, after the Rev. Dr John Muir. He afterwards became 
useful as a native schoolmaster. He was the son of a 
sorcerer, and when baptized could repeat the whole of the 
Shorter Catechism in Caffre, a translation of it having even 
thus early been made by the Scottish labourers. 

If it was a very hopeful circumstance that the foundations 
of a Caffre Church had been made in the conversion of 
several natives, there were still many discouragements tend- 
ing to occasion the missionaries anxiety. The men, as a rule, 
treated their preaching with indifference, and the women 
with bitter hostility; nor were their lives always safe among 
the ignorant and suspicious people, who as yet had neither 
learned to respect their motives nor appreciate their personal 
worth. 



CHAPTER HI. 



WAR. 



Towards the close of 1834 some cattle belonging to the 
Caffres strayed within the colonial territory, where they 
began to graze. Being seized by the military, they were re- 
captured by the Caffres, who, however, had two men killed 
in the fight, and a chief wounded. This so irritated them 
that on the 22nd December (1834), without warning given, 
they rushed into the colony, plundering and murdering the 



34^ CAFFRARIA, 

settlers wherever they were found When they had glutted 
their revenge they then returned to Caffraria, carrying with 
them immense spoiL War, of course, followed immediately 
on the part of the Colonial Government, supported from 
home. The missionaries remained as long as they could at 
their posts, but finding their lives in danger, they were under 
the necessity of taking their departure for the colony, being 
protected on their perilous journey by an escort of soldiers 
kindly furnished them by the British authorities. They had 
left behind all their property, estimated at about ;;^iooo 
value, besides the mission buildings, calculated at ^^750 
more. Though the suddenness of the Caffre inroad which 
commenced the war had enabled the savages at first to 
achieve successes, yet before long they began to suffer 
severely in the contest, and before 1835 was at an end were 
glad to sue for peace. It was granted them without their, 
being deprived of territory, and the boundary line between 
Caffraria and the colony remained, as it had done since 
1 81 9, the Great Fish river. Up till this rime the Fingoes 
had been in slavery in Caffraria, but in the war of 1835 
multitudes of them, taking the opportunity to recover their 
liberty, gave assistance to the British, and at the conclusion 
of hostilities Sir Benjamin D'Urban settled a great body of 
them within the British territory, a measure as politic as it 
was just. As the Fingo language, with the exception of a 
few words, was identical with that of the Caffres, the mis- 
sionaries had no difficulty whatever in holding communica- 
tions with them, and ministering to their spiritual wants. 

When the Scottish labourers returned to their stations, 
which they did before the end of 1835, they found that the 
buildings which they had erected had been occupied alter- 
nately by the Caffres and the English, and were in a sad 
state of dilapidation. At Chumie and Burnshill the windows 
and furniture had been broken, while the premises at Love- 
dale and Pirrie had been burnt. 

The situation of Lovedale having beef\ found inconvenient. 



LOVED ALE FOUNDED, 349 

the missionaries embraced the opportunity which the de- 
struction of the buildings there afforded, of removing the 
station to a more eligible spot on the banks of the Chumie, 
where water for irrigating the land might be obtained. The 
new station is about 650 miles in a north-easterly direction 
from Cape Town, and about forty from King William's Town, 
the small but growing capital of British Caffraria. It is 
situated on the right or west bank of the Chumie, above its 
junction with the Keiskamma, of which it is the principal 
tributary. The Chumie there is a perpetual stream. Mrs 
Dalziel, writing in 1870, says that the Lovedale buildings 
" are prettily nestled among the grassy hills, reminding us 
of Moffat." It lies west of Burnshill, the distance between 
the two having been variously estimated at fifteen, sixteen, 
eighteen, or twenty miles. Lovedale is at least thirty miles 
west of Pirrie. 

Some time before the war, C. E. Stretch, Esq., the 
Colonial agent, had commenced a watercourse to supply 
the station and fields at Burnshill. After peace was re- 
stored the useful public work was completed by Caffres 
employed by and working under the superintendence of the 
missionaries. 

In 1836 a new station was commenced at a place called 
Iggibigha, a name unfamiliar to most of our readers, from a 
cause to be stated in our next chapter. On 14th July 1836, 
the Rev. Nr Niven, ordained on the 2nd February 1835 by 
the Relief Presbytery of Glasgow, arrived at Chumie as 
a new labourer in connection with the mission. On the 
31st December 1837, Tente, son of the chief Gaika, was 
baptized. 



350 CAFFRARIA. 

CHAPTER IV. 

SEPARATION. 

When the separation of the Glasgow Missionary Society, 
in December 1837, took place, the Rev. Messrs Bennie, 
Ross, and Laing, missionaries, and Messrs M'Diarmid and 
Weir, catechists, adhered to the section of the old associa- 
tion which approved of the Establishment principle, while the 
Rev. Messrs Chalmers and Niven sided with that which 
held "voluntary" sentiments. For some time afterwards 
the missionaries met in one Presbytery, asid never alluded 
to the points on which they differed j but at length, about 
1842, they ceased to unite in this common action, and their 
separation was complete. They still, however, continued 
to entertain the most friendly feelings for each other. When 
they parted, the stations commenced and carried on by 
their joint efforts were divided among them, Lovedale, 
Pirrie, and Bumshill being given to the Established party, 
and Chumie and Iggibigha to the Dissenters. 

About the year 1839, a church was erected at Burnshill. 
It was of a very humble character, being formed of rough 
and mostly unhewn stone, with a clay floor and thatched 
roof. About March of that year there were 1 1 communi- 
cants there. Not long afterwards Mr Bennie thus wrote 
regarding the appearance of his pupils : — 

** Have you seen on your right about 30 young lads and boys, seated 
along the wall, with their karries at their feet, while they are themselves 
clad in sheepskin or ox-hide harasses ? Some of them have their heads 
also adorned with tufts of birds* feathers, or the tails of wild animals ; 
and not one is in danger of mistaking a bonnet or cap for his own — for 
they have not among them any such article. You will observe that not 
more than seven or eight of these lads have books, and yet they are re- 
ceiving instruction. The other three rows also, you will perceive, are 
girls or young women, and among them about twenty have books. You 
are perhaps surprised at the general appearance of my scholars — that 



THE REV. WILLIAM GOVAN, 35 I 

they are rather red than black from the ochre painting ; * and you are 
probably asking yourself whether I have not influence enough to induce 
them to discontinue such a practice. I have no wish to plead the usq 
of red ochre, and will only say, by way of apology, that, like many 
others, they are not easily dissuaded from following the fashion.'* — Mis- 
sionary Record^ 1 839-1 841, p. 219. 

For a long time it had been felt by the Home Committee 
and by the missionaries, that means should be taken to im- 
part to the Caffres an education superior to the very elemen- 
tary one they had hitherto received ; and to meet this want, 
the Rev. William Govanf was despatched from home with 
instructions to found a seminary at Lovedale. The seminary 
was designed to accomplish several objects of importance. 
It would be a suitable place for the education of the mis- 
sionaries' own children ; it would teach the Europeans and 
the Caflfre boys to associate together, and regard each other 
with mutual respect ; and, finally, it would raise up from 
among the latter native teachers and preachers, as did the 
"institutions" in India. 

Mr Go van opened the seminary on the 21st July 1841, 
with eleven natives and nine children of English extraction, 
the latter being mainly sons of missionaries, either of the 
Glasgow or of other societies. The European and native 
students were placed in identically the same classes, and 
competed together day by day. The result which ultimately 
appeared is well worthy of record. So long as the repre- 
sentatives of the two races remained boys, they were almost 
equal in mental power, as was shown by the fact that the 
prizes gained by the members of each race were almost 

* The heathen Caffres and Fingoes (the latter even more than the former) are in 
the habit of painting their bodies with a pigment of red cla;^stone and fat, and their 
garments very soon partake of the contents and colour of ihis mixture. Besides this, 
they adorn their arms, and sometimes also their ankles, with rings of brass wire, 
which they carefully keep in a bright state. Of old, garments of ox-hide were com- 
mon, but now cotton and woollen blankets, ornamented with white buttons, have 
extensively come into use. The men generally go bare-headed, while the women 
have a handkerchief over their hair. Some of the latter have adopted European 
attire, even coming out on grand occasions in crinoline. Both men and women are 
fond of using umbrellas. — Free Church Missionary Record y 1862, 1863, pp. aoi, 202. 

t Mr William Govan was licensed on i6th June 1840. He was ordained by the 
Presbytery of Glasgow on azst July of the same year. He reached Lovedale early 
in January 1841. 



352 CAFFRARIA, 

exactiy proportioned to the members of that race then in 
the class ; but subsequently it was ascertained, that when the 
boys grew up to manhood, the superiority of the Europeans 
became very marked. 

The natives were now more friendly than they had been 
during the earlier years of the mission, and somewhat more 
disposed to profit by the instructions they received. For 
instance, when Mr Govan arrived, a chief, named Botman, 
shook hands with him, and he found that the individual in 
question was in the habit of attending church. 

In September 1842, Miss Thomson arrived from home 
as a female teacher. The same year, Notas, wife of John 
Muir, and Nokas, wife of Tente, were baptized. On August 
30th, 1843, the Presbytery o^ Cafifraria met at Lovedale, 
under the moderatorship of Mr Laing, and unanimously 
resolved to adhere to the Free Church. 

In March 1844, we find Mr Laing preparing materials 
for a Caffre periodical, to be called the Jkwezi, or "Morning 
Star," and baptizing three converts, one a young man firom 
the institution. 

Some little time afterwards, a case occurred which showed 
that the gospel implants aspirations after freedom in persons 
of either sex, and whatever be the race from which they 
have sprung. Hena, a daughter of the great chief Gaika, 
was placed in the charge of her brother Makema, who sup- 
posed he was quite warranted — as, indeed, he was, by Caffre 
custom, though not by the divine law — in selling her in 
marriage to the highest bidder, without any reference to her 
own inclination. But Hena had become a Christian. She 
felt that the Scripture forbade her to be yoked to a heathen 
and polygamist, and therefore flatly refiised to be disposed 
of in the manner Makema thought best for his interests. 
Finally, with the assistance of the missionaries, she vindi- 
cated her liberty. 

The gospel was evidently beginning to be felt as a power. 
It was awaking consciences, it was loosening the arbitrary 



TRANSFERENCE TO THE FREE CHURCH, 353 

power of chiefs and other men in authority, and yet 
heathenism was in some respects so rampant, that Mr Bryce 
Ross considered the period from 1838 to 1846 the dreariest 
in the history of the Caffre missions. — Free Church Mis- 
sionary Record^ 1864, 1865, p. 749. 



CHAPTER V. 

AGAIN, WAR. 

In 1844, as already mentioned, the Caffrarian stations of 
the Glasgow Missionary Society were transferred, with the 
cordial approval of all parties concerned, to the Free Church.* 
In the report of the Foreign Mission Committee, presented 
to the Assembly of 1845, it was proposed to extend the 
missions, by commencing operations at Cape Town. Soon 
afterwards Mr Gorrie was ordained to Southern Africa. He 
was in that portion of the world when nominated for the 
appointment, and was to have been ordained there, but 
difficulties arising, he was brought home for the purpose. 
A colleague for jiim was found in the Rev. Ebenezer Miller 
of Rotterdam. The station of these two labourers was de- 
signed to be Cape Town, for which they left in the summer 
of 1846. t Scarcely had the Free Church taken over the 

* When the CaiTrarian missions were transferred to the Free Church, the agency 
stood as follows : — 

I. Lovedale seminary. —Rev. William Govan, tutor in the seminary; Mr Richard 
Ross, assistant ; Jacob, native schoolmaster, normal class. 

II. Lovedale mission. — Rev. James Laing, missionary ; Mr James Weir, catechist 
and mechanic ; Robert Balfour, native catechist. 

III. Bumshill.— Rev. John Bennie, missionary; Mr Alexander M'Diarmid, cate- 
chist and mechanic ; Charles Henry, native catechist ; Robert Craig, native school- 
master; and John Beck Balfour, native schoolmaster. 

