PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY BX 5199 .H4 S5 1895 Smith, George, 1833-1919. Bishop Heber, poet and chiej missionary to the East Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive in 2015 littps://arcliive.org/details/bishopheberpoetcOOsmit WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR The Life of William Carey, D.D., Shoemaker and Missionary, Professor of Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi in the College of Fort William, Calcutta. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. Second Edition. Henry Martyn, Saint and Scholar, First Modern Missionary to the Mohammedans. Small 4to. los. 6d. R. T. S. Also New York and Chicago Editions. The Life of John Wilson, D.D., F.R.S., for Fifty Years Philan- thropist and .Scholar in the East. Crown 8vo. 9s. Second Edition. The Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D. Royal 8vo. 2 vols. 24s. Popular Edition. Hodder. gs. Also New V'ork and Toronto Editions. Stephen Hislop, Pioneer Missionary and Naturalist in Central India. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. Second Edition. A Modem Apostle : Alexander N. Somerville, D.D. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. Second Edition. The Student's Geography of British India, Political and Physi- cal, with Maps. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. The Conversion of India, from Pantoenus to the Present Time. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. Also New York and Chicago Editions. Short History of Christian Missions, from Abraham and Paul to Carey, Livingstone, and Duff. Fourth Edition. T. and T. Clark. In the field 0/ Biography every year f reduces its han'csi of lives, netu and old, front Henry Martyn — whose recent Memoir by Dr. George Smith, the historiographer of missions, contains muck new 7natter besides his 'well- knoiun journals— to those H'Jio have but just passed to their rest. . . . ,{ very strihin-: estimate of the injluence of Forei^'u Missions is con- tained in Dr. George Smith's latest '.rork, entitled The ConNersion of India, a volume of the deepest interest towards the solution of the problem of Asia. The veto an worker in this spe, ial field of literature brings to his subject all the charm of a welf practised 'pen. and all the breadth of induction founded on 7vide and mintde acguaintance with the particulars of a subject almost limitless in extent and importance. — The Quarterly Retview, No. ,55, January .894. JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET BISHOP HEBER TO Mary Agnes MY WIFE '//le ^c/r/:^rac/^Mn ^h//.) ^H'/Zf \ nal dL ne.Der, bp. ot v.Qicu-+i j BISHOP HEBER POET AND CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST SECOND LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA 178M826 GEORGE SMITH, CLE., LL.D AUTHOR OF 'WILLIAM CAREY, D.D.'; ' HENRY MARTYN, SAINT AND SCHOLAR,' ETC. FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL AND ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETIES Mr; 0o/3oO ■ 6701 e'xw ras /cXeis ToO p5ou Kal tov BavaTov LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 189s PREFACE Two generations have passed away since the death of Reginald Heber in the bath at Trichinopoly. His widow promptly pubHshed, in two quarto volumes, a Memoir of his Life. In these the most lovable and the most laborious of all English gentlemen and missionaries lies buried. His verse, and especially his, as yet, matchless missionary hymn, have kept his name in remembrance. The time has come to record the part which he took in the revival of the Church of England at the beginning of the century, and what he accomplished, or set in motion, for the development of the early missionary enterprise, especially in the south of India. For years he stood almost alone among the students of Oxford, the squires of England, and the clergy of the Church, in the personal support and public advocacy of the four great Missionary and Bible Societies of his youth, and in catholic co-operation with Nonconformists. A patriot in the most stirring period of our national history, he was of no party in the Church. A theologian of ripe scholarship and evangelic zeal, he resented alike the extremes of the so-called Calvinists, and the pelagianism of the Arminians of his day. He was for Christ ; he loved and he did much to elevate the great Reformed Church which he loyally served ; he worked with all good men, or wished them well in the one divinely commanded cause. His short episcopate, while he was still a viii BISHOP HEBER young man, was the rich and fruitful outcome of such zeal, such wisdom, and such charity. While striving to put Reginald Heber's public life in its right perspective and setting in England, and especially in India, 1 have attempted to reveal the man who so charmed his contemporaries, both men and women. I thank his nephew, the present Rector of Hodnet, the Rev. Richard Hugh Cholmondeley, for most courteous assistance. I grate- fully acknowledge the help of the present Rector of Malpas, the Rev. and the Hon. W. Trevor Kenyon, especially in per- mitting me to publish, for the first time, Heber's letters and verses to Charlotte Dod, Edge Hall, Cheshire. Reginald Heber's relation to her, as to Maria Leycester, afterwards Mrs. Augustus Hare, forms another chapter in the history of literary and spiritual friendships, like William Cowper's not long before. The illustrations have been reproduced chiefly from the original wood engravings cut from Heber's own sketches. The Portrait is an intaglio from an early proof of the copper- plate engraving of the oil painting in All Souls College, Oxford, by Phillips, R.A. The pictures of the old Cathedral of St. John and of the Mausoleum of Job Charnock, the founder of Calcutta, are from platinotypes by Professor Thomson, M.A., of the Duff College, Calcutta. The Rock of Trichinopoly is from a recent photograph. The Map of India in Bishop Heber's time has been reproduced from the original copperplate of J. Walker's work. Serami'ore House, Merchiston, Edinburgh, 26//^ September 1895. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Heber's Place in Missionary Biography PAGE History of Christian Missions still to be written . . . i August Neander ....... I Biographies the materials of history ..... 2 Reginald Heber's unique position ..... 2 The Seven Chief Missionaries to India .... 3 The three American pioneers ..... 4 Bishops Caldwell and Valpy French .... 4 Bishop Berkeley, the missionary philosopher • . • 5 CHAPTER n Malpas and Oxford 1783-180S Heber, Cotton, and the men of Cheshire .... 6 Malpas and Ilaybcrg ...... 7 Richard Heber, M. P., and his books .... 8 Reginald Heber's gracious boyhood ..... 9 Contrasted with Carey and Martyn ..... 10 His schools, reading, and drawing ..... 12 At Oxford : Brasenose and All Souls in 1800 ... 16 His Latin poem '9 His rah-s/hic and Walter Scott ..... 20 Early friendship with Charlotte Dod and verses . • .22 His father's death ....... 25 His missionary enthusiasm ...... 27 a 2 X BISHOP HEBER CHAPTER in The Grand Tour in the Years of Austerlitz ani ^Reginald Heber the idol of Oxford University Lands with Thornton at Gothenburg' Survey of Norway and Sweden Petersburg and the league against Buonaparte Austerlitz ..... Moscow and the death of William Pitt The Scottish Mission in the Caucasus History of the Cossaks. Sebastopol . The tomb of Howard Hungary, Vienna, Central Europe, and Berlin Jena ...... The General Election of 1806 Welcome home to Hodnet . CHAPTER IV HoDNET Parish and Hodnet Friends Hodnet parish and Hawkstone Park Introduced to Wilberforce— " The Slave Trade is no more Influence of the Clapham Sect First experiences as Rector of Hodnet Of no Church party, but broadly evangelical Married in 1 809 ..... Builds the new rectory .... Clive's grave in Hebcr's chapelry Preaches for the Bible Society On worldly amusements .... Death of his young brother and daughter. His prayers Maria Leycester, afterwards Mrs. Augustus Hare . Preacher at Lincoln's Inn .... Birthday verses and letters to Charlotte Dod PAGE 28 29 30 33 ■ 36 39 42 43 44 45 47 48 49 51 52 53 55 55 57 58 56 61 62 6-, 64 67 68 1805-1806 CONTENTS xi PAGE Palestine as an Oratorio by Crotch . . . . .70 Mrs. Fry and her work in Newgate . . . . .72 Present fruit of Heber's labours in Hodnet . . . ■ 7^ CHAPTER V Poet and Critic 1810-1822 Heber constrained to write hymns for his congregation . . 79 His ideal of hymnody ...... 80 Missionary collection in every church in England . . .81 Heber writes " From Greenland's icy mountains " . . .82 H. H. Milman's, Scott's, and .Southey's contributions . . 85 Heber's fifty-seven hymns ...... 90 His place in English hymnology . . . . .91 His MS. hymn-book with music ..... 92 Works and Life of Jeremy Taylor .... 92 Heber, Jeremy Taylor, and Milton contrasted . . '93 Heber's Quarterly Review articles . . . . .96 His Poems and Translations dedicated to his brother . . 97 Heber on John Wesley ...... 99 On Hymns and Lord Byron ...... loi Hawarden Castle — A Song of the Bow .... 103 Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone and Mrs. Gladstone on Heber . 104 CHAPTER VI Chief Missionary of the Church of England to the East 1823-1826 Palestine, a missionary poem ..... 105 Heber's appeals for the Bible Society .... 106 His proposal for union of the Church's two Missionary Societies . 108 His appeals for the Church Missionary Society . . .ill His Bampton Lectures on the Comforter . . . .114 Wynn offers him the Bishopric of Calcutta . . . .116 Heber's mother and his wife's family oppose . . .119 Appointment approved by the King and accepted . . .120 BISHOP HEBER PAGE Letters and verses to Charlotte Dod ..... 121 Heber analyses his motives ...... 124 Quotes the farewell of Philoctetes . . . . .127 Last sermons in Hodnet and Malpas .... 128 Maria Leycester's searchings of heart .... 129 Consecration in Lambeth Palace . . . . -133 , ' ^ Heber declares himself chief missionary in the East . . . 135 CHAPTER VII India and the Voyage in 1823 Lord Amherst Governor-General at the same time . . . 137 George Canning and the great Administrators then in India . 138 Church of England non-missionary till Heber's arrival . -139 The voyage and its occupations ..... I42 First impressions of Bengal . . . . . .147 Arrival at Calcutta ....... 148 The old Cathedral of St. John . . . . .150 Prayer on beginning his episcopate . . . . .151 CHAPTER VIII Calcutta and Lower Bengal 1824 King William's missionary charter of 1698 . . . .152 Job Charnock, founder of Calcutta, and his tomb . . -153 Middleton the first Bishop of Calcutta .... 154 Heber makes Corrie Archdeacon and praises Thomason . 156 Titaghur and Serampore ; Carey and Marshman . • 157 Suttee and its prevention ...... 160 The cholera morbus ....... 162 Ordination of Christian David ..... 162 Calcutta and life there 163 Bell's educational system and Mrs. Wilson's schools • l66 Lord Amherst and his family ..... 169 The peasantry of Bengal . . • • .170 Rarrackpore Park . . ■ • 176 The swinging orgie . . . • 179 CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER IX To Dacca and the Himalayas 1824 PAGE Heber's primary charge in Calcutta ..... 182 His answer to Abbe Dubois . . . . . .183 Departure on his visitation of the diocese .... 187 Mr. Gladstone's Latin translation of Heber's " Verses to His Wife " 188 Mr. Stow's last hours . . . . . . igo Missionary prospects at Dacca . . . . .194 Heber's " Evening Walk in Bengal " .... 196 His mission to the hill tribes of Rajmahal .... 198 Description of the Bahar uplands ..... 201 On the conversion of the natives ..... 202 At Monghyr, Patna, and Dinapoor ..... 204 At Benares ........ 207 Native Christian marriage and divorce .... 208 In Lucknow and before the King of Oudh .... 210 III sickness and prospect of death . . . . .212 " Communication " for his wife in case of death . . . 214 CHAPTER X Ai.MORA TO Bombay 1824-1825 Results of the Goorkha war . On the way to Almora .Shooting tigers .... The Himalayan peaks and the Chinese frontier First Christian service in Almora Political unrest among the people Kumaon and its beauty Meerut and the Christian Sepoy Delhi. Reception by the Emperor Akbar Shah The hall of audience described Agra and the Taj Mahal Fatehpoor Sikri .... Through the Central India and Rajpootana States Malcolm, Ochterlony, Todd, and Gerard 217 218 222 223 224 225 226 229 232 234 23s 237 XIV BISHOP HEBER PAGE Banswara and the Bheels. Kaira ..... 239 Condition of the people of India ..... 250 Letter to the Serampore missionaries .... 255 Last letter to Maria Leycester ..... 258 CHAPTER XI Bombay and Ceylon 1825 Bombay contrasted with Calcutta ..... 260 Elephanta and its cave temple .... 262 Salsette and the Kanheri excavations .... 265 Karle cave and Kailas ...... 268 Mountstiiart Elphinstone and Bombay society . . . 270 Heber's visitation in Bombay ..... 273 Ceylon and its missions ...... 275 Point de Galle ....... 276 Reception at Colombo ...... 277 The cinnamon gardens and peelers ..... 278 Catholic letter to the clergy ...... 281 Proposals to improve the Dutch system .... 285 Visit to Kandy ....... 287 Heber's description of Ceylon to his mother . . . 289 Return to Calcutta ....... 291 CHAPTER XII Madras 1825 Missionary activity in Calcutta ..... 292 Lord Combermere and the siege of Bhurtpoor . . 294 Heber on the re-ordination of Lutherans .... 295 Abdool Massee'h's ordination ..... 297 Heber's conversation ...... 299 Dutch Chinsurah becomes British ..... 300 The Armenians and Heber ...... 301 Marriage in the British Army ..... 302 Heber and Joshua Marshman ..... 303 At Madras ........ 305 CONTENTS XV PAGE Dr. Bell's Male Asylum 306 Bishop's visitation at St. George's ..... 307 Sir Thomas Munro ....... 3°^ Heber " almost worn out " ...... 309 At Pondicherry and Cuddalor . . . . • 3'3 Among the Siva pagodas . • ■ • ■ • 3'5 On caste and the Nestorians . ..... 316 The tomb of Schwartz ...... 320 At Tanjor : the Maharaja Serfojee ..... 321 CHAPTER XIII Trichinopoly— The Rock and the Bath 1S26 The Rock of Trichinopoly . . . . . .326 Heber Memorial School now S. P.O. College . . . 327 On Schwartz ....... 329 Heber's last letter— A plea for the Christians . - -331 His last sermon and confirmation services .... 332 His favourite hymn ....... 335 Death in the bath ....... 337 Burial in St. John's Church, Trichinopoly Fort . . -338 Sir Thomas Munro and Sir C. E. Grey on Heber . . .34° Maria Leycester's letter ...... 342 The Heber window in St. Oswald's, Malpas . . .343 Eulogy by Bishop Stubbs ...... 344 Fifty-six missionary bishops now in Heber's diocese . . 346 Bishop Butler on Foreign Missions ..... 348 The converts now " a mighty multitude " .... 349 Southey's verses on Reginald Heber .... 350 CHAPTER XIV Bibliography ....... 352 APPENDIX The Heber Family ...... 357 INDEX 361 ILLUSTRATIONS Bishop Ilcber at Forty .... Frontispiece Heber's Rector)', Hodnet .... 58 On the Left Bank of the Hoogli 147 The Bishop of Calcutta's Attendants 149 .St. John's, Calcutta— Heber's Cathedral To fcue 1 50 Mausoleum of Job Charnock, Calcutta, 1692 153 Shiva Pagodas and Ghaut beside Heber's House, Titaghur 159 Bengali Peasantry ..... 171 Thibetan Ghyals in Barrackpore Park •75 Barrackpore Park — Governor-General's Country Seat 177 The Swinging Orgie .... 181 Map of India in 1824 .... Toface i8S Panchway Boat ..... 186 Bengali Fruit-Boat ...... 191 Augustus Cleveland's Monument at Bhagulpoor 199 On the Ganges in Bahar .... 201 The Ekka Conveyance, Monghyr . . . . 204 Granary built at Patna after the Great Famine of 1777 205 On the Ganges above Dinapoor . . . . 206 Gothic Gateway at Ghazipoor . . . . 207 Roumi Durwaza and Imambara, Lucknow . 210 Kumaon Sikh, with Attendant . . . . 221 The Great Mosque, Fatehpoor Sikri 235 Palace of the Maharawal of Banswara 239 Bheel Inclosure, Tambresra . . . . . 240 Jain Temple in Kaira . . . . . 242 Climbing the Himalayas . . . . . 244 Vepery Church, Madras . . . . . 311 The Rock of Trichinopoly . ' . To face 326 I How awful now, when night and silence brood O'er Earth's repose and Ocean's solitude, To trace the dim and devious paths that guide Along Kanheri's ' steep and craggy side. Where, girt with gloom, inhabited by fear, The mountain homes of India's gods appear ! Range above range they rise, each hollow cave Darkling as death, and voiceless as the grave ; Save that the waving weeds in each recess With rustling music mock its loneliness ; And beasts of blood disturb, with stealthy tread, The chambers of the breathless and the dead. All else of life, of worship, past away, The ghastly idols fall not, nor decay ; Retain the lip of scorn, the rugged frown. And grasp the blunted sword and useless crown ; Their altars desecrate, their names untold, The hands that formed, the hearts that feared — how cold ! Now all are cold — the votary as his god — And by the shrine he feared, the courts he trod, The livid snake extends his glancing trail, ■» And lifeless murmurs mingle on the gale. ' The rock-cut temples of Salsette, near Bombay. xvlii BISHOP HEBER II 'Tis past — the mingled dream, — though slow and grey On mead and mountain break the dawning day ; Though stormy wreaths of lingering cloud oppress Long time the winds that breathe, the rays that bless : They come, they come. Night's fitful visions fly Like autumn leaves, and fade from Fancy's eye ; So shall the God of might and mercy dart His day-beams through the caverns of the heart ; Strike the weak idol from its ancient throne. And vindicate the temple for His own. Nor will He long delay. A purer light Than Mithra cast shall claim a holier rite ; A mightier voice than Mithra's priests could pour Resistless soon shall sound along the shore ; Its strength of thunder vanquished fiends shall own. And idols tremble through their limbs of stone. Vain now the lofty light, the marble gleam. Of the keen shaft that rose by Gunga's stream ! When round its base the hostile lightnings glowed. And mortal insult mocked a god's abode, What power, destroyer,' seized with taming trance Thy serpent sceptre, and thy withering glance ? Low in the dust, its rocky sculptures rent. Thine own memorial proves thee impotent ; Thy votaries mourn thy cold unheeding sleep. Chide where they praised, and where they worshipped weep. 1 Siva. This column was dedicated to him at Benares ; and a tradition prevailed among his worshippers that as soon as it should fall one universal religion would extend over India, and Brama be no more worshipped, ll was lately thrown down in a quarrel between the Hindoos and Musalmans. See Hfbers Journal. JOHN RUSKIN ON INDIA'S CONVERSION xix III Yes— he shall fall, though once his throne was set Where the high heaven and crested mountains met ; Though distant shone with many an azure gem The glacier glory of his diadem ; Though sheets of sulphurous cloud and wreathed storm Cast veil of terror round his shadowy form. All, all are vain ! It comes, the hallowed day, Whose dawn shall rend that robe of fear away ; Then shall the torturing spells that midnight knew Far in the cloven dells of Mount Meru ; Then shall the moan of frenzied hymns that sighed Down the dark vale where Gunga's waters glide, Then shall the idol chariot's thunder cease Before the steps of them that publish peace. Already are they heard — how fair, how fleet, Along the mountains flash their bounding feet ! Disease and Death before their presence fly ; Truth calls, and gladdened India hears the cry, Deserts the darkened path her fathers trod. And seeks redemption from the Incarnate God. John Ruskin. From his Newdigate prize poem (1839) Salselle and Ekfhanla, privately printed in 1850, and reprinted in 1879. BISHOP HEBER CHAPTER I heber's place in missionary biography A HISTORY of the Missions from Cliristendom to the non- Christian majority of mankind has yet to be attempted. Neander stands alone among Church historians in working out his aim " to exhibit the history of the Church of Christ as a hving witness of the divine power of Christianity." These words he wrote in 1825, and in 1842 he dedicated the second edition of his first volume to F. von Schelling, because the great thinker testified of " that which constitutes the goal and central point of all history, and, so far as it comes within the province of science, prepared the way for that new Christian age of the world whose dawn already greets us from afar." Meander's Flaiiting of Christianity, his Tertiillian, his Julian, his Chrysostom, his St. Bernard, his Memorials of Christian Life in the Dark Ages, his General History of the Christian Religion and Church, and indeed his Life of Jesus Christ underlying the whole, give a history of Christianity as an aggressive missionary system and fact to the Reformation. Up to that period we may be content with the works of the Jew who, becoming a new creature in Jesus Christ at the age of sixteen, changed his name from David Mendel to August Neander. We look for a successor of the same spirit and aim, and the same learning and scientific method, to do similar justice to missionary Christianity since the English and German Reformers prepared the Bible message in the tongues of the common people, and geographical discovery L 2 BISHOP HEBER and colonisation first began to put the Christian nations, Reformed, Greek, and Latin, in trust for the dark races. Meanwhile, the present writer, having spent more than twenty years of his life in India, and nearly other twenty in the daily management and study of Missions there and in other continents and islands, has sought to provide materials for the future history of the Church in India. His general and most imperfect sketch of The Conversion of India, he proposes, should life be given, to re-write from such new materials as the close of the nineteenth century may supply. The dictum of Thomas Carlyle, that the history of what man has accomplished in this world is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here, is more true of pioneer missionaries — he himself has eulogised King and Saint Olaf ^ of Norway — than of any other class of heroes, for they directly obey a divine call, and are strong in the Lord's promises which accompany the call. So Froude has more recently taught that " the object of history is to discover and make visible illus- trious men, and pay them ungrudging honour." Of his pre- cursor and cousin, our Lord Himself said, " He was the lamp that burneth and shineth, and ye were willing to rejoice for a season in his light " — " yet he that is but little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Reginald Heber completes the group of the Seven Chief Missionaries to India and the East, whose lives, extending from 1746 to 1878 — a period of 132 years — the present biographer has now written. Heber stands alone as the one English gentleman — rector and squire, poet and scholar- — who gave himself in early life to the missionary enterprise when the Church of England was reproached by its own son, Southey, for that hostility which Henry Martyn was even then beginning to convert into devotion to the cause. What Heber, representing Oxford, as Martyn inspired Cambridge, did "to elevate the Church of England," to use Mr. Gladstone's happy phrase, in the first twenty years of the century, by his gracious character, broad charity, deep spirituality, parish work, cultured preaching, genial learning, missionary enthusiasm, and sacred ^ Lcctiin-s 0)1 Heroes, Hero- Worship, and the Heroic in History, delivered in 1840. Ste Lecture I. " Tiie Hero as Divinity," and Lecture IV. "The Hero as I'riost. " HEBER'S PLACE IN MISSIONARY BIOGRAPHY 3 gift of song, he crowned in the last three by his statesman-like administration of the vastest of all Episcopal dioceses, and by his martyr-like death. The Seven British Founders of the Church in India orn. Landed in India. le . — Charles Grant 1746 1767 1823 77 Presbyterian nnd then April 16 Anglican Layman William Carey 1761 1793 1834 73 Baptist August 17 November 1 1 June 9 Henry Martyn 1781 1806 1812 31 Anglican and Martyr February 18 April 22 October 16 Reginald Heuer 1783 1823 1826 43 Anglican and Martyr April 21 October 10 April 3 John Wilson 1804 1S28 1875 7' Presbyterian December 1 1 February 15 December I Alexander Duff 1806 1830 1878 72 Presbyterian April 25 May 27 February 12 Stephen Hislop 1817 1844 1863 46 Presbyterian and Martyr September 8 December 13 .September 4 First in the libra ioro is the Scottisli Highlander who was born in the hour when his father was fighting for Prince Charles on the dark field of CuUoden. Charles Grant links on to the British list the name of the Prussian apostle, Christian Friedrich Schwartz (i 726-1 798), who, when they met at Madras in 1773, kindled in the Company's young civil servant the missionary fire. As we have recorded elsewhere, it was this servant of the East India Company, at the most degenerate period of its marvellous history, who wrote what is still the noblest treatise in the English language on the con- version of the Asiatic subjects of Great Britain ; who helped Carey to Serampore; who sent out Martyn and the evangelical chaplains through Charles Simeon ; who founded old Hailey- bury College; who was active in instituting the Church Mission- ' Good Words for September iSgr, with copy of Rncburn's portrait. BISHOP HEBER ary and Bible Societies ; who fought for the freedom of the slave, inspiring Wilberforce and the Clapham men ; who sent out Daniel Wilson as Bishop of Calcutta, and who did all this and more as chairman and member of the Court of Directors and Member of Parliament for Inverness-shire. Charles Grant's papers have yet to see the light. To the list there is at least one name that should be added besides those of the three American pioneers — Adoniram Judson, the Congregationalist who became Baptist, the apostle of Burma; John Scudder (1793-1855), Dutch Reformed, the apostle of Ceylon and Madras ; and John Forman, the Presbyterian apostle of Lahore and the Punjab (died 1894). That name is Robert Caldwell, Congregationalist, student of the University of Glasgow, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel's missionary in Tinnevelli, of which he was the first bishop. Of him we still await an adequate biography. Of Dr. Valpy French, the first Bishop of Lahore, a worthy record is to appear. Along with all these there should be recorded the names of the great teachers and secretaries who, often painfully but always loyally, held the ropes while the pit of heathenism was being opened to the light of the evangel, Thomas Chalmers and John Inglis,i Andrew Fuller - and John Love,^ William Brown * and Henry Venn.^ We cannot pass to Reginald Heber without recalling the great and good Irish bishop whom he resembled, the mission- ary philosopher, George Berkeley. Just a hundred years before Heber was consecrated Bishop of Calcutta, Berkeley, according to Dean Swift, first conceived the Proposal which he published in 1725, for the better supplying of churches in our foreign plantations, and for converting the savage Americans to Christianity, by a college to be erected in 1 Minister of Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh, and father of the late Lord President of the Court of Session. See Life of Duff, p. 37. 2 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, by J. W. Morris (1816). 2 Letters (Glasgow, 1848), Sermons, with Addresses to the People of Otaheite and a serious Call respecting a Mission to the river Indus (Edin- burgh, 1846). Secretary of Scottish Missionary Society, Author of History of Missions, in 3 vols., 3rd edition, 1854. The Missionary Secretariat of Henry Venn, B.D., Prebendary of St. Paul's, by the Rev. WiUiam Knight, M.A., 1880. HEBER'S PLACE IN MISSIONARY BIOGRAPHY 5 the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda. At forty-four years of age this modern successor of Patrick and Columba sailed for Rhode Island, intending to purchase land at the rising emporium of Newport as an investment for his missionary college. Betrayed by Sir Robert Walpole, the philosophic philanthropist never reached the Bermudas, but made over to Yale College at New Haven his lands and his library. His vision of America, its white settlers and en- slaved negroes, civilised by his university, has been realised through the same divine forces which he would have wielded, so that colonisation by the Reformed Churches and Univer- sities has become the most powerful and extensively suc- cessful of all the secondary methods of Christian Missions. The Proposal'^ thus to create a Fifth Empire in the West remains none the less a historical fact that it forms one of the most exquisite chapters in the romance of history, so far as that is concerned with the beginnings of things which have had mighty results. In the English Church, after a dreary century, and in the spiritual expansion of the English-speaking peoples, the first successors of Bishop Berkeley were Henry Martyn and Bishop Heber. 1 The Works of George Berkeley, D.D., formerly Bishop of Cloyne. See vol. iii., pages 213-231. Also the Life and Lellcrs in which Professor Camp- bell Frascr does justice to Berkeley as a missionary. CHAPTER II MALPAS AND OXFORD 1 783. 1 80s The county palatine of Cheshire was the scene of the birth and the boyhood of the two missionary bishops, Reginald Heber and George Cotton. The greatest of the Metropolitans of India, these bishops, not of one Church only but of all good men, suddenly laid down their life, from perils of waters, in the mid-time of their days, while busied in ministering to the Asiatic and the British Christians of their diocese. Camden describes Cheshire, with which the neighbouring Salop must be joined, as cxiinia nobilitatis altrix, and Drayton sings of it as " chief of men," those " mightiest men of bone in her full bosom bred," referring to the long roll of heroes who served their country well all through the times of the Plantagenets and the Stuarts. Of these, not the least were the men who won and then civilised our Empire of India — Clive and Combermere, Sydney Cotton and Edwardes, Reginald Heber and George Cotton, to say nothing of Richard Baxter and Matthew Henry. Malpas parish, in which Heber was born, looks from the outer edge of the basin of the winding Dee across to Wrex- ham, ^ in Wales, where he wrote his missionary hymn. Stretch- ing south from the city of Chester, the picturesque high land or spur of the Peckforton hills sweeps down into the rich pastures ' Dean Hovvson, in his charming quarto on The River Dee, its Aspects and History (1875), gives a picture of Wre.\ham Church. MALPAS AND OXFORD 7 of Shropshire, where, as Rector of Hodnet, Heber spent more than fifteen years of his busy life before leaving for Calcutta. Malpas, commanding the Roman camp at Chester and the marciies of ^Vales, represents the bad step {mains passus) or difficulty of the pass at that northern point. The Romans crowned the height — upwards of four hundred feet — with a fortress, succeeded by the castle of the first Norman earl, of which the present church formed the chapel, a wall enclosing the whole. Roman " villa " and Norman castle are now represented by the circular mound on the north side of the church. From its ancient tower the keen eye may take in the beautiful English scene, from the ships in the Mersey to the domed Wrekin, and west to the vale of Llangollen. Here, in 1770, there came as Rector, Reginald Heber, M.A., Fellow of Brasenose College, O-xford. Hayber, or Hayberg, from which the name is taken, is a hill in the Craven division of Yorkshire, on the family estate of Marton.^ The elder brother - purchased for the young clergyman the living of Chelsea, and died, leaving a widow. As his heir male, the clergyman succeeded him in the old Vernon estate, Hodnet,^ Shropshire, and soon exchanged the Chelsea living for that of the higher co-rectory of Malpas — within riding distance of Hodnet. Tradition still tells how he was wont to drive in a coach and four across the then comparatively roadless country from Malpas to hold service at Hodnet, where the old hall and the adjoining rectory were low and unhealthy. In Geneva gown and bands, as was customary, in the wig of the period, and with a gold-headed staff, the future Bishop's father was a 1 Whitaker states, in The History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven, in the County of Yoric (3rd cd. , 1878), that upon the ruins of tlie Marions arose the family of Heber, or more properly, as it is vulgarly pronounced, Hayber ; so called, undoubtedly, from a place in the neighbourhood named Ilaybcr or Hayberg — the hill surrounded by a haia or foss and paling such as enclosed the ancient forests. In i5oi it was granted by Lancelot Marton to Thomas Heber, Esq., ancestor of Richard and Reginald. Thomas Heber added to it, and died very wealthy in 1548. The volume contains a fine picture of West Marton Hall, residence of the Heber family, embosomed in wood. " No house has been connected with greater virtues or equal talents," writes Dr. T. D, Whitaker. ^ The Yorkshire Hebers go back to 1461, when Thomas Heber was witness to a deed. His brother Oswald was slain at the Battle of Wakefield, fighting for the Duke of York. 3 See Appendi.x. 8 BISHOP HEBER stately squire and zealous parish priest. He wrote verses, which others published, such as an " Elegy among the Tombs at AV'estminster Abbey," ^ and " To George III. on his Accession." 2 He lived to his seventy-sixth year, just long enough to hear his son recite Palestine in the theatre of Oxford University. Reginald Heber, the father, was twice married. His first wife died early, leaving an infant son, Richard Heber, who became the greatest book collector of his own or any other day, the friend of Sir Walter Scott, and M.P. for the University of Oxford. He was the " Atticus " of Dibdin's Bibliomania. His taste seriously injured the family estate of Hodnet when he succeeded to it. A saying of his was that every good library should have three copies of a book — one to read, one to lend, and one on the shelf. On his death the Bibliotheca Jleberiana, collected from his Hodnet and London houses and his three years' residence in Holland, appeared in 1836-1837 in thirteen parts, and 216 days were occupied in selling the volumes by auction. The 1 50,000 volumes realised ^{^65,000. Alibone, the American, pronounces Richard Heber " the most voracious " Iiclluo librorum in the annals of bibliography. The Gentleman's Magazine for January 1834 tells how, on hearing of a curious book, he would travel by mail coach three, four, or five hundred miles to obtain it, fearful to entrust his com- mission to a letter. In his house at Pimlico, where he died, every wall, chair, table, and passage was filled with books from top to bottom. So also his house in York Street, and that in the Oxford High Street, besides collections in Paris, z\ntwerp, and Brussels. He had what John Hill Burton, in that delightful volume The Book Hiinter, calls the most virulent form of book-mania — that of duplicating. But this was the keynote to his popularity, for " though, like ^^'olsey, he was unsatisfied in getting, yet, like him, in bestowing he was most princely. Many scholars and authors obtained the raw materials for their labours from his transcendent stores. These, indeed, might be said less to be personal to himself than to be a feature in the literary geography of Europe." On the 30th July 1782 Richard's father married Mary Allanson, eldest daughter of the Rector of Wath, in Yorkshire, and on the 21st April 1783 Reginald Heber was born to 1 In Pearch's Collection. - Among the O.xford Poems. MALPAS AND OXFORD 9 them. He was followed by Thomas Cuthbert Heber, after- wards Fellow of Brasenose, and incumbent of the Marton living, who died in 1 8 1 6, and by the only sister, Mary, who survived to a good old age, and restored Hodnet Church as it now is. The mother designed and the father built on a new site, at a cost of 1 500 in those days, the present Rectory of Malpas, in which Reginald was born. From the spacious window of the room, around which the present Rector has inscribed the fact, there is a charming view of hill and dale and river, with vistas of Wrexham and the Welsh hills. The church in which Reginald Heber, as a child, received gracious influences bears the name of St. Oswald, whom we may most accurately describe as the missionary king. It commands a district, almost every acre of which suggests memories of the royal convert of lona, the friend of Aidan, and, in his too short reign, the evangeliser of Northumbria. King Oswald was the martyr whose head the mediaeval sculptors delighted to represent as held in the hand of St. Cuthbert next to his heart.^ The neighbouring town of AVhitchurch, where young Heber first went to school, according to one tradition, stands near the field of Maserfelth, where Oswald fell by treachery, calling on God for mercy to the soldiers whom he led. In the boy's time the building was inferior to what it has been since its restoration in 1842, and especially since the dedication of the rich east window in memory of the poet and missionary bishop in 1887. But it has all along been a fine example of the enriched Gothic of the later days of Henry VII., with sepulchral monuments of the Cholmondeleys and Breretons or Egertons in the chancels bearing their names. From the first dawning of intelligence, and all through the forty-three years of his life as child, youth, and man, as student, pastor, and bishop, Reginald Heber showed the same " gracious " character and mental activity, redeemed from priggishness and vanity by a humble fear of God and a joyous delight in whatsoever things are lovely and of good report. He was fortunate in his religious training at a time when the evangelical revival had hardly begun to influence the Church of England, and the century of missionary and philanthropic 1 Two of their works are beautifully pictured in the new edition of Ornierod's History, vol. ii. p. 614. lO BISHOP HEBER enthusiasm was only at hand. In the darkest hour of the Church's history, the hour before the day that in 1792 ushered in " the era of universal benevolence " towards the heathen and the slave, the ignorant and the oppressed, the boy Heber spent the first fourteen years of his life under the hourly influence of parents and teachers whose wisdom and culture were directed by the love of God. His great con- temporaries, William Carey and Henry Martyn, each of whom afterwards influenced him, were called from comparative obscurity and poverty to work for the Master in the world, while he was born in the luxury of the "lord of the manors and patron of the rectories of Marton and of Hodnet." In 1782 Carey, the parish clerk's and weaver's son, had left the Church of England for the despised Baptists, and was about to be immersed by Ryland in the river Nen as "a poor journeyman shoemaker." Henry Martyn was only fourteen months older than Heber, and struggled all his student life against poverty, till an East India chaplaincy opened his way to the Mohammedans of India, Persia, and Arabia. No university knew Carey ; Cambridge learned in time to glory in Martyn ; Oxford sent forth Heber, its most popular and successful son, to be the missionary metropolitan of Asia, Africa, and Australasia. The same grace of God which bringeth salvation appeared to the three youths in the same dark period of the Church, and sent them far hence to preach to the nations, using alike poverty and wealth, ignor- ance and wisdom, obscurity and reputation, and uniting all three in a brotherly catholicity of spirit and aim. Such men were to the modern missionary century what in the apostolic group Paul and Peter and John were to the first. Reginald Heber was called from the womb to the service in which he gave up his life. Long after, when discussing John Wesley's account of the new light received from the Moravian Boehler, that faith must be "instantaneous," Heber wrote ^ of conversion thus : " With the term instantaneous we have no disposition to quarrel. A man must begin to believe at some time or other ; and if the truths of Christianity are first impressed on his heart after he arrives at years of dis- cretion, he may, beyond a doubt, remember in certain cases 1 The Quarterly Review for October 1820, vol. .x-xiv. p. 22. MALPAS AND OXFORD the very day and hour in which he first received conviction. . . . The only danger is lest, by making that circumstance a necessary mark of conversion which was, in fact, only an inci- dental accompaniment of it, we should presumptuously con- fine the grace of God to a single mode of operation, and exclude from our scheme that which is, probably, the most common of all His dispensations, wherever the seed sown at baptism grows up thenceforth, through the means of educa- tion and example, and by the continually renewed though silent influences of that Spirit by whom we were then first sanctified." Reginald's mother, who long survived him, pondered, like another, the things of his precocious childhood. Twice in the first six years of his life disease was nearly fatal to him, but his trust in God and careful obedience brought him through. When bled by the apothecary, after the fashion of those days, he called out, " Do not hold me ; I won't stir." When driv- ing in the Yorkshire hills during a dangerous storm, and sitting on his mother's knee, he said, "Do not be afraid, God will take care of us," words which she recalled long after when the Bishop was on his way to Calcutta, and, above all, when the news came of his sudden death. From the first his father encouraged him to read the whole Bible, and not any summary or extracts, so that when he was seven years old he had become familiar with the words and saturated with the style of the English version, to a degree which coloured his spiritual and literary life. The habit of frequent prayer, and the delight in praying for himself and others, which marked his whole career, began in the earliest years in the stillness of his own room. When he was about fourteen years of age his mother missed her manual of preparation for Holy Com- munion. Reginald brought it back to her with the assurance that he had, during the previous three weeks of his school holidays, mastered its contents, and with the earnest request that he might thenceforth be with her at the celebration of the sacrament. The boy's memory retained, and his imagination lighted up with unusual vividness what he learned from omnivorous reading and a genial habit of conversation. If he failed to give the date of any event he could always detail the circum- 12 BISHOP HEBER stances, the contemporaneous facts, and the historical sur- roundings. He had the rare instinct of drawing out the least educated on the one subject which they knew best, and he remarked in later life that he never met with any one from whom he could not acquire some information worth having. At school and college, as in his parish and vast diocese after- wards, this sympathy and intellectual brotherhood with every man, however humble, made him greatly beloved and most efficient in securing the high ends of his calling. His wonder- ful tact was the result of a rare unselfishness and genuine desire to serve, not, as with most people, of calculation and care. His reading was guided by his father, and still more by his stepbrother Richard, who used to say of him that he did more than read books — he devoured them. His father taught him Latin and Greek, and his first literary production was a translation of the fables of Phaedrus into verse, made when he was only seven. The other co-rectory in Malpas, recently amalgamated with the adjoining livings, was held by Dr. Townson, who gave the boy the run of his considerable library, and further gratified his literary craving. When eight he was sent to the neighbouring grammar school of Whitchurch, of which Dr. Kent was then master. At fifteen he left home, not for one of the great public schools of England, but for Neasdon, then in the neighbourhood of London, where the clergyman, Mr. Bristow, trained him along with a few others. There he became the companion of John Thornton, son of the M.P. for Surrey, a friendship which was perpetuated by the marriage of their children. ^ In Thornton he found one of like mind, and for five years he gave a high tone to the school. Reverence and purity marked all his intercourse, and he proved a tower of strength to the weaker boys, who were encouraged by him to shun vice and profanity. His natural unselfishness and apparent absorption in intel- lectual pleasures were on one occasion presumed on by the tyrant of the school. Determined to resist him, though well aware he could not defeat his superior strength, Heber, as ^ Rev. John Thornton, the present Vicar of Ewell, Surrey, is a grandson of Bishop Heber, whose MS. sermons and private MS. devotions are in his possession. MALPAS AND OXFORD 13 described by Thornton, fought him manfully, for the purpose, as he said, of teaching his opponent that tyranny should not be practised on him with impunity. While mastering the higher classics he made great strides in literary composition. His prose essays showed a maturity of thought and an extent of knowledge beyond his years. His verse was especially remarkable. In the spirited lines of The Prophecy of hhmael, which the boy wrote as a class exercise on the Battle of the Nile after Buonaparte's invasion of Egypt, we see the promise which he was soon so brilliantly to redeem at Oxford, in Palesline. Now it was that he learned to know the Poet's poet Spenser. The Faerie Queen was always in his pocket, and the companion of his solitary walks, while his fellows were at their sports. All through his life he seldom travelled with- out a volume of the same copy to read on the road.i That and his Bible formed his frequent resort. His mental growth may be traced in the letters to his friend Thornton, who had meanwhile passed on to Cambridge, and was delighting in the mathematical studies and exact sciences which Heber disliked. In November 1799 he wrote: — " In Greek I go on in the old train, being now deep engaged in Longinus, Prometheus Vinct., and the Epistles with Locke's commentary ; besides which, I read the Essay on the Human Understandiiig for two hours every evening after 1 ha\'e finished my exercise. Locke, you know, I used to think very stupid ; but I have now quite altered my opinion." When he was still seventeen, the future rector and bishop thus wisely touched a question which nearly a century's delay has made more difficult than ever. " Neasdon, 24//; June iSoo. "... I fully agree with you respecting the stipends of the clergy. Were Queen Anne's bounty better regulated, and were it ordered that every clergyman of above £,^oo a year should, bona fide, pay the tenth of his benefices to that, or some other similar institution, and so on in such an ascending scale to the largest preferments, as might be thought right and equal, much of this evil, and all its attending mischiefs of non-residence, contempt of ' Life, by his Widow, 1830 (Joliii Murray). BISHOP HEBER the ministry, etc., might, I think, without inconvenience, be pre- vented. This it is thought was the intention of Queen Anne ; but the death of that excellent woman (for I am tory enough to think very highly of her), and the unfortunate circumstances which followed, threw obstacles in the way of the Church which I fear there is no probability of its being able to get over. . . . " I, however, am rather apt to regard the interference of tem- poral authority in these matters with a jealous eye. The rulers of this world have very seldom shown themselves friendly to the real interests of the Church. If we consider the conduct of the government in the times of the Reformation, and indeed ever since, we shall always find it has been more friendly to its own avaricious and ambitious projects, than to consult what is just and pious. . . . " I think you are very lucky in your acquaintance with Lord Teignmouth ; they are such men, as you have described him, that are to keep us from sinking. . . . " As for those poor wretches whom the oratory of men seduces into schism, I wish they understood the excellent distinction you made between prayer and preaching when I was last in your com- pany ; which sentiment of yours corresponded entirely in substance, and almost in words, with a beautiful passage in the fifth book of my favourite Hooker's Ecd. Pol.'" " HoDNET Hall, i^th August 1800. "... I am sorry that you are edging still farther off from my haunts ; but, however, what are fifty or one hundred miles to two lads with affectionate hearts and hardy outsides ? Cambridge and Oxford have, as I believe, a mail running between them, so that at College we are only a few hours' dri\ e asunder. . . . Vale Royal Abbey, or as it is generally or at least frequently called, the Vale Royal of Cheshire, is the seat of our relation, Mr. Cholmondeley, which name not being over classical, I was obliged to speak clliptically. I have been a little interrupted in my Greek by two things ; first, the examining of a large chest full of old family writings, which I have almost got through ; and, secondly, I have commenced a diligent reperusal of the Old Testament, which I trust I shall, Deo Juvanle, finish before I go to Oxford." "HoDNET Hall, igth September 1800. " You ask me what is my plan of operations in my studies. I am afraid that I have of late a good deal relaxed from my MALPAS AND OXFORD 15 former diligence, and my advances in Homer and algebra are not equal to what I hoped. I have, however, not totally neglected these ; and I have got on fast in Guicciardini and Machiavel, and at my spare hours have read one half of Knolles' History of the Turks, which you know Johnson highly, and I think deservedly, commends. I, for my own part, have never met with a greater mass of information, or, considering the time when it was written, a more pleasing style. If ever you should meet with it, if you are not daunted with a thick folio, closely printed, you can scarcely find a more agreeable companion for those hours in which you are not employed in other ways. You will laugh at me for study- ing Machiavel, but I read him principally for the sake of his style ; though I frankly own I think much better of him than the generality of the world (who probably have never read him) pro- fess to do." " Malpas, October 1800. "... I have been a much gayer fellow than usual of late, having been at a race, and also at, what I never saw before, a mascjuerade. This catalogue of jaunts, though not much perhaps for a girl, has been a great deal for me, and has indeed quite satisfied me. If these things are so little interesting even while they have the charm of novelty, I think I shall care very little indeed for them when that is worn off. The masquerade was not so entertaining as I expected. There certainly were some char- acters well kept up, but the most part behaved exactly as if they were barefaced. It was given by Sir W. Williams Wynn, and though certainly much inferior in splendour to Mr. Cholmondeley's ball, was very well conducted. Sat de ntigis, ad seria reverto. My studies go on as usual. Machiavel I rather admire more than at first. My Greek studies will be soon, I fear, gravelled, if I continue at home. My brother particularly recommends me to attend the public lectures on astronomy and mathematics at Oxford, as he says they are at present very clever. " We have some tumults in this neighbourhood. In Stafford- shire the mob proceeded to domiciliary visits with halters and agreements, forcing the farmers to the alternative. All is, how- ever, cjuiet at present." Next to reading, the recreation which most delighted Reginald Heber was drawing — architectural and landscape. We find him writing to his friend Thornton on his leaving school i6 BISHOP HEBER " I send you a sketch of a building which I passed coming from the north, which will interest you as much as it did me ; I could almost have pulled off my hat as we drove by. It is Sir Isaac Newton's house as it appears from the north road. Though I have heard it taken notice of, I never saw any print or drawing of it." The art was a pleasure to himself, and a delight to his correspondents during his travels in Russia and in India. The water-colour sketches which accompanied not a few of his letters, illustrating his pen-and-ink descriptions, were greatly prized. His keen power and habit of observation were shown in his attention to natural history, and his open-air studies of insects, birds, and beasts. When the youth went to Oxford in his eighteenth year he personally knew no one in the University. But he was known to several. Brasenose College, in which he was entered in November 1800, was emphatically the college of Cheshire men. His brother Richard was a Fellow, and hastened home from a book-hunting tour on the Continent to introduce him. His father had been a Fellow, and both parents went up with him. The Bishop of Chester, Dr. William Cleaver, was Principal of the College, and the senior Proctor and several of the Fellows were known to him. Mr. Hugh Cholmondeley, who became Dean of Chester, took him by the hand until his brother's arrival. The Rev. T. S. Smyth, afterwards Rector of St. Austell, Cornwall, became his tutor. After temporary accommodation in what he called a "garret," he secured the rooms ever since identified with his name in No. 7, on the right-hand corner after entering the quad- rangle, one stair up. The windows overlook Brasenose Lane and the famous chestnut-tree in the garden of Exeter College. The chapel and hall are in the same condition as then ; the library has newer fittings and a list of all the works of the Bishop, whom the College reckons among its famous sons, with Foxe and Burton, Milman and F. W. Robertson. On the one side he commanded the dome of the Bodleian, on the other he was close to All Souls, of which he was soon to become an honoured Fellow. After three months' experience of college life and study he thus wrote to his Cambridge friend, Thornton : — MALPAS AND OXFORD 17 "Gxi-'OKD, l^lh Jaituaty 1801. "... I write under the bondage of a very severe cold, which I caught by getting out of bed at four in the morning, to see the celebration of the famous All Souls mallard feast. All Souls is on the opposite side of RatclifYe Square to Brazen Nose, so that their battlements arc in some degree commanded by my garret. I had thus a full view of the Lord Mallard and about forty fellows, in a kind of procession on the library roof, with immense lighted torches, which had a singular effect. I know not if their orgies were overlooked by any uninitiated eyes except my own ; but I anr sure that all who had the gift of hearing, within half a mile, must have been awakened by the manner in which they thundered their chorus, ' O by the blood of King Edward.' I know not whether you have any similar strange customs in Cambridge, so that, perhaps, such ceremonies as the All Souls mallard, the Queen's boar's head, etc., will strike you as more absurd than they do an Oxford man ; but I own I am of opinion that these remnants of Golhicism tend very much to keep us in a sound consistent track ; and that one cause of the declension of the foreign uni- versities was their compliance, in such points as these, with the variation of manners. " I have got into a habit of tolerably early rising, which I intend to adhere to ; the plan is that another man, who has been my companion in the course of mathematics which I have gone through, has agreed to read with me every morning from six till chapel, by which scheme we gain two hours of the best part of the whole day. This system must, however, be altered when chapel begins at six, which it does in summer. I do not find Euclid de novo so irksome as your friend used to think. Though mathematics will never be the great rallying-point of my studies, I should be very sorry to be ignorant of them, and that philosophy which depends on them. My class-fellow is agreeable and remarkably clever ; though only sixteen, his acquirenrents and understanding are inferior to few in the college. He is at present a kind of tutor to a man at least five years his senior. Some traits in his manner and character have, I sometimes fancy, an imperfect resemblance to you ; and, while they make me still fonder of him, serve to put me in mind of the only cause I have to regret that there are two separate universities in England." The first term was not ended before Heber's classical scholarship and literary gifts became known, and the generous c 8 BISHOP HEBER bearing and clever talk of the youth made him only too popular. The Principal had, at the first, cautioned him against too numerous an acquaintance, and he had said, " It is a thing I certainly would not court." But he was none the less sought after, at a time when his own college was unusually full. He was fortunate in the friendship of fellow-commoners, some of whom became famous in their time, such as Sir Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, afterwards President of the Board of Control ; Sir Charles Grey, Chief-Justice, Calcutta ; Sir Edward A\'est, Chief-Justice, Bombay ; and Dean Milman. Sir Charles Grey afterwards declared that he was " beyond all (lucstion or comparison the most distinguished student of his time. The name of Reginald Heber was in every mouth ; his society was courted by young and old ; he lived in an atmo- sphere of favour, admiration, and regard from which I have never known any one but himself who would not have derived, and for life, an unsalutary influence." Aware of his deficiency in mathematics, Heber remained in Oxford during the long vacation iSoi, and tried to tempt John Thornton to visit him. " I have fagged pretty hard since I have been here, on a per- fectly different plan, however, from my Neasdon studies. I was \cry closely engaged last week with a copy of verses, as you will believe, when I tell you that I literally had no time to shave, inso- much that my beard was as long and hoary as that of his majesty the erl king. I succeeded tolerably well in my \ erscs, and had to read them in hall ; the most ner\-ous ceremony I ever went through. " I agree with you on the subject of that fabled academical leisure. We are, at Cambridge and Oxford, in the economy of time, perfect Cartesians ; we admit of no vacuum. I have been, through my Cheshire connections and the long residence of my brother, introduced to a great many people ; and this has, of course, produced very numerous parties, but, I assure you, I shall preserve my character for sobriety : no man is obliged to drink more than he pleases, nor have I seen any of that spirit of playing tricks on freshmen which we are told was usual forty or fifty years ago at the universities. " ' Vale — si possis, veni.' "You seem not much to like the concerts at Cambridge. I very much approve of ours here, both as it is a rational scholar- MALPAS AND OXFORD 19 like amusement, and as it affords a retreat, if necessary, from the bottle." The " verses " which he recited at Oxford that year were the Carmen Sccculare, a Prize Poevi. These Latin hexameters record in heroic style the progress of scholarship, exploration, and philanthropy which ushered in the nineteenth century. Read now, in the light of the century's history, not a few pass- ages 1 seem like a prediction of the imperial and missionary triumphs which have given Great Britain the sway of the fifth ' " Nl-c lustraro vias tanlum tractiisquc latentcs .K(|uoris audaccs jussit Brittannia puppcs ; Scilicet oceani im])ci'ium iiivictuinquc tridentcni Cl.issc virisquc potcns, tenet, rc'ternuiiiqiic tencljit Ilia, maris regina ; en ! Plata bonantibus undis, Ullinius, cn, Uaonas,' et fulva; 'l igiis arena I-'nndit o|X'S varias, pra'd;uque assucta Malaya Snlnnisso nostras veneratur acinace leges. Quid tantum memorem iniperiuni, quid subdita regna .i^ithiopum, primoque rubentia littora sole, Kt quibus assiduo curru jam Icnior oris Effundit fessa; tandem vis sera diei ? Nobis, quos rapido scindit Laurentius anme Felices parent campi, et qua plurima Ganges Regna lavat, positis arinis conterrita pacem Birma petit, gens dura virum petiere Marattce, Quid Javas refcram monies, quid saxa Mysorce? Qiiaeque nimis tepido consurgis proxima soli, Taprobane, laetasque tuas, Kafraria, vites? " Nec tanien has tantum meruit Brittannia laudes. Magna armis, — major pietate ; — hinc lUe" reniotos^ (I lie, decus nostrum, et meritas pars optima fanuu) I.ustravit populos, et dissita regna lyrannimi, I'anderet ut niajstas arces invilaque I'hcebo Limina, qua nigris late sonuere cavernis .Assidui geniitus et inicjui pondera ferri. " nine ctiani I.ihyco^ consurgunt littore turres, Nostrctque incultis monstrantur gcntibus artes, Hesperidum scopulos ultra et deserta Sahara^ Foeda situ : nec longa dies, cum servus iniqua Vincula rumpat ovans, et pictas Gambia puppcs Et nova arenosis miretur moenia ripis I " O patria I O felix nimium ! seu pace volentes Alma regas populos et justa lege feroces .•\rbitra compescas, seu belli tela corusces Fulminea metuenda manu ; tu, maxima, ponto, Tu circumfusis, victrix, dominaberis undis ! " 1 The river of Ava. - Howard. Sierra Leone. 20 BISHOP HEBER pari of the world, and have put her in trust to influence for good the fourth of the human race. The Latin poem was a fitting preparation for the composition of his Palestine, which, after a very severe attack of influenza, he wrote in the spring of 1803. His own description of "all the perplexity of form- ing a plan for a long poem " and of the composition, written to John Thornton, has a special interest in the history of English literature. " After my recovery the time was so short, and the busi- ness so pressing, that you will not wonder that I postponed writing to you, among the rest of the pleasures which I gave up, till I should have completed the copy. This was accordingly given in on Monday night. I know not whether I told you in my last that it is a sort of prize extraordinary for English verses, — the subject, Palestine. I was not aware till yesterday that the same subject had been some time since given for the Seatonian prize. I think it on the whole a fine one, as it will admit of much fancy and many sublime ideas. I know not whether it ought to have been made exclusively sacred or not. Many men whom I have talked with seem inclined to have made it so ; but I have an utter dislike to clothing sacred subjects in verse, unless it be done as nearly as possible in Scriptural language, and introduced with great delicacy. I could not refrain, however, from mention- ing and rather enlarging on the Messiah and the last triumphs of Judea. The historical facts of Scripture, I, of course, made great use of, as well as of the crusades, siege of Acre, and other pieces of modern story. My brother, my tutor, and Mr. Walter Scott, the author of the Border Minstrelsy, whom I have no doubt you know by name, if not personally, give me strong hopes, and I am, on the other hand, I hope, pretty well prepared for a disappoint- ment. Whether the event be favourable or otherwise, I shall know in alsout ten days, and will not fail to communicate my victory or defeat.'' While the composition was still in progress he had a break- fast party in his room previous to making a pleasure excursion to Blenheim Park. Walter Scott was there, about to make acquaintance for the first time with \V'oodstock Manor, which suggested his novel of 1832. As he himself^ afterwards told the story to Mrs. Heber : — ' Sir Walter Scott wrote in his Journal, 12th March 1829: "I read Reginald Heber's Journal after dinner. I spent some merry days with him at MALPAS AND OXFORD 21 " Palestine became the subject of conversation, and the poem was produced and read. Sir Walter said, ' You have omitted one striking circumstance in your account of the building of the temple, that no tools were used in its erection.' Reginald retired from the breakfast table to a corner of the room, and before the party separated, produced the lines which now form a part of the poem : — " ' No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung, Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung. Majestic silence ! ' " On mounting the rostrum to recite his poem, Reginald Heber was struck by seeing two young ladies, of Jewish extraction, sit- ting in a conspicuous part of the theatre. The recollection of some lines which reflect severely on their nation flashed across his mind, and he resolved to spare their feelings by softening the passage which he feared would give them pain, as he proceeded ; but it was impossible to communicate this intention to his brother, who was sitting behind him as prompter, and who, on the attempt being made, immediately checked him, so that he was forced to recite the lines as they were originally written." After his death Sir Charles Grey recalled the scene of his early triumph — " that elevated rostrum from which he looked upon friendly and admiring faces ; that decorated theatre ; those grave forms of ecclesiastical dignitaries mingling with a resplendent throng of rank and beauty ; those antique mansions of learning, those venerable groves, those refreshing streams and shaded walks." Another contemporary thus wrote " : — " Heber's recitation, like that of all poets whom we have Oxford when lie was writing his prize poem. He was then a gay young fellow, a wit and a satirist, and burning for literary fame. IVIy laurels were beginning to bloom, and we were both madcaps. Who would have foretold our future lot ? " ' Oh, little did my mither ken The day she cradled me, The land I was to travel in, Or the death I was to dee.' " Old ballad (known as " Marie Hamilton ") quoted by Burns in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop regarding Falconer, author of The Shipwreck. .See The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, from the original manuscript at Abbotsford, 2 \ols., Edinburgh (David Douglas), 1891. ^ Christopher North in BlackwoocT s Magazine for November 1827. 22 BISHOP HEBER heard recite, was altogether untrammelled by the critical laws of elocution, which were not set at defiance, but either by the poet unknown or forgotten ; and there was a chann in his somewhat melancholy voice, that occasionally faltered, less from a feeling of the solemnity and even grandeur of the scene, of which he was himself the conspicuous object — though that feeling did suffuse his pale, ingenuous, and animated countenance — than from the deeply-felt sanctity of his subject, comprehending the most awful mysteries of God's revelations to man. As his voice grew bolder and more sonorous in the hush, the audience felt that this was not the mere display of the skill and ingenuity of a clever youth, the accidental triumph of an accomplished versifier over his compeers, in the dexterity of scholarship, which is all that can generally be truly said of such exhibitions, — but that here was a poet indeed, not only of bright promise, but of high achievement, — one whose name was already written in the roll of the immortals. And that feeling, whatever might have been the share of the boundless enthusiasm, with which the poem was listened to, attributable to the influence of the genius loci, has been since sanctioned by the judgment of the world that has placed Palestine at the \ ery head of the poetry on divine subjects of this age. It is now incor- porated for ever with the poetry of England." Like Henry Martyn when he came out Senior Wrangler at Cambridge two years before, Reginald Heber at once retired to his room, where his mother found him giving thanks to God. The long vacation of that year he spent at Malpas, helping his brother Richard to raise a corps of volunteers against the French invasion then threatened. The old rector's son formed at this time the beginning of an affectionate friendship with Charlotte Dod, one of the five daughters of his father's friend, the squire of Edge, a beautiful and romantic place two miles off. At the Scar — half-way — they often met, at archery meet- ings and the like, and in the subsequent years, almost up to his sudden death. Miss Dod was the sisterly correspondent to whom he loved to pour forth his confidence, as we shall see. To that early period this fragment of verse seems to owe its composition : — " Oh kind, and beautiful, and good. Dear rose of blooming womanhood ! Whate'er of female grace I see My memory still compares with thee, MALPAS AND OXFORD 23 And of the fairest forms I say, They please, since Flora is away. " Cheer'd by thy friendly smile, again My heart forgets its useless pain ; Cheer'd by thy smile, again I share The tutor's and the brother's care. Oh, cx crniorc in smiles be drest ! I cannot gric\e while thou art blest." Born in 1786, she was married in 1834 to a clergyman, who assumed the name of Dod. She died in 1867, and was buried at Malpas. It was while sitting at tea with Charlotte and the rest of the family that, at her father's request, Heber wrote these verses, which were sung at the meeting of the Volunteer Infantry Corps next morning: — HONOUR ITS OWN REWARD " Swell, swell the shrill trumpet clear sounding afar, Our sabres flash splendour around. For freedom has summon'd her sons to the war, Nor Britain has shrunk from the sound. " Let plunder's vile thirst the invaders inflame, Let slaves for their wages be bold. Shall valour the harvest of avarice claim ? Shall Britons be barter'd for gold ? " No ! free be our aid, independent our might. Proud honour our guerdon alone ; Unhired be the hand we raise in the fight. The sword that we brandish our own. " Still all that we love to our thoughts shall succeed. Their image each labour shall cheer. For them we will conquer — for them we will bleed. And our pay be a smile or a tear ! " And oh ! if returning triumphant we move. Or sink on tlic land that we sa\-e, Oh ! blest hy his country, his kindred, his love, How vast the reward of the brave ! " 24 BISHOP HEBER The following seems to have been the first of the many Bow-meeting songs ' which he composed : — THE SONG OF THE BOW " There is peace on the fallow and peace on the moor, The pheasant and grouse are from slaughter secure ; The fox in his covert, the hare on her down May gambol in bliss till the summer is flown. " The patriot is off, for the session is o'er ; The minister climbs to his chariot and four ; Short respite I wist for a while is their own. And queens may be queens till the summer is flown. " The beauty betakes her, her charms to repair, From the smoke wreaths of London to Denbighshire air; Tulle, trimming, and tinsel behind her are thrown. And green is the go till the summer is flown. " The pike and the trout may some pleasure bestow, But when did the fishing-rod rival the bow ? And who mid the marshes would linger alone Who might banquet with us till the summer is flown ? " How blithe is our revel, how green is our shade, How soft are the tones of the breeze in the glade ! How rosy the smiles that around us are thrown ! Oh, such be our joys till the summer is flown 1 " Then up to your sport, and the trial resume, Ye lads for the medal, ye girls for the plume ! I ha\ e seen better shooting before, I must own. But we all may improve ere the summer is flown ! " To John TJtornton, Esq. 1803. " Palcsiinc I have not published ; but if you will accept a copy, I ha\ e desired my brother to leave it in St. James's Square. 1 " And David l.amcntcd with this lamentation over Saul and over Jona- than his son : and he bade them teaeh the children of Judah the (Song of the) Bow: behold, it is written in the book of lashar. " — 2 Sam. i. 17. 