IV. Pirrie. — Rev. John Ross, missionary ; Joseph Williams, native catechist : 
Thomas Hoe, native catechist ; Miss Thomson, female teacher.- /^r(?^ Church Mis- 
sionary Record^ March 1845, p. 45. 

t Ever since the time of the apostles, as already remarked, occasional " perils in 
the sea" have ever been associated with the evangelistic enterprise ; and this ex- 
perience fell to the lot of Messrs Miller and Gome, on their voyage to the Cape. 
On the night of July 15, 1846, while the vessel containing the missionaries was off 
Poole in Dorsetshire, and beating forward in a thick mist against an unfavourable 



354 CAFFRAR/A, 

Glasgow Society's Mission in South Africa, when public 
attention became powerfully turned to that region of the 
world, owing to the breaking out of a new Caffre war. 
Causes of irritation between the native chiefs and the Colo- 
nial Government had been frequent, and of late had con- 
siderably increased. The natives often made raids into 
British territory for the purpose of cattle -lifting, and repri- 
sals followed as a matter of course. Treaties were formed 
between the Government and the paramount chiefs. The 
chiefs declared that these treaties were badly observed by 
the Government, while it again maintained that the breach 
of faith came from the chiefs. When once the train was laid 
in the mutual animosity between the two races, a spark 
made it explode. An axe had been stolen by a Caffre, and 
an individual of that race was arrested as the alleged cul- 
prit. On this his countrymen rescued him, the scuffle re- 
sulting in the loss of one on either side, on which the British, 
in April 1846, declared war. Sir Peregrine Maitland was at 
that time Governor of Cape Colony, and Colonel Somerset 
commander of the forces on the frontier. 

wind, suddenly a great and loud concussion took place ; and the captain, running 
into the cabin, called to the passengers to get on deck, as the vessel had struck, and 
was likely to go down. Hastening up, they could dimly discern through the dark- 
ness, the fog, and the drizzling rain, that their ship and another one were in collision. 
The bow of each kept driving at the other, and crash followed crash in quick suc- 
cession, as the vessels rose and fell on the waves. Neither, however, foundered ; 
and after they had remained in contact, from 10.30 p.m. till half an hour after mid- 
night, the effort to separate them proved successful, and, in the good providence of 
God, the missionaries' vessel safely reached Cowes- Harbour, in the Isle of Wight, 
though seriously damaged, even to the breaking asunder of her iron anchor stock, 
and otherwise beating marks of the terrible night-combat in which she had been 
engaged. 

As the Cape mission was not allowed permanently to strike root, we may at once 
finish its history here. After the damage produced by the collision had been re- 
paired, Messrs Miller and Gorrie's vessel made a fresh departure from the shores of 
Britain, on the 4th August 1846, and after a voyage of seventy-three days, cast 
anchor in Table Bay, on the 15th December. Mr Hawkins of Calcutta had been at 
the Cape shortly before, and with characteristic liberality, had left ;£2oo for the 
mission from himself, with a promise, if possible, to raise ;^iooo more from his 
friends in India. The missionaries opened a day and Sabbath school. The former, 
commencing with twenty or thirty, soon rose to eighty children, and the latter to 
w, of whom 225 were in actual attendance. Before June 26, 1848, thirteen adults 
had been baptized. When the financial crisis, which commenced in the Free Church 
missions in 1847, reached the culminating point, and retrenchment became abso- 
lutely necessary, the operations at the Cape, by direction of the Assembly of 1849, 
were transferred to the Colonial Committee. Mr Miller was then appointed mis- 
sionary to Chinsurah, twenty-five miles above Calcutta, and Mr Gorrie to CafTreland. 
In February 1851, the connection of Mr Gorrie with the mission ceased. 



RETREAT OF THE MISSIONARIES, 35$ 

Towards the end of March the missionaries, being assured 
that hostilities were inevitable, prepared to seek safety 
within the colony. On the 25th of the same month, ac- 
cordingly, Mrs Govan, Mrs Laing, as also Miss Smith and 
her pupils, left Lovedale for Balfour, which was within the 
colonial lines. Just after their departure, Mr M*Diarmid 
and his family arrived at Lovedale from Burnshill, Mr 
Bennie's household having previously entered the colony. 
Soon aftenvards Mr Ross came in from Pirrie, having been 
exposed to some danger on his journey. His family and 
Miss Thomson followed in a waggon. Messrs M*Diarmid 
and Ross had remained so long at their posts, that they 
could remove only a portion of their property when the hour 
of departure came. Lovedale was no safe asylum for the 
refugees from the remote stations, and accompanied now by 
Messrs Govan, Laing, and Weir, they continued their retreat 
till they reached Balfour, and rejoined the ladies, who, as 
was right and proper, had preceded them in flight. Burns- 
hill and Pirrie were soon afterwards burnt by the Caffres, 
while Lovedale was converted into a fort, and occupied 
with British troops. Our forces at the commencement of 
the war had advanced beyond Lovedale, but they were 
compelled to fall back upon that station, which they reached 
on Saturday, i8th April. When word of this was brought 
to Balfour, the missionaries and other refugees received 
orders to go for protection into Fort Armstrong, two miles 
off. It stands upon a rocky, and on a considerable part 
of its circumference precipitous peninsula, formed by the 
Kat River. The order was obeyed on Friday the 24th. It 
had not been issued a moment too soon, for next night, 
Saturday, the Caffres attacked the fort, in the hope of carry- 
ing off the cattle sheltered there. They were unsuccessful, 
and retired after an hour's fighting. Mr Laing purposed 
remaining there during the war, to look after the spiritual 
interests of the Lovedale and Burnshill converts and 
catechumens, who were on the Kat River about eight miles 



356 CAFFRARIA, 

off. Most of the other missionaries and their families fell 
back on Fort Beaufort; Mr Bennie repaired to Graaf 
Reynet, within the colony ; Mr Ross to Algoa Bay ; whilst 
Mr Govan, believing that the war would be a long one, paid 
a temporary visit home, resigning meanwhile his connection 
with the mission. The war was not so protracted as had 
been anticipated, and on 5th November, all the missionaries 
who were refugees within the colony, excepting Mr Bennie, 
who was detained by family affliction, returned to their 
stations. Lovedale was still in possession of the mihtary, 
and in consequence of this, the seminary could not for a 
time be re-opened. When Mr Ross returned to Pirrie, he 
had at first to reside in a native hut.* 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE INTERVAL OF PEACE. 

The war ultimately gave a new sphere and new security to 
the mission. Previous to the breaking out of hostilities in 
1846, the country around Lovedale, on the west side of the 
Chumie, was occupied chiefly by Gaika Caffres ; after that 
event it was possessed in the main by Fingoes, of whom 
from one to two thousand were near enough the station to 
be regularly acted upon by the missionaries. For reasons 
already mentioned, the Fingoes were more likely to listen 
to the Bible than the ordinary Caffres. 

Another favourable circumstance was, that the Christian 

• In 1839 a station had been formed at a place called Kweleha, on the coast, 
seventy or eighty miles east by south from Pirrie. It was situated in a pretty valley 
through which the Kweleha, a fine rivulet of excellent water, flowed. The spot 
seemed the very picture of rural solitude and seclusion.— iT/w/^warr Record^ Janu- 
ary 1843, p. 184. Two native converts, John Muir and Thomas Hoe, were sent 
to occupy it, and the missionaries were to visit it at times. When the war broke out 
it was destroyed, and the native labourers attempted to return to the colony, but 
failing to do so, they made their way eastward to Natal, where John Muir subse- 
quently became an agent of the Wesleyan Missionary Soc'icXy.— Missionary Record, 
1853, 1854, p. 120 ; 1869, pp. 174, 175. 



THE SCATTERED CHURCH MEMBERS RETURN, 35/ 

governor of Cape Colony, Sir Peregrine Maitland, issued a 
proclamation eminently favourable to the missionaries. * 

A large fort — Fort Hare — was built on the Chumie op- 
posite Lovedale, and a frontier town — Alice — sprung up in 
its vicinity, within a mile of Lovedale. Lovedale was now 
on the colonial side of the border, and Burnshill and 
Pirrie in that part of Caffraria just made into a province of 
the British empire. 

When the war broke out in 1846, there were at the four 
stations fifty-eight native communicants, nine candidates for 
baptism, and fifty-five children and young persons who had 
been baptized in infancy, but had not yet been admitted to 
full communion. These were dispersed by the war, but a 
good many of them gathering at its close, and others being 
added to them, Dr M*Farlane of Renfrew, writing on Feb- 
ruary 4, 1848, estimated the number of communicants at 
the three stations at about seventy. 

In that year a proposal was made by the Acting Foreign 
Mission Committee to discontinue the Caffre missions, 
broken up as they had been by the war ;t but the general 

* The Government notice on the subject of future operations was thus worded :— 
"Whereas the proclamation of the a^rd December 1847 defines the future condition 
and rule of the Kafirs in ' British Kaffraria,' and the Kafir chiefs have submitted 
thereto, all missionaries are invited to return to their missions ; and that no misunder- 
standing or misconception may arise, Her Majesty's High Commissioner gives notice 
that the land of their mission stations shall be held from Her Ms^jesty, and not from 
any Kafir chief whatever. Every facility will be given, and evezy aid afforded to the 
missionaries conducive to the great objects in view — namely, conversion to Christian- 
ity and civilisation ; and these laudable gentlemen may rely upon the utmost support 
and protection the High Commissioner may have it in his power to afford " {^Free 
Church Missionary Record^ July 1848, p. 474). There was great wisdom in the 
course of policy announced in this proclamation. Even though regarding the matter 
primarily from the governmental point of view, the commissioners evidently felt that 
there was no cheaper method of defending the eastern portion of Cape Colony than 
that of encouraging missions to the Caffres. As the influence of the gospel extended, 
cattle-lifting, one of the chief causes of Caffre wars, would necessarily diminish ; and 
if unhappily hostilities did break out, they would be conducted even by half-Chris- 
tianisea natives with an amount of humanity which could not be looked for at the 
hand of ordinary heathen Caffres. 

t The Free Church missionaries in the country had personally lost Jis^S^ 9s- 3d., 
whilst Mr Govan had lost mpwards of ;Cioo. The public losses to the mission had 
been ;^xo69, 7s. 8d-, including £,y^^ i6s- ad., the estimated damage to Lovedale 
seminary. Of the latter, however, the Government paid ;£i88, zis. izd. At that 
time, the Rev. Messrs Ross, Bennie, and Laing had but £t\<30 a year of salary, and 
Messrs Weir and M'Diarmid, £,<^. 

(391) 24 



358 CAFFRARIA, 

committee, as already mentioned, set aside the proposal, 
and the Assemblies of 1848 and 1849 took other and better 
methods of making * the income and expenditure of the 
mission meet. 

In 1848, about no pupils were receiving instruction at 
Lovedale under a native catechist, called Jacob, and fifty 
under Miss Harding. There were thirty-seven communicants 
of various nations. The candidates for baptism amounted 
to eleven. On 17 th July 1849, Lovedale seminary was 
reopened, the Government, through Colonel George Mac- 
kinnon, the chief commissioner, having, on the 20th De- 
cember 1848, promised ;^ioo a year to it, when it was 
sufficiently repaired to permit of its again being available 
for educational operations, and £,\2 per annum to each 
native teacher whom it might send forth. In February 
1850, Mr Govan, who had left Britain in October 1849, 
arrived to take charge of it as before. When the war 
broke out, there were in it twenty-six pupils; when the 
second session — that of 1850 — commenced, there were 
twelve natives and twelve Europeans — twenty-four in alL 
About the end of 1849, ^ small church had been built by 
the missionaries in the infant town of Alice, no aid from 
home being solicited for its erection. It was specially 
designed for Enghsh preaching. Mr Calderwood, formerly 
a missionary under the London Society, was made commis- 
sioner for the district of Victoria, in which Lovedale was 
situated, and gave great assistance to those with whom he 
had formerly been more directly associated. At Bumshill, 
Mr Bennie, one of the first two missionaries, was so dis- 
abled and discouraged on account of the hardships he had 
been called to endure, that he asked and obtained leave of 
absence for two years to labour in the colony, relieving the 
committee meanwhile of the burden of his salary. He did 
not return when his leave expired, having found an im- 
portant sphere in the colony, which he occupied during the 



THE GREAT WAR, 3S5 

remainder of his life.* After his departure, Mr M'Diarmid 
was for a time left alone at Burnshill. 

A branch station was soon afterwards established at 
Sitela, on the Chumie, about three miles from Lovedale. 

In 1849, the missionaries obtained from Government a 
grant of twenty acres below, and seven above, a watercourse 
at Lovedale, for the endowment of the seminary, and Miss 
Harding, ten acres under water ^ for the promotion of edu- 
cation. About two acres of the land were enclosed as 
garden ground, and the pupils set to work upon it. On 
June 13, 1849, Mr Laing, then at Lovedale, mentioned that 
there were there at that time forty-four members, besides 
baptized children, in the Church. Of these nineteen were 
Fingoes, three were Hottentots, and the remainder Caffres. 
On 15th March 1850, Mr Bryce Ross, the eldest son of Mr 
Ross of Pirrie, was ordained by the Presbytery of Glasgow, 
and soon afterwards left for his destination. 



CHAPTER VIL 

THE LAST AND GREATEST WAR. 

The Caffres, and especially their chiefs, had never been 
able to reconcile themselves to the forfeiture of territory 
which followed on the war of 1846. The chiefs had, more- 
over, a matter of personal complaint in the curtailment of 
their authority over their clansmen. For instance, when, as 
heretofore, they proceeded to appropriate the goods of any 
person who might be denounced by a sorcerer, the man 
applied to the British commissioner, whose protection was 
readily accorded him, if he seemed really innocent of crime. 

• From a notice in the Missionary Record^ we learn that the Rev. John Bennie 
died on oth February 1869, apparently from the bursting of a blood-vessel in his 
lungs. He had laboured from 1850 at Middlesburgh, in the Cape Colony, to a large 
congregation, consisting of Hottentots, Caflfres, Fingoes, Mantatees, and Bechuanas. 
The CaPf Argus spoke of him as a *'good Cafire scholar, and a most indefatigable, 
useful missionary.*' 



360 CAFFRARIA, 

The sorcerers, of course, saw in this exercise of British 
justice an influence which was certain sooner or later to put 
an end to their credit with the community ; they therefore 
cast in their lot with the disaffected chiefs. Thieves, also, 
and others who felt that they flourished best in times of 
anarchy, sighed for the advent of political commotion ; 
and then, when the thunderstorm was about to burst, a 
"prophet" arose. This young man, Umlanjeni byname, 
whose character was made up of fanaticism and imposture 
commingled in unknown proportion, took means to esta- 
blish his credit with the Caffres by pretended visions, inter- 
views with the dead, miracles, and prophecies. Then, 
when his ascendency was well secured, he counselled his 
followers to slaughter their dun-coloured cattle, and pre- 
dicted a war which would end in the destruction of the 
white foreigners, and the enrichment of all who had pos- 
sessed faith enough to put their cattle to death. Umlan- 
jeni was of the Tslambie tribe, and the British commis- 
sioner responsible for the peace in that quarter of Caffraria 
thought it high time to put the seer under arrest The latter, 
however, managed to escape, which was held to be a new 
proof of his omnipotence. The great Gaika chief, Sandilli, 
repaired to the wondrous youth for counsel, and followed 
the evil advice which he received from that worthy. To be 
more specific. Sir Harry Smith, the hero of Aliwal, then 
Governor of the Cape, had summoned the chiefs to meet him 
at a conference designed to remove causes of irritation, and 
Sandilli was persuaded by the " prophet " purposely to stay 
away. After attempts to bring him to act in a more friendly 
manner had failed, he was deposed, a price of ^£500 being 
put upon his head (a very harsh and impolitic measure), and 
Sutu was appointed chief in his room. Soon afterwards, in 
December 1850, the Gaikas attacked an unarmed patrol, 
and, of course, easily overcame it, and followed up the 
easily purchased success by falling without warning on the 
military village of Victoria, and slaughtering the inhabitants 



A BATTLE SEEN, 36 1 

with exulting and wanton barbarity. It was an almost 
useless formality after this for the British to declare war, 
since war in truth had begun already. The whole resources 
of the colony were not at the disposal of the Governor on 
this as on former occasions. Many of the Dutch boers 
hung back when called to arms. The Hottentots, who in 
previous wars had been on the British side, were divided in 
opinion how to act, and a large section of them, though 
professing Christianity, sided with the Caffres. 

The Free Church missionaries obtained early intelligence 
of what was about to happen, and took means for their pre- 
servation. Mr M*Diarmid of Burnshill, who was particu- 
larly exposed to danger, his station being in the immediate 
vicinity of Sandilli's residence, escaped with his family to 
King William's Town, as did also Mr Ross of Pirrie and his 
household.* The buildings at Burnshill and Pirrie were 
shortly afterwards burnt. The brethren at Lovedale, oc- 
cupying as they did a station within the British territory, 
were able to retain their place during the war, though it was 
found necessary to put the seminary in a posture of defence. 
For a long period its occupants had to remain on guard 
every night, and looking from their place of refuge as from 
a watch-tower (it occupies a commanding position), saw 
blazing villages reddening the sky. On the 21st January 
1 85 1, a battle was fought under their immediate eye. It 
proved a sanguinary one, and when it ended, seventy dead 
Caffres, with a number of wounded, were seen upon the field. 

When the Rev. Bryce Ross reached Southern Africa, he 
found the way to Lovedale, his intended station, impas- 
sable, and with his wife temporarily took up his residence 

* This was the ftfth time that Mr Ross had been driven from his station by war. 
The trials and dangers through which he had had to pass were indeed remarkable. 
Once when smallpox was raging, and the chief Sandilli had established quarantine, 
Mr Ross having ventured to travel was attacked, and was ordered to look at the 
sun, which is in Caffraria the token of instant death. ^ "The most unfounded tales," 
he once wrote, "are in circulation among them. It is said that Mr Laing brought 
the measles here in a red handkerchief, that he wrote to me that he had killed many 
at the Keiskamma, and I must kill the people here ; that I have smeared all the seats 
in the church with the measles ; that I am killing the people, for though I do not go to 
them, Mrs Ross goes." — Caffrarian Messenger, p. 145 ; Quart. Intel. No. vi., p. 4. 



362 CAFFRARIA. 

at King William's Town, which he reached on the 20th 
August 185 1. None of the Lovedale Church members, 
and only a few of those who were not, joined the CaflEres in 
this war. During its continuance the missionaries found 
work to do, partly among refugee natives, and partly among 
the European soldiers sent out to take part in the campaign. 
Mr Ross laboured with Mr Brownlee at King William's 
Town, Sir Harry Smith's head-quarters. Mr Laing was at 
Fort Cox, and the rest of the missionary party were at 
Lovedale, where, on the 20th July 1851, Mr Govan re- 
opened the seminary, though not yet for boarders. It was not 
till the 20th July 1852, that boarders were again admitted. 
Even while the war was in progress the work of grace went * 
on among the natives. Thus, Mr Laing, writing on the 8th 
April 1 85 2,- was able to speak of twenty-one candidates for 
baptism, of whom nine were to be baptized on the Sabbath 
following. Their names were Meitje, Tseu, Christian, 
Lumkee, Milosse, Felita, Hlouga, Tibone, and Leah. Four 
were men, and five women. Five were Caffres and four 
Fingoes. Early in 1853, an elder (Tehuka) from among 
the Caft'rcs, and another (Jacob Pinda) from the Fingoes, 
were elected by the members of the native Church. 



CHAPTER VHL 

AFTER THE RESTORATION OF PEACE. 

The war terminated in 1853, and its prime movers, the 
Gaika Caffres, having been worsted in the contest, were 
compelled to remove from the Amatola districts, of which 
they had hitherto been the chief occupants, to a flatter and 
more treeless country seventy miles further eastward, which, 
if they rose in arms again, they would find less adapted for 
their peculiar method of warfare than the territories from 



THE FINGOES. 363 

which they had been ejected. The region thus vacated was 
afterwards in large measure settled with Fingoes, in reward 
for the services which they had rendered to the British 
during the struggle. Thus, while the inhabitants of the 
Burnshill district prior to the war were Caffres proper, after 
that event they were chiefly Fingoes. 

Just before the hostilities commenced, the Gaikas were 
estimated at nearly 40,000, and of these probably from 
12,000 to 15,000 were within six or eight miles of the Free 
Church stations, and were visited and instructed by the mis- 
sionaries. After the war, the most westerly portion of the 
region assigned to the Caffres was at least ten or twelve 
miles east of Pirrie, and Sandilli's residence was no longer 
in the vicinity of Burnshill. Before the struggle, there had 
been seven adult native members of the church at Burns- 
hill, who were scattered during the commotion. Just after 
it closed, there were at home 22 adult native members, 
with 37 baptized in infancy, and 7 catechumens. These 
were from 22 families. A day school at the station, taught 
by Miss Helen Ross, had 46 in attendance. At Lovedale 
there were 88 church members, with 28 catechumens. The 
last 10 baptisms which had gone to make up the 88 may 
be mentioned in detail, as an illustration of mission work in 
Caffraria. They took place on Sabbath, 4th September 
1853. The names of the converts were Quaintsha, Nobuto, 
Balu, Mary Pin da, Piet, Tukuta, Nimazera, Patoshe, Mal- 
eina, and Razile. Three were Caffres and seven Fingoes. 
Two — Quaintsha and Piet — were men, and the remaining 
eight women. There is something noteworthy here. The 
Fingoes were the oppressed tribe, and the CafFrarian 
women the oppressed sex. Observe how large the propor- 
tion of converts from these, and how few from those of 
whose domination they had reason to complain. Note also 
that the Caffrarian missionaries are so anxious not to baptize 
unworthy characters, that they keep applicants for admission 
into the church long in the class of catechumens. As our 



364 CAFFRARIA, 

space will not admit of our giving the details of almost any 
other admissions to the church, it may here be mentioned 
that from the reoccupation of the several stations baptisms 
in large numbers (on one occasion there were nineteen 
together) from the catechumen class, a large proportion 
being these of women and Fingoes, have taken place at 
not remote intervals. These have occurred specially at 
Lovedale and Burnshill, the latter station having been put, 
in 1855, u^der the charge of Mr Laing, who for some time 
previously had been stationed as missionary pastor at Love- 
dale. 

On the 31st August 1853 an out-station was opened at a 
spot on the left bank of the Chumie, about six miles north- 
east from Lovedale. To this was given the name Macfar- 
lane, from the Rev. Dr Macfarlane, of Renfrew, who had 
acted as the medium of communication between the Foreign 
Missions Committee and the Caffre missionaries till his 
lamented death, shortly before the establishment of the 
station designed to commemorate his worth.* Mr M*Diar- 
mid was located there. He had not long to wait for the 
fruits of his labours at Macfarlane, for on the first Sabbath 
of 1854 a notable baptism took place, that of Ubizo, the 
wife of a Fingo chief named Mabanhla, on whose invitation, 
with the sanction of Government, the station had been 
set up. 

In March 1854 the Lovedale Church rose suddenly to a 
membership of 160, in consequence of receiving a whole- 
sale addition of 53 communicants, being the greater part of 
those formerly resident at Birklands, under the pastoral care 
of the Rev. Henry Calderwood. Of the 53, 22 were men 
and 31 females. More office-bearers were required to look 
after the new comers, and on Sabbath, 30th July 1854, 
Manxoi was ordained an elder and Bola a deacon. 

When, in March 1855, tranquillity had been sufficiently 

• In x8ss tl»e statistics of Mdcfarlane out-station was as follows : — Native Church 
members. 9 ; catechumens, 7; attending day school, 30: evening school, 11. On 
»oih April 1856 a native called Jonas Daniel was ordained an elder. 



5/^ GEORGE GREY. 365 

restored in Caffraria to admit of Burnshill being again 
occupied, Mr Laing removed thither, taking with him about 
thirty families of native Christian Caffres. He lived six 
weeks in a tent, and six more in a Fingo hut, holding 
meetings sometimes within and sometimes without the 
roofless church. 

In 1855, Sir George Grey, then Governor of Cape Colony, 
proposed that an industrial department should be added to 
the Lovedale seminary. The suggestion was acted upon. 
Pecuniary assistance having been obtained from Sir George, 
as well as from friends in Africa and at home, four masters 
of trades — namely, a carpenter, a mason, a waggon-maker, 
and a blacksmith — were appointed, and apprentices assigned 
to them, with suitable workshops. The Government paid 
the trade-masters, but did not in any way interfere with the 
ordinary management of the seminary. Manifold benefits 
resulted from the arrangement, but unhappily it was not 
continued to the same extent after Sir George Grey had 
returned home. The only disadvantage which ever arose 
from the close alliance of the Government and the mis- 
sionaries was that some CafFres obtained plausible ground 
for saying — " Our country has been taken from us by white 
men. The missionaries are only government agents." 