18. Revised I -ersion. MALPAS AND OXFORD 25 I hope your military career is prosperous. I have myself been pretty similarly employed, together with Heber, who has had great success in raising a corps of infantry on my father's estate. All here are furiously loyal, and my brother has found more difficulty in rejecting than in soliciting. I do not apprehend that our ser- vices will be wanted, though, as Liverpool is an expected point of attack, we may in that case become really useful. " The Shropshire volunteers are, in case of necessity, to be united into a legion, commanded by Mr. Kynaston Powell, the member for the county. You give me a full account of your military proceedings, but not a word of your academical. Pray do not utterly throw aside the gown for the sabre ; I intend to try whether they are not very compatible, as I fag and drill by turns. My brother talks of running me for the honours next year. I own I am unwilling, but he is urgent, and I must work hard." In the second term, early in 1804, Reginald received the " dreadful summons " to return immediately to his dying father, whose removal gave a new spiritual impulse to liis son, as had happened in Henry Martyn's case. To Thornton he wrote : — "Malpas, imd February 1804. " His days were without ease and his nights without sleep ; his mind remained the same, blessing God for every little interval of pain, and delighting to recount the mercies he had experienced, and to give his children comfort and ad\ ice. These conversations, which were much more frecjuent than his strength could well bear, I trust in God I shall never forget. Our hopes in the meantime were buoyed up by many fair appearances, and by the gradual diminution of his pains ; but we could not long deceive ourselves. When at length all hopes were over, we knelt around his bed, his wife and all his children ; he blessed us, and over and over again raised his feeble voice to bid us be Christians and to hold fast our faith ; he spoke of the world as a ' den of wild beasts ' that he rejoiced to leave, and prayed God to guard us in our journey through it. My mother was quite overwhelmed with grief and fatigue, having for six weeks never taken off her clothes. He chid her gently for sorrowing as without hope, and talked much of the Divine Rock on which his hope was founded. The next morning he expressed a wish to receive the Sacrament, and bade me, in the meantime, read the prayer in our liturgy for a person at the point of death. I, through my tears, made a blunder which 26 BISHOP HEBER he corrected me in from memory. He now expressed some impatience for the Sacrament, saying he ' hoped not to be detained long.' Mr. Bridge 1 arrived, and we all together partook of the most solemn communion that we can ever expect to join in in this world, to which, indeed, my father seemed scarcely to belong. A smile sate on his pale countenance, and his eyes sparkled brighter than I ever saw them. From this time he spoke but little, his lips moved, and his eyes were raised upwards. He blessed us again ; we kissed him and found his lips and cheeks cold and breathless. O Thornton, may you (after many years) feel as we did then ! " I return to Oxford in the course of next week ; my mother and sister go to Hodnet, to which my brother has, with the kind- ness and affection which he has always shown, invited us as to a home." Having taken his B.A. degree and gained the University Bachelor's prize for the English prose essay on A Sense of Honour, Reginald Heber was elected one of the fifty Fellows who enjoy now the endowments of All Souls — the college of Jeremy Taylor, Herrick, and Blackstone. There his portrait also adorns the hall, and since 1893 a window has been put in to his memory, in which he appears in the red robe of a Doctor of Divinity. To Thornton he wrote : — "... I even now begin to find the comfort of my new situa- tion, which is, for any young man, particularly if he reads at all, certainly most envialjle. I am now become, for the present, almost settled in Oxford, and a visit from you would make me quite — what I am already almost — the happiest fellow in England. " I have, according to your recommendation, read Lord Teign- mouth's Sir Williani Jones, which pleases me very much, and is, I think, though rather lengthy (as the Americans say), an interesting and well done thing. As to my admiration of Sir \V. Jones, it is rather increased than diminished, by seeing the tackle and compon- ent parts of which so mighty a genius was formed ; and his system of study is instructive as well as wonderful. It has excited much interest in Oxford, where he is still remembered with admiration and affection by the senior men." His generous sympathies, his reading, and his three poems at school and college had all led him to take a practical interest ' Mr. Heber's curate at Malpas. MALPAS AND OXFORD 27 in the great missionary movement at home and abroad. In the same letter he informs Thornton : — " After much deliberation concerning which of the two societies for Pronioting Christian Knowledge I should subscribe to, I have at length determined upon both ; you will therefore oblige me if you will put down the enclosed, under the signature of O. A., to the fund of the Bible Society. I would not trouble you in this if I had not lost the paper you were so good as to send me, so that I do not recollect the proper direction. I have in one or two instances beat up for recruits to the institution, but do not know whether successfully or not. I am strongly convinced that the union of the Bible Society with either of the former ones would be productive of very good effects ; if all three were united it would be best of all." He was now formally equipped for his life-work, and the Rectory of Hodnet was ready for him ; but, with his friend Thornton, he resolved to make such a tour of Europe and the East as was possible at that time. CHAPTER III THE GRAND TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 1805-1806 Reginald Heber passed out of Oxford the first man in the university, in personal influence and popularity, in literature and in scholarship. So beloved and so flattered was he that some of his friends feared the possible injury to the native uncon- sciousness of his character and the simplicity of his soul. They need not have been alarmed, natural as were their fears. But the desire of his brother and mother that he should see the world of Europe, should know the men and the manners of other lands, before settling down to the exacting duties of a great English parish, jumped with his own. His reading had been so varied, and his interests so wide, that no youth in England was better prepared intelligently to observe and benefit by all he might see. Alike as a student and a volunteer, and as devoted to his elder brother's political career, he had a keen interest in the course of events which William Pitt was directing at home and against Napoleon Buonaparte's ambition. He could not enter France, or, indeed. Southern Europe, but the Scandinavian countries, Russia with the Crimea, Hungary, Austria, and the greater part of Germany were open to him. To these he gave nearly the whole of the twenty-second year of his life. The nine years of the first war with Revolutionary France had been closed by the Peace of Amiens in 1802. In 1803 the twelve years of the second war had begun. The opening of the year 1805 had seen the coalition of Great Britain, TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 29 Austria, and Russia against Napoleon, the failure of his design for the invasion of England, and the march of his seven army corps for the war on the Danube. Nelson's crowning victory at Trafalgar was about to confirm the British supremacy on the sea, soon to be followed by the battle of iVusterlitz and the death of Pitt at forty-seven, when on the first day of August 1805 Heber and his friend John Thornton landed from their little sloop at Gothenburg. Alarmed by a ship of war which did not answer his signals, the captain had brought the mail on deck to sink it, when the armed vessel turned out to be H.M.S. Scout, searching for French privateers, and she con- voyed them as far as the Naze. Heber's letters to his mother and to Richard, and his journals throughout the tour, give as lively a picture of Northern and Central Europe at the begin- ning of the century as his graver narrative, when on his metropolitan tour afterwards, supplied of India and Ceylon. The scenery of the country, the social condition and art treasures of the great cities, the economic resources and the state of the people, the spiritual aspects and ecclesiastical organisation, and even the amusements of each nation come under review, lightly touched by the pen of one who was in the best sense a man of the world and a catholic Christian. Not once is narrowness, or intolerance, or frivolity found. The party enjoyed letters of introduction to the leading men and families on their diversified route, and were not slow to comment on the political combinations and prospects of each country at a time when the fate of Europe and of the liberty of mankind hung on the sacrifice and tenacity of the British people. In a two-horse carriage, bought for the occasion, Heber and Thornton posted over a considerable part of Sweden and Norway. AVriting from Stockholm to his brother on the 14th September 1805, Reginald summarises the impressions formed during a tour of six weeks. " E.xcepting Upsala and Dannemora, our journey has taken in nothing very remarkable, and concerning Norway, the mcniorabilia are too numerous for a letter, and must be reserved for our future conversations. In general, it may be said to have an uninterest- ing shell, with one of the richest and most beautiful kernels in the world. The neighbourhood of Friderickshall is certainly striking, 3° BISHOP HEBER but far inferior in beauty to the romantic descriptions and draw- ings which I have seen of it ; and the people, who affect to de- spise the Swedes, fah far short of them both in civihsation and honesty. The western coast, Bergen, Christiansund, etc., we did not see ; by all accounts, the manners are almost as wild, and the country quite as savage, as in the neighbouring regions of Labrador and Greenland. Yet hence the wealth of Norway is chiefly derived ; and the innumerable fiords and siinds, which intersect the country, while they separate the people from all com- merce with the interior, supply almost the entire Mediterranean with fish, and are the means of accumulating very considerable wealth to individuals and the government. " The formidable mountains towards Sweden present a terrible scene of cold and barrenness. At Roraas, where are their principal copper-mines, no corn or garden-stuff will grow, and in winter quicksilver is frozen. We stayed here a day or two, and went a day's journey into the mountains in quest of a small tribe of Lajjlandcrs, or Finns, as the Danes call them, who have been, time immemorial, wanderers in this neighbourhood. In the valleys we had been tormented by heat, but in this inhospitable tract it snowed fast, and probably does so occasionally through the whole summer. The fir-trees were no longer visible, and all the wood that remained was some stunted birch in the sheltered situations ; at last these, too, disappeared, and nothing was seen but rotten bog, and rocks covered with lichen, a white mealy moss, which has more the appearance of a leprosy than a pasture. In short, I could easily conceive how a Swedish amiy, in the time of Charles XII., had been entirely destroyed by the cold in an attempt to cross these terrible >7A.i' (fells), and was not a little glad to warm myself in the miserable wigwam of the people of whom we were in quest. Their huts are exactly resembling those of the Tchutski, given in Cook's last voyage, but are neither so large nor so high ; and they still preserve their race, language, and dress. . " Vet in spite of this inhospitable frontier, the interior of Norway is a most delightful and interesting countiy. Heder- marken, Gulbrandsdale, Trondheim and Oesterdal would hardly give up the palm of beauty and fertility to the finest valleys of Wales and Cumberland ; and the appearance of comfort, and even wealth, in the cottages of the peasants is, as a general characteristic, far beyond anything of the kind in our own country. I was surprised, at first, at the great apparent liberty of all classes ; but soon found reason to attribute the mildness of TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 31 their government to the weakness of the ruling nation, and the circumstance that every peasant in Norway is armed and dis- ciphned. "... Their songs, of which I contrived to collect a few, arc in the same measure, and frequently almost in the same language as the old English ; and many apparent differences only arise from the vile system of spelling, which the Danish Government has introduced to make it different from Swedish. The genius of the language, however, certainly differs from ours, and we must, I think, have got our grammar from some cjuarter distinct from Scandina\ia. An Englishman, nevertheless, particularly if he knows anything of Yorkshire, will hardly mistake their meaning when he hears of a ' bra bairn,' an ' ox stek,' a ' kalf stek,' when he is told ' sitla dcre,' or ' ga til kirchen ' ; a ' skort simmer,' a ' cald winter,' ' snee,' ' swerd,' and ten thousand other words are equally similar. "Though the Norwegians rather pride themselves on their affinity to England, I do not think our nation is popular. Mr. Pitt is most cordially hated both in Norway and Sweden. We ourselves, however, experienced the greatest hospitality from every t|uarter. " The road through Sweden, from Koningsberg to Upsala, lay through a flat well-cultivated country, which had nothing to distinguish it from Leicestershire, or any other country of the same sort, except the rockiness of the soil. Our route from Gothenburg/to Norway had given us a very false idea of the general appearance of the country. Sweden may be compared, in general, to a marble table covered with baize ; it is level indeed and green, but the veil is thin, and every here and there the stone peeps through the cracks of its covering. Farming is well understood, and the soil, though very light, is not unproductive. ... At Wcsteraes is a small cathedral, with many tombs of kings and great men. At Upsala we passed two days, and saw c\ery thing of note in this northern Athens. There is a very respectable library, and a noble building as a green-house and museum, built by Gustavus the Third, of which the principal portico is Doric, very remarkable for its proportion and beauty. The botanical garden is like that of Trinity, only much larger ; of the plants you know I am perfectly incompetent to judge. The cathedral is well proportioned, and has been of the best style of Gothic in general ; plain, and not very unlike Westminster Abbey. The inhabitants are very proud of it, and have taken care to remove all the carved work or tracery from the windows, 32 BISHOP HEBER to daub the inside with plaister, and to case the outside with the very reddest brick they could find. This, with large white Doric cornices, and two bright blue things, like pepper-boxes, on the two towers, has so beautified it, that, if the bishop who founded it, and the mason who built it, were to return again, they would not know their own child in its present dashing uniform. " From Upsala we went to Osterby, the seat of Mr. Tame, one of the proprietors of the Dannemora mine. We found a very hospitable reception, and met with a large and pleasant party. The mines we saw, of course, and I can hardly express the sensa- tions of astonishment they caused. All other mines I have seen are dark and dirty cellars in comparison ; here it is Vathek's chasm and portal of ebony realised. You find, not a dark and narrow shaft like a well, but a mouth of an irregular form, more, 1 think, than two hundred yards long, and, in one place, at least eighty wide. On different parts of this enormous gulph are the cranes and buckets by which you are let down to the bottom, four hundred and eighty feet ; the side is, for about two hundred feet, a smooth iron rock; at length there are other masses which arise like islands, and you sec opening on every side the prodigious caverns whence the ore is taken ; one of them into which we descended is a vault higher for some little way than the nave of York Minster. Notwithstanding the width of the chasm above, the rays of the sun fall too obliquely to reach the bottom, which is the region of eternal ice and twilight. " The road to Stockholm is through the same rocky, green, cultivated country as the rest of Sweden, excepting that towards the capital the appearance becomes more woody, uneven, and even romantic. Nothing, indeed, can be more so than the situation of this extraordinary town, which is a collection of rocks scattered irregularly in a wide arm of the sea (or lake, call it which you will), connected by bridges, covered with buildings and gardens, the domes of churches intermingled with oaks, and the whole surrounded by an enormous palace, as big, I think, as five Somerset Houses. It is, however, chiefly of brick, but universally stuccoed or whitewashed. The houses are all large and many- storied, with a common staircase. . . . The quays, however, are some of them very noble, and the public buildings, though mostly small, in good taste." After visiting Finland in a fishing-boat, which pleasantly threaded the beautifully -wooded Archipelago of Aland, and experiencing disappointment with the provincial capital Abo, in TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 33 sfjite of its then being " the most nortliern university in the world, an archiepiscopal and archiducal city, the queen of Finland, Bothnia, and Lapland," the travellers arrived at Petersburg 1 on 8th October 1805. " On our route from Louisa, the last frontier town in Sweden, to Petersburg, nothing is more remarkable than the change which takes place in the appearance, dress, and apparent circumstances of the peasantry. In Swedish Finland the peasant has all the cleanliness, industry, and decency of a Swede ; he is even more sober, but very inferior in honesty. In Russia you see an immediate deterioration in morals, cleanliness, wealth, and every- thing but intelligence and cunning. The horses, which througli the Swedish territories were uniformly good, became poor miser- able hacks ; and to the good roads, which we had enjoyed ever since we left Gothenburg, we now bade a long, very long adieu. " During the time of our journey, all the northern garrisons were greatly thinned on account of the war. We passed several regiments on their march, and were much pleased with the cleanli- ness, good clothing, and soldier-like appearance of the men, in which they far exceeded the Swedes." To the English patriot Russia was at that time an object of vital interest. Six months before, William Pitt's diplomacy had succeeded in concluding, at Petersburg, the treaty, offensive and defensive, which started with this preamble : "As the state of suffering in which Europe is placed demands immediate remedy, their Majesties have mutually determined to consult upon the means of putting stop thereto, without waiting for fresh encroachments on the part of the French Government." The general league of the States of Europe thus aimed at had been joined by Sweden just after Heber had crossed the Dovrefelds, and the cabinet of Vienna had at last arranged the terms of its co-operation, although Prussia, coveting Hanover, still held out, to its ultimate injury, while it thus contributed immediately to the French victory of Austerlitz. Russia was busy in raising and equipping its ^ E. D. Clarke, LL. D. , used the valuable MS. Journal of Heber for ex- tracts in the notes to his Travels in Russian Taitary and Tnrkiy, in the preface to which he wrote — " In addition to Mr. Hebcr's habitual accuracy may be mentioned the statistical information which stamps a peculiar value on his observations." Clarke travelled in 1800. D 34 BISHOP HEBER share of the half million of men for whom England was supplying the splendid subsidies at the rate of at least six millions and a quarter sterling. Had Pitt sent across an army corps to check the march of the French from Boulogne to the Danube, Austerlitz might never have been fought. To live at such a time, and to be in a position to watch the course of the greatest events in the world's history, was for these two Oxford and Cambridge men a rare joy. M. Novosiltzoff, the Russian statesman who had backed Pitt in securing the co-operation of Austria, had been striving for the same object at Berlin with the King of Prussia, who despatched M. Zastroff to Petersburg, hoping to avert the impending collision. The only result was a fruitless negotia- tion between Russia and France, which arrested war for three months. Ultimately, on 3rd November, the King of Prussia signed a secret convention with the Czar. "Petersburg, 2-]th October 1805. " Dear Mother — By the arrival of Hanbury and Stackhouse, two Englishmen whom we left at Stockholm, I had the pleasure of receiving your second letter, which had not reached that place during our stay there. Believe me it was a very great pleasure to hear of the good health of my English circle of friends (for Hodnet seems very seldom to contain you all at once), especially as I had been disappointed of finding any letters at Petersburg. Our time is passed pleasantly and, I hope, profitably, in learning German, improving in French, seeing sights, and listening to, not joining in, political discussions. These employments, with a few Greek books which I hope to borrow, will give us ample amusement for the time we intend to stay here. . . . " All here are in high spirits about the war, particularly since the accession of Prussia. The emperor, indeed, is so popular, that he could scarcely do anj^hing of which his people would not approve. It is far otherwise in the country we have lately quitted ; general ill -humour and dissatisfaction at all public measures, mutual distrust between the king and his people, and a bitter sense of their present weakness, contrasted with their ancient military glory, are at present conspicuous in every society and conversation in Sweden. . . . " The emperor was set oft" for Germany before our arrival. Lord Leveson Gowcr's departure, which took place soon after- TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 35 wards, was a still greater disappointment, as he had met with great kindness and civility from him ; and if he had stayed we should have been introduced to the best society in the best pos- sible manner. Mr. Moeler, the Hanoverian envoy, to whom Sand- ford had procured me a letter, has, however, been a very valuable acquaintance ; by his means we are likely to see a good deal of the best circles here. The town is, of course, by no means full, as many of the nobility are with the army, and many more have not yet left their country houses." "Petersburg, December 1S05. "Dear Brother — . . . Of the palaces here and in the neigh- bourhood, the Taurida is the only one that has quite answered my expectation ; the winter garden there, which is a grove of ever- greens in a vast saloon, is perhaps a matchless piece of elegant luxury. The great palace is a vast tasteless pile of plaistered brick, and the marble palace is tamely conceived, and its pilasters look like slices of potted beef or char. In the great palace are some good pictures ; the Houghton collection is in the Hermitage, which is now under repair. What interested me most were the private rooms of the emperor and empress, which were remarkable for their comfort, neatness, and simplicity. Alexander's private study and dressing-room, which, though not generally shown, we were permitted to see, was apparently just as he had left it, and answered completely my ideas of what a monarch's retirement ought to be. The table was heaped with books, which we were not allowed to meddle with or take up, but among which I thought I distinguished Guichard and Folard ; and round the room, which is small, were piled a great number of swords, musquets, rifles, and bayonets of different kinds and inventions ; in the window seats were some books of finance. The whole was so carelessly and naturally arranged, that I am convinced it was not intended as a show. In fact, his aversion to display of all kinds is the most striking part of his character, and it is even carried to excess. As he is now in person with the army, and has, it is said, expressed a wish to win his spurs before he assumes the military order of St. George, I fear we have little probability of seeing him before we leave Petersburg. The Russians and English attempt to outdo each other in his praises ; and the women in particular speak of him as the best, the most polite, and the handsomest man in the world. But after all allowance is made for their partiality, he appears to be really of a very amiable temper and manners, and a clear unperverted head ; he 36 BISHOP HEBER is said, above all, to be active and attentive to his peculiar duties ; he is neither a fiddler, a poet, a chemist, nor a philosopher, but contents himself with being an emperor. His person, to judge by his busts and statues, is tall and strongly built ; his complexion fair and pale ; his hair light, and his face full and round. 1 have been anxious to give you some general idea of this amiable man, in whose character and conduct Europe is so deeply interested. . . . " I write but little on politics, partly because Petersburg, from its remoteness, is out of the current of news almost as much as England ; and partly because I do not choose to submit all my political observations to the chance of an inspection at the post office, which sometimes happens in England as well as on the Continent. The war here is popular, and the people profess them- selves, and I believe really arc, friendly to the English cause and nation. If anything could have diminished this feeling, it would have been, I think, the inactivity of the arms of Great Britain during the present coalition ; to the want of a timely diversion in that quarter, there are many who are fond of attributing the dreadful calamities which have befallen Austria ; and though the presence of Englishmen was always a restraint, I have repeatedly been made half-mad by witnessing the deep and general indigna- tion at the conduct of the ministry ; a conduct which I have often endeavoured to defend, at least as far as the general character of the country was at stake. You will likewise soon see the curious effect which this produced on the terms of a late ofiered negotia- tion. Thank God, the victory of Trafalgar, followed up by the arrival of General Don at Cuxhax en, has turned the scale in our favour, and the destruction of Boulogne, of w hich we are in daily hopes to hear, will give new spirits to the friends of England, and of what is emphatically called ' the good cause.' Pitt is, I believe, thought highly of here, though his late inactivity staggered their good opinion. The news from the Russian army continues com- fortable to Europe and glorious to Russia. Bragration, of whose exploits you have heard, is a very remarkable character ; he is a Georgian by birth, and chief of one of the tribes of Mount Caucasus ; he was a favourite of Suwarof, and acquired great reputation in Italy." What was the " sun of Austerlitz " for Napoleon set in gloom for the Allies in the armistice of the 6th December 1805. Heber thus pictures the effect in Russia : — TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 37 " Petersburg. "My dear Mother — As ill news flies always swift, you are, no doubt, by this time as perfectly acquainted with the dreadful calamities which have befallen Europe as we can be in Petersburg. Here, indeed, news is slowly and obscurely com- municated to the public, and all the information that has yet l)een given has merely transpired through private channels. The loss on the side of the Russians is, we are assured, much less than was at first reported ; their courage and conduct appear unimpeached ; it can scarcely be believed, what I have myself heard from one of the emperor's aidcs-dc-cainp, that while both Austrians and French wanted nothing, the Russians were without provisions for above four-and-twcnty hours ; and that when the Emperor Alexander was taken very seriously ill, and sent to his brother of Austria for a bottle of wine, it was, after a long treaty, refused him. . . . " Both Alexander and Constantino distinguished themselves greatly ; the latter, it is said, for nothing certain is known, is wounded. The emperor has been requested, since his return, to assume the military order of .St. George, which he had never taken before, always professing to defer it till he had earned his spurs. Even now he replied with much modesty that the first class, or great cross, was destined for great conquerors or generals ; that he had himself done little more than most officers in his army, and should not assume a higher rank than a chevalier of the third class. . . . " In consequence of the peace which Austria has made, and the subsequent withdrawal of the Russian troops, the emperor has been some days returned to Petersburg ; we were, of course, eager to see him, and were fortunate enough to have several opportunities. His arri\al was perfectly sudden and unex- pected ; he was at Gatchina, thirty miles from hence, before his setting out from the army was known, and arrived in Petersburg about five in the morning ; his first visit was paid to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Casan, where he spent some time in prayer ; he then joined his wife and mother at the palace. The people, in the meantime, assembled in prodigious crowds before the gate ; and when, about half-past nine, he came out to inspect the guard, the whole mob gave one of the most tremendous and universal shouts which I ever heard ; they thronged round him, kissing his hands, his boots and clothes, with an enthusiasm which perfectly disregarded the threats and cudgels of the police officers. .Some 38 BISHOP HEBER men were telling their beads and crossing themselves ; others, with long black beards, crying and blubbering like children, and the whole scene was the most affecting picture of joy which I ever saw. When he was at length disengaged he went along the line, each company as he passed giving him the deep-toned short cheer, which is their customary morning exclamation, ' Bless you, Alexander Povlovitz.' . . . " The emperor is not the only sight we have seen, having been at court, and at a grand religious ceremony of the Tartars. We have as yet only been to court as spectators, as there is, at present, no English ambassador here to introduce us ; but having a recommendation to the master of the ceremonies, he veiy kindly gave us an opportunity of seeing everything to the best advantage, and introduced us to a gentleman who explained their religious ceremonies, for all the levees and drawing-rooms begin with service in the chapel. On our first entrance into the room we found it full of officers and foreign ministers, who ranged themselves in two lines for the empress to pass through from the inner room, followed by all her ladies, to the chapel ; at the upper end stood the senators and officers of the State, then the rest of the spectators, and the lower end of the room was occupied by Cossak officers, wild, savage-looking fellows, whose long black hair, bare necks, long flowing garments and crooked scimitars formed a striking contrast with the bags and powdered wigs of the rest of the party. The chapel was crowded, and the singing the most beautiful I ever heard ; no musical instruments are allowed by the Greek Church, and never was more delightful harmony produced by vocal performers. The effect was very- grand when the singing suddenly ceased, and the vast folding doors of the sanctuary were thrown open, and the gilded altar and the priests (who are all selected for their beards and stature) were discovered amid a cloud of incense. During the service the empress stood on a step in the middle of the aisle, as no seats are allowed by the Greeks in their churches. But little attention was paid to the service by the greater part of the audience, though some continued bowing and crossing themselves the whole time. After the bishop had given the final blessing, I was surprised to see the beautiful young empress, for I really think her very much so, kiss his hand, which he returned on her hand and cheek ; and his example was followed by the whole tribe of ecclesiastics, a race of as dirty monks as ever ate salt fish. The English clergy will, I fear, never be able to obtain a privilege like this. " The other ceremony I mentioned was the commencement of TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 39 the month Ramadan, or Mahommedan Lent, and was chiefly remarkable for its novelty, and for the number of the followers of Mahomet among the lower classes of Petersburg. It must also be observed that they were the most decent, attentive con- gregation that I have seen since I left England. The cere- mony was performed in the great hall of the palace (now deserted and almost ruined) which Paul built, and where his life was terminated. ... I little thought I should hear the Alcoran read, or be dinned by exclamations of Allah, Allah Acbar. This is indeed the only sight of Mahommedan manners which, in all probability, I shall ever have, as, unless very good news comes, we shall certainly not think of Constantinople, but return much sooner than we at first intended to our respective Volunteers. Pray commend me to the Hodnet company, and tell them I am doing my utmost to gain information which may be useful to them, if they are ever brought into action ; and that the more I see of the miserable state of Europe, I am the more convinced that Englishmen will shortly have to depend on their own patriotism and their own bayonets. Hostilities are indeed a dreadful subject to occupy our letters and our conversation, and woe to the man who can view them with indifference ! Russia, I believe, is firm, but Russia is herself in the greatest danger." Accompanied by Sir Daniel Bayley, afterwards the British Consul-General, Heber and Thornton drove to Moscow at the beginning of the next year, 1806. The city, which he describes as a vast oval covering as much ground as London and West- minster at that time, even the Kremlin, that embodiment of the Asiatic origin and destiny of the Russians, were burned to the ground six years after. Heber revelled in the unique city and its fortress, declaring " there is no place in Europe more likely to detain a traveller." There, and on visits to the great Troitza monastery, "the Oxford of Russia," and to the joint establishment of Befania, where Archbishop Plato received him, and to the towns of Volga, Rostof, Yaroslav, and Kostroma, the two tourists spent more than two months of the Russian winter. Lord Stuart de Rothesay,^ at that time Secretary of Legation, who had just returned to Petersburg from Hungary, reported that the French had evacuated Germany, that Sir Arthur Paget had returned to Vienna, and 1 Then Mr. Stuart, afterwards father of Lady Canning and Lady Water- ford. 40 BISHOP HEBER that an Englishman might go through any part of the country with perfect security. Heber thus wrote to his brother Richard : — " Moscow, 24//^ February 1806. " My dear Brother — In my last letter I said something disrespectful of the beauty of the Moscow ladies, which, now that I have got more into their society, I must contradict ; it is the only place since I left England where I have met with a really interesting female society, and at the assemblies of the nobles we see many faces that might be supposed to belong to Lancashire or Cheshire. Of their hospitality you may judge, when I say that I have only dined once at home since our arrival, and then we had an invitation which we declined. Of instruction to be acquired at Moscow I can give but a moderate account ; there are verj' few people who think at all, and of these few many think amiss. To Maffai, the librarian of the sacred synod, we have been promised introductions, but his health is so infirm that he can rarely see strangers. We have, however, made one distinguished literary acquaintance in the person of the Archbishop Plato, with whom we passed a day at his convent at Troitza, about forty miles from Moscow. We found him a fine cheerful old man, with a white beard floating over his breast. He asked us many questions about Person, and on finding we knew him, showed us his Greek books, which were not very numerous, and consisting entirely of the Fathers ; he made us construe a page of St. Chrysostom's litany, which put us into his good graces, and he insisted on our dining and passing the day with him. He speaks tolerable French and Latin, but Greek more readily than either." To his mother, anxious for his safety and more speedy return, Heber replied that Thornton and he had given up their plan for visiting Athens, Constantinople, and Italy. "iSIosCGW, yd March 1806. "... We have been employing this leisure in a close application to German, a knowledge of which is a sine qua no7i to our schemes. The weather is already beginning to change ; and farther south, everj'thing, we are told, is green and flower)', which not a little increases our eagerness to be gone. On Mon- day, then, ' twenty adieus, my frozen Moscovites ' (though their climate is the only thing that we have found frozen about them. TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 41 and that has been, generally speaking, very tolerable). Our first push is for Tcherkask, the capital of the Cossaks, where we hope to arrive in a fortnight ; we shall then run through the Crimea to Odessa, and by Kamirici and Lemberg, to Vienna, where we shall arrive by the first of June. The detour of the Crimea we are induced to take as a sort of substitute for Greece and Italy ; and in this country travelling is so rapid that a small increase of distance would not induce, or even justify us, in relinquishing one of the most beautiful and interesting countries in the world, and where we need apprehend neither plague, nor French, nor banditti. There is likewise this advantage in our getting to Vienna a month later, that we allow full time for the Austrian territories to get tranquillised, and shall be at Odessa in the best possible situation for getting advice and intelligence. Compare this with our immediate return through the sands of Poland and Brandenburg, and I am sure you will not wonder at our choice, especially as we shall be in England, at the latest, by the beginning of October, having completed the tour of the northern and midland parts of Europe. . . . " Poor Pitt ! We have just received the news of his death, which has caused great sorrow to the English and the friends of England, who are here very numerous, especially among the old ministers of Catherine, the Orlofs, the Ostermans, etc. At Count Osterman's house we are intimate, and dine there once or twice in a week ; he is a very fine, interesting old man. Count Ale.xis Orlof we have also been presented to, and have been at his ball ; but unfortunately he does not speak French. . . . His daughter, a pleasing but not beautiful girl of about eighteen, who sings, plays, dances, rides, hunts, speaks French, English, and German, all to perfection, is, for these accomplishments, as well as for the additional one of being heiress to about 400,000 rubles a year, the ' cynosure of Russian eyes.' Her father, like the other Russian nobles, keeps a most immense establishment, having a family of about five hundred persons, and at least two or three hundred horses. Indeed, the Eastern retinues and luxuries which one meets with here are almost beyond belief. There are few English countesses have so many pearls in their possession as I have seen in the streets in the cap of a merchant's wife. At a ball in the ancient costume which was given by M. Nelidensky (secretary of state to the late empress, whose family we have found the most agreeable in Moscow), the ladies all wore caps entirely of pearls, and the blaze of diamonds on their saraphans (the ancient Russian tunic) would have outshone, I think, St. James's. The pearl 42 BISHOP HEBER bonnet is not a becoming dress, as it makes its wearer look very pale, a fault which some ladies had been evidently endeavouring to obviate. In general, however, this is not a very prevailing practice in Moscow, in which respect, as well as in every other, its ladies have an infinite advantage over those of Petersburg. The jewels are brought here, for the most part, by Armenian merchants, or Tartars from Samarkand and Bokhara, who have from the earliest ages been the carriers of the East. They bring into Russia shawls, herons' plumes, attar of roses, jewels, and other Indian and Cashmerian productions, which bring them an immense profit. Their wanderings, which extend from Poland to Ava and Mysore, often last several years, and must be wonder- fully interesting to any hardy European who might venture to accompany them. Some of the Armenians are very wealthy ; one of them, named Lazarof, gave, during our stay in Moscow, a magnificent fete, to which we procured an invitation, and met almost all the great people in the place. Next to the Georgians, they are the handsomest people I have ever seen. "Alas for Pitt ! — neither balls nor belles can drive him out of my head ! " The homeward tour thus planned was substantially carried out. At Taganrog, at the head of the Sea of Azof, Heber received from Madame Cashparof, daughter of the Armenian Lazarof, who was the first possessor of the famous Orlof diamond, this account of the Scottish Missionary Society's early work among the Musalman Tartars : — " Madame Cashparof gave us several particulars respecting the Scotch missionaries at Georgiessk ; they are to the number of thirty, men and women. The principal person among them is named Brunton,! whom she described as a man of abilities, and, in ' Henry Brunton was, with Peter Greig, the first missionary from Scotland sent out to West Africa by tlie Edinburgh Society, founded in 1796. After Greig's martyrdom by the Susoos near Sierra Leone, he returned, and in 1802 sailed from Leith, along with Mr. A. Paterson, to found a mission to the Tartars between the Black Sea and the Caspian. The enlightened Czar Alexander and his Minister, Prince Galitzin, gladly gave the mission lands as a Scottish colony, and encouraged their toilsome work of translating the Scriptures and civilising the Kabardians, who were often at war. Just after Heber left Moscow, Mr. Mitchell, one of the staff, visited Petersburg to arrange very liberal conditions for the colony. So long as only ransomed slaves were baptized the Orthodox Greek Church was silent, but when Mohammed Ali. son of the old Kazi of Derbend, was converted to Christ, the priests demanded TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 43 particular, as possessing great power of acquiring languages. He had made very extraordinary progress in the Russian and Cir- cassian tongues ; had been in many parts of the world as mission- ary ; and had with him a young negro, whom he represented to be the son of an African king, who had entrusted him to his care for education. They had suffered greatly by disease and the dearness of all the necessaries of life, and were kept in frequent alarm by the Tcherkesses, on whom their labours had produced very little effect. Madame Cashparof spoke of this little colony, particularly of Brunton and a Mr. I'atcrson, with much praise, both of their industry and respectable character. Georgiessk is about seven hundred versts from Tchcrkask ; it is in a magnificent situation at the foot of the Caucasus ; near it are the famous hot baths. The Circassians of the horde of Little Kabarda are allied with Russia, but those of the other tribes are mostly hostile." Thus, for the second time, the future missionary bishop was brought close to that great enterprise in which he was to lay down his life. Heber's personal study of the people during this tour in the Crimea led him to devote much time to the preparation of a History of tlie Cossaks, which his appoint- ment to Calcutta prevented him from completing. The unfinished work, which appeared after his death, brings the history down to the year 1535, when the Cossaks assumed the appearance and tone of a regular and independent republic along the Ukraine or "border" land, and were first courted by their neighbours, both Russians and Poles. It is curious to read in a journal written in 1806 descriptions of Sebastopol,^ Balaklava, and Eupatoria so sadly familiar in the war half a century after. At Perekop Heber noted that it was with great regret they quitted the Crimea and its pleasing inhabitants. that they should baptize him. The Mission charter was interpreted by the Emperor and Galitzin as "authorising the missionaries to receive by holy baptism all who were converted to the Lord through their instrumentality, " Imt when Nicholas succeeded Alexander, intolerance drove the Scots Mission out of Russia. See Short History of Missions, p. 174 of 4th ed. ' In a letter to Mr. R. W. Hay, an old college companion, and afterwards Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, wlio was about to make a tour similar to his own, Heber thus referred to Sebastopol : "At Sel)astopol is a most execrable ale-house kept Ijy an Italian, which is, however, the best in the place. The people you ought to know here are General Bardakof, one of the cleverest fellows in the empire, and Messer, an English post-captain ; there is also Prince Wiasemsky, a relation of our old friend at Petersburg. Do not omit to see Inkerman and Chersonesus. " 44 BISHOP HEBER At the next stage of Cherson, on the way to Odessa, Heber received this information from a Scotsman named Geddes regarding the philanthropist Howard, who, when on his last benevolent journey to Constantinople, had died there when ministering to a fever-stricken girl sixteen years before, exclaiming, " Give me no monument, but lay me quietly in the earth ; place a sundial over my grave, and let me be for- gotten." His dust now lies near the village of Dauphigny, on the road to St. Nicolas, and his statue is in St. Paul's, London. "The tomb of Howard is in the desert, about a mile from the town ; it was built by Admiral Mordvinof, and is a small brick pyramid, whitewashed, but without any inscription ; he himself fixed on the spot of his interment. He had built a small hut on this part of the steppe, where he passed much of his time, as being the most healthy spot in the neighbourhood. The English burial- service was read over him by Admiral Priestman, from whom I had these particulars. Two small villas have Ijeen built at no great distance, I suppose, also, from the healthiness of the situa- tion, as it has nothing else to recommend it. Howard was spoken of with exceeding respect and affection by all who remembered or knew him ; and they were many." Poland delighted Heber : — " No part of Ancient Russia, that I have seen, except, perhaps, some part of the province of Yaroslav, can at all compare in fertility or beauty with her Polish acquisitions. Not the banks of the Volga, nor even the Crimea itself, have anything like the oak woods and corn-fields of Podolia. The difference which principally struck us was in the appearance of the houses and towns, the paved and narrow streets, the crucifixes by the roadside, the monasteries, the Latin inscriptions, and the other marks of a different religion, and habits more nearly approaching the rest of Europe. . . . " The country which has fallen to the share of Austria is more picturesque and more populous than that of Russia, but apparently not so fertile. Both would, however, be called fertile and beauti- ful in the richest part of England." Of the land of the Magyars he wrote : — " There are few countries where an Englishman could obtain TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 45 so much important information as in Hungary, the constitution of the government of which is a complete comment on the ancient principles of our own, as low down as Edward the Third. All that I have been able to do in this point, except a little conversa- tion, is to get the names of the best historians, and of law books, which I shall still have opportunities of consulting, and which are all in Latin. . . . This language is, from various reasons (particularly that every parish has a school), almost vernacular in Hungary ; among the better and middling classes it is the most usual language ; and even many of the peasants speak it fluently. In this point, and in the general diffusion of knowledge, Scotland itself, perhaps, falls short of Hungary. . . . The roads, indeed, are very like those of Shropshire or Cheshire ; but the horses and inns are excellent ; and the whole country displays a wealth and population far superior to all which we have yet seen out of England. The market towns and boroughs, with their town halls, whipping-posts, and gallows, things little known on the Continent, are exactly in the style of building which we see in Hogarth's prints. Like England, Hungary still shows everywhere the deep scars of her former civil disturbances. Every county town has its ruined walls ; and the hills, particularly the Carpathian mountains, are full of castles, the ruins of which are sometimes very fine." " Vienna, dth July 1806. " My DE.A.R Mother — . . . Sir Arthur Paget and his secre- taries are still here, which is a fortunate circumstance for us, as our letters are addressed to them. . . . The French troops appear to have behaved with great moderation while in Vienna ; but, though private property has been respected, the state has been terribly plundered ; and a season of great scarcity having accompanied the other misfortunes, the necessary purchase of corn has contributed still more to drain the country of treasure, which they seem to have but scanty means, at present, of replac- ing ; their paper is at fifty per cent discount." "Dresden, 20th Augusl 1806. " My DEAR Mother — . . . We left Vienna very melancholy ; every day new encroachments and menaces of Buonaparte, in- creased depreciation of the public credit, and fresh proofs of the weakness and timidity of the government were talked of w ith a sort of stupid despair, which seemed as if the people had ceased to 46 BISHOP HEBER care for what they could no longer prevent. The English were very popular, and the French most warmly detested, to which the excessive insolence of Andreossi and Rochefoucalt,the ambassadors, very much conduced. The army were longing for war, but the people had lost all hopes except of tranquillity for a month or two longer. The seizure of Gradesca was known the night before we left Vienna, and it was just announced that the Roman empire was at an end. While these usurpations were going on, the French troops in Bavaria kept menacing their frontier, and Andreossi's threats were, it is said, excessively violent and vulgar. Such is the state of the country with a population of 22,000,000, an army of 350,000 highly-disciplined troops, and with a general like the Archduke Charles ! You will, of course, wish to know what causes have brought them so low, as the loss of a few battles is quite insufficient to produce such terrible effects. They themselves all agree in saying that it was the peace of Presburg which ruined them ; and that if the government had been more patient and courageous, the most unsuccessful war would have been better than such a capitulation. But besides the cowardice of the emperor, the dreadful state of their finances, the broken spirit of their troops, and the total want of confidence between the sovereign and the people were perhaps sufficient reasons. The troops are indeed very fine fellows, but their misery is great. . . . " Of Buonaparte's conduct and appearance many interesting particulars were to be learnt. Nothing struck me more than his excessive hatred of England and Russia, particularly the former. For the Austrians he only expressed contempt, and that galling pity which is worse and more intolerable than the bitterest insult. But whenever he spoke of England (and he seldom spoke of any- thing else), it was, in the words of my informant, Count Purgstall, who, from his situation, was constantly with Buonaparte, 'like Haman speaking of Mordecai the Jew.' All the Austrians joined in saying that the only hope of safety for England was in a continuance of the war, and I was perfectly of the same opinion. God grant Lord Lauderdale a speedy and unsuccessful return from Paris. " From Vienna we went to Briinn, and passed a whole day in tracing out and drawing plans of the battle of Austerlitz. Except a few skeletons of horses, and a few trees which have been shivered by bullets, all wears its ancient appearance. " ' As if these shades since time was born, Had only heard the shepherd's reed, Nor started at the bugle horn. ' TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 47 We had General Stutterheim's account of the battle in our hand, and likewise drew much information from a sensible farmer in the village of Scholmitz. All the stories we had heard in Russia were very false ; and the Austrians' account of the behaviour of the Russian troops equally so. The loss of the battle is entirely attributable to the scandalous want of information of the Austrians, and to the extended line on which Kotusof made the attack. The French had behaved very well till their victory, but after it they committed great excesses among the villages ; the Russians were popular among the common people, which at once proved the falsehood of the scandals circulated against them at Vienna. At last, however, they too were driven to plunder ; but it was by absolute famine, owing to the miserable weakness of the Austrian government, and the bad conduct of their agents. The Russians understood the Moravian language, being only a dialect of the Slavonian ; and this circumstance endeared them a good deal to the people. The loss of the French on this memorable day was much greater than they have been willing to allow. My informant had passed the morning after the battle from Scholmitz by Pratzen to Austerlitz. On the hill of Pratzen, he said, ' I could not set my foot to the ground for blue uniforms.' I drew three or four plans of the ground, and at last succeeded in making a very exact one. While I was thus employed I was taken for a French spy, and accosted by some farmers, who asked, with many apologies, for my passport. I told them I had none, and a very curious village council of war was held, which was terminated by the arrival of Thornton and the guide we had taken from Briinn." Prague, Dresden, Leipzig, Halle, and Wittemberg followed, to Berlin :— " Potsdam is a small but very well-built town ; and Berlin is decidedly, next to Petersburg, the finest city I have ever seen." "Yarmouth, 14//; October 1806. " Dear Mother— We are this moment landed from the Florence cutter, which Lord Morpeth, whom we met at Hamburg, was so kind as to give us permission to make use of We have had a very agreeable voyage, and are both well. I hope to be at Hodnet Saturday evening. Love to all the dear party. We bring no good news. The king of Prussia and Buonaparte were a few posts from each other, and by this time they have probably had an engagement. The Elector of Hesse has refused all the king's 48 BISHOP HEBER proposals, and is expected to join the French. — Behave me your affectionate son, REGINALD Heber." As Heber wrote that letter the battle of Jena was laying all Prussia at Buonaparte's feet. The travellers landed to find the country in the throes of a general election. Heber hastened to Oxford to fight for his brother, who was standing for the University, while Thornton threw himself into the two contests waged by his father and his uncle, Henry Thornton, M.P. for Southwark. Heber thus reported to Miss Dod the lively proceedings at Oxford : — " i8 Charles Street, St. James's. " My dear, dear Charlotte will perhaps be surprised that I have not sooner thanked her for her kind little note delivered at the Llanvridda Bow -meeting, especially when she knew that I was immediately setting out for Oxford and likely to be alone. When you know, however, how hard I have been working in my brother's cause, and how many letters and how much business have devolved on me as a matter of absolute duty and necessity, you will, I am sure, be far from blaming my not having written to you before, nor be jealous that 1 have, yesterday, written to your friend Mary Shute. The purport of my letter was to ask her interest with her father, who has, I believe, a vote, and also to request her to give us a good word with some other Somerset- shire members of the University. If you write to her, pray move her to think well of us. You will be glad to hear that our canvass goes on favourably, and that, though I am almost tired to death, I continue well. If, indeed, one had less heat, less anxiety, and less business to do, the motley scenes of my brother's committees, frequented by jnany public characters and literary men of different political parties, would be very amusing. We have had Ward, Walter Scott, Hobhouse (Lord Sidmouth's Secretary, not the Radical), Bowles, the poet, Lord Spencer, all the Williams Wynns, etc., in the room at once. Great exertions are making on the other side, and some abominable lies have been told. I sup- pose such things are usual in all elections, but the charges brought against my brother of being a Radical and I know not what have made me sometimes very angry. " I set out for Hodnet on Thursday, in company with poor Mrs. Shipley, who is very anxious to have me as a companion on the road. She is looking very ill, poor thing, but has borne her return to England, and the bitter recollections accompanying it. TOUR IN THE YEAR OF AUSTERLITZ AND JENA 49 with true Christian fortitude. I shall probably be oblijfcd to return again to town in another week, but cannot refuse under- taking this journey with a poor invalid, whose excellent conduct under misfortune I have always admired, and whose relations are now doing all in their power to forward my brother's interest. . . . " I have little to tell you about politics. The King certainly goes by sea. A report prevails that his visit to Wynnstay was prevented by Lady Harriet Wynn's refusal to invite Lady Cun- ningham. I do not know whether there is any truth in this. " God bless you for ever. I can hardly say how often I think of you, and how much I value your affection and wish for your happiness. Dear, dear friend, adieu. — Ever yours, "R. H." To Thornton he announced the welcome he had received at Hodnet. " Hodnet Hall, 21st October 1806. " I found all here quite well, and my Volunteers complete in number, and in high spirits. I have been much delighted with the kindness of my men and neighbours, and the pleasure they have expressed at my return. The farmers and people of the village have subscribed among themselves to purchase three sheep, and have made a great feast for the volunteers, their wives and families, on the occasion of ' Master Reginald's coming back safe.' It takes place to-day, and they are now laying their tables on the green before the house. I am just going to put on my old red jacket and join them. How I do love these good people ! If my friends had made a feast for vie, it would have been to be expected ; but that the peasants themselves should give a fete chainpctre to their landlord's younger brother would, I think, puzzle a Russian. " I wish you a speedy deliverance from the delights of a can- vass, and a return to your own family and your own people, among the beech woods of Alljury. I hope yet to see them on some future occasion. Hodnet is very little altered, except that the trees are grown. My father's little oak is very thriving." "All Souls, 1806. " I have been only three days with my mother and sister since my return to England ; since the bustle of the election has ended I have been detained in Oxford by the necessity of keeping the term. E 50 BISHOP HEBER "... With regard to my studies, I am now j>ost varios casus set down to them again in good earnest, and am so dehghtfully situated in All Souls, that the very air of the place breathes study. While I write I am enjoying the luxuries of a bright coal fire, a green desk, and a tea-kettle bubbling. What should we have thought of such a situation at Tcherkask or at Taganrog ? " I have just had a very long conversation with Bishop Cleaver about orders, and the course of study and preparation of mind necessary for them. I have kept myself entirely from drawing plans of houses, etc., and though Guibcrt siir la Grande Tactiqiic unfortunately seduced me a little as he lay very tempt- ingly on my study table, I have done with him ; tactics are now, indeed, enough to make a man sick. What are our wise ministers about, sending Lord Hutchinson, at this time of day, to the Con- tinent ?" Next year, 1807, Reginald Heber was ordained and was instituted by his brother to the Rectory of Hodnet. CHAPTER IV HODNET I'ARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 1S07-1S23 HoDNET is Still, as when Reginald Heber spent there fifteen of the happiest years of his life, one of the most pleasant parishes in England. From the De Hodenets, who held the old manor on condition of keeping in repair the fortress of Montgomery, the estate passed with an heiress to the Vernons, and from them similarly to the Hebers. Hodnet Hall, as it now is, stands on the outskirts of the village, hidden among the ancient trees, save on the northern face. In a hollow close by stood the old rectory, bonded and spacious, like so many of the Shropshire houses, but so unhealthy that Heber's first task was to build the new house on the beautiful rising ground which commands a view of the country-side. Between the Hall and the new rectory stands the church, on a knoll, with a noble octagonal tower. To the south is the valley of the Tern, with memories of Richard Baxter, who was born at Rowton, five miles away ; and of Corbets, Leycesters, and Stanleys clustering around the church of Stoke-upon-Tern, two miles off. But the charm of Hodnet lies in this — that it stands on the eastern fringe of the sylvan glories and pastoral landscapes of Hawkstone Park, the famous seat of the Hills. The parish, indeed, chiefly consists of the Hawkstone hills and woods, running down into dairy farms and pictur- esque hamlets, and all laid out with the best art of the land- scape gardener. For rides and walks, or quiet meditation ; 52 BISHOP HEBER for simple rural beauty and pastoral peace, no spot in all England, rich in such scenes, surpasses Hodnet and its sur- roundings. The late Lord Teignmouth, when visiting his friend Lord Hill after Waterloo, in the autumn of 1815, wrote ^ of " the rarely surpassed grandeur and beauty of the scenery of the ancestral homes and haunts " of the Hills. Heber's Hodnet church stands at one end of the demesne ; one of his chapelries commands the other. From the tower on the ridge between these, fifteen counties may be seen. The eye roams with ease from Llangollen to Shrewsbury. He had just before been a delighted witness of the triumph of William Wilberforce in the House of Commons, when that philanthropic statesman's unwearied assiduity during twenty years first made it possible for England to declare, "The Slave Trade is no more." "At length divided, 283 to 16," writes Wilberforce in his Diary, 23rd February 1807. "A good many came over to Palace Yard after House up and congratulated me. John Thornton and Heber, Sharpe, Mac- aulay, Grant and Robert Grant, Robert Bird and William Smith." " Well, Henry," Wilberforce asked playfully of Mr. Thornton, " what shall we abolish next ? " " The lottery," gravely replied his sterner friend. " Let us make out the names of these sixteen miscreants ; I have four of them," said William Smith. Wilberforce, kneeling, as was his wont, upon one knee at the crowded table, looked up hastily from the note which he was writing — " Never mind the miserable 1 6, let us think of our glorious 283." This, wrote his son, the famous Bishop afterwards,^ was Reginald Heber's first introduction to Mr. Wilberforce. He had imagined, from his knowledge of the sentiments of the Hills of Hawkstone, which were at that time disaffected to the Church of England, that Wilberforce shared these views, and so he entered the room with a strong suspicion of the statesman's principles. The young rector left it saying to his friend, John Thornton, " How an hour's conversation can dissolve the prejudice of years ! " " Perhaps," writes Bishop Wilberforce, " his witnessing this night the Christian hero in ' Reminiscences of Many Years, vol. i. chap. v. (Edinburgh, Da\id Douglas). - Tlie Life of Wilberforce, by his Sons, vol. iii. p. 298. HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 53 his triumph after the toil of years may have been one step towards his gaining afterwards the martyr crown at Trichino- poly." Reginald Heber was thus drawn within the influence of the good men and great statesmen to whom Great Britain owes the reforms and the institutions which have proved the salt of the Empire as it has gone on expanding over Southern Asia, Africa, and the present Colonies. Although William Pitt was their friend, and built for them in the leafy retreat of Claphani the library in which they conferred for the good of humanity, their contemporaries sneered at them as " the Clapham Sect," till Sir James Stephen ennobled the i)hrase in his Edinburgh Review essay. In the opening chapters of The Newcomes Thackeray's gentle satire pictures Clapham and its families, but Lord Macaulay, who was a child of the Sect, used to remark on his unfairness. There was " nothing vulgar, and little that was narrow in a training which produced Samuel ^Vilberforce and Sir James Stephen, and Charles and Robert Grant, and Lord Macaulay," the biographer of the last justly writes.^ Even before 1807 Heber was a classic with tiie Clapham circle. Already when he was six Tom Mac- aulay's memory was such that he got the whole of Palestine by heart. In the formative years before twenty-five John Thornton was the most powerful influence in Heber's char- acter and ideals, and John Thornton was a worthy grandson of the merchant prince and evangelical of the same name whose death Cowper commemorated in 1790 — " Thou hadst an industry in doing good, Restless as his who toils and sweats for food ; Thy bounties were all Christian, and I make This record of thee for the Gospel's sake. That the incredulous themselves may see Its use and power exemplified in thee." In such a place and at such a time Reginald Heber became parish priest. His return to Oxford before taking orders, and again for his M.A. degree, had renewed his popularity ^ The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, by his Nephew : second edition, 1877, p. 62. - Teignmouth's Reminiscences. 54 BISHOP HEBER at the University. When congratulating his friend Thornton on his marriage, he had said : — "All Souls, Ttk fnly 1807. ". . . I liope you are not in earnest when you pretend to apologise for writing nonsense ; nonsense is the true and appro- priate language of happiness." He himself was described by a companion as writing what none but quiet and clever men can write, very good nonsense, and his mock-heroic verses in Greek and Latin were famous among the dons. Another contemporary wrote thus of him at college : " I cannot forget the feeling of admiration with which I approached his presence, or the surprise with which I contrasted my abstract image of him witii his own simple, social, every-day manner. He talked and laughed like those around him, and entered into the pleasures of the day with them, and with tlieir relish ; but when any higher subject was introduced [and he was never slow in contriving to introduce literature at least, and to draw from his exhaustless memory riches of every kind] his manner became his own. He never looked up at his hearers (one of the few things, by the bye, which I could have wished altered in him in after life, for he retained the habit), but with his eyes downcast and fixed, poured forth in a measured intonation, which from him became fashionable, stores of every age." But from the moment that Heber entered on his calling as a Cliristian minister he sacrificed everything to its duties, and his most confidential correspondence reflected the spirituality of his life, while he was not one whit less genial and attrac- tive than before. His experience has been since reproduced in that of Richard ^\'. Church when the future Dean of St. Paul's exchanged liis life at Oxford for the little Somersetshire parish of Whatley.i Beginning his professional career avowedly as an "Arminian," Heber meant nothing more by that than those stout Calvinists, Carey and Fuller, had done in their protest against the barren hyper-Calvinism of the period, which denied the Gospel of God's grace to the majority of the human race outside of Christendom. As decided an anti-Pelagian as they, his wider ' Life and Letters of Dean Church (1894), p. 139. HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 55 reading and knowledge of the human lieart made him no less plain in his teaching on sin, while he burned, he preached, he lectured, he wrote, he travelled, he organised, he prayed with the one mission to bring to Christ the Crucified every sinner of mankind. He explicitly refused all through his life to be identilied with any Church party. The term " evangelical " in his day bore so Antinomian a tinge, that he disliked the abuse of so good a word, but if we were to rank him now with any school in particular, we should describe him as broadly evangelical. Heber will be found growing in his theological sympathies, manifesting the best features of cul- tured evangelicalism, and mellowing in charity towards Dis- senters and all good men till his missionary experience carries him outside of sect and party. The following letters to John Thornton reveal his spirit of self-consecration and readiness to learn God's will and "the truth, whatever it may be." "7//i Augmt 1807. " I purposely delayed writing to you till I had had some little experience of my new situation as parish priest, and my feelings under it. With the first I have every reason to be satisfied ; my feelings are, I believe, the usual ones of young men who find themselves entering into the duties of a profession in which their life is to be spent. I had no new discoveries to make in the character of my people, as I had passed the greater part of my life among them. They received me with the same expressions of good-will as they had shown on my return to England ; and my volunteers and myself (for we are still considered as inseparable) were again invited to a fcle chainpctrc. Of course, my first sermon was numerously attended ; and though tears were shed, I could not attribute them entirely to my eloquence, for some of the old servants of the family began crying before I had spoken a word. I will fairly own that the cordiality of these honest people, which at first elated and pleased me exceedingly, has since been the occasion of some very serious and melancholy reflections. It is really an appalling thing to have so high expectations formed of a young man's future conduct. But even this has not so much weight with me as a fear that I shall not return their affection sufficiently, or preserve it in its present extent by my exertions and diligence in doing good. God knows I have every motive of affection and emulation to animate me, and have no possible 56 BISHOP HEBER excuse for a failure in my duty. The Methodists in Hodnet are, thank God, not very numerous, and I hope to diminish them still more ; they are, however, sufficiently numerous to sene as a spur to my emulation." Twenty months later, when informing Thornton that he had sent to the press his poem Europe, begun at Dresden during a night made sleepless by the march of the troops to meet the French, he thus answers his friend's inquiries as to his parish : — " I have reason to believe that both my conduct and my sermons are well liked, but I do not think any great amendment takes place in my hearers. My congregations are very good, and the number of communicants increases. The principal faults of which I have to complain are occasional drunkenness and, after they have left church, a great disregard of Sunday. You know my notions respecting the obligation of the Christian Sabbath are by no means strict ; but I ha\ e seen much mischief arise from its neglect, and have been taking some pains to prevent it. By the assistance, I may say advice, of one of the churchwardens, a very worthy and sensible, though plain farmer, the shop-keepers have been restrained from selling on Sundays ; and I have per- suaded the inn-keepers to sign an agreement, binding themselves under a five-guinea forfeiture not to allow drinking on that day. But though the wealthy farmers and women are generally orderly, the young labourers are a dissolute set, and I have not so much influence with them now as I had when I was their captain. It is a misfortune to me, in so wide a parish, that I am slow at remembering either names or faces, which is a very useful talent. I trust, however, to acquire this gradually. . . . The Methodists are neither veiy numerous nor very active, they have no regular meetings, but assemble from great distances to meet a favourite preacher. Yet I have sometimes thought, and it has made me really uncomfortable, that since Rowland Hill's visit to the country my congregation was thinner. Perhaps it was only owing to the bad weather, as my numbers are now a little increasing again. The test here of a churchman is the Sacrament, which the Methodists never attend. " The Hills of Hawkstone have declared their intention of attending Hodnet, which is their parish church, and I can per- ceive this will do a great deal of good. Their whole family live together, and they are very pleasing neighbours to us. I make HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 57 no apology for this detail, since I know that to your friendship everything is interesting which concerns the happiness of yours aflfectionately, Reginald Heber." Rowland Hill was all the more a trouble to the young rector that he was a neighbour and a deacon of the Church of England, which he left "with one boot on," as he used to say. In Scotland the pulpits were shut against his drollery, so that he named the carriage horses as he travelled " order " and "decorum." ^\'hen conducting family worship in one manse near Dunbar he prayed for his horse, and refused to do otherwise when remonstrated with. In a Bristol Baptist chapel he insisted on preaching in his gown, declaring that he would as soon appear without his breeches as without that. He and Heber were ardent supporters of the Bible Society at that early time. Heber's training as a parish minister was completed in April 1809 by his happy union with Amelia Shipley, whose father was Dean, and whose grandfather had been Bishop of St. Asaph. When congratulating Thornton on his marriage, two years before, Heber had written : " I have not yet un- learnt my boyish hankering after golden shafts and purple wings. The shafts, however, never fairly struck me but once, and then the wings were unfortunately employed in flying away." His devotion to the duties of his large parish became more intense. In visitation, in care for the sick, in charities, in study for the pulpit, and in ministering also at the various chapels of ease, unassisted at first, he occupied every moment of a busy life. The hours he assigned to study and the little time he allowed for leisure were always at once given up on the call of the poor and the sick. To Thornton, who now felt his neglect of correspondence, he replied : — " I can only plead the various engagements of brick and mortar, wedding visits, two sermons to write every week, and the whole weekly duty of my large parish, having no curate. All this has really so occupied and harassed me, that your letter, with many others, had been laid by and forgotten. Pray send poor Janicke five guineas for me, or more if you think the occasion requires it. I have not yet got into my old parsonage, as much more was necessary to make it habitable than I had expected. . . . 58 BISHOP HEBER Pray mention, when you write, the name of the Httle manual of family prayers which you had when you were abroad, as I have forgotten it, though I remember well their merit and simplicity. I prefer forms in general to extempore praying, particularly as you know my lips are rather those of Moses than Aaron. . . . " My parish goes on, I think and hope, rather on the mending hand, particularly in respect to the observance of .Sunday ; and, what is also perceptible, in an increasing desire to have comfort and advice from me when they are sick, which was chiefly only when they were at e.xtremity. I have much less time for read- ing than I could wish ; but my wife always encourages me to diligence." His wife wrote of him that he " had so much pleasure in conferring kindness, that he often declared it was an exceed- ing indulgence of God to promise a reward for what carried with it its own recompense. He considered himself as the mere steward of God's bounty, and felt that in sharing his fortune with the poor he was only making the proper use of the talents committed to him, without any consciousness of merit." HEBER S RECTORV, HODNET The impossibility of living in the small and somewhat ruin- ous parsonage of Hodnet, which had led his father to prefer Malpas, compelled Reginald Heber and his wife to build the new rectory on the highest part of the glebe. There he found scope for his skill in architectural designing, and he and Mrs. Heber planted the site with the trees which have since the year 1812 given the spot its stately beauty. Save for a slight addition by the present rector, the internal arrangements of HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 59 the house are the same as when, sitting in his Hbrary to the left of the drawing-room bow window, Heber commanded a view of the church and the Hall, and the diversified land- scape away to the south-west. There he wrote his hymns and sermons, and carried on his other literary and theological studies, seldom tempted away either to Oxford or London, but always keenly alive to the needs of the world and to the great events of his time. For two years, accordingly, the rector and his wife had to live away from Hodnet, and they made their home a few miles distant in Moreton Say, the perpetual curacy and one of the chapelries of the parish. 'I'he parsonage adjoins the little church. Here Heber was brought into close con- tact with the history of India. The small estate of Styche, long and still the property of the Clive family, is two miles distant. Here Robert Clive spent his adventurous boyhood. Not far off is Market Drayton church, the tower of which he climbed, to the alarm of his schoolfellows. While several Clives lie in the churchyard of Moreton, duly commemorated by inscriptions, more than a century passed before, owing to the circumstances of his death, there was anything to mark the grave of the founder of the British Indian Empire. Recently, on the opening up of the floor of the church, the coffin containing the dust of Robert, Lord Clive, was found on the left side of the entrance through the old Norman doorway in front of the Communion rails. A simple brass, on the inside above that doorway, records the fact, with this addition, " Primus in Indis." 1 From Moreton Heber kept up his correspondence with John Thornton, to whom he confided such scrupulous self- questioning as the following : — "May 1S13. " It is very foolish, perhaps ; but I own I sometimes think that I am not thrown into that situation of life for which I am best ' The inscription thus runs, headed by the Clive arms : ' ' Sacred to the Memory of Robert, Lord Clive, K.B. Buried within the walls of this Church. Born, 29th September 1725. Died, 22nd November 1774. Primus in Indis." The church was rebuilt in 1788, when the part of the chancel in which Clive was buried became the first pew to the right facing the Communion table. 6o BISHOP HEIiER qualified. I am in a sort of half-way station, between a parson and a squire ; condemned, in spite of mj'self, to attend to the duties of the latter, while yet I neither do nor can attend to them sufficiently ; nor am I c[uite sure that even my literary habits are well suited to the situation of a country clergyman. I have some- times felt an unwillingness in quitting my books for the care of my parish, and have been tempted to fancy that, as my studies are Scriptural, I was not neglecting my duty. Yet I must not, and cannot, deceive myself ; the duties which I am paid to execute have certainly the first claim on my attention ; and while other pursuits are my amusement, these are properly my calling. Prob- ably, had I not been a scholar, other pursuits, or other amuse- ments, would have stepped in, and 1 should have been exposed to equal or greater temptations ; but, 1 confess, when I consider how much I might have done, and how little, comparatively, I have done in my parish, I sometimes am inclined to think that a fond- ness for study is an unfortunate predilection for one who is the pastor of so many people. The improvement of my parish does not correspond to those pleasant dreams with which I entered on my office. My neighbours profess to esteem me ; but an easy temper will, in this respect, go a great way. I write sermons, and have moderately good congregations ; but not better than I had on first commencing my career. The schools, etc., which I pro- jected, are all comparatively at a standstill ; and I am occasionally disposed to fancy that a man cannot attend to two pursuits at once, and that it will be at length necessary to burn my books, like the early converts to Christianity ; and, since Providence has called me to a station which so many men regard \\ith envy, to give my undivided attention to the duties which it requires. " Wilmot, whom, next to yourself, I esteem and love most warmly, tells me that with method and a little resolution I may arrange all that I have to do, so as that one pursuit shall not inter- fere with another. I wish I knew how, or that, knowing how, I had firmness to follow it. If you and your family would pass a part of your summer here, you might, like a college visitor, correct what you found amiss ; and you need not be told that I shall listen to no suggestions with so much readiness as yours. Pos- sibly, for I will own that I am in a gloomy humour, I exaggerate circumstances ; but a day seldom passes without my being more or less affected by them. On the whole, perhaps, such repinings at the imperfect manner in which our duties are performed are necessary parts of our discipline, and such as we can never hope to get rid of." HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 61 " 14^/1 September 18 1 3. "... I preached a Bible Society sermon on Sunday, the 5th, at Shrewsbury, to a numerous and attentive, though not very liberal, congregation. The archdeacon, all the evangelical and several of the other clergy, with a great body of squirearchy, as Cobbett calls them, form our Society ; there are some, also, of the old dissenters aiul baptists ; but of the mcthodists so few are subscriljcrs that this last year only one name could be found of sufficient respectability to be placed on the committee. A few sensible men still continue to oppose us ; some of them were among my hearers, but whether I have converted them I do not know." The loving-kindness of Heber's sunny spirit never tempted him to the neglect of duty, even when it was disagree- able. A Roman Catholic neighbour having married the daughter of one of his parishioners, he addressed to him a long letter, which forms a model of controversial charity and catholic truth. The opening and closing passages reveal the spirit of the writer : — " \otli Fchriiaiy 1814. "My DEAR Neighbour — During the few months of your residence in my parish it has often been my wish to address you on the subject of religion ; but the want of a proper opportunity, and my own unav oidable absence from Hodnet, on account of my health, during a great part of the time, ha\ c prevented my taking a step which, e\en now, perhaps, may seem unusual, and such as to demand an ajxilogy. Your absence from church and the baptism of your child by a clergyman of the Church of Rome were circumstances which, from my former knowledge of your family, could cause, of course, no surprise ; and you know, I trust, enough of my cliaractcr not to suspect me of a disposition to quarrel with any man for worshipping the Blessed Trinity in the manner most agrccalilc to his c:i)nscicncc. Whatever may be your peculiar opinions 1 have no doubt that you are an honest man and a sincere beliexcr. But, since I naturally feci the same regard for you which I feel for my other parishioners, the same desire to feed you with the bread of life, and the same earnest wish to amend whatever 1 belie\e to be wrong either in your opinions or practice, I trust you will not take unkindly the obser- vations which I now offer, but that you will examine them with 62 BISHOP HEP.ER an attentive and impartial mind, as questions belonging to your eternal peace, and to your acceptance with God through Jesus Christ. . . . " In what I have now written I can have no desire to deceive you, nor can I have any worldly interest in your conversion. I do not wish to take you by surprise. Read this letter often ; turn to those places of Scripture which I have mentioned, and com- pare my words with the Word of God. Show them, if you think fit, to your own spiritual adviser ; and what answers he can offer, and again compare those answers with the Bible. The more you think upon religious subjects — the more you read God's Word — and the more you pray for His grace to enlighten your heart and understanding, the wiser man and the better Christian you will undoubtedly become ; and the nearer, unless I am much mistaken, to that which I hope one day to see you, a Protestant of the pure Church of England 1 " On his wife's first visit to London, a year after their mar- riage, she asked Heber's advice as to participating in " what are usually called worldly amusements." His reply was : — " ' You may go where you please, as I am sure you will not exceed the limits of moderation, except to Sunday evening parties, to which I have a very serious oljjection.' He thought that the strictness, which made no distinction between things blamable only in their abuse, and practices which were really immoral, was prejudicial to the interests of true religion ; and on this point his opinion remained unchanged to the last. His own life, indeed, was a proof that amusements so participated in may be perfectly harmless, and no way interfere with any religious or moral duty. The Sabbath he kept with Christian reverence, but not with Mosaical strictness. His domestic arrangements were such as to enable every member of his household to attend Divine Service at least once on that day. After its public duties were ended, he employed the remainder of the exening in attending to the spiritual and temporal necessities of his parishioners, in compos- ing sermons, in study, or in instructive conversation with his family." i 1 As Heber was riding one Sunday morning to preach, his horse cast a shoe. Seeing the village blacksmith standing at the door of his forge, he re- quested liim to replace it. The man iumiediately set about blowing up the embers of his .Satiuday night's fire, on seeing which, he said, "On second thoughts, John, it does not signify ; 1 can walk my mare ; it will not lame HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 63 The springtide of 1814 saw Heber established in the new rectory of Hodnet — his own creation. Soon after he experienced the greatest of the few great sorrows in his happy hfe : his own brother, Thomas Cuthbert, died unexpectedly. They had rarely been parted all their lives. The younger brother followed in Reginald's track, and under his influence, at Brasenose and as a minister of the Church of England, acting as curate, and removing to the perpetual curacy of Moreton only when the elder brother vacated the parsonage. Prayerful since childhood, Reginald Heber now began the habit of writing a collect in Latin on every birthday and important event in his life.^ In 1818 his little daughter, six months old, was removed by death, and thereafter he rarely prayed alone without closing with the petition that he might at his last hour be found worthy to rejoin her. On each occasion his sorrow and his consolation found expression in hymns of exquisite tenderness, and his experience made him more than ever the comforter of the sick and the dying. His wife's hand drew this picture after their return to Hodnet : — " His health was now re-established, and although he con- tinued through life subject to inflammatory attacks, yet by constant exercise and temperance he was enabled to pursue his studies without injuring his constitution. He was an early riser, and after the family devotions were ended, he usually spent seven or eight hours among his books, leaving them only at the call of duty. Fond of society, and eminently qualified to shine in it, he never suffered his relish for its pleasures to betray him into her, and I do not like to disturb your day of rest." The blacksmith, when he related this, added, that though as a matter of necessity he had often shod horses on a Sunday, he was much struck by the anxiety of liis rector to avoid being the cause of what would be blamable if made habitual, and might hurt the conscience of some of his parishioners. ' On the completion of his thirty-third year he wrote : Oh onniipotcns et sempilerne Deiis, da vcniam peccatii aniionim prccferitonim ct coni cJas, pyccor, 111 quiiqiiid vi/iv si/ rcliqunni mcliin sit et sapientiiis prirtcrHa. F.XLiiiJi iiic, Dens, per mcrita Jesii Christ i. Am. n. On the day of his wife's deparlure m search of health his diary 1 1 n: 1 this prayer: Favt-as, Deiis bcnr, itineri, salitti faveas Jinnini: 1. 1 ■,. ,- aiiimi concede traiiquillitntcm : nostrutnque invicem atnorem a,: , , , '. /w Cliristiim Dominnm nostrum. Amen. On the dismissal of a ^. r\,uit .ill' r many broken promises of amend- ment, he wrote : O qui me aliorum jiidiccin pcccatonim et vindiecm fecisti Dens, miserere mei peccatoris, el libera mc ub mnu i pcuato per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen. 64 BISHOP HEBER neglecting his duties. He delighted in literature, but at the same time was a most active parish priest ; remarkably happy in gain- ing the confidence and affection of his flock, he found his purest pleasure in administering to their necessities, and in attending their sick and dying beds, in consoling the mourner, in exhorting the sinner to repentance, and in endeavouring to draw all hearts after him to his God. In the long course of his labours he had occasionally to attend the death-bed of the wicked, and to witness and grieve over the failure of his attempts to awaken the hardened conscience. But far more frequently the scenes of piety and resignation which he witnessed in the lowly cottage were such as he delighted to relate to his happy wife, and such as he humbly trusted would make him a better man. He often observed that the mere bodily fear of dying is not a feeling implanted in us by nature, and that the manner in which a poor and unlearned man, who has little to regret leaving, and who fervently and humbly relies on the mercies of his Saviour, looks to the moment of dissolution, affords a useful lesson to the rich and the learned." For the next ten years Hodnet Rectory was the centre of attraction to neighbours and friends. In the adjoining Rectory of Stoke was young Maria Leycester, whose sister had not long before been married to Edward Stanley, rector of Alder- ley, in Cheshire. Her mother's death in 1812 led her, then a girl of fourteen, " to seek the highest source of comfort, and to endeavour to make her life helpful and useful to others." Soon she discovered that help and inspiration could be got at the afternoon Sunday service, when Heber regularly preached. Drawn into personal intimacy at the Rectory, she became engaged to Mr. Stow, Heber's friend and curate, who after- wards accompanied him to India, and died at Dacca. There, too, she had met Stow's friend, Augustus Hare, whom she afterwards married. It was under Reginald Heber's preaching and training that, at the most impressionable time of her life, Maria Leycester experienced the development of that character which makes the book 1 one of the most delightful in English biographical literature. Its writer thus tells the story : " From frequently seeing ' Memorials of a Quiet Life, by Augustus J. C. Hare, author of Walks ill Rome, etc., in two volumes (1872), with supplementary volume of fifty- seven photographs (1876). HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 65 her at church, the Reginald Hebers began to invite her to pass Sunday with them, and the intimacy thus en- gendered increased till scarcely a day passed part of which was not spent at Hodnet, Maria Leycester joining the Hebers in their afternoon rides through the delightful glades of Hawkstone, and remaining to dinner ; while in the evenings Mr. Heber would read aloud poetry or Walter Scott's newly- published novels, IVaverley, Guy Mamtering, and Ivanhoe, which for several years, while their authorship remained a mystery, were generally attributed to Richard Heber, the rector's eldest brother. In 1 8 1 7 Miss Leycester spent her morn- ings also at Hodnet, where, when she wished to learn German in preparation for a foreign tour, Mr. Heber offered to become her instructor. At the same time he frequently wrote songs to suit her music, as he greatly delighted in her playing and singing. His little poem, " I see them on their Winding Way," was written thus. Nor was it only by lessons in literature that Reginald Heber instructed his pupil. No one could live con- stantly within the influence of his cheerful, active life, devoted, either at home or amongst his parishioners, to the good of others, yet with the most entire unostentation, without praying that his mantle might fall upon them." 1 These extracts from her letters, when a girl of nineteen, reflect the happy time ; — 2d,ih May 181 7. — I have just spent two delightful days at Hodnet Rectory. Oh ! the charms of a rectory inhabited by a Reginald Heber or an Edward Stanley ! To be sure, splendour and lu.Kury sink into the ground before such real happiness." " 7//^ June 1S17. — I have spent a very agreeable week, but you will not be very much surprised when you learn that two of the days we had the Reginald Hebers here. I never saw — or rather, heard — Mr. Reginald Heber so agreeable, though, indeed, I always say this of the last time of seeing him ; but really his stories are quite inexhaustible. His brother, Mr. Heber, was here likewise one day, and was very agreeable too, but not so lovable as Reginald. How happy I am to be able to say that I love him ! I may thank Mrs. R. H. for that." " \i,th June. — A most delightful evening with the Hebers — Reginald reading and reciting verses, and telling various enter- ' Memorials of a Quiet Life, vol. i. p. 49. F 66 BISHOP HEBER taining stories. Among others, he mentioned that a letter had lately been received at the Post Office directed ' To my Son,' and great was the difficulty as to whom the letter should be delivered, till a sailor solved it by asking if there was a letter ' From my Mother,' when it was given up to him at once. Late in the evening he recited a poem of Coleridge's — ' The Ancient Mariner.' " After a tour in Europe she writes ; — " 14//^ December 1 8 18. — My brothers and I have had such a pleasant visit at Hodnet ! There were only Mr. and Mrs. R. Heber, Mr. Heber, and Mr. Augustus Hare there. The latter is the oddest and most agreeable person I have seen for a very long time — very clever and enthusiastic, but quite unlike other people, which is a relief sometimes, for everyday people are so common in this world. I was very happy in reading some of my German with the dear Reginald, and I found myself infinitely advanced since the last time I read with him." Next year, when on a tour tlirough Scotland, they were introduced by letter from Heber to Walter Scott, with whom they stayed for three days. " I'jtli January 1820. — All last week Charles and I passed at Hodnet, and I need not say if we enjoyed it. Only Miss Heber was there, and Mr. Stow, a friend of Reginald's, who is at present living at Hodnet as his curate. . . . We had eveiy kind of amusement in the evenings, in dancing, singing, and acting. Reginald Heber and Mr. Stow are both excellent actors, and we acted a French proverb one night and the Children in the Wood another, forming in ourselves both the performers and the audience ; and very amusing it was. It was all e.