CHAPTER IX. 

A " PROPHET " AND HIS TIMES. 

It was an evil omen for Caffraria that in 1857 there started 
up another "prophet," and he more extravagant in his 
counsels and his predictions than his predecessor had 
been. This man, Umlakaza by name, had the senseless- 
ness and effrontery to advise the Caffres, on a certain day, to 



366 CAFFRARIA. 

slaughter not simply their dun-coloured cattle, but all their 
herds and flocks, promising that if they did so then the sun 
would next morning rise in two halves, and would proceed 
to do battle for them in the heavens. Soon afterwards the 
sky would fall and crush the unbelievers, leaving none but 
the faithful alive. Then the earth would open, and the 
slain animals, instinct with new life, would rise out of it, 
whilst following in their rear would be discerned all bygone 
generations of the Caffres, aroused from the sleep of ages. 
The test of faith prescribed by the "prophet" was indeed a 
severe one, for, next to himself, the CafFre loves his herds 
and his flocks. They have descended to him from his fore- 
fathers like heirlooms in a family ; besides which, they con- 
stitute almost his whole means of subsistence. Notwith- 
standing all this, the great mass of the Caffres in many 
localities slew the domestic animals, not allowing even a fowl 
to live. Next morning the faithful were early astir, and places 
were sought on the summits or the ridges of hills that the 
first glimpse might be caught of the divided sun and the 
bestial and human resurrection. To the disappointment ol 
all, the luminary of day came up in his old integrity. He 
climbed the steep ascent of heaven without showing any 
disposition to do battle. There was no heaving of the 
earth — no processionary march of cattle or of men, but 
only an unwonted stillness, since now, for the first time 
during unnumbered centuries, neither the lowing of cattle 
nor the bleating of sheep was anywhere heard. Clearly 
some mistake had occurred — the prophet should have said 
not sunrise but noon. So noon was anxiously waited for. 
It came in due time, but did not bring with it any abnormal 
appearances. Probably sunrise must somehow have got 
substituted for sunset. When the latter came faith might 
have its reward, and fast gathering anxiety be dispelled and 
forgotten. When, at length, sunset did arrive, and brought 
with it neither the celestial nor the terrestrial signs which 
had been expected, the confidence of the Caffres posted on 



THE ''prophet'' UMLAKAZA, 367 

the hills, for the time at least, gave way, and yells of despair 
arose. One man slew his children, and then put an end to 
his own existence. Another upbraided his chief for having 
given him such evil counsel, and then falling upon his spear 
died. Ere long multitudes were flocking to the colony to 
beg for subsistence, and many before reaching it perished 
of hunger. Yet not a few of the survivors, recovering from 
their despair, maintained that the prophet was right after 
all — what prevented his predictions from being punctually 
verified was the unbelief prevailing among a portion of his 
countrymen. This, and this only, had delayed the expected 
resurrection. In these circumstances the faithful felt them- 
selves warranted in plundering those who had criminally 
disregarded the counsel of the seer, and the unbelievers 
found themselves in such danger that they were glad to 
escape across the frontier into British territory. Our 
Government of course gave them hospitality, and they 
were allowed permanently to settle in the districts called 
the Reserve.* — Mr Shepstone in Free Church Missionary 
Record^ 1857-8, p. 197 ; 1870, p. 248. 

But, to return to matters more directly relating to the 
mission. On the 3rd August 1857 the Rev. Richard Ross, a 
son of the venerable missionary bearing that surname, arrived 
from Scotland, whither he had gone about eleven years 
previously to seek a high literary and theological education. 
His friend, Mr Templeton, accompanied him. Writing 
about the end of 1857, Mr Govan said that when he first 
came out (in 1831) there were only about eleven native 
members in the Lovedale Church ; now there were about 
240. Then the attendance at divine service was small, and 
most of those who did come were clad either in karosses or 
in blankets daubed with red paint ; now, with scarcely an 
exception, all were decently clad. By May 28, 1858, there 
were 250 church members at Lovedale, who had subscribed 

* Though the events recorded in the foregoing narrative at first only indirectly 
affected the mission, yet they told on it uliiinately, by leaving a country empty, and 
producing the Transkeian Fingo migration. 



368 CAFFRARIA, 

J[^\lo towards the erection of school-houses in the district. 
Some time previously the native Christians at Burnshill had 
subscribed j[,^\^ 14s. gd. to aid the repairs necessary at 
that station. 

In May 1858, the Presbytery of Caffraria issued an appeal 
soliciting assistance to render the Lovedale seminary more 
effective. They wished a printing press to be sent out with 
some one who could work it properly. They desired, also, 
another ordained missionary, that they might be strong 
enough in men to introduce into the seminary a college 
department, specially with the view of training natives for 
the ministry. Finally, they solicited for the educational 
institution, already oftener than once named, a permanent 
endowment. The appeal, which was circulated in Scotland 
in 1859, with the sanction of the Finance Mission Com- 
mittee and the Assembly, was but partially successful. A 
printer with a superior printing-press was sent out, and was 
soon at work, the Rev. Bryce Ross taking the editorial 
department of the mission work, and starting a small 
monthly magazine, chiefly in Caffre, but with a few pages in 
English. No new missionary was sent, nor was an endow- 
ment furnished. Some time afterwards, however, the 
brethren in Caffraria took a step which will be pretty certain 
sooner or later to endow the seminary more handsomely 
than Scotland could afford to do. They obtained for it 
700 or 800 acres of land not far from the frontier capital, 
Alice. Who can so far look into futurity as to tell us what 
the value of that land will be at each successive decade of 
years? In December 1862, the appeal was again circulated, 
;^20oo or ;;^3ooo being solicited partly to meet the obliga- 
tions arising from the land purchase. 

One encouraging circumstance connected with the Caffra- 
rian baptisms was this, that among those admitted to the 
Church were near relatives of chiefs. For instance, in 1859 
Mr Laing spoke of the appearance of a son of a chief, 
caJJed Zibi, as a candidate for baptism, and recorded that 



NATIVE SUBSCHIPTIONS. 369 

he was the fifth of Zibi*s children who had either received, 
or applied for, the sealing ordinance. The father himself 
had been shortly before described as holding the plate at a 
collection, though not himself a Christian. 

In 1859, there were at the several stations 1754 native 
Christians, of whom 406 were communicants. By i86t, 
the communicants had increased to 577, a sixth of whom 
had been added during the previous twelve months. A 
transfer of Church members from Lovedale to Burnshill 
largely took place in 1859, the reason being that land was 
more easily obtainable at the latter than at the former 
station. By 3rd October of that year the Burnshill commu- 
nicants had risen to 100. 

The native CafTre converts merit no slight praise, on 
account of their liberality. In the Assembly Report for 
1859, it was mentioned that their contributions during the 
twelve months previously had amounted to ;^304, 9s. 3 id. 
Soon afterwards, Mr Richard Ross, having expressed his 
anxiety to build extension churches, to be used partly for 
preaching and partly as schools, jQi'jo were subscribed for 
the purpose at Lovedale. At the opening sermon of a 
church at Gaga, or Renfrew Gaga, a small native hamlet, two 
or three miles north-west of Lovedale seminary, ;;^93 were 
collected, or, when stock was taken into account, ;;^io9. 
Once more, when in 1862 a church was built on the hillside 
for the use of the Burnshill congregation, of the ;^iooo 
which it cost, fully ^^500 were contributed by natives. 

In 1862, a monthly periodical, called the Indaba^ or News, 
and printed two-thirds of it in Caffre and a third in English, 
was commenced under the editorship of the Rev. Richard 
Ross. 550 copies of it were sold. 

Manifestly Christianity and civilisation were at length 
rooting themselves in the land. 



370 CAFFRARIA. 

CHAPTER X. 

MR STEWART'S REPORT ON THE MISSIONS. 

Early in 1861, Mr James Stewart, a divinity student of the 
Free Church who had nearly completed his theological 
curriculum, made a proposal to the Foreign Missions Com- 
mittee to commence a station in some portion of the new 
territories opened up by the discoveries of Dr Livingstone. 
The committee were unable to entertain the proposal, unless 
on the condition that the funds required to carry it out 
came from sources distinct from their ordinary revenue. 
On this private friends stepped forward, and raised money 
enough to send Mr Stewart out for a preliminary explora- 
tion. In 1 861, he met Dr Livingstone on the Zambesi, and 
inquired into the condition of the tribes in that part of Africa, 
but ultimately it was found inexpedient to commence opera- 
tions there. On this Dr Tweedie requested Mr Stewart, 
before returning home, to visit the sevenJ Cafifrarian stations, 
and report upon their condition. He did so, reaching 
South-Eastem Africa about the end of May 1863. 

Lovedale was then, as it is now, the largest and the most 
important of the Caflfrarian stations. In 1863, Mr Richard 
Ross was the resident missionary. There were connected 
with the station five substantial^ stone churches. Of these 
the central one cost ;^5oo, while the other four, which lie 
from four to ten miles from it, cost about ;^35o each. The 
whole sum contributed to the mission during the seven 
years previous had been nearly ;^2ooo, ;^i75o of it by the 
people themselves. This tendency to self-help is a splendid 
feature of the Caffre missions. The average attendance 
through the Lovedale district was 965. The communicants 
were 345 ; the adults baptized during the year, 49 ; the 
children, 48 — in all, 97 ; the candidates for baptism or for 
full communion, 95. When Mr Stewart preached in Love- 



MR STEWARDS VISIT. 37 1 

dale church nearly 500 were present. The one side of the 
building was occupied by the men and the other by the 
women, an arrangement, it may be mentioned, which the 
Ritualists have introduced into many of the English congre- 
gations. Connected with the Lovedale Free Church were 
nine schools with 400 scholars, mostly receiving very ele- 
mentary instruction. The cost of the schools was ;£^204, 
none of it from home, but all coming from the funds of the 
local congregation, or from Government grants. 

The Rev. William Govan was principal of the seminary, 
and besides a general superintendence of the whole, also 
taught classics, and others of the higher branches; the 
Rev. Robert Templeton took the boarding department, 
besides teaching mathematics and arithmetic, while Mr S. 
Colquhoun gave instruction in English. The average 
number of lads instructed, or boarded and instructed, had 
varied from 100 to 130. At the time of Mr Stewart's visit 
there were 105, 78 of them boarders. One-fourth of the 
boarders were Europeans. Of the day scholars, some came 
for intellectual instruction, and others for industrial training. 
The Government gave ;£25o per annum to the seminary, 
and it was understood that this sum was to be raised to 
;^45o, a blue-book report upon it having commended it 
highly. £s^S — being £i1S ^^^ ^^^^ of three teachers — 
are sent from home, with a small assurance premium. 

At Burnshill Mr Stewart found the average attendance 
at church about 300, and that at the outstations 450, or 
750 in all. The communicants were 203; the baptisms 
during the previous year had been 20 adults, with 26 
children — in all, 46. Six schools were in operation, with 
about 200 pupils. The central one had 76 actually present, 
and was for those parts of superior character, while the 
others were of humble pretensions. 

When he visited Pirrie, he found that the church attend- 
ance was about 200, while the out-stations had about an 
equal number. There were thus 400 in all. In the schools 



372 caPfraria, 

were about 120 children. The monthly and church-door 
collections amounted to £z^ ^ y^^u*. Excepting only the 
salaries of the missionaries, the station had received from 
external sources no more than £^2 in thirty years, and it 
had sent back jQ^ to the Lancashire Distress Relief Fund. 
;;^i6 annually were raised in the district for education, the 
Government supplying other ;^5o. The Government 
grants, however, were to be withdrawn from all schools 
beyond the Chumie river, and Bumshill, Pirrie, and Mac- 
farlane would collectively lose ;^2oo a year. 

On the 15 th March 1864, Dr Duflf reached Lovedale,and 
during the next fortnight made himself thoroughly acquainted 
with the work there, and at the other stations. 

Towards the close of that year, a church of wattle and 
daub, 40 feet in length by 16 in breadth, was opened 
at Knox, a small out-station of Pirrie, called after Henry 
Knox, Esq., one of the directors of Uie Glasgow Society. 
It was erected solely by the natives. 

The Rev. Mr Templeton having soon afterwards resigned 
his situation, the Rev. Mr Stewart, M.D., was appointed his 
successor, and being ordained on the ist February 1865, by 
the Free Presbytery of Glasgow, proceeded shortly after- 
wards to his destination. Mr Colquhoun, a lay teacher, 
also having retired at the expiry of the time for which he 
had been engaged, Mr Bennie, the son of a formar mis- 
sionary, was appointed in his room. The Lovedale semi- 
nary had by this time become of great importance. In 1866 
it was stated that it had acquired considerably above 
^12,000 of property, including what it had received from 
the Government If ^^2500 more were raised at home, the 
seminary might be considered as endowed, and would in 
future be self-supporting. Towards the aid of 1866, there 
were se\-entY )x>uths in att^idance, thirty-seven £iirc^)e9ns 
and thirty^three nadve& Bumshill ajid the oth^ stations 
were feeders to it Dr Stewart s medical skill has been ot 
much service to the missiocL In 1869 an old Hottentot 



ON " SQUARING THE CIRCLE^' 373 . 

servant, called Catharine Eckhard, who seems to have ob- • v v*. 
tained her first religious impressions in the house of the poet 
Pringle, but who, for nearly thirty years, had been Mrs 
Govan's servant, and " a sort of established fact " in con- 
nection with the seminary, died. It was found that she had 
made a will bequeathing her property, amounting to about 
;^3oo, to form bursaries at Lovedale for native students, 
Hottentots, CafFres, and Fingoes. 

On the 20th January 1869, Dr Stewart read a paper be- 
fore a missionary conference, on a native ministry for Africa, 
treating, with great ability and judgment, of such delicate 
matters as the status and salaries of Caffre preachers. 
Soon afterwards he took up the subject of native huts, and 
showed the importance of attempting to induce the Caflfres 
" to square their circle ; *' a feat, he remarked, which had 
hitherto been found almost as difficult as the mathematical 
problem of similar designation. Other topics of a kindred 
character subsequently received consideration. The com- 
mittee having enjoined certain alterations in the working of 
the Lovedale seminary, designed to render it, if posisible, 
yet more efficient in a missionary point of view, Mr Govan 
did not see his way to approve of the changes recommended, 
and adhering to his opinion, even after he had on invita- 
tion come home to hold a conference with the committee, 
he partly on this account, and partly because of increasing 
years, resigned his place in the mission. Dr Stewart was 
appointed his successor in the principalship of the seminary. 
It had in it by this time what in India would be called a 
college department. It had, moreover, a hbrary of 4500 
volumes, continually recruited from Mudie's and other places 
at home. The books were made available, not merely for 
the missionaries, but for the general public, within a radius 
of from fifty to eighty miles around Lovedale.* 

* Major Malan (grandson of the well-known Caesar Malan), who lately visited 
Lovedale seminary, reported on it most favourably, and gave ;^50 to its funds. 
;^iooo are required for the extension of the buildings, the boarders having risen to no 
fewer than 300. 

(891) 25 



374 CAFFXARIA. 

At the commencement of 187 1, Dr Stewart began the 
first Caflfre newspaper, for which, however, the support of 
subscribers at home was solicited, till those in Caflfraria 
rendered it self-supporting. The price to home subscribers, 
including postage, is 4s. per annum. 

When the jubilee of the CafFrarian missions — established, 
it will be remembered in 1821 — was held in 187 1, great joy 
was felt by the 2000 natives and the 1000 and more Euro- 
peans present. Papers were read and speeches made, and 
all felt that within the previous half century God had done 
great things for His servants, and had besides given them 
encouraging prospects of future success. 

A few months after the jubilee, one of the patriarchs in 
the mission, the Rev. James Laing, finished his course. 
He died of bronchitis on the 28th January 1872, greatly 
lamented by his colleagues and by the natives, with whom 
he had been brought in contact during his long and Chris- 
tian career. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE SETTLEMENT ON THE TOLENI. 

In 1865 Sir Walter Currie proposed to Government that 
Kreli, one of the chiefs, deported to the east after the war 
of 1850, should be removed from the country which he then 
occupied, beyond the Bashie. Kreli felt by no means dis- 
posed to fall in with the arrangements proposed, but quietly 
sounded his fellow chiefs as to whether they would aid 
him in resisting, if forcible means were adopted for his 
transference. Next the Home Government, which was 
thoroughly sick of Caffre wars, sent out instructions that 
Kreli should remain undisturbed, and that the territory east 
of the Kei, part of which was to have been occupied by 
Europeans, should be given back to the natives. On this. 



THE TOLENL 375 

as was natural, Sandilli thought that something good might 
be in store for him, but on hearing the new distribution of 
lands intended, he would have nothing to do with it, and 
the share designed for him was oflfered to the Fingoes. 
They gladly leaped at the offer, and a Fingo emigration 
began from Fort Beaufort, Victoria, Queenstown, and 
British Caffraria, to the ** Transkeian territory," by which 
was meant the region east of the Kei. The emigration 
drew away many church members from the several stations, 
and it became a question whether it was right to allow them 
to depart, without any one accompanying them to look after 
their spiritual welfare. A mission to the Transkeian territory 
was therefore resolved upon, the Free Church and the 
United Presbyterian labourers agreeing to undertake it as 
a joint enterprise. The Rev. Bryce Ross went as the Free 
Church representative, his thorough acquaintance with the 
language (he was bom in Caffraria) rendering him admirably 
fitted to head an expedition into a new and unexplored part 
of the country. To supply his place at Lovedale, so far as 
a new comer would do it, the Rev. James Robertson was 
ordained and sent out from home. A few ladies in Edin- 
burgh raised ;^iooo to commence the mission. By the ist 
February 1866, Sir P. Wodehouse, governor of the Cape, 
estimated the number of Fingoes who had crossed the Kei 
at 40,000, and the emigration still went on. The Fing6 
station was called the Toleni, from the Toleni River on 
which it was situated. By 1867 there was a ready-made 
native congregation there of 1 20 members. A missionary 
deputation, including the Rev. Messrs Govan and Tyo 
Soga, had an interview with Kreli, and obtained liberty 
from him to select a site for the mission, and in 1868 the 
Rev. Richard Ross finally left Lovedale to settle permanently 
in the Transkeian region. 



376 CAFFRARIA. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE NATAL AND GORDON MISSIONS. 

On July 1 6, 1867, the Free Church adopted a mission in 
the Natal colony, in charge of the Rev. James Allison. 
The Zooloos, among whom he laboured — a tribe now of 
world-wide reputation, from their connection with Colenso 
— ^are a branch of the Caflfre race. Mr Allison has met 
with much success among them; and in 1868, he was able 
to intimate the baptism of thirty-six converts in a single day. 
On 6th October 1869, he sent forth from Pietermaritzburg, 
the capital of the Natal colony, thirteen native evangelists 
to return to their own country of the Baramputana, and 
spread the gospel among their fellow-countrymen. 

On 19th October 1870, the Amaswaze chief, Sikwetshi, 
accompanied by upwards of a hundred of his leading men, 
came to Pietermaritzburg to get a farm transferred to them 
which they had purchased for ;£i2oo from a Dutch boor. 
Twenty acres of this, including the right of grazing, cutting 
firewood, drawing water, &c, were then given over by a 
formal grant to the Free Church for missionary purposes. 
Philip Bhujang, a catechist of the Natal mission, was after- 
wards settled on the chiefs estate. Before the Assembly of 
1872, 425 in all had been admitted into the Church in con- 
nection with the Natal mission. 

In February 1868, the newspapers narrated a so-called 
accident by which, in the mysterious providence of God, 
the Hon. J. H. Gordon, a grandson of the distinguished 
statesman, once premier of Great Britain — the Earl of Aber- 
deen — lost his life while prosecuting his studies at Cam- 
bridge. Two or three years before his lamented death, he 
had, it appeared, entertained the thought of a Christian 
mission to British Caflfraria; and in all probability, had his 
iife been spared, would have carried out the enterprise in 



THE GORDON MISSION. 377 

person. With sound motherly and Christian instinct, Lady 
Aberdeen felt that the best memorial of the gifted and 
pious son so suddenly snatched from her, would be the 
establishment of a Gordon mission in the region to which 
his heart had so often turned. She communicated on the 
subject with Dr Duflf and the Free Church Foreign Mis- 
sionary Committee, and finally handed over jQ6ooo to be 
vested in trustees as a permanent endowment, for the pro- 
posed Gordon station in Caffraria. The Convener and two 
others of the Foreign Mission Committee, with three 
members of the Aberdeen family, were associated as a small 
managing committee for carrying out the provisions of the 
trust. At first, it was thought that the best place for the 
new station would be the Transkei territory (Free Church 
Missionary Record^ 1869, pp. 151, 152). But Natal after- 
wards seemed a more eligible region. The Rev. Dr Dalziel, 
whose attainments were very great, was ordained in 1870 
to be the head of the Gordon mission, and left the same 
year for Africa with Mrs Dalziel, the latter being a daughter 
of the late Rev. Dr Lorimer of Glasgow. We have oftener 
than once quoted from her vivid description of what she 
saw on her first journey in Africa. In 1872, Dr Dalziel 
had an offer of a church at Port Elizabeth, with a salary of 
;;^5oo a year, but, as might have been anticipated, he 
unhesitatingly rejected the offer, feeling himself called not 
to the pastorate, but to evangelistic labour among the 
heathen. The Free Church, and many beyond its pale, 
will watch with eager interest the future development of the 
Gordon mission. 




CONCL USION. 

[HE obligation incumbent upon the Church of 
Christ to prosecute Foreign Missions rests 
upon the commands of the Divine Redeemer. 
Had efforts in this direction been wholly abor- 
tive, allegiance to Him would still have necessitated their 
continuance. 

But blessed be God, they have not been a failure. True, 
from before the memory of the present generation, a succes- 
sion of men have arrived from countries in which missions 
are being carried on with reports of the complete uselessness 
of the enterprise. Especially has this been the . case with 
regard to India. How can these erroneous statements be 
accounted for? Simply through the force of human preju- 
dice. When an officer, on returning from the East, prefaces 
his disparagement of missions with the remark — " I have 
been thirty years in India," his auditors naturally assume 
that his unfavourable opinion is founded on long observa- 
tion. In most cases, it is nothing of the kind. As a rule, 
the critics of missions never, during their whole thirty years' 
residence in the East, once condescended to look at the 
interior of a mission, and they know a great deal less on the 
subject than those who look up to them as authorities. 
Not being themselves Christians in heart, they are pro- 
foundly indifferent to evangelistic work. 

Men feeling the power of the gospel on their own con- 
sciences, never when abroad let pass the opportunity of 
visiting a mission; and these not merely give favourable 
reports, but aid the operations in progress with handsome 



TESTIMONIES TO MISSIONS. 379 

contributions in money. We take a couple of testimonies 
from observers of the trustworthy t)rpe : — 

Sir Richard Temple (Mr Hislop's friend), in a State paper 
presented to Parliament, says that mission schools are popu- 
lar, because of " the kindness, the courtesy, the patience, 
and the aptitude of the missionaries for the instruction of 
youth." He says also that the " self-denying, irreproachable 
demeanour of the missionaries of all denominations, and 
the spirit of Catholic charity evinced by them, produce a 
deep impression on the minds of Orientals, and raise our 
national character in the estimation of the natives." — Free 
Church Missionary Record^ 1868, pp. 126, 127. 

Major-General Sir Arthur Cotton also bore the following 
emphatic testimony in their favour when speaking at a mis- 
sionary meeting in Oxfprd : — 

** I am always glad to bear testimony, as a man of forty years* know- 
ledge of India, and not personally connected with missions, as to their 
progress in India. I have traversed India from Hurdwar to Cape 
Comorin, and have had many opportunities of visiting the missions, and 
I would first express my confidence in the missionaries generally as 
true men of God, faithful, earnest, and able men ; many of them of 
first-rate talents and energy, preaching the gospel in great simplicity. 
With respect to the progress of the "work I must state my conviction 
that the missionaries generally are disposed to underrate the advance 
they have made. I compare the case with that of soldiers in the heat 
of battle ; they often think themselves hard pressed, and are doubtful 
of the event, when a man overlooking the field sees plainly that they are 
making steady and sure progress, and gaining ground at every effort. I 
was once advancing with a column against an entrenched position of the 
enemy, marching in the Engineers' post on the right of the leading 
company of the column, when it came into my mind to observe particu- 
larly the behaviour of the men, and I saw them moving exactly as if on 
parade, not a man hastening or slackening his pace, or fidgeting to fire, 
though the fire was getting very hot, and the men were dropping every 
moment. Then I felt sure that no enemy could stand before them. 
Just so I look upon the missionaries in India, and however much they 
may be discouraged by many partial failures, and disappointments, and 
innumerable difficulties, I see plainly the solid progress they are making, 
as proved in many ways." — Free Church Missionary Record ^ 1868, 
pp. 125, 126. 