\tempore, and our dresses we got up in a few minutes at the time, so there was no trouble attending it ; no spectators to alarm us, and perfect unanimity and good-humour to make it enjoyable. In the morn- ings one of the party read Scott's new novel Ivan/we aloud to the others." In the summer of 182 1 Maria Leycester was almost a daily visitor at Hodnet. Mr. Stow was generally there. At the time of the christening of the little Emily Heber she and Mr. Stow knelt side by side as pvoxy godfather and godmother. His advances were coldly received by her father, without HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 67 whose consent she would not marry. He became British chaplain at Genoa, but kept up a certain degree of communica- tion through the Hebers. Reginald Heber was appointed preacher at Lincoln's Inn, which detained him and his wife in London. Then every evening Maria Leycester would ride over to Hodnet to visit their child, Emily. In April 1822 Heber was elected to the preachership of Lincoln's Inn, the whole number of benchers except three being present. He had written to John Thornton : " I hope, in my anxiety to obtain the preachership of Lincoln's Inn, the idea that I may be useful in such a pulpit, and with the sort of audience which I may expect to see round me there, has borne no inconsiderable part. Yet I will own the wish to see more of the valuable friends from whom I am now in a great measure separated has very much, perhaps principally, con- tributed to it. I feel by no means sanguine of success, indeed rather the contrary, as Maltby is, in all respects, a formidable opponent." To the Bishop of Oxford's congratulations he replied : " The chambers appropriated to the preacher here do not, indeed, lay claim to the character of a house ; they are, how- ever, more convenient than I expected to find them, and, though small, will hold my wife as well as myself very com- fortably during the summer terms. The two others I shall come up as a bachelor. The situation in all other respects, of society, etc., is a most agreeable one, and the more so as it does not take me away from Hodnet more than three months in the year." Next to Thornton, R. J. Wilmot was his most intimate correspondent. " Hodnet Rectory, 26//; August 1822. " I wish I had so much as suspected that you were to obtain a sufficient furlough from Downing Street. . . . " I am now at work on my sermons for next term. I foresee already that, if I mean to do any good, or to keep whatever credit I have got at Lincoln's Inn, I must take a great deal of pains, and bear in mind that I have a very fastidious audience ; and it happens that I am also engaged in a course of lectures at Hodnet, which obliges me to write a fresh sermon every week for my rustic hearers." 68 BISHOP HEBER " November 1822. "... Among the possible conductors of the (2uarterly Review, a name has just occurred to me which I cannot help thinking very hkely to answer. It is that of Lockhart, the son-in-law of Walter Scott, and the author of Peter's Letters, which are written with abundant talent and caustic humour. He is, I understand, an advocate in Edinburgh, of great acknowledged talent, but little practice ; and as his principles are decidedly Tory he inay be very useful at the present moment." Of all his friendships the closest, as it was the earliest, seems to have been with Charlotte Dod. Some of the sweetest of his unpublished verses were written on the successive anni- versaries of her birthday, such as this : — " December's Day is short and drear. And bleak and bare December's tree, But more than all the circling year December boasts a charm for me, When this, thy natal morn, draws near, And fancy wings her way to thee ! ' Dear Snowdrop of the shorten'd day, Fann'd by the wild and wintry wind ! The Roses nurs'd by Summer's ray Less sweet, less pure than thee I find ; Nor all the boast of breathing May Can match the blossoms of thy mind I " December's snow is on thine arm. It decks and guards thy virgin breast ; But whence arose the glowing charm j Wherewith thy sunny smile is drest , Who gave thy blush its tincture wann, Or thy sweet song its thrilling zest ? " How slowly, clogg'd with doubt and fear, The months of absence melt away ! Oh, when shall I those accents hear ? Oh, when that blush, that smile survey ? , Yet still — to faithful memory dear — 1 I bless my Charlotte's natal day ! " ' i i 1 HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 69 When on a visit to the Grosvenors in November 1819 he thus wrote to her : — " Eaton, 1st November 1819. " I have met very pleasant people here, and like the Grosvenors themselves very much, but, though my visit has therefore been an agreeable one, and one which I would not willingly have missed, I ha\e not hem able to help regretting the windy beach and smoky parlour of Woodside, and the party I left behind me there. Emily will tell you the obstacles which prevent my immediate return to your trio. I hope, however, to accomplish it by to- morrow se'nnight, when if, as I hope, Mr. Leycester assists me, I shall be far less hurried for time than I now should have been. " I found Edward Davenport here on Friday, not in good spirits, as several of the company besides myself discovered. He left us on Saturday, and was succeeded by Lady Glynn and the H. W. Wynns. We have had to-day a real good Sunday, all having been twice at church, once at sacrament, and having had family prayers in the evening, which last I find are seldom omitted here even on week-days. The great hall makes a famous chapel, but Lord G., not having quite tired himself with brick and mortar, is about to add a new wing to his house, of which an appropriate chapel is to be part. Lady G. played some glorious ancient music on the organ. She is very religious, but differs advan- tageously from your friend Lord R. S. in preferring Mant and D'Oyley to Whitefield and Mr. Scott. I found on Friday every- body talking about Peter's Letters. The author, it seems, is, as we suspected, a lawyer and Scotsman of the name of Lockhart. " Tell Emily that unless I hear from her soon, she shall not have another letter from me Heaven knows when, and take notice one and all of you, Charlotte, Louisa, and Emily, that you are during this week to bathe, walk, ride, rise early, eat, drink, and do all things which can keep you well or make you so, since nothing will make me so cross on my return as to be welcomed by pale cheeks, weak backs, etc. Lady Williams has told me of some entertaining new books, which, however, I shall not tell you of till I am at Woodside to read them myself Lebc wohl, liebste beste schwestcr^ but, alas, you have now no German ears, so I must be content to sign myself in plain English. — Dearest Charlotte, your affectionate brother. "26 Upper Grosvenor Street, lS//;-20//i June 1 820. " Dearest Charlotte — I am indeed very sorry that you 70 BISHOP HEBER could not join us at Oxford, because I am convinced that the show and the music were both such as would have pleased and deeply impressed you, though the former lost one of its main attractions by the absence of the Duke of Wellington, whom the King, it is said, insists on keeping close at his elbow as a guardian against any attacks which may be made on him either by his subjects or his wife. We had, however, Lord Hill, Sir Wm. Grant, and a pretty numerous appendage of persons distinguished by talents and eminence of difYerent kinds, and your friend Phillimore, who as Professor of Civil Law had to introduce them with a Latin speech, went through his functions with great talent, and even dignity. Lord Hill, of course, was loudly applauded, but the longest and loudest applause of all was bestowed on Southey, who was affected by it even to tears, and could talk of little else when I met him afterwards at a great dinner given in his honour at his own college — Baliol. There was a very good concert the evening of the same day, which ended with the dinner which I have men- tioned to which JMilman and I were asked, I believe in our capacity of poets. I5e that as it may, I was not sorry to get a long talk with Southey, next to whom I sat at table. W. Scott unfortunately could not come to Oxford. " Palestine was admirably executed on the Thursday both by the vocal and instrumental performers, and the music greatly sur- passed my expectations, particularly a choras at the part ' Let Sinai tell,' etc., and an air by Miss Stevens, with a chorus of Bartleman Knyvet, Mrs. Salmon, etc., ' In frantic concourse,' etc. The trumpet and the imitation of thunder in the former were more than sublime — they were almost terrible. Miss Stevens, to whom I was introduced during the evening, told me, as I was also told by several reputed cognoscenti who were present, that Crotch had proved himself little, if at all, inferior to Handel and Haydn. You will be glad to hear that there is some chance of his selecting the words for an oratorio from Milman's Jerusalem. I suggested it to him immediately after Palestine was ended, and he seemed to like the idea. Of Milman I saw a good deal, and introduced him to Emily, who likes him much. He has promised to come down to Hodnet, so that he may still have a chance of the introduction to you which he once so much desired, and which you so cruelly denied him. I am, howev er, sorry to tell you that he is not at all pleased with the review of his poem in the (2i/arte?-!y, so that it will be as well, if it is not too late, not to mention to anybody that I am the author. I had no communica- tion with him myself on the subject, but this is what I hear from HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 71 others. I certainly, if he asks me, shall not deny or conceal it, since I do not think I have given him any cause for dissatisfac- tion. But poets — I know but too well, from the recollection of my own feelings when I was also a poet — are not easily contented with qualified praise, though such praise is precisely that by which a critic does them most good in the opinion of the world at large. " We returned here on Friday, much to Emily's regret, who says she never passed two more delightful days, and would gladly, if our engagements had allowed it, have stayed in O.xford a few days longer. I should myself have liked it well, since it is always pleasant to be in a place where one feels one's self to be liked and esteemed (though above one's real value) by many good and clever people. We returned, however, and found all London in alarm from the mutiny of the Duke of Gloucester's regiment of Guards, which, however, has turned out of far less consequence than was apprehended. It appears to have immediately arisen from some vexatious and unusual restrictions and duty, to which the men had been exposed within the last month. Its ultimate cause may, however, be found in the habitual neglect of the officers, who have been accustomed to leave the men by far too much to their sergeants, and who had now all quitted the parade for different dinner parties, etc., leaving the sergeants to dismiss their companies, when the latter all at once refused to give up their ball cartridges, and uttered many complaints and some threats in which the name of the Queen more than once occurred. The matter is, however, pretty well settled and the men arc peni- tent. There is, nevertheless, a dreadful spirit at work in the town. Every morning brings fresh accounts of the attempts made by the mob to bring the soldiery over to them, and the allegiance of the latter is believed to be greatly shaken. I can hardly con- ceive in any country the existence of stronger symptoms of a prob- able revolution, and, what is worse, I find almost everybody of nearly the same opinion. " I dined yesterday with some public men and several men of eminent talents, who all said that if the Queen had a little better character, she might put herself at the head either of the troops or the rabble, and send her husband to the Tower, like Catherine II., for that, except Lord Cholmondeley, who is nobody, and perhaps the Duke of Wellington, the King had no friend. But, alas ! your father's chivalrous sympathy has found a most unworthy object in the Queen. I have met and conversed with public men of all parties, and cannot find that any except perhaps Williams and Brougham even profess to regard her as anything 72 BISHOP HEBER but a shameless . . . whose only defence is (what was indeed implied in Brougham's speech) that she can recriminate on her husband. You are quite right in your determination not to read any of the details of sin which this miserable investigation, if pro- ceeded in, is likely to make public. The leaders of the inde- pendent party in the House of Commons still hope that things may be accommodated, but Williams, who is, you know, the Queen's Solicitor-General, told Emily last night that he did not expect any such thing. God help us I It will be a dreadful thing if one worthless man and woman should have the power of throw- ing a great nation into confusion. But though everj'body professes to be alarmed, everybody goes on as before in the incessant round of business and pleasure, and London was never fuller, gayer, or to all outward appearance merrier than now, so that, having given you a dose of public matters, I now return to my own concerns and those of others, in which you are more interested perhaps than even in the faults and follies of our rulers. " When I wrote my last little letter about Oxford I was pre- paring to go to Newgate to see Mrs. Fry and her refonned con- victs, of whom the accounts which I had received were such as greatly to excite my interest and curiosity. She is, you know, a Quaker, the wife of a merchant in the city, who, some two years ago, obtained with difficulty pennission to attempt the reformation of the female prisoners. Everybody then assured me, as she herself told me, that she could meet with nothing but insult, violence, and horrors of every kind, and that no modest woman could for a moment think of going into such a hell ; that even the turnkeys used to be shocked at what they heard and saw. She went in, however, only accompanied by another lady. A hell, she said, she found it, where every form of vice and misery was, to a degree of which she had no conception. She spoke, how- ever, to two who were under sentence of death, and whom she hoped this fear might have tamed, and the voice of kindness and compassion, to which these poor wretches were quite unused, soon produced an effect both on them and others. She went day after day, obtained work for such as could work, and established a school for such as could not read. She is now assisted by a numerous committee of ladies, and governs the women's side of Newgate with full authority. We found her in a room where she was ex- pecting her flock to come together to prayers, and I was greatly struck both by her and them. She is a tall, well-looking woman of forty-five. She has no pretensions to eloquence, but is the best reader I ever heard, with a voice of perfect music. She HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 73 read the parable of the Prodigal Son, and one of the penitentiary psalms, and then said a few words of advice to the poor women before her, who listened with deep attention, and some of them with tears. " Then an old, fat Quaker woman got up, and began a sort of sermon, which almost spoiled the effect of the whole. It began to this purpose. ' Hem ! he — m — m ! the interesting — I say — the very interesting observations — he — m — m ! which have been made on this beautiful passage of Scripture leave me little to say but — hemm — he — m — m,' etc., etc. I really do not ex- aggerate her style, but even your mother could not have taken off her drawling tone. However, I did not laugh, though under different circumstances I might have done so ; for I was by far too much impressed with the merits of these good people's labours and their judicious zeal in the cause of humanity. Afterwards we went over the female side of the prison — a number of long, narrow, dismal rooms, with paper instead of glass in the windows, crowded with little iron bedsteads, and every vacant space occupied by im- plements of work, etc. A large Bible lay in every room, and all was very clean, considering the crowded state of the prison. A great difference might be observed between the new-comers to prison and those who had been some time there and e.xperienced the good effects of Mrs. Fry's discipline. The latter were all clean, humble, and quiet-looking, and sate with their eyes cast down and every appearance of penitence and modesty, their clothes too, though chiefly very poor, were not ragged. The former were wild, staring, half-starved, and more than half-naked creatures, with misery and wickedness marked in every line of their countenances. Among these last were two girls, one twelve, the other nine years old, the bones of their naked shoulders standing out almost through the skin ; pale as ashes, but the eldest with an affected simper which was quite ghastly. These were pickpockets. Most of the rest were for passing forged notes. "You will, perhaps, ask me to what I attribute Mrs. Fry's great power over such beings as these, for she said she had no doubt that in ten days' time they would be attentive and respect- ful if not penitent. Partly, I conceive, it arises from the contrast between her and any human being whom these poor wretches have seen before ; partly from the immediate temporal advantages which she has it in her power to bestow, the clothes and comforts of which she is the dispenser, and the mitigation of punishments which she has in some instances obtained for them from Lord 74 BISHOP HEBER Sidmouth. Still, however, much must be ascribed to her own calmness, good sense, and perseverance, her freedom from all enthusiasm or vanity, and her not expecting too much at first either from convicts or magistrates. Yet there are a set of men who cannot bear that anybody should do good in a new way, who absolutely Iiate Mrs. Fry, and when I was in Oxford I had to fight her battles repeatedly with persons whom that arch bigot Sir Wm. Scott had been filling with all possible prejudices against her." " 2nd July 1820. " You will think me, I fear, a tardy correspondent, but I have been much occupied during the present week, over and above the usual impediments of a London life, partly by inquiries in which I have Ijeen engaged after some original letters of Jeremy Taylor, and more than all, by one of the most tedious operations I ever went through, in sitting for my likeness to Slater, by desire of Sir T. Acland, who is collecting a large portfolio of his friends' faces. I was told that one short sitting, or at most two, would suffice, instead of which I have already sat three times, two hours each, and am menaced with a fourth to-morrow, to give the last touches to my unfortunate countenance. I hope it will be very like at last, though I cannot say it strikes me as at all beautiful. But you know who said I was fow (ugly), and Mr. Slater, I appre- hend, is very much of the same opinion. You will be able to judge, however, for yourself whether it is fow enough, as he is to make a copy for Emily. We leave town on Thursday to pay a visit to Lady Jones at Worting, near Basingstoke." Without date. " I have, as you may believe, lived very quiedy in this land of mist and snow. My only society has been my brother, with whom I dine most days, as he himself keeps pretty closely at home. Nor, indeed, is it easy to find better company than he is. Yester- day evening, however, we spent, not in conversation, but in reading over the entire correspondence and memoirs of Abelard and Heloiza in the original Latin, for those learned ladies of the thirteenth century wrote even their love letters in that language. I find in these documents sc\cral circumstances which I had cither never read or had forgotten, which materially extenuate the conduct of both, though Abelard, after all, appears in a very selfish and unamiable light in comparison with the matchless and disinterested tenderness shown towards him by his high-minded HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 75 mistress, who consented to conceal their marriage to gratify his ambition, and took the veil against her own wishes, and with a horror of conventual life, purely because, when he was himself sent to a convent by his enemies, he, from a paltry distrust, was afraid to leave her in the world. And in their after life his letters are cold and shuffling in comparison with hers, which both in eloquence and in purity of language far surpass what I should have expected in an age which we call barbarous. The moral which Richard drew from the whole was, that ' women are far honester and better creatures than men,' and, in good truth, I agreed with him." " HODNET, 30/// August 182I. " My dearest Charlotte — I wrote to you from Oxford as soon as I was able to hold a pen, preferring rather to send you a dull sick man's letter than that you should either think me negligent of you, or, hearing of my indisposition from other quarters, believe me worse than I have really been. I have, indeed, been seriously ill, and am still very far from my own man, being under strict regimen and taking draughts twice a day. I am, however, thank God, a declared convalescent, though my state of weakness yesterday very powerfully enforced the good advice of your kind little letter, not to give the Judges a very long sermon. For that advice, as well as for your former affectionate entreaty to take care of my health, accept my best thanks. Indeed, my dear, kind friend, if you knew how much virtue I attach to these little marks of the interest you take in me and my pursuits, you would never suspect that they could make me angry. Heaven grant that I may be always worthy of your esteem, your friendship, your sisterly tenderness ; and may the desire of retaining and deserving them be always, as now, a motive with me for a diligent improvement of my mind and a faithful discharge of my duty ! To lose your affection would be a terrible punishment to me, but I trust, and am persuaded, I never shall lose it, unless, which God forbid, I render myself unworthy of it. " I was heartily tired of town, where my labours had, indeed, been intense and incessant, and where, for a few of the last days, I felt some symptoms of the fever, which was at length fanned into a flame by the loss of a night's rest and the heat of the Con- vocation House at Oxford. I have had, however, the happiness of being more with my brother than I have been for a long time, of finding that I was not only useful to him, but that he appreci- ated and loved my zeal, and at length of being one of the main 76 BISHOP HEBER agents in defending his character and securing his success in what has been the main object of his hfe. Unwell and languid as I myself was when I reached Shrewsbury on Tuesday evening, our meeting was, as you may believe, one of great joy, though we neither of us could help recurring with bitter sorrow to the delight with which, if our brother Tom had lived, we should have ex- changed congratulations with him. Alas I no happiness in this world can be perfect. It was at one time likely that I should have been obliged to go down two days previous to the election to Bath and Bristol, and I could not help making some calcula- tions to see whether I could possibly find time to get a sight of your Mary. My journey was, however, abandoned, and I am thankful it was so, since I should probably have been laid up at one of the inns, and have had the misery of a fever in a strange place, aggravated by my anxiety to get to Oxford, and my un- certainty as to the event of my brother's election. As it was, I had quite enough of similar feelings. I believe I told you that I have another sermon to preach at Shrewsbury on Sunday next for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge." The longest of Heber's many letters to Charlotte Dod is devoted to a criticism of Thomas Scott's Force of Truth, in which he joins with his saintly neighbour, Fletcher of Madeley, and "a Methodist preacher at Shrewsbury, named Brocas," in a vigorous attack on hyper-Calvinism, while reprobating " that intolerant spirit which would deny the name of Churchmen to the Calvinistic clergy." The opening and closing passages of an earnest polemic breathe Heber's spirit of humbleness and charity : — " My dear Charlotte — Several years had elapsed since I last read Mr. Scott's Force of Truth, and I am glad that my attention has again been called to it, because it is a work which one can hardly read without deriving advantage from the eminent piety and sincerity which pervade it, and the truth of many of the opinions enforced in it. God knows how earnestly I myself desire to be altogether such a one as Mr. Scott is, in strength of faith, purity of heart and life, and devotion of myself to God's will and service ; and it is because I regret that his example, and the truths which he recommends, should be encum- bered by any irrelevant or erroneous opinions that I am the more anxious to point out to you the parts in which I difl^er from him, and what appear to me the leading and per\-ading mistakes HODNET PARISH AND HODNET FRIENDS 77 of his system. To the few points in controversy between us I have now for many years paid considerable attention, though certainly I have never been so much interested in them, as in those on which the Calvinists and Anninians are agreed in regard- ing as 'the great power of God to salvation.' " E.xcepting incidentally, I have never written or preached on them, because I regard it as the great misfortune of our times that men have been squabbling and calling names about doctrines not essential, and differences which only exist in words, to the neglect of the real interests of the souls committed to their charge. But the course of my studies has often brought them under my attention ; my reading has been extensive among the elder divines of all sects and parties ; and though I will not deny that I have been always under some degree of prejudice against the pecu- liarities of Calvinism, I do not think I have read the works of its advocates with an uncandid or uncharitable spirit. So far I am, perhaps, as well qualified to judge of the cjuestion as Mr. Scott was. In one respect there has, indeed, been a difference in our system of inquiry, inasmuch as, though I have always prayed God for the aid of His spirit to guide me generally into all truth, and more especially into the knowledge of whatever truth was neces- sary or profitable to my salvation and the salvation of others, yet I have not ventured to ask or hope that the Holy Ghost would secure me from all error, or enable me to decide on topics so abstruse as those of free will and the final perseverance of the elect. You will, therefore, take my notions on these and suchlike points as the opinion of one sufficiently weak and fallible, and who, though he believes himself right in his conclusions, has looked for no other aid in forming them than (what I really trust I have received in answer to my worthless prayers) a teachable mind, and grace to use diligently the means of information offered to me. " That Mr. Scott has expected more than this seems to me the lurking root of the errors into which he has fallen. . . . " Do not expect too much certainty on topics which have exercised the sagacity of men for many ages, without any agree- ment being produced among them ; but if you still find perplexities beyond your power, dismiss them from your mind as things which cannot concern you. ' Secret things belong to the Lord our God ' ; but on the necessity of an atonement, on justification by faith, and on the obligation which lies on us to work out, with fear and trembling, the salvation thus begun in us, no real diffi- culties exist, and by these, on every system, our entrance to heaven 78 BISHOP HEBER is to be secured. That you, my dear Charlotte, may through hfe ' believe and know the things you ought to do, and have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same,' is the earnest prayer of your sincere and affectionate friend, Reginald Heber." The prayers and the pains of Reginald Heber in the parish of Hodnet have borne good fruit under the similar care of his successors, one of whom married his sister. The present rector, the Rev. Richard Hugh Chohnondeley, is also a kins- man descendant. There is not a pauper in the parish, which is now a unit, with its undivided Council under the Local Government Act. The catholic spirit of the good and great rector of 1807- 1823 still so works that Churchman and Nonconformist have formed a Shropshire Christian Unity Association.! ' The British Weekly publishes this news-letter : — "Stoke -UPON -Tern. — On 7th August 1894 somewhat remarkable meetings were held in the Parish Church, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Shropshire Christian Unity Association. Rev. R. H. Corbet, Rector, and President of the Association, occupied the chair. Rev. J. Price, of Wistans- wick, Congrcgalionalist, read the scriptures and led the devotions of the assembly. The chairman then gave a few warm words of welcome, and explained the object of the -Association, after which he called upon the Rev. E. R. Barrett, B..\. , of Liveipool, brother of the chairman of the Congrega- tional Union, to address the meeting. Then followed short addresses by the Rector of Hodnet, Rev. W. Osborne, Wesleyan, and Dr. Kinns of London. At the evening meeting short speeches were delivered by the Revs. T. Hamer, Bolton; J. H. Gwyther, Rock Ferry; T. Glassey, Penistone ; J- B. Walton, Wem ; the Free Church minister, Whitchurch ; Major Heber-Percy ; and T. Clunas, Hodnet. Those who have attended these meetings from the time of the formation of the .Association must have witnessed with pleasure the in- creasing strength and deepening spirit of unity. The fact that it was possible to meet in the Parish Church in brotherly conclave, and that ministers of the Established and Free Churches, and laymen connected with both, could take part in these meetings, is decidedly a step in advance. Within a mile or two of the Rectory is the Parish Church of Hodnet, sacred to the memory of Reginald Heber, who formerly ministered there. Like Mr. Corbet, the Rector of Hodnet is a man of wide sympathies and of truly catholic views. Recently, at a bazaar held for the removal of a debt in connection with the Parish Church at Hodnet, one of the stalls was completely furnished by Non- conformist parishioners." CHAPTER V POET AND CRITIC " My Psalm-singing continues bad. Can you tell me where I can purchase Cowper's Olney hymns, with the music, and in a smaller size without the music, to put in the seats ? Some of them I admire much." So Reginald Heber wrote to his friend John Thornton in February 1809, when he had been for eighteen months rector of Hodnet. " Any novelty," he added, " is likely to become a favourite, and to draw more people to join in the singing. What book is used at the Lock ? If I could get one or two I should like to select from them." Two years later he confesses to R. J. Wilmot that his attempt to reform the psalmody had proved fruitless. As in 177 i John Newton, of the Calvinistic and Evangelical side of the Church of England, proposed to the poet Cowper that they should jointly write hymns for use in the parish church of Olney and in Lord Dartmouth's old mansion, where the meetings of the children and for prayer were held, so Heber felt himself con- strained to write hymns for his people, and to summon to the work his old friends, Henry Hart Milman and Southey. He began by publishing a few in the Christian Observer in the years 18 11 and 1812. These he composed for particular tunes, such as his accurate ear made him always ready to catch, especially at first the Scottish and Welsh airs. Writing at a period in the early history of English hymnody, when gross abuses disfigured some of the more popular hymns to such an extent that even yet, in the United Kingdom and America, there are churches, as well as Christians, who will use nothing 8o BISHOP HEBER but the Psalms of the Old Testament in praise, Heber pre- faced his tentative verses with this criticism : — " The following hymns are part of an intended series, appro- priate to the Sundays and principal holy days of the year, con- nected in some degree with their particular Collects and Gospels, and designed to be sung between the Nicene Creed and the sermon. The effect of an arrangement of this kind, though only partially adopted, is very striking in the Romish liturgy ; and its place should seem to be imperfectly supplied by a few verses of the Psalms, entirely unconnected with the peculiar devotions of the day, and selected at the discretion of a clerk or organist. On the merits of the present imperfect essays the author is un- affectedly diffident ; and as his labours are intended for the use of his own congregation, he will be thankful for any suggestion which may advance or correct them. In one respect, at least, he hopes the following poems will not be found reprehensible ; no fulsome or indecorous language has been knowingly adopted ; no erotic addresses to Him whom no unclean lips can approach ; no allegory, ill understood and worse applied. It is not enough, in his opinion, to object to such expressions that they are fanatical ; they are positively profane. When our Saviour was on earth, and in great humility conversant with mankind ; when He sat at the table, and washed the feet, and healed the diseases of His creatures, yet did not His disciples give Him any more familiar name than Alastcr or Lord. And now, at the right hand of His Father's majesty, shall we address Him with ditties of embraces and passion, or in language which it would be disgraceful in an earthly sovereign to endure ? Such expressions, it is said, are taken from Scripture ; but even if the original application, which is often doubtful, were clearly and unecjuivocally ascertained, yet, though the collective Christian Church may be very properly personified as the spouse of Christ, an application of such language to Christian believers is as dangerous as it is absurd and unauthorised. Nor is it going too far to assert that the brutalities of a common swearer can hardly bring religion into more sure contempt, or more scandal- ously profane the Name which is above every name in heaven and earth, than certain epithets applied to Christ in some of our popular collections of religious poetry." These early hymns, and some of the lighter verses with which their author used to beguile his way to St. Asaph, of which he was appointed a Prebendary in 1817, were set to music by i i POET AND CRITIC 8i the accomplished hymnologist, Canon W. H. Havergal. In June 1819 we find him writing to Wilmot Horton : — " I have been for some time engaged in correcting, collecting, and arranging all my hymns, which, now that I have got them together, 1 begin to have some high Church scruples against using in public. Otherwise, I have a promise of many fine old tunes, not Scotch, as I once dreamed of having, but genuine Church melodies. This amusement, for I cannot call it business, together with the business which I cannot call amusement, of making two sermons weekly, has left me very little time either for my dictionary or the Oiiartcrly. Yet the first goes on, however slowly ; and for the latter, I am preparing an article on Kinneir's Travels, com- pared with Rennel's retreat of the ten thousand, and another on Hunt's translation of Tasso." The consecration of the first Bisliop of Calcutta, and the establishment of the Anglican and Scottish Presbyterian Churches in the East India Company's territories in 1814, led the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to resolve to respond to the claims of India on England from a missionary point of view.i Following WilHam Carey- at Serampore, Bishop Middleton appealed for funds to found and endow a Mission College at Calcutta. Archbishop Sutton heartily assisted, and upwards of sixty thousand pounds sterling was sent out. Of the whole sum ^45,747 was the result of a royal letter, in 18 19, authorising collections in every church and chapel in England, as Cromwell had done in 1649 when creating the first English Missionary Society under the title of the "Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England." The occasion again brought Heber, all uncon- sciously, into close contact with India Missions, little knowing that he was to be the successor, and that soon, of the first Metropolitan of India. It was Whit Sunday in the year 18 19. His father-in-law, the Dean of St. Asaph, was vicar of Wrexham, and arranged to preach the missionary sermon on the day appointed, while he engaged Helper to deliver the first of a course of Sunday evening lectures in that church. On the Saturday, when pre- ' Dii;est of S.P.G. Records, 1701-1892, p. 472. - Life of William Carey, 2nd ed., p. 332 (John Murray). G 82 BISHOP HEBER paring for the services, the Dean asked his son-in-law to write "something for them to sing in the morning." So early as I 7 1 9 Isaac Watts had written his paraphrase of the seventy- second psalm, " Jesus shall reign," and the Welsh Williams that hymn which still stands only second in the too short list of missionary trumpet-calls, " O'er those gloomy hills but these and others, such as Wesley's, were hardly known outside of the Dissenters, and it was fortunate that Dr. Shipley summoned Heber to his aid. The almost immediate result was the composition, as if by an inspiration, of what is still the greatest hymn in the chief missionary language of the race. Retiring to a corner of the room, Heber at once wrote down the first three verses beginning " From Greenland's icy mountains," when the Dean called out, "What have you written?" Heber read over the lines, when the Dean exclaimed, " There, there, that will do very well." " No," replied the poet, " the sense is not complete," and added the fourth verse. He would have gone on with a fifth, but the Dean was inexorable to his request, " Let me add another, oh ! let me add another " ; and the hymn was sung, as we have it, next morn- ing in AVrexham church. ^ Heber had thus made so many additions to his collection of hymns, from his own pen and Milman's chiefly, and he was so hopeful of Walter Scott's and Southey's co-operation, that he sought the advice of Dr. Howley, Bishop of London, and Arch- bishop Sutton as to publishing them by authority. His letter to the former has a special value in the history of hymnody : — "HoDNET Rectory, d^h Octobo 1820. "... I have for several years back been from time to time, and during the intervals of more serious study, engaged in fonning a collection of hymns for the different Sundays in the year, as well as for the principal festivals and Saints' days, connected, for the most part, with the history or doctrine contained in the Gospel for each clay. I began this work with the intention of using it in my own Church, a liberty which, I need not tell your Lordship, ' This is from the circumstiintial account by the late Thomas Edgeworth, SoUcitor, Wrexham, written on a fly-leaf of the facsimile of the original MS. which V>r. Raffles of Liverpool secured from the printer. See Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 399 (John Murray). POET AND CRITIC 83 has been, for many years back, pretty generally taken by the clergy, and which, if custom alone were to be our guide, would seem already sufficiently authorised. Thus the morning and evening hymn of Bishop Ken are, in country parishes, almost universally used. Hardly a collection is made for charitable purposes with- out a hymn for the occasion. Of the anthems used in our Cathedrals, many are taken from other sources than either the Scripture or the Liturgy. And, even in sacred oratorios, such songs as ' Angels ever bright and fair,' etc., may be considered as admissions of the right to introduce into places of worship compositions not regularly authorised by the rubric. But the most remarkable instance of the kind which I have met with was during the installation of the Duke of Gloucester at Cambridge, when, during Divine Service in the University Church, and in the presence of her Reverend and Right Reverend heads, I heard a poem sung in the style of Darwin, in which the passion-flower was described as a virgin, devoting herself to religion, attended by as many youths as the plant has stamina. " I might, then, perhaps, without troubling your Lordship, have been content to transgress the rubric in so good company, and have taken the same licence with my neighbours, had I not, in looking over the popular collection from which I wished to glean for my own, been much shocked and scandalised at many things which I found, and which are detestable, not in taste only, but, to the highest degree, in doctrine and sentiment. The famous couplet — " ' Come ragged and guilty, Come loathsome and bare ' — is far more tolerable than many which I could instance ; and, I own, I began to dislike a liberty, however conceded or assumed, which had been abused so shamefully. Many of my friends, indeed, quote such passages as a sufficient reason for excluding from the Church service all but the authorised versions of Psalms. But thus to argue from the abuse of hymns against their decent and orderly use does not seem very accurate logic, and there are many reasons why I should regret passing so severe a sentence on all for the faults of some.'' The reasons assigned are the fondness of the people for these compositions, especially Evangelicals and Dissenters; their good taste, as seen in the unusual popularity of Ken's two beautiful hymns for morning and evening ; the whole stream 84 BISHOP HEBER of precedent in the Christian Church from the remotest antiquity ; and the precedent set by the compilers of the Church of England liturgy. He thus concluded : — " The evil indeed, if it be one, of the admission of hymns into our Churches has, by this time, spread so widely, and any attempt to suppress it entirely would be so unpopular, and attended with so much difficulty, that I cannot help thinking it would be wiser, as well as more practicable, to regulate the liberty thus assumed, instead of authoritatively taking it away. Nor can I conceive any method by which this object might be better obtained than by the publication of a selection which should, at least, have the praise of excluding whatever was improper in diction or sentiment ; and might be on this, if on no other ground, thought not unworthy a licence of the same kind as that which was given to the psalms of Tate and Brady. I have the vanity to think that even my own compositions are not inferior in poetical merit to those of Tate ; and my collection will contain some from our older poets, which it would be mockery to speak of in the same breath with his. There are a few also which I have extracted from the popular collections usually circulated, which, though I have not been able to learn their authors, possess considerable merit and much popularity, and are entirely free from objectionable expressions. Nor am I without hope, if encouraged by your Lordship to proceed, of obtaining the powerful assistance of my friends Scott and Southey. By far the greater part, however, of my present collection are of my own making, a circumstance which, I trust, will not expose me to the imputation of vanity, when the difficulty is considered of finding unexceptionable words suitable to the plan which I have adopted. I have given the names of the authors from whose works 1 have extracted any hymns. My own I have marked with my initials. But my collection is yet in MS., and has still some lacuna to fill up. " Under these circumstances, my Lord, I feel I am taking a great liberty, but one for which I hope I shall be pardoned, in requesting to know whether you think it possible or advisable for me to obtain the same kind of permission for the use of my hymns in Churches which was given to Tate ? and if so, what is the channel through which I should apply? Or if, from the mediocrity of my work, or for any other reason, this would be improper or unattainable, whether 1 may conscientiously assume the same liberty that many of my neighbours do, and ha\'e a few copies printed, not for publication, but for the use of my own Church ? POET AND CRITIC 85 This 1 should, on some accounts, prefer, so far as I am myself concerned, to the more ambitious project, inasmuch as I am well aware that no great renown is to be expected by the publisher of religious poetry." , By the end of 1821 Milman's contributions were in Heber's hands, and called forth this letter : — • "IIoDNET Rectory, 2%th Decemhcr 1S21. " My dear Milman — You have indeed sent me a most power- ful reinforcement to my projected hymn-book. A few more such hymns and I shall neither need nor wait for the aid of Scott and Southey. Most sincerely, I have not seen any lines of the kind which more completely correspond to my ideas of what such compositions ought to be, or to the plan, the outline of which it has been my wish to fill up. In order that you may understand the nature of that plan more clearly, I have sent you the first volume of my collection, in which, as you will observe, I have marked the author's name or initials to all, whether original or collected, of which the author is known. You will see that it has been my plan to collect, and, in some instances, to adapt, the best published hymns, and whatever applicable passages of religious poetry admitted of it. That these are not more numerous in my collection, and that there is so much of my own, I trust you will impute not to any conceit in my own workmanship, but to the real scarcity of foreign materials, and the miserable feebleness and want of taste which the generality of such collections display, and which have often driven me to my own resources in pure despair of being supplied elsewhere. There are not, as you will see, many lacuna in the portion of the year which this little book con- tains. In the other half year they are more numerous ; and even those Sundays which I have supplied with appropriate hymns may very well carry double, or even treble, if you will supply them with anything of your own, or selected from other quarters." To Ills old college friend. Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Bart., who often corresponded with him on theological and ecclesiastical questions, he wrote : — " IIoDNET, \yh August 1822. " My dear Inglis — Many thanks for your friendly letter, and the solemn and striking paraphrase 1 of the 'Dies Ira:.' I have .'\nonymous. 86 BISHOP HEBER more than once thought over the propriety of adding translations of the Roman CathoHc hymns at the end of my collection, but have been deterred, partly by the difficulty which I found in doing them into English to my own satisfaction, partly by a doubt as to the propriety of inserting anything which was not intended and adapted for congregational worship. I have also another doubt : there is fine poetry and fine devotional feeling in all of them, but I am not sure whether they are not better to pillage and imitate than to translate, inasmuch as they are all, more or less, mixed with what is languid and tedious. The ' O Crux ave spes unica ' is one of the most spirited, but unhappily it is idolatrous ; and so is the ' Stabat mater dolorosa.' The ' Dies Irje,' as imitated by W. Scott, I have in my collection. It is less full and faithful, and less poetical than the one you have sent me ; but it might be sung by an English congregation, which the last hardly could. But the main beauty of the Romish hymns has always appeared to me to be their solemn rhythm and simple and affecting melodies ; and these neither Scott, nor your friend Mathias, nor any other imitator that I know has succeeded in retaining. I have often tried, but have always been obliged to throw overboard either words or rhythm." The Bishop of London's final opinion he thus communicated: — "HoDNET Rectory, DeccDihcr 1822. " My dear Milman — . . . Being accustomed to judge of metres rather by his fingers than by any other test, he is less tolerant than I could wish of anapa:stics and trochaic lines. He was surprised, however, when I showed him that your ' Chariot ' for Advent Sunday rolled to the same time with the old 104th Psalm. In other respects his taste is exquisite ; though, where my own lines were concerned, I thought him sometimes too severe and uncompromising a lover of simplicity. On the whole, how- ever, we have passed his ordeal triumphantly. He encourages us to proceed, and even suggests the advantage of Psalms, two for each Sunday, from the different authorised versions enumerated by Todd, to be published in the same volume with our hymns. This we may talk over when we meet. At present a muse would hardly venture over the threshold of my study, though she were to come in the disguise of a parish clerk, and escorted by Thomas Sternhold, Esq., Gentleman-Usher of the Black Rod. " Many thanks for your account of Mrs. Hemans's play. You POET AND CRITIC 87 have shown her great and most judicious kindness, and I verily believe her worthy of it, both in disposition and talents." While Heber was occupied in consulting his friends as to a lithographic edition of his poems, the call to Calcutta stopped this and other literary works. The MS. collection was published by Mr. Murray after his death, in 1827, under the title of Hymns written and adapted to the Weekly Chtirdi Service of the Year. Of the whole number, he had written fifty-seven and Milman twelve, and twenty-nine had been taken from other sources. One he adapted from Jeremy Taylor ; one was Sir Walter Scott's. All are still in common use in Great Britain and America.! Milman's appeared again in the collected edition of his Poetical Works, published in three volumes in 1837. His "Bound upon the accursed tree," "When our heads are bowed with woe," and " Ride on, ride on in majesty !" deserve all Heber's praise. In one of his bright letters to Miss Charlotte Dod, written from Bodryddan, his father-in-law's place in North Wales, Heber thus reported his action as to the hymns : — "Bodryddan, 2.1th October. " Many thanks, my dear Charlotte, for your beautiful drawing, and the kind and entertaining verses which followed it. Till I heard of you at Cheltenham, I could hardly feel sure of your really going there after so many delays, and as I have for some time thought such a journey likely to do much good, both to you and your father, I was sincerely glad to receive a letter from you with that postmark. I do not think that your account of the society there, with the exception of your travelled beau, indicates any- thing very lively, though in e.xpense, and I hope, therefore, in splendour, the Vittoria Hotel seems equal to anything at Brighton, Turnbridge or Spa. But though I do not belong to that sect of doctors or doctresses who reckon stupidity conducive to health either of body or mind, I can easily believe that some degree of quiet is desirable for both, and that you may derive more advan- tage from early walks, sensible conversation, and moderate gaiety than if you had been there in the full tide of the season, going down twelve dances a night, raffling every morning, and environed Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 503. 88 BISHOP HEIiER by a whole ring of Irish baronets and staff officers. I am glad you are going to try the tepid bath, which I know by experience to be, after illness or any agitation of mind (of which last, at least, you have had a full share this summer), even more bracing and invigorating than the cold. " It will be strange, indeed, if your present journey and regi- men does not put you in, at least, as good a plight as you were before your sister's illness. Of her it gave me sincere pleasure to hear a continued favourable report from Anne and Soby,^ whom I met, as you may have heard, at Wynnstay,^ and afterwards at Acton,'* both well and in good looks, though grievously knocked up, and Anne even more so than Soby. Emily's courage failed her, or her love of gaiety gave way to her prudence, and I was by myself at both these places. I have not, however, again abandoned her, and we have both joined in excusing ourselves from Gwersyllt, whither we were asked during the week for the christening ball at Wynnstay. The heir, for whose future pro- ficiency in the Welsh tongue I was, as you may recollect, a sponsor at the Eisteddfod, is certainly the greatest little boy of his age of whom I have heard since the days of Prince Gargantua, inasmuch as he weighs four-and-twenty pounds, being very nearly as much as his sister at sixteen months old. " Emily contrives to ride out every day notwithstanding some of the worst weather that I have ever witnessed in October. Old Sir R. Hill used to tell me that during an experience of near seventy years of his own observations, preceded by forty more of a still older Mr. Romaine, there had never failed to be twenty-one fine (or, at least, fair) days in this month according to the old style, reckoning from the loth of October to the loth of November. I have myself since fancied that I have obsened the same thing, but I am too careless a naturalist to make my obser\-ations very valuable. " I worked hard during the week I was by myself at home, but while in this place, and removed from the necessary books of reference, I have been busy preparing a stock of sermons for the remainder of the winter, which will, on my return to Hodnet, leave me at liberty to bestow a more undivided attention on Bishop Taylor's Life. Talking of bishops, I have had, since we met, a correspondence with the Bishop of London on the subject of my hymns, which cannot, with strict propriety, be used in churches, and certainly could never obtain a general admittance ' Sobieski. - The seat of the Wynns. ' The seat of the Cunliffes. I'OET AND CRITIC 89 there without a regular license from the King, such as was given to Tate and Brady for the new version of the Psalms. On this account I wrote to the Bishop, enclosing my four first hymns as a sample, and asking his advice and assistance. His answer is very kind and encouraging. He suggests some alterations in the lines I sent him, and recommends me to prepare the whole collection for publication, under the idea that, if it became, in the first instance, well known and popular, less difficulty would be found in obtaining such a license as I wish for. I mean to follow his advice, at all events, so far as bestowing some of my leisure during the next few months in polishing and completing the series, but I am rather inclined to believe that when this is done it will be best to lay the MS. once before him and some other bishops, whose opinion, once secured, will have most weight with their brethren. If the object is answered of obtaining a well-selected and sanctioned book of hymns for the Church of England, to supersede the unauthorised and often very improper compositions now in use, I can truly say that I am extremely indifferent whether I myself or anybody else has the credit of the business, and I think it probable that many of my superiors would concur in the measure more heartily if it appeared to proceed from them- selves, and at their own suggestion, than if it appeared first as the work of a private clergyman. This is, however, all confidential. "... I yesterday renewed my acquaintance with the African and Asiatic traveller Mr. Banks, whom we were to have met at Dinbryn. He was very young and good-looking when I saw him last, but is now so dried and sunburnt by the sun and wind of the desert, that I should not have known him. He is very lively and entertaining, full of knowledge and information relative to the wild countries which he has traversed. On the Nile he advanced farther even than Burckhardt, of whom he speaks very highly, but says that the difficulties, insults, and injuries which are so pathetically described in the volume which I lent you were mostly brought on him by his poverty and the meanness of his appear- ance. He speaks well of the Nubians on the whole, but says that they, like other people, pay respect to wealth and apparent rank, and are most hospitable when it is made worth their while. The ruins are very splendid, and very strange, and even awful objects in a country now so poor and desolate. Among the Arabs and the country south and east of Palestine he was most struck with the tomb of Aaron on Mount Hor, which is still, like that of Abraham at Hebron, held in honour by the Mahometans. All the towns keep their old names — Heshbon, Moab, etc., and 90 BISHOP HEBER one of the Arab sovereigns, with whom he spent some time, sang ]5oems of his own composition to the harp, as David might have done. One of these was on a former defeat of his own tribe, and put Mr. B. much in mind of the lament over Saul and Jonathan.^ He complained a good deal of hardship, both in bodily fatigue and being almost eat up with vermin, but met with no very serious danger. He was not near Parga at the time of its evacua- tion, but believes, from all he heard, the story of the singular circumstances which attended it. Miss Shute will be glad to hear this. I was disappointed as well as yourself at not seeing my review of Wesley in the last number of the Quarterly. Gifford acknowledges having received it in due time, so that I am exculpated. It is, however, to appear in the next. "We leave this place Thursday next, and pass two nights at Hawarden ^ in our way home. When do you leave Cheltenham ? Believe me, dear Charlotte, ever yours affectionately, R. H." Of Heber's fifty-seven hymns at least thirty still hold a place in the front rank of popular approval and use, and are annotated under their respective first lines in Julian's Diction- ary of Hyninology (1892). In this respect Heber stands side by side with Cowper, who contributed sixty-six hymns to the Olney collection. If we take as a test Roundell Palmer's Book of Praise, published in 1863, we find that at that time of 412 hymns which satisfied Lord Selborne's criteria of "a good hymn " — simplicity, freshness, and reality of feeling ; a consistent elevation of tone, and a rhythm easy and harmonious, but not jingling or trivial — eleven are by Cowper and fourteen by Heber, whose " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty," begins the book. That hymn was pronounced by Tennyson the finest in the language, and was sung at his funeral. " From Greenland's icy mountains " still expresses best the great missionary call of the English-speaking peoples. If to these fourteen we add the hymns which have become more popular, especially with children, in the last thirty years, we have these : 1. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. 2. From Greenland's icy mountains. 3. The Lord of Might, from Sinai's brow. The first " Song of the Bow," 2 Sam. i. 19-27. ■■^ Then the seat of the Glynnes. POET AND CRITIC 91 4. The Son of God goes forth to war. 5. Hosanna to the living Lord. 6. O Saviour, is Thy promise fled ? 7. O King of earth, and air, and sea. 8. Forth from the dark and stormy sky. 9. O Lord, turn not thy face away. 10. O most merciful, O most bountiful. 1 1 . God that madest earth and heaven. 1 2. Thou art gone to the grave. 1 3. The winds were howling o'er the deep. 14. I praised the earth, in beauty seen. I 5. Brightest and best of the sons of the morning. 16. By cool Siloam's shady rill. 17. Incarnate Word, who, wont to dwell. 18. The God of glory walks His round. 19. The Lord will come, the earth shall quake. 20. O Saviour, whom this holy morn. 21. Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! enthroned once on high. "Christopher North," in the Nodes, that strange medley, was the first critic to appreciate the poetic promise and power of Reginald Heber. The Palestine he happily describes as "a flight, as upon angel's wing, over the Holy Land. How fine the opening ! " In Blackwood's Magazine for 1827 Professor Wilson recalls his intercourse, as a younger man who heard him recite the poem, with the writer of Palestine, which, he declares, the judgment of the world has placed at the very head of the poetry on divine subjects of this age. In an elaborate notice of the posthumous hymns he cites at length nineteen of Heber's from the 1827 collection, of which sixteen appear in our list above. In the history of English hymnody Reginald Heber holds a unique position, theological and literary. His collection, which began to be published in 181 1, following all that was best in the Calvinistic school of Watts, Cowper, and Newton, and in the Arminian school of Wesley, was the first that was Catholic in the best sense of the word. And he was the first to give to English sacred poetry the lyric spirit as well as objective element which Walter Scott had begun, and Byron was applying in extreme forms. Hence his varied measures, which have been pronounced by one critic to be too flowing 92 BISHOP HERER and florid. Certainly at first his ear was so caught by Scottish airs that he wrote " Brightest and best " to that of " Here awa, there awa, wandering \Vinie " ^ as he walked under the avenue of elms near the old rectory. Though the first, Heber was not alone in this application to hymnology of what was best in the modern spirit, literary and missionary, which came in with the nineteenth century. Mant and Keble, both Oxford men, of Oriel, were his contemporaries, but the noble strain of the writer of the anthem, " Bright the vision that delighted," and the exquisite poems of the author of The Christian Year, with its " Sun of my soul," did not appear till Heber's death. He stands first, in time and in importance, of the Catholic hymn- writers of England. What Heber was to Cowper and the Olney circle, Jeremy Taylor had been to Milton. Indeed, there is no one whom Heber so closely resembled, in character, in learning, and in literature, as Bishop Jeremy Taylor, from whose Golden Grove he took an Advent hymn, and whom Laud had made a Fellow of All Souls. It was a happy arrangement when Messrs. Ogle, Duncan, and Co., in 1819, applied to the rector of Hodnet to edit " The Complete and Collected Woi-ks of Jeremy Taylor, most of which are now become very scarce, and all only to be obtained in separate volumes of all sizes and descrip- tions," and to prepare a Life and Critical Essay on his Writings. With his usual industry and his habit of "devouring books" he was able to issue the edition, Works and Life, in 1822,^ ■ Heber's MS. hymn-book with music is in the possession of the present rector of Hodnet, who has supplied this suggestive hst — Brightest and best . . . . The God of Glory walks His round . Forth from the dark 0 Saviour, is Thy promise ficd OGod, that madest earth and heaven When on her Maker's bosom . Sit Thou on My right hand 1 praised the earth . . . . Oil, most merciful . . . . The world is grown old . Weep not, O Mother Thou art gone to the grave Original Air. Waytdering Willie. Banks of Doon. Rousseau' s Dream. Mary's Dream. Gramaehree. John Anderson, my Jo. Saw ye my Father. Haydn. Sicilian Mariners. Logic 0' Buchan. Adesie Fi deles. Auld Robin Gray. - Heber's own edition of the Works of Jeremy Taylor, with the Life and POET AND CRITIC 93 and for the first time after two centuries to do justice to this great Enghsh classic. " The unprecedented sale " of the ten volumes, and " the consequent revival of the popularity of that eminent Writer," led Rivingtons to publish the Life separately, and it speedily ran through three editions. Mutatis mutandis this portrait of Taylor by Heber's hand might stand for Heber himself. " ' Love,' as well as 'admiration,' is said to have 'waited on him,' in Oxford. In Wales, and amid the mutual irritation and violence of civil and religious hostility, we find him conciliating, when a prisoner, the favour of his keepers, at the same time that he pre- served, undiminished, the confidence and esteem of his own party. Laud, in the height of his power and full-blown dignity ; Charles, in his deepest reverses ; Hatton, Vaughan, and Conway, amid the tumults of civil war ; and Evelyn, in the tranquillity of his elegant retirement, seem alike to have cherished his friendship and coveted his society. The same genius which extorted the commendation of Jeanes, for the variety of its research and vigour of its argument, was also an object of interest and affection with the young, and rich, and beautiful Katharine Philips ; and few writers, who have expressed their opinions so strongly, and, sometimes, so unguardedly as he has done, have lived and died with so much praise and so little censure. Much of this felicity may be probably referred to an engaging appearance and a pleas- ing manner ; but its cause must be sought, in a still greater degree, in the evident kindliness of heart, which, if the uniform tenour of a man's writings is any index to his character, must have distinguished him from most men living : in a temper, to all appearance warm, but easily conciliated ; and in that which, as it is one of the least common, is of all dispositions the most attrac- tive, not merely a neglect, but a total forgetfulness of all selfish feeling. It is this, indeed, which seems to have constituted the most striking feature of his character. Other men have been, to Critical Examiytation of his Writings, was revised and corrected by the Rev. Charles Page Eden, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, in ten volumes, in 1847-54, with indices. Mr. Eden omitted the Coti tern plat ions on the State of Man, the Christian Consolation, since proved to be Pseudo-Tayloriana, and the Psalter of Dai-iit, which was written by Christopher Hatton, with " large assistmv ' li uii I aylor probaljly, in the learning of the preface and the piety of ili- | 1 ■ ■ Mr. Page Eden added, as undoubtedly Taylor's, a Tract on th, I\ the Altar, M\ <:sci\y Sermon on I.iike xiii. 2J-24, " the gate to In aw n a btrait gate," afterwards inserted in the Life of Christ. 94 BISHOP HEBER judge from their writings and their hves, to all appearance, as religious, as regular in their devotions, as diligent in the perform- ance of all which the laws of God or man require from us ; but with Taylor his duty seems to have been a delight, his piety a passion. His faith was the more vivid in proportion as his fancy was more intensely vigorous ; with him the objects of his hope and reverence were scarcely unseen or future ; his imagination daily conducted him to 'diet with gods,' and elevated him to the same height above the world, and the same nearness to ineffable things, which Milton ascribes to his allegorical ' cherub Contemplation.' " Taylor was neither an enthusiast nor a bigot ; and if there are some few of his doctrines from which our assent is withheld by the decisions of the church and the language of Scripture, even these (while in themselves they are almost altogether specu- lative, and such as could exercise no injurious influence on the essentials of faith or the obligations to holiness) may be said to have a leaning to the side of piety, and to have their foundation in a love for the Deity, and a desire to vindicate his goodness, no less than to excite mankind to aspire after greater degrees of perfection. " His munificent charity was in part shown by his undertaking, at his own expense, the rebuilding of his cathedral. It is also warmly praised by Rust, who tells us that, when the great prefer- ments which he enjoyed were compared with the small portions which he left to his daughters, charity would be proved to have been the principal steward of his revenues. . . . " In conformity with the same simple and disinterested char- acter, we find him at one time contributing his endeavours to frame a grammar for children, at another composing prayers and hymns for the young and uninstructed. ' If,' were his words on one occasion, ' you do not choose to fill your boy's head with something, believe me the devil will ! ' The same temper seems to have made him affable and facetious with his inferiors in rank and knowledge. ' It was pleasant,' says his secretary Alcock, ' to hear my lord talk with these poor people, the friends of Haddock, on the subject of their relation's spectre.' . . . " It is on devotional and moral subjects that the peculiar char- acter of his mind is most, and most successfully, developed. To this service he devotes his most glowing language, to this his aptest illustrations ; his thoughts and his words at once burst into a flame when touched by the coals of this altar ; and whether he describes the duties, or dangers, or hopes of man, or the mercy, power, and justice of the Most High ; whether he exhorts POET AND CRITIC 95 or instructs his brethren, or offers up his supplications in their behalf to the common Father of all — his conceptions and his ex- pressions belong to the loftiest and most sacred description of poetry, of which they only want, what they cannot be said to need, the name and the metrical arrangement. " It is this distinctive excellence, still more than the other qualifications of learning and logical acuteness, which has placed him, even in that age of gigantic talent, on an eminence superior to any of his immediate contemporaries ; which has exempted him from the comparative neglect into which the dry and repul- sive learning of Andrews and Sanderson has fallen ; which has left behind the acuteness of Hales, and the imaginative and copious eloquence of Bishop Hall, at a distance hardly less than the cold elegance of Clark, and the dull good sense of Tillotson ; and has seated him, by the almost unanimous estimate of posterity, on the same lofty elevation with Hooker and with Barrow. " Of such a triumvirate, who shall settle the precedence ? Yet it may, perhaps, be not far from the truth to observe that Hooker claims the foremost rank in sustained and classic dignity of style, in political and pragmatical wisdom ; that to Barrow the praise must be assigned of the closest and clearest views, and of a taste the most controlled and chastened ; but that in imagination, in interest, in that which more properly and exclusively deserves the name of genius, Taylor is to be placed before either. The first awes most, the second convinces most, the third persuades and delights most ; and (according to the decision of one whose own rank among the ornaments of English literature yet remains to be determined by posterity) Hooker is the object of our reverence. Barrow of our admiration, and Jeremy Taylor of our love." > "Very skilful is Heber's analysis of Jeremy Taylor's writings, practical, theological, casuistic, and devotional, and most searching and frank is his criticism of their doctrines and defects. The Life of Christ or the G7-eat Exemplar, the Holy Living and Dying, the Liberty of Prophesying, and the Diictor Dichitantium, the sermons and the controversial and devotional books, are reviewed in a style which reveals in every paragraph the scholar and the divine indeed, but with a modern literary grace which attracts the layman and the man of the world. For both Taylor and Heber held that theology is rather a ' 'Q,Ky)pov jjlv (ji^iji, 6a.vii.i.^w U Bappovov, Kal 0cXcS TaiXupov. Note to Parr's Spital Sermon. 96 BISHOP HEBER divine life than divine knowledge. Of both is the saying true, which accompanies Lombart's portrait of the author of the Dudor Dubitafitmm in the folio edition,^ Non magna loqidvmr, sed viviiims. Nihil opitiionis gratia, omnia conscientice faciam. Coleridge's famous parallel between Milton and Taylor - is, in its degree, applicable to Heber. " Differing so widely and almost so contrariantly, wherein did these great men agree, wherein did they resemble each other ? In genius, in learning, in unfeigned piety, in blameless purity of life, and in benevo- lent aspirations and purposes for the moral and temporal im- provement of their fellow-creatures ! Both of them composed hymns and psalms proportioned to the capacity of common congregations ; both set the glorious example of publicly re- commending and supporting general toleration and the liberty both of the pulpit and the press." By this time Heber was a practised critic, having almost from the first been one of the most reliable of the staff of the Quarterly Review. Richard Heber, when he happened to spend the winter of 1800 in Edinburgh book-hunting in such stores as that then kept by Archibald Constable, soon after the great publisher, became the fast friend and coadjutor of Walter Scott, then engaged in collecting for his Border ATinstrclsy. How Scott became Reginald Heber's guest at All Souls we have seen. When " John Murray of Fleet Street, a young bookseller of capital and enterprise," enlisted him in 1808 in the project of the Quarterly Heview, Scott wrote to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe : " The Hebers are engaged, item, Rogers, Southey, Moore (Anacreon), and others whose reputa- tions Jeffrey has murdered, and who are rising to cry woe upon him, like the ghosts in King Richard." Reginald Heber, at least, had no such motive, but he was, at first, anxious to utilise the knowledge of Russia and the East which he had acquired by travel. His first review appeared in the second number for 1809, on Kerr Porter's Travelling Sketches in Russia and Srceden during the years 1805-08. To John Thornton, who had congratulated him on the article, he thus replied : — ' Fourth edition, London, printed by J. L. for Luke Meredith at the Star in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1696. 