The Brahmans, too, and others interested in the main- 
tenance of Hindooism, take, it is important to state, exactly 



380 CONCLUSION. 

the view of Sir Arthur Cotton. In place of holding with 
those Europeans who are indifferent or hostile to the work 
that nothing has been effected, they, as a rule, despondingly 
admit that a great deal more has been done than the mis- 
sionaries are aware of, and believe the ultimate fall of 
Hindooism and the triumph of Christianity to be inevitable. 
We share their opinion. Our belief is that Protestant 
Christianity in India has advanced more rapidly than the 
gospel did in the first centuries ; that its progress has been 
quicker than that of Brahmanism when in conflict with the 
aboriginal faiths, and that it has made way faster than either 
Mohammedanism or Romanism in the East* What has 
disguised and dwarfed the appearance of magnitude which 
the Indian Church would otherwise have been admitted to 
possess has been the tremendous extent of the land to be 
subdued. Viewed absolutely, native Christians are a com- 
paratively numerous body ; looked at relatively to the 
millions of nominal Hindoos and Mohammedans, they 
appear few indeed. But the power of Christianity will be 
incalculably under-estimated if it be supposed that the 
number of baptisms which have already taken place fairly 
measure the standing which it has within our Eastern 
Empire. From every mission rays of influence have gone 
forth which have more or less affected even the remotest 
villages in the country. Though believing that the ultimate 
fall of Hindooism is yet centuries remote, and that Moham- 
medanism will long linger after Hindooism has passed away, 
yet we are strongly convinced that the mortal blow, from 
which the former great system of error is destined ultimately 
to expire, has already been struck. 

* For an effort to prove these propositions, see the British and Foreign Evan- 
gelical Review^ for October 1870, pages 70Z to 719. 



INDEX. 



Abassibeb, 179, x8o, 188. 
Abdool Khader, 170, 188. 
Abeona Emigrant Vessel, Burning of, 

344- 
Aberdeen, Earl and Countess of, with 

their family, 376, 377. 
Aborigines of India, 48, 338-337. 
Abraham, a Jewish Convert, 85, 86. 
Abyssinian Converts, 220, 225, 227, 249. 
Adamj Rev. Mr, 63. 
Adwaito Charan, 141. 
Africa, Southern, 339, &c. 

Western, 7, 8. 

Aga Mohammed Khan, a68. 
Ahmednuggur, American Mission at, 

283. 
Aitken, Rev. James, 303, ai8, 256, 257, 

258, 280 282. 
Aleemalummah, 162. 
Alice, the Capital of Victoria Province, 

in South Africa, 357, 358, 368. 
Alicia Race, Case of, as tried by Lord 

Campbell, 189. 
Allison, Rev. James, 376. 
Amakosa, 340. 
Amatole Hills, 346. 
AmatoH Valley, 346. 
Anand Singh, 315. 
Anundo Chunder Majundar, 70. 
Anderson, Rev. John, 17, 29, i49-z84. 

Mrs, i68, 199. 

Church, 192. 

Anglicanism v. Orientalism, 63. 
Angus, Rev. Robert and Mrs, 275, 3761 

378, 380. 
Anti-Conversion Memorial, 316. 
Apaya, 397. 

Apler, Mr, 293, 295, 297, 298. 
Ardwise, Mr, 98. 
Arjun, 324. 
Armenians, 103, 218. 
Armstrong Fort, 355. 
Arrow, Major, 315. 
Arthur, Sir George, 359. 
Aryans, 47. 

Associations, F. M., 30-32. 
Auckland, Xiord, 76. 
Avatars of Vishnoo. 294. 



Baba Padmanji, Rev., 337, 244, 279. 
Baba Pandurang, Rev., 299-301, 307, 

324, 326. 
Bsiboo Vishnoo Chandra Chatturjya, xy^, 

Grish Chandra, 137. 

Baboos, 134. 

Baika Nath De, 105, 120, 121. 

Bal Dewa, 310. 

Bala Gopal Joshi, 225, 235, 261. 

Balfour, Dr, 91. 

Rev. Dr Robert, 3, 345. 

Station, in South Africa, 346. 

Banko Behari Basu, 91, 92, Z05. 

Bankote, 205, 206-209. 

Bansberia, 102, 122. 

Bapu Masda, 244. 

Baranagtir, 84, 86, 98, 103. 

Bartels, Mr, 293-295. 

Battle Scene, 361. 

Bauboo, 179, 196. 

Bayne, the Misses, 208, ai8. 

Beaumont, Rev. J. S., 114, Z35, 141, 

280. 
Beef-eating, 65, 83, 281. 
Bees, 226, 227. 
Beg, Rev. Waxir, 226, 259^ 360, a6i, 

262, 265, 267. 
Behari Lai Singh, Rev., 8i [Note), 96, 

102, X20. 

Bell, J. H., Esq., 157. 

Benemadab, 93> 196. 

Bengal and the Bengalees, 49, 50, &c. 

Bengalee Church, 103, 128, 135, 137, 

141. 
Beni Israel, 219, 233. 
Bennie, Rev. Mr., (sen.), 8, 344, 345, 

3SO, 356-359. 

Mr 0"°'). 372' 

Bentinck, Lord Wm., 33, 61, 72. 

Bernard, C, Esq , 32a. 

Bethune Society, 125 {Note), 131. 

Bexley, Lord, 33. 

Bha^abati Charan Mukerjya, zao, 121. 

Bhujang, Philip, 376. 

Bible in Education, 59. 

Blacklock, Dr, 183. 

Blake, Rev. Alex., 193, 196, 197. 

Blyth, Rev. Robert, 177, i86, Z90-196 



382 



INDEX. 



Bohora Convert, a^8. 

Bombay City and rresidenqn viii., 304, 

ao6, &C. 

Institution, axa, 230, &c 

Tract and Book Society, 208, 

836. 
— University, 948. 
Bordererst the 35th, 173. 
Borland, Rev. Francis, z {Note). 
Bowie, Rev. Mr, 150. 
Bowley, Rev. Mr, 78. 
Brahma Sabha or Sumaj, 93, 136. 
Brahmans, 48, 49, 65, 148, 921-224, 379, 

380, &c. 
Baptized, vi., 68, 74, 107, zzo, 

Z37, a2z, 264, 265, 967, &c. 
Braidwood, Rev. John, z8, 3Z, 32, Z52, 

„ 154, '55» *^*' l^ ^7^'J'^h '^^' ^93- 

Brainerd, Rev. Mr, 2 (Note). 

Brajanath, zoQ. 

Brereton, R. M., Esq., 322. 

Brett, Major, 187. 

Brown, Rev. Dr Charles J., 20» 950. 

his Congregation, isg. 

Brownlee, Rev^^r, 343, 345, 362. 
Bruce, A. F., Esq., z6z. 

Rev. Dr's, Congregation, zx4. 

Brunton, Rev. Dr, 20, 4Z. 

Bryce, Rev. Dr, ^ 7Z. 

Buchanan, Rev. Dr James, 42. 

Buddhists, 4^ 

Bundara, viii^ 326. 

Burns. Jas., "Esq., 245. 

Bumshill, 346, 348-3501 355. 357» 358, 

361. 363* 368, 369. 37'- 
Burton, Sir William, Z63, Z64, Z68-Z7Z) 

i7S» 178. i8z, Z87. 
Bykanta Nath, 90, 91. 

Cabtano, Louis, 23Z. 

CafTraria and the Caffres, 339, 340, 34Z. 

CafTre Missions, 8, z8, 2Z, 24, 25, 26, 27, 

Wars, 347-349. 354-356» 359-362. 

Calcutta, 9-z8, 22, 52, 53-144. 

Christian Observer, 68. 

Free Church, 8x, 82, Z03, X38, 

Review t 85. 

University zxs* 

Calderwood, Rev. Henry, 35^ 364. 
Campbell, Rev. Alex. B. and Mrs, Z77- 

Z79, Z92, Z93-Z96. 

Lord, 189. 

Candlish, Rev. Dr, 49, 225. 

his Congregation, Z59. 

Canning, Lord, 115. 

Cape Mission, 25, 27, 353, 354. 

Capitol, The American, 36. 

Carlyle, Rev. Pr, of Inveresk, 5. 

Carpenter, Miss, 277. 

Carslaw, Dr, Z95. 

Cassidy, Rev. Henry Pitt, 225, 23 x, 

262% 363. 



Caste, 48, 49, X5X, zs6, Z90, Z91, Z97, 
229-224, 98, 299. 

Catamaran, Vovage on a, z^3. 

Catechists, Full and Probationary, 12a 

Cator, Mr, 2oz. 

Chaldean Christians, 231. 

Chalmers, Rev. Dr Thomas, ZZ-Z3, 27. 

—— Rev. W., 345, 346, 350. 

Chaplains, Presbyterian, 9. 

Charles, Rev. Dr and Mrs, 76. 

Chaudri Family, the, 70. 

Chetty Caste, Z87, Z89, Z9Z, Z92. 

Childreyfs Missionary Record, 4Z. 

Chindwara, 324, 333, 334. 

Chingleput, Z53, 154. 

Chinsurah, 105, zzo, zzz, zx6, zz7, X24. 

Cholera, Z05, 122, Z75, Z93, 239, 26Z. 

Christian Vernacular Education So- 
ciety. Z40. 

Chumars, 32^. 

Chumie Station, 345, 347, 348. 

Chumpa, John, 324, 326. 

Church of Scotland, m its sleep, z, 2. 

in its awaking, 3. 3, 8, z6. 

Chutteesguhr, 325. 

Circumcision among the Caffres, 34Z. 

Clark, Rev. Thomas, Z84, 235. 

Concan, The Northern, 336, 337. 

The Southern, 206-309 

Conclusion, 378. 

Conferences (Missionary), 39, Z90. 

Conjeveram, zs2, Z53, Z93. 

Convocation of A.D. Z843, 20. 

Cooper, Dr, zs4. 

Rev. John, of the Concan, 8, 

206-209. 

Rev. John G. and Mrs, of 

Madras and Nagpore, z86, Z89, 3141 
32Z, 322, 324-^27. 

Cotton, Sir Arthur, 379. 

Couch, Sir Richard, 248. 

Crawford, Rev. Alexander, 8, 3o6, 
308. 

Culna, 70, 84, Z03. 

Cunningham, Mrs James, 377. 

Cutch, Earthquake in, 7. 

Cyclones, Z4, Z34, Z35, Z40. 

Dakshina at Poonah, 363, 364. 
Dalgleish, Rev. Alexander, z (Note). 
Dalziel, Mr John, 33Z, 333, 335* 

Rev. Dr and Mrs,. 377. 

Dai>ewada, 323, 324 
Darien Scheme, z {Note), 
Dasru, 323. 
Davidson, Captain, 229. 

Mr Duncan, 270. 

Dawson, Rev. James, and Mrs, 321, 

324. 335. 336- 
Dealtry, Rev. Dr, Bishop of Madras, 63. 
Denison, Sir William, and Lady, Z94. 
Dewar, Mr Joseph, 246. 
Dhanjibhai Nauroji, Rev., 2Z3-2i8,320k 

335, 236, 237, 244, 248, 250, 337. 



INDEX. 



383 



Dharma Sabhai <iz, 93. 

Dheds, 48, 237. 

Dinanatn Adhya, 102, 103, 105, 120, X2i. 

Discretion entitling to liberty of con- 
science, 164, 165, 170, 189. 

Disruption, The, 20, 80, 81, x6o, x6if 
221, 277. 

Don, Rev. John D., 128, T37, 1^9, 140. 

Doveton College, 81, 115 {Noti), 

Drake, Mr, 256. 

Drummond, Rev. James, 175, 176. 