2 In his "Apologetic Preface" to Fire, Famine, and Slaughler. ^ Memoir and Correspondence of the late John Murray, 1891. POET AND CRITIC 97 " HoDNET Rectory, lol/i January 1810. " I am much gratified with the attention you have paid to my review, and with your approbation of it. The poem on Talavera is very spirited, and only unfortunate in being necessarily com- pared with Scott ; the author is understood to be Mr. Croker. The best article, I think, in the Review is the critique on Parr, which, both in wit, taste, and good sense, is superior to almost everything of Jeffrey's. I intend, as far as my necessary business will give mc time, to contribute frequently to the Quar/crly Review, as it ser\-es to keep up my acquaintance with se\ eral interesting suljjects, which I might else, perhaps, neglect. " I agree with you in thinking that my Russian notes are made more conspicuous in the Qiiartcrly Reznew of Clarke's Travels than the proportion they bear to the rest of the work would lead one to expect. You will not wonder, however, that he himself should be treated coolly, when I tell you that the reviewer is a staunch Muscovite, and an ' old courtier of the Queen's,' during the most splendid days of Catherine. With the Edinl'ur^/i Re7'ieu', as far as good words go, both he and I have reason to be satisfied. I do not, howev er, think that, even there, they have been sufficiently accjuaiuted with their subject to appreciate justly his knowledge of antiquities, the liveliness of his sketches of manners, and his power of comparing one nation with another, which are, I think, his strongholds. And they show a little too plainly their constant wish to make everything a handle for politics." This article was followed by one on Turkey, by another on Gustavus IV. of Sweden, by another on Russia, and by his translations of Pindar. The last Mr. Murray published sepa- rately in 181 2, along with the "Palestine," "Europe," and " The Passage of the Red Sea," with considerable notes, in a beautiful volume, Poems and Translations by Reginald Heber, which bore this dedication : " To Richard Heber, Esquire, the following Poems are dedicated, as a tribute of gratitude to the talent, taste, and affection which he has uniformly exerted in encouraging and directing the studies of his Brother." The poet's preface thus concluded : " The pursuits of a life which, though retired, has not been idle, joined to the peculiar duties of the author's profession, have permitted few oppor- tunities of indulging in the relaxation of poetry. If the future should present, as is far from improbable, still fewer than H 98 BISHOP HEBER these, and forbid his adding to the following trifles anything more worthy of fame, he trusts, at least, that nothing will be detected in his pages repugnant to the first interests of man- kind, to the cause of Liberty or Religion." Heber's review of De L'Allemagne in 1814 led Madame de Stael to appeal to John Murray for the name of the critic ; of all the reviews on her work, she said, this was the only one which had raised her opinion of the talents and acquirements of the English. Nothing abler or more comprehensive was written on Persia, on the publication of the great work of Sir John Malcolm, than Heber's review of those two splendid quartos in April 18 16. Pressed by a correspondent to utter a warning as to the danger to the liberties of Europe of an alliance between Russia and France, he feared less than that the rolling down of the wave from the north against the bulwark of British India. He thought that the first check which the Russian monarchy might receive in the west would be followed by a simultaneous rising in all her eastern pro- vinces. " At any rate, some centuries are likely to elapse before the Muscovite terminus can have advanced in this manner to the Indian Ocean." In the eighty years since that was written the advance has exceeded the wildest anticipations. In 181 7 his paper on Southey's Brazil appeared, and in 1820 his criticism of Milman's poem, The Fall of Jerusalem. As he wrote that generous eulogy Heber must have thought of his own youthful triumph. With Byron in his mind, he thus closed his review : " While by a strange predilection for the coarser half of manicheism one of the mightiest spirits of the age has apparently devoted himself and his genius to the adornment and extension of evil, we may well be exhilarated by the accession of a new and potent ally to the cause of human virtue and happiness, whose example may furnish an additional evidence that purity and weakness are not synonymous, and that the torch of genius never burns so bright as when duly kindled at the altar." In a letter to R. J. Wilmot Horton he thus introduces the most representa- tive of all his reviews : — " HoDNET Rectory, 26/// May 1820. "My present theme is Southey's Life of Wesley — a theme much more copious, and one which interests me a good deal. POET AND CRITIC 99 How I shall succeed in it I do not yet know ; it is no easy matter to give Wesley his due praise, at the same time that I am to dis- tinguish all that was blamable in his conduct and doctrines ; and it is a very difficult matter indeed to write on such a subject at all without offending one or both of the two fiercest and foolishest parties that ever divided a Church — the High Churchmen and the Evangelicals. . . . "Wilson 'of the palms and plague' is standing for a Pro- fessorship of History at Edinburgh. It was reported that Sir James Mackintosh was to be his rival ; but Wilson, in a letter to me, makes no mention of this, nor does my brother." With a fine discrimination and catholic impartiality, the reviewer, in an essay which covers fifty-five pages, holds the balance between the Arminian John AVesley, with his extreme heresy of sinless perfection, and the Calvinist George White- field, with the other extreme of predestination and reprobation. ^Vith admiring satisfaction, Heber quotes the famous foundery sermon on " Free Grace," in which Wesley preached the true "decree" as William Carey and Andrew Fuller learned to preach it, and he himself went to India to proclaim it — God commandctli all men everywhere to repent. The reviewer's con- clusion was that no common blessing must wait on the man who, while lie avoids schism, endeavours to rival John Wesley in piety, self-denial, activity, and boundless charity. Heber's letters to Miss Charlotte Dod, in these years, were full of literary and even political news, expressed with brotherly frankness and affection. A BIRTHDAY SONNET " 27//; Decemlei: And shall a wreath of flattering verse be twined To greet thy natal morning, Charlotte ? No, In sterner notes my solemn verse shall flow, Austere, perchance, yet, trust me, not unkind ; And I will urge thcc, born amid the snow Of grim December and his wintry wind, To bid thy breast with true devotion glow ; That, like the fabled thorn, whose early flowers, 'Mid saintly Avalon's deserted towers, lOO BISHOP HEBER In honour of the Saviour's advent blow, Thus may thy beauty and thy mental powers Bloom to His praise who could such gifts bestow ; And, as on His thy birthnight follows near, Him follow still in love, and faith, and fear." In sending her a new volume of Venn's sermons, he describes the author as "an excellent man, who deserved the name of Evangelical not in the sense of a foolish and presumptuous |)arty distinction, but as the most honourable name of a Christian minister." "Lincoln's Inn, lyd November 1822. ". . . Poor Gifford has been extremely ill, and I have had again to decline in form the management of the Quarterly Review. (This is most secret.) It has been a matter of grave deliberation who shall undertake it, in the first place as Gifford's coadjutor, afterwards, probably, as his successor. My first advice has been that it should not be a clergyman ; my next was to recommend a young man of great talents, but perhaps too young. I believe the choice will fall on a Mr. Coleridge, son of the crazy poet so named, and nephew to Southey. He is spoken of as a very clever man. I only hope he will be sufficiently undutiful to reject all offered communications from his father, and to prune his uncle's essays to one-half their original length. I was once inclined to suggest Lockhart, the editor of Biackiuood, and author of Peter's Letters; but everybody cried out that he was too great a blackguard. Gifford is, however, now well enough to decide for himself, and again to resume, at least for the present, the management of his Review. I have been extremely busy since I came to town with an article on the Church of England, its revenues, etc. My review of Lord Byron has been verj' variously spoken of. I do not think the people whom I should most wish to please are satisfied with it. They say (as my dear sister did) that I am too favourable to him, and speak too mildly of infidelity and atheism. I did not mean to do so, and I will own I have been greatly mortified at finding this opinion prevalent. Nor is my mortification diminished by finding the soi-disant ' liberals ' very complaisant in their expressions concerning it. Heaven grant that this disappointment may make me more cautious hereafter, as well as more indifferent to the opinions of mankind ! I certainly wished to conciliate the half-infidels, but I had not the smallest thought of giving ground to them ; nor do POET AND CRITIC lOI I think I have. Yet I find the unknown author is suspected of having done so. I passed, last week, a pleasant, quiet day with the Bishop of London and his family at his country house at Fulham, and should have liked, if I had had time, to stay longer. We read over the Hymns together, and he suggested many alterations, some of which I like, others I cannot agree with ; yet his general principle is very good — that, namely, in all hymns and prayers we are to think of religion first and poetry afterwards ; and that the cause of religion is best served by great simplicity of expression. Of my own hymns he likes the most simple best, such as that on the Innocents,! on St. John Evangelist," and ' Oh, Saviour, is thy promise fled ?' To Milman's he was less favourable than I could wish. He said they were very fine poems, but rather poems than hymns. My dear sistei-'s hymn on Good Friday ^ he liked extremely; 'from its simplicity,' he said, 'and because it seemed to come from the heart.' He asked whose it was, and I had pleasure (as I always have) in saying some little of what I think of you. He strongly encourages me to add a selection of psalms to my hymns, and advises that some of what he called ' the poems ' should be thrown into an appendix, under the name not of 'hymns' but 'religious poetry.' During the whole visit I was much struck by his calm, quiet manner and his apparent earnestness while talking on religious subjects. In quoting different devotional passages of the Psalms, his eyes glistened and his voice faltered in a manner which put me in mind of our excellent friend Bridge. Alas ! Charlotte, when I find so many really good people in the world, how much do I feel ashamed of myself. Pray for me, dear friend, that while I am preaching to others I may not myself be a castaway ! " On inquiring at Cholmondeley House, I find they are none of them in town. I shall, therefore, keep Lord R.'s book till my return to town next term, when I will leave it in due form. I am ashamed to say I have made but little progress in reading it, but when I tell you that I found it necessary to rewrite both of my two latter sermons, in addition to my labour bestowed on my hymns and the Review, you will not wonder, nor think me lazy. " Oh ! weep not o'er thy children's tomb ; Oh ! Rachel, weep not so." ' ' O God ! who gav'st Thy servant grace Amid the storms of life distrest." ' ' O more than merciful ! whose bounty gave Thy guiltless self to glut the greedy grave ! " I02 BISHOP HEBER By all which I see the work is candid, plausible, and written in a good spirit. I do not, however, think it very clever. Like all modern Calvinists the author skips the main difficulty, and is, in fact, very nearly an Arminian in his principles, though, for reasons best known to himself, he often uses Calvinistic language, and professes himself one of the party. His distinction between moral and natural defectiveness, if it means anything, is an abandonment of his side of the question. " As to the poetry which you called on me to furnish, I really can do no good with it. The argument is so whimsical, a sort of dirge on occasion of a zucdding, and the vanity and bad taste of the mother who desires to have her feelings on such an occasion so recorded are so remarkable, that the more I think of it the more I am convinced (and so you will be too on second thoughts) that I could not write verses on such a subject without some loss of what little reputation for talent I have. Tell the lady (you may tell her with perfect truth) that I have been very busy, but that I have tried, but could not please myself Forgive me, dear Char- lotte, this frankness. You, I am sure, will believe me when I say I have, for your sake, done my utmost. But the thing is hopeless. "Lord Byron and Lord J. Russell have published each a tragedy within these two days : the first very hannless, as far as I have yet read it, but with very little talent ; and the second is a bare respectable piece of mediocrity, which the Whigs will praise, and very few, either Whigs or Tories, will read through. Lord B. has attracted more attention by his strange funeral of his natural daughter, whose body he sent over, embalmed and divided into three pieces, with directions that she should be buried in a particular part of Harrow Churchyard, with a monument on a particular part, which he carefully pointed out, of the church, opposite the pulpit, describing her as ' the beloved daughter of . . .' It seems Lady Byron has some time been a fre- quenter of Harrow Church, and a great admirer of the vicar, Mr. Cunningham, and her kind husband has thus contrived that her usual way to church will lead her close to the grave of his natural child, and that from the vicarage pew her eyes must always meet this inscription." The following Bow-meeting song has a special interest, for it was sung at Hawarden Castle, in Flintshire, then the seat of Sir Stephen Glynne, Bart. The occasion was a meeting of the " Royal British Bowmen," a society of much interest, but whose history is now obscure : — POET AND CRITIC 103 HAWARDEN CASTLE— A SONG OF THE BOW " By yon castle wall, 'mid the breezes of morning, The genius of Cambria stray'd pensive and slow ■ The oak-wreath was wither'd her tresses adorning, And the wind through its leaves sigh'd its murmur of woe. She gaz'd on her mountains with filial devotion, She gaz'd on her Dee as he roll'd to the ocean, — And, ' Cambria ! poor Cambria ! ' she cried with emotion, ' Thou yet hast thy country, thy harp, and thy bow ! ' " ' Sweep on, thou proud stream, with thy billows all hoary ; As proudly my warriors have rush'd on the foe ; But feeble and faint is the sound of their glory. For time, like thy tide, has its ebb and its flow. Ev'n now, while I watch thee, thy beauties are fading ; The sands and the shallows thy course are invading ; Where the sail swept the surges the sea-bird is wading ; And thus hath it fared with the land of the bow ! " ' Smile, smile, ye dear hills, 'mid your woods and your flowers, Whose heather lies dark in the morn's dewy glow ! A time must await you of tempest and showers, An autumn of mist, and a winter of snow ! For me, though the whirlwind has shiver'd and cleft nie, Of wealth and of empire the stranger bereft me, Yet Saxon, — proud Saxon, — thy fury has left me Worth, valour, and beauty, the harp and the bow I " ' Ye towers, on whose rampire, all ruin'd and riven, The wall-flower and woodbine so lavishly blow ; I have seen when your banner waved broad to the Heaven, And kings found your faith a defence from the foe ; Oh, loyal in grief, and in danger unshaken, For ages still true, though for ages forsaken. Yet, Cambria, thy heart may to gladness awaken. Since thy monarch has smil'd on the harp and the bow ! ' " In the year 1839 Catherine, the eldest daughter of Sir Stephen Glynne, was married to William Ewart Gladstone, M.P. Mrs. Gladstone was a girl when Heber first used to visit at the castle. Mr. Gladstone had learned even then to admire BISHOP HEBER his character and to dehght in his poems, one of which he afterwards translated into Latin. Writing to the present biographer on 15th September 1894, Mr. Gladstone remarks: " I am glad you are busied with a record of Bishop Heber, who both adorned and helped to elevate the Church of England. I enclose a brief note by my wife of such recollection of him as she has brought down from early child- hood." Mrs. Gladstone's words are these : " I could not have been more than ten years old when Bishop Heber first visited Hawarden Castle, in 1820, I believe; but words spoken of him by my mother have not faded. They have left a vivid impression. In 181 5 she had become a widow. As was natural at the time of so sore a trial, intercourse such as was now offered should be of special value; it was undoubtedly so. I recall the Bishop's singular gifts, his greatness uniting persuasion and charm. I recall how comforting and precious his words were to my mother; through her conversation they are remembered by me. Neither have I forgotten the deep interest felt on hearing he was to be Bishop of Calcutta, nor the awe and sadness on the tidings of his death." CHAPTER VI CHIEF MISSIONARY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND TO THE EAST Year by year was Reginald Heber trained for missionary wori< in the East. He was a lad of sixteen when the Church Missionary Society was founded, and when he was Rector of Hodnet he became one of its earlier members. When, hardly of age, he won his first triumph in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, lie made his Palestine a missionary poem. There are no lines in English literature more compassionate for the Jew than the passage with which the 8oth Psalm inspired the youth- ful singer : — " O Thou, their Guide, their Father, and their Lord, Loved for Thy mercies, for Thy power adored 1 If at Thy name the waves forgot their force, And refluent Jordan sought his trembUng source ; If at Thy name, like sheep, the mountains fled. And haughty Sirion bowed his marble head. To Israel's woes a pitying ear incline. And raise from earth Thy long-neglected vine ! " There are no nobler strains expressive of the Messianic hope, its certainty and its glory, than this missionary psean : — " Nor vain their hope, — bright beaming through the sky Burst in full blaze the Dayspring from on high. Earth's utmost isles exulted at the sight, And crowding nations drank the Orient light. Lo ! star-led chiefs Assyrian odours bring, And bending Magi seek their infant King ! io6 BISHOP HEBER Marked ye where, hovering o'er His radiant head The dove's white wings celestial gIor>' shed ? Daughter of Sion ! virgin Queen, rejoice ! Clap the glad hands and lift the exulting voice ! He comes, but not in regal splendour drest, The haughty diadem, the Syrian vest ; Not armed in flame, all glorious from afar, Of hosts the chieftain, and the lord of war ; Messiah comes, let furious discord cease ; Be peace on earth before the Prince of Peace ; Disease and anguish feel his blest control, And howling fiends release the tortured soul ; The beams of gladness hell's dark caves illume. And mercy broods above the distant gloom." The year after these words sounded through the theatre the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded in London, with the retired Governor-General of India, Lord Teignmouth, as its first President. Heber became not only an early sub- scriber, but the warmest advocate and defender of the Society among the Anglican clergy. The earliest of his missionary sermons was preached at Shrewsbury for that Society from the words (Rev. xiv. 6) / sa7v another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the ever/asting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. To Heber more than any man in England was due the disappearance of the prejudice of ministers of the Church of England against the new and catholic institution, especially because they supposed it to be unfavourable to the religious establishment of the country. The sermon is a fine plea against "those unhappy differences among the people of God whereby our Saviour's seamless coat is rent, and the progress of His faith impeded." The peroration is a fair specimen of the preacher's style in 1813. ". . . I might tell you of the ignorant enlightened, of the poor made rich, of the prisoner by our means released from a worse captivity; I might point out to you that Germany, from whence our own reformation was derived, now taught and comforted by our filial piety ; I might show universal Christendom rejoicing in our light, and hostile nations offering up their prayers for England, the friend of souls ; I might boast of the bounds of knowledge extended, CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 107 and paint genius and learning braving in our cause the toils of barbarous dialects and the terrours of pestilential climates. Your attention might, lastly, be directed to those mighty fields whose har\cst has not yet sounded under the Christian reaping hook, to benighted Africa waiting for our illumination, and to those vast regions of Indian ignorance which Providence has planted under our country's care. But I need not urge you farther ; these things have not been done in a corner ; our sound has gone forth into all lands, and our words unto the ends of the earth ; and as you wish these blessings to continue, and these hopes to be realised, the world itself, for whose spiritual instruction I plead, in God's name demands your assistance. I entreat you then, my brethren, as you would not be found wanting in the work of Christ, to join our holy fellowship ; as you would escape the curse pronounced against those who come not forth to the help of the Lord, I conjure you that you stand not idle in this His victory ! But remember, above all things, if you desire these labours to be available to your own salvation, as well as to the salvation of other men, if you hope to partake in those spiritual blessings which your bounty may distribute, remember that we vainly make others wise while our own hearts are blinded and ignorant ; that it is not enough to give the Bible to the poor unless we also study it ourselves, and unless our daily prayers and daily actions cherish and display that faith and hope of which this blessed Volume is the treasury ! " Heber was a member of the venerable Society for Promot- ing Christian Knowledge, for which he preached twice at a later period, but in 181 9 he again came to the rescue of the Bible Society, as including all Christians, against a correspond- ent of the Christian Reinonbrancer, who considered that old Church of England institution to be quite sufficient to supply the world with the printed Word of God. Heber's desire for unity and charity within the Church of England itself, that the missionary calling of Christendom might be more zealously carried out, was not less than his effort to combine all Churchmen and Nonconformists in Bible distribution. So early as the year 18 18 he anticipated, and on much more practical lines, the recent movement of the Archbishops and Bishops to substitute the Church as such for two competing Societies within the Church, which has found a tentative organisation in the Boards of Missions, and a hesitating voice in "The Missionary Conference of the [o8 BISHOP HEBER Anglican Communion " held in 1894. We find him writing to John Thornton thus : — " HoDNET Rectory, Wi September 1818. ". . . We left Chester five weeks since, heartily tired with our sojourn there, though, I hope, with feelings of sincere thankfulness for the blessing which we had received. I believe I wrote you word that our little Barbara was, in the first instance, a very healthy child ; during the hot weather, howe\ er, of the latter end of July she had so violent an illness as to leave, for some days, hardly the most remote hope of her life. Thank God 1 she wrestled through it surprisingly, but it left her a skeleton ; since that time her progress has been very rapid, and as favourable as we could hope or desire, and she is really now such a baby as parents exult to show. ". . . Has your attention ever been recalled to the subject which we discussed when we last met ? — a union between the two Church Missionary Societies. ... I have never lived very much with men of my own profession, but I have seen more of them during my stay in Chester than has usually happened to me, and I found reason to believe that many clergymen would give their zealous assistance to a united body, who now hang back for fear of com- mitting themselves, etc., etc. But one of my strongest reasons for desiring such a union is, that it would prevent that hateful spirit of party (which at present unhappily divides, and will, I fear, continue to divide the Church) from operating, as it now does, to the prejudice of that common object which both sides profess to have in view — the conversion of the heathen." By this time the Bishops had begun to see their way to join the Church Missionary Society, as Heber had done long before, so that he formally raised the question by thus addressing one of them : — • " HoDNET Rectory, izth Oclobey 1818. " My Lord — May I hope your Lordship will pardon the liberty thus taken by a stranger, who would not have ventured to trespass on your valuable time if it were not on a subject which he con- ceives important to the peace of the Church and the propagation of the Gospel among the heathen. " Of the two societies established for that purpose in our Church, I have been induced to join that which is peculiarly sanctioned by your Lordship's name, as, apparently, most active, and as employ- CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 109 ing with more wisdom than the elder corporation those powerful means of obtaining popular support which ignorance only can depreciate or condemn. It is but justice to say that I have seen nothing which leads me to repent of this choice. But why, tny Lord (may I be permitted to ask) should there be two societies for the same precise object ? Would it not be possible and advantage- ous to unite them both into one great body, under the same rules and the same administration, which might embrace all the different departments in which zeal for the missionary cause may be advantageous ? In other words, since the charter of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts forbids their joining us, why might not we, as a body, make an offer to transfer our subscriptions, our funds, and our missionary establishments to them, on such conditions as might secure our missions from neglect, and our money from misapplication, supposing such neglect or misapplication to be likely or possible ? The advantages of such a union would, I humbly conceive, be great. It might go very far towards healing the breach which unhappily exists in our establishment. It would be the most efficacious answer which could be given to those imputations of a party and sectarian spirit which, either from prejudice or misinformation, have been brought against the Church Missionary Society ; and I apprehend that the efforts of Churchmen in one accordant society would be more efficacious in the good cause than, under present circumstances, they are likely to be." At a time when the Gospel Propagation Society has published its history since 1701,' and the Church Missionary Society is about to prepare for its first centennial commemoration, Heber's scheme of union has at least a historical interest : — " It is respectfully suggested to the members of the Church Missionary Society that it is e.\pedient that the said society should make the offer of uniting themselves with the Incorporated Society for Propagating Christianity in Foreign Parts, on the following conditions : " 1st. That the Society for Propagating the Gospel do admit as members all those who are now members of the Church Missionary Society, either on the presumption of their being churchmen, which the fact of their belonging to such a society warrants, or, if a further guarantee be thought necessary in the ' Digest of the Records, 1701-1892 (London 1893). I lO BISHOP HERER case of the lay-members, on the recommendation of some of the clerical members of the said Society for Church Missions. " 2ndly. That, in consideration of the increase of numbers, one joint treasurer and three additional secretaries be appointed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel ; and that the same gentlemen who now hold those offices in the Church Missionary Society be requested to accept of the treasurership and two of the said secretaryships. " 3rdly. That District Societies, either county, diocesan, or archi- diaconal, be instituted, with powers to recommend new members, to raise and receive subscriptions, appoint clergj-men to preach for the society, etc., on the plan now adopted by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. " 4thly. That all the missionaries, schoolmasters, etc., now employed by the Church Missionary Society shall be immediately taken into the employ of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and not dismissed unless in case of bad behaviour, but treated in all respects in the same manner with those which the last-named society at present supports. " Sthly. That, these conditions being agreed to, the Church Missionary Society will transfer to the Society for Propagating the Gospel their subscriptions, their stock, the services of their missionaries, their experience and local knowledge, and zealously co-operate with them in the support of their society, and the orthodox and orderly furtherance of their benevolent and Christian views." Eighty years ago there was more prospect of this scheme being carried out than at present, although the catholic spirit of Heber now prevails more than at that time. The two regiments do more execution on the field than if they w-ere linked as one battalion in a Church so comprehensive as that of England. The zeal of the Archbishops and Bishops, who would fain organise the Church's missions on theoretically^ right lines, is at ' The present Rector of Malpas, the Rev. the Hon. W. Trevor Kenyon, thus expressed the high Anglican view in the Church Congress, Rhyl, 1891 : " In the face of the great organisation which is centralised in an Italian city, and sends forth from it its pronunciaments by one authority and under one discipline, we, on the other hand, who represent the one great Anglican Communion, which is more and more throughout the world spreading, and learning to realise its great position, getting to know itself as the fairest representation on earth of the old, the ancient faith — we, I say, should endeavour to have such Federation in matters ecclesiastical as is hoped for by CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST iii least some atonement at the end of the nineteenth century for the indifference of their predecessors, at its beginning, to the very object for which the Church exists. Heber's love for the Church Missionary Society is seen in the sermon on the con- version of the heathen which he preached for it at Whittington,i Salop, in 1820, from the text, "Thy kingdom come." Thus, simply and powerfully, did the preacher at that early time rouse the villagers : — ". . . When we consider how distant are those lands which yet remain to be brought from the wildness of pagan errour to the pale of the Christian ; how vast is that multitude which, even while nominally within that pale, is still in the shadow of death, and in need of being enlightened and evangelised ; when we consider how narrow, in comparison with the numbers which seek admission, are the buildings appropriated to our labours, and how seldom it is in the course of the year that, amid the cares and concerns of the world, those labours can procure an audience, we are compelled, by every motive of duty to ourselves, as well as of charity to our brethren, to charge those who have already attained to that good light to give diligence lest others be deprived of the means of access to it, and to invite them, by a wise and bountiful exertion of the talents allotted them, to help us in bringing home to the tents of the Indian and the cottages of the poor that knowledge of Christ which is the great power of God unto salvation, and to hold up, like Aaron and Hur, the overwearied hands of Moses, lest through their neglect the people of the Lord be discomfited before their spiritual enemies. " This is the task to which we call you, this the task in which we pray you to be fellow-labourers with ourselves — a task no less plainly enjoined in Scripture than it is obviously deducible from the dictates of our strongest natural wants and our most amiable natural feelings. If we are forbidden to see our neighbour suffer hunger, disease, or nakedness without, to the best of our power, endeavouring to relieve his sufferings ; if it be a crime to suffer our enemy's beast of burthen to fall beneath its load without rendering it our assistance, of what punishment must he be many politicians in matters political, and so let the Anglican Communion show what she can do, united, and will do, God helping her, in the true sense of the Catholic missionary spirit — " ' Quod semper, quod ab omnibus, quod ubique.' " ' Long the parochial cure of Bishop How of Wakefield. 112 BISHOP HEBER worthy who looks on with dry eyes and without an effort to abate the evil on millions stretched out in deadly darkness of idolatry and superstition ; on millions more surrounded with light, yet, by some strange fatality, continuing to work the works of darkness ; on millions as yet incapable of good or evil, whose happiness or misery, both in this world and the world to come, must depend on the sort of education which is given them ? ". . . Suppose that these things, which we have known from our childhood, and have, therefore, ceased to regard as they ought to be regarded, were at this time first made known to us ; suppose we were now first told that there is a good, and just, and holy, and merciful God over all, to whom all His works are known, who requires from us no bloody sacrifice, no shocking, or difficult, or costly service, but whose eyes and ears are ever open to the prayer of the humble and the penitent ! Suppose we now first heard that the sins by which we are each of us conscious that we have offended God are pardoned, on our true repentance, through the mediation and sufferings of God's beloved Son, who so loved the inhabitants of the world that He came down from Heaven to take on Himself their punishment ! Suppose we had now first opened to us the prospect of another and a better world in which we may hope, together with those dear and virtuous friends of whom death has robbed us, to dwell in the presence of the Lord, the objects of His mercy and His favour ! Suppose that when our prospect of this reward grew dim, and our heart fainted through a sense of our inherent weakness and unworthiness, we were now first lifted up to hope and diligence in well-doing by the promise of a pure and mighty Comforter to enlighten us when we were dark, to support us when we were feeble, to raise us when we fell, and finally to beat down under our feet our fiercest and mightiest enemy ! Suppose, I say, these things were told you this day for the first time, and ask your own hearts whether the natural sympathies of humanity would not produce an earnest desire that the same glorious truths might be made known to others besides yourselves, and that all your neighbours, yea, that all mankind should, like you, be enabled to behold this great salvation ? " My brethren, there are many millions of men in the world, hundreds of millions, to whom these blessed truths are yet unknown. Millions who have lost the knowledge of the one true God amid a multitude of false or evil deities, who bow down to stocks and stones, who propitiate their senseless idols with cruel and bloody sacrifices, who lose sight of their dying friends with no expecta- tion of again beholding them, and who go dowTi to the grave CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 113 themselves in doubt and trembling ignorance, without light, without hope, without knowledge of a Saviour ! " Is it your pleasure, is it your desire, that these your fellow- creatures should be brought from darkness into light, that they should share with you your helps, your hopes, your knowledge, your salvation ? Can you pray with sincerity that the kingdom of God may come to them as it has come to you, and will you, thus desiring and thus praying, refuse to furnish, according to your ability, the means of bringing it to them ? You cannot, you will not, you dare not ! '•. . . If it is the duty of all Christians everywhere to co-operate in the furtherance of these glorious prospects, so there is no nation in the world on whom so strong an obligation of this kind is laid as on the inhabitants of Great Britain. Our colonies, our commerce, our conquests, our discoveries, the empire which the Almighty has subjected to our sword, the purity of our national creed, the apostolic dignity of our national establishments, what are all these but so many calls to labour in the improvement of the heritage which we have received, so many talents entrusted to our charge, of which a strict account must be one day rendered ? Shall we overlook our heavy debt of blood and tears to injured Africa ? Shall we forget those innumerable isles of the southern ocean first visited by our sails, but which so long derived from us nothing but fresh wants, fresh diseases, fresh wickedness ? Shall we for- get the spiritual destitution of those sixty millions of our fellow- men, yea, our fellow-subjects, who in India still bow the head to vanities, and torment themselves, and burn their mothers, and butcher their infants at the shrine of a mad and devilish super- stition ? Shall we forget, while every sea is traversed by our keels, and every wind brings home wealth into our harbours, that we have a treasure at home of which those from whom we draw our wealth are in the utmost need — a treasure, if used aright, more precious than rubies, but which, if wilfully and wantonly hid, must, like the Spartan fox, destroy and devour its possessor ? Oh, when you are about to lie down this night, and begin, in the words which the Lord has taught you, to commend your bodies and souls to His protection, will you not blush, will you not tremble to think, while you say to God ' Thy kingdom come ! ' that you have this day refused your contributions towards the extension of that kingdom ? I know you will not refuse them ! Or, is it still necessary to recommend to your support that peculiar instrument of doing good in whose behalf I now stand before you, and to vindicate the Church Missionary Society from the suspicion I 114 BISHOP HEBER of party and sectarian motives ? This, also, I will attempt, though in the great cause of the propagation of the Gospel it is wearisome to descend to disputes as to the fittest channel of a benevolence which can hardly be directed into a wrong one. ". . . Did, in our own Church, and in the days of our imme- diate fathers, the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts presume to tell her younger sister for Promoting Christian Knowledge that in sending missionaries to India she was thrusting an intrusive sickle into the harvest of another ? There are ver>' many motives besides a sectarian spirit which may lead men to institute and encourage new institutions rather than to throw the whole weight of their bounty into the old. While some prefer the wary caution of a self-elected corporation, others may, with at least a show of reason, and certainly without just offence to any, conceive that more good is likely to be produced by the popular and expansive force of a society where every member has a voice in the application of his contributions. With many, a personal knowledge of the directors of one association will induce them to prefer it to another equally respectable, and there are many who, from experience of the superior activity possessed by most recent institutions, will expect greater and more beneficial exertions from a new society for no other reason than because it is new. But while there is room and employment for all, while there is a unity of faith, a unity of object, a unity of symbols and sacraments, a unity of religious and canonical obedience, and, above all, a unity of Christian charity, such institutions may all wish each other good luck in the name of the Lord, with no other rivalry than that of which shall best serve their common Master." In his Bampton lecture on The Personality and Office of the Christian Comforter the position of the heathen is discussed at some length in relation to the Lord's promise of the Para- clete.^ Most powerful of all the influences which led Heber on to live and die for the people of India was the career of Henry Martyn, whose first convert he was to ordain in the Cathedral of Calcutta.^ Mrs. Heber wrote thus when referring to the year 1822 : — " For many years Mr. Reginald Heber had watched with in- terest the progress made by Christianity wherever English in- Read in the year 1815. Second edition, 1818, chap. vi. ^ Henry Martyn, Saint and Scholar [iZgz), p. 288. CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 115 fluence extended, and he assisted, by every means within his power, the exertions of the various rehgious societies to which he belonged ; but more especially to India had his thoughts and views been anxiously directed. With Martyn he had, in idea, traversed its sultry regions, had shared in his privations, had sympathised in his sufferings, and had exulted in the prospects of success occasionally opened to him. Many of Martyn's sufferings and privations he saw were caused by a peculiar temperament, and by a zeal which, disregarding all personal danger and sacri- fice, led that devoted servant of God to follow, at whatever risk, those objects which would have been more effectually attained, and at a less costly sacrifice, had they been pursued with caution and patience. He could separate the real and unavoidable diffi- culties of the task from such as resulted from these causes, and he felt that they were not insuperable. " Without ever looking to anything beyond the privilege of assisting at a distance those excellent men who were using their talents for the advancement of Christianity, he would frequently express a wish that his lot had been thrown among them ; and he would say that, were he alone concerned, and were there none who depended on him, and whose interests and feelings he was bound to respect, he would cheerfully go forth to join in that glorious train of martyrs, whose triumphs he has celebrated in one of his hymns. He felt (and on that Christian feeling did he act) that any sacrifice which he could make would be amply com- pensated by his becoming the instrument of saving one soul from destruction. On_ the erection of the episcopal see in India, and on the appointment of Dr. Middleton to its duties, his interest in that country increased." Not for five months after the death of Bishop Middleton at Calcutta, in the ninth year of his episcopate and fifty-fourth of his age, did the intelligence reach England. All who inter- ested themselves in the East at once turned to the Rector of Hodnet and preacher at Lincoln's Inn as best fitted to be his successor. Heber's old college friend, the Right Honourable C. W. Williams Wynn, was President of the Board of Commis- sioners for the Affairs of India, and with him it rested to sub- mit names, as usual, to the Crown. Heber's services to the Church of England and to vital religion were such that all classes, ecclesiastical and political, believed his appointment to the bench of bishops to be only a question of time. Hence [6 BISHOP HEBER the following demi-official correspondence, most honourable to both the writers :— "East India Office, 2nd December 1822. " My dear Reginald — You will have seen in the newspapers the death of the Bishop of Calcutta. I cannot expect, and certainly do not wish, that, with your fair prospects of eminence at home, you should go to the Ganges for a mitre. Indeed ^5000 per annum for fifteen years, and a retiring pension of ^1500 at the end of them, is not a temptation which could com- pensate you for quitting the situation and comforts which you now enjoy, if you were certain of never being promoted. You would, however, extremely oblige me by giving me, in the strictest confidence, your opinion as to those who have been, or are likely to be suggested for that appointment ; and you would add to the obligation if you could point out any one who, to an inferior degree of theological and literary qualification, adds the same moderation, discretion, and active benevolence, which would make me feel that, if you were not destined, I trust, to be still more usefully employed at home, I should confer the greatest blessing upon India in recommending you. — Ever most faithfully yours, " C. W. Williams Wynn." " HoDNET Rectory, 7/// December 1822. " My dear Wynn — I can hardly tell you how much I feel obliged by the kind manner in which you speak of me, and the confidence which you have reposed in me. I will endeavour to merit both by the strictest secrecy, and by speaking honestly and closely to the points in which you wish for information. ... I heartily wish I myself deserved even a small part of the kind ex- pressions you have used towards me. I will confess that (after reading missionaiy reports and some of Southey's articles in the Quarterly) I have sometimes been tempted to wish myself Bishop of Calcutta, and to fancy that I could be of service there. Had you, as was once reported, gone out to the East, I should have liked it beyond most other preferment. As it is, I am, probably, better at home, so far as my personal happiness is concerned, than in a situation, however distinguished and however splendidly paid, which involves so many sacrifices of health, home, and friendship. Yet, in my present feelings, and with \ eiy imperfect information as to some particulars which, for my family's sake, it is necessary I should know, will you permit me to defer my answer for a few days, till I have been able to consult those whom CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 117 I am bound to consult on such an occasion — my wife, my brother, and my mother ? "If, however, I have misunderstood you, or if any fitter man occurs to you, or any person to whose claims, as a public man, you find it desirable to attend, let me beg you, per amicitiam, to set me aside without scruple or delay, and the more so because I do not yet hardly know my own inclinations, much more those of the persons whom I must consult. " There is one case, indeed, in which, however anxious I or they may be for the appointment, I should wish you to put me decidedly out of the cjuestion ; I mean if any eligible person should be found among the archdeacons and chaplains already in India. The time may, perhaps, be not yet arrived for a division of the single unwieldy diocese into three, which otherwise might be done with ease, and with no additional e.^pense, by raising the three archdeacons to the episcopal dignity, and dividing the salary of the bishop among them in addition to that which they already receive. If it were, such an arrangement might, I conceive, add greatly to the improvement and extension of Christian India ; while, if the Bishop of Calcutta were made primate, a unity of system and a power of appeal might be preserved as well as at present. But, at all events, it must be a great advantage to a bishop to have been already for some time conversant with the wants, the habits, and the persons of his flock, his clergy and his heathen neighbours ; and the advancement of a deserving man among their own number might be a very beneficial stimulus to the activity and circumspection of the inferior clergy. Of the present archdeacons, however, I know nothing, or next to nothing. " I fear I shall have tired you with my long letter ; it is you yourself, however, who have encouraged me ; and I hope, nay I am convinced, that you will not misunderstand the feelings with which I have written it ; but that you will believe me, whatever may be the upshot of the business so far as it regards myself, dear Charles, ever your obliged and faithful friend, " Reginald Heber." Heber thus consulted his wife, then with their child at Bodryddan, at her father's ; — " IIODNET Rectory, T/h December 1822. " My dearest Love — I found, on my return home yesterday, the enclosed letter from C. W. Wynn ; his friendship and good opinion are very gratifying, and I will confess I have been a good ii8 BISHOP HEBER deal inclined to express, what he does not seem to anticipate, my own readiness to go to India. "You may recollect that we have occasionally talked the thing over, though never dreaming that we should ever have the option. I do not think we should either of us dislike a residence of some years (though fifteen is a long time) in a new and interesting country. The present appointment is considerable, and even the retiring pension more than we are ever again likely to receive from Hodnet ; and whatever hopes of advancement at home my friends may hold out, we must not forget that their tenure of power is very uncertain, and that they have many claims which they may be compelled to gratify before mine. On the other hand, even ^5000 a year, when we reckon the expenses of a voyage to India and a residence there, the probable curtailment of life, and the vastly increased rate of life insurance, will make me a very little richer man, and probably not so happy a one as I may be with even my present diminished income. I know not how India will agree with your health or that of our little darling, or what disadvantage it might offer to her education and prospects. Nor could we either of us, though most happy in each other, take leave, without a very bitter pang, of so many excellent friends, some whom we could not reasonably hope to meet again on earth. . . . " These feelings would have at once decided me to be of the same opinion which C. W. Wynn expresses, were I quite sure whether I should not do God more acceptable ser\'ice by going than by staying here. In the acceptance of this bishopric I should be, at least, sure that I was not actuated by secular or un- worthy views. I verily believe and hope that I should be of con- siderable use there by moderating between the two missionary' societies, and directing their efforts in accordant and useful channels ; and by a removal into an entirely new sphere of action, we should both have the advantage of, in some measure, begin- ning life anew, unfettered by previous habits and intimacies, and only studious how we might best live to God and to the good of His creatures. " Yet here, again, I cannot be sure that I am not drawing a picture to myself which I should find utterly imaginary. If I am idle and fond of society in England, I shall be still more disposed to both in a relaxing climate and in the bustle of a government town. I cannot, without ridiculous vanity, say that my services are necessary to the Indian Church, or that plenty of persons may not be found as fit, or fitter, to undertake the duty. It is not an CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 119 unpopular or an unprofitable post ; many are anxious to obtain it. Perhaps if I went there, I should keep out some man whose knowledge of Eastern languages and customs makes him far better adapted for it ; and perhaps, even if I remain as I am, and where I hope I am really useful, I am labouring in my vocation more steadily than in searching out new spheres of duty. . . ." The doctor warned Heber that, if he went to India, he must face the pain of separation from his daughter Emily, either at once or in a few years. His brother Richard personally consulted the President, who pressed Heber not to hesitate to accept an office in which his virtues and talents would be more beneficial to his fellow-creatures than in any other. His wife's friends gave their verdict against India. Most pathetic of all was his mother's appeal at a time when, it must be re- membered, not one Englishman had gone forth from the Church of England as a missionary to India, and Middleton's death following Martyn's had given an exaggerated impression as to the climate. Reginald Heber went to Moreton, where his mother dwelt, with this result : " She said she would bear anything sooner than that I should not do what I thought right ; but as she spoke, she burst into a bitter flood of tears, and said, ' I am seventy-one ; I never can expect to see you again.' " That was a troubled Christmas-tide at Bodryddan. The medical opinion as to the child and separation decided the family council there, and after a month's consideration, Heber wrote declining the offered appointment. Had he known Daniel Corrie, as he afterwards did, there can be no doubt that he would have urged his own wise and unselfish advice as to the consecration of one of the three archdeacons or chaplains in India. Mr. Loring, the Arch- deacon of Calcutta, died two months after Bishop Middleton, and Corrie — Henry Martyn's friend — was senior chaplain. But at least a year would have been lost, in that case, in bringing Corrie home for consecration, and the time was not far off when that good man and missionary chaplain was to become the first Bishop of Madras. A fortnight more passed, a suitable name for the bishopric had not been found, a Bengal medical expert gave a more favourable opinion than the English physician as to risk to the child, and Heber wrote I20 BISHOP HERER to Wynn : " The sacrifice which I would not make for the sake of wealth and dignity, both my wife and myself will cheerfully make in order to prevent any serious inconvenience to a cause of so much importance." To this Wynn replied : — "East India House, \%lh January 1823. " The King has returned his entire approbation of your appoint- ment to Calcutta, and if I could only divide you so as to leave one in England and send the other to India, it would also have mine ; but the die is now cast, and we must not look at any side but that which stands uppermost." There were two friends to whom Reginald Heber turned at this time to pour out his inner soul in frankest affection — John Thornton and Charlotte Dod. To Thornton he wrote from Bodryddan : — " I often, however, feel my heart sick when I recollect the sacrifices which I must make of friends, such as few, very few, have been blessed with. Yet it is a comfort to me to think that most of them are younger than myself, and that if I live through my fifteen years' service, and should then think myself justified in returning, we may hope to spend the evening of our lives together. But be this as it may, I am persuaded that prayer can traverse land and sea, and not only keep affection alive between absent friends, but send blessings from one to the other. Pray for me, my dear Thornton, that my life and doctrine may be such as they ought to be ; that I may be content in my station, active in my duty, and firm in my faith, and that, when I have preached to others, I may not be myself a castaway. " I wish my prayers were of greater efficacy, but, such as they are, your name is never omitted in them ! God bless you, your Elisa and your children ! Emily sends her best regards. Her conduct has, throughout this affair, been everything which I could wish." Heber's relation to Miss Dod had not long before this been described by himself as "a friendship and correspond- ence sanctioned like ours by the wife of one party and the parents of the other." CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 121 " Shrewsbury, 29//; December 1822. " Dearest Charlotte — Your kind letter has this moment reached me. Every mark of your regard and sympathy is most dehghtful to me, and it, in this instance, gives me the more un- mixed pleasure, because it is not alloyed with so heavy a loss as you naturally apprehended for me. I thank God my dear mother enjoys this winter even more than her usual health. The lady whose death you saw in the newspaper was a resident in York- shire, the widow of a Reginald Heber who was my father's first cousin, and who held for many years the living which Charles Cholmondeley holds now. I almost wonder you have never heard any of us name them, though, to be sure, he has been long dead, and she has been for the last ten years unable to leave her room. Under such circumstances her death had been long looked for as a release rather than an affliction, and the more so, as her memory had quite failed her, and (though she always recognised my brother) when Mary and her husband went to see her last spring, she could not be made to understand who they were. I have myself not seen her since my marriage. Under such cir- cumstances, though so near a connection, and a very good and sensible woman while her faculties remained, you may guess that her death has done little else than excite my gratitude for the preservation of another Mary Heber, who, at nearly the same age, retains unimpaired all her faculties, and I trust may long do so to the comfort of her children. " I did not forget my dear Charlotte yesterday, and with my whole heart I prayed to God to bless her and prosper her here and everlastingly. 1 have not yet been able to write any lines to please myself. My mind has, indeed, within these few days been greatly agitated by a business of much importance to me and mine, which I am not yet at liberty to name to any one, though I was never in more want of friendly counsel. I have much wished to see you, and to hear your opinion, but I was forced to decide for myself When we meet, or perhaps before, I may tell you all. In the meantime I have been much comforted by believing that I had your pure and affectionate prayers. I will, however, send the scrap I have written, but would wish you not to insert it in your book till it has been corrected. — Adieu, dear friend, "R. H." " From Oreton cave, where hollies red Gleam through the ivy overhead ; 122 BISHOP HEBER From Oreton cave, once happy place, The harbour of our swarthy race, Where embers gleamed and kettles hissed, And fowls were found that farmers missed. While the cross housewife cursed the fox For geese eloped and kidnapped cocks. From Oreton cave, where, all alone, She lingers yet beneath the stone, The last survivor of her friends, Her annual spell the gipsy sends. She bids thee think how once she scanned With piercing eye thine infant hand ; How traced the signs amid thy veins Of beauty bright and sighing swains. Of future colonels captive made At ball, and race, and masquerade. And set down fortune in thy debt For coach and six and coronet. What says she now ? Can palmistry With fairer omens greet the eye ? Yes, dearer still the hopes she sends — Long life to Charlotte's dearest friends 1 Herself, life, health, and lasting bloom, And nobler hopes beyond the tomb." " BODRYDDAN, Kjth January 1823. " Dearest Charlotte — I apologised for the shortness of my last letter by telling you that I was engaged in the discussion of an affair of much importance to me and mine. I am now at liberty to tell you, though still in confidence, that my name has been laid before the King for his approbation as the new Bishop of Calcutta. This appointment is one which in my past life I have often fancied I should like, and hoped I should do good in. I, howe\er, in the first instance declined it, both from reluctance to leave my parents and my many dear friends, and still more from the apprehension that the climate would be injurious to the health of my child. This last and greatest fear has been in a considerable degree removed, and the situation, contrai7 to all expectation and probability, having still remained open for my acceptance, I thought it my dut)', after long deliberation, and, I will add, after sincere and hearty prayer, to alter my former determination. I have since been more and more satisfied that I have done well, and it is a comfort to me that all my relations, CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 123 who at first were strongly opposed to my accepting the offer, have in a great degree relaxed their objections. In a worldly point of view, the situation has certainly many inducements ; it has a salary of ^5000, though this is materially lessened by the great expenses of the station, and of India ; at the end of fifteen years I may return with a pension of ^1500, and in the meantime I am to occupy a distinguished rank in the society of an important colony. Still my friends flattered me with the hope of future notice nearer home, and I can say with truth that the question of interest was so nearly balanced that I should never have con- sented thus to banish myself if I had not thought it wrong to decline a great and distinguished opportunity of professional exer- tion for the chance of future good things at home, and for the pleasure of society and friendship. " My departure from England, I hope, will not be till June. I am now going to town for the term at Lincoln's Inn, and return to Hodnet the 14th or i 5th of February to remain till after Easter, so that I shall have the intervening time to take leave. This is, alas ! a mournful word, and my heart feels sad when it recurs to me, but I have the comfort of thinking that most of my dearest friends are younger than myself, and that, if my own life is spared, I may hope to see them again, and pass the evening of my life in their society. I hope, too, and believe that they will not forget me, and that our thoughts and prayers may reach each other though there are oceans and continents between us. For myself, my main anxiety must now be to continue to deserve their good opinion, and to work to the best of my power my Master's will in the strange land to which His providence is sending me. I need not add how great a satisfaction it is to me that Emily fully coin- cides in all my views and partakes in all my feelings. " Pray for me, my kind friend, and let me sometimes hear from you, and continue to believe me, ever your affectionate friend, " Regd. Heeer." " Dearest Charlotte — Your letter has given me more acute pain than any which I have felt since the agitation of this busi- ness. I think of you, good, kind as you are, in affliction, shunning the society of your friends, and all on my account. To think that you suspect me of coldness or insincerity in not sooner telling you my plans, but allowing you to gather the first intimation of them from newspapers, and to join all this to the certainty that 1 am so soon to leave England, and perhaps to leave you for life, under an impression so unfavourable to me, is ver^' hard to be 124 BISHOP HEBER borne. Believe me, my dear friend, when the proposal was first made to me by C. W. Wynn, it was made to me under the pledge of secrecy if I refused it, and for the obvious reason that the person to whom it might next be offered might receive the offer as a greater compliment. I was only permitted to impart it to my wife, my brother, my mother, and father-in-law, and after- wards to a medical man. When, therefore, I declined, I felt myself bound to say no more on the subject, and I know not how the report got wind, unless by the \ anity of some of my friends, who thought it a fine thing for me to refuse a Bishopric, or by the gossiping of some persons connected with the Government. When I changed my mind and determined to accept it, you were among the very first to whom I communicated it. Gladly indeed, while agitated with an.xious doubts, would I have reposed my cares on your friendship, and applied to your kind and sensible and Christian advice in a question which with me, all along, has been mainly one of conscience. You, my beloved friend, doubt my motives being perfectly pure and Christian. Alas ! who can answer for all the self-deceit of his own heart ? Yet I am not conscious of having been swayed by worldly motives more than a man with a wife and child ought to be swayed by them, and I can say with truth that I have prayed most heartily to God for His guidance and support, to show me what was best for His glory and my salvation, and to give me strength to follow it. " The conclusion at which I arrived was that by going to India I should obtain a greater power of doing good than I could reasonably hope for, for many years, if at all, by remaining in England. I regarded myself as a soldier who must march wherever the obvious advantage of the ser\-ice calls him, though he may have better quarters elsewhere and chances of more desirable promotion, and I have by degrees, by arguments of this sort, induced my wife and all my relations, at first adverse, at length to agree in the expediency of my going. As to health I have no fears. Rowlands and Darwin both tell me that my constitution is remarkably adapted for a hot climate, and Emily's nearly the same, while for our child, the worst to be apprehended is that we may be obliged after some years to send her to England for education. After all, who are we that we should decline running a risk which so many others run ? or why should we doubt God's protection in India more than Europe, where so many younger and seemingly stronger are falling round us every day ? On the whole, I have acted for the best ; and if I have acted on mistaken principles, or if vanity or avarice have secretly CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 125 swayed me, I hope God will pardon me, and even turn this error of mine for good. My friends still tell me that in a worldly point of view I might have done better, and even now while writing to you, the pain which I suffer, which makes my throat tight and my eyes swim, convinces me too well that I give up more worldly happiness than I expect to find. Yet in my situation, both at Hodnet and Lincoln's Inn, with my straitened circumstances and expensive habits, I had to look forward to many privations which would have been painful to my feelings and injurious to my character. I felt the increasing risk of living too much in com- pany, of becoming a candidate as a popular preacher for applause or patronage, of dangling after court favour, and perhaps con- forming too much my own opinions to what were fashionable and likely to promote my rise in my profession, in short, in a bad sense of becoming all things to all men. "You yourself, my beloved sister, have cautioned me against this defect in my character, a defect which would naturally in- crease in proportion as my circumstances became worse, my situation more dependent, and my habits of life more conversa- tional. From these temptations I now escape. Where I am going I shall have no further preferment to look for, and though the appointments (for the country) are not very large, I shall have competency and independence. By entirely changing the scene of my life, I shall have an opportunity of the most favourable kind to begin my life anew, and to form my daily conversation and habits after the rules of what I know to be right, but which, among my old familiars, and those whose ridicule I feared, I have been too slow in adopting. These advantages are surely worth buying at the price of some worldly anguish. But this is not all. I hope it is not vanity, but my friends, even while unwilling that I should go to India, have told me that I am better qualified than most men to do good there, and I have some reasons for myself thinking so. I am moderately quick at learning languages, and hope to master the Persian and Hindostani so as soon to be able occasionally to preach to the heathen. I know a good deal of Eastern manners and history, so that I should not be quite in a strange country. I am (what not many clergymen at this moment are) on good terms with and well thought of both by the Evangelicals and High Churchmen, and can, therefore, advan- tageously correspond with the missionary societies connected with either party, and perhaps prevent the jealousies of both from interfering with the success of their labours. I am strong and healthy and can bear the sea, circumstances very desirable to a 126 BISHOP HEBER bishop, a great part of whose time must be passed in voyages and long journeys, since all India, Ceylon, and Pulo Penang are in my diocese, and it is my intention to visit the greater part of the different ecclesiastical stations every year. I may add (what, however, I must beg you to keep a strict secret) that the Govern- ment and Directors are much pleased with my accepting the appointment, and have given me a strong proof of their confidence by giving me a patent with more ample authority than bishops usually receive under the like circumstances ; and that I shall be in close and immediate correspondence with persons to whom I may possibly give information of great advantage to the happiness of millions. " Should I, under these circumstances, have been justified in remaining at home, and in the performance of duties which, important as they certainly are, are far more limited and more easy to be supplied ? Still it may be vanity and ambition which draws me out, but it is not, believe me, it is not any insensibility to the happiness and friendship I leave behind. So far as con- cerns ourselves, your portrait (would that it resembled you more !), your hair, and purse shall be my companions. Your letters, which after we leave England no eye but my own shall see, will be my most welcome visitors ; in my morning and evening prayers your name shall never be omitted, and we are neither of us of an age to forbid the reasonable hope of enjoying each other's friendship for many years after my return. " But, dear, dear sister, if you have any regard for my peace of mind, if you have any sympathy for my present regret and anxiety, be careful of your health ; look on the bright side of things ; continue to love me and to think well of me ; make me happy by enabling me to believe that you are returned to the society of your family, to the duties and amusements of your station ; let us meet, as we shall (I trust) meet in about three weeks' time, with smiling countenances, and part, not as for ever and without hope, but with prayer, with courage, and Christian cheerfulness. " I will write again next week to tell you how my sermon goes off, and to communicate any particulars which I may have learned concerning my time of leaving England, my consecration, and other circumstances of the appointment. I am to dine at C. W. Wynn's to-morrow, to be introduced to Lord Amherst and a large party of Indian Directors, from whom I hope to obtain much useful information. Do not think that I shall forget the Bow-meeting song, though I shall write it with a heavy heart. CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 127 Yet, if it were not for the friends I leave behind, I should sail for India gaily. As it is, I shall think of some of the lines in my own 'outward-bound ship.' But there is another and a better world, and the more we fix our attentions on that, the better we shall be able to bear what we meet with and what we forego in the present world. Adieu, dear Charlotte, for the present. To those who love God no adieu can be eternal. Give my best regards to your excellent father, mother, and sisters. Two years ago, alas ! I should have cheered myself in this voyage with the thought of being useful to you all, and bearing letters and mes- sages to poor Anthony.i Heaven has determined differently. I am sorry to hear R. S. has been unwell. I will see him, however, if he is to be seen ; the necessity of returning his book is a suffi- cient excuse. " Have I tired you with my long letter ? I think not, for you (I know full well) are really interested in my fate. God bless you, dear Charlotte. May He grant us to meet again in happiness in this world, if it is His blessed will ; if not, in the world where sorrow shall never disturb our repose, through His Son, our Lord Jesus. R. H." The four months of that spring and early summer proved all too short for the farewells, the honours, and the duties, public and private, that he had to face, and for the solemn service of consecration. To one college friend he said : " P'or England and the scenes of my earliest and dearest recollections, I know no better farewell than that of Philoctetes." The passage - is that in which the suffering hero bids farewell to the sea-girt plain of Lemnos, and prays that he may be wafted safely, with fair voyage, to the city whither, with the counsel of friends, he was being led by Almighty God. Heber could not then imagine a subtler meaning in the beautiful words, for, as Troy could not fall without Philoctetes, the brief career and sudden death of the Bishop were to have their appointed place in the conversion of India. The University of Oxford conferred on him by diploma the ^ Probably A. Dod, see Ormerod. ^ Xaip', d Kriixvov iriSov d/j.(pia\oi', "EkS' t) ixeydX-q Moipa KO/xl^ei Vvuifiri re , x'^ wavSaixarup Aal/j-ay, 8s raCr' iiriKpavev. ;28 BISHOP HEBER degree of Doctor of Divinity. The Fellows of All Souls desired him to sit for that portrait of the Bishop which adorns their hall. He had to preach in St. Mary's, to complete his term in Lincoln's Inn, to preach in St. Paul's, London, and to preach not only in Hodnet but in Malpas. Next to the Bishop of Oxford the first whom he informed of his appoint- ment was the parish clerk of Hodnet, through whom he ordered a distribution of coals to the poor during the severe weather of February. The inhabitants of the parish com- bined, high and low, to present their beloved Rector with a piece of plate, " with the hope that it may remind him in a far-distant land of those who will never cease to think of his virtues with affection and of his loss with regret." The pre- sentation of this memorial followed his farewell sermon in the church where he had ministered for sixteen years. Not less trying was his visit to the place of his birth, and his adieux to friends like Mrs. Dod of Edge, who sent him forth with this blessing : — "Well, Reginald (for I never can call you 'my Lord'), God be with you wherever you go. You have done much good at home, and if you ever effect half what you purpose for India, your name will be venerated there to the end of time. I owe you much, and you will always have my prayers for your welfare." He entered the pulpit of his father's church at Malpas for the first and last time when he preached to the people who had known him in childhood and youth the most solemn of all his exhortations — that on Time and Eternity — which he was to preach again in Madras just before his own end : IVe look not at the things which are seen, hut at the things which are not seen : for the things which are seen are temporal ; but the things which are not seen are etei'tial (2 Cor. iv. 18). Like Charlotte Dod, there was another of his chosen dis- ciples and friends whose heart was torn at the approaching parting.i Maria Leycester thus committed to her journal her searchings of heart : — ^ Augustus J. C. Hare writes of her at this time (vol. i. p. 45): "The blow was incomparably most severe to Maria Leycester, who for many years had been like a sister to him, and who had derived her chief home-pleasures from his society and that of Mrs. Heber." CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST Fcliruaiy 1S23. "The extreme suffering I felt on first hearing of the intended departure of the Hebers for India has now passed. Those vividly painful feelings seldom continue long in the same form when the necessity for exertion, variety of society, and change of place call upon the mind for fresh thoughts. But though the immediate shock is over, and my mind is by time habituated to the idea, so that I can now think and write of it calmly, it is no less a source of the deepest sorrow to me. Nor is it merely in the pain of parting with such friends that I shall feel it. It will be in the daily loss I shall experience of kind and affectionate neighbours, of an interest always kept up, of the greatest part of my home enjoyments. " I had so little foreseen, at any time, the possibility of this event, that I was totally unprepared for it, and although now it appears quite natural that Reginald, who is so peculiarly fitted for the situation, should wish for it, I could hardly at first believe it to be possible. . . . The remembrance of the last two years rises up before me so much the more endeared from the thought that those happy days will never again return. There is nothing out of my own family which could have made so great a blank in my existence as this will do. For so many years have they been to me as brother and sister, giving to me so much pleasure, so much improvement. It will be the breaking up of my thoughts and habits and affections for years, and scarcely can I bear to think that in a few months those whom I have loved so dearly will be removed from me far into another world — for such does India appear at this distance." "Zm April 1823. " So much has one feeling occupied every thought for the last two months, that it seems but a day since I wrote the last few lines — with this only difference, that the reality is so much more bitter than the anticipation, and that the certainty of my loss is now brought back to me by the knowledge that I shall never see them again, here or at Hodnet. The chord is snapped asunder, and I feel in its full force the effect it must have on my future happiness. I look around in vain for a bright spot to which to turn. All that I valued most, out of my own family, will be at once taken from me, and it will leave a blank that cannot be filled. To find a friend like Reginald, with a heart so kind, so tender, and a character so heavenly, must be utterly impossible, K BISHOP HEBER and the remembrance of all the interest he has shown in me, and all his kindness, makes the feeling of his loss very diflficult to bear." . . . " 1st August 1823. " This evening I have, for the first time, ventured to go by Hodnet. It must be done, and it was better alone than with others. So, having dined early, I took a long ride — one of our old rides which I have so often taken with him. There stood the poor deserted Rectory, with its flowers and its fields — the green gate, which I have so seldom passed before unopened, all looking exactly the same as in days of happiness, and now how changed from their former merriment to solitude and silence ! Those beautiful park-fields where I have so often walked, and where I shall never walk again, lay shining in the evening sun, looking most tranquil and peaceful, as if in a world so beautiful unhappiness could not be found. Scarcely could I believe, as I looked around me, that all were gone with whom I had enjoyed so many happy days there, and that those same trees and fields were alone remaining to speak to me of the past, every step recalling to me some word or look. As I rode along, recollections crowded on me so fast that I felt hardly conscious of the present and its gloom, in living over again a period of such happiness." . . . Maria Leycester had then betrothed herself to Mr. Martin Stow at Hodnet, and he had returned to his Genoa chaplaincy. Heber's appointment to India seemed the death-knell of her hope, for it was through the Hebers they had met. On their return to Hodnet for the final farewell every visit of Maria Leycester became more and more melancholy : — " The whole of Passion Week was spent by them at Stoke Rectory, and they were then accompanied by Mrs. Heber's favourite cousin, Augustus Hare, with whom Maria Leycester had become intimately acquainted during his many visits at Hodnet, and who was also the dearest friend of Mr. Stow. It was a party that in happier times would have been delightful, but it was now filled with too bitter recollections and anticipations. The spirits, however, in which Reginald Heber spoke and thought of this new sphere opened to him did much to turn their thoughts towards the interests and occupations of his future life. Each day was employed in walks to Hodnet Rectory, which looked more CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 131 and more deserted as it was gradually emptied of all its contents, and little left but the bare walls of the rooms which had been the scene of so much enjoyment. On Easter Sunday the whole party went to Hodnet Church, where Reginald Heber preached a beautiful and deeply affecting farewell sermon, in which he expressed his anxiety to partake with his friends for the last time of the Holy Sacrament, which he afterwards administered to them, ' as strengthening that feeling in which alone they would in future be united, till the East and West should alike be gathered as one fold under one Shepherd.' On the following day the Hebers left Stoke. Maria Leycester walked up with them to Hodnet for the last time, and through life remembered the kind- ness of Reginald Heber during that walk — the affectionate manner in which he tried to soothe her grief at parting with them, and to talk of future happy times — the assurances he gave her that amidst the new interests of India he should often turn to former friends and think of the days they had passed together — and that they should still ever be united in prayer. The whole warmtli of his heart was shown in those last moments, till they parted, when he and Mrs. Heber turned in at the gates of Hodnet Hall. "As Maria Leycester returned to Stoke across Hodnet Heath, Augustus Hare walked with her, and his brother-like sympathy and affection gave her great comfort, and inspired her with the utmost confidence, especially as he alone, except the Hebers, was acquainted with all the circumstances of her relation to Mr. Stow. He spent the rest of that day at Stoke, while waiting for the coach which was to pass in the evening. " Meantime, Bishop Heber had made the offer of his Indian chaplaincy to Mr. Stow, who gladly accepted it, in the hope that Miss Leycester might consent to accompany him, and that her family, in the knowledge that she would in this case remain with the Hebers and form part of their family circle, might be induced to assent to their marriage. But these hopes proved entirely fruitless ; and when Maria Leycester accompanied the Stanleys to London to see the last of the Hebers, she had an interview with Mr. Stow at Lincoln's Inn, which she quite believed to be a final one." How that tragedy ended at Dacca we shall see. It was on the 22nd April 1823 that Reginald Heber, looking back from the uplands of Newport, as he passed from Shropshire to Stafford, gazed on Hodnet for the last time. •32 BISHOP HEBER His feelings burst forth unrestrained, writes his wife, and he uttered the words which proved prophetic, that he should return to it no more. To Oxford many a contemporary and friend came up to bid him God speed, and from the delights of All Souls he went forth grateful and humbled by the love of his fellows. On the i8th May he closed his lectureship at Lincoln's Inn with a discourse of rapt eloquence and reason- ableness on the Atonement, the leading peculiarity of our religion, " its corner-stone and master-key, the vicarious and expiatory nature of the Christian sacrifice" — Ye are dead, and your life is hid with C/irist in God} 'With exquisite art and reverence he closed with an illustration meant to convey his farewell to his friends : — " Even in this world we may often die ; and whosoever finds occasion to tear himself from the friends of his earliest love and the scenes of his happiest recollections, will have experienced some of the worst and bitterest pangs by which our final dissolu- tion can be accompanied. But it is in the power of us all so to fill up the measure of our pilgrimage in this world as that the separation which we so much dread, whenever it comes, can never be eternal ; but our parting with our friends may be the prelude to a happier and more enduring friendship in those regions where love is unalloyed and truth unsuspected, and where we shall reap their blessed harvest I " As the great congregation passed out into the square, Mr. Butterworth, a leading \Vesleyan Methodist, exclaimed to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland : — " ' Oh sir, thank God for that man ! Thank God for that man ! ' Considering Mr. Butterworth's station and influence among the Wesleyan methodists, and almost the whole body of India missionaries not directly connected with the establishment, I felt at once all the value of such an impression upon his mind, both as to the disposition with which the Bishop would be met by these bodies on his arrival in India, and the effect which it was clear his intercourse with them would produce." So Acland wrote to Mrs. Heber. The last six weeks in London were spent in engrossing ' See his Sermons Preached in England (John Murray), 1829. CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 33 duties " between the India House, Lambeth, the Board of Controul, and the different Societies for Propagating the Gospel." On Sunday, ist June, the second Bishop of Calcutta was consecrated in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, as his pre- decessor had been — not in Westminster Abbey, or St. Paul's, or Canterbury Cathedral, but as if the Church of England were doing a deed of which the Empire was ashamed or afraid. In Middleton's case, nine years before, the Arch- bishop of Canterbury would not allow ^ the publication of the consecration sermon by Dr. Rennell, Dean of Winchester. We fortunately have Heber's own account of the consecration in a letter to Miss Dod : — "Lincoln's Inn, Thursday, Zth June 1823 " My dear Charlotte has indeed greatly mistaken the cause of my silence when she attributes it to anything like an unkind feeling towards her. The truth is that I have been more busy than I can say with learning Hindostani, with the daily and homely engagements of packing up, receiving deputations, attend- ing committees, making calls on friends and at public offices, and, above all, in preparing a sermon for the benefit of the London Charity School, to be preached in St. Paul's to-day, and afterwards to be printed with the Annual Report of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. That is now over, and I seize the first moment to write what still must be a short and hasty letter to one whose friendship I most sincei-ely value, and whose kind recollec- tions I always hope, however far removed from her, to retain. " The ceremony of my consecration was, as you may well believe, a very awful and impressive one. Few persons were admitted to see it, but the Archbishop kindly invited my brother, and Mrs. Manners .Sutton asked Emily, with leave to bring two friends, who were Mrs. Williams Wynn and Mrs. Thornton. The Archbishop read the service beautifully, and I was much affected. God grant that the feelings so excited may be permanent ! When you read what I then undertook, by His help, to observe and do, you will not wonder that I was agitated. The Saturday following I had a private audience of the King (he not being well enough to hold a levee), and kissed hands as usual. On this occasion I was neither bustled nor shy ; but, as I had not seen him even in public ' Life of Bishop Middleton, by Trofossor C. Webb le Bas, M.A., vol. i. p. 52 (Rivingtons, 1831). 134 BISHOP HEBER for many years, I looked at him as attentively as I could do with- out incivility or disrespect to see whether he answered the idea which I had formed. I do not think he did. I expected an older and more infirm man. He was lame indeed, with his feet in flannels, but his countenance healthy, his way of sitting up extremely upright, his voice loud and firm, and altogether look- ing like a hale man of eight-and-forty. Yet, at this very moment, the newspapers of London were spreading a story of his being at the point of death. " Since that time I have had nothing grand or gaudy till yester- day, when I dined with the East India Directors at a monstrous table covered with turtle and French wines, and was obliged, against my will, to make a speech to thank them for their kindness in giving me a house and shortening my term of resi- dence. To-day I preached at St. Paul's. This last has been, beyond a doubt, the finest sight and sound I ever saw or heard. The dome and broad aisle of the church was crowded with well- dressed folks (no fewer than 7000 in number, as one of the stewards informed me) ; an immense orchestra in front of the organ filled with the choir singers (the best Protestant singers in London) in surplices, and above 5000 boys and girls ranged in an amphitheatre all round, in uniform dresses, and packed so close, and ranged on so steep a declivity, that the whole looked like a tapestry of faces and clothes. Whenever they sat down or stood up the rustle was actually like very distant thunder. And their singing ! I never felt anything of the kind so strangely and awfully impressive. It was not like singing, but like the sound of winds, waters, birds, and instrumental music all blended ; and yet one distinguished the words, with the exception of the corona- tion anthem, in which their Hallelujah was very magnificent. The Psalms selected were the most simple that could be fixed on — the 1 00th, the I 13th, and the 104th ; and in this last every line told. I had nearly got into a sad scrape, the person who was to send my lawn sleeves, etc., having made a mistake, and sent a common clergyman's gown. I did not find it out till I went to robe, but hurried immediately to the tailor, and luckily succeeded in getting my things just in time. The pulpit was ill contrived, and the sounding-board too low. I gave up all hope of being heard by more than those immediately round me, but exerted my voice as much as I could, and succeeded better than I expected. " I am now at home again, but have not yet got through the fatigues of the day, being still sitting in my gown and cassock expecting the carriage to take me back into the city to a monstrous CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST 135 tavern dinner with the Lord Mayor and the wise Duke of Glo'ster. To-morrow I am to receive a farewell address from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. ... I have been by no means well, but the completion of my work to-day has taken a load from my mind, and I am five times the man I was yesterday. I shall send the song 1 to Newcome. I have a book to send you, but will not keep this letter back any longer. God Almighty bless, preserve, and prosper you ! Give my kindest love to your mother, sister, and father. Wherever I go I shall never cease to think of you all with sincere gratitude and affection. Adieu ! dearest Charlotte, and do not quite forget your affectionate friend, " Rf.ginald Calcutta." To the valedictory address of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which was delivered by the Bishop of Bristol, Bishop Heber replied in the fulness of his heart in a way thus described by Sir Robert Harry Inglis, who accompanied him : — " I was therefore equally delighted and surprised to hear him speak, though with feelings justly and naturally excited, with a com- mand of language, and with a fulness and freedom of thought, and at the same time a caution which became one addressing such a Society at such a time, when every word would be watched in India as well as in England. We shall long remember the sensation which he produced when he declared that his last hope would be to be the chief missionary of the Society in the East, and the emotion with which we all knelt down at the close, sorrowing most of all that we should see his face no more." To his mother and sister he sent this letter : — "... I think and hope I am going on God's service. I am not conscious of any unworthy or secular ends, and I hope for His blessing and protection both for myself and for those dear persons who accompany me and whom I leave behind. God Almighty bless and prosper you, my beloved mother. May He comfort and support your age, and teach you to seek always for comfort, where it may be found, in His health and salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord ! " Bless you, dear, dear Mary — you and your worthy husband.- ' The second " Song of the Bow." The Rev. Charles Cowper Cholmondeley, his successor at Hodnet. 36 BISHOP HEBER May He make you happy in your children and in each other, in time and in eternity 1 " I know we have all your prayers, as you have ours. Believe me that we shall be, I hope, useful, and if useful, happy where we are going ; and we trust in God's good providence for bringing us again together in peace, when a few short years are ended, in this world, if He sees it good for us ; if not, yet in that world where there shall be no parting nor sorrow any more, but God shall wipe away all tears from all eyes, and we shall rejoin cur dear father and the precious babe whom God has called to Him- self before us ! " So, on i6th June 1823, there went forth the chief missionary of the Church of England to the East. CHAPTER VII INDIA AND THE VOYAGE IN 1 823 In the flower of his life and the fulness of his powers, at the age of forty, Reginald Heber went out to India. The time was propitious ; the men who guided the policy and administration of the East were the ablest and most up- right who have ever adorned the service of the East India Company. There was one exception. A new Governor- General had been appointed about the same time, and had sailed for Calcutta only three months before Heber. By a series of unfortunate accidents, the selection had fallen on Lord Amherst. The fact that he had borne with patience the indignities which the Peking Mandarins had cast on the British Ambassador, was considered a better title to the office of Governor-General than the Madras services of Lord William Bentinck, who had to wait for some years longer. More unfortunate still was the political event which, at the last moment, prevented George Canning from taking up the appointment on the resignation of the Marquess of Hastings. On his way down to Liverpool to bid his constituents farewell before embarking — and to be the guest, as usual, at Seaforth House, of the father of Mr. ^V. E. Gladstone, then eighteen years of age and his devoted admirer — the Governor-General designate was informed of the suicide of Lord Castlereagh, then Marquis of Londonderry. Lord Liverpool refused to carry on the Government without the help of Canning as Foreign Secretary, and that brilliant statesman never saw India, which his son was to govern as the Queen's first Viceroy after the Mutiny. 3S BISHOP HEBER The genius and the detailed experience of George Canning, gained as President of the Board of Control, would have worthily crowned the administration of Lord Hastings. For the ten years after the new and more liberal charter of 1813 had been conceded that Governor-General had ruled the East in the imperial spirit of Warren Hastings and the Marquess Wellesley. After victories of peace no less than of war, of public works and education as well as over Goorkhas, Marathas, and Pindarees, Lord Hastings consolidated the Empire of India proper, and left ten millions sterling in the treasury, with an annual surplus revenue of two millions. In the same period Bishop Middleton had been laboriously organising the new diocese. Had George Canning entered on the one high office at the same time as Reginald Heber was consecrated to the other, the history of India must have been differently guided. What a group of wise and cautious, as well as brilliant and suc- cessful administrators and soldiers India had ! Mountstuart Elphinstone was governing Bombay; Sir Thomas Munro was revolutionising the land system of Madras ; Metcalfe and Malcolm were in the vigour of their powers ; and Heber's con- nection. Lord Combermere, was soon to be Commander-in-Chief. Yet, because at the head of them all there was Lord Amherst, a very ordinary English gentleman, without experience or will, the war in Burma was so conducted as to empty the treasury, add to the debt, and arrest all that progress for which Lord Hastings had made the time ripe. Even if Lord William Bentinck had relieved Lord Hastings when the latter vacated Government House, Calcutta, on the first day of the year 1823, the war with Burma must have been brought to a rapid con- clusion, and have paid its way by the inclusion of fertile Pegu, instead of or along with Tenasserim, in the British Empire, as Munro desired ; and Hindoo widows would not have continued to be sacrificed on the funeral pile as they were for seven years more. The East India Company's Charter of 1813, by which Parliament had forced on the Directors the bare toleration of Christianity and the supply of Anglican and Presbyterian services for its own servants, began to bear missionary fruit for the highest good of the natives in the year 18 16. Then Corrie settled Mr. Bowley in Chunar, committing to him the INDIA AND THE VOYAGE IN 1823 139 revision of Henry Martyn's Hindostani version of tlie New Testament. Then the first two clergymen of the Church of England who had gone forth as missionaries landed in India, Rev. William Greenwood at the Kidderpore suburb of Calcutta, which he soon left for the European military invalids at Chunar, and Mr. Norton at Travankor. Then Lieutenant Stewart founded the Burdwan Mission of the Church Mission- ary Society, and then the Basel Missionary Seminary was established, afterwards supplying that Society with at least eighty Lutheran agents. This the Berlin Seminary had previously done. Two years before, the able German Rhenius had been sent to Madras, and in 1820 he began the fruitful Tinnevelli Mission, and the Bombay Mission was begun, following that of Benares in 181 7 and Ceylon in 181 8. In 1822 Miss Cooke, who became the wife of Mr. Wilson of the Church Missionary Society, opened the first school for native girls in Calcutta. It was in 182 1 that the older Society for the Propagation of the Gospel saw its first English missionaries to India land there for Bishop's College — the two Cambridge men, W. H. Mill of Trinity and J. H. Alt of Pembroke Hall. But up to 1823 no ordained missionary of the Church of England was at work teaching or preaching to its peoples in their own tongue, and no native convert had been Episcopally ordained. Unsupported by missionary brethren, for whom they called to England in vain, the five evangelical chaplains alone had cared for the spiritual good of the Hindoos and Musalmans. David Brown, Claudius Buchanan, and Henry Martyn, above all, had been true to their Master's call, and had passed away. Corrie and Thomason were still about the Father's business, wearing the mantle of the young prophet who, after flashing through North India, Arabia, and Persia, had disappeared at Tokat. Corrie indeed had been the only practical bishop worthy of the name in all India till Heber delivered his charge. Thomas Thomason, while influencing Lord Hastings, who com- missioned him to draw up a system of public instruction for the natives,! which it fell to Lord AVilliam Bentinck, Macaulay, and Duff to inaugurate on broader lines after the next charter o*^ i'^33> g^ve himself to the organisation of the Church ' Sir Richard Temple's James Thomason, the Chaplain's son, p. 29 (Oxford 1893). BISHOP HEIiER Missionary Society, of which he became the local Secretary in 1817. He wrote : "We have begun our missionary opera- tions in print ; for the first time two of our highest civilians show their faces to the Indian public in connection with a professedly missionary institution. We have established a monthly missionary prayer meeting at my church. Missionary communications are read, and prayer is offered up for mission- ary prosperity. Ten years ago such an event would have thrown the settlement into an uproar." " Send us labourers, faithful and labarious labourers," he cried, as Charles Grant and George Udny had done a generation before. In and around Calcutta itself there were only six native converts^ belonging to the Church of England in 1823, when Rev. J. Wilson was joined by Rev. M. Wilkinson, whose Sketches of Christianity in North India is an almost contem- porary authority of great value, for it was revised by Bishop Corrie.^ " I am ashamed of both our Universities," Wilkinson wrote. " They have given us bishops, but not one missionary.^ AVhat is wanting is men — that precious commodity — who shall be wholly devoted to the work. Meanwhile, our Dissenting brethren are accumulating around us. At this time we had ten Dissenting ministers of different kinds constantly labouring in Calcutta ; their presses are at work, their legs, their lungs, all are engaged in the great and good cause." Since 181 3 Calcutta had been as openly a centre of William Carey's work as Danish Serampore itself The Serampore Brotherhood alone had at this time ten stations manned by twenty-five 1 See p. 233 of Wilkinson's Sketches. - See also Long's Hand-Book of Bengal Missions in connection with the Church of England (1848). 3 In his interesting sketches of the early history of the Church Missionary Society in \X.i Intelligencer, May 1895, 'he Rev. Charles Hole, B.A. , quotes the famous sermon, in 1813, of the Rev. William Dealtry, F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was the friend of Charles Grant, and tutor of his sons. Although the bishops still held aloof, and the first dignitary of the Church to join the Society was Dean Ryder of ^\'ells in that year, and although "missionaries had to be fetched from the Seminary of Berlin," Dealtry prophesied that which the deaths of Martyn and Heber brought about — " .\ new race of missionaries shall enter into the labours of those who have been called to their eternal reward, and, v\ hilst they reflect honour on our own Church, will confer benefit upon the universal Church of God." INDIA AND THE VOYAGE IN 1823 141 European and Asiatic missionaries.^ The Baptist Society of London had five stations with twelve such agents. The London Missionary Society was represented at Chinsurah by Mr. May, whose primary schools had formed a model for Thoniason and Stewart. How generously the new Bishop bore himself to such predecessors in the greatest of all con- flicts, as Henry Martyn had done, we shall see. Such was the relation of the Church of Christ in England to the non-Christian peoples of India and the East, of Africa and Australasia also, when Reginald Heber, after an almost secret consecration service in Lambeth Chapel, went forth as their " chief missionary." Under a salute, however, the second Bishop of Calcutta joined the Thomas Granville, East India- man, Captain Manning, on the i6th day of June 1823, at the mouth of the Thames. At this point that Indian Journal begins which his widow dedicated in 1827 to the Right Hon. C. Watkin Williams Wynn, M.P., President of the Board of Control, and Mr. Murray published under this title, Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, front Calcutta to Bombay, 182 4- 1825 {with Notes upon Ceylon) ; an Account of a Journey to Madras and the Southern Provinces, 1826; and Letters Written in India. The work has ever since kept its place in English literature as the most popular - book on India in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. It is at once a picture of the peninsula and an autobiography of the writer, written for his wife during their long enforced separation, but lacking the personal self- revealing which gives autobiography its charm and value. To some extent we are enabled to supply that from his letters to Charlotte Dod :— " Ar Sea, Lai. 14. i A^orlh, Zw;^ 27.40 West, 12/h fitly 1823. "My dear Charlotte — I sent you a short and hurried letter by an English vessel which passed us off Cape Finisterre, which will, I trust, have long since informed you of our prosperous > Tfu: Life of William Carey, D.D. (2nd. ed., 1887, John Murray), P- 345- 2 Mr. John Murray has published a cheap edition at 3s. 6d. in 2 vols, in his "Colonial and Home Library." The last of many editions is dated 1873- 42 BISHOP HEBER voyage down to the 24th of June. Since that time, and, in- deed, since our first embarkation, we have had no other occur- rences than usually distinguish a hfe at sea. We have had no positive storm, but some very rough weather, some fair breezes, and some contrary winds, and some cahns, accompanied with a heavy ground swell, little less annoying to raw navigators than the severest storm. On the whole, however, thank God, our progress has been auspicious, and it is no inconsiderable satisfac- tion to one of whose future life so much is, like mine, to be passed at sea, to find that nothing which we have yet encountered has made me sick or uncomfortable for more than a few minutes. For poor Emily I cannot say so much. Her first fortnight was one of almost unmingled suffering, and still she feels most painfully every increased agitation of the ship. ... I hope that in future voyages she will be able to enjoy the fresh breeze and rapid motion as much as she used to do. Our little girl continues well and happy, and is the pet of everybody on board, particularly of your cousin Mr. Chester, for whom her fondness is little inferior to that which she shows for me. " Our life is sufficiently uniform, but to me (though sad thoughts of all we have left behind will sometimes intervene, and the sight of a vessel bound to London which passed us a week ago brought tears into the eyes of more than one of our party) it is neither idle nor unpleasant. I rise between si.\ and seven. The men all assemble to breakfast in the common cabin at half-past eight. After breakfast and reading the Psalms and Lessons to Emily, I write my journal or prepare my Hindostani or Persian lessons till twelve, from which time till half-past two we are construing, etc., with one of the cadets, a very clever lad, who was introduced to us by Dr. Gilchrist in London, and who both there and during our voyage has performed the part of our tutor. At three we sit down, closely wedged, to dinner, and after a plentiful and hand- some, though not very elegantly dressed meal, walk on deck till tea-time (six). Tea is followed by prayers, which I found not the least difficulty in introducing, and the rest of the evening is passed on deck and in conversation, either walking or seated, till about half-past nine, when Captain Manning hints to us that it is bed-time. " On Sundays, when the weather allows, the quarter-deck is covered with an awning and adorned with flags, with chairs for the passengers, and capstern bars to serve as seats for the crew, so as to make really a very handsome church, in which I have now twice read prayers and preached two of my Hodnet sermons INDIA AND THE VOYAGE IN 1823 143 to a very attentive and orderly congregation of passengers and crew — altogether about 150 persons. With these pursuits and occupations you will easily believe that I have not experienced much of that burden of unoccupied time of which many people complain on shipboard. Indeed, I have rather reason to com- plain that my Oriental studies and the frequent recurrence of meals leave me sadly too little time for general reading, or for several schemes (such as preparing my hymns for the press) which I had in some measure calculated on executing during the outward passage. One main deficiency is exercise^ for which the mere pacing the deck a few times in the day is but an insufficient substitute. I take as much of this, however, as I can, and I believe that even the motion and progress of the vessel is, in itself, a gentle and continual exercise, sufficient, or nearly so, to preserve the health of a temperate man. I have of late, indeed, once or twice ventured to fence with one of the cadets ; but, as this may be objected to as not altogether an Episcopal amuse- ment, I do not care to do it too often or too long together. " In other respects the animal enjoyment of a voyage is certainly considerable, so far as fine air, keen appetite, the enjoyment of perfect health, and the sight of many unusual and interesting objects can make a man happy. Of land, indeed, we have seen nothing but a distant glimpse of Madeira ; but our climate, though decidedly tropical, is neither oppressive nor enervating ; and the sea and sky around us offers much on which I can gaze with pleasure. The clearness of the air is great, and we are now beginning to look on to the sight of the constellations of the southern hemisphere, more particularly the brilliant ' cross ' of which we have heard so much, and with which in my mind a sort of romantic interest has always been mingled. We have had visits from grampuses, sharks, and whales, and shoals or flights (call them which you will) of flying fish are continually skimming round us, the sun shining from their white and blue scales, and at a distance and at first sight not unlike flocks of swallows. What has most struck me, however, is the deep and beautiful blue of the sea, so unlike the cold green glass which girds in the shores of Wales and Cheshire. This, where the breeze curls it, is like lapis-lazuli streaked with silver, and in the vessel's wake, when agitated by the motion of the rudder, it assumed all tints, from light green to the glossy purple of a peacock's neck. And by night (though the night falls but too fast in these latitudes, and we have none of that delicious twilight, that blending of evening and day, which is so great a charm in dear England) yet it is as '44 BISHOP HEBER glorious to remark the phosphoric tinge on every wave, and to enjoy the dewless and cloudless serenity of the sky and moon. Such skies we have looked on for the last two or three evenings, and such nights certainly are not the less enjoyed by the help of" (remainder missing). Thirty years had passed since the Kron Princcssa Maria from Copenhagen had taken Carey to Serampore. " \%th July 1823. " A sail was seen ahead, steering the same course with ourselves. On nearing her she showed Danish colours. Captain Manning expressed some little surprise at this meeting. The Danish flag, he said, was almost unknown in India, whither, apparently, this vessel was bound. The Danes have, indeed, a nominal factory and a consul at Serampore ; but what little commerce is carried on is in the ships of other nations. In the harbour of Calcutta (and no large vessels mount so high as Serampore) he had never seen the Danish flag. This seems strange, considering how long the Danes have been in possession not only of Serampore, but of Tranquebar." " 20/// July 1823. " I began to-day translating St. John's gospel into Hindo- stani." '•28M July 1823. " We have now been six weeks on board. How little did I dream, at this time last year, that I should ever be in my present situation ! How strange it now seems to recollect the interest which I used to take in all which related to Southern seas and distant regions, to India and its oceans, to Australasia and Polynesia ! I used to fancy I should like to visit them, but that I ever should be able to do so never occurred to me. Now that I shall see many of these countries, if life is spared to me, seems not improbable. God grant that my conduct in the scenes to which He has appointed me may be such as to conduce to His glory, and to my own sah ation through his Son ! " In a letter to the Right Hon. R. J. Wilmot Horton, he distinctly contemplated that he might " carry my Australasian visitations into effect." INDIA AND THE VOYAGE IN 1823 145 " 10//1 August 1823. " This morning the wind became again moderate, and I finished and preached my sermon, and afterwards administered the sacrament to about twenty-six or twenty-seven persons, in- cluding all the ladies on board, the captain, and the greater part of the under officers and male passengers, but, alas ! only three seamen. This last result disappointed me, since I had hoped, from their attention to my sermons, and the general decency of their conduct and appearance, that more would have attended. Vet, when I consider how great difficulty I have always found in bringing men of the same age and rank to the sacrament at Hodnet, perhaps I have no reason to be surprised. On talk- ing with one of the under officers in the evening, he told me that more would have staid if they had not felt shy, and been afraid of exciting the ridicule of their companions. The same feeling, I find, kept one at least, and perhaps more, of the young cadets and writers away, though of these there were only two or three absentees, the large majority joining in the ceremony with a seriousness which greatly pleased and impressed me. And the same may be said of all the midshipmen who were old enough to receive it. One of the young cadets expressed his regret to me that he had not been confirmed, but hoped that I should gi\ e him an opportunity soon after our arrival at Calcutta. On the whole, the result of the experiment (for such it was considered) has been most satisfactory ; and I ought to be, and I hope am, very grateful for the attention which I receive, and the opportuni- ties of doing good which seem to be held out to me. ... Of the young men who did attend, I was happy to observe that they had all religious books in their hands in the course of the even- ing, and that they appeared, indeed, much impressed. How different is the treatment which I meet with in the exercise of my duties on shipboard from that of which Martyn complains ! A great change, indeed, as everybody tells me, has, since his time, occurred in the system of a sea life. Most commanders of vessels are now anxious to keep up, at least, the appearance of religion among their men." " August 1823. " I had the happiness of hearing, for the first time, my dear little Emily repeat a part of the Lord's Prayer, which her mother has been, for some days past, engaged in teaching her. May He, who ' from the mouth of babes and sucklings ' can bring forth L [46 BISHOP HEBER His praise, inspire her heart with everything pure and holy, and grant her grace betimes, both to understand and love His name ! To his old curate, J. J. Blunt, he confessed, in a letter, that at forty, and with many other cares on the mind, he found it a harder task to learn a new language than in the days of his French, German, and Italian experiences. But he cheerfully encountered the daily tedium, relieving it by philological speculations, and by verse translations or paraphrases of the Lessons, so that when he entered on his episcopal duties he was able at once to conduct the Hindostani service, a course in which he was followed long after by Bishops Cotton and Milman. Among the passengers he found a destitute servant who had been in Persia with Sir Gore Ouseley, and was returning to India. With his usual kindliness, the Bishop en- gaged him, though warned against the man : — "The condition of a converted native is, too often, a very tr^'ing one, shunned by his own countrymen, and discounten- anced and distrusted by the Europeans ; while many of them are disposed to fling themselves entirely on the charity of their con- veners, and expect, without doing anything for themselves, that they who have baptized should keep them. Such may be the character of Daniel Abdullah. He is, however, now a legitimate object of compassion." He proved to be an irreclaimable drunkard, but Heber a second time helped him to a situation where he might be watched and reformed. September 1823. " Drifting into the Pagoda of Juggernath. We had prayers as usual, and I preached, I hope, my last sermon on shipboard during the present voyage. Afterwards we cast anchor in twenty- five fathom water, with Juggernath about fifteen miles to the N.W., visible with the naked eye from the deck, and ver>' dis- tinctly so with a glass. Its appearance strongly reminds me of the old Russian churches. To the S.W. of us, at a consider- ably greater distance, are seen two small hills, said to be near Ganjam : — " Procul obscuros colles humilemque videmus Italian! ! " INDIA AND THE VOYAGE IN 1823 147 A week passed before the ship reached the old anchorage of the East Indiamen at Diamond Harbour, where the Bishop was received by Corrie, the senior chaplain, and Mill, Bishop's College principal. At once he was deluged with the arrears of ecclesiastical business as they sailed slowly up the Hoogli, landing from time to time to see the villages and talk to the people. The Bishop's sketch of the first Bengali village at which he landed, below Fulta, is here reproduced. ^ The first experience of idol-worship and the surroundings of an idol shrine can never be forgotten by the Christian observer : — "Below Fulta, %th October 1823. " When associated with the recollection of the objects which have brought me out to India, the amiable manners and counten- ' "I greatly regretted I had no means of drawing a scene so beautiful and interesting ; the sketch I have made is from memory, and every way un- worthy of the subject," Journal, vol. i. p. 15, fourth edition, 1829. 48 BISHOP HEBER ances of the people, contrasted w ith the symbols of their foolish and polluted idolatry now first before me, impressed me with a very solemn and earnest wish that I might in some degree, how- ever small, be enabled to conduce to the spiritual advantage of creatures so goodly, so gentle, and now so misled and blinded. ' Angeli forent, si essent Christian! ! ' As the sun went down many monstrous bats, bigger than the largest crows I have seen, and chiefly to be distinguished from them by their indented wings, unloosed their hold from the palm trees, and sailed slowly around us. They might have been supposed the guardian genii of the pagoda." "Below Fulta, loth October 1823. "At two o'clock this afternoon we set out for Calcutta in the bhoUahs, and had a very delightful and interesting passage up the river, partly with sails, and partly with oars. The country, as we drew nearer the capital, advanced in population, and the river was filled with vessels of e\ery description. ... A white staring European house, with plantations and shrubberies, gave notice of our approach to an European capital. At a distance of about nine miles from the place where we had left the yacht, we landed among some tall bamboos, and walked near a quarter of a mile to the front of a dingy, deserted-looking house, not very unlike a country gentleman's house in Russia, near some powder mills ; here we found carriages waiting for us, drawn by small horses with switch tails, and driven by postilions with whiskers, turbans, bare legs and arms, and blue jackets with tawdr)- yellow lace." Driving up the left bank of the Hoogli through Garden Reach and Kidderpore, the party came upon the Maidan or plain. To the north, the city of Calcutta was seen in the brief twilight, through which the white palaces of Chowringhee and the new Government House were seen glittering. Then they dashed into Fort WilHam, across the drawbridge, hearing the clash of the sentries presenting arms, and the Bishop reached his temporary abode. That was the Government House of Clive, whence the Marquis Wellesley had moved into the stately palace which he built in spite of the grumb- ling of the Court of Directors. The lofty halls and rooms of this building — one fitted up as a chapel — have seen many occupants since Reginald Heber there received the clergy of BISHOP HEBER the diocese, "among them my old schoolfellow at Whit- church, Mr. Parsons, some years older than myself, whom I recollect when I was quite an urchin." In the gloomy days of '5 7 it was the secure abode of the ex-king of Oudh, and after him of Commissioner Yeh during Lord Elgin's China War. Five years before Heber's arrival the plan of the new Cathedral of St. Paul had been designed, but it fell to Bishop Daniel Wilson to build that Hindu-Gothic church, beside which stands the Bishop's palace. Heber's description of the old Cathedral of St. John and of the Governor- General's residence is still vividly correct : — " Oclober 1S23. "Government House has narrowly missed being a noble structure ; it consists of two semicircular galleries, placed back to back, uniting in the centre in a large hall, and connecting four splendid suites of apartments. Its columns are, however, in a palti-y style, and instead of having, as it might have had, two noble stones and a basement, it has three stories, all too low, and is too much pierced with windows on every side. I was here introduced to Lord Amherst, and afterwards went to the Cathedral, where I was installed. This is a very pretty building, all but the spire, which is short and clumsy. The whole com- position, indeed, of the church is full of architectural blunders, but still it is, in other respects, handsome. The inside is elegant, paved with marble, and furnished with very large and handsome glass chandeliers, the gift of Mr. M'Clintock, with a light pulpit, with chairs on one side of the chancel for the Governor-General and his family, and on the other for the Bishop and Archdeacon. We dined to-day at the Government House ; to a stranger the appearance of the bearded and turbaned waiters is striking." " 121/1 October 1823. " This was Sunday. I preached, and we had a good congre- gation. With this prayer Reginald Heber entered on his episco- pate : — "Accept, O blessed Lord, my hearty thanks for the protec- tion which Thou hast vouchsafed to me and mine during a long INDIA AND THE VOYAGE IN 1823 151 and dangerous voyage and through many strange and unwhole- some chmates. Extend to us, I beseech Thee, Thy fatherly pro- tection and love in the land where we now dwell, and among the perils to which we are now liable. Give us health, strength, and peace of mind ; give us friends in a strange land, and favour in the eyes of those around us ; give us so much of this world's good as Thou knowest to be good for us ; and be pleased to give us grace to love Thee truly, and constantly to praise and bless Thee, through Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen." CHAPTER VIII CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL 1824 No less than a century and a quarter had passed, when Heber entered on his bishopric, since King William's charter of 1698' had for the first time imposed this provision on the East India Company — " We will and appoint that the said Company, and their successors, shall constantly maintain a minister and schoolmaster in the Island of Saint Helena, . . . and also one minister in every garrison and superior factory which the same Company, or their successors, shall have in the said East Indies, . . . and shall also, in such garrisons and factories respectively, provide or set apart a decent and con- venient place for Divine Service only, and shall also take a chaplain on board every ship. . . . We do further will and appoint that all such ministers . . . shall be obliged to learn within one year after their arrival the Portuguese language, and shall apply themselves to learn the native language of the country where they shall reside, the better to enable them to instruct the Gentoos that shall be servants or slaves of the same Company, or of their agents, in the Protestant religion. . . . And we do further will and direct that the said Company and their suc- cessors shall, from time to time, provide schoolmasters in all the said garrisons and superior factories where they shall be found necessary." But in spite of the provision that whenever a chaplain died he should be at once succeeded by one taken from ' Charters granted to the East India Company from 1601 ; also the Treaties and Grants from the year 1756 to 1772, pp. 220, 221. CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL 153 the first East Indiaman that arrived, the chaplains were so few that even Calcutta was without a Protestant minister of any kind till Ciive invited the missionary Kiernander to come from his Cuddalor mission. There is no evidence that any one chaplain besides Lord, of Sural and Bombay, ever learned an Oriental vernacular or sought to influence the natives for their highest good. Not one schoolmaster seems to have been sent out. The largest number of chaplains at one time in the Company's service in Bengal, Madras, Bombay, Prince of Wales's Island, St. Helena, and the factory in China, was nineteen. As the East India Company became transformed from a purely commercial into a political organisation, its directors and servants learned to dread missionary Christianity as dangerous to their revenues. Even to their own factors and troops the " decent and convenient place for divine service " ordered by King William III. was not supplied out- side of the three Presidency cities. Eight years before that charter was signed, Calcutta had been founded by Job Charnock, whose tomb is still the most prominent monument in the churchyard of the old cathedral, and the oldest bit of English masonry in India. Heber passed it daily. Behind it, in Hastings Street, is the house of Warren Hastings. The first church ^ of St. John erected in Calcutta, beside the west end of Writers' Buildings, had been used for forty years, when it was destroyed in the Mohammedan sack of the city the year before the battle of Plassey. The cathedral church of Heber was founded in 1784 by Warren Hastings, and opened three years after by Lord Cornwallis, having been dedicated to St. John by a special act of consecration sent out by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Messrs. W. Johnson and T. Blanshard were the chaplains. Lieutenant Agg of the Engineers designed and constructed the building ; Lord Corn- wallis afterwards founded the north gallery, and Lord Minto, in 181 1, enlarged and improved the south gallery. Sir John Zoffany, the German favourite of the Georges II. and III., to whose fourteen years' residence in Calcutta we owe portraits * The Bengal Obituary, being a compilation of tablets and monumental inscriptions from various parts of the Bengal and Agra Presidencies, Calcutta 1848. 154 BISHOP HEBER of the Governor-Oenerals of the period, presented the cathe- dral with his altar-piece, " The Last Supper," by which, how- ever, he gave great offence to one of the citizens, whose head he copied for that of Judas Iscariot. When the charter of 1813 gave expression to the grow- ing demand of all sects of Christians in the United Kingdom by placing the Church establishment under a bishop and three archdeacons, permitting missionaries to resort to India, and providing a fund for schoolmasters, it did little more than revert to the orders of 1698. But the letters patent issued on 2nd May 18 14 constituting the British territories in India a bishop's see, to be called the Bishopric of Calcutta, and to be subject to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, proved a fruitful source of trouble alike to the first Bishop and to the Government in India. The selection of Dr. Middleton was unfortunate, and not less so was that of Dr. Bryce as the first Presby- terian chaplain. Both were Churchmen first and Christians afterwards. Both hated Dissenters and quarrelled with each other. Both considered their work far superior to that of missionaries. The nine years of Bishop Middleton's episco- pate were passed in an unhappy struggle with the Company and the civil authorities to be allowed to do in the East as the Primate of the historic Church of England did, or at least any bishop within the province of Canterbury. The two volumes of his Life by Le Bas, who was a Haileybury College professor, are full of disputings and disappointments, due as much to his own official attitude as to the defects of the letters patent. It is incredible that even so late as the year 18 13 the reverend biographer should thus write, " There is one erron- eous view of the Episcopal office in India which needs correction even in this country, and the prevalence of which in the East was a source of constant embarrassment to Bishop Middleton. It is not unusual to imagine that the president of our Asiatic Church is chiefly to be regarded as a sort of head missionary, and that his principal duty is to encourage and keep alive the work of conversion among the natives. To this view of his office Bishop Middleton firmly and most justly opposed himself in the very outset of his administration. The primary object for which he came out was to govern an established Christian Church, and he con- CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL '55 ceived that his situation and authority would have undergone no essential change even if the design of spreading the Gospel among the Hindoos had been abandoned by all parties without exception." Hence " he was uniformly anxious to keep the duties of the clergy and those of the missionaries separate from each other." Yet, to say nothing of such a chaplain as Claudiu.s Buchanan, who had done most to create the bishopric, Henry Martyn had shown how the chaplain's call was, as much as the missionary's, one to preach the Gospel to every creature, and this the charter of 1698 had recognised. Bishop Heber did not simply present to all this "such a contrast as may well exist between two great and good men." He was exactly the opposite, alike in the wise and Christian spirit which he showed to the civil authorities, the catholi- city with which he welcomed the co-operation of Dissenters, and the frank enthusiasm which led him from the first to magnify his office by proclaiming himself the chief missionary. It was seen that more than half of his predecessor's troubles had been created or magnified by his own temper. The King's advocate gave the opinion that, by the terms of the patent, every clergyman of the Church of England within the diocese of Calcutta, missionary or chaplain, must have the Bishop's license. An Act was passed ^ relieving the Bishop from all difficulty in conferring orders upon natives of India, and at the same time making his position more comfortable as to the expense of his visitations, length of service for pen- sion, and an official residence in Calcutta. The result of Henry Martyn's and Corrie's representations up to 18 14 had been an increase in the number of chaplains to forty, and of churches to ten. In the next fifteen years the Church of England chaplains alone numbered seventy-six, and the churches in use thirty, while six were being built. Two months after Middleton's death, Archdeacon Loring was removed by the new scourge of cholera, and it fell to the Marquess of Hastings to delegate the episcopal functions under the patent to either one of the Archdeacons of Bombay and Madras, or to two of the clergy. Most wisely, the Governor- General in Council, unwilling to disturb the Bombay and 1 S and 6 Geo. IV. c. 71 of 1824-1825. 56 BISHOP HEBER Madras Presidencies, chose the senior chaplain, Mr. Corrie, and Mr. Parsons, the friend ahke of Martyn and Heber, to exercise the necessary jurisdiction till the arrival of the new Bishop. Heber's first duty was to select one of the chaplains as arch- deacon. It was also his first difficulty. Owing to his neces- sary inexperience of the men a mistake might have been made at a time when his predecessor had left a legacy of personal controversies, and "another had nearly been elected." But Mr. Parsons kept the new Bishop right, and Mr. Corrie was appointed to the office which he had all along virtually filled. Very soon Heber learned to value the character and services of Thomason,! whom he transferred from the " old " or mission church to the cathedral pulpit, writing of him to J. Thornton as "a very good and a very learned man, a child in gentleness and facility of disposition, the most unsuspicious being pos- sible, inclined to think well of everybody — he is an excellent preacher." Up to that time no " evangelical " had been one of the chaplains of St. John's. After his first introduction to Bishop Heber, Thomason sent this report to Charles Simeon, who had written out to India to prepare the way for an appointment which was most pleasing to the great Cambridge evangelical : " I was much gratified, and many were made happy by your account. . . . We have heard his voice, and know his mind, and are full of thankfulness." He thus impressed Corrie : " Of the natural amiability of the man it is impossible to convey an adequate idea. . . . His conversation is very lively, and, from his large acquaintance with books and men, very instructive, while he industriously seeks opportunities of public worship, Sunday and week day, and urges on all the importance of attending on the means of grace. Surely this land has cause of praise to God that such an one has been placed at the head of affairs here." The gratification of the old friends of Henry Martyn must have increased when they saw the new Bishop as active in the progress of the Church Missionary Society as he was inter- ested in that of the older Christian Knowledge and Gospel Propagation Committees and in Bishop's College. At this ' See Sargent's Life of Rev. T. T. Thomason. M.A. (2nd ed.), 1834, chap. xi. CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL 157 time we find Heber writing further to Thornton : " To the affairs of the Church Missionary Society I have paid consider- able attention, and have great reason to be satisfied with the manner in which they are conducted, as well as personally with the Committee and all the missionaries whom I have seen." As if a diocese extending over half the globe, embracing the continents of Africa and Asia from St. Helena to Canton, were not large enough, the Act of 1824 added to the juris- diction of Calcutta the whole of Australasia, conferring on the Archdeacon of New South Wales powers almost as large as the Episcopal. Heber's heart expanded at the prospect of one day visiting every Christian community scattered over the wide regions, that he might confirm the churches and bring in " other sheep " to the one fold of our Lord's teaching. Mean- while he mastered every detail of his metropolitan charge. He consecrated the Government churches of St. James and of Dum Dum, then the chief artillery station near Calcutta, by a most impressive dedication, on the written assurance of the Governor- General in Council that the buildings should be appropriated to the worship of God after the forms and laws of the Church of England. He preached incessantly, and wrote sermons to make up for the lack of chaplains as well as to give his own message to the people. Socially, he soon established his ascendency, as he had done all his life in Oxford, Salop, and London. What he became to Lady Amherst, to the Governor-General, and to their circle, is seen less in his own Journal than in that of Lady Amherst.^ That accomplished Dane, Dr. Wallich, the Superintendent of the Company's Botanic Garden, placed at his service the charming house at Titaghur, on the left bank of the Hoogli, below the Governor- General's park at Barrackpore. There he and his family recruited their health, and thence they crossed to Serampore in January 1824. We find these entries in his Journal at this time : — " isi January 1824. ". . . Returning one day from Calcutta, I passed by two funeral piles, the one preparing for a single person, the other nearly con- sumed, on which a suttee had just taken place. For this latter ' See Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma, by Anne Thackeray Ritchie and Richardson Evans. O.xford 1894. 158 BISHOP HEBER purpose a stage had been constructed of bamboos about eighteen inches or two feet above the ground, o)i which the dead body had been laid, and under which, as my native servants told me, the unhappy widow had been stretched out, surrounded with com- bustibles. Only a heap of glowing embers was now seen here, besides two long bamboos, which seemed intended to keep down any struggles which nature might force from her. On the stage was what seemed a large bundle of coarse cotton cloth, smoking, and partially blackened, emitting a very offensive smell. This my servants said was the husband's body. The woman they expressly affirmed had been laid below it, and ghee poured over her to hasten her end, and they also said the bamboos had been laid across her. I notice these particulars, because they differ from the account of a similar and recent ceremony, given by the Baptist missionaries, in which it is said that the widow is laid by the side of her husband on the platform, with her arm embracing him, and her face turned to him. Here I asked repeatedly, and received a different account. Yet the missionaries have every possible opportunity of learning, if not of actually witnessing, all the particulars of the ceremony which they describe. Perhaps these particulars vary in different instances. At all events it is a proof how hard it is to gain, in this country, accurate information as to facts which seem most obvious to the senses. I felt very sick at heart, and regretted I had not been half an hour sooner, though probably my attempts at persuasion would have had no chance of success. I would at least have tried to reconcile her to life. There were perhaps twenty or thirty people present, with about the same degree of interest, though certainly not the same merriment, as would have been called forth by a bonfire in Eng- land. I saw no weeping, and heard no lamentations. But when the boat drew near a sort of shout was raised, I believe in honour of Brahma, which was met by a similar outcry from my boatmen." " 15//; January 1824. " Dr. Marshman, the Baptist missionary from Serampore, dined with me. Dr. Carey is too lame to go out. The talents and learning of these good men are so well known in Europe that I need hardly say that, important as are the points on which we differ, I sincerely admire and respect them, and desire their acquaintance. In speaking of the suttee of yesterday. Dr. Marshman said that these horrors are of more frequent occur- rence within these few last years than when he first knew Bengal ; i6o BISHOP HEBER an increase which he imputes to the increasing luxury of the higher and middHng classes, and to their expensive imitation of European habits, which make many families needy, and anxious to get rid, by any means, of the necessity of supporting their mothers, or the widows of their relations. Another frequent cause is, he thinks, the jealousy of old men, who, having married young wives, still cling to their exclusive possession even in death, and leave injunctions either with their wives themselves to make the offering, or with their heirs to urge them to it. He is strongly of opinion that the practice might be forbidden in Bengal, where it is of most frequent occurrence, without exciting any serious murmurs. The women, he is convinced, would all be loud in their praises of such a measure, and even of the men, so few would have an immediate interest in burning their wives, mothers, or sisters-in-law, that they would set themselves against what those who had most influence with them would be so much interested in having established. The Brahmins, he says, have no longer the power and popularity which they had when he first remembers India, and among the laity many powerful and wealthy persons agree, and publicly express their agreement, with Rammohun Roy, in reprobating the custom, which is now well known to be not commanded by any of the Hindoo sacred books, though some of them speak of it as a meritorious sacrifice. A similar opinion to that of Dr. Marshman I have heard expressed by the senior judge of the Sudder Dewannee Adawlut. Others, however, of the members of the Government think differently. They con- ceive that the likeliest method to make the custom more popular than it is would be to forbid and make it a point of honour with the natives ; that at present no woman is supposed to be burnt without her own wish certified to the magistrate ; that there are other and less public ways to die (on that account more liable to abuse than the suttees) which might be resorted to if this were forbidden ; and that if we desire to convert the Hindoos, we should above all things be careful to keep Government entirely out of sight in all the means which we employ, and to be even, if possible, over-scrupulous in not meddling with, or impeding those customs which, however horrid, are become sacred in their estima- tion, and are only to be destroyed by convincing and changing the popular mind. When Christian schools have become univer- sal the suttee will fall of itself But to forbid it by any legislative enactment would, in their opinion, only give currency to the notion that we mean to impose Christianity on them by force, and retard its progress to an almost indefinite period." CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL i6i " 2ist Janitary 1824. "... I went this day to Calcutta to attend a meeting of the Church Missionary Society, and returned, after an early dinner, with Archdeacon Corrie." " 2nd Fibniaiy 1824. " I went to Calcutta for a confirmation, which I held the next day in the cathedral ; the number of persons who attended were 236 — a good many more than were expected, as barely two years have elapsed since the last performance of the ceremony by Bishop Middleton. Most of them were half-castes ; but there were, however, several officers, and from twenty to thirty European soldiers, and three grown-up women of the upper ranks. They were apparently very seriously impressed with the ceremony, which to me, I will own, was almost overpowering. God Almighty grant his indulgence to me, and his blessing on those for whom I then prayed, for Jesus Christ's sake ! " " 21^/ Jj^ril 1824. " I entered into my forty-second year. God grant that my future years may be as happy, if He sees good ; and better, far better spent than those which are gone by ! This day I christened my dear little Harriet. God bless and prosper her with all earthly and heavenly blessings ! We had afterwards a great dinner and evening party, at which were present the Governor and Lady Amherst, and nearly all our acquaintance in Calcutta. To the latter I also asked several of the wealthy natives, who were much pleased with the attention, being, in fact, one which no European of high station in Calcutta had previously paid to any of them. Hurree Mohun Thakoor observing ' what an increased interest the presence of females gave to our parties,' I reminded him that the introduction of women into society was an ancient Hindoo custom, and only discontinued in consequence of the Musalman conquest. He assented with a laugh, adding, how- ever, ' It is too late for us to go back to the old custom now.' Rhadakant Deb, who overheard us, observed more seriously, ' It is very true that we did not use to shut up our women till the times of the Musalmans. But before we could give them the same liberty as the Europeans they must be better educated.' I introduced these Baboos to the Chief Justice, which pleased them much, though perhaps they were still better pleased with my wife herself presenting them pawn, rosewater, and attar of roses before they went, after the native custom." M BISHOP HEBER "24//! April 1824. " The cholera morbus is making great ravages among the natives. Few Europeans have yet died of it, but to all it is sufficiently near to remind us of our utter dependence on God's mercy, and how near we are in the midst of life to death 1 Surely there is no country in the world where this recollection ought to be more perpetually present with us than India. All persons experienced in this climate deny that any of the country fevers are contagious. A verj' blessed circumstance, whatever may be its immediate cause." " ii\th June 1824. " I have had a very interesting and awful ceremony to perform in the ordination of Christian David, a native of Malabar, and pupil of Schwartz, who had been for many years a catechist in the employ of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in Ceylon, and now came to me, recommended by Archdeacon Twistleton, and qualified with the title of a colonial chaplaincy by Sir Edward Barnes, the Governor of the island. David passed an exceeding good examination, and gave much satisfaction to everybody by his modesty, good sense, and good manners. He was ordained deacon on Holy Thursday, on which day also I held my visitation, and had a good attendance of clergy, and a numerous audience, notwithstanding the early hour at which it was celebrated. On Trinity Sunday I had the satisfaction (though by me it was felt at the same time, in some degree, a terrible responsibility) of ordaining him priest. God grant that his ministration may be blessed to his own salvation, and that of many others I He was lodged during his residence in Bengal in the Bishop's College, and received much attention and kindness from Lady Amherst and many others. He preached on Thursday evening at the Old Church, and it was proposed to publish his sermon ; but this I thought it best to discourage." Heber's letters to Miss Dod fortunately continued to be frequent, and these enable us to follow every step of his career with even greater interest than that called forth by his Journal : — "Calcutta, 15//; December 1823. " My last letter, my dear Charlotte, though begun at a rather early period of our voyage, yet as I had no means of sending it before we reached India, will have told you of our safe arrival, CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL 163 and our rapid and prosperous voyage. Emily and I have bince continued to enjoy perfect health, but our poor, dear little girl, who landed from the Grcnville the picture of health and happiness, and who remained well and in good spirits during the first month, now that the cool and pleasant season has commenced from which Europeans in general derive unmixed benefit, has been struggling for the last three weeks or more with a tedious low fever and a weakness of digestion which have sometimes made us both very, very uneasy. We hope she is better, but she recovers very slowly, and our best hope seems to be in a little excursion to the coast in a pilot vessel, in which her mother is to accompany her. We have no reason to think the illness occasioned by climate, and she derived so much benefit from her voyage in the Gretivillc, that another cruise, though a short one, we trust may restore her. On this, next to Providence, we are taught to place confidence. 1 have been very busy ; busier, indeed, than I ever was before, except during the Oxford election, and this constant occupation has kept my spirits from flagging. But to my poor wife this is a heavy trial ; were this otherwise we should both enjoy our present situation. I have a field of useful- ness before me so vast that my only fear is lest I should lose my way in it. " The country, the society, and, at this season, the climate are all very agreeable, and there are several amiable and excellent people here, who have shown us much and cordial kindness, and whose friendship would, in any country, be a valuable privilege. Of the country we have as yet seen little, except in our voyage up the river and in the vicinity of Calcutta. But all Bengal is described to us as like those parts which we have seen — a vast alluvial plain, intersected by the innumerable arms of the Ganges, overflowed once a year, but now covered with rice-fields, divided by groves of tall fruit-trees, with villages under their shelter, swarming with a population beyond anything which Europe can show and scarcely to be paralleled in China. Calcutta when seen from the south, on which side it is built round two sides of a great open plain, with the Ganges on the west and Fort William standing in the centre, is a very noble city, with tall and stately houses, ornamented with Grecian pillars, and each, for the most part, surrounded by a little apology for a garden. The churches are not large, but very neat and even elegant buildings, and the Government House is, to say the least of it, a more showy palace than London has to produce. These are, however, the front lines ; behind them ranges the native town, BISHOP HEBER deep, black, and dingy, with narrow crooked streets, huts of earth baked in the sun or of twisted bamboo, interspersed here and there with ruinous brick bazaars, pools of dirty water, coco- trees, and little gardens, and a few very large, very fine, and generally very dirty houses of Grecian architecture, the residences of wealthy natives. There are some mosques of pretty archi- tecture, very neatly kept, and some pagodas, mostly ruinous and decayed, the religion of the people being most conspicuous in their worship of the Ganges, and in some ugly painted wooden or plaister idols, with all manner of heads and hands, which are set up in different parts of the city. " Fill up this outline with a crowd of people in the streets beyond anything to be seen even in London, some dressed in tawdry silks and brocades, more in white cotton garments ; and most of all black and naked, except a scanty covering round the waist ; hideous figures of religious mendicants with no clothing but their long hair and beards in elf locks, their faces painted white or yellow, their beads in one ghastly lean hand, and the other stretched out like a bird's claw to receive dona- tions ; marriage processions, with the bride in a covered chair, the bridegroom on horseback, and so swathed round with gar- lands as hardly to be seen ; tradesmen sitting on the ground in the midst of their different commodities, and old men, lookers-on, perched naked as monkeys, smoking on the flat roofs of the houses ; carts drawn by oxen, and driven by wild -looking men with thick sticks, so unmercifully used as perfectly to undeceive all our notions of Brahminical humanity; attendants with silver maces peeping through the crowd before the carriage of some great man or other ; no woman seen except of the lowest class, yet even these with heavy silver ornaments on their dusky arms and ankles ; while coaches, covered up close with red cloth, are seen conveying the inmates of the neighbouring seraglios to take what is called ' the air ' ; a constant creaking of cart wheels, which are never greased in India ; a constant clamour of voices and an almost constant thumping and jingling of drums, cymbals, etc., in honour of some one or other of their deities ; and add to all a villainous smell of garlic, rancid coconut oil, sour butter, and stagnant ditches, and you will understand the sights, sounds, and smells of what is called ' the Black Town ' of Calcutta. The singularity of this spectacle is best and least offensively enjoyed on a noble quay which Lord Hastings built along the shore of the river, where the vessels of all forms and sizes — Arab, Indian, Malay, American, English, — the crowds of Brahmins and other CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL 165 Hindoos washing and saying their prayers, the hghted tapers, which toward simset they throw in, and the broad, bright stream, which sweeps them by, guiltless of their impiety and unconscious of their homage, afford a scene such as no European and few Asiatic cities can at all parallel in interest and singularity. " Of European towns I am most reminded of Moscow. The size of the houses, whicli arc frci|uently occupied by more than a single family, their Grecian architecture, their number of servants, the Eastern dresses, and the hospitality of the place, which, though much diminished, is still profuse and incessant, continually remind me of what I saw in a very different climate ; and, if you recollect the Russian prints which I had at Hodnet, you will haxe no bad idea of our China bazaar and our Cossitollah. Great state of a certain kind is still kept up, not only by the Governor-General, who has most of the usual appendages of a sovereign, and whose bodyguards, gold sticks, spearmen, peacocks' plumes, state carriage, state barge, and elephants are all remarkably contrasted with the simplicity and quiet good -nature of their present possessors, but also by all the principal persons in authority. You would laugh to see me carried by four men in a palankin, two more following as a relay, two silver maces carried before me, and another man with a huge painted umbrella at my side ; or to see Emily returning from a party with the aforesaid silver maces, or sometimes four of them, a groom at each horse's head, and four men running before with glass lanthorns. Yet our establishment is as modest and humble as the habits of the place will allow, and though we have still more than forty servants, we have got rid of many who were at first represented as indispensable. Even our poor little girl had at first three men assigned to attend her, one to carry her and make her bed, one to wait on her at table, and a third to carry her umbrella and run her errands, an arrangement which she was so far from relishing that she ran away from them as fast as she could, and as they officiously stooped to pick up her playthings, called out, ' Don't tease little Emmy ! ' You may believe that they were not long allowed to tease her. After all, this state has nothing very dazzling in it. A crowd of half-naked followers is no splendid show, and the horses, the equipages, the furniture of Calcutta are all as far from magnificent as any that I am acquainted with. Our way of life in other respects is sensible and well suited to the climate. The general custom is to rise at five in the morning, and to take exercise on horseback till about eight, then follows a cold bath, then prayers and breakfast. 1 66 BISHOP HEBER This last is a sort of public meal, when my clergy and other friends drop in, after which I am generally engaged in business till three. We then dine if we are alone, or, if engaged, Emily eats her luncheon. We then go out again from four till six, when the sun sets and the darkness drives us home to dress for dinner, or to pass a tranquil evening. Our rooms are large and lofty, with very little furniture ; the beds have no drapery but a musquito net, and though now the climate is so cool as even to require a blanket, nobody thinks of shutting windows. " Where do we ride ? you ask. We have excellent turf for galloping, and excellent roads for driving on the great plain of which I have spoken ; but there is no necessity for confining ourselves to it. The roads round Calcutta, as soon as its bound- ary is passed, wind through beautiful villages, overhung with the finest and most picturesque foliage the world can show of the banyan, the palm, the tamarind (more beautiful, perhaps, than all), and the bamboo. Sometimes the glade opens to plains covered at this time with the rice harvest, or to a sight of the broad, bright river, with its ships and its woody shores. Sometimes it contracts into little winding tracts, through fruit-trees, gardens, and cottages, the gardens fenced in with hedges of aloe and pineapple, the cottages neater than those of Calcutta, and mostly of mats and white wickerwork, with thatched roofs and cane verandahs, with gourds trailing over their roofs, and the broad, tall plantains clustering round them. " Some, too, there are a little larger than the rest, which are more interesting than all, being schools on Bell's system, established within these last two years by the Church Missionary- Society and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, where the natives send their children, not only readily, but thankfully, to be taught reading, etc., and English, without making the least objection to their learning at the same time a selection of Scripture lessons and some parts of the Catechism. You may guess, my dear Charlotte, the feelings with which 1 have entered these huts, on seeing ninety or a hundred poor little naked urchins seated on the ground like tadpoles, writing their letters in the sand, or their copies on banana leaves, one after another stepping out to read, either in English or Bengalee, the history of Joseph or the Good Samaritan — proud of showing their knowledge to the ' Lord Padre Sahib ' (as they call me, by a strange mixture of English, Portuguese, and Indian titles) ; and many of them able to render as good an account of their studies as your own pupils at Malpas. I have been no less gratified at seeing the confidence and respect CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL evidently shown by the elder villagers towards the clergy who superintend these schools. I saw yesterday a man running to a German missionary to beg him to stay and look at his little boy's copy ; and Mr. Hawtayne, the secretary to the Society for Promot- ing Christian Knowledge, seems as well known and as well received in the neighbourhood of his schools as an English clergyman in his parish ; and this in a country where, three years ago, the children used to scream and hide themselves when a white man came into the village ! The way in which all has been done is by appealing to the common sense and worldly interest of their parents. ' We will teach your children,' we say, ' many curious and useful things ; we will give them nothing which can make them lose caste ; we will not baptize them, or press them to become Christians, but will teach them our sacred books, that they may know what we believe and what we ought to practise. They will then be able at least to judge of our religion for themselves ; and if, when they grow up, they choose it, it is their affair, not yours.' This, with a few judicious presents of books, clothing, and ornaments, together with the obvious advantages of education, and a power of speaking English, has made all easy. The common people are so well pleased that the Brahmins are not heard against the system ; nay, the Brahmins themselves, many of them, express great wonder and delight at the beautiful things contained in the gospels, and say they like the English the better now they know they too really have a religion and a Shaster. " Nor is this the only wonder. Two years ago no woman in India could either read or write ; now, in Calcutta and the neigh- bourhood, there are twenty-three female schools (the boys' schools which I have mentioned are nine Church Missionary and eleven Christian Knowledge), carried on by a Mrs. Wilson, the wife of a missionary, who visits them all by turns, two or three in a day, and finds from thirty to fifty little girls in each school, some of whom have actually since taught their mothers to read and write also. We had a grand exhibition of these pupils, at which I persuaded Lady Amherst to be present, whose example was followed by half the ladies of Calcutta. Nothing could be prettier than to see the little slim black figures come forward, with their flowing muslin veils over one shoulder, and their wrists, fore- heads, and ankles loaded with what little finery they could muster or borrow, to show their banana leaves and little work-bags to the ' Burra Beebee Sahib,' the ' Great Lady.' Nor is it only in this neighbourhood that the work is going on. Similar exertions are making at Bardwan, about i 50 miles off ; and, in general, a change i68 BISHOP HEBER appears to have taken place in the native mind, of which the oldest residents in India were the slowest to believe the possibility. " I do not say that all these children are Christians ; on the con- trary, if any of them desired to be baptized, the answer would prob- ably be ' Wait till you grow up, and judge for yourselves ; or first get your parents' leave.' Nay, the e.xperiment is as yet too recent for us to know if any will be converted. But the probability is that some will, in after life, retain the impressions now given. It is not very likely that a child who has learned the Lord's Prayer (to which the Brahmins do not object) will, when he grows up, adhere to his country's form of repeating ' Ram ! Ram ! Ram 1 ' fifty or sixty times every morning ; and it is certain, at least, that if the power and the habit of reading the New Testament does not make them Christians, nothing else is likely to do so. At all events, they are great gainers, and the morality of the Sermon on the Mount has been so much admired by their pagan countrymen that one of the richest Hindoos in Calcutta, himself a great bigot to the worship of the Ganges, on hå the girls repeat it about a year ago, bade them go on and prosper ; that if ' they acted as they had learned, his own wives and daughters should have no handmaids who had not been brought up at the English schools.' This man, Rhadakant Deb, and several others, were again at the recent meeting, and their splendid shawls, turbands, and beards added much to the singularity of the scene, when contrasted with bonnets and artificial flowers, military uniforms, the black coats of the European clergy, and the shorn heads, white mantles, bare feet and arms of the pundits of the boys' schools. " Do we encounter no opposition ? Unfortunately we do. An apostate Brahmin, Rammohun Roy, who was once half-Christian, but now wants to found a sect of his own, has written some mischievous pamphlets against us. Several of the old English residents are angry whenever the subject is mentioned ; and the Dissenters, though pretending, and probably desiring, to sene the same cause, cannot help putting down their schools in rivalry whenever our schools are fairly established, instead of looking out new fields where they would not interfere, and do more harni than good by the bitter and vexatious manner in which they have in many instances attempted to preach the Gospel ; or (what they like still better) insult the Church of England. The worst of all our hindrances would be, if they could, the Lancasterian British and Foreign School Society, who have pledged themselves not to teach Christianity in Bengal, and therefore have excluded the Scriptures from their school-books. Mrs. Wilson, when Miss CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL 169 Cooke, was sent out by them, but now that she has joined the Church of England, they have withdrawn her allowance, and she must have returned to Europe had it not been for the help of the Church Missionary Society. But our greatest obstacle is want of money. " We could establish twice our present number ; but for this we must look to England. The public here is very liberal, but the calls on charity are continual, and the number of and ;^io subscriptions which are required of a man every month for inun- dations, famines, officers' widows, etc., are such as surprise an Englishman on his first arrival, though he cannot but be pleased with the spirit which they evince. "We are still spaciously, but not very comfortably, lodged in a large house in Fort William, originally built as the residence of the Governor-General, but never occupied by him. The East India Company promised me a residence, but forgot to send out any orders to that effect, and I owe my present dwelling to the kindness of Lord Amherst, which, as well as that of Lady A., has been unremitting to us all three. Lady A., who is a great horse- woman, has had a severe fall, but her son told me to-day that no lasting serious consequences are apprehended. I should heartily grieve if any harm befell her. Miss A. is a little round-faced, rosy girl, who sings all manner of German and Portuguese songs, draws prettily, studies Persian, and, without being like her, puts me in mind of Maria Leycester. Beauty is not very common here. There are, indeed, many pretty figures and good counten- ances, but the colour almost always fades the first summer, and, for many good reasons, rouge does not answer in this climate. " Our stay in Calcutta must, of course, depend on my child's health and my wife's recovery. If all goes on well, my present plan is to set out with tents and elephants to march up the country in February. Two months will bring us to the neighbourhood of Benares, where we must halt for the hot winds. We should then go by water to Cawnpore, and again by land to Meerut. The following cold season will be spent in our return through Luck- now, Moorshedabad, etc. I shall then have seen one-third of my immense diocese in a journey of 2500 miles, during the greater part of which we should sojourn like the ancient patriarchs. God grant that, like them, we may look from our tabernacles to an eternal city. " Adieu, dear Charlotte. — Yours most faithfully, " R. Calcutta." BISHOP HEBER "TiTAGHUR, 26/// February 1824. " Such,^ my dear Charlotte, is a fair sample of the appearance and condition of some forty millions of peasantry subject to British rule — very poor, as their appearance sufficiently indicates (at least in those points wherein an Englishman places his ideas of comfort and prosperity), yet not so poor, and not by any means so rude and wild as their scanty dress and simple habitations would at first lead an Englishman to imagine. The silver orna- ments which the young woman wears on her ankles, arms, fore- head, and in her nose, joined to the similar decorations on her children's arms, would more than buy all the clothes and finery of the smartest servant-girl in the rows of Chester, and the men are in all probability well taught in reading and writing, after their own manner, while the little boy, perhaps, is one of my scholars, and could cast an account and repeat the Lord's Prayer with any of your clives at Malpas. The plant which overshadows the cow and goat is a bamboo ; the tall palm in the distance is a coco ; that which hangs over the old mother of the family, a plantain ; and the creeper on the thatched cottage a beautiful fast-growing gourd, of the very kind, I could fancy, which obtained so fast a hold on Jonah's affections. Their style of carrying the child, astride on one hip, the manner in which the water-pot is balanced, and the red paint (a mark of caste) on the foreheads of the two men are all (as well as the diminutive size and high hump of the cow) what we usually see here ; and though the group itself is from fancy, all the diiTerent objects are as faithful representations of nature as my skill enabled me to make. The sketch may give you some little idea of the scenes we meet with in our morning rides. " These, though the weather is beginning to grow somewhat too warm, are still very refreshing and delightful, and we enjoy them the more in our present situation, having removed, during the last six weeks, from Fort William (which sadly disagreed with our poor little Emily) to a delightful place about sixteen miles from Calcutta, on the banks of the Ganges, which a kind friend lent us, and which has the additional advantage of adjoining, very nearly, the country residence of the Amhersts at Barrack- pore. Here our little girl has recovered all her health and roses (indeed, a greater share of the latter than she ever possessed in ' The letter begins with the reahstic sketch, but in water-colours, of a Bengali village, on the opposite page. 172 BISHOP HEBER England) ; here Emily too, as you may possibly have already heard, has presented me with another pretty little fair girl, whom, to her great joy, she is able to nurse herself ; here she has recovered after her confinement with a rapidity, of which, in a cold climate, and where the outward air must be excluded, we can have little idea ; and here we might be as happy as we can expect to be any- where out of England, and so far removed from so many whom we love dearly. But, alas ! the house is not ours, and we must soon leave it to take up, in all probability, our abode again for some months amid the heat, dust, and finery of the town, though not again in the unhealthy Fort. " When I last wrote I gave you a sketch of the journey which we then hoped to begin before the middle of the present month. Emily soon found, however, that there was no likelihood of her being able to travel so soon ; and I myself found so much work to do in Calcutta and the neighbourhood that it was hardly con- sistent with duty to leave it before the rains. Accordingly, on Whit Monday next, and as soon as the Ganges begins to show, by a fuller stream and more turbid waters, that the snows have begun to melt in the Himalaya Mountains, and while only the few first showers are felt in Bengal, we hope, please God, to embark in boats for a three months' voyage to Cawnpore, visiting the different stations on the banks as we proceed. At Cawnpore, as soon as the country is dry enough to tra\el, we shall take to our tents and little cara\'an, and commence our land journey by pretty nearly the same route which 1 mentioned to you in December. Our lives have for the last six weeks been passed in great general retirement. Emily, of course, has not gone out, and I have gone out \ery little into general society. The Amhersts have continued to be the kindest of all possible neigh- bours, but they have themselves been in anxiety about the health of Miss Amherst, who has been severely ill, and my time has been much, I may say entirely, occupied in the business of my diocese, and in the continual journeys to Calcutta, which its discharge has made necessarj'. " The report is now that the Burmans, who were going to war with us, have again drawn in their horns, at which I sincerely rejoice, more for the sake of avoiding bloodshed than from any doubt as to the result of the quarrel. I am, however, still more immediately interested in the progress of the native schools, of which I sent you a description, which are going on well, and of which the female department is about to be put under a new- system. It was found, by accident, that several among the CALCUTTA AND LOWER F.ENGAL 173 Hindoos objected to men, and particularly missionaries, at all interfering in the girls' school, or even that the school should be in the same range of building where men resided. We are, therefore, going to build a separate house for schoolroom and Mrs. Wilson's private room, where no male creature need go except by special invitation, and which, together with all the female schools established, or to be established in India, is to be under the management of a committee of ladies. Lady Amherst has undertaken the office of Patroness and President, and two or three others of the great folk of Calcutta have promised to join Emily as a committee. Other recruits will then, I have no doubt, be easily obtained, and the thing will go on most prosper- ously if wc can only get funds sufficient for the demand on us. 1 wish we could obtain help from England, and am sure, if any share were allotted to us of the subscriptions raised for home pur- poses, it would not be ill bestowed or ill expended. But, alas ! there is, I fear, too much to be done on your side the water to give these poor little heathen much chance of partaking in such overflowings. " Meantime, I am not an idle solicitor here, but so much and so many things are to be done that I am often completely tired out before the day is ended, and yet have to regret many omissions. One considerable source of labour has been the number of sermons which I have had to compose. All mine are packed up with my books, and as the despatches are not yet arrived which are to assign me a house, I have not the means of unpacking them. And there is so grievous a want of chaplains on the Bengal establishment, that both the Archdeacon and myself are obliged to preach quite as often, sometimes oftener in the Sunday than I ever did at Hodnet. This, with meetings of Bible Societies, Church Missions, Christian Knowledge, etc., the accounts of the new College, and the daily and increasing corre- spondence which I have to carry on with Madras, Bombay, Ceylon and the Government here, leaves me far less time than I had hoped to enjoy for the study of the Oriental languages, and no time at all, or next to none, for general and amusing reading. " I have enjoyed good health, however, and have no reason to apprehend that the climate will be unfriendly to me, though, by the express injunctions of my medical friends, I am now living better in point both of wine and animal food than I at first supposed to be desirable in a hot climate. Notwithstanding, indeed, the quantity of in-doors work which 1 have to go through, I manage between morning and evening to take a good deal of exercise, 74 BISHOP HEBER and even during those hours when we are necessarily inactive, the free current of air and the ever-open doors and windows of our lofty and almost unfurnished rooms may perhaps be quite as favourable to animal existence as the little close study where I used to pass so much of my time. The country is now splen- didly beautiful. The tall timber-trees which delighted us with their shade and \erdure when we landed are now, many of them, covered with splendid flowers, literally hot-house flowering shrubs, 30 or 40 feet high, and the fragrance of a drive through the park at Barrackpore is answerable to the dimensions of this Brobdingnag parterre. Some of the trees, and those large ones too, even lose their leaves entirely at this season, throwing out large crimson and yellow flowers in their place. A show of fruit is, they tell us, to succeed this profusion of bloom ; but of the Indian fruits I have tasted few, except oranges, which I liked, and of those which I have not yet seen, except the mango, the account given us is not very promising. The sugar-canes are both beautiful and, when chewed, cool and refreshing, with a slightly acid taste, which is agreeable on a hot day. The sugar prepared from them is verj' disagreeable to me. It is in the form of sugar-candy, the crystals formed round threads of coarse cotton, and often with so much chaff, straw, dead leaves, etc., intermingled, that one's tea assumes the appearance of having received the bottom of an old stocking and the sweepings of a farmyard. On the whole, however, though the luxuries of the East are certainly over-rated, we have many comforts for which we may well be thankful, nor can I consider India as a disagreeable place of residence. " Many thanks for your two interesting and kind letters, and more particularly for the account of Edge Bow -meeting. My poor song was, indeed, highly honoured. But why have you not sent me yours ? What could induce our friend Ofifley Crewe to talk of my sea-sukncss ? I never felt any during the whole voyage. Pray tell any members of the Acton family whom you may meet, with our kind regards, that Major, now ' Lt.-Colonel ' Cunliffe is extremely well, and shows no sign whatever of having suffered from his long residence in India. Without being pre- cisely like any of his family, he put us both in mind of them, both in person, voice, and manner. He is very good-natured, well informed, and agreeable, and as popular in India as his rela- tives are in Wales and Cheshire. It is very pleasant to us to talk with him about scenes which he scarcely remembers, but is still interested about, and which we — when shall we forget them ? 76 BISHOP HEBER " I told you you would laugh if you saw me in my palankeen. I now give you an opportunity of doing so ^ as I went the other day in state to the 'Durbar' or Asiatic Levee of the Governor- General. Pray give the kind regards both of Emily and me to your dear, kind family circle at Edge, to Conny and to Ned Davenport, to whom I wrote some time back, and mean to write again. I have had a long and interesting letter from Pearson, who speaks of a delightful day which he spent at Edge. In general, my friends have been very bad correspondents. Adieu, dearest Charlotte. Believe me ever your faithful and affectionate friend, R. CALCUTTA." " I began my letter with a sketch of the peasantry of India. I conclude it with one of a part of the park at Barrackpore, with Lady Amherst in her morning's airing. The large tree in the centre is a peepul, sacred to Siva, and with an evil spirit (as the Hindoos believe) dwelling under every leaf In the distance, between that and the bamboo, is a banian. In the foreground an aloe, and over the elephant the cotton tree, one of those which at a certain season exchanges its leaves for roses. The man who walks at the head of the elephant is employed in giving him advice, such as 'Step out,' 'Take care,' 'There's a stone,' 'A slippery place,' ' Bravo, my fine fellow,' ' Remember who it is you are carrying,' etc., which nonsense they fancy the animal understands and profits by. " Did I tell you in my last letter that the other day I met with one of my hymns (' From Greenland's icy mountains') translated into Bengali ? 