Duff, Rev. Dr Alexander, vii., 12, 13, 
14, 15, x6, 17, x8, 19, 21, 22, 27, 28- 
37, 42, 44, 54-71, 76-105, XX4-X31, X44, 
149, 173, 269, 330, 331, 372, 377. 

Rev. Dr s, caste girls* school, 1x6, 

11^ I20, 124, X32. 

Mrs, 13, X4. 

Durand, Sir Henry, X3, 124, 304. 

Dusserah Festival, 296. 

Dwarkanath Bhose, 73. 

Das Basu, X04. 

Eastern Females' Friend, 38. 
Eckhard, Catherine, 373. 
Education Act, 113. 
Elder, Dr William, X98. 
Elgin, Lady, 128. 
EUenborough, Lord, 33. 
Elphinstone, Lord, 158, i68, 27X. 
English Language in the East, 63* 
Enrico Antongini, 235. 
Erskine, Rev. Dr, 3. 
Ethnology of India, 47, 48. 
Ettirajooloo, Rev. S., 155-157, X64, 

167, 176, x86, 196. 
Ewart, Rev. Dr David, 15, 71, 72, 92, 

107, 120, 122, X23. 

Ewart's, Mrs, Girls' School, 103, xo6, 
"5. 

Fees, 117, 199, 269. 

Female Education, 17, x8, 43, 102, X54, 

161, 211, &c. 
Ferrie, Rev. Dr, of Kilconquhar, X2. 
Financial Crisis in the Missions, 25-30. 
Fingoes, 342, 348, 356, 362, 363. 
Fitzgerald, Sir Sevmour, 248. 
Fordyce, Rev. John, and Mrs, 38, 43, 

108, X12, 113. 
Fort St George, 147. 
Foulis, Lady, 188. 

's Ayah, x88. 

Framjee, Ardaseer, 241. 
Framji Bomanii, 213. 
Franklin, Sir John, 75, 76 {Note). 
Eraser, Rev. J. Garden, 225. 

Frere, Sir Battle, and Lady, 113, X23, 

275, 276, 281. 
Friend of Indian 95, 140. 
Frost, Mr Joseph, 182, 193, 194. 
Fyfe, Rev. William C, 79, 80, 84, 102, 

105, X16, 122, 125, 134, 141. 
Fyze Buksh, 3x3. 



Gabru Warke (see Warke). 

Gaikas, 352, 356, 360, 362, 363. 

Gambier, Sir Edward, x6o, X63, X70. 

Ganu Lingapa, 308-310. 

Ganpat Gir, 313. 

Gardiner, Rev. Thomas, and Mrs, xo8, 

XO9, XT4, X18, X19. 
Gardner, Rev. James Wardrop, and 

Mrs, 270, 276-280. 
Geology, 320. 
Ghospara, 79, 84. 

Glasgow African Missionary Associa- 
tion, I'j, 24. 
Ladies' Association for Female 

Education in South Africa, 24. 
^— Missionary Society, 3, 6-8, x6, 

X7, 24, 27. 
—— Rev. Dr James, 218, 244. 
Gobinda Chandra Das, 120, 121. 
Gobindo and his Wife, 85, 96. 
Gogerly, Rev. Mr, 68. 
Gonds, 48, 145, 293 {Note\ 332-334. 
Goodoor, 187. 

Gopinath Nandi, Rev., 69, X19, X24. 
Gordon, Hon. J. H., 376. 

Rev. Dr Robert, 4X, 42. 

Gorrie, Rev. William, 25, 353, 354. 
Govan, Rev. William, x8, 341, 351, 352, 

3SS> 3S6» 358, 362, 367* 371, 373, 

375. 
Grant, Sir Alexander, and Lady, 277. 

Sir John Peter, X15. 

Grants-in-Aid, 36, X22, 200, 247, 3x7, 

^ 321, 3$8, 359. 365. 372. 

Grey, Sir George, 365. 

Gungadhur Shastree, 232, 233. 

Guru Das Mitra, 89, 105, xo6, 120, 

X2X. 

Habeas Corpus, Writs of, 86, 90, px, 

i34» i3S» 164, X65, x66, X68-X71, x8o, 

x8x, 189, 215, 219, 222, 232. 
Haldane, Rev, Principal, X3. 
Halifax, Lord, 34, 35, 36. 
Hamilton, Rev. George, of Gladsmuir, 

4-6. 
Hanna, Rev. Dr William, 42. 
Harding, Miss, 358. 
Hardinge, Lord, 86, 87. 
Hardy, Mr Samuel, 304-306, 32X, 324, 

335» 336. 
Harish Chandra, 92, 96. 
Harris, Lord, 182, X87. 188. 
Havelock, Sir Henry, 270, 281. 
Hawkins, Mr, 173, 354, 
Hector, Rev. John, X4x. 
Hem Nath Bhose, 1^5, x8x {Note). 
Hena, daughter of Gaika, 352. 
Henderson. Professor, 224, 226, 227. 
Hetherington, the Rev. Professor, 6. 
Hill, Rev. Dr, 5. 

Rev. Mr, 63. 

Sir William, 23, 24, 293. 

Mrs, 22, 23. 



384 



INDEX. 



Hindoo College, 58, 63. 

Metropolitan College, Z09, zio. 

Hislop, Rev. Stephen, and Mrs, 24, 174, 



176, 292, 293-321, 323, 324. 
Hormasdji Pestonji, 213, 214, 219, 227, 

237. 
Homer, Mr Leonard, ^20 {Note). 
Hornet of Scripture, The, 226, 227. 
Horoscopes, 165, 169. 
Hottentots, 339. 
Houston, Mr, 193, 195. 
Howrah, 127, 132, 138. 
Huffion, Mr, 187. 
Hunter, Prof. John, 13. 

Rev. Robert, 297, 312, 314. 

MrW. W.,47, 48. 

Humee, 205-209. 

Huts, Caffre, 340, 341, 373- 

Idol halls, 134, 135. 
Iggibigha, 350. 
Indaba, the^ 369. 
Indapore, 256, 257, 272, 284-288. 
India and Indian missions, Dr DufTs, 
19, 21, 59, 60. 

statistics of, viii., 46. 

ethnology of, 47*49. 

poverty of, 54. 

Inglis, Rev. Pr, 8, 9, zo, Z5. 
Inheritance, law of; 33, 34. 
Inquirer newspaper, 64. 
Institution system, 55-61, 282, 283. 
Irish presbyterian missionaries, 2x8. 
Isaac, 85, 86. 
Ishan Chandra Banerjya, Z20. 

Jagadishwar Bhattacharjya, Rev., 

77. 78, 84, 96, Z02, 107, ZX3. 
Jainas, the, 162. 
James, Rev. Mr, z {Note). 
Jamieson, Major St Clair, Z7, z8, Z55. 
Jankey Persad, 323, 325. 
Jaulna, 28^-288. 
Jayakar, Dr, 249. 

Jeejeebhoy, Sir Jamsetjee, 275, 320. 
Jews, baptism of, 85, 86, xo2. 
Jijibai, 267. 

Jodu Nath Banerjya, 98. 
Johnston, Rev. Robert, z8, zsa, Z73- 

X75- 
Joseph, Mr Mikhail, 246. 
Jung, Sir Salar, 287. 

Kalankbes, 294. 

Kalichurn Dutt, 77. 

Kalidas Chakrabarta, 98, z2o, Z2z, Z43. 

Kalyani, X32. 

Kamptee, viii., 29Z-297, 30Z, 303, 304, 

,,307. 3i4» 323. 325. 
Karta Bhoja sect, 79. 
Kassa, Prince, 249. 
Kaye, Sir John, 85. 
Kerr, Rev. Mr, 2x8. 
Xeshub Chandra Sen, 136. 



Khoilas Chunder Mogkerjee, 74, 75, 79, 

88,89. 
Khoilas' widow, Z03. 
Khoonds, J]^ 

Kirkland, Rev. Mr, 2 {NoteY 



Kircherer, Dr, 34. 



•, Dr, 



Knox station, 372. 

Koles, 48. 

Kreli, 374, 375. 

Krishna Mohun Banerjee, Rev., 64-69, 

Z24. 
Kulin Brahmans, 68, xo2, zo6, zzo, Z13. 
Kuzzilbashes, 268 {Note). 
Kweleha station, 356. 

Ladibs' Society, zo8. 

Lady Holland £ast Indiaman, Mrreckof 

the, Z3, 14- 
Laing, Rev. James, 346, 347, 350, 352, 

353. 355, 3S6f 357» 359. 361, 362, 364, 

368, 374- 
Miss, 76, 80, zox, X03, zz6, ZZ9, za6, 

Z27. 
Lai Behari De, vi., 96, Z07, ZZ3-120, 

Z24, X39, Z42. 
Lands of the Bible, Dr Wilson's, 220* 
Lawrence, Sir John (now Lord), Z35. 
Lawrie, Rev. Mr, X50. 
Le Grand Jacob, Major, 3x8, 229. 
Leith, Mr, barrister, 73. 
Liberty of conscience, 2Z9. 
Livingstone, Rev. Dr, 249, 370. 
Locher, the Misses, z68, Z75. 
Lohr, Mr, 325. 
Lorimer, Dr, X83. 
Losh, Rev. Mr, 293 {Note). 
Love, Rev. Dr John, 3, 6, 7, 345. 
Lovedale, 345, 348-350, 35Z, 353, 355, 

357-359. 361, 362-365, 367-373- 
Lucky Narayan Bhose, Z27, 138. 
Lulloo Bai, 303. 

Luther's early life, a parallel to, 259. 
Lyell, Sir Charles, 320 {Note). 

Macallum, Rev. Alex., z86, Z94, 195. 
Macaulay, Lord, 49, 50. 
Macbean, Mr William, 3. 
M'Crie, Rev. Dr., sen., 9 {Note). 
Macdiarmid, Mr and Mrs, 345, 346, 350, 



Macdonaid, Rev. Dr, of Ferintosh, 18, 

74* 
Rev. John and Mrs, x8, 74, 8z, 89, 



"5. 



92, 96, 97, 98, zo^. 
Rev. Kennetn Sommerled, 

X32-142. 

Rev. Robert,^©. 

Macfarlane, Rev. Dr, of Renfrew, 364. 

station, 364. 

Macintosh, Rev. T. Miller, Z79, x86, zgo. 

Mackail, Rev. Mr, zo8. 

Mackay, Rev. Dr. W. M., zs, 61, 62, 71, 

72, 74-76, 85, X07, Z15, zz6, zz8, X25. 
Mackenzie, Brigadier, 268, 3Z0. 



INDEX. 



385 



Mackenzie, Rev. Mr, of Dunfermline, 41. 
M'Lachlan, Mr and Mrs, 345. 
Macleod, Brigadier, 304. 
Macmillan, Rev. John, 197. 
M'Pherson, Colonel, 116. 
M 'Queen, Dr Kenneth, 43. 
Madhab Chandra Basak, 78. 
Madras city, viii., 147. 

high school, 177. 

mission, 17, 18, 21, aa, 89, Z49-30X. 

native church, 157, 17a, 179, 193. 

Native Herald^ 158, 196. 

presidency, viii., 145. 

university, aoo. 

Mahabuleshwar, 247. 

Mahanad, Z15, 126, 107, xa8, ia9, 130, 

137. 138, 140. 
Mahars, 48, 203, 283, 286, 323. 
Mahendra Lai Basak, 74, 75, 79, 88, 89. 

*s widow, 103. 

Mahratta converts, 235, 277. 

country and people, 202, 203. 

Maina, 224, 225, 236. 

Mangs, 48, 286, 323. 

Mansell, Mr, 307, 308. 

Mareb, the residence of the Queen of 

Sheba, 246. 
Maricha (see Warke). 
Marriage, 126. 



Marwadis, 244. 

Massacre at Nagpore planned, 313. 

Maulavi (Mohammedan) baptized, 107. 



Measles, 361. 

Medical college, 72, 73. 

missions, 38 (see also Paterson, 

Dr). 
Merit fostering order, 86. 
Metzger, Rev. Mr, 197. 
Miller, Rev. £benezer, and Mrs, 25, 

105. "6, 353, 354. 

Dr Hueh, 245. 

— — Rev. William, 195, 196, x97-aoz. 
Milne, Rev. John, 108, 10^, 1x9. 
Misal, Rev. Sidoba Bapuji, 287. 
Missionaries, the Scottish, all adhere to 

the Free Church, ax. 
Missionary conferences, 39, X90. 
Missions, professorship of; 44. 
Mitchell, Mrs, of Bankote, axz. 
— — Rev. Dr John Murray, and Mrs, 

18, X39, 14X, 206, 212, 226, 229, 333, 

a43, 261, 265, 267-269, a7i-a85, 393, 

330» 331. 334, 335- 

his life of Rev. R. Nesbit, 204, ao6. 

Rev. Donald, 8, aos, ao6. • 

Rev. James, 8, 17, 206, 209, 21X, 

253-276. 

Rev. W. Kinnaird, 266, 269, 270. 

Moffat, Rev. Wm., 182, 187, 190. 
Mohammedans, 51, 52, 147, 154, x8i, 

X82, 233, 246, 247, 260, 261, 313, 314, 

380. 
Mohammedan converts, 106, X07, &c. 
Mohesh Ghose, 67, 68. 



Mohun Lall. 325. 

Mohumim festival, z88. 

Moncrieff, Sir Henry, sen., 9 {Note), 

Mookerjya, 142. 

Mooniatta, Ruth, x67-z7a, X75. 

Morehead, W. A., Esq., X53. 

Mountain Echoes, 43. 

Mudhu Sudan Singh, 109. 

Muir, Rev. Dr John, 347. 

Mr John, 347. 

Mullens, Rev. Dr, and Mrs, 1x3, X27, 

X28. 
Mutinies, 39, XX7-X20, 187, 188, 3x3, 314. 

Nagalingum, x8o, 189, X9t, X95, 196. 
Nagpore, viii., 22, 23, 24, 27, 289-292. 

lapse of, 3x0, 3XX. 

Chota, 33X. 

Nana Sahib, 203. 
Napier, Lady, X98. 

Lord, of Magdala, xa8, 337. 

Narrainswamy Chetty, 189,- igt. 

Natal mission, 376, 377. 

Nellore, X54, X97, &c. 

Nesbit, Rev. Robert, 8, xa, X7, 207, 208, 

209, 21 X, aax, 222, 227, 230, 332, 338, 

239. 240, 254, 255, 256, 257. 
— — the first Mrs, 2x9, 227. 
— — the second Mrs, 238, 239, 247. 
NimtoUah Street, 86, zx6. 
Niven, Rev. Mr, 349, 350. 
Nixon. Rev. Wm., 4X. 
Northbrook, Lord, X4Z. 

Oriental Christian Spectator, 2x0, 
Orientalism v. Anglicanism, 6a. 

Pachamba, 33a. 

Padmanji (see Baba^. 

'* Padree," from Padre, 253. 

Pahar Singh, 307. 

Pandurang (see Baba). 

Parental Academic Institution} 8r. 

Pariahs, 48, X46, 15X. 

Parsees, axa-3x8, 3a6, 337, 340, 241, 

34^, 344, 261, 27X. 
Patcneappah's School, X58. 
Paterson, Dr, 38, X87, X93, X96-X98. 

Rev. James, 278. 

Pearce, Rev. W. H., 33. 

Peel, Sir Laurence, 90. 

Peishwas, the, 251, 253, 363. 

Perry, Sir Erskine, 322, 233. 

Persad, Mr Jankey, 333, 335. 

Persecution, 27X. 

Pice System, X94. 

Pilgrimages and Cholera, X93, 3x5 

{Note). 
Pirrie, 346, 347, 350, 353, 355-35 7» 3^«» 
„ 363. 371. 372. 
Ponumbalum, 164. 
Poonah, 206, 207, 209, 25I-253. 

Mission, 253-280. 

Sanscrit College, 254. 



386 



INDEX. 



Portuguese in India, 32S. 

Pottinger, Sir Henry, 173. 

Pourie, Rev. Mr, xxx, 1x9, X38, X39. 

Prankristo Ganguly, 98. 

Prasanna Kumar Cnatteiji, 78, 84, 95, 

96, X02, 107, X13. 
Pringlc, Thomas, the poet, 373. 
** Prophets," Caffrarian, 360, 365-367. 
Purves, Major, 239. 

Radhakant Dutt, Case of, 171. 
Rae, Rev. George M., X98. 
Ra^avooloo, X64-166. 
Rajah of Nagpore, 299, 300, 308, 309, 

31X. 

Bahadur, 94. 

Radhakant Deb, 94, X09. 

Rajahgopaul, Rev. P., 29, X56, X57, 164, 

X67, 174-176, 189, 193, 107. 
Rajeudra Chandra Chandra, X09, X3x. 
Ramanoojooloo, S. P., 159, 162. 
Ramchurn, 325. 
Ramee, 273, 274. 
Rammohun Roy, 57. 70. 
Ramsay, Prof., 320 {Note). 
Ramswami Venkatachellum, 307, 325, 

326. 
Rawlinson, Sir Christopher, x8i, X89, 

191. 
Record {Missionary) of the Established 

Church, 40. 

of the Free Church, 40, 4x. 

** Red " Caffres, 351. 

Rents, 245, 246. 

Robertson, Rev. James, 375. 

Rev. Mr, X41. 

Rev. Mr, 344. 

Robson» Dr, 137. 

Rev. John, 53. 

Rose, Mr, 83, X02. 
Ross, MrWm., X98. 

Miss Helen, 363. 

Rev. Bryce, 353, 359, 36X, 368, 

375* 
Rev. John, 8, 345, 347, 350, 353, 

3SS. 356, 3^7. 361. 

Rev. Richard, 367, 369, 

Roxburgh, Captain, 85. 

Rugoonath, 240. 

Russia, 8. 

Ruth. See Mooniatta. 

Ruthnum, 191, 192. 

Rutnaghcrry, 247. 

Rural Missions, 259, 282-288. 

Sax, Case of, 232, 235. 

St Andrews' School, Madras, X50. 

UniversityMissionary Society, 12. 

Salay Street, Madras, 185. 
Sanrlilli, 346, 360, 363, 374. 
Sanjan, 337. 
Santhals, 48, 328-332. 
Satnami Chumars, 335. 
Sattara 352, 380-289. 



. 370- 



Saville, Miss, 77, 80. 

Savads baptizea, 242, 343, &c. 

Scholarships, X3x, 339. 

School Books in Calcutta, 60. 

Scinde, £x- Ameers of, xx6, 375. 

Scindia, xx6. 

Scotch Presbyterians in India, 9 {Note), 

Scotland, Sir CoUey, X94. 

Scott, Rev. Mr, of Darien, x {Note). 

Scottish Missionary Society, 3, 8, 17, 

305-2x1, 353-256. 
Seetabuldee, viii , 391, 302, &c 
Seikh, a baptized, 342. 
Seitz, Mrs, 225, 232, 236. 
Selling Tracts, 226. 
Shanars, 48. 

ShapuHi Edalji, Rev.,^ 343, 347, 337. 
Sheeb Chunder Banerjya, 100, xox, 1x4, 

120, X2I, X42, 143. 
Sheshadri, Rev. Narayan, 23x, 223, 33T, 

238-240, 283-288. 
— — Shripat, 222-224. 
Shields, Rev. Alex., x {Note). 
Shoolbred, Rev. Mr, 245. 
Sikwetshi, 376. 
Sil's College, 93, 94, 95. 
Sinclair, Rev. David and Mrs, xoa, xo8. 
Sitela, 359. 
Slaves, 228. 
Small, Rev. John, 274. 
Smallpox, 361. 
Smith, Dr George, of the Friend of 

Indiut XI 3, 140. 

Messrs George and Sons, 248. 

Rev. Dr Thomas and Mrs, x8, 75, 

80, 85, 90, 9x, 92, X04, X09, XX3, XX4- 

xx6, xxo. 

Sir Harry, 360, 362. 

Spencer, Bishop, X63. 

Steele, Rev. Mr, 245. 

Stephen, Rev. Wm., 248. 

Stevenson, Rev. Dr John, 8, 2o6<409, 

221, 253-255. 
Rev. George, of Pulteneytown, 

332 

Rev. W., X97. 

Stewart, Rev. Dr James, 342, 370-^72. 

Rev. Dr, of Moulin, X2 {Note). 

Stobo, Rev. Mr, x (Note). 

Stothert, Rev. Richard, 245, 250, 315, 

316, 237- 
Stow, Mr, of Glasgow, 58. 
Sultan Hossein, X41. 
Surja Kumar Mukerji, 98. 

baptism of, 102. 

Suttee, 6x. 
Sutu, 346. 

Taki, 70, 79, 84. 

Takulghat, Scythian remains at, 3x7- 

319- 
Tamuls, 145-248, i$4i 168, 292, &c. 
Tatwa-bodhini Society, X02. 
Taylor, Rev. Joseph, of Belgaum, X73. 



INDEX. 



387 



Teaching and Preaching, 220, izz, 333, 

334, 282, 983. 
Teloogoos, 145-148, XS4, 155, 168, 29a. 
Temple and God adjudjged to a Native 

Christian, 1^5, 196. 
Temple, Sir Richard, 140, 316, 317, 321, 

^ 324», 325. 379. ^ 
Tempieton, Mr, 367, 371, 372. 

Rev. A., M.B., 331, 332. 

Tente, Mr, 349. 

Thorn, Rev. Dr, of Cape Colony, 7, 8. 

Thomson, Rev. W. R., of Caffrana, 9, 

343. 344- 

Miss, 352. 

Tiyo Soga, Rev., 375. 

Tod, Mr Henry, W.S., 43. 

Toleni, ^^^^ 375. 

Toogood, Miss^ zz6. 

Transkeian Migration} 367 {NofeX 374. 

Tnbeni, X14. 

Triplicane, 148, 162, z88 {Noti\ &c. 
Turanian Race, 47, 48, 145. 
Tweeddale, Marquis and Marchioness 

of, 160. 
Tweedie, Rev. Dr, 42, 195, 370. 
Tytier, Dr, 73. 

Uma Charim Ghosh, 105. 
Umesh Chandra Sirkar, 89, 90. 
Umlakaza the Caffre " Prophet," 365- 

367- 
Umlanjeni, a Caffre " Prophet,'* 360. 
Unnam, Joanna, 167, z68, 169, 171. 
United I^esbyterian Church, z6, Z7. 
Unstikana, 343. 
Urquhart, Mr John, zz. 

Vandrrkbmp, Dr. 343. 
Vandidad Sade, The, 2x0. 
Vedantism, 57, 93, Z02, Z36. 
Venkat Rao's widow, a zenana 

teacher, 326. 
Venkataramiah, Z56, Z57, Z64, 167, Z74, 

Z76, z82t z88, Z89, Z97. 



iayman, 9 



Venkatlutchjnoo, Lydia, Z67-Z7X. 

Vernacular schools, 307. 

Vimbe, 347. 

Vincente Avelino de Cunha, 2281 2291 

33z> 236. 
Voss, Afr, 293, 294, 995. 

Walkbr, Rev. Norman L., 4Z. 
Wallace, Professor, 74 {J^ote). 
Waralis, 247, 336» 337- 
Warke, Messrs Gabru and Maricha, 

220, 225, 227, 228, 249. 
Weir, Mr, 345, 350, 353- 
White, Rev. Adam, 240, 244, 3Z5. 
Whitton, Rev. David, 326. 
Widows, Hindoo, Z26, Z27, Z38, Z98. 
Wild tribes of India, 328-337. 
Williams, Rev. Joseph, 343. 
Wilson, Dr Horace Ha 

{Note). 

Mrs, of Aeurpara, zza. 

the first Airs, 208, 2zz. 

the second Mrs, 247, 347. 

Rev. Dr John, 8, Z7, 23, 24, 29, 

33, 149, 208-220, 226-250, 269, 3x9, 

336, 337- ,„ 

Rev. Dr Wm., 41. 

Winslow, Rev. Mr, Z64, . 

Wood, Mr, of Edinburgh, 58. 

. Sir Charles. — See Halifax, 

Lord. 
Wylie, Mr Macleod, Z22. 
Rev. Dr, 4z. 

Yadoji, 207, 30Z. 

Yaygah, Rachel, Z67, z68, Z7Z. 

Young, Mr Robert, vii., 43. 

— - Mr William and Mrs, 32Z, 325, 



Zambbsi River, 370. 

Zenanas and the Zenana Scheme, 

zzz, zza, ZZ3, Z37, Z96, 257, 303. 

326. 
Zibi, a Caffre Chief, 368, 369.