1 must bind it up with the Welsh Palestine." ''^Ih April 1S24. " My dearest Charlotte — This is a letter which I send off at haphazard, in much hurry, that it may be in time for a ship at Saugur. It will be what my dear sister calls a ' real letter,' though since I left England I have not, to my knowledge, dis- guised my feelings in any shape. I cannot, however, bear to allow the anniversary of our last meeting to pass away without telling her that I am well, that I am busy, I hope useful, and as happy as a man can be in banishment from such friends as mine, and that I am in heart and brotherly love for her all which I was when we took leave twelve months ago at Iscoyd. Alas ! alas ! In a sepia sketch. N 178 BISHOP HEBER how are we now divided ! Yet I do not repent of having left England. I feel I should have repented if I had stayed, and I feel that I have abundant reason for thankfulness to Providence in the splendid career of usefulness which lies before me, and in the kind friends who have been raised up for me in a strange land, though none of those friends can be to me like those I have left behind. " I have been unwell during a considerable part of this year. It began by a fall from my horse, in itself of little conse- quence, but the cut on my leg, in this inflammatory climate, was followed by a succession of boils, a very common disease here, and I am told reckoned rather beneficial than otherwise to the general health. They were, however, very painful and troublesome, and were, in my case, aggravated, as I am told, by too great abstinence. Certain it is 1 have been much better since I have eaten meat regularly and drunk wine, though in both I am still more moderate than most of my neighbours. This is all in strict confidence, and not to be repeated. I am very anxious my poor mother should not know of my having been unwell. From you I will not conceal it, and I know you will believe me when I say that I am now almost as well as ever I was, and I have every reason to think the climate will agree with me. I wish I could be equally confident respecting my poor wife and children. The baby is, however, as fine and fat a child as can be, and little Emily, though thin and delicate, is very much better than she has been. My poor wife is by no means well. Yet she does not look ill. She takes a deal of riding exercise, and perhaps her health is more affected by the bustle and labour which she has undergone lately in changing residence than from any other circumstance. " We are, as in my last letter, I prepared you to expect, re- turned to Calcutta, where we are established in a house so large as quite to exceed all our ideas of comfort. I feel almost lost in a dining-room sixty- seven feet long, a drawing-room of the same dimensions, a study supported by arcades, and though low in proportion to its size, forty-five feet square. Yet these over- grown rooms, they tell us, will be \ery conxenient and comfort- able when the hot winds begin. Of these we have already had a little — and but a little — experience, but the climate is, as yet, very tolerable. We are obliged, however, to be on our horses in a morning before five o'clock, since at seven the sun is too power- ful to allow us to be exposed to it, and even at half-past six it is as hot as the hottest noon in England. Often and often during these early rides, amid palms and plantains, or on the broad CALCUTTA AND LOWER BENGAL 179 green plain which surrounds the fort and the city, do I find my fancy wandering to Overton Scar or the lane near the Lower Wych, and start when I am recalled to reality by the bleating of the goats and the cries of the black wild-looking bearded herdsmen. Even my study has a sort of likeness, from its arches, etc., to the Hall at Edge, which makes me love it, and though few of my books or prints are yet unpacked, there is one drawing on which my eyes continually rest, which I used to quarrel with for being so little like you, but which I now regard with an interest which I can hardly express. Dear, kind friend, be sure I shall ever remember you, ever love and pray for you, ever rejoice to hear of your happiness ! " Of myself I have little more to say. The hot months have at least the advantage of causing a cessation in the gaieties of Calcutta. I, too, am more and more getting rid of idle forms and parade, and do not find that I am the less respected or the worse thought of for riding in a round hat and loose trousers, as I used to do at Hodnet. Yet Emily tells me I am a graver man than I used to be, and the ladies here, who, I know not why, had conceived a very different opinion of me, have complained that I think no females in Calcutta worth talking to. I do not plead guilty to the charge. Yet the truth is, I may well be a little graver than I used to be. I am happy, however, and I hope grateful. Adieu, dear, dear sister. God bless you and yours. R. C." In Calcutta Heber witnessed for the first time the Charak Poojah, or swinging festival, held on the sun's entrance into Aries, in honour of the favourite Bengali goddess, the black Kali. The present writer witnessed the same orgie in the same place thirty years afterwards, but the police have since interfered to stop it in the interests of public order and humanity. " The crowd on the Maidan," he wTites in his Journal, "was great, and very picturesque. The music consisted chiefly of large double drums, ornamented with plumes of black feathers, like those of a hearse, which rose considerably higher than the heads of the persons who played on them ; large crooked trumpets, like the ' litui ' of the ancients, and small gongs suspended from a bamboo, which rested on the shoulders of two men, the last of whom played on it with a large, thick, and heavy drum-stick, or cudgel. All the persons who walked in the procession, and a large majority of the spectators, had their faces, bodies, and white cotton clothes daubed all over i8o BISHOP HEBER with vermilion, the latter to a degree which gave them the appearance of being actually dyed rose-colour. They were also crowned with splendid garlands of flowers, with girdles and baldrics of the same. Many trophies and pageants of different kinds were paraded up and down, on stages, drawn by horses, or bullocks. Some were mythological, others were imitations of different European figures, soldiers, ships, etc., and, in particular, there was one very large model of a steam- boat. The devotees went about with small spears through their tongues and arms, and still more with hot irons pressed against their sides. All were naked to the waist, covered with flowers, and plentifully raddled with vermilion, while their long black wet hair hung down their backs, almost to their loins. From time to time, as they passed us, they laboured to seem to dance, but in general their step was slow, their countenances expressive of resigned and patient suffering, and there was no appearance, that I saw, of anything like frenzy or intoxication. The peaceableness of the multitude was also as remarkable as its number ; no troops were visible, except the two sentries, who at all times keep guard on two large tanks in the Maidan ; no police except the usual ' Chokeydar,' or watchman, at his post near Allypoor Bridge ; yet nothing like quarrelling or rioting occurred, and very little scolding. A similar crowd in England would have shown three boxing- matches in half an hour, and in Italy there would have been half a dozen assassinations before night. In the evening I walked in another direction, towards the Boitaconnah, and the streets chiefly occu]iied by natives. Here I saw the ' swing- CHAPTER IX TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 1824-1825 After five months of incessant toil, during which the new BishojD cleared off arrears of ecclesiastical business, reconciled to each other warring chaplains and archdeacons, inspected every form of missionary activity and public charity in and around Calcutta, extended the building and developed the working power of Bishop's College, preached frequently three times a week, and influenced the Europeans and native gentle- men by his social as well as official attentions, as the hot season of 1824 reached its height he began the first visitation of his great diocese. On Ascension Day, 27th May, the Bishop delivered his primary charge^ in the Cathedral of St. John, "at six o'clock in the morning, to avoid the heat of the day." A prelate who had so little spared himself, and whose humbleness of mind was as winning as his culture and spirituality were known to all, had the right to set before each of the Company's chaplains a higher ideal of his office and life than had generally been sought — even to become " such a man as Marty n was " among the heathen. For the missionaries as well as the chaplains his theme was the peculiar nature of the great enter- prise which they had undertaken. On the chaplain he pressed the duty, laid down in the old charter, of " the attentive and 1 Published liy his widow (John Murray, 1829) in a volume of his selected Senuu/is Preached in India. TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 183 grammatical study of some one of the native languages," so as to " endeavour the conversion of his heathen neighbours." " It is with no common thankfulness to God," he proceeded to say, " that I see the Episcopal chair of Calcutta now first surrounded by those who are missionaries themselves, as well as by those who are engaged in the important office of educat- ing youth for the future service of missions." " I regard it as one among the most favourable signs of the present times that while Providence has, in a manner visible and almost miracul- ous, prepared a highway in the wilderness of the world for the progress of His truth, and made the ambition, the commerce, the curiosity, and enterprise of mankind His implements in opening a more effectual door to His Gospel, the call thus given has been answered by a display of zeal unexampled at any time since the period of the Reformation ; and America and England have united with Denmark and Germany to send forth a host of valiant and victorious confessors to bear the banner of the Cross where darkness and death have hitherto spread their broadest shadows." The exertions of this kind during the last fifteen years, while they had shut the mouths of critics hostile to "the illumination of our Indian fellow-subjects," had excited those who, " though themselves not idle, . . . were ready to speak evil of the work itself rather than that others who followed not with them should cast out devils in the name of their common Master." Thus the Metropolitan alluded to the notorious letters which had then appeared from the pen of the Mysore missionary, the Abbe Dubois : " Like those spectre forms which the madness of Orestes saw in classical mythology, the spirit of religious party sweeps before us in the garb and with the attributes of pure and evangelical religion. The cross is on her shoulders, the chalice in her hand, and she is anxiously busied, after her manner, in the service of Him by whose holy name she also is called. But outstrip her in the race, but press her a little too closely, and she turns round on us with all the hideous features of envy and of rage. Her hallowed taper blazes into a sulphurous torch, her hairs bristle into serpents, her face is as the face of them that go down to the pit, and her words are words of blasphemy. " What other spirit could have induced a Christian minister, 84 BISHOP HEBER after himself, as he tells us, long labouring to convert the heathen, to assert that one hundred millions of human beings — a great, a civilised, an understanding, and a most ancient people — are collectively and individually under the sentence of reprobation from God, and under a moral incapacity of receiving that Gospel which the God who gave it hath appointed to be made known to all ? What other spirit could have prompted a member of that Church which professes to hold out the greatest comfort to sinners, to assert of a nation with whom, whatever are their faults, I, for one, should think it impossible to live long without loving them, that they are not only enslaved to a cruel and degrading superstition, . . . and this with no view to quicken the zeal of Christians to release them from their miserable condition, but that Christians may leave them in that condition still, to the end that they may perish everlastingly ? " The Bishop of Calcutta then appealed, even at that early period, to facts drawn not only from the results of the Church Missionary Society at Agra and Meerut, Benares and Chunar, but from the experience of the Societies not connected with the Church of England. " Bear witness," broke forth the burning catholicity of the chief missionary of that Church in the East, "those numerous believers of our own immediate neighbourhood, with whom, though we differ on many, and, doubtless, on very important points, I should hate myself if 1 could regard them as any other than my brethren and fellow- servants in the Lord. Let the populous Christian districts of the Carnatic and Tanjor bear witness, where believers are not reckoned by solitary individuals but by hundreds and by thousands."^ "I am yet to learn," he exclaimed,"that the idolatry which surrounds us is more enthralling in its influence on the human mind than those beautiful phantoms and horrid sorceries which lurked beneath the laurels of I )elos and Daphne, and floated on the clouds of Olympus. I am not yet convinced that the miserable bondage of castes, and the consequences of breaking that bondage, are more grievous to be endured by the modern Lidian than those ghastly and countless shapes of death which beset the path of the Roman convert. And who shall make The Conversion of India from Pantatius to the Present Time (John Murray, 1893), p. 74. TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS .85 me believe that the same word of the Most High which con- signed to the moles and the bats the idols of Chaldasa and Babylon, and dragged down the lying Father of Gods and men from his own capitol and the battlements of his ' Eternal City,' must yet arrest its victorious wheels on the banks of the Indus or the Ganges, and admit the trident of Siva to share with the Cross a divided empire ?"..." Though I am far from placing on the same level the Brahmanical and the Romish faith ; and though, as a form — though a corrupt form — of the knowledge whereby men are brought to God, I rejoice in every conquest which this latter has made among the heathen, I would rather, should God so far honour me, be the instrument of bringing one idolater to the worship of the one true God, and the one Mediator between God and man, than to have persuaded, like Xavier, my tens of thousands to patter their rosary in Latin instead of Sanskrit, and transfer to the saints the honour which they had paid to the Uevtas." Hoc agite was the motto which Reginald Heber left with all — "this one thing do." Meanwhile, after insults and military disasters which spread panic among the natives from Chittagong to Calcutta, there was reluctantly begun the first of those three wars which have extended the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan, and the duty of all the Christian churches of the English-speaking race, right up to the south-eastern border of China. Heber would not apply to Lord Amherst for the services of an assistant-surgeon to accompany his camp on his visitation of the districts and provinces of Upper India not inspected by his predecessor, lest he should thus deprive the expedition to Rangoon of even one medical officer. Accordingly, his wife and children could not join him till he reached Bombay ; he himself suffered more than once from illness, which he had to bear in solitude, and his domestic chaplain, Mr. Stow, died early on the tour. It was on the 15th of June, when the rainy monsoon first revives the gasping residents of Bengal, that Heber left Calcutta for Dacca by the channel of the Matabhanga, through which the great Ganges spills over into the Hoogli River. In a sixteen-oared pinnace, like that of the indigo-planter of olden days, attended by two boats for the servants and for cooking, the party of two Englishmen and forty-four natives were carried up TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 87 swiftly by the tide past Serampore and Barrackpore, the first twenty-four miles, to the French settlement of Chandernagore, where the Governor, M. Pellisier, and his chaplain of "the Tibet Mission " were most courteous. The published journal and correspondence detail the simple pleasures of the long tour, and discuss economic and political questions for the benefit of the Governor-General and the President of the Board of Control. Heber's letters to his wife and to Charlotte Dod, their friend, reveal the hidden life. To the former, after the first twelve days' separation, he writes : — "On the Chununa, 28//; June 1824. " My DE.\R Love — We are still in this labyrinth of rivers, and likely to be several days yet before we reach Dacca. Mr. Master, however, has kindly forwarded your packets to me, and I write back by his dak-boat, which, being small and light, will be there on Wednesday. Thank you for your interesting letter. I never recollect seeing your handwriting with more or so much delight as now, since it arrived quite unexpectedly, and I had no hopes of hearing of you before the end of the week. "The stream of all these rivers, ornearly all, has been against us ; and we had in one place a bar of sand to cut through, which has made our journey very tedious, though through a country, generally speaking, as beautiful as groves and meadows can make it. You will, 1 hope, ere this have received my second packet of Journal ; and the third I will send from ]3acca. We are both, I think, gaining health fast. ... If you and my dear children were with me, I should enjoy this way of life much. Our weather has been, generally, good, and all has gone on well. . . . " This course has, certainly, been a long one ; but I am, on the whole, not sorry that I preferred it. It has shown me a part of Bengal not usually traversed by Europeans, and decidedly, I think, the most beautiful. We have had, indeed, no more adventures like our ' audience ' at Sibnibashi, but I have some things to send which I trust will amuse you, and I have had opportunities of making four large drawings. — Your affectionate husband, Reginald Calcutta." A month later, when off Bogwangola, now a railway station not far from which Bishop Cotton afterwards perished, he wrote and sent off these lines, to which Mr. Gladstone long BISHOP HEBER ago gave a new interest in the volume ^ which he dedicated "ex voto communi in memoriam duphcum nuptiarum viii. Kal. Aug. MDCCCXXXIX : "— BISHOP HEBER'S VERSES TO HIS WIFE ' ' If thou wert by my side, my love, How fast would evening fail. In green Bengala's palmy grove. Listening the nightingale ! "If thou, my love, wert by my side, My babies at my knee. Mow gaily would our pinnace glide O'er Gunga's mimic sea ! " I miss thee at the dawning day, When, on the deck reclined, In careless ease my limbs I lay, And woo the cooler wind. " I miss thee, when by Gunga's stream My twilight steps I guide ; But most beneath the lamp's pale beam I miss thee from my side. " I spread my books, my pencil try. The lingering noon to cheer ; But miss thy kind approving eye, Thy meek attentive ear. " But when of morn and eve the star Beholds me on my knee, I feel, though thou art distant far, Thy prayers ascend for me. " Then on ! Then on ! where duty leads. My course be onward still ; O'er broad Hindoostan's sultry meads, O'er bleak Almora's hill. Mr. GLADSTONE S LATIN TRANSLATION ' ' Tu modo dux,tu comes, Uxor,esses, t^uamdaret molles Philomela cantus, Palmea ut felix moreretur hora Vesperis umbra ! ' ' Tu modo, ac tecum soboles,patemo Pendula amplexu, latus assideres ; Suaviter Gunga; scaphus auream de- scenderet undam. " Mane, surgenti relevandus aura, Dum super cymbs tabulas recumbo, Te reluctanti, licet otiosus Corde requiram. " Vespera, Gungre prope flumen Te petam desiderio fideli ; Pallidam Te projiciente noclu Lampade flammam. "Cum nequeaspectu recreerbenigno, Nec proba vox accipiatur aure, Displicent libri ; male penicillis Fallitur jestus. "Rite mi flexis genibus precanti, Supplices et Te sociare palmas Stella nascentis videt ac diei Stella cadentis. "Proinde quo virtus jubet ire per- gam, Almorpe scandens gelidum cacumen, Seu juga Indorum sequar, atque campos Sole perustos. ' Translations, by Lord Lyttelton and the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, second edition, London, Quaritch, 1863. TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS " That course nor Delhi's kingly gates, Nor wild Mahva detain ; For sweet the bliss that me awaits By yonder western main. "Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say, Across the dark blue sea ; But ne'er were hearts so light and gay, As then shall meet in thee." "Dellia, ac regum domus et columnoe, Barbaras nec me tenet ora Malvce ; Dulcius quiddam Ilesperius recludit Marmore pontus. " Bombacoe turres, rutila; per a.'quor, O diem faustum ! O bona fata ! quando Conjuges, \xli manibus reprensis, Limen inibunt." To Charlotte Dod Heber thus told the sad tale of the death of Stow, as he did to his wife's cousin, Augustus W. Hare, .Stow's dearest friend, who was charged with the difficult task of telling Maria Leycester.i " IIajiounj, near Dacca, 2-},rdJuly 1S24. " My dearest Charlotte — I have been long meditating a letter to you, but while in Calcutta I was closely occupied, and since I began my intended journey through the northern half of this great diocese, I have had much, not only of occupation, but of anxiety and sorrow. Our medical advisers in Calcutta had given it as their opinion that it was not safe to take Emily and the children on such a journey as I proposed, that they, there- fore (it was settled), were to go by sea to meet me at Bombay next spring, and that I was to be accompanied by Stow only. Had they gone with me, he was to have remained in Calcutta, where his services, in the present scarcity of clergy, were much wanted. But my wife was very unwilling that I should go quite alone, and it was believed that his health would receive considerable advantage from a three months' sail on the Ganges, and a four or five months' march in the cooler climate of Upper and Central India. His sister remained with my wife, and was to accompany her to Bombay. " We embarked at Calcutta the fifteenth of last month, and, owing to various little obstacles arising from the season and other circumstances, did not reach Dacca till the fourth of the present. During this time of close and constant inter- course, occupants of the same little boat, and with no other ' Memorials of a Quiet Life, vol. i. pp. 57-64. BISHOP HEBER society, I had more opportunity of knowing him than I ever had before, and though, I think, you never much hked him, you must allow me to say that I found very much to esteem and love in him. It will be long before I forget the guilelessness of his nature, the interest which he felt and expressed in all the beauti- ful and sequestered scenery which we passed through, his anxiety to be useful to me in any way which I should point out to him (indeed, he was very useful), and, above all, the unaffected plea- sure which he took in discussing religious subjects, his diligence in studying the Bible, and the fearless humanity with which he examined the cases and administered to the wants of nine poor Hindoos, the crew of a salt barge, whom we found lying sick together of a jungle fever, unable to leave the place where they lay, and unaided by the neighbouring villagers. I then little thought how soon he in his turn would require the aid he now gave so cheerfully. A few days after he caught cold from wading imprudently in some marshy ground, and was attacked by a malignant dysentery, which (for want, perhaps, of timely medical help) had weakened him so far before we reached Dacca, that he was obliged to be carried from his cabin to the bedroom pre- pared for him in the house of Mr. Master, the principal judge of the city. The usual remedies produced no favourable effect, but his constitution struggled against the complaint with a strength which surprised us all, and which for a long time flattered both myself and his medical attendants with the fallacious hope of his recovery. " He himself was the first convinced of his own condition, and I trust I shall never forget the moving manner in which he prepared himself to die — the severity of self-humiliation with which he examined and censured the errors and infirmities of his past life, the fervour of his prayers, the solemn delight which he expressed when I read the Scriptures to him, the deep contrition and lowliness of heart with which he threw himself on his Redeemer's mercies, and the blessed and gradually-increasing hope which, when his first struggle was over, our gracious Master cheered him with. When his strength was gradually wearing away he said, ' God and his dear Son, in their goodness, are making this passage more and more easy to me.' At another time, ' If I lose sight of the Cross, though but for a moment, I am ready to despair, but my blessed Lord makes His mercy and His power more and more plain to me.' On Friday night, having left him in a doze, and being myself pretty much worn out, I had gone to lie down for a couple of hours, leaving one of the surgeons 192 BISHOP HEBER with him. He wakened, however, soon after, called earnestly for me, and when I came, threw his arms round my neck and begged me not to leave him. They had given him laudanum, and his dreams had been unhappy. He soon grew composed, but said, ' This horrid drug confused my brain sadly, but now I remember all you told me, and all that God has done for me through His Son. Pray, pray, do not let them give me any more of it, for it makes me unfit to pray.' Then after a little pause, ' How sorry I am to have disturbed you ! I will not call you again, but if I grow worse, Mr. Paterson will . . . and pray, pray, be with me when the hour comes ! ' He commended his poor sister earnestly to the care of myself and Emily, and said, ' Poor, poor girl ! God, who is so good to a sinner like me, will not forget her / ' "A great part of the following day he was light-headed, but always continued to know me, and when I said, ' Let us pray,' to fold his hands and compose himself to attention. When I brought him some nourishment he said, ' I know you will not give me laudanum.' Another time he said, ' It is very strange, everything else changes with me ; I do not know what has happened to me, or whether I am among the living or the dead, but I always see your face near me, and recollect what you have been saying to me.' Soon after tea on Saturday night, after a short but severe fit of spasms, he sank into a quiet slumber, and, a little after midnight, died without a groan, leaving a coun- tenance singularly calm and beautiful, with far fewer marks of death than it had e.xhibited in the course of the day, and not like a corpse so much as a statue. I myself closed his eyes, and, with the help of Mr. Paterson, laid out his body — the superstitions of my servants preventing them from giving any assistance. He was buried the next day in the European cemetery, which I myself consecrated exactly a week before. All the little society of English in Dacca, as well as the officers from the militarj' station and a detachment of artillerymen, attended his funeral unsolicited. His youth, indeed, his recent arrival in India, the circum- stances under which his illness visited him, and his amiable manners (probably), as reported by his medical attendants and the few others who had seen him, excited a great and remarkable interest in the settlement ; and not only the Europeans, but some of the principal natives, particularly the Nuwab {Nabob he would be called in the barbarous pronunciation of England), were con- stant in their inquiries after him, their presents of fruit, etc. What his poor sister's plans are, as yet I know not. I have TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 193 written to ask her to remain with us, but I suspect she will, under all circumstances, prefer returning to England. "This has been a painful dispensation to me, but I trust it will not be a useless one. It may teach me to value more the excellent friends who are yet spared to me, now that fresh ex- perience has taught me how ill their loss can be borne, and on how slight a thread our social comforts hang. It may teach me to draw nearer to, and acc[uaint myself more with the Great and Onl)^ Friend Who will never leave me or forsake me. And, above all, now that I have seen how awful the approach of death was to one the far greater part of whose life had, I am persuaded, been innocent and useful, it cannot fail, I trust, to move me to timely repentance, and to teach me more and more the value and blessedness of that Cross which was poor Stow's only support and consolation. " 1 have sent you these details, my dear friend, partly because I was sure they would interest you, partly because I think you did Stow, while in England, some injustice in your opinions of him ; and still more, because now that I am denied the happiness of con\ersing with you, it is a comfort to me to be able to write to you without reserve on such subjects as the present. This is the second old and valued friend (Sir C. Puller, Chief Justice, was the former) who has within these few weeks been taken from me. How long I am myself to tarry here God knows, but my trust in His mercy is that He will keep me always not unfit to die. " I have recommenced my long, and now my solitary voyage, but it is probable that in a few weeks I shall have companions. Emily, on hearing of Stow's danger, wrote to beg earnestly that, in case of anything happening to him, she might at any risk be allowed to join me at the Rajmahal Hills, where the Hoogly, on which Calcutta stands, diverges from the eastern branch of the Ganges, which I am now navigating. I have referred her to Dr. Abel, but am myself of opinion, from knowing her character, that her anxiety, if left behind under present circumstances, will do her more harm than is likely to arise, either to the children or herself, from the ordinary fatigues and privations of an Eastern journey. My own health has in all essential points continued excellent. My only plague has been boils, which in this climate during the hot months are very common and painful, but which generally disappear (as they are in my case doing) as the rainy season advances. I do not think Emily has suffered from the climate, and our children are perfect pictures of health and cheerfulness, o 194 BISHOP HEBER Nor can I repent having come to India. The singular and beautiful scenery, the interesting habits of the people, the gliding day by day, as I am now doing, along noble rivers, between banks sometimes teeming with population, sometimes wrapped in almost boundless shade, and offering to a European eye some of the rarest and most splendid objects of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, would, under any circumstances, indeed, be a wretched payment for all I have left behind ; though there have been evenings when, with palms waving over my head, and standing amid thickets of broad white night-blowing flowers, I have watched the fireflies, like airy glowworms, floating, rising, and sinking in the gloom of the bamboo woods, and gazed on the mighty river with the unclouded breadth of a tropical moon sleep- ing on its waves, and said in my heart, ' It is good to be here I ' till I recollect, alas ! how much more of health, of animal spirits, and intellectual enjoyment I had derived in former days from a ramble with you on a frosty morning under Overton Scar. But I am sure I came out hither desiring to do good, and though I have fallen far short of my intention, I hope I have not alto- gether failed in doing it. Even this journey, and what I have seen in the ancient and half-deserted city which I have just left, bids fair to open to me fresh and important doors for advancing the purposes for which I came out. I have been received with much kindness everywhere, and in my late sorrow found fi'iends — delicate, attentive friends — among utter strangers ; all which I have experienced, in fact, increases my trust in God and my gratitude to Him. May He grant that it may also increase my zeal and activity in His service. Pray give my love (I can send no colder word) to your father, mother, sisters, and Conny. Remember me most kindly to Ned Davenport (who never writes to me), and to Miss Shute when you write to her, and believe me, dearest Charlotte, with perfect sincerity of aftection, ever your faithful friend, R. C.\LCUTTA." From Dacca, where the first edition of Carey's Bengali New Testament (1800) had been the means of forming the new sect of truth-seekers known as Satya-gooroos, Heber wrote thus to Wynn of the Board of Control : — " Many of the younger Musalmans of rank, who have no hope of advancement either in the amiy or the State, sooner or later sink into sots, or kindle into dacoits and rebels. As a remedy for this evil, I ha\ e heard the propriety suggested of raising corps TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 195 of cavalry of the same description, but ot smaller numbers, than those of Skinner and Baddely, which might be commanded by the natives of highest rank, but kept in the Company's pay, and assimilated, as much as possible, to the rest of the army. They might easily, it was said, be stationed so as not to be dangerous, and at the same time to render regular troops disposable for other purposes. The idea somewhat resembles that of Forbes, before the year 1745, raising Highland regiments ; and, perhaps, it may be true that the best way to make men loyal is to make them respectable and comfortable, while to keep them employed is most likely to keep them out of mischief They are not, how- ever, the great men only who are inclined to copy the English ; a desire of learning our language is almost universal even here, and in these waste bazars and sheds, where I should never have ex- pected anything of the kind, the dressing-boxes, writing-cases, cutlery, chintzes, pistols, and fowling-pieces, engravings, and other English goods, or imitations of English, which are seen, evince how fond of them the middling and humbler classes are become. Here, too, a knowledge of the Christian Scriptures, in spite of the Abbd Dubois, is rapidly increasing. A Baptist missionary has established a circle of twenty-six day schools, containing more than 1000 boys, who all read the New Testament as their daily task, without any objection being made ; and had the Church of England Societies a missionary at present to spare, he might in a month double the number. Of all these, indeed, few will be directly converted, but these examples, as well as my own ex- perience (and I think I am now able to form an opinion), con- vince me that the Hindostani version, at least, is neither unin- telligible nor contemptible." After eighteen days spent in Dacca, Heber hastened up the flooded rivers of the Ganges system to Bhagulpoor, where Archdeacon Corrie had arranged to join him, and where his wife also sought to be with him after such experiences. Often as, towards sunset, he sought exercise and opportunities of talking to the people on the bank, while the boats were slowly tugged against the current, he composed such lines as these, " the Christian Abdulla " remonstrating with him because much exercise had turned his hair so gray since his arrival in Bengal : — [96 BISHOP HEBER AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL Our task is done ! on Gunga's breast The sun is sinking down to rest ; And, moor'd beneatli the tamarind bough, Our bark has found its harbour now. With furled sail, and painted side, Behold the tiny frigate ride. Upon her deck, 'mid charcoal gleams, The Moslem's savoury supper steams, While all apart, beneath the wood. The Hindoo cooks his simpler food. " Come, walk with me the jungle through ; If yonder hunter told us true. Far off, in desert dank and rude, The tiger holds his solitude ; Nor (taught by recent harm to shun The thunders of the English gun) A dreadful guest, but rarely seen. Returns to scare the village green. Come boldly on ! no venom'd snake Can shelter in so cool a brake. Child of the sun ! he loves to lie 'Midst Nature's embers, parch'd and dry, Where o'er some tower in ruin laid. The pecpul spreads its haunted shade ; Or round a tomb his scales to wreathe, Fit warder in the gate of death ! Come on ! Yet pause ! behold us now Beneath the bamboo's arched bough. Where, gemming oft that sacred gloom, Glows the geranium's scarlet bloom,' And winds our path through many a bower Of fragrant tree and giant flower ; The ceiba's crimson pomp display'd "1 O'er the broad plantain's humbler shade, V And dusk ananas' prickly blade ; J While o'er the brake, so wild and fair. The betel waves his crest in air. With pendent train and rushing wings. Aloft the gorgeous peacock springs ; ' A shrub whose deep scarlet flowers very much resemble the geranium, and thence called the Indian geranium. — Mrs. Heber. TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS And he, the bird of hundred dyes, Whose pUimes the dames of Ava prize. So rich a shade, so green a sod, Our Enghsh fairies never trod ! Yet who in Indian bow'rs has stood, But thought on England's 'good greenwood' And bless'd, beneath the pahny shade, Iler hazel and her hawthorn glade, And breath'd a prayer (how oft in vain ! ) To gaze upon her oaks again ? A truce to thought : the jackal's cry Resounds like sylvan revelry ; And through the trees yon failing ray Will scantly serve to guide our way. Yet mark ! as fade the upper skies. Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes. Before, beside us, and above. The firefly lights his lamp of love, Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring, The darkness of the copse exploring ; While to this cooler air confest. The broad Dhatura bares her breast Of fragrant scent, and virgin white, A pearl around the locks of night ! Still as we pass in soften'd hum, \ Along the breezy alleys come V The village song, the horn, the drum. J Still as we pass, from bush and briar, The shrill cigala strikes his lyre ; And, what is she whose liquid strain Thrills through yon copse of sugar-cane ? I know that soul-entrancing swell ! It is — it must be — Philomel ! " Enough, enough, the rustling trees Announce a shower upon the breeze, — The flashes of the summer sky Assume a deeper, ruddier dye ; Yon lamp that trembles on the stream From forth our cabin sheds its beam ; And we must early sleep, to find Betimes the morning's healthy wind. But oh ! with thankful hearts confess Ev'n here there may be happiness ; And He, the bounteous Sire, has given His peace on earth — His hope of heaven." 198 BISHOP HEBER " I wrote this, endeavouring to fancy that I was not alone. I beheve only one note is necessary. The bird of 'hundred dyes' is the mucharunga, ' many-coloured.' I am not sure whether I mentioned the fact before, but I learned at Dacca, that while we were at peace with the Burmans, many traders used to go over all the eastern provinces of Bengal, buying up these beauti- ful birds for the Golden Zennana ; at Ummerapoora it was said that they sometimes were worth a gold mohur each." Another eighteen days were spent in the slow voyage from Dacca to Bhagulpore, during which he received news of the illness of Harriet, his second child : — " FURREEDPOOR, 2%th July 1824. " Alas ! alas ! my beloved wife, what have you not gone through ? Your letter of 24th July has just reached me from Dacca. God's will be done in all things ! Your joining me is out of the question. But I need not tell you to spare no expense of sea-voyage, or any other measure which may tend to restore or preserve our dear children or yourself, so soon as such a measure may appear desirable for any of you. . . . " I am, at this moment, strangely tempted to come to you. But I fear it might be a compromise of my duty and a distrust of God ! I feel most grateful indeed to Him for the preservation of our invaluable treasures. I pray God to bless Lady Amherst, and all who are dear to her, and to show kindness tenfold to her children, for all the kindness she has shown ours. " I am going on immediately, with a heavy heart indeed, but with trust in His mercies. Farewell ! " Reginald C.\lcutta." When on his way from Dinajpore to join Marshman and Ward at Serampore, Carey first preached Christ in their own tongue to the hillmen of Rajmahal and Santalia. " I long," ^ he wrote in 1799, "to stay here and tell these social and un- tutored heathen the good news from heaven." Corrie after- wards felt the same longing, and made ineffectual attempts. Now the set time had come with Reginald Heber. Delighting in his call and in his power as " chief missionar)'," he made Bhagulpoor, the comparatively healthy centre for the hill ■ Life 0/ William Carey, D.D., 2nd ed. p. io6 {John Murray). TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 199 country, the base of a mission. At its head he placed Rev. Thomas Christian, who had been sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to Bishop's College. Commend- ing the new missionary and his work to Colonel Francklyn, worthy successor of the young Cleveland,^ who had begun the civilisation of the people among whom he had laid down his life, and charging him also to minister every month to the residents of Monghyr, who had no chaplain, the Bishop pro- ceeded on his tour with a joyfulness reflected in all he wrote at this time. Mr. Christian showed himself as devoted as Cleveland, and his career was as brief Having mastered the hill language and introduced among the people portions of the Scriptures, he taught them in their own villages for the healthy season of each year, and then took with him to Bhagulpoor their most hopeful youth for training as catechists. But in three years jungle fever carried off both him and his wife. Under the care of the Church Missionary Society, the Free ^ The Persian inscription was thus translated by Francklyn : ' ' This monu- ment is erected to the memory of Mr. Augustus Cleveland, Collector of Bhagul- poor and Rajmahal, who died the 3rd of January 1784 " (Hindoo and Moliam- medan dates follow). " The Zemindars of the district and the Amleh (native officers of the court), in memory of the kindness and beneficence exhibited towards them by the late Mr. Cleveland, have, at their own expense, furnished this monument, A.D. 1786." 20O BISHOP HEBER Church of Scotland, and others, forty years after, and with the aid of administrators hke Sir George Yule, though not till the Santal rebellion of 1 856 had convinced the East India Company that the missionary is a better tamer of highlanders than the soldier, the Santalees began to flock into the kingdom of God's dear Son.^ Heber thus wrote to his successor and brother-in-law in Hodnet Rectory of the good work in the uplands of Bahar : — "To THE Rev. C. Cholmondeley and Mrs. Cholmondeley " Rahmatgunge, between Cawnpoor AND LUCKNOW, 19M October 1824. " My dear Charles and Mary — I write to both in one letter because, from the rambling nature of the life which I have been for some time leading, and still more from the number of business letters which I am obliged to attend to, I have far less time than I could wish to thank my friends at home for the kind and interesting packets which I receive from them. Of those packets, I can assure you none has given Emily and myself more pleasure than Charles's account of the birth of your little boy. . . . " The language of Bengal, which is quite different from Hindostani, is soft and liquid. The common people are all fond of singing, and some of the airs which I used to hear from the boatmen and children in the villages reminded me of the Scotch melodies. I heard more than once ' My boy Tammy,' and ' Here's a health to those far away,' during some of those twilight walks, after my boat was moored, which wanted only society to make them delightful, when amid the scent and glow of night-blowing flowers, the soft whisper of waving palms, and the warbling of the nightingale, watching the innumerable fireflies, like air)' glowworms, floating, rising, and sinking, in the gloom of the bamboo woods, and gazing on the mighty river with the unclouded breadth of a tropical moon sleeping on its surface, I felt in my heart it is good to be here. "As we approach the frontiers of Bahar, these beauties dis- ' Heber specially mentions the hill country to the south of Mandargiri, Vishnu's hill, and away to Deoghur, Shiva's shrine, once held by the Buddhists, as a land for the missionary. Rev. Dr. J. M. Macphail, from Chakai as a centre, has for some years itinerated there, healing the sick and proclaiming that the Kingdom has come nigh to the weary peoples. TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 201 appear, and are replaced by two or three days' sail of hideously ugly, bare, treeless, level country, till some blue hills are seen, and a very pretty and woody tract succeeds with high hills little cultivated, but peopled by a singular and interesting race, the Welsh of India. ... I have now taken measures for placing an ordained missionary of the Church of England among them, and hope to be the means, by God's blessing, of gradually e.vtending a chain of schools through the whole district, some parts of which are, however, unfortunately very unhealthy. I had myself not E GANGES IN BAIIAR much opportunity, nor indeed much power of conversing with any of them ; but I have since had the happiness of hearing that one old soubahdar said that he and his men had a desire to learn more of my religion because I was not proud ; there certainly seem fewer obstacles to conversion here than in any part of this country which I have ever seen or heard of. " On leaving the hills of the Jungleterry district, the flat country of Bahar and Allahabad, as far as Benares, shows a vast extent of fertile, cultivated, and populous soil. . . . The whole scene, in short, is changed from Polynesia to the more western parts of Asia and the east of Europe, and I could fancy myself in Persia, Syria, or Turkey, to which the increasing number of Musalmans, 202 BISHOP HEBER though still the minority, the minarets, and the less dark com- plexion of the people, much contribute. . . . But though this difference exists between Bengal and Bahar, Bahar itself, I shortly afterwards found, was in many respects different from the Doab, and still more from the dominion of the King of Oudh, in which 1 now am. Almost immediately on leaving Allahabad, I was struck with the appearance of the men, as tall and muscular as the largest stature of Europeans, and with the fields of wheat, as almost the only cultivation. ... I was tempted too to exclaim, " ' Bellum, 6 terra hospita, portas : Bello armantur equi ; bellum hasc armenta minantur. ' " Since that time my life has been that of a Tartar chief, rather than an English clergyman. I rise by three in the morning, and am on horseback by four, for the sake of getting the march over and our tents comfortably pitched before the heat of the day. . . . I have then a few hours to myself till dinner-time, at four, after which we generally stroll about, read prayers, and send everybody to bod by eight o'clock, to be ready for the next day's march. " I have as yet said nothing of my professional labours (though in this respect I may say I have not been idle) ; very few Sundays have elapsed since I left Calcutta in which I have not been able to collect a Christian congregation, and not many on which I have not been requested to administer the Sacrament. I have already confirmed above 300 persons, besides those I confirmed before I set out ; and I have found, almost everywhere, a great and grow- ing anxiety on the part of the English families which are scattered through this vast extent of country both to obtain a more regular and stated performance of Divine Service than, in the present paucity of chaplains and missionaries, can be afforded to them. 1 have found, too, abundant reason to believe that the standard of morals and religion is rising much higher among them than it used to be, and that the Church of England, her ceremonies and clergy, are daily gaining popularity. We are not here an old establishment, acting chiefly on the defensive ; we are a rising and popular sect, and among the candidates for Confirmation, many of whom were grown up, and some advanced in hfe, there were many who had been brought up among Dissenters or the Church of Scotland, and who confessed that a few years back they should never have thought it possible for them to seek the benediction of a bishop. "With regard to the conversion of the natives, a beginning has been made, and though it is a beginning only, I think it a TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 203 very promising one. I do not only mean that wherever our schools are established they gladly send their children to them, though this alone would be a subject of great thankfulness to God, but of direct conversion the number is as great as could well be ex- pected, considering that it is only within the last five years that any ordained English missionary has been in the Presidency of Bengal, and that before that time nothing was even attempted by any members of our Church, except Mr. Martyn and Mr. Corrie. Of the candidates for Confirmation whom I mentioned above, eighty were converted heathens, and there were many whose dis- tant residences made it impossible for them to attend, and many more who were desirous to obtain the rite, whom their pastors did not think as yet sufficiently instructed. . . . Great part of our Liturgy has been translated, and well translated too, into Hindo- stani, and I thought it fortunate that the Confirmation service, as well as the Communion, is found in the present compendium. The language is grave and sonorous, and as its turn of expression, like that of all other Eastern tongues, is Scriptural, it suits ex- tremely well the majestic simplicity of our Prayer-Book. With all this employment, and all these hopes before me, you will easily believe I am not idle, and cannot be unhappy. Yet you will not, I am sure, suspect me of forgetting all I have left behind ; and there are many little circumstances of almost daily occurrence which give occasion to very sadly pleasing recollections. " The other morning, while cautiously trotting before daybreak over a wide, waste, plashy common, I can hardly tell you how forcibly my fancy carried me back to Hodnet Heath, to my schoolboy and college rides towards Watling Street, at an equally early hour, with our dear brother Tom, and all the long series of past pains and pleasures. On another occasion, while we were sitting at the tent-door under the shade of a noble peepul-tree, looking out with some anxiety over the wide sultry plain for the rear of our caravan, Lushington called out, as the long necks reared themselves amid some brushwood, ' The camels are coming, oho ! ' I believe he thought from my silence that I did not understand the allusion, but in fact I could not answer. He had sent me to Moreton drawing-room and my dear Mary's pianoforte, and I was, I believe, a long time in getting back to the neighbourhood of the Ganges and Jumna. I have written a very long letter, but I do not think I shall have tired either of you. I meant to have enclosed one to my mother, but I really have no time now, and will write to her at a more advanced stage of my journey, and when I have some- thing more to say. I know you will show her this letter, giving 204 BISHOP HEBER my best love to her and to Heber, and my blessing to your little Tom. I can hardly say how often and how much I long to see you all, and how constantly you are all in my thoughts and prayers. " Adieu, dear Charles and Mary. — Ever your afifectionate brother, Reginald Calcutta." As Bishop Heber continued his tour up the Ganges from Bhagulpoor with Archdeacon Corrie, he met at Monghyr the Baptist preacher Leslie, afterwards the friend of Sir Donald M'Leod and General Havelock, whom, with many others from Agra to Calcutta, he brought to Christ. Heber justly THE EKKA CONVEYANCE, MONGHYR describes him as " a very mild, modest person," and the proselytes who attended the Episcopal service as "probably brought over by the Baptist missionaries. Mr. Leslie and the greater part of his flock attended, but did not stay the Sacra- ment." At Patna he conversed much in French with Padre Giulio Cesare, the Italian priest of Henry Martyn's Journals, and delighted in the water-colour sketches of Sir Charles D'Oyley, "the best gentleman artist I ever met with." Dina- poor society he found no better than Martyn had done, partly owing to " the exceeding bad conduct of the late chaplain." Chuprah, on the north bank, reminded him of Sir Eyre Coote's defeat of M. Law. At Buxar, having left Corrie behind a little, he stumbled on Kureem Masse'h (the mercy of Messiah), TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 205 the catechist of the Church Missionary Society, who, "with a not unpleasing vanity," hung up above his desk the sword and sash he had worn when a non-commissioned officer and Musahiian in the Company's army. At Ghazipoor his artistic instinct and Christian zeal alike were outraged by the tomb of Lord Cornwallis. " It is vexatious to think that a very hand- some church might have been built, and a handsome marble monument placed in its interior for a little more money." At a point on the Ganges, twenty-four miles below Benares, the Bishop left the boats for his first palanquin journey. He had GRANARY UUILT AT I'ATNA AFTER THE GREAT FAMINE OF 1777 spent nearly three months on the voyage from Calcutta when, on 3rd September 1824, he became the guest, at Sikraul, the cantonment of Benares, of Mr. Brooke, who had been for fifty- six years a servant of the Company. The magistrate of the city and district was Norman Macleod, whom he remembered as one of his juniors at Oxford, and "a great friend of Wilson, since well known as author of the City of the Plague.'' What Heber's tour proved to be, not only to the residents of Benares, but to every station of the Christian dispersion in India and Ceylon which he visited, Norman Macleod tells : — " Of all the pleasing impressions which your Lordship has left to commemorate your brief sojourn amongst us, I will not here 2o6 BISHOP HEBER presume to speak ; but I may hope your Lordship will not be displeased with the brief assurance that your visit has been pro- ductive of much good in this community, in points essentially connected with those high and sacred interests which are so peculiarly under your charge, and ever so near to all the move- ments of your heart. For the mention of my own individual share in the grateful impressions your Lordship has diffused among us, I will hope to have found an admissible excuse with your Lordship, while I ascribe some portion of it to associations HEBER ON THE GANGES awakened by your presence, recalling to my mind the days of other times, the scenes of my youth, and of my native land ; and many a recollection of no light or ordinary interest, to one who has wandered so far and so long from the duke donmm of early life. Your Lordship will readily conceive how this might be. And thus it will hardly seem strange to you that the strains of pious and holy instruction, which fixed so impressive a record ol our first visitation by a Protestant prelate on the minds of us all, should have spoken with peculiar emphasis to the feelings of one who, after many a year of toil and exile in a foreign clime, recog- nised, in the accents which now preached the Word of the Living TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 207 God amid the favourite abodes of heathen idolatry, that selfsame voice which, in his days of youthful enthusiasm and ardent un- damped fancy, had poured on his delighted ear the lay that sang the sacred theme of the Redeemer's land, amid the long-loved haunts of his aliiia i/iatcr^ amid the venerated temples of the religion of our fathers." At Benares, Bishop Heber found Mr. Morris, the zealous representative of the Church Missionary Society, and Mr. Frazer, the " extremely popular and exemplary " chaplain. Here he had a busy and happy Sunday, which may be taken as representative of every one that he spent in the East. At six in the morning he took part in the native Christian service, publicly using the Hindostani language for the first time. He held a confirmation service. He then consecrated the Com- pany's new church. In the evening he preached an English sermon to a crowded congregation, and administered the Lord's Supper to sixty communicants, using Hindostani to the fourteen who were natives, and had been confirmed in the morning. Next morning saw him consecrate the cemetery, and then delighting in the Church Missionary Society's school, endowed by Jay Narain Ghosal of Calcutta under remarkable circum- 2o8 BISHOP HEBER stances, and ever since a prosperous Christian school bearing his name.i One of these fourteen native Christians had a matrimonial history of peculiar interest, which Heber himself must tell, for it illustrates unconsciously his own far-seeing wisdom, and the need of such a remedy as Sir Henry Maine applied in Act xxi. of 1866. "The case of one of these men had occasioned me some perplexity the day before, when Mr. Morris stated it to me ; but I had now made up my mind. He was a convert of Mr. Corrie's, and six years ago married a woman who then professed herself a Christian, but soon afterwards ran away from him and turned Miisalman, in which profession she was now living widi another man. The husband had applied to the magistrate to recover her, but, on the woman declaring that she was no Christian, and did not choose to be the wife of one, he said he could not compel her. The husband, in consequence, about two years ago, applied to Mr. Frazer to marry him to another woman. Mr. Frazer declined doing so, as no divorce had taken place, on which he took the woman without marriage, and had now two children by her. For this he had been repelled from the communion by Mr. Morris, but still continued to frequent the church, and was now very anxious for confirmation. After some thought, I came to the con- 1 Mr. Hough, in vol. v. of his History of Christianity in India, tells the story of this early representative of the large class of "almost Christian" Hindoos and Musalmans in every grade of society in India, from the highest. Jay Narain Ghosal, having made a fortune in the English service in Bengal, retired to the idol shrines of Benares to end his days. When ill, he applied for medicine to an English merchant, Mr. \\'heatley, who also gave him a copy of the New Testament, and sold to him the Book of Common Prayer, in ex- plaining both of which he passed much time with him. With the medicine he told the patient to pray to the God revealed in the books. Jay Narain re- covered, and asked what he could do for the name of Jesus Christ. The answer was — found a school in which your countrymen may be taught the Name and the Way, in English and Persian, Bengali and Hindi. Wheatley having failed in business, became the first teacher, and Jay Narain and his family the first pupils. On the good teacher's death and the refusal of Government to superintend a Christian school, Corrie advised him to try the British and Foreign Bible Society. Perseveringly did Jay Narain pray that Corrie himself might be sent as chaplain to Benares, and when this happened all was well. The Church Missionary Society accepted the endow- ment of 40,000 rupees, besides the school premises and house for two mission- aries, in the year 1818 ; and when the founder died, a Christian, but not baptized, his son followed in his steps. J.ay Narain's school is under their missionary, Rev. B. Davis, at present. TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 209 elusion that the man should be reproved for the precipitancy with which he had formed his first connection, and the scandal which he had since occasioned, but that he might be admitted both to confirmation and the communion, and might be married to the woman who now held the place of a wife to him. It seemed a case to which St. Paul's rule applied, that if an unbelieving husband or wife chose to depart, on religious grounds, from their believing partner, this latter was, in consequence, free. At all events, as the runaway woman was, if a wife, living in open adul- tery, it was plain that he had a right to 'put her away.' Though the laws of the country provided him no remedy, yet, as a matter of conscience, this right might be fitly determined on by his religious guides ; and I conceived myself warranted to declare him divorced and at liberty to marry again. My determination, I found, gave great satisfaction to Mr. Frazer and Mr. Morris, both of whom said that without some such permission the state of new converts would be often very hard, and that the usual remedies supplied by the canon law would be, to men in such circumstances, utterly unattainable. . . . " ' God,' I yet hope and believe, in the midst of the awful and besotted darkness which surrounds me, and of which, as well as its miserable consequences, I am now more sensible than ever, ' God may have much people in this city ! ' " At Chunar, Heber confirmed more than a hundred in the large church, Corrie reporting "we beheld more than had previously been told us," Bowley and Greenwood being the missionaries. There was found Sir G. Martindell, commanding the division, a fine old soldier, with an experience scarcely shorter than that of Mr. Brooke. Returning to his boats, which were finally dismissed at Allahabad, Heber enjoyed for the last time the quiet of the great river and the daily walks on its banks. His companion, Mr. James Lushington, who discharged the duties of chancellor of the diocese for a time, thus, in a journal long after made public by his mother, pictures the impression made by Reginald Heber : — " September 1824. " Hume says that admiration and acquaintance are incom- patible towards any human being ; but the more I know of the Bishop the more I esteem and revere him, ' ' ' cujus amor lantum mihi crescit in horas Quantum vere novo viridis se surrigit alnus.' P 210 BISHOP HEBER He seems born to conciliate all parties, and to overcome what has before appeared impossible. Most great talkers are sometimes guilty of talking absurdities ; but, though scarcely an hour silent during the day, I have never heard him utter a word which I could wish recalled." " FUTTEHPOOR. " In coming through a brook of water running across the road, the Bishop's horse thought proper to lie down and give him a roll ; with his usual kindness, instead of kicking him till he got up again, he only patted him, and said, ' he was a nice fellow.' " To that civilian's cousin, Mr. Charles Lushington, Heber, writing of the considerable number of native and the large number of European Christians independent of the army, ROUMI DUHWAZA AND IMAMBABA, LLCKNOW exclaimed, " Not Westmoreland, before the battle of Agincourt, wished with greater earnestness for ' more men from England ' than I do." " I am often obliged to be bishop, chaplain, and curate all in one ; and in India, though there may be pluralities, there is verily no sinecure." That is significant language from a man who, all his life, worked harder than most two men together. Already he had delayed longer on his tour than he had planned. Hurrying on to Allahabad, where, as there was no chaplain, he promised the residents a Church missionar)', and then to Cawnpore, without rest, he passed into the then independent kingdom of Oudh, and reached Lucknow under an escort sent TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 211 by Mr. Ricketts, the Resident. During ten days in that Sheea'h Musalman city he was treated by the King with all honour, for which the Governor-General afterwards officially thanked his Majesty, and he sat for his portrait four times to Mr. Home i — " A very good artist indeed for a king of Oudh to have got hold of ; he is a quiet, gentlemanly old man, brother of the celebrated surgeon in London. Mr. Home would have been a distinguished painter had he remained in Europe." He addressed a valuable letter to Lord Amherst as to the state of Oudh, and also of the Company's administra- tion so far. In this passage, as in many others in his letters, he shows the political acuteness and impartiality of one who had travelled far and observed much : — • " Through the Company's territories what have perhaps struck me most forcibly are the great moderation and general ability with which the different civil functionaries apparently perform their arduous duties, and the uniform good order and obedience to the laws which are enforced through so vast a tract of country, amid a warlike, an armed, and, I do not think, a very well-affected population. The unfavourable circumstances appear to be the total want of honourable employment for the energies and ambi- tion of the higher rank of natives, and the extreme numerical in- sufficiency of the establishment allowed by the Company for the administration of justice, the collection of revenue, and, I am almost tempted to say, the permanent security and internal defence of their empire. " On the whole I have hitherto been greatly pleased with my journey, so much so that I have frequently regretted the pressure of public business, which seems to render it unlikely that your Lordship will be enabled to undertake a similar tour, through pro- vinces of which, to judge by my own experience, it is almost as difficult to obtain an accurate idea in Calcutta as in London. It is not merely on account of the personal gratification and amuse- ment which you would derive from such a journey, for I know that, let a governor of India go where he will, it is probably that care will climb the Soonamooky 2 and sit behind the howdah. Nor ' Home painted William Carey's portrait. In 1794 he published his Select Views in Mysore, the country of Tippoo Sultan, from drawings taken on the spot, with historical descriptions (published by Mr. Bowyer). ^ The name of the Governor-General's pinnace. 212 BISHOP HEBER is it only for the sake of the renewed health which both yourself and your family would inhale from the cool breezes of the Ganges and the fine frosty mornings which I am now enjoying. But there seems so great an advantage in producing occasionally to this people, in a visible and popular shape, the power and person by whom they are held in subjection ; so many valuable objects might be attained by an intercourse and acquaintance between the chief governor, his agents, and his subjects, and from the other oppor- tunities of acquiring knowledge and doing good, of which no man is likely to make a better use than your Lordship, that I most fer- vently wish you a speedy triumph over the Burmans, if it were only for the chance that your Lordship may thus be enabled to ascend the Ganges, and inspect some of the most important and interesting parts of Northern India." The Bishop had large congregations, both at the can- tonments and Residency, on two successive Sundays. " The Hindostani reads well in prayer, particularly those words which are derived from the Arabic," he wrote. " I like the sound of " 'Aram Ullahi jo sare fahemon se bahur hue' — '■ the peace oj God,' etc. ; and of ' Khoda Khader, Mutluk, jo Bap our Beta our Ruk Kodus hue ' — ' God victorious, Mighty, the Father, Son, and No/y Ghost.' I had also twelve candidates for confirmation, and administered the Sacrament to twenty-five persons, and found the people extremely anxious to assemble for public worship. The first Sunday I preached, indeed, three times, and twice the second, besides giving two confirmation lectures on the Friday and Saturday, and some other occasional duty. Mr. Ricketts is himself in the habit of acting as chaplain at the Residency every Sunday ; but the people in the king's employ, and the other Christian inhabitants, complain that Government are very jealous of their attending at that place, and they express great an.xiety to establish a similar meeting for devotional purposes among them- selves." After ten days of varied duty and court experiences, described in his Journal in a pleasant chapter, he fell sick on the first stage from that capital to Bareilly, and found him- self alone without physician or friend. He was seized by an aggravated form of the influenza epidemic, which prevailed all over Northern India that year. At Sandi, in the present district TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 213 of Hardoi, he offered up this prayer of thanksgiving for recovery : — " I thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou hast heard my prayer and helped me in the needful time of trouble ; that Thou hast de- livered me from sharp sickness and great apparent danger, when I had no skill to heal myself, and when no human skill was near to save me. I thank Thee for the support which Thou gavest me in my hour of trial ; that Thou didst not let my sins to triumph over me, neither mine iniquities to sink me in despair. I thank Thee for the many comforts with which Thy mercy surrounded me ; for the accommodations of wealth, the security of guards, the attendance and fidelity of servants, the advantage of medicine and natural means of cure, the unclouded use of my reason, and the holy and prevailing prayers which my absent friends offered up for me ! But above all I thank Thee for the knowledge of my own weakness, and of Thy great goodness and power, beseeching Thee that the recollection of these days may not vanish like a morning dream, but that the resolutions which I have formed may be sealed with Thy grace, and the life which Thou hast spared may be spent hereafter in Thy service ; that my past sins may be forgiven and forsaken, and my future days may be em- ployed in serving and pleasing Thee, through Thy dear Son Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen." A fortnight later he wrote of the Dravidian Mission to Principal Mill : — " I feel greatly obliged and gratified by your prompt acqui- escence in, and execution of, my views with regard to the Paharee tribes, and I pray God that we may be blessed by seeing such a primitive establishment as you speak of among them. My main anxiety, in the first instance, was to get the start of our competitors, and fix an Episcopal clergyman in immediate connection with, and dependence on. Bishop's College, in a spot, the cultivation of which may eventually place that College at the head of a con- nected chain of missions as extensive, and in a purer faith, than the Jesuit ' Reductions ' of Paraguay." He had wider views than even these, as every Christian soul loyal to the King must have. At Bareilly, where his host, Mr. Hawkins, the judge, gave him the ripe experience of forty- two years' continuous service, he determined to visit the hill 214 BISHOP HEBER station of Almora, the Christians of which had never seen a clergyman there. " I was very anxious not only to give a Sunday to its secluded flock, but to ascertain what facilities existed ... for eventually spreading the Gospel among these mountaineers, and beyond them into Tibet and Tartary. ... If God spare me life and opportunities, I yet hope to see Chris- tianity revived, through this channel, in countries where, under a corrupted form indeed, it is said to have once flourished widely through the labours of the Nestorians." Here again Heber only anticipated by a generation or two what has been accomplished. All he dreamed of for the elevation of the people, if not in the entrance of Christianity into Central Asia by this route, was accomplished by the late Commissioner, Sir Henry Ramsay, K.C.B., "the king of Kumaon," a man after his own heart, and by the London and the Methodist Epis- copal Missionary Societies. Contemplating such a journey in those days through the most unprotected part of Rohilcund, Delhi, Rajpootana, and the Bheel country to Baroda and Bombay, Reginald Heber wrote this solemn and loving communication, to be given " to my dear wife, in case of my death." "Shahee, Rohilcund, i8//; Novcniler 1S24. " As I am engaged in a journey in which there is, I find, a probability of more and greater dangers than I anticipated, I write these few lines to my dear wife, to assure her that, next to the welfare of my immortal soul (which I commit, in humble hope, to the undeserved mercies of my God and Lord Jesus Christ), the thought of her and of my beloved children is, at this moment, nearest my heart, and my most earnest prayers are offered for her and their happiness and holiness, here and hereafter. Should I meet my death in the course of the present journey, it is my request to her to be comforted concerning me, and to bear my loss patiently, and to trust in the Almighty to raise up friends, and give food and clothing to herself and her children. It is also my request that she would transmit my affectionate love and the assurance of my prayers to my dear mother and to my father-in- law, to Mrs. Yonge, my uncle and aunt Allanson, my beloved brother and sister, and all with whom I am connected by blood or marriage, particularly Harriet Douglas and Charlotte Shipley. I beg her to transmit the same assurance of my continued affec- TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS 215 tion and prayers to my dear friend Charlotte Dod, also to my dear friends Thornton, C. Williams Wynn, Wilmot, and Davenport. " 1 am not aware of any advantageous alteration which I could make in the will which I left at Calcutta, and I am too poor to leave legacies. I will, therefore, only send my blessing to my dear wife and children, and to the valuable relations and friends whom I have enumerated, begging them to fear and love God above all things, and so to endeavour to serve Him, as that, through the worthiness and compassion of His Son, in whom only I trust, we may meet in a happy eternity. Amen ! Amen ! May God hear my prayers for myself and them, for the sake of our blessed Saviour ! Reginald Calcutta." CHAPTER X ALMORA TO BOMBAY 1824-1825 Two months before the crowning victory of Waterloo, the Goorkha war closed with the cession of the fort of Almora and the provinces of Kumaon and Garhwal. A hill country of the size of Switzerland, but even more beautiful, and a million of trusty highlanders were added to the British Empire. Farther west, in the lower range of the Himalayas, part of Simla also was annexed. From Nipal on the east to Kashmir on the north-west, a line of cool hill country had thus been opened up to European settlement and for sanitary retreat just before Bishop Heber's arrival in the country. Lieutenant Kennedy built the first permanent house in Simla in 1 8 1 9, and ten years afterwards Lord Amherst spent the hot season there, the first of the series of Governor-Generals and Viceroys who have gradually made it the summer capital of British India. Almora, however, which has since become the centre of such civil and military sanitaria for the North-Western Provinces as Naini-Tal, Ranikhet and Chowbuttia, Mussooree and Landhaur, seemed likely to outstrip Simla at the first. Mr. Adam, the very able and very conservative Member of Council, who acted as Governor-General before Lord Amherst's arrival, had a house at Almora, which he placed at the service of the Bishop. There Heber found himself, after the toils and the exposure of the plains, during seven months of the hot and rainy seasons of 1824, in the shadow of thirty snowy peaks, all much loftier than Mont Blanc, and three of them rising to twenty-six thousand ALMORA TO BOMBAY 217 feet. There he was in the centre of the land of the great rivers which form the Ganges system, near the sources of the glacier- born streams, up which thousands of Hindoos daily toil from the parched plains below seeking for God, if haply they may find Him, in the ice-bound solitudes, and there wash the con- science clean. " i6th November 1824. " Though an important station, Almora has never been visited by any clergyman ; and I was very anxious not only to give a Sunday to its secluded flock, but to ascertain what facilities existed for obtaining for them the occasional visits, at least, of a minister of religion, and for eventually spreading the Gospel among these mountaineers, and beyond them into Tibet and Tartary. The former of these objects I have good hopes of being able to accomplish ; a residence in these cold and bracing regions may, in many cases, do as much good to chaplains and missionaries, exhausted by the heat of the plains, as a voyage to Europe would do ; and good men may be well employed here who are unequal to exertion in other parts of our Eastern empire. To the second there are many obstacles, not likely, as yet, to be over- come ; and in encountering which considerable prudence and moderation will be necessary. But there are facilities and encouragements also, which I did not expect to find ; and if God spare me life and opportunities, I yet hope to see Christianity revived, through this channel, in countries where, under a corrupted form indeed, it is said to have once flourished widely through the labours of the Nestorians. ". . . Captain Satchwell, the acting commissary - general 01 the district, promised me the use of some mules, which Govern- ment were sending up to Kumaon for the public service there. Mr. Boulderson, the collector, offered me the loan of an able and experienced pony ; and I received a letter from Mr. Traill, the commissioner for the affairs of the hill countries, offering me every assistance in the last four mountain stages." " 19//; November. " On leaving our encampment we forded the river Bhagool. At last, soon after the sun rose, and just as we had reached a small rising ground, the mist rolled away, and showed us again the Himalaya, distinct and dark, with the glorious icy mountains, towering in a clear blue sky, above the nearer range. There were four of these, the names of three of which Mr. Boulderson knew. 2l8 BISHOP HEBER Bhadrinath, Kedarnath, and the peak above the source of the Ganges, the Mem of Hindoo fable. The fourth, to the extreme right, he did not know. . . . That we saw the snowy peaks at all, considering their' distance, and that mountains twice as high as Snowdon intervened, is wonderful. I need hardly say that I wished for my wife to share the sight with me. . . . ". . . The Chvydian chain, indeed, is not crowned by such noble pinnacles as Bhadrinath and Gangotri, but I could not help feeling now, and I felt it still more when I began to attempt to commit the prospect to paper, that the awe and wonder which I experienced were of a very complex character, and greatly detached from the simple act of vision. The eye is, by itself, and without some objects to form a comparison, unable to judge of such heights at such a distance. Carneth Llewellyn and Snowdon, at certain times in the year, make really as good a picture as the mountains now before me ; and the reason that I am so much more impressed with the present view is partly the mysterious idea of awful and inaccessible remoteness attached to the Indian Caucasus, the centre of earth, " ' Its Altar, and its Cradle, and its Throne' ; and still more the knowledge derived from books, that the objects now before me are really among the greatest earthly works of the Almighty Creator's hands, — the highest spots below the moon — and out-topping, by many hundred feet, the summit of Cotopaxi and Chimborazo." The man — the young man — that was always under the clergyman, and gave him much of his charm and useful- ness, was not sorry when a Raja on the Terai route reported a tiger. ". . . He mentioned, in the course of conversation, that there was a tiger in an adjoining tope, which had done a good deal of mischief, that he should have gone after it himself had he not been ill, and had he not thought that it would be a fine diversion for Mr. Boulderson and me. I told him I was no sportsman, but Mr. Boulderson's eyes sparkled at the name of tiger, and he expressed great anxiety to beat up his quarters in the afternoon. Under such circumstances I did not like to deprive him of his sport, as he would not leave me by myself, and went, though with no intention of being more than a spectator. Mr. Boulderson, how- ever, advised me to load my pistols for the sake of defence, and ALMORA TO BOMBAY 219 lent me a very fine double-barrelled gun for the same purpose. We set out a little after three on our elephants, with a servant behind each howda. . . . The Raja was on a little female elephant, hardly bigger than the Durham ox, and almost as shaggy as a poodle. She was a native of the neighbouring wood, where they are generally, though not always, of a smaller size than those of Bengal and Chittagong. He sat in a low howda, with two or three guns ranged beside him ready for action. Mr. Boulderson had also a formidable apparatus of muskets and fowling-pieces projecting over his mahout's head. We rode about two miles, across a plain covered with long jungle-grass, which very much put me in mind of the country near the Cuban. Quails and wild fowl rose in great numbers, and beautiful antelopes were seen scudding away in all directions. With them our party had no quarrel ; their flesh is good for little, and they are in general favourites both with native and English sportsmen, who feel dis- inclined to meddle with a creature so graceful and so harmless. " At last we came to a deeper and more marshy ground, which lay a little before the tope. . . . We went in, keeping line as if we had been beating for a hare, through grass so high that it reached up to the howda of my elephant, though a tall one, and almost hid the Raja entirely. We had not gone far before a very large animal of the deer kind sprang up just before me, larger than a stag, of a dusky brown colour, with spreading, but not palmated horns. Mr. Boulderson said it was a 'mohr,' a species of elk ; that this was a young one, but that they sometimes grew to an immense size, so that he had stood upright between the tips of their horns. He could have shot it, but did not like to fire at present, and said it was, after all, a pity to meddle with such harmless animals. The mohr accordingly ran off unmolested, rising with splendid bounds up to the very top of the high jungle, so that his whole body and limbs were seen from time to time above it. A little farther, another rose, which Mr. Boulderson said was the female ; of her I had but an imperfect view. The sight of these curious animals had already, however, well repaid my coming out, and from the animation and eagerness of every- body round me, the anxiety with which my companions looked for every waving of the jungle-grass, and the continued calling and shouting of the horse and foot behind us, it was impossible not to catch the contagion of interest and enterprise. "At last the elephants all threw up their trunks into the air, began to roar and to stamp violently with their forefeet, the Raja's little elephant turned short round, and in spite of all her mahout 220 BISHOP HEBER could say or do, took up her post, to the Raja's great annoyance, close in the rear of Mr. Boulderson. The other three (for one of my baggage elephants had come out too, the mahout, though unarmed, not caring to miss the show) went on slowly but boldly, with their trunks raised, their ears expanded, and their sagacious little eyes bent intently forward. ' We are close upon him,' said Mr. Boulderson ; ' fire where you see the long grass shake, if he rises before you.' Just at that moment my elephant stamped again violently. ' There, there,' cried the mahout, ' I saw his head ! ' A short roar, or rather loud growl, followed, and I saw immediately before my elephant's head the motion of some large animal stealing away through the grass. I fired as directed, and, a moment after, seeing the motion still more plainly, fired the second barrel. Another short growl followed, the motion was immediately Cjuickened, and was soon lost in the more distant jungle. Mr. Boulderson said, ' I should not wonder if you hit him that last time ; at any rate we shall drive him out of the cover, and then I will take care of him.' In fact, at that moment, the crowd of horse and foot spectators at the jungle side began to run off in all directions. We went on to the place, but found it was a false alarm, and, in fact, we had seen all we were to see of him, and went twice more through the jungle in vain. A large extent of high grass stretched out in one direction, and this we had now not sufficient daylight to explore. In fact, that the animal so near me was a tiger at all I have no evidence but its growl, Mr. Boulder- son's belief, the assertion of the mahout, and what is, perhaps, more valuable than all the rest, the alarm expressed by the elephants. I could not help feeling some apprehension that my firing had robbed Mr. Boulderson of his shot, but he assured me that I was quite in rule ; that in such sport no courtesies could be observed, and that the animal, in fact, rose before me, but that he should himself have fired without scruple if he had seen the rustle of the grass in time. Thus ended my first, and probably my last, essay in the ' field sports ' of India, in which I am much mistaken, notwithstanding what Mr. Boulderson said, if I harmed any living creature." ' ' 2^1 h November. " This morning we began to pack by four o'clock. . . . After coasting the lake for one mile, went for about thirteen more by a most steep and rugged road, over the neck of Mount Gaughur, through a succession of glens, forests, and views of the most sublime and beautiful description. I never saw such prospects ALMORA TO BOMBAY 221 bufore, and liad formed no adequate idea of such. My attention was completely strained, and my eyes filled with tears, everything around was so wild and magnificent that man appeared as nothing, and I felt myself as if climbing the steps of the altar of God's great temple. The trees, as we advanced, were in a large pro- portion fir and cedar, but many were ilex, and to my surprise I still saw, even in these Alpine tracts, many venerable peepul-trees, on which the white monkeys were playing their gambols. . . . Tigers used to be very common and mischievous, but since the English have frequented the country, are scarce, and in comparison very shy. There are also many wolves and bears, and some chamois, two of which passed near us. My Sepoys wanted me to shoot one, and offered, with my leave, to do so themselves, if I did not like the walk which would be necessary. But my people would not have eaten them. I myself was well supplied with provisions, and I did not wish to destroy an innocent animal merely for the sake of looking at it a little closer ; I therefore told them it was not my custom to kill anything which was not mischievous, and asked if they would stand by me if we saw a tiger or a bear. They promised eagerly not to fail me. 222 BISHOP HEBER " After winding up " ' A wild romantic chasm that slanted Down the steep hill, athwart a cedar cover, A savage place, as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath the waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon lover,' we arrived at the gorge of the pass, in an indent between the two principal summits of Mount Gaughur, near 8600 feet above the sea. And now the snowy "mountains, which had been so long eclipsed, opened on us in full magnificence. " Nandidevi was immediately opposite ; Kedamath was not visible from our present situation, and Meru only seen as a very distant single peak. The eastern mountains, however, for which I have obtained no name, rose into great consequence, and were very glorious objects as we wound down the hill on the other side. The guides could only tell me that ' they were a great way off, and bordered on the Chinese empire.' " " Tjth November. " The Chinese frontier is strictly guarded by the jealous care of that government. Mr. Moorcroft did, indeed, pass it some years ago, and was kindly received by one of the provincial governors ; but the poor man was thrown into prison, and died there, as a punishment for his hospitality, and, since, nobody has been allowed to go beyond the frontier village. ... To the north, however, the small independent Tartar kingdom of Ladak has shown itself exceedingly hospitable and friendly. Mr. Moorcroft, when he was there, was treated with unbounded kindness and confidence, and their khan has since sent a formal offer, which I am sorry was declined, of his allegiance to the British Government. ". . . Kumaon is e.xtremely subject to earthquakes ; scarcely a year passes without a shake or two, and though all have been slight since the English came, it would not be wise to build upper- roomed houses, unless, like the natives, they made the super- structure of timber. In the best of these bungalows I found Mr. Adam, who received me most hospitably. He introduced me to Sir Robert Colquhoun, the commandant of the local troops of Kumaon, who invited me to accompany Mr. Adam and himself on Monday to his house at Havelbagh, where the native lines are, and where Mr. Adam is residing at present, as being a milder climate than that of Almora. Mr. Adam had a party to dine in the evening, and I found that almost all the civil and military officers here were Scotch." ALMORA TO BOMBAY 223 ' ' Sunday, 2%tli November. " This clay I enjoyed the gratification of being the first Protestant minister who had preached and administered the Sacraments in so remote, yet so celebrated a region. I had a very respectable congregation of, I believe, all the Christian inhabitants of Almora and Havelbagh. Mr. Adam allowed me to make use of the two principal rooms in his house, which, by the help of the folding- doors betw'een them, accommodated thirty or thirty-five persons with ease. I was, after service, introduced to Lady Cokiuhoun, who is celebrated in the province as a bold rider along the mountain paths. I was also introduced to Captain Herbert, who has the situation of geologist in this province, and who seems a very well- informed, as he is a very pleasing and unassuming man. He and Sir Robert Cokjuhoun were just returned from a scientific e.xpedi- tion to the eastern frontier, and gave an interesting account of the Goorkha troops there, whom they described, as they have been generally represented, as among the smartest and most European- like soldiery of India. We had family prayers." " 29//^ November. ". . . My second visitant was the pundit of the criminal court of Kumaon, a learned Brahmin, and a great astrologer. He had professed to Mr. Traill a desire to see me, and asked if I were as well informed in the Vedas, Puranas, and other sacred books of the Hindoos, as another European pundit whom he had heard preach some years before at the great fair of Hurdwar ? He evidently meant the Baptist missionary Mr. Chamberlain ; and it pleased me to find that this good and able, though bigoted man, had left a favourable impression behind him among his auditors." Wherever he travelled, in India as in Russia, Heber had an eye to the economic resources of the country. He records the prevalence of the wild tea-plant all through Kumaon ; " but it cannot be made use of, from an emetic quality which it possesses. This might, perhaps, be removed by cultivation, for which the soil, hilly surface, and climate — in all of which it resembles the tea provinces of China — are extremely favour- able." Since that time the China plant has covered the slopes of the Himalayas from Dehra Doon to Kangra, and the tea is exported chiefly into Central Asia. The Hon. Sir Henry 224 BISHOP HEBER Ramsay, K.C.S.I.,^ realised more than even Heber dreamed of, alike in the physical well-being of the people and the extension of Christian missions among them, during his forty years' administration of Kumaon, beginning with the year of the great Mutiny. Even that unexpected rebellion his shrewd observation and sagacity led him to anticipate, as in this letter to J. Phillimore, Esq., LL.D. :— " Almora, ifjth November 1824. "... 1 have only time to say that all is, at present, quiet in the Upper Provinces of India, and I think likely to continue so, unless any remarkable reverses occur on the side of Ava. A general revolt was, a little time since, thought not unlikely, but the period seems now gone by ; and the alarming mutiny at Barrackpoor was apparently made in concert with no other regiment. But there certainly is, in all the Doab, in Oudh, and Rohilkhund, an immense mass of armed, idle, and disaffected population, and I am inclined to doubt whether the Honourable Company's tenure of their possessions is worth many years' purchase, unless they place their army on a more numerous establishment than it now is, and do something more for the internal improvement of the country, and the contentment of the higher ranks of natives than they have hitherto seemed inclined to do. I am quite well, and am now on a very interesting journey through a part of Kumaon, enjoying frosty mornings, cool breezes, and the view of the noblest mountains under Heaven." The mutiny of the 47 th Native Infantry had been pro- nounced by the Court of Inquiry to be " an ebullition of despair at being compelled to march (to Burma) without the means of doing so," and had been mismanaged by the military authorities. But the Burmanwar,and,it must be admitted, the weak personnel of the Government of India since the departure of Lord Hast- ings, had created much disquietude.- This is reflected in another letter written to Lord Amherst two months later : — " Jeypoor, Z/^/h January 1825. ". . . The report, indeed, that our government was about to evacuate this part of India, had, as I understand, been gradually 1 See Good Words for May 1894. ^ See Marshman's History of India, chap. .\xix. ALMORA TO BOMBAY 225 dying away ever since the conclusion of the rainy season. It had, no doubt, been industriously propagated from mischievous moti\ es, but its origin may be easy to account for. The people of Hin- doostan had already once seen the English government, after extensive conquests, give up vast tracts of country and retire within their ancient limits ; and the incessant march of troops to the eastward which they witnessed a few months back, joined to the vague reports which reached them of a war with Ava, and their knowledge that a new Governor-General was lately arrived, may not unnaturally have led them to believe that, from necessity or otherwise, an entire change had taken place in British policy, and that your Lordship was about to evacuate the conquests of Lord Hastings, in the same manner as Lord Cornwallis gave up the new provinces acquired by his predecessor. From whatever cause, the suspicion was, certainly, very widely spread, and had the effect of encouraging the enemies, and alarming the friends of government. " In Rohilkhund my servants told me that even so trifling a circumstance as my going through the country, with a numerous escort and a certain degree of official rank, in an opposite course from the supposed tide of European emigration, produced a good deal of surprise among the people of the villages, and led them to think more favourably of the continuance of English rule than they had previously done. And, in my late journey through Bhurtpoor, the Raja of which showed me great hospitality and attention, I could not help observing that a repair of his fortresses had been begun, but, apparently, again discontinued during the last five or six months. It is possible, indeed, that the ill-humour then displayed by the Rani of Jeypoor may have led him to think some warlike preparations necessary. The Rani herself, who, as a princess of the house of Oodeypoor, has an almost hereditary title to be ambitious and intriguing, is now described by her subjects as in high spirits, and exceedingly fond of the English ; and I passed, yesterday, a golden image set with precious stones, which she is sending, under a strong escort, to the temple of Bindrabun, in consequence, as is believed, of a vow, and as a thanksgiving for the favourable tennination of her discussions with your Lordship's agents. " Kumaon is a very interesting country ; some of its views exceed in sublimity anything which I have seen in Norway, and more than equal all which I have heard or read of Switzerland. The people, too, are \ ery interesting ; they are wretchedly poor, but they are kind-hearted, hospitable, and honest to a degree Q 226 BISHOP HEBER which I have not witnessed in any other part of India ; and from all which I observed myself, or heard from others, this is one of the parts of India where the British are really loved, and their government acknowledged as a blessing. I was forcibly struck in passing through this province with the persuasion that it is here that the plan, which I heard your Lordship suggest in con- versation, of cultivating tea within the limits of the Empire, might be most successfully carried into execution. "... I was greatly pleased with the church, chaplain, and congregation of Meerut, all of which are more English than any- thing of the kind which I have seen in India. In Mr. Fisher, the chaplain, I had, I confess, been led to expect some share of fanaticism and intemperate zeal, of both which I am bound to acquit him. The sermon which I heard him preach was extremely plain and sensible ; and with regard to his native converts, who are numerous, he has solemnly assured me, and I have not the smallest reason to disbelieve him, that he has sought after none of them, and given instruction to none who did not voluntarily come to request it of him. Two such came while I was in Meerut, and a third, during the same time, received baptism. Mr. Fisher asked me to perform this ceremony myself, but, in consequence of the rule which I ha\ e laid down not to become needlessly con- spicuous in the pursuit of objects which are not my immediate concern, I declined. For the same reason I have abstained from distributing tracts, or acting in any way which might excite the jealousy of those whom it is, on all accounts, desirable to con- ciliate. The work of conversion is, I think, silently going on, but those who wish it best will be most ready to say fcstina lente." Si.x years before, on loth October 1819, the Sepoy Prabhu Deen, who had first heard of Christ when stationed in Mauritius, was baptized by the chaplain, Rev. R. Fisher. His fellows had tried to prevent the step, and had finally falsely accused him of acts of which the regimental Court of Inquiry honourably acquitted him. Thereupon their opposition ceased, but a special court was summoned, which, admitting his exemplary conduct as a soldier, decided that he should leave the regiment. He declined. On this, Sir Edward Paget, the Commander-in-Chief, offered him higher rank in another corps, but in vain. He remained a Christian at Meerut, and when his old comrades next visited the station, some of them told him they would have stood by him as ALMORA TO BOMBAY 227 Christians too, but could not face expulsion from the regiment.^ Hence the Bishop's reference to Mr. Fisher's high character in his letter to the Governor-General. Up to Lord Canning's time,2 in i860, there was no change in the public attitude of political fear, leading to intolerance to Christianity, on the part of the Government of India. Bishop Heber's satisfaction with Mr. Fisher's zeal and success is best reflected in his Journal : — " 18/// Deceinher 1824. " This morning I proceeded to Meerut, and was met at a little distance from the town by Mr. Fisher, the chaplain (whom I had once, many years ago, heard preach at Knaresborough), and two of his sons, one a chaplain on the Company's establishment, the other a lieutenant in the same service, and some officers of the troops in garrison.'' " \<)th December. " The church was consecrated this day with the usual forms. The congregation was very numerous and attentive, the singing considerably better than at Calcutta, and the appearance of every- thing highly honourable both to the chaplain and military officers of this important station. I had the gratification of hearing my own hymns, ' Brightest and best,' and that for St. Stephen's day, sung better than I ever heard them in a church before. It is a remarkable thing that one of the earliest, the largest, and hand- somest churches in India, as well as one of the best organs, should be found in so remote a situation, and in sight of the Himalaya Mountains. The evening service was very well attended ; and this is the more creditable, inasmuch, as I ha\e elsewhere observed, all who then come are volunteers, whereas attendance in the morning is a part of military parade." " 22nd December. " I went with Mr. Fisher to a small congregation of native Christians, to whom, not being able to give them a service on Sunday, he reads prayers and preaches on this day. About twenty people were present ; one, the ' naik,' or corporal, whom, in con- sequence of his embracing Christianity, Government very absurdly, not to say wickedly, disgraced by removing him from his regi- ' Reminiscences of Seventy Years' Life, Travel, and Adventure, London (Elliot .Stock), 1893. ^ See Conversion of India, p. 117. 228 BISHOP HEBER ment, though they still allow him his pay. He is a tall, stout, plain-looking man, with every appearance of a respectable and well-behaved soldier. Another was Anund Musseeh, a convert of Mr. Corrie's, who has a good deal distinguished himself as a catechist at Delhi, and on whom Mr. Fisher wants me to confer ordination. He is a tall, coarse-looking man, without much intellect in his countenance, but is said to be very eloquent and well-informed, so far as a knowledge of Hindostani and Persian enables him. I had, afterwards, repeated conversations with him, and was pleased by his unassuming and plain manner." '• 2.T,rd December. " This morning I breakfasted with General Reynell. In the evening Mr. Fisher read prayers and preached to a tolerably numerous congregation, it being his custom to have service of this kind every Wednesday and Friday." ' ' 24//; December. "This day I confinned about two hundred and fifty people, young and old, of whom between forty and fifty were natives converted to Christianity by Mr. Fisher. Surely all this is what we could hardly expect in so remote a part of India, and where no Englishman had set his foot till the conquests made by Lord Lake and Sir Arthur Wellesley." " 25/// December. " Christmas Day. A very large congregation, and above two hundred communicants." " 26/h December. " I preached, and after evening service confirmed twelve per- sons who had not been able to attend on the Friday." " 27//; December. " I received a present of fruit from the Begum Sumroo, together with a civil message, expressing a hope to see me at Sirdhana, to which I returned an answer in an English letter. Though she herself does not understand the language, she has many people about her who do, particularly Colonel Br>-ce, who acts as a sort of Resident at her court." " 2?,th December. " I set off from Meerut. Here I mounted Nedjeed — did I ever tell you the name of my little Arab horse before ? — and ALMORA TO BOMBAY 229 pursued my journey, escorted by five of Colonel Skinner's irregular cavalry, the most showy and picturesque cavaliers I have seen since I was in the south of Russia. . . . Colonel Alexander Skinner is a good and modest, as well as a brave man. He had just devoted 20,000 sicca rupees to build a church at Delhi." At Delhi the reception of the Bishop by the titular Emperor was notable. In a letter to Lord Amherst, Heber described him as " The poor old prince, whose name was, in the time of our boy- hood, associated as ' Great Mogul,' with every possible idea of wealth and grandeur. The palace, though dismally dirty and ruinous, is still very fine, and its owner is himself a fine and interesting ruin. His manner, and, I understand, his general character, is one of extremely courteous acquiescence and resigna- tion, and in essential points he has unquestionably good reason to think himself fortunate in the hands into which he has fallen." This was the fallen Emperor Akbar Shah, tlie immediate successor of Shah Alum, whom Lord Lake had delivered from his thraldom to the Marathas, and who died in i 806. From that year to 1837 Akbar Shah reigned only in the palace, receiving a lakh of rupees a month, besides what the Marathas had left to his father. Akbar's eldest son, whom also Heber saw on this occasion, became the Emperor Bahadur Shah, who allowed himself to be put at the head of the rebel move- ment in 1857, caused the murder of Christians, and was removed to Rangoon, where he died in 1862. The Journal describes the reception in detail : — "The 31st December was fixed for my presentation to the emperor, which was appointed for half-past eight in the morning. Lushington and a Captain Wade also chose to take the same opportunity. At eight I went, accompanied by Mr. Elliott, with nearly the same formalities as at Lucknow, except that we were on elephants instead of in palanquins, and that the procession was, perhaps, less splendid, and the beggars both less numerous and far less vociferous and importunate. We were received with pre sented arms by the troops of the palace drawn up within the barbican, and proceeded, still on our elephants, through the noblest gateway and vestibule which I ever saw. It consists, not merely of a splendid Gothic arch in the centre of the great gate- BISHOP HEBER tower, but, after that, of a long vaulted aisle, like that of a Gothic cathedral, with a small open octagonal court in its centre, all of granite, and all finely carved with inscriptions from the Koran, and with flowers. This ended in a ruinous and exceed- ingly dirty stable-yard ! where we were received by Captain Grant, as the Mogul's officer on guard, and by a number of elderly men with large gold-headed canes, the usual ensign of office here, and one of which Mr. Elliott also carried. We were now told to dismount and proceed on foot, a task which the late rain made inconvenient to my gown and cassock and thin shoes, and during which we were pestered by a fresh swarm of miserable beggars, the wives and children of the stable servants. After this we passed another richly-carved, but ruinous and dirty, gateway, where our guides, withdrawing a canvas screen, called out, in a sort of harsh chant, ' Lo, the ornament of the world ! Lo, the asylum of the nations ! King of Kings ! The Emperor Akbar Shah ! Just, fortunate, victorious ! ' We saw, in fact, a very handsome and striking court, about as big as that at All Souls, with low, but richly-ornamented buildings. Opposite to us was a beautiful open pavilion of white marble, richly carved, flanked by rose bushes and fountains, and some tapestry and striped curtains hanging in festoons about it, within which was a crowd of people, and the poor old descendant of Tamerlane seated in the midst of them. " Mr. Elliott here bowed three times very low, in which we followed his example. This ceremony was repeated twice as we advanced up the steps of the pavilion, the heralds each time repeating the same expressions about their master's greatness. We then stood in a row on the right-hand side of the throne, which is a sort of marble bedstead richly ornamented with gild- ing, and raised on two or three steps. Mr. Elliott then stepped forwards, and, with joined hands in the usual Eastern way, announced, in a low voice, to the emperor who I was. I then advanced, bowed three times again, and offered a ijuzzur of fifty- one gold mohurs in an embroidered purse, laid on my handker- chief, in the way practised by the Baboos in Calcutta. This was received and laid on one side, and I remained standing for a few minutes, while the usual court questions about my health, my travels, when I left Calcutta, etc., were asked. I had thus an opportunity of seeing the old gentleman more plainly. He has a pale, thin, but handsome face, with an aquiline nose, and a long white beard. His complexion is little, if at all darker than that of a European. His hands are very fair and delicate, and he had ALMORA TO BOMBAY some valuable-looking rings on them. His hands and face were all I saw of him, for the morning being cold, he was so wrapped up in shawls that he reminded me extremely of the Druid's head on a Welsh halfpenny. I then stepped back to niy former place, and retm'neil again with fi\c more mohurs to make iny offering to the hcir-apparcnt, who stood at his father's left hand, the right being occupied by the Resident. Next, my two companions were introduced with nearly the same forms, except that their offerings were less, and that the emperor did not speak to them. "The emperor then beckoned to me to come forwards, and Mr. Elliott told me to take off my hat, which had till now remained on my head, on which the emperor tied a flimsy turban of brocade round my head with his own hands, for which, however, I paid four gold mohurs more. We were then directed to retire to receive the klieldis (honorary dresses) which the bounty of ' the Asylum of the World' had provided for us. I was accordingly taken into a small private room, adjoining the zanana, where I found a handsome flowered caftan edged with fur, and a pair of common- looking shawls, which my servants, who had the delight of witness- ing all this fine show, put on instead of my gown, my cassock remaining as before. In this strange dress I had to walk back again, having my name announced by the criers (something in the same way that Lord Marmion's was) as ' Bahadur, Boozoony, Dowlut-mund,' etc., to the presence, where I found my two com- panions, who had not been honoured by a private dressing-room, but had their khelats put on them in the gateway of the court. They were, I apprehend, still cjueerer figures than I was, having their hats wrapped with scarfs of flowered gauze, and a strange garment of gauze, tinsel, and faded ribands flung over their shoulders above their coats. I now again came forward and offered my third present to the emperor, being a copy of the Arabic Bible and the Hindostani Common Prayer, handsomely bound in blue velvet laced with gold, and wrapped up in a piece of brocade. He then motioned to me to stoop, and put a string of pearls round my neck, and two glittering but not costly orna- ments in the front of my turban, for which I again offered five gold mohurs. It was, lastly, announced that a horse was waiting for my acceptance, at which fresh instance of imperial munificence the heralds again made a proclamation of largesse, and I again paid five gold mohurs. It ended by my taking my leave with three times three salaams, making up, I think, the sum of about threescore, and I retired with Mr. Elliott to my dressing-room, whence I sent to her Majesty the C^ueen, as she is generally called, 232 BISHOP HEBER though Empress would be the ancient and more proper title, a present of five mohurs more, and the emperor's chobdars came eagerly up to know when they should attend to receive their buckshish. " It must not, however, be supposed that this interchange of civilities was very expensive either to his majesty or to me. All the presents which he gave, the horse included, though really the handsomest which had been seen at the court of Delhi for many years, and though the old gentleman evidently intended to be extremely civil, were not worth much more than 300 sicca rupees,! so that he and his family gained at least 800 sicca rupees 2 by the morning's work, besides what he received from my two com- panions, which was all clear gain, since the khelats which they got in return were only fit for May Day, and made up, I fancy, from the cast-off finery of the Begum. On the other hand, since the Company have wisely ordered that all the presents given by native princes to Europeans should be disposed of on the Govern- ment account, they have liberally, at the same time, taken on themselves the expense of paying the usual money nuzzurs made by public men on these occasions. In consequence, none of my offerings were at my own charge, except the professional and private one of the two books, with which, as they were unexpected, the emperor, as I was told, was very much pleased. I had, of course, several buckshishes to give afterwards to his servants, but these fell considerably short of my expenses at Lucknow. " To return to the hall of audience. While in the small apart- ment where I got rid of my shining gannents, I w^as struck with its beautiful ornaments. It was entirely lined with white marble inlaid with flowers and leaves of green serpentine, lapis -lazuli, and blue and red porphyry ; the flowers were of the best Italian style of workmanship, and evidently the labour of an artist of that country. All, however, was dirty, desolate, and forlorn. Half the flowers and lea\es had been picked out or otherwise defaced, and the doors and windows were in a state of dilapidation, while a quantity of old furniture was piled in one comer, and a torn hanging of faded tapestiy hung over an archway which led to the interior apartments. ' Such,' Mr. Elliott said, ' is the general style in which this palace is kept up and furnished. It is not absolute poverty which produces this, but these people have no idea of cleaning or mending anything.' For my own part I thought of the famous Persian line, 1 £z^ : los. ALMORA TO BOMBAY 233 ' ' ' The spider hangs her tapestry in the palace of the Caesars,' and felt a melancholy interest in comparing the present state of this poor family with what it was 200 years ago, when Bernier visited Delhi, or as we read its palace described in the tale of Madame do Genlis. " After putting on my usual dress we waited a little, till word was brought us that the ' King of Kings,' ' Shah-in-Shah,' had retired to his zanana ; we then went to the hall of audience, which I had previously seen but imperfectly, from the crowd of people and the necessity of attending to the forms which 1 had to go through. It is a very beautiful pavilion of white marble, open on one side to the court of the palace, and on the other to a large garden. Its pillars and arches are exquisitely carved and orna- mented with gilt and inlaid flowers, and inscriptions in the most elaborate Persian character. Round the frieze is the motto, recorded, I believe, in Lalla Rook/i, " ' If there he an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this ! ' The marble floor, where not covered by carpets, is all inlaid in the same beautiful manner with the little dressing-room which I had quitted. "The gardens, which we next visited, are not large, but, in their way, must have been extremely rich and beautiful. They are full of very old orange and other fruit trees, with terraces and parterres, on which many rose bushes were growing, and, even now, a few jonquils in flower. A channel of white marble for water, with little fountain-pipes of the same material, carx ed like roses, is carried here and there among these parterres, and at the end of the terrace is a beautiful octagonal pavilion, also of marble, lined with the same mosaic flowers as in the room which I first saw, with a marble fountain in its centre, and a beautiful bath in a recess on one of its sides. The windows of this pavilion, which is raised to the height of the city wall, command a good view of Delhi and its neighbourhood. But all was, when we saw it, dirty, lonely, and wretched ; the bath and fountain dry ; the inlaid pavement hid with lumber and gardeners' sweepings, and the walls stained with the dung of birds and bats. " We were then taken to the private mosque of the palace, an elegant little building, also of white marble, and exquisitely carved, but in the same state of neglect and dilapidation, with peepuls allowed to spring from its walls, the exterior gilding partially torn 234 BISHOP HEBER from its dome, and some of its doors coarsely blocked up with unplastered brick and mortar. " We went last to the ' dewanee aum,' or hall of public audience, which is in the outer court, and where, on certain occasions, the Great Mogul sate in state, to receive the compliments or petitions of his subjects. This also is a splendid pavilion of marble, not unlike the other hall of audience in form, but considerably larger, and open on three sides only ; on the fourth is a black wall, covered with the same mosaic work of flowers and leaves as I have described, and in the centre a throne, raised about ten feet from the ground, with a small platform of marble in front, where the vizier used to stand to hand up petitions to his master. Behind this throne are mosaic paintings of birds, animals, and flowers ; and in the centre, what decides the point of their being the work of Italian or at least European artists, a small group of Orpheus playing to the beasts. This hall, when we saw it, was full of lumber of all descriptions, broken palanquins and empty bo.xes, and the throne so covered with pigeons' dung that its ornaments were hardly discernible. How little did Shahjehan, the founder of these fine buildings, foresee what would be the fate of his descendants, or what his own would be ! '\'anity of vanities 1 ' was surely never written in more legible characters than on the dilapidated arcades of Delhi I" " 2nd Janitary 1825. " This day, being Sunday, I confirmed about twenty persons, and I afterwards preached and administered the Sacrament, Mr. Fisher reading prayers ; the congregation was numerous, and there were near forty communicants. In the evening also we had a good congregation." By Muttra, the evil centre of the Krishna cult. Bishop Heber, accompanied by Mr. Lushington and Dr. Smith, henceforth his medical attendant, reached Agra, from which he visited the palace-city of Fatehpoor Sikri, the great Akbar's Windsor. Of that he wrote, " There is no quadrangle either in Oxford or Cambridge fit to be compared with it." Like all visitors, he found the Taj finer than his highest expectations : — " \2lh January 1S25. "Archdeacon Corrie's celebrated convert, Abdul Musseeh,^ breakfasted this morning at Mr. Irving's ; he is a very fine old ' See Henry Martyit, Saint and Scholar (1892), pp. 285, 543. ALMORA TO BOMBAY 235 man, with a magnificent gray beard, and much more gentlemanly manners than any Christian native whom I have seen. His rank, indeed, previous to his conversion, was rather elevated, since he was master of the jewels to the Court of Oudh, an appointment of higher estimation in Eastern palaces than in those of Europe, and the holder of which has always a high salary. Abdul Mussceh's present appointments, as Christian missionary, are si.xty rupees a month, and of this he gives away at least half 1 Who can dare to say that this man has changed his faith from any interested motives ? He is a very good Hindostani, Persian, and Arabic scholar, but knows no English. There is a small congregation of native Christians, converted by Mr. Corrie when he was chaplain at Agra, and now kept together by Abdul Musseeh. The earnest desire of this good man is to be ordained a clergyman of the Church of England ; and if God spares his life and mine, I hope, during the Ember weeks in this ne.xt autumn, to confer orders on him. He is every way fit for them, and is a most sincere Christian, quite free, so far as I could observe, from all conceit or enthusiasm. His long Eastern dress, his long gray beard, and his calm resigned countenance, give him already almost the air of an apostle." " lyh Jaiiiiaiy. " I went to see the celebrated Taj Mahal, of which it is enough to say that, after hearing its praises ever since I had been in India, its beauty rather exceeded than fell short of my expectations. 236 BISHOP HEBER There was much, indeed, which I was not prepared for. The surrounding garden, which, as well as the Taj itself, is kept in excellent order by Government, with its marble fountains, beauti- ful cypresses and other trees, and profusion of flowering shrubs, contrasts very finely with the white marble of which the tomb itself is composed, and takes off, by partially concealing it, from that stiffness which belongs more or less to every highly-finished building. The building itself is raised on an elevated terrace of white and yellow marble, and having at its angles four tall minarets of the same material. The Taj contains, as usual, a central hall, about as large as the interior of the Ratcliffe Library, in which, enclosed within a carved screen of elaborate tracery, are the tombs of the Begum Noor-jehan, Shahjehan's beloved wife, to whom it was erected, and by her side, but a little raised above her, of the unfortunate emperor himself. Round this hall are a number of smaller apartments, corridors, etc., and the windows are carved in lattices of the same white marble with the rest of the building, and the screen. The pavement is in alternate squares of white, and what is called in Europe Sienna marble ; the walls, screens, and tombs are covered with flowers and inscriptions, executed in beautiful mosaic of cornelians, lapis-lazuli, and jasper ; and yet, though ev erything is finished like an ornament for a drawing-room chimney-piece, the general effect produced is rather solemn and impressive than gaudy. The parts which I like least are the great dome and the minarets. The bulbous swell of the former I think clumsy, and the minarets have nothing to recommend them but their height and the beauty of their materials. But the man must have more criticism than taste or feeling about him who could allow such imperfections to weigh against the beauties of the Taj Mahal. The Junma washes one side of the garden, and there are some remains of a bridge which was designed by Shahjehan, with the intention, as the story goes, to build a second Taj of equal beauty for his own separate place of intennent, on the opposite side of the river. " The number of persons confirmed was about forty, half of whom were native Christians, mostly old persons and converts of Mr. Corrie's during his residence here. Abdul Musseeh told me there were a good many more scattered up and down in the neighbouring towns of Coel, Allyghur, and Etawah, whither he went from time to time, but who were too far off to attend on this occasion. Of sev eral he spoke as elderly persons, who had been in the Maratha service during Penn's time, of European extrac- tion, but who knew no language but Hindostani, and were very ALMORA TO BOMBAY 237 glad to have religious instruction afforded them in that language. Many of them gladly attend on his and Mr. Irving's ministry ; but others are zealous Roman Catholics, and adhere closely to the priest of Agra." From Agra to Baroda and Bombay the route of the Bishop and his doctor lay through the States of Central India and Rajpootana, where, on all sides, were evidences of the states- manship of Sir John Malcolm and the almost kingly magnifi- cence of Colonel Todd and Sir David Ochterlony : — " ']ih Januaiy 1825. ". . . The recollection of where I am, and the circumstances of convenience and safety under which 1 have traversed, and am about, if it please God, to traverse regions which are laid down as a terra incognita in Arrowsmith's map of 18 16, ought to make, and I hope does make, a strong impression on my mind of thank- fulness to that Great God, whose providence has opened to the British nation so wide and so untried a field of usefulness, — and of anxiety, lest we should, any of us, in our station, fall short of those duties which this vast increase of power and dominion imposes on us. I am often ready to break into lamentations that, where so much is to do in my own peculiar profession, the means at my disposal enable me to accomplish so little. But I ought to be anxious, far more, not to fall short in my exertions of those means which I have, and to keep my attention steadily fixed on professional objects, in order that what I cannot do myself I may at least lead others to think of, and perhaps to accomplish." ' ' Zth February. " During my stay at Nusseerabad I was the guest of Brigadier Knox, the oldest cavalry officer now in India, and who has not seen England since he was a boy. His house had as yet been the only place for divine service, but was not nearly large enough for the station. There was a ballroom of sufficient size, but objections had been made to using this as a church also, which I soon obviated, and the place was directed to be got ready for Sunday. On the Saturday preceding I held a confirmation, when I administered the rite to twenty -seven people, the good old Brigadier at their head. On Sunday I had a congregation of about a hundred and twenty, of whom thirty-two stayed for the 238 BISHOP HEBER Sacrament. This was an interesting sight in a land where, fifteen years ago, very few Christians had ever penetrated." " l^lh February. "All the provinces of Meywar were, for a considerable time after their connection with the British Government, under the administration of Captain Todd, whose name appears to be held in a degree of affection and respect by all the upper and middling classes of society, highly honourable to him, and sufficient to rescue these poor people from the often-repeated charge of ingrati- tude. Here, and in our subsequent stages, we were continually asked by the cutwals, etc., after ' Todd Sahib,' whether his health was better since he returned to England, and whether there was any chance of their seeing him again ? On being told it was not likely, they all expressed much regret, saying that the country had never known quiet till he came among them, and that everybody, whether rich or poor, except thieves and Pindarees, loved him. He, in fact, Dr. Smith told me, loved the people of this country, and understood their language and manners in a very unusual degree. He was on terms of close friendship with Salim Singh of Kotah, and has left a name there as honourable as in Oodeypoor." ' ' 20lh February. " Captain Gerard I found, under a very modest exterior, a man of great science and information ; he was one of the persons most concerned in the measurement and exploring of the Himalaya Mountains, had been in Ladak, and repeatedly beyond the Chinese frontier, though repelled each time, after penetrating a few miles, by the Tartar cavalry. He had himself ascended to the height of nineteen thousand six hundred feet, or four hundred higher than Humboldt had ever climbed amid the Andes, and the latter part of his ascent, for about two miles, was on an inclined plane, of forty-two, a nearer approach to the perpendicular than Hum- boldt conceived it possible to climb for any distance together. Nothing, he said, could exceed the care with which Major Hodg- son, Mr. Frazer, and himself had ascertained the altitude of the hills. Each of the accessible peaks had been measured by repeated and scrupulous experiments with the barometer, corrected by careful trigonometrical measurement, checked by astronomical observations. The inaccessible heights had been found by trigon- ometry, on bases of considerable extent, and with the help of the ALMORA TO BOMBAY 239 best and highest-priced instruments. The aUitudes, therefore, of the hills, and the general geography of the provinces on the British side of the frontier, he regarded as about as well settled as human means could do it, and far better than the same objects have been obtained in most countries of Europe. The line at which vegetation ends he states to be about thirteen thousand feet. The mountains of Kumaon, he said, are considerably more accessible and less rocky than those which lie north of Sabathoo, where the scenery is more sublimely terrible than can be described. Yet Nandidevi, and the other highest peaks, lie nearer to Almora than to Sabathoo, and the scenery of both these situations falls short of the upper parts of the valley of the Alakananda, which flows between them. The more I hear of these glorious hills, the more do I long to see them again, and explore them further. But my journeys never can, nor ought to be mere tours of pleasure, and the erection of a new church, the location of a new chaplain, and twenty other similar matters may compel me to a course extremely contrary to what I could desire if I were master of my own time." At Banswara, the most southerly of the states of Rajpootana, then notorious for female infanticide, he was surprised by the architectural attractions of the palace and the walled town, as large as Chester. Here he first saw the Bheel aborigines, for whom Christian missionaries are now doing much. When passing from the wild Bheel country into the Bombay Presi- i'ALACE HE 240 BISHOP HEBER dency, where he was met by Archdeacon Barnes, an old Oxford friend, the Bishop thus wrote in his Journal : — " 13M March. " This day, being Sunday, I was happy to be able to halt, an order which I believe was very acceptable to all the men and animals in the camp, who, after our late stony roads, were alike showing symptoms of fatigue. I read prayers as usual in the morning ; and in consideration of the greatly advanced price of provisions, which was now a rupee for fourteen seers of flour, I paid the bunyas for furnishing a seer of flour, or day's meal to every person in the camp. In the course of the afternoon I had the happiness to receive a packet of letters, forwarded by Mr. Williams, Resident at the court of Baroda, containing a favourable account of my wife and children, and letters from my mother and sister. I dreamt of Hodnet all night !" BHF.EL INCLOSUUE, [t.^M liUESK A '• is//i March. " Near Barreah village was the finest banyan-tree which I had ever seen, literally a grove rising from a single primary stem, whose massive secondary trunks, with their straightness, orderly arrangement, and evident connection with the parent stock, gave the general effect of a vast vegetable organ. The first impression which I felt on coming under its shade was, ' What a noble place ALMORA TO BOMBAY 241 of worship ! ' I was glad to find that it had not been debased, as I expected to find it, by the symbols of idolatry, though some rude earthen figures of elephants were set up over a wicket leading to it, but at a little distance. I should exult in such a scene, to collect a Christian congregation." At Baroda, the capital of the Maratha State of the Gaikwar, who received him with much ceremony — including an offer to bait an elephant, which he declined— the Bishop consecrated the pretty Gothic church in which, ten years after. Dr. John Wilson of Bombay preached. At Nadiad, now a railway station, he was visited by the Hindoo reformer, Swami Narain, of whose popularity and of the purity of whose teaching he had heard more than the facts justified afterwards : — " He came in a somewhat different style from all which I expected, having with him near two hundred horsemen, mostly well armed with matchlocks and swords, and several of them with coats of mail and spears. Besides them he had a large rabble on foot, with bows and arrows ; and when I considered that I had myself more than fifty horse, and fifty musquets and bayonets, I could not help smiling, though my sensations were in some degree painful and humiliating, at the idea of two religious teachers meeting at the head of little armies, and filling the city, which was the scene of their interview, with the rattling of quivers, the clash of shields, and the tramp of the war-horse. Had our troops been opposed to each other, mine, though less numerous, would have been, doubtless, far more effective, from the superiority of arms and discipline. But, in moral grandeur, what a difference was there between his troop and mine 1 Mine neither knew me, nor cared for me ; they escorted me faithfully, and would have defended me bravely, because they were ordered by their superiors to do so, and as they would have done for any other stranger of sufficient worldly rank to make such an attendance usual. The guards of Swami Narain were his own disciples and enthusiastic admirers, men who had voluntarily repaired to hear his lessons, who now took a pride in doing him honour, and who would cheer- fully fight to the last drop of blood rather than suffer a fringe of his garment to be handled roughly. In the parish of Hodnet there were once, perhaps, a few honest countrymen who felt some- thing like this for me ; but how long a time must elapse before any Christian teacher in India can hope to be thus loved and honoured ! Yet, surely there is some encouragement to patient 242 BISHOP HEBER labour which a Christian minister may derive from the success of such men as these in India, — inasmuch as where others can succeed in obtaining a favourable hearing for doctrines, in many respects, at variance with the general and received system of Hindooism, the time may surely be expected, through God's blessing, when our endeavours also may receive their fruit, and our hitherto almost barren Church may ' keep house and be a joyful mother of children.'" At Kaira, long the Bombay frontier military station, another church, " large and solid, but clumsy," was consecrated, and many were confirmed ; " altogether," he wrote, " I have seen no Indian station (Meerut excepted) from which I have derived so much comfort and pleasure." At Broach and Surat he was in the earliest seats not only of the East India Company, but of the classical trade with Italy and Europe. Dropping down the Tapti to the old port of Suwali, where Tom Coryate died in 1617,^ Heber went on board the ' This eccentric traveller's Crudities and Letters first appeared in 161 1-1616. Edward Terry, chaplain to Sir Thomas Roe, when ambassador to the Great Mogul, after he visited the spot, wrote in 1655 his epitaph, which thus begins and ends : — " Here lies the Wanderer of his age, Who living did rejoice, Not out of need, but choyce, To make his life a Pilgrimage. ALMORA TO BOMBAY 243 Company's ketch Vigilant, from which he landed at Bombay city on 20th April under the usual salute. Six days there- after he was joined by his wife and elder daughter, after ten months' separation, during which, in cabin or tent, he had travelled some three thousand miles, confirming the churches, strengthening the Christians of the dispersion, and doing the work of an evangelist among the native subjects of both British provinces and feudatory states. This letter to Charlotte Dod pleasantly reviews the tour : — " Bombay, i6//; June 1825. " Dearest Charlotte — I wrote to you last from Almora, giving some account of my journey from Calcutta to that place, and a view of the neighbouring peaks of the Indian Caucasus. About a week after, I renewed my journey by another way towards the plains — a track yet wilder and more towering than the one which had brought me to Fort Moira, but which was rendered in many respects more agreeable by the company of Sir Robert Colquhoun and his wife (a pretty young Scotchwoman, who has completely assimilated herself to the climate and hardships of the Himalaya, and whose mountain pony scrambled up and down declivities which might almost have puzzled a dog). Nothing could exceed the romantic beauty of the country, whose mountains (being the reputed seat of Indra's paradise) called forth many expressions of devotion from my poor Hindoo followers, and whose ice and snow were so great a novelty to them that several of the younger soldiers expressed their regret that they could not carry pieces away with them as curiosities. The only time that they were disposed to complain was when, during a single morning's march, they had to ford the same winding torrent — icy cold — twelve times, as deep as their chests, and even then they were easily restored to good-humour by asking them if they could not bear it as well as the young lady, who was, indeed, as wet as any of us were, and bore this and all other hardships with a cheer- fulness by which anybody might take example. The greatest height to which we climbed was a little more than 8000 feet, the advanced period of the year preventing any nearer approach to the giants of the central range, though the whole of our march " To fill it when he found no room, By the choyce things he saw In Europe and vast Asia, Fell blinded in this narrow Tombe." 244 BISHOP HEBER offered a succession of glorious views of their rude outline and dazzling whiteness. " I sometimes fear, indeed, my friends at home will think that I rave on the subject of the Himalayas. My letters since have all been full of their praises, and I still talk and think of them as if I had only just left them. Nothing, indeed, CLIMBING THE HIMALAYAS which I have since seen was likely to efface their impression from my mind, though I have seen many wide and wild lands, many goodly and ancient cities, some mountains and forests of xcry considerable beauty, and some tribes of men as wild and picturesque as any that I ever saw or heard of. My road, after returning to the plains, lay through Meerut (which is one of the names of stations which you and Miss Congreve wrote dowm, and where I found a large English congregation, a very fine church, ALMORA TO BOMBAY 245 and a good many native Christians), Delhi (where 1 was pre- sented in fonn to the poor old emperor, and had sufficient opportunity to meditate over the fallen splendour of ' the Great Mogul '), and Agra, also a ruinous monument of departed wealth and greatness, but containing still, in good repair, some of the most beautiful specimens of architecture which any age or country has to show. I had heard many descriptions and seen some drawings of the ' Pearl Mosque,' and the ' Crowned House,' but I was by no means prepared to expect the beautiful purity and simplicity which is displayed in the white marble arcades of the one, or the extraordinary mixture of richness of materials, delicacy of workmanship, extent of design, and touching melancholy of general effect which is displayed in the latter. It is the tomb of the favourite wife of Shahjehan, is an octagonal building, half as large again as the Ratcliffe Library at Oxford, with four tall minarets and a large dome, all of white marble ; its gates, walls, and its whole inside inlaid with flowers and branches in cornelians, serpentine, and lapis-lazuli ; the tracery of its Gothic windows in white marble ; and yet, amid all this richness, nothing glaring or tawdry to be seen, but a solemn effect produced which reminded me of our best Gothic cathedrals. It stands in a large garden of cypresses and palm-trees, and it is to the credit of the English Government that it is now kept even in better repair and order than it was under the Moguls. "At Agra there is another small congregation of native Christians, chiefly converted by my amiable friend Archdeacon Corrie, and now under the care of a venerable old native mis- sionary, who has taken the name Abdul Messeeh (' servant of the Messiah '). To these poor people, as well as to the other scattered congregations of the same description in India, I hope my visits have been, and will be, productive of some comfort and advantage. Two days' march from Agra I left the Company's territories and travelled during nearly three months through those of the Rajapoot and Maratha princes of Western and Central India, of which I had the opportunity of seeing more than usually falls to the lot of Europeans in this country. I was received every- where extremely well, both by the natives, their rulers, and the officers of our advanced corps, scattered in different cantonments through that rich country, which, ten years ago, was almost unknown to Europeans, but is now, all of it, nominally, at least, connected with the British by alliance or vassalage. Here I saw every reason to believe that the influence of my countr^'men had hitherto been beneficial to the natives. Before Lord Hastings established 246 BISHOP HEBER our superiority in these provinces they were exposed to the almost continuous incursions of the principal Maratha sovereigns, and the still worse and more horrible ravages of the Pindarees of Central India, so that the fields remained uncultivated except in the immediate neighbourhood of towns or villages, and no town or village was without its fortification, within which the cattle were driven every night, and out of which no man thought the lives of his family in safety. " Now, though there are still many disturbances from the internal feuds of the numberless petty chieftains, each of whom rules like a feudal baron in his castle, with as many armed followers as he can maintain, and though the greater states themselves are still liable to many of the sudden and bloody revolutions which are of ordinary occurrence in Eastern principali- ties, the lands are again tilled, the public roads are to be traversed in tolerable safety, marks of gradual improvement and restored confidence are everywhere visible in the number of new wells, orchards, and houses, and, more than all, perhaps, in the state of neglect and decay into which the fortifications of their villages are suffered to fall. Nor are these the only proofs of amendment, since the villagers readily expressed their obligations to the English for freeing them from the Pindarees, and I overheard one con- versation among themselves in which they compared the present peaceable times with those in which ' Ameer Khan and Bapoo Sindia came up with their horsemen and spoiled all the land, and smote all the people, and burnt the cities, through Meywar and Marwar, till thou comest unto the Salt wilderness.' I give their own language, which, with all the circumstances of their habita- tions, dress, armour, and pastoral and agricultural way of life, their women grinding at the mill, their cakes baked on the coals, their corn trodden out by oxen, their maidens passing to the well, their travellers lodging in the street, their tents, their camels, their shields, spears, and coats of mail, their Musalmans with a religion closely copied from that of Moses, their Hindoo tribes worshipping the same abominations with the same rites as the ancient Canaan- ites, their false prophets swarming in everj' city, and foretelling good or evil, as it suits the political views of their employers, their judges sitting in the gate, and their wild Bheels and Kholies dwelling (like the ancient Amorites) in holes and clefts of the rocks, and coming down with sword and bow to watch the motions or attack the baggage of the traveller, I felt myself transported back 3000 years, and a contemporary of Joshua or Samuel. " I sau' the country in some respects at an unfa\ ourable ALMORA TO BOMBAY 247 time, for they had had veiy Httle rain for the last two years, and in the west of Guzerat, in the forests between that province and Malwa, and the greater part of Rajpootana or Ajmer towards the desert, I met many little parties of poor emigrants passing towards the Company's provinces, ' having heard that there was corn there and grass, and that their cattle might not perish.' In one poor little city in the midst of these forests and mountains, whose Raja, a little boy of ten years old, I made very happy by the present of some English muslin and a gilt dagger (I had unfortunately given away all my copies of the New Testament), I was moved to more than tears — to downright sickness of heart — by the hunger and wretchedness which was visible. There was literally a crying for bread in their streets ; the countenances of all seemed to have gathered blackness, and the women and children were, some of them, such hideous and ghastly skeletons, that I did not before suppose it possible for creatures so thin and pale to be alive and crawling about. These were the worst off that I saw, but in many other places the cattle were so weak (the greater part having died of mere hunger and drought) that, in crossing the road, some of them fell down, and could not rise again, and we were told that, had we passed that way but ten days later, the last wells would have been dry, the people would all have been driven elsewhere, and we should have been almost under a necessity of waiting in Malwa till a more propitious season. The Bheels suffered most, and met with least pity from their neighbours, who are but too apt to treat them as beasts of prey, though they are, in fact, a bold and docile race ; among whom, as they have no caste to con- tend with, I hope before it is very long to send a missionary. A good and prudent man would, I have little doubt, he well received by them, though what they are now you may judge from a little conversation which an acquaintance of mine had with some of them during the spring of last year. In passing the fords of the Banass at the same time with a large convoy of oxen laden with corn and oil, he noticed a few Bheels leaning pensively on their bows, as if spectators of the crowd and bustle. ' Are these cattle yours ? ' he asked. ' No,' was the answer, ' but a good many of them would have fallen to our share if it had not been for you English, who take care that nobody shall rob but yourselves ! ' " Still, notwithstanding the wildness of the country, and the poverty and thieving of the people, I have been greatly interested and pleased with my journey through Central India and Guzerat, though the heat in the latter country in the month of April was so intense as I never felt elsewhere. The 1 8th of April, after twice 248 BISHOP HEBER crossing the Mhye, and seeing the different stations on the coast pretty thoroughly, I embarked at Surat for Bombay, and the 2ist (my birthday) I arrived in this island, where, a few days after, my two dear Emilies joined me, having had a sadly tedious and sickly passage from Calcutta by sea. Our poor baby they were obliged to leave behind. My health had remained good all the journey, and they (thank God) are now perfectly well again. We are now the guests of Mr. Elphinstone, the Governor of Bombay, a very clever and agreeable man, who has shown us a degree of kindness seldom met with, and never surpassed, and for whose brother, owing to some likeness of comple.xion and features, I have been pretty generally taken by the Gaikwar Raja and other chiefs of Guzerat and the Concan. Of the personal resemblance I am myself no judge, but there are \-ery many points on \\ hich I should much wish to be like him. Indeed, I do not know any man with whom, on so short an acquaintance, I have been so much struck. He is a very active and fearless patron of any practicable scheme for the advantage and improvement of the Hindoos, and I have been enabled since my arrival not only to set on foot a new district Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, but Emily has also collected some good subscriptions towards the school for native girls at Calcutta. We hope next week to pay a visit to Poona, five days' march up the country, and soon after our return to embark for Calcutta, staying some short time at Ceylon. Even in Calcutta, however, I cannot hope to remain long, for the Presi- dency of Madras is yet unexplored, and sufficient of itself to occupy the greater part of next year, the more so as the native Christians, who are very numerous there, amounting to considerably more than 40,000 members of the Church of England, are, unhappily, cjuarrelling among themselves, and have applied to me to settle their differences. " Since writing the greater part of this letter, I have received your kind and interesting packet of 2nd December. What a time for a letter to be on its road ! But what can we expect with half the world between us ? You say nothing of your own health, or that of your family. I trust that this is equal to a good account of all, but do not omit it again. I could not send you my Charge, because it has never been printed. The passage which appeared in the Christian Roneinbraiicer was taken from a newspaper report. Thank you much for the kind pains you have taken for our girls' school, but do not trouble yourself any more. At present we are, I hope, going on well. I have received, and long since wrote to thank you for your kind and gratifying but too flattering verses. ALMORA TO BOMBAY 249 Your hymn, which I hke very much, has since reached me during my journey through Guzerat. I, alas! have no time for verses now. I have kept, however, a tolerably regular Jour?ial, and have carried off some drawings and other memoranda of the interest- ing scenes. " I have not yet seen any engraving of my portrait. I am sure I feel highly pleased and flattered by the honourable place which dear Anne has assigned to my likeness, and by your multiplication of it. I have received no more hymns from Mil- man, and think of preparing for the press the collection as it now stands. You are very good still to recollect and adorn my lines with your pencil. Adieu, my dear friend ! Emily unites in sending her love to yourself, your father, mother, and sisters. God bless and prosper you all ! May you long continue to love Him and each other, and do not forget those e.xiled friends who often, \&xy often, talk of Edge and its inhabitants with a regard and interest which neither distance nor time can diminish. Belie\e me, my dear Charlotte, ever your obliged and affectionate friend, "R. C. " P.S. — Pray remember me most kindly to E. Davenport and Conny. To the former I owe a long and interesting letter, in return for a most excellent one which I recei\ ed from him. To the latter, for her kind recollection of us, her good wishes, and her prayers, pray say anything that is grateful and affectionate. Heaven knows we have all great need of the prayers of our friends, and I feel that need more and more as I see more of this great field of exertion, and am made more sensible of my own insufficiency to do all which is required of me." Archdeacon Barnes describes Heber's voice and counten- ance as very much what they were at 0.xford seventeen years before. "His manner everywhere is exceedingly popular, though there are some points, such as his wearing white trousers and a white hat,i which I could wish were altered with more regard to his station, and which, perhaps, strike me the more after being accustomed to the particular at- tention of Bishop Middleton in such points ; yet really I feel compelled to forgive him when I observe his unreserved frankness, his anxious and serious wish to do all the good in ' On his journeys the Bishop wore a white so/a pith Iiat, with a very broad brim (Hned with green silk). The white trousers he adopted soon after his arrival in India, from their greater coolness, and he rei oniniended them to his clergy on all ordinary occasions. 250 BISHOP HEBER his power, his truly amiable and kindly feelings, his talents and piety, and his extraordinary powers of conversation, accompanied with so much cheerfulness and vivacity. I see the advantage which Christianity and our Church must possess in such a character, to win their way and keep all together in India." To his four chief friends, Thornton, Wynn, Wilmot Horton, and Davenport, and to his old curate at Hodnet, Blunt, Heber from time to time during his tour revealed his convictions as to the people of India, and the only means of improving permanently their condition. Writing to R. J. Wilmot Horton, Esq., on the variety of the races and social customs of the millions of Bengal, Hindustan, and North Bombay, on their degrading superstitions, and on the ignor- ance shown in Parliament on such subjects, he remarks : — "Barreah (Guzerat), March 1824. " I met, not long since, with a speech by a leading member of the Scottish General Assembly, declaring his ' conviction that the truths of Christianity could not be received by men in so rude a state as the East Indians ; and that it was necessary to give them first a relish for the habits and comforts of civilised life before they could embrace the truths of the Gospel.' The same slang (for it is nothing more) I have seen repeated in divers pamphlets, and even heard it in conversations at Calcutta. Yet, though it is certainly true that the lower classes of Indians are miserably poor, and that there are many extensive districts where, both among low and high, the laws are very little obeyed, and there is a great deal of robbery, oppression, and even ferocity, I know no part of the population, e.xcept the mountain tribes, who can, with any propriety of language, be called uncivilised. " Of the unpropitious circumstances which I have mentioned, the former arises from a population continually pressing on the utmost limits of subsistence, and which is thus kept up, not by any dislike or indifference to a better diet, or more ample cloth- ing, or more numerous ornaments than now usually fall to the peasant's share (for, on the contrary', if he has the means he is fonder of external show and a respectable appearance than those of his rank in many nations of Europe), but by the foolish super- stition, which Christianity only is likely to remove, which makes a parent regard it as unpropitious to allow his son to remain un- ALMORA TO BOMBAY 251 married, and which couples together children of twelve or fourteen years of age. The second has its origin in the long-continued misfortunes and intestine wars of India, which are as yet too recent (even when their causes have ceased to exist) for the agitation which they occasioned to have entirely sunk into a calm. But to say that the Hindoos or Musalmans are deficient in any essential feature of a civilised people is an assertion which I can scarcely suppose to be made by any who have lived with them. Their manners are, at least, as pleasing and courteous as those in the corresponding stations of life among ourselves ; their houses are larger, and, according to their wants and climate, to the full as convenient as ours ; their architecture is at least as elegant. "... With subjects thus inquisitive, and with opportunities of information, it is apparent how little sense there is in the doctrine that we must keep the natives of Hindostan in ignorance, if we would continue to govern them. The fact is, that they know enough already to do us a great deal of mischief if they should find it their interest to make the trial. They are in a fair way, by degrees, to acquire still more knowledge for themselves ; and the question is, whether it is not the part of wisdom, as well as duty, to superintend and promote their education while it is yet in our power, and to supply them with such knowledge as will be at once most harmless to ourselves, and most useful to them. " In this work the most important part is to give them a better religion. Knowing how strongly I feel on this subject, you will not be surprised at my placing it foremost. But even if Christianity were out of the question, and if, when 1 had wheeled away the rubbish of the old pagodas, I had nothing better than simple Deism to erect in their stead, I should still feel some of the an.xiety which now urges me. It is necessary to see idolatry to be fully sensible of its mischievous effects on the human mind. But of all idolatries which I have ever read or heard of, the religion of the Hindoos, in which I have taken some pains to inform myself, really appears to me the worst, both in the de- grading notions which it gives of the Deity ; in the endless round of its burdensome ceremonies, which occupy the time and distract the thoughts, without either instructing or interesting its votaries ; in the filthy acts of uncleanness and cruelty, not only permitted but enjoined, and inseparably interwoven with those ceremonies ; in the system of castes, a system which tends, more than anything else the Devil has yet invented, to destroy the feelings of genera! benevolence, and to make nine-tenths of mankind the hopeless 252 BISHOP HEBER slaves of the remainder ; and in the total absence of any popular system of morals, or any single lesson which the people at large ever hear, to live virtuously and do good to each other. I do not say, indeed, that there are not some scattered lessons of this kind to be found in their ancient books ; but those books are neither accessible to the people at large, nor are these last permitted to read them ; and, in general, all the sins that a Soodra is taught to fear are, killing a cow, offending a Brahmin, or neglecting one of the many frivolous rites by which their deities are supposed to be conciliated. "Accordingly, though the general sobriety of the Hindoos (a virtue which they possess in common with most inhabitants of warm climates) affords a very great facility to the mainten- ance of public order and decorum, 1 really never have met with a race of men whose standard of morality is so low, who feel so little apparent shame on being detected in a falsehood, or so little interest in the sufferings of a neighbour, not being of their own caste or family ; whose ordinary and familiar conversa- tion is so licentious ; or, in the wilder and more lawless districts, who shed blood with so little repugnance. The good qualities which there are among them (and, thank God, there is a great deal of good among them still) are, in no instance that I am aware of, connected with or arising out of their religion, since it is in no instance to good deeds or virtuous habits of life that the future rewards in which they believe are promised. Their bravery, their fidelity to their employers, their temperance, and (wherever they are found) their humanity and gentleness of disposition appear to arise exclusively from a natural happy temperament, from an honourable pride in their own renown and the renown of their ancestors, and from the goodness of God, who seems un- willing that His image should be entirely defaced even in the midst of the grossest error. The Musalmans have a far better creed, and, though they seldom either like the English, or are liked by them, I am inclined to think are, on the whole, a better people. Yet, even with them, the forms of their worship have a natural tendency to make men hypocrites, and the overweening contempt with which they are inspired for all the world beside, the degradation of their women by the system of polygamy, and the detestable crimes which, owing to this degradation, are almost universal, are such as, even if I had no ulterior hope, would make me anxious to attract them to a better or more harmless system. " In this work, thank God, in those parts of India which I ALMORA TO BOMBAY 253 have visited, a beginning has been made, and a degree of success obtained at least commensurate to the few years during which our missionaries have laboured ; and it is still going on in the best and safest way, as the work of private persons alone, and, although not forbidden, in no degree encouraged by Government. In the meantime, and as a useful auxiliary to the missionaries, the establishment of elementary schools for the lower classes and for females is going on to a very great extent, and might be carried to any conceivable extent to which our pecuniary means would carry us. Nor is there any measure from which I antici- pate more speedy benefit than the elevation of the rising genera- tion of females to their natural rank in society, and giving them (which is all that, in any of our schools, we as yet venture to give) the lessons of general morality extracted from the Gospel, without any direct religious instruction. These schools, such of them at least as I have any concern with, are carried on without any help from Government. Government has, however, been very liberal in its grants, both to a Society for National Educa- tion, and in the institution and support of two colleges of Hindoo students of riper age, the one at Benares, the other at Calcutta. But I do not think any of these institutions, in the way after which they are at present conducted, likely to do much good. In the elementary schools supported by the former, through a very causeless and ridiculous fear of giving offence to the natives, they have forbidden the use of the Scriptures, or any extracts from them, though the moral lessons of the Gospel are read by all Hindoos who can get hold of them, without scruple, and with much attention ; and though their exclusion is tanta- mount to excluding all moral instruction from their schools, the Hindoo sacred w-ritings have nothing of the kind, and, if they had, being shut up from the majority of the people by the double fence of a dead language, and an actual prohibition to read them, as too holy for common eyes or ears. The defects of the latter will appear, when I have told you that the actual state of Hindoo and Musalman literature, viutatis mutandis, very nearly re- sembles what the literature of Europe was before the time of Galileo, Copernicus, and Bacon. "... In Benares I found in the institution supported by Government a professor lecturing on astronomy after the system of Ptolemy and Albunazar, while one of the most forward boys was at the pains of casting my horoscope ; and the majority of the school were toiling at Sanskrit grammar. And yet the day before, in the same holy city, I had visited another college, 254 BISHOP HEBER founded lately by a wealthy Hindoo banker, and entrusted by him to the management of the Church Missionary Society, in which, besides a grammatical knowledge of the Hindostani language, as well as Persian and Arabic, the senior boys could pass a good examination in English grammar, in Hume's History of England, Joyce's Scientific Dialogues^ the use of the globes, and the principal facts and moral precepts of the Gospel, most of them writing beautifully in the Persian, and very tolerably in the English character, and excelling most boys I have met with in the accuracy and readiness of their arithmetic. . . . Ram Mohun Roy, a learned native, who has sometimes been called, though I fear without reason, a Christian, remonstrated against this system last year, in a paper which he sent me to be put into Lord Amherst's hands, and which, for its good English, good sense, and forcible arguments, is a real curiosity, as coming from an Asiatic. " I have not since been in Calcutta, and know not whether any improvement has occurred in consequence. But from the unbounded attachment to Sanskrit literature displayed by some of those who chiefly manage those affairs, I have no great expectation of the kind. Of the value of the acquirements which so much is sacrificed to retain, I can only judge from translations, and they certainly do not seem to me worth picking out of the rubbish under which they were sinking. Some of the poetry of the Mahabarat, I am told, is good, and I think a good deal of the Ramayun pretty. But no work has yet been pro- duced which even pretends to be authentic histor>'. No useful discoveries in science are, I believe, so much as expected, and I ha\ e no great sympathy with those students who value a worth- less tract, merely because it calls itself old, or a language which teaches nothing, for the sake of its copiousness and intricacy. If I were to run wild after Oriental learning, I should certainly follow that of the Musalmans, whose histories seem really very much like those of Europe, and whose poetry, so far as I am yet able to judge, has hardly had justice done to it in the ultra- flowery translations which have appeared in the West. But, after all, I will own that my main quarrel with the institutions which I have noticed is their needless and systematic exclusion of the Gospels, since they not only do less good than they might have done, but are, actually, in my opinion, productive of serious harm, by awakening the dormant jealousy of the native against the schools which pursue a different system." ALMORA TO BOMBAY 255 Six years after that remarkable criticism was written, un- consciously reproducing the opinions of Charles Grant in 1792, Alexander Duff founded his Calcutta College and, side by side with Macaulay, under Lord William Bentinck, started the people of India on the new era of progress, of which Christianity alone, in the history of mankind, has proved to be the salt. Carey, Marshman and Ward had begun the revolution, especially in their Serampore College, which was opened in 182 1. On receiving the third Annual Report of the College from Dr. Marshman, Heber replied with fine catholicity : — " yd June 1824. " I have seldom felt more painfully than while reading your appeal on the subject of Serampore College, the unhappy divisions of those who are servants of the same Great Master. Would to God, my honoured brethren, the time were arrived when not only in heart and hope, but visibly, we shall be one fold, as well as under one shepherd ! In the meantime, I have arrived, after some serious considerations, at the conclusion that I shall serve our great cause most effectually by doing all which I can for the rising institutions of those with whom my sentiments agree in all things, rather than by forwarding the labours of those from whom, in some important points, I am conscientiously constrained to differ. After all, why do we differ ? Surely the leading points which keep us asunder are capable of explanation or of softening, and I am expressing myself in much sincerity of heart (though, perhaps, according to the customs of the world, I am taking too great a freedom with men my superiors both in age and in talent) — that I should think myself happy to be permitted to explain, to the best of my power, those objections which keep you and your brethren divided from that form of church government which I believe to have been instituted by the Apostles, and that admission of infants to the Gospel Covenants which seems to me to be founded on the ex- pressions and practice of Christ Himself If I were writing thus to worldly men, I know I should expose myself to the imputation of excessive vanity or impertinent intrusion. But of you and Dr. Carey I am far from judging as of worldly men, and I therefore say that if we are spared to have any future intercourse, it is my desire, if you permit, to discuss with both of you, in the spirit of meekness and conciliation, the points which now divide us, con- 256 BISHOP HEBER vinced that if a reunion of our churches could be effected, the harvest of the heathen would ere long be reaped, and the work of the Lord would advance among them with a celerity of which we have now no experience. " I trust, at all events, you will take this hasty note as it is intended, and believe me, with much sincerity, your friend and servant in Christ, Reginald Calcutta." Mr. John Clark Marshman, C.S.I., at that time a young man of thirty, who had just .succeeded Ward in the famous Brotherhood, describes the effect of Heber's short career thus : " It would not be easy to name any individual who has ever succeeded to the same extent in acquiring the universal esteem of society in India by his frank and amiable deportment. . . . The country was soon filled with anecdotes of his anti-official proceedings and his contempt for established forms and u.sages, but he acquired more weight on society by the simplicity of his character than he could have done by any ecclesiastical assumption. His anxiety to employ the influ- ence of his position for the religious improvement of the country endeared him to the wise and good. . . . Soon after his arrival he opened a friendly correspondence with the Serampore missionaries, which was continued without inter- ruption to the period of his death." ^ William Carey's com- mentary on the letter was this : " Bishop Heber is a man of liberal principles and catholic spirit." Heber's apology to Mr. Blunt for infrequent letters gives us unconsciously the most vivid picture of the varied and the exacting labours which he crowded, with loving cheerful- ness, into his short episcopate, while he ever remembered Hodnet : — "Bombay, \oih Jum 1825. " . . . As nothing which concerns the duties of the clergy can be settled without a reference to Government, I have, in fact, at least two sets of letters to write and receive in every important matter which comes before me. As visitor of Bishop's College I receive almost every week six or seven sheets of close writing on the subject. I am called on to give an opinion on the architec- 1 The Life and Times of Carey, Marshjnati and Ward, vol. ii. , London (Longmans), 1859. ALMORA TO BOMBAY 257 ture, expense, and details of every church which is built, or pro- posed to be built in India ; every application for salary of cither clerk, sexton, schoolmaster, or bellringer must pass through my hands, and be recommended in a letter to Government. I am literally the conductor of all the Missions in the three Pre- sidencies ; and, what is most serious of all, I am obliged to act in almost cscrything from my own single judgment, and on my own single responsibility, without any more experienced person to consult, or any precedent to guide me. I have, besides, not only the Indian clergy and the Indian Government to correspond with, but the religious societies at home, whose agent I am, and to whom I must send occasional letters, the composition of each of which occupies me many days ; while, in the scarcity of clergy which is, and must be felt here, I feel myself bound to preach, in some one or other of the churches or stations, no less frequently than when I \\ as in England. " All this, w^hen one is stationary at Calcutta, may be done, indeed, without difficulty ; but my journeys throw me sadly into arrears, and you may easily believe, therefore, not only that I am obliged to let slip many opportunities of writing to my friends at home, but that my leisure for study amounts to little or nothing, and that even the native languages, in which it has been my earnest desire to perfect myself, I am compelled to acquire very slowly, and by conversation more than by reading. With all this, however, in spite of the many disadvantages of climate and banishment, I am bound to confess that I like both my em- ployments and my present country. The work is as much as I can do, and more than, I fear, I can do well ; but a great deal of it is of a very interesting nature, and India itself I find so full of natural beauties and relics of ancient art, and there are so many curious topics of inquiry or speculation connected with the history and character of its inhabitants, their future fortunes, and the policy of Great Britain concerning them, that in every ride which I have taken, and in every wilderness in which my tent has been pitched, I have as yet found enough to keep my mind from sinking into the languor and apathy which have been regarded as natural to a tropical climate. "... The labours of our missionaries in those parts of India which I ha\-e seen have not as yet produced any great or strik- ing show of converts, but they have undoubtedly been as success- ful as could fairly be expected, considering the short time which has elapsed since the attention of the English Church was called to this new harvest. In the south the number of native Chris- S 258 BISHOP HEBER tians, even without reckoning the Syrian and Romish churches, is great, and has been stated to me on the best authority as between 40,000 and 50,000. And I have myself set on foot a new mission among the Paharees, whose different ramifications extend from Rajmahal on the Ganges, through all Central India, to the Deccan and the Arabian Sea, which already wears a pro- mising appearance, and from which I anticipate, perhaps too sanguinely, very great advantage. " Many thanks for the interesting details which you have sent me of your own pursuits, and of our beloved little flock at Hodnet. I rejoice that you have become acquainted with my excellent and kind-hearted uncle and aunt, whom nobody can know without loving and valuing. Your accounts of the poor old people have carried me back very forcibly (I hardly know whether painfully or agreeably) to some of the happiest days of my life, though I have never had reason to complain of a want of happiness, and you will much oblige me by remembering me most kindly to some of my best-known parishioners. May I also request of you to take charge of ten pounds, to distribute next Christmas among any of the inhabitants who need it most." From Bombay also Heber sent what proved to be his last letter to Maria Leycester : — "Bombay, yd June 1825. ". . . It has not been altogether business which has pre- vented my writing ; for, busy as I have been and must always be, I could still long since have found or made time to say how gratified I am by your keeping me in recollection, and with how much eagerness I open letters which bring me near to such valued friends at so great a distance, and which call me back, as yours do, for a time, from the broad, arid plain of Rohilkhund to the quiet lanes and hedgerow walks of Stoke or Hodnet. There are, however, alas ! so many painful associations connected with my handwriting since the period of my letters to Augustus and Mrs. Stanley, that I have felt, to say the truth, a strange reluctance to address a letter to you, out of a fear to disturb afresh the grief of an affectionate and innocent heart, which had been so severe a sufferer by the events which took place at the commencement of my present journey. . . . For myself — " ' My tent on shore, my pinnace on the Are more than cities or serais to me. ' ALMORA TO BOMBAY 259 So far as enjoyment only is concerned, I know nothing more agreeable than the continual change of scene and air, the exercise, the good hours, the good appetite, the temperance, and the free- dom from the forms and visiting of a city life to which we are enabled or compelled by a long march, encamping daily with our little caravan through even a moderately interesting country, nor, except during the intense heat and the annual deluge of rain (which, by the way, it must be owned, occupies one half of our tropical calendar), I should desire no other than a canvas roof during the rest of my abode in India. Many indeed as the dis- comforts and dangers of India are (and surely there are few lands on earth where death so daily and hourly knocks at our doors, or where men have so constant warning to hold themselves in readi- ness to meet their Maker), and much as, I cannot help feeling, I sacrificed in coming hither, I have never yet repented my deter- mination, or have ceased to be thankful to God for the varied interest, the amalgamated knowledge, and, I hope and think, the augmented means of usefulness which this new world has supplied to me. . . . "Adieu, dear Maria. That you may be blessed with all temporal and eternal happiness is the earnest wish of your sincere and affectionate friend, R. Calcutta." CHAPTER XI BOMBAY AND CEYLON 182s A RESIDENCE of four moiiths in Bombay and Poena delighted Reginald Heber, although continued overwork in the hot and rainy seasons caused the fever of the earlier part of his tour to be succeeded by dysentery. The sea, the beauty of the position, the races of Asia and Africa of whom it is the almost imperial centre, the cave temples and the society of his host, the Governor, Mountstuart Elphinstone, were all sources of fresh delight, which he shared with his wife. To his sister he wrote this description of the city, contrasting it with Calcutta : — "Bombay, wth May 1825. " . . . Of Bombay, from my own experience, I should judge favourably. Its climate appears, in productions, in temperature, and other respects, pretty closely to resemble the West India islands, its heat, like theirs, tempered by the sea breeze, and more fortunate far than they are in the absence of yellow fever. But I know not why, except it may be from the excessive price of all the comforts of life on this side of India, the provisions made against heat are so much less than those in Calcutta, that we feel it quite as much here as there ; and the European inhabitants do not seem either more florid, or at all more healthy than in Calcutta. On the whole, I am inclined to think that, since I can- not live at Meerut, Calcutta is the best place in which my lot could be thrown (as it is certainly the place in which the most extensive and interesting society is usually to be met with), and BOMBAY AND CEYLON 261 both my wife and myself look forwards to returning thither with an anxiety which you will easily believe when you know that she was obliged to leave her little Harriet there. " Inferior, however, as Bombay is to Calcutta in many re- spects, in some, besides climate, it has very decidedly the advan- tage. With me, the neighbourhood of the sea is one of these points ; nor is there any sea in the world more beautifully blue, bordered by more woody and picturesque mountains, and peopled with more picturesque boats and fishermen, than this part of the Indian Ocean. I know and fully participate in your fondness for lateen sails. They are here in full perfection ; nor do they ever look better than when seen gliding under high basaltic cliffs, their broad white triangles contrasted with the dark feathers of the coco-palm, or when furled and handled by their wild Mediterranean- looking mariners, with red caps, naked limbs, and drawers of striped cotton. All these features are peculiar to the Malabaric or western coast of India, and are a few out of many symptoms which have struck me very forcibly of our comparative approach to the European Levant, and the closer intercourse which is kept up here with Arabia, Egypt, and Persia. In Calcutta we hear little of these countries. In Bombay they are constant topics of con- versation. It is no exaggeration to say that a very considerable proportion of the civil and military officers here have visited either the Nile or the Euphrates ; arrivals from Yemen, Abyssinia, or the Persian Gulph occupy a good part of our usual morning's discussion. The sea-shore is lined every morning and evening by the Parsee worshippers of the sun ; Arab and Abyssinian seamen throng the streets ; and I met the day before yesterday, at break- fast with the Governor, an Krah post captain ; or at least, if this title is refused him, the conimancler of a frigate in the navy of the Imam of Muscat. He is a smart little man, a dandy in his way, speaks good English, and is reckoned an extremely good seaman. " The society of Bombay is, of course, made up of the same elements with that of Calcutta, from which it only differs in being less numerous. The Governor, Mr. Elphinstone, is the cleverest and most agreeable man whom I have yet met with in India, and the public man of all others who seems to have the happiness and improvement of the Indians most closely and con- tinually at heart. He reminds me very often of the Duke of Richelieu, when Goxernor of Odessa, but has more business-like talents than he had. . . . His popularity is also \-ery remarkable. I have found scarcely any person who does not speak well of him. 262 BISHOP HEBER Emily and I have reason to do so, for we are his guests, and the more we see of him we like him the better." Heber, with his love for architectural drawing, lost no time in visiting the Brahmanical shrines cut into the trap rock of Elephanta Island about the eighth century of the Christian era, and the many Buddhist caves excavated in the volcanic breccia of Kanheri in Salsette, at periods stretching back to a time before Christ. A few years before this, William Erskine, the historian and son-in-law of Sir James Mackintosh, had for the first time done justice to the former in his Account of the Cave Temple of Elephanta. The learned missionaries of the Scottish Society, John Stevenson and John Wilson,^ were soon to put the whole subject on a scientific basis by finding the key to the inscriptions which James Prinsep used with good effect : — "8M May 1825. "The Island of Elephanta, or Gharapoori, is larger and more beautiful than I expected. The major part is very beautiful wood and rock, being a double-pointed hill rising from the sea to some height (250 feet). The stone elephant, from which the usual Portuguese name is derived, stands in a field about a quarter of a mile to the right of the usual landing-place. It is about three times as big as life, rudely sculptured, and \ ery much dilapidated by the weather.'- The animal on its back, which Mr. Erskine supposed to be a tiger, has no longer any distinguishable shape. From the landing-place a steep and narrow path, but practicable for palanquins, leads up the hill, winding prettily through woods and on the banks of precipices, so as very much to remind me of Hawkstone. About half a mile up is the first cave, which is a sort of portico supported by two pillars and two pilasters, and seeming as if intended for the entrance to a rock temple which has not been proceeded in. A quarter of a mile farther, and two- thirds of the ascent up the higher of the two hills, is the great 1 See Life of John Wihoti, D.D.. F.R.S. (John Murray), chap. x. Also for the latest archaeological and architectural results, The Cave Temples of India, by James Fergusson and James Burgess, London, 1880. - When the present writer first visited Hephanta in 1864, the figure had collapsed into stones, which had been removed to the Victoria Gardens in Bomlxay. See The Rock Tem/>les of Eltfhanta or Gharapuri, by Dr. Burgess, C.I.E., Bombay, 1871 (Thacker). BOMBAY AND CEYLON 263 cavern, in a magnificent situation, and deserving all the praise which has been lavished on it. Though my expectations were highly raised, the reality much exceeded them ; the dimensions, the proportions, and the sculpture seemed to me to be of a more noble character, and a more elegant execution than I had been led to suppose. Even the statues are executed with great spirit, and are some of them of no common beauty, considering their dilapidated condition and the coarseness of their material. " At the upper end of the principal cave, which is in the form of a cross, and exceedingly resembles the plan of an ancient basilica, is an enonnous bust with three faces, reaching from the pavement to the ceiling of the temple. It has generally been supposed, and is so even by Mr. Erskine, a representation of the Trimurti, or Hindoo trinity, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. But more recent discoveries have ascertained that Siva himself, to whose worship and ad\ entures most of the other ornaments of the cave refer, is sometimes represented with three faces, so that the temple is evidently one to the popular deity of the modern Hindoos alone. Nor could I help remarking that the style of ornament and proportions of the pillars, the dress of the figures, and all the other circumstances of the place, are such as may be seen at this day in every temple of Central India, and among all those Indian nations where the fashions of the Musalmans have made but little progress. Those travellers who fancied the con- trary had seen little of India but Bombay. From these circum- stances, then, nothing can be learned as to the anticjuity of this wonderful cavern, and I am myself disposed, for several reasons, to think that this is not very remote. " The rock out of which the temple is carved is by no means calculated to resist for any great length of time the ravages of the weather. It evidently suffers much from the annual rains ; a great number of the pillars (nearly one-third of the whole) have been undermined by the accumulation of water in the cavern, and the capitals of some, and part of the shafts of others, remain suspended from the tops like huge stalactites, the bases having completely mouldered away. These ravages are said to have greatly increased in the memory of persons now resident in Bombay, though for many years back the cave has been protected from wanton depredation, and though the sculptures, rather than the pillars, would probably have suffered from that vulgar love of knick-knacks and specimens which prevails among the English more than most nations of the world. "A similar rapidity of decomposition has occurred in the 264 BISHOP HEBER elephant already spoken of, which, when Niebuhr saw it, was, by his account, far more perfect than it now is. But if thirty or forty years can have produced such changes in this celebrated temple, it is hardly reasonable to suppose that any part of it is so old as is sometimes apprehended. It has been urged, as a ground for this apprehension, that the Hindoos of the present day pay no reverence to this temple or its images. This is not altogether true, since I myself noticed very recent marks of red paint on one of the lingams, and flowers are notoriously offered up here by the people of the island. It is, however, certainly not a famous place among the Hindoos. No pilgrims come hither from a distance, nor are there any Brahmans stationar)' at the shrine. But this proves nothing as to its antiquity, inasmuch as the celebrity of a place of worship, with them, depends on many circumstances quite distinct from the size and majesty of the building. ... It has been urged that the size and majesty of the excavation compel us to suppose that it must have been made by some powerful Hindoo sovereign, and, consequently, before the first Musalman invasion. This would be no very appalling antiquity ; but even for this there is no certain ground. The expense and labour of the undertaking are really by no means so enormous as might be fancied. The whole cavern is a mere trifle in point of extent, when compared with the great salt mine at North^ich ; and there are now, and always have been, rajas and wealthy merchants in India who, though not enjoying the rank of independent sovereigns, are not unequal to the task of hewing a huge stone cjuarry into a cathedral. On the whole, in the perfect absence of any inscription or tradition which might guide us, we may assign to Elephanta any date we please. It may be as old as the Parthenon, or it may be as modem as Henry VI I. 's Chapel. But though the truth probably lies between the two, I am certainly not disposed to assign to it any great degree of antiquity." Heber's cultured instinct was right. On architectural evidence Mr. Fergusson places the execution of the work not earlier than 750 a.d. In the same hot month of May the insatiable Bishop and his wife made a tour through the Island of Salsette, at the head of Bombay Harbour. Mount- stuart Elphinstone was encamped at the Tulsi lake, which now supplies Bombay city with water, where they joined his Excellency and a large party : — BOMBAY AND CEYLON 26s " 2S//2 May 1825. " Salsette is a very beautiful island, united with the smaller one of Bombay by a causeway, built in the time of Governor Duncan. The principal curiosities, and those which were our main object in this little tour, are the cave temples of Kanheri. These are certainly in every way remarkable, from their number, their beauti- ful situation, their elaborate carving, and their marked connection with Buddh and his religion. The ca\es are scattered over two sides of a high rocky hill, at many different elevations, and of various sizes and forms. Most of them appear to have been places of habitation for monks or hermits. One very beautiful apartment, of a square form, its walls covered with sculpture, and surrounded internally by a broad stone bench, is called ' the durbar,' but I should rather guess had been a school. Many have deep and well-carved cisterns attached to them, which, even in this dry season, were well supplied with water. The largest and most remarkable of all is a Buddhist temple, of great beauty and majesty, and which, e\ en in its present state, would make a very stately and convenient place of Christian worship. It is entered through a fine and lofty portico, having on its front, but a little to the left hand, a high detached octagonal pillar, surmounted by three lions seated back to back. On the east side of the portico is a colossal statue of Buddh, with his hands raised in the attitude of benedic- tion, and the screen which separates the vestibule from the temple is cov ered, immediately above the dado, with a row of male and female figures, nearly naked, but not indecent, and car\'ed with considerable spirit, which apparently represent dancers. In the centre is a large door, and above it three windows, contained in a semicircular arch, so like those which are seen over the entrance of Italian churches, that I fully supposed them to be an addition to the original plan by the Portuguese, who are said, I know not on what ground, to have used this cave as a church, till I found a similar and still more striking window of the same kind in the great cave of Karle. Within, the apartment is, I should conceive, fifty feet long by twenty, an oblong square, terminated by a semi- circle, and surrounded on every side but that of the entrance with a colonnade of octagonal pillars. Of these the twelve on each side nearest the entrance are ornamented with carved bases and capitals, in the style usual in Indian temples ; the rest are un- finished. " In the centre of the semicircle, and with a free walk all lound it, is a mass of rock left solid, but carved e.\ternally like a dome. 266 BISHOP HEBER and so as to bear a strong general likeness to our Saviour's sepulchre, as it is now chiselled away, and enclosed in St. Helena's church at Jerusalem. On the top of the dome is a sort of spread- ing ornament, like the capital of a column. It is apparently intended to support something ; and I was afterwards told at Karle, where such an ornament, but of greater size, is also found, that a large gilt umbrella used to spring from it. This solid dome appears to be the usual symbol of Buddhist adoration, and, with its umbrella ornament, may be traced in the Shoo-Madoo of Pegu, and other more remote structures of the same faith. Though it is different in its form and style of ornament from the lingam, I cannot help thinking it has been originally intended to represent the same popular object of that almost universal idolatry, which Scripture, with good reason, describes as ' uncleanness and abomination.' " The ceiling of this cave is arched semicircularly, and orna- mented, in a very singular manner, with slender ribs of teak-wood of the same cune with the roof, and disposed as if they were supporting it, which, however, it does not require, nor are they strong enough to answer the purpose. Their use may have been to hang lamps or flowers from in solemn rejoicings. My com- panions in this visit, who showed themselves a little jealous of the antiquity of these remains, and of my inclination to detract from it, would have had me suppose that these two were additions by the Portuguese. But there are similar ribs at Karle, where the Portuguese never were. They cannot be very old, and though they certainly may have been added or renewed since the building was first constructed, they must, at all events, refer to a time when it and the forms of its worship were held in honour. The question will remain, how late or how early the Buddhists ceased to be rich and powerful in Western India ? or when, if ever, the followers of the Brahmanical creed were likely to pay honour to Buddhist symbols of the Deity ? " The latter question is at variance with all usual opinions as to the difference between these sects, and the animosity which has ever prevailed betwixt them. But I have been very forcibly struck by the apparent identity of the Buddhist clialtah and the Brahmanical lingam. The very name of the great temple of A\-a, ' Shoo-Madoo,' ' Golden IVIaha-Deo,' seems to imply a greater approximation than is generally supposed ; and, above all, a few weeks afterwards I found the cave of Karle in the keeping of Brahmans, and honoured by them as a temple of Maha-Deo. All this seems to prove that we know very little indeed of the religious BOMBAY AND CEYLON 267 history of India, that little or no credit can be given to the accounts contained in the Brahmanical writings, and that these accounts, even if true, may refer to comparatively a small part of India ; while, whatever is the date of these illustrious caverns (and Kan- heri I really should guess to be older than Elephanta), no stress can be laid either way on their identity or discrepancy with the modern superstition of the country, or the alleged neglect of the natives. On one of the pillars of the portico of the great cave at Kanheri is an inscription in a character different both from the Nagri and the popular running-hand, which, more than Nagri, prevails with the Marathas. " There are many similar instances in different parts of India of inscriptions in characters now unintelligible ; nor will any one who knows how exceedingly incurious the Brahmans are on all such subjects, wonder that they are not able to assist Europeans in deciphering them. But it would be a very useful and by no means a difficult task to collect copies of some of the most remark- able, and compare them with each other, since we should thus, at least, ascertain whether one or many characters prevailed in India before the use of the present alphabets ; and, in the first case, from the knowledge of the date of some few buildings where this character is found, be able to guess that of others whose history is unknown. The inscription of Pertauljghur, that on the column of Firoze Shah at Delhi, and on the similar column at Koottab-sahib, might thus be collated, with probably many others as yet unknown to me ; and the result might tell something more than we yet know respecting the antiquities of this great and interesting country. "In Mr. Elphinstonc's party on this occasion was a French officer, the Chevalier Rienzi (a descendant of the celebrated tribune, the friend of Petrarch), who was just arrived from a journey through a considerable part of Egypt and Abyssinia. I was anxious to know what degree of likeness and what comparative merit he discovered between these caves and those of Thebes, etc. He said that the likeness between Kanheri and the Egyptian caves was very slight and general, and in point of beauty very greatly preferred these last." After another month of hard work in the Government House at Parell, to which he had removed from the Governor's sea quarters at Malabar Point on the outburst of the monsoon, the Bishop with Archdeacon Barnes set off for Poona and the Dekkan by Panwell, the port for the mainland from Bombay 268 BISHOP HEBER before the railway was made by Thana to Kalyan junction. Having passed along the road, well raised above the low level of the Konkan, amid the misery of sleeplessness in jolting palanquins beaten on by the torrents of rain, they walked four and a half miles up the steep Bhor Ghat to Khandala, the views reminding them of some parts of the Vale of Corwen. The third and finest series of cave temples, those of Karle, extending in time from the age of Asoka, 250 B.C., to the Christian era, were thus inspected : — " 2%th June 1825. " In the afternoon I rode on horseback, accompanied by Dr. Barnes, the stage between Khandala and Karle, diverging from die road about a mile to visit the celebrated cavern which takes its name from this last place, and which is hewn on the face of a precipice about two-thirds up the side of a steep hill, rising, with a \ ery scarped and regular talus, to the height of probably eight hundred feet above the plain. The excavations consist, besides the principal temple, of many smaller apartments and galleries, in two stories, some of them ornamented with great beauty, and evidently intended, like those at Kanhdri, for the lodging of monks or hermits. The temple itself is on the same general plan as that of Kanheri, but half as large again, and far finer and richer. . . . " The approach to the temple is, like that at Kanheri, under a noble arch, filled up with a sort of portico screen, in two stories of three intercolumniations below, and five above. In the front, but a little to the left, is the same kind of pillar as is seen at Kanheri, though of larger dimensions, surmounted by three lions back to back. Within the portico, to the right and left, are three colossal figures, in alto 7-elicvo, of elephants, their faces looking to\\-ards the person who arrives in the portico, and their heads, tusks, and trunks veiy boldly projecting from the wall. On each of them is a mahout, veiy well carved, and a howdah with two persons seated in it. The internal screen, on each side of the door, is covered, as at Kanheri, with al/o relievos, veiy bold, and some\\hat larger than life, of naked male and female figures. . . . There is no image either of Buddh or any other mythological personage about this cavern, nor any visible object of de\ otion except the mystic chattah, or umbrella, already mentioned at Kanheri. " The cave, in its general arrangement, closely answers to Kanheri, but both in dimensions and execution it is much nobler and more elaborate. The capitals of the columns (all of them at BOMBAY AND CEYLON 269 least which are not hidden by the chattah at the east end) are very singular and beautiful. Each consists of a large cap, like a bell, finely carved, and surmounted by two elephants with their trunks entwined, and each carrying two male and one female figure. The timber ribs which decorate the roof, whatever their use may have been, are very perfect, and ha\ e a good effect in the perspective of the interior, which is all e.xtremely clean and in good repair, and would be, in fact, a very noble temple for any rehgion. . . . " I had another comfortless night's journey in my palanquin, suffering a good deal from sleeplessness, and alternate fits of shivering and heat. We reached Mr. Chaplin's bungalow in Poona cantonment about four o'clock on the morning of the 29th, and I hoped that some hours' repose in an excellent bed would set me up again. I was mistaken, however, for m the following night I was attacked by dysentery, of which all these had, I suppose, been the previous symptoms, and which kept me pretty closely con- fined during great part of my stay in Poona. I was happy in being sufficiently reco\ ered on Saturday to administer Confirma- tion to about forty persons, chiefly officers and privates of His Majesty's 20th Regiment, and on Sunday to consecrate the church and preach a sermon to a numerous congregation. Mr. Chaplin also drove me one day round the cantonment, and on Monday I went on horseback to see the city and the Peishwa's palace. "... The church is spacious and convenient, but in bad architectural taste, and made still uglier, externally, by being covered with dingy blue wash picked out with white. Mr. Robin- son, the chaplain, appears to draw very numerous and attentive congregations both in the mornings and evenings ; the latter particularly, which is a voluntary attendance, showed as many soldiers nearly as the morning's parade, and there appeared good reason to think not only that the talents and zeal of their able and amiable minister produced the effect to be anticipated, but that he was well supported by the example and influence of Sir Charles Colville and others in authority. I was so fortunate as to prevail on Sir Charles Coh ille to rescind his order restricting the soldiers from carrying the books of the station library with them to their quarters, and tmst that an essential good may thus be produced both to this and all the other cantonments of the Bombay army. And, on the whole, though the state of my health prevented my either seeing or doing so much at Poona as I had hoped to do, and, under other circumstances, might have done, I trust that the journey was not altogether useless to myself and others. 270 BISHOP HEBER " During the hours that illness confined me to my room I had the advantage of reading the reports on the state of the Dekkan by Mr. Elphinstone and Mr. Chaplin, with a considerable volume of MS. documents, and was thus enabled, better than I otherwise should have been, to acquire a knowledge of this new and important conquest." Mountstuart Elphinstone had been Governor of Bombay for six years at the time of Heber's visit, and he was succeeded by Sir John Malcolm two years afterwards. The intercourse of the Governor and the Bishop had only one drawback at the first — the shyness of the accomplished host. It is interesting to contrast the impressions which each made on the other, as recorded in his Journal : — " yd May 1825. " The Bishop is here in very general admiration, simple, kind, lively, liberal, learned, and ingenious. It is seldom one sees a character so perfectly amiable. My shyness and awkwardness prevent my getting so well acquainted with him as I could wish." " 25M May. " After Council I went to the Kanheri caves to meet the Bishop and party. We saw the caves, and had some Cashmere and Persian songs." "%th August. " The Bishop and Mrs. Heber leave us the day after to-morrow. The period of their stay has been extremely pleasant. Both are very agreeable." " 15M August. " I went into town to-day to see the Bishop off. I shall miss him and Mrs. Heber very much, not to mention poor little Emmy." " We took our final leave of Bombay on the i 5th of August, and embarked in the Discovery, commanded by Captain Brucks, of the Company's marine. Mr. Elphinstone asked all the principal civil and military servants of the Company to breakfast on the occasion, in the Government House in the Fort ; many of them accompanied us to the water's edge, and others went on board with us, among whom was Mr. Meriton, the superintendent of marine, known by the desperate valour which he displayed on BOMBAY AND CEYLON 271 several occasions while commanding different East India ships. Mr. Robinson of Poona and Dr. Smith accompanied me as chaplain and medical attendant. "Although we had long looked forward with eagerness to the moment when I should be at liberty to resume a journey which was to take us to Calcutta, and to unite us all once more together, we could not leave Bombay without regret. There were some persons whom we were sincerely pained to part with there. We had met with much and marked kindness and hospitality, we had enjoyed the society of several men of distinguished talent, and all my views for the regulation and advantage of the clergy, and for the gradual advancement of Christianity, had met with a support beyond my hopes, and unequalled in any other part of India. " 1 had found old acquaintances in Sir Edward West and Sir Charles Chambers, and an old and valuable friend (as well as a sincerely attached and cordial one) in Archdeacon Barnes. Above all, however, I had enjoyed, in the unremitting kindness, the splendid hospitality, and agreeable conversation of Mr. Elphin- stone, the greatest pleasure of the kind which I have ever enjoyed either in India or Europe. " Mr. Elphinstone is, in every respect, an extraordinary man, possessing great activity of body and mind, remarkable talent for, and application to public business, a love of literature, and a degree of almost universal information, such as I have met with in no other person similarly situated, and manners and conversation of the most amiable and interesting character. While he has seen more of India and the adjoining countries than any man now- living, and has been engaged in active political, and sometimes military, duties since the age of eighteen, he has found time not only to cultivate the languages of Hindostan and Persia, but to preserve and extend his acquaintance with the Greek and Latin classics, with the French and Italian, with all the elder and more distinguished English writers, and with the current and popular literature of the day, both in poetry, history, politics, and political economy. With these remarkable accomplishments, and notwith- standing a temperance amounting to rigid abstinence, he is fond of society, and it is a common subject of surprise with his friends, at what hours of the day or night he finds time for the acquisition of knowledge. His policy, so far as India is concerned, appeared to me peculiarly wise and liberal, and he is evidently attached to, and thinks well of the country and its inhabitants. His public measures, in their general tendency, evince a steady wish to improve their present condition. No government in India pays 272 BISHOP HEBER so much attention to schools and pubhc institutions for education. In none are the taxes lighter, and in the administration of justice to the natives in their own languages, in the establishment of punchayets, in the degree in which he employs the natives in official situations, and the countenance and familiarity which he extends to all the natives of rank who approach him, he seems to have reduced to practice almost all the reforms which had struck me as most required in the system of government pursued in those provinces of our Eastern Empire which I had previously visited. His popularity (though to such a feeling there may be individual exceptions) appears little less remarkable than his talents and acquirements, and I was struck by the remark I once heard, that ' all other public men had their enemies and their friends, their admirers and their aspersers, but that of Mr. Elphinstone ever)'- body spoke highly.' Of his munificence, for his liberality amounts to this, I had heard much, and knew some instances myself. " With regard to the free press, I was curious to know the motives or apprehensions which induced Mr. Elphinstone to be so decidedly opposed to it in this country. In discussing the topic he was always open and candid, acknowledged that the dangers ascribed to a free press in India had been e.vaggerated, but spoke of the exceeding inconvenience, and even danger, which arose from the disunion and dissension which political discussion produced among the European officers at the different stations, the embarrassment occasioned to Government by the exposure and canvass of all their measures by the Lentuli and Gracchi of a newspaper, and his preference of decided and vigorous to half measures, where any restrictive measures at all were necessary. I confess that his opinion and experience are the strongest pre- sumptions which I have yet met with in favour of the censorship. " A charge has been brought against Mr. Elphinstone by the indiscreet zeal of an amiable but not well-judgmg man, the 'field officer of cavalry' who published his Indian travels, that 'he is devoid of religion, and blinded to all spiritual truth.' I can only say that I saw no reason to think so. On the contrary, after this character which I had read of him, I was most agreeably surprised to find that his conduct and conversation, so far as I could learn, had been always moral and decorous, that he was regular in his attendance on public worship, and not only well informed on religious topics, but well pleased and forward to dis- cuss them ; that his views appeared to me, on all essential sub- jects, doctrinally correct, and his feelings serious and reverential; and that he was not only inclined to do, but actually did more for BOMBAY AND CEYLON 273 the encouragement of Christianity, and the suppression or diminu- tion of suttees, than any other Indian Governor has ventured on. That he may have differed in some respects from the pecuhar views of the author in question, I can easily beHeve, though he could hardly know himself in what this difference consisted, since I am assured that he had taken his opinion at second hand, and not from anything which Mr. Elphinstone had either said or done. But I have been unable to refrain from giving this slight and imperfect account of the character of Mr. Elphinstone as it appeared to me, since I should be sorry to have it thought that one of the ablest and most amiable men I ever met with were either a profligate or an unbeliever." The publication of Bishop Heber's Journal with this passage led Mountstuart Elphinstone to express to a friend some mis- giving lest it should appear that he had, in his conversation with his guest, expressed more than he felt. " It is certain," writes ^ his biographer, " that his religious opinions were not of the orthodox character the Bishop supposed, but such were his natural piety and his leanings to Christianity that a casual acquaintance might be easily misled as to his views. . . . One who had the best means of judging of his opinions in later life considered that they were those of a devout Unitarian." From 28th April, when the Bishop held his visitation of the clergy in the old church — since the Cathedral of St. Thomas — to his sermon before the Governor on Whit Sunday from Acts ii. 38, 39, when he urged the highest authorities to aid, in their private capacity, in the conversion of India, down to the day before his departure for Ceylon, he was incessantly occupied in inspecting and encouraging every form of church and charitable effort in the Presidency. Five churches were consecrated, and the new school of the Bombay Education Society was dedicated by prayer. In this latter work Heber anticipated the services of philanthropists like Sir Henry and Lady Lawrence in the military asylums which bear their name, of Alexander Duff in care for the Eurasians, and of his own successor, Bishop Cotton, in the hill schools. At a public breakfast, after the foundation stone had been well laid, Heber thus addressed the Governor : — 1 Lifeof the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstonchy ?;\x'X. E. Colebrooke, Bart., M. P. , London (John Murray), 1884, vol. ii. p. 172. T 274 BISHOP HERER " It is a grateful sight to see the high, the talented, and the valorous unite to grace with their presence a work, the object of which is to promote the education of the poor. It is impossible for us to look on the group of children now before us, to hear their seraphic voices, and to consider who they are and what may be the consequences of their education, without the deepest interest. They are the children of those who have fought our battles, and have shed their blood, side by side, with our fellow- countrymen; and it is to them and their children that, humanly speaking, we must look for the improvement of the people over whom we rule, and their conversion from the errors of their super- stition to the pure tenets of our faith. So that even if the sway of England, like other dynasties, should pass away (which God grant may be far distant!), we shall be chiefly remembered by the blessings which we have left behind." When in Salsette, moved by the ignorance and degradation of the casteless tribe there, Heber at once proposed "the establishment of a school and a missionary among them," as John Wilson not long after did for the other jungle peoples of Western India. The Company's cruiser Discovery gave its passengers a pleasant time, despite the monsoon swell of the Indian Ocean, as for ten days it coasted along the beautiful shores and back- waters of Malabar, dotted with Christian churches from the times of Pantrenus and Cosmas Indicopleustes. Mrs. Heber, whose pen was almost as ready as her husband's, writes the Jour7ial of their tour in Ceylon, which the Bishop himself sketches in letters to his venerable mother and to Mr. Mayor, vicar of Shawbury, in Shropshire, who had given a son to the Baddegama Mission of the Church Missionary Society in Ceylon. From Bombay to the close of his episcopate Heber enjoyed the services of the Rev. Thomas Robinson, A.M., chaplain of Poona, and afterwards Archdeacon of Madras, as his domestic chaplain. Mr. Robinson was a scholar who had prepared a Persian translation of the Pentateuch, and it was desirable that he should be in Calcutta to pass his work through the press of Bishop's College. To this we owe the tender record of "this beloved apostle of the East," which was published first in Madras in 1829, and then in London — The Last Days of Bishop Heber. BOMBAY AND CEYLON 275 Sir Edward Barnes was the Governor of Ceylon, which had become a Crown Colony in 1798, when it was separated from the adjoining Presidency of Madras, of which, in almost every other respect, it forms a part. The cruel king of Kandy, whom we had set up after driving out the Dutch in the Napoleonic wars, was still a State prisoner in Vellore, and his much-injured chiefs had gladly vested the sovereignty in the British Crown. It was not till 181 8 that the Church Missionary Society began its beneficent work among the Singhalese Buddhists ^ at the lovely hill capital of Kandy, and a little later at Baddegama and Cotta, in the south, while a separate set of workers evangelised the Tamil-speaking Hindoos who had crossed the pilgrim bridge of Rameswaram to Jaffna. Colombo, the British capital, which a railway of seventy -five miles now connects with the Kandy sanitarium, and Kurunegala were occupied long after. But, led' by the intrepid Coke,- who, ten years before Heber's visit, had died when off Ceylon, the Wesleyan missionaries had settled there. Not five years had passed since the first and greatest of American medical missionaries, John Scudder, M.D., had landed from Boston to begin at Jaffna the Tamil Mission which he and his children to the fourth generation have since spread over Arcot and other districts of South India. As yet, then, it was the day of small things in the island of which Heber had sung in his immortal hymn, and where he failed to find even "the spicy breezes" which the poet's fancy has ever since led visitors to expect. Mrs. Heber thus describes the Bishop's reception at Galle, which continued the principal port of the island till recently, when the harbour that gives Colombo its name was improved : " 25//; August 1825. " Mr. Glennie, the senior colonial chaplain ; Mr. Layard, the judge of Galle ; Mr. Mayor, one of the Church missionaries, and the Master Attendant of Galle, came on board to meet us, and about three o'clock the vessel was got safe into harbour. The ' William Carey, of course, had been the first to work for the Buddhists of Ceylon, having made progress in the study of their language in 1798, and sent Chater to begin a mission among them at Colombo in 1812. The London Missionary Society had sent three Germans to Ceylon in 1804. - Dr. Coke aijplied to be made first Bishop of Calcutta. See The Cor- respondence of William Wilherforce, vol. ii. p. 256 (1840). 276 BISHOP HEBER Fort fired a salute, which the Discovery returned, and we were met on the pier by the principal inhabitants of the place, the regiments stationed there, and a band of spearmen and lascarines. The pier was covered with white cloth, and we passed between two files of soldiers to the place where palanquins, etc., were waiting ; in which, preceded by native music, a constant attendant on all processions, we went two miles to the cutcherry, where we were invited, and most kindly and hospitably entertained, by Mr. Sansoni, the collector of the district. " The Singhalese on the coast differ very much from any Indians I have yet seen, and their language also is different ; they wear no turban or other kind of covering, on the head, but turn up their long black hair with large tortoiseshell combs ; the coolies and labouring classes have merely the waist-cloth, as in Bengal ; but the ' moodeliers,' or native magistrates, headmen, as they are generally called, wear a strange mixture of the Portu- guese and native dress, but handsome, from the gold with which it is covered. The moodelier of Galle, and all his family, are Christians ; he is a most respectable man, in face and figure resembling Louis XVIII., to whom his sons also bear a strong likeness ; the old man wears a handsome gold medal, given him for meritorious conduct." "261/1 August. " The heat is said to be never very oppressive at Galle, being constantly tempered by sea-breezes and by frequent rain ; the total absence of punkahs indeed proves the climate to be moderate. The fort was built by the Dutch, and is a good deal out of repair. We dined to-day at Mr. Layard's, who has an excellent house within its walls ; we went in our palanquins, and instead of the lanterns to which we had been accustomed in Calcutta and Bom- bay, were preceded by men carrying long palm-branches on fire ; the appearance of these natural torches was picturesque, and their smell not unpleasant ; but the sparks and flakes of fire which they scattered about were very disagreeable, and frequently were blown into my palanquin, to the great danger of my muslin dress ; they are never used within the fort." "28/^ August. "The Bishop confirmed about thirty persons, of whom the greater portion were natives ; some of the moodelier's family were among the number, but the rest were principally scholars from Mrs. Gisborne's school. He afterwards preached. The church was BOMBAY AND CEYLON 277 built by the Dutch, and, according to their custom, is without a communion table, and for the most part open. It is kept neatly, but is a good deal out of repair. The native part of the congrega- tion was numerous, and paid great attention to the ceremony, though many were there out of curiosity alone. Mr. Robinson preached in the evening." " 29//i August. " This morning, at three o'clock, we were roused by beat of drum to prepare for our march to Colombo ; we formed a long cavalcade of palanquins and gigs, preceded by an escort of spear- men and noisy inharmonious music, and attended by some of Mr. Sansoni's lascarines, who answer in some respects to our peons in Calcutta ; they wear rather a pretty uniform of white, red, and black, and a conical red cap, with an upright white feather in it. Instead of the chattah used with us, these men carry large fans made of the talipot palm, which is peculiar to Ceylon, from six to nine feet in length, over the heads of Europeans and rich natives, to guard them from the sun. The road was decorated the whole way as for a festival, with long strips of palm-branches hung upon strings on either side ; and wherever we stopped we found the ground spread with white cloth, and awnings erected, beautifully decorated with flowers and fruits, and festooned with palm- branches. These remnants of the ancient custom mentioned in the Bible, of strewing the road with palm-branches and garments, are curious and interesting." " loth August. " We were met by Sir Edward Barnes's carriage, drawn by four beautiful English horses, which took us, with a fresh relay, through the Fort at Colombo, where the usual salute was fired, to St. Sebastian. Here we found a most comfortable house, pro- vided and furnished by Government, on the borders of a large lake, but commanding a fine open view of the sea. This was the residence of the late Archdeacon Twistleton, whose death we have heard much lamented ; it is reckoned one of the healthiest spots in the island, always enjoying a fine breeze from the sea. In the even- ing we dined at the ' King's house,' that being the name given to the residence of the Go\ernor in this Colony. We were most kindly received by Sir Edward and Lady Barnes, and met a small and agreeable party, but I was much tired, and glad to go home early. The house is a bad one, in the centre of the Fort, but everything is conducted on a handsome and liberal scale by the Governor." 278 BISHOP HEBER " 3U/ Attgiist. " Our morning was, as usual on a first arrival, taken up by visits ; in the afternoon we drove in Sir E. Barnes's sociable through the far-famed cinnamon gardens, which cover upwards of 17,000 acres of land on the coast, the largest of which are near Colombo. The plant thrives best in a poor sandy soil in a damp atmosphere ; it grows wild in the woods to the size of a large apple-tree, but when cultivated is never allowed to grow more than ten or twelve feet in height, each plant standing separate. The leaf is something like that of the laurel in shape, but of a lighter colour ; when it first shoots out it is red, and changes gradually to green. It is now out of blossom, but I am told that the flower is white, and appears when in full blossom to cover the garden. After hearing so much of the spicy gales from this island, I was much disappointed at not being able to discover any scent, at least from the plants, in passing through the gardens ; there is a very fragrant-smelling flower growing under them, which at first led us into a belief that we smelt the cinnamon, but we were soon undeceived. On pulling off a leaf or a twig one perceives the spicy odour very strongly, but I was surprised to hear that the flower has little or none. As cinnamon forms the only consider- able export of Ceylon, it is, of course, preserved with great care ; by the old Dutch law, the penalty for cutting a branch was no less than the loss of a hand ; at present a fine expiates the same offence. The neighbourhood of Colombo is particularly favour- able to its growth, being well sheltered, with a high equable temperature ; and as showers fall very frequently, though a whole day's heavy rain is uncommon, the ground is never parched. " The pearl fishery was at one time very productix e, but some years ago it entirely failed, and though it has lately been resumed, the success has been small. Ceylon, partly from its superabundant fertility, which will scarcely allow of the growth of foreign plants, and partly from the indolence of the natives, is a very poor colony ; the potato will not thrive at all, and it is only at Kandy that any kind of European vegetable comes to perfection. The Governor has a basketful sent down every morning from his garden there ; the bread-fruit is the best substitute for potatoes I have met with, but even this is extremely inferior. A plant, something between the turnip and the cabbage, called 'nolkol,' is good." "1st September. "The Bishop held his Visitation, which was attended by all the colonial chaplains and Church missionaries in the island, the BOMBAY AND CEYLON 279 latter of whom were assembled at Cotta for their annual meeting, with the exception of Mr. Mayor, who was detained at Baddcgama by a severe fever, caught on his way down to meet us at Galle. I think there are few sights more impressive than that of a bishop addressing his clergy from the altar ; and on this occasion it was rendered peculiarly interesting by there being two regularly ordained native priests among the number, Mr. de Sarum and Christian David, both colonial chaplains ; the former has had an English education, and was entered, I believe, at Cambridge ; he married a young woman, who came out with him, and who shows her good taste and good judgment in living on the best terms with his family, who are very respectable people of the first rank in the island. The clergy dined with us' in the evening." " 2nd September. " Mr. Walbeoffe, the manager of the cinnamon gardens, good- naturedly sent some of the cinnamon peelers to our bungalows, that we might see the way in which the spice is prepared. They brought with them branches of about three feet in length, of which they scraped off the rough bark with knives, and then, with a peculiar-shaped instrument, stripped off the inner rind in long slips ; these are tied up in bundles, and put to dry in the sun, and the wood is sold for fuel. In the regular preparation, however, the outer bark is not scraped off, but the process of fermentation which the strips undergo when tied up in large quantities removes the coarse parts. The peelers are called ' chaliers ' ; they are a distinct caste, whose origin is uncertain, though they are generally supposed to be descended from a tribe of weavers who settled in Ceylon, from the continent, about six hundred years ago ; in the interior they now pursue their original occupation, but those in the maritime provinces are exclusively employed in peeling cinnamon. They earn a great deal of money during the season, but their caste is considered very low." " yd September. " The Bishop has been much engaged since our arrival in pre- paring a plan, which he discussed to-day with Sir E. Barnes, for restoring the schools, and the system of religious instruction which we found established by the Dutch, and of uniting it more closely with the Church of England. At a very small annual expense, this plan would, he thinks, be the means of spreading not merely a nominal, but real Christianity through the island. There is 28o BISHOP HEBER also another object which he has, if possible, still more at heart, which is giving the native ' proponents,' or catechists, such facilities for education as would gradually fit them for admittance into holy orders, and make them the groundwork of a parochial clergy ; he has been much pleased by the anxiety which they show for the impro\ ement of their scholars, but they have not the means of acquiring knowledge sufficient to enable them to teach others, and are many of them ill-informed, though very good men. Books are scarce in Singhalese and Taniul, and he is anxious to prevail on some of the colonial clergy to translate a few of the more popular works into these languages. In these and in various other suggestions which he has made to both chaplains and missionaries, he has, almost universally, met with the readiest concurrence ; and he has often expressed to me the extreme gratification which he has derived since we have been here, from witnessing the exemplary conduct of the whole Church Establishment, and the readiness with which they have entered into his views. " The Bishop preached this morning at St. Thomas's ; the church was very full, and, as it has no punkahs, the heat was great. It is a remarkably ugly, inconvenient building ; indeed, it was not originally intended as a church by the Dutch, and the Colony is too poor to build another. There is a mural tablet in it to Bishop Middleton, who was here at two different periods." ' ' bth September. " Early this morning the Bishop went to Cotta, a Church Missionary station, about six miles from Colombo. Mr. Lambrick, whom I remember tutor, some years ago, in Lord Combermere's family, is at present sole missionary there, and performs the important duties of the station in a most exemplary manner ; the number of inhabitants in the district is very great ; there are eight schools in the village, containing near two hundred children, of whom a few are girls, besides several in the adjoining hamlets ; and he has two services every Sunday in English and Singhalese, as well as occasional weekly duty in the schools ; there is no church. Mr. Lambrick is now engaged in a translation of the Old Testament and the Gospels, part of which is printed. " While the Bishop was at Cotta, Mr. Lambrick read him an address in the name of all the missionaries, in which, besides giving him an account of their respective stations, they asked his advice on several important points, of which the principal related to prayer-meetings at each other's houses, and to the baptism of native children.' BOMBAY AND CEYLON 28: The growing catholicity of Reginald Heber is seen in the written answer which he gave to the address. In each of the great centres of India and Ceylon the representatives of all the Reformed Churches of Europe and America have long been in the habit of holding a missionary conference once a month, at which breakfast is preceded by an hour of prayer, and followed by the reading of a paper and discussion. The custom was then new, the relations between the Christian sects were then more uncertain, and the missionaries had not then always received the professional training which all those of the churches and regular societies have now long enjoyed. Addressing clergymen of his own Church, so loyal a theologian could not but exalt their calling, but he even humbled him- self in the fulness of the spirit of " that grace which fell on St. Paul " when he wrote to the Corinthians the thirteenth chapter of his first epistle : — " Colombo, \yh September 1825. " My Reverend Brethren — Having been consulted by you and the other clergy of this archdeaconry on the propriety of engaging with missionaries of other religious sects in solemn conference on topics connected with your work among the heathen, such as are now statedly holden at JafTna and at this place, I have first to express my thankfulness to God for the brotherly and tolerant spirit which, since my arrival in the island, I have noticed among those who, with less or greater differences of opinions, and discrepancies of doctrine and discipline, abun- dantly to be deplored, yet hold, as I am persuaded, the same faith in the Cross, and shall be found, as I trust, in the last day, on the same Rock of Salvation. Nor am I less thankful to the Giver of all good things for the affectionate and orderly spirit which I find in you, my brethren, and which has led you, volun- tarily, to submit a question in which your hearts, as I have reason to believe, are much engaged, to the counsel of your ordinary. May God continue and increase this mutual confidence between us, and conduct it, and all things else, to His glory and our salvation ! "The meeting in question has been described to me as a con- ference of ministers and missionaries, in a certain district, held in each other's house in rotation, attended by the ministers or missionaries themselves, their wives and families, and occasionally by devout laymen from their vicinity. These meetings are 282 BISHOP HEBER described as beginning and ending with prayer, led, indifferently, by ministers of different sects, or by their lay friends, but not by the females, and as broken by hymns in which all present join. The remainder of the time is occupied by a friendly meal to- gether — in the comparison, by the missionaries, of the different encouragements and obstacles which they meet wMth among the heathen, and in discussion of the best means by which their common work can be forwarded. It appears that this practice commenced at Jaffna, under circumstances which made it very desirable for the missionaries of the English Church not only to live on friendly and courteous terms with the missionaries sent from America, but to profit by the experience and example of these missionaries in their manner of addressing the heathen. And it appears, also, that these conferences have been strictly private and domestic, and that there has been no interchange or confusion of the public or appropriate functions of the Christian ministry between yourselves and the friends who, unhappily, differ from you in points of Church discipline. Under such circum- stances it is probable that, by God's blessing, many advantages may have arisen to you all from these conferences ; and, without inquiring whether these ad\antages might have been, in the first instance, attainable, in a manner less liable to inconvenience or misrepresentation, I am happy that I do not think it necessary to advise their cessation, now they are established, and that your dereliction of them might greatly interrupt the charitable terms on which you now live with your neighbours. " There are, however, some serious dangers to which such meetings are liable, against which it is my duty to caution you, and by avoiding which you may keep )-our intercourse with your fellow-labourers, as now, always harmless and unblamed. The first of these is the risk of le\ elling, in the eyes of others, and even in your own, the peculiar claims to attention on the part of men, and the peculiar hopes of grace and blessing from the Most High, which, as we believe, are possessed by the holders of an apostolic commission over those whose call to the ministry is less regular, though their labours are no less sincere. God forbid, my brethren, that I should teach you to think on this account highly of yourselves ! Far otherwise. This sense of the advan- tages which we enjoy should humble us to the dust, when we bethink us who we are, and what we ought to be, who have received the Spirit of God, by the dispensation of a long line of saints and martyrs — who are called to follow the steps of Ridley, Hooper, Latimer, Rowlands, Taylor, and Henry Martyn ; and who BOMBAY AND CEYLON 283 are, by the external dispensation, at least, of Providence, the in- heritors of that grace which fell on St. Paul. But humbly, ) ea meanly, as we are bound to think of ourselves, we must not appear to undervalue our apostolic bond of union ; and the more so here in India, inasmuch as it is the great link which binds us to the ancient Syrian Church, and one principal means whereby we hope, with the blessing of our Master, to effect its gradual reformation. The neglect, or abandonment, or apparent abandon- ment of this principle, is the first danger which I apprehend to be incidental to such meetings as I have described. To guard against it, an additional care and caution will be desirable, in your steady adherence, wherever this is practicable, to the external ceremonies and canonical observations of our Church ; and, without estranging yourselves from your dissenting friends, by cultivating a yet closer union with those who are, properly speaking, your brother clergy. With this view I would recommend not only the measures which I have lately suggested, of frequent meetings of the clergy of this archdeaconry for the purposes of mutual counsel and comfort, but a readiness on your part, who are missionaries, to officiate whenever you are invited, and can do it without neglect of your peculiar functions, in the churches of the Colony, and in rendering assistance to the chaplains. By this occasional attention (for, for many reasons, I would have it occasional only) to the spiritual wants of your own countrymen, several important ends will be obtained. . . . "Another precaution which occurs to me as desirable against the risk to which I have alluded is, that it be perfectly under- stood that the meetings are for the discussion of such topics only as belong to your distinct functions as missionaries to the heathen. For this reason I would recommend that the meeting be confined to missionaries only, with their families, and such devout laymen (for I am unwilling to damp, or seem to discounten- ance, their laudable zeal) who have already joined themselves to your number. The other clergy of the archdeaconry will find, I conceive, a sufficient bond of union and source of mutual com- fort and advice in the clerical meeting. There are other incon- veniences and improprieties incidental to what are usually called prayer-meetings which ha\e led to their rejection by the great majority of the Church of England, and, among the rest, by some excellent men, whom the conduct pursued by those with whom their chief intimacy lay would have naturally inclined to favour them. I mean, among others, the late Mr. Scott of Aston Sand- ford, and the late Mr. Robinson of St. Mary's, Leicester. Such 284 BISHOP HEBER is the practice reprobated by the Apostle, of a number of persons coming together, with each his psalm, his prayer, his exhorta- tion ; the effect of which is, not only often confusion, but what is worse than confusion, self-conceit and rivalrj', each labouring to excel his brother in the choice of his expressions and the outward earnestness of his address — and the bad effects of emulation mix- ing with actions in which, of all others, humility and forgetfulness of self are necessary. Such, too, is that warmth of feeling and language, derived rather from imitation than conviction, which, under the circumstances which I have mentioned, are apt to degenerate into enthusiastic excitement or irreverent familiarity. " And though it is only due both to yourselves, my brethren, and to your dissenting fellow-labourers to state that all which I have seen or heard of you sets me at ease on these subjects, so far as you are concerned, yet it will be well for you to take care, lest by setting an example of such an institution in your own persons, you encourage less instructed individuals among the laity to adopt a practice which, in their case, has almost always, I believe, been injurious. It is on this account, chiefly, that, with no feeling of disrespect or suspicion towards the excellent lajmen who, as I understand, have joined your society, I would recom- mend, if my counsel has any weight (and 1 offer it as my counsel only), that, though there is no impropriety in their taking their turns in reading the Scriptures, and mingling in the discussions which arise on the subjects connected with your conference, they would abstain from leading the society in prayer, except when the meeting is held in one of their own houses, and when, as master of the family, they may consistently offer up what will then be their family devotiojt. " I would, lastly, recommend to you earnestly that both your discussions and your prayers have, as their leading object, the success of Missions, and the means whereby Missions may, with God's blessing, be rendered successful ; and that you would deviate as little as possible into other fields of ecclesiastical inquirj'." The Bishop's counsels as to the employment of lay assist- ants and interpreters, and as to the baptism of the children of heathen parents, are necessarily more technical, but are full of such wisdom and charity as this : — " The Church of Rome, though grievously corrupted, is never- theless a part of the visible Church of Christ ; we may not there- fore repel the children of such parents from baptism, if they are BOMBAY AND CEYLON 285 vouched for by their sponsors in the words of our service, which it nicay be noticed are wisely so framed as to contain nothing but those points on which all Christians are agreed. The direction at the end to teach our Church Catechism is a counsel from us to the sponsors, no engagement entered into by them. It follows that we are not to refuse baptism to the children of Roman Catholic parents, with sufficient Protestant sponsors ; I even doubt whether we are at liberty even with sponsors of their parents' sect." When Claudius Buchanan crossed from Rameswaram by Adam's Bridge to Ceylon, in 1808, he found that the interests of the Church of England in the province of Jaffna were supported by the one Hindoo catechist, Christian David, and that tliere were but two English clergymen in the whole island. The two had become three chaplains seventeen years after, and Heber naturally welcomed the missionaries everywhere, and turned to the old Presbyterian and still existing system of the Dutch to see if it could not be utilised for the good of the nominal Christian population fast disappearing from apostasy and death.i Hence the plan described above in his wife's Journal, which he worked out with the Governor. Had he been spared to return to this portion of his diocese, and to watch over it for a quarter of a century, as I )aniel Wilson long did, Christianity might have made much more rapid progress among both the Buddhists and the Hindoos there than it has done. He thus wrote to Mr. Barnes, then about to retire from Bombay : — " Point de Galle, 21th September 1825. " Dear Archdeacon — ... I have passed a very interest- ing month in Ceylon, but never in my life, to the best of my recollection, passed so laborious a one. I really think that there are better hopes of an abundant and early harvest of Christianity here, while, at the same time, there are more objects connected with its dissemination and establishment which call for the immediate and almost continued attention of a bishop than are to be found in all India besides. I hope I ha\ e been partly en- abled to set things going, and design, in the course of my visitation I See The Conversion of India (John Murray), chap. iv. , and, for fuller details, Sir J. Emerson Tennent's Christianity in Ceylon {1859). 286 BISHOP HEBER of the south of Madras next spring, to run over again for a week or ten days, to Jaffna at least, if not to Colombo, when I may both see the effects of my measures, and possibly extend them. My chief anxiety is to raise the character of the native proponents, and, by degrees, elevate them into an ordained and parochial clergy. This, with a better system introduced into the go\ em- ment schools, will soon, I trust, make many new Christians, and render some professing Christians less unworthy of their name than they now are. " The new archdeacon, Mr. Glennie, is a very valuable man, and the Church missionaries in this island are really patterns of what missionaries ought to be — zealous, discreet, orderly, and most acti\'e." When leaving Colombo for Kandy, Mr. Robinson tells us, the Bishop called him to join him in his walk by the side of the lake, and expressed his confident expectation that the diocese (the labour of which, he felt, was fast exhausting his strength) would soon be divided into smaller bishoprics. Little did Heber think that his own sudden death, so near at hand, would do more than the pressing necessities of the case, to bring about the creation of the bishoprics of Madras, and Bombay, and Ceylon. Mr. Robinson's /our/ia/ describes the visitation of the clergy at Colombo, in St. Peter's Church in the Fort, and the visits to Cotta and Kandy : — "... The Bishop delivered his charge to the clergy, both chaplains and missionaries, twelve in number. We dined together in the evening, and the whole services of the day have been full of interest and delight. I have never seen so many together, so united in heart and object, since I left England. The good Bishop told us some most interesting missionary anecdotes of his Hin- doostan journey, and the party left us after evening prayers. It is impossible to tell you with what feelings of affection and obedi- ence he is regarded by all ; Mr. Lambrick, the eldest of the Church Missionaries, and Mr. Ward said to me as they went away, ' This is the golden age of the Church restored : this is indeed the spirit of a primitive bishop.' " "6//! September 1825. " At daybreak I attended his Lordship to Cotta, six miles oflf, the principal Church Missionary station, where they are intending to establish a Christian institution for the island. The resident BOMBAY AND CEYLON 287 missionary there now is Mr. Lambrick, an excellent, active, vigor- ous man of advanced age, formerly a tutor at Eton, and now more honourably employed. It happens that one missionary from each of the other stations, Jaffna, Baddcgama, and Kandy, are now there for their annual consultation on the affairs of their mission. It is a beautiful sequestered spot, very much resembling Cottayam in Travancore. The house stands on a gentle eminence on the borders of a lake, the banks of which on all sides are covered with trees and verdure. We crossed the water in a boat beauti- fully ornamented with palm, in which we were received by two clergymen, who conducted us to the house. On the entrance his Lordship \\as received by the five missionaries present, and Mr. Lambrick read an address, in the name of all, most touchingly and admirably worded, expressive of their joy at ranging them- selves under his paternal authority, their gratitude for his kind- ness, their thankfulness for his present visit, and at seeing a friend, a protector, and a father in their lawful superior, and then laying before him the account of their state and prospects. I assure you it was neither read nor heard without tears. The Bishop (who had had no previous intimation of their purpose) returned a most kind and affectionate answer, attaching to himself still more strongly the hearts which were already his own. His utter- ance was ready, and only checked by the strong emotion of the time. We were embowered in the sequestered woods of Ceylon, in the midst of a heathen population, and yet here was a trans- action worthy of the Apostolic age — a Christian bishop, his heart full of lo\ e, and full of zeal for the cause of his Divine Master, received in his proper character by a body of missionaries of his own Church, who, with full confidence and affection, ranged them- selves under his authority as his servants and fellow-labourers — men of devoted piety, of sober wisdom, whose labours were at that moment before us, and whose reward is in heaven. It realised my ideas of true missionary labour. Immediately after the address we went into the house to family prayers. Mr. Lambrick read a chapter of Isaiah (the 63rd), and the Bishop prayed, repeating, according to his custom, a selection of the Church prayers, and introducing before the thanksgiving a prayer for that institution, and all that were engaged in its service." "Kandy, Sunday, 18//1 September. " The Bishop held a confirmation this morning at seven. The church is at present held in the audience-hall of the late king. 288 BISHOP HEBER About thirty persons were confirmed. His Lordship dehvered an address, much akered from the one I had heard from him before, and excellently adapted to local circumstances. The power of seizing on such topics of interest is one among the many beauties of his rich and powerful mind. After we returned home, before breakfast, I was mentioning to him how forcibly it had struck me, during the service, that in that hall, where a few years ago the most savage tyrant received his miserable subjects — and even the English embassy was compelled to be almost prostrate before him — a Christian bishop was now administering the solemn ordinances of our religion. He leaned his head on his hand and burst into tears. How wonderful is the providence of God in the economy of His Church ! Nev^er was any people entrusted with such power of doing good as England now is, nor is it pos- s\h\e in the nature of things that this power can long endure ; her dominion, like that of other nations that have preceded her, must pass away. What a fearful responsibility on the govern- ment and its ministers, on the nation and all its children, and (above all) on our Church and its rulers ! Such was our conversa- tion in the palace of the Emperor of Kandy on this memorable morning. At eleven the Bishop preached on Luke x. 42 (' One thing is needful '), and administered the sacrament to about forty communicants. He has established also an evening service at four o'clock, and we had a vei-y good congregation of soldiers and others. The men of the 83rd especially are most thankful to the Bishop for this new service." " BADDfiGAMA, September. " The Bishop consecrated the church, and preached to a very numerous congregation, both of Europeans and natives. . . . We have been walking this evening round the verandah of the church, overlooking the surrounding country in the still repose of a beautiful moonlight, and talking of past and future days. In the verandah, at the east end, is the grave of their first native convert, Daniel, who died seven months ago. His loss to the mission was irreparable ; but his death may do more than even his life could have done. He was full of energy and zeal, in- dependent in character, and high in intellect. His family are most of them still heathen, and reside in the neighbourhood. His brother, who was committed by him solemnly to the mission- aries at his death, says that since that time he has never doubted about Christianity : the death-bed of Daniel convinced him of its truth." I50MBAY AND CEYLON 289 In a letter to his mother Heber gives his own picture of Ceylon and his experiences : — "... All which we have seen is e.xtremely beautiful, with great variety of mountain, rock, and valley, covered from the hill-tops down to the sea with unchanging verdure, and, though so much nearer the Line, enjoying a cooler and more agreeable temperature than either Bombay or Calcutta. Here I have been more than ever reminded of the prints and descriptions in Cook's Voynj^i's. The whole coast of the island is marked by the same features, a high white surf dashing against coral rocks, which, by the way, though they sound very romantically, differ little in appearance from sandstone ; a thick grove of coco-trees, plantains, and bread-fruit thrusting their roots into the very shingles of the beach, and hanging their boughs over the spray ; low thatched cottages scattered among the trees, and narrow canoes, each cut out of the trunk of a single tree, with an out- rigger to keep it steady, and a sail exactly like that used in Otaheite. The people, too, w^ho differ both in language and appearance from those of Hindostan, are still more like the South Sea Islanders, having neither turban nor cap, but their long black hair fastened in a knot behind, with a large tortoise-shell comb, and seldom any clothing but a cotton cloth round their waist, to which the higher ranks add an old-fashioned blue coat, with gold or silver lace, and a belt and hanger to match, a fashion which they apparently received from their Dutch conquerors, and which has a very whimsical appearance. The Kandians, who inhabit the interior of the island, and whose country, as you know, was conquered by the English about ten years ago, wear a more showy dress, and one more unifomily Oriental. They are now all tolerably reconciled to our government, as well as the Singhal- ese, or inhabitants of the sea coast, and their chiefs are rapidly acquiring a knowledge of our language and imitating our customs. " We went up with the Governor, Sir Edward Barnes, who, as well as Lady Barnes, has shown us much attention and kindness, to Kandy, where I preached, administered the sacrament, and confirmed tw^enty-six young people in the audience-hall of the late King of Kandy, which now serves as a church. Here, twelve years ago, this man, who was a dreadful tyrant, and lost his throne in consequence of a large party of his subjects apply- ing to General Brownrigge for protection, used, as we were told, to sit in state to see those whom he had condemned trodden to death and tortured by elephants trained for the purpose. Here U 290 BISHOP HEBER he actually compelled, by tomients, the wife of one of his prime ministers, whom he suspected of plotting against him, to bruise with her own hands two of her children to death with a pestle and large mortar, before he put her to death also ; and here at that time no Englishman or Christian could have appeared except as a slave, or at the risk of being murdered with every circumstance of cruelty. And now in this very place an English Governor and an English congregation, besides many converted natives of the island, were sitting peaceably to hear an English bishop preach ! "Christianity has made perhaps a greater progress in this island than in all India besides. The Dutch, while they governed the country, took great pains to spread it ; and the black preachers whom they left behind, and who are still paid by the English Government, show a very great reverence for our Com- mon Prayer, which is translated into their language, and a strong desire to be admitted members of the Church of England. One excellent man, named Christian David, I ordained last year in Calcutta, and there are several more in training. There are also some very meritorious missionaries in the island. One of them is the son of our neighbour, Mr. Mayor, of Shawbury, who, to- gether with another Shropshire man, Mr. Ward, has got together a very respectable congregation of natives, as well as a large school, and built a pretty church, which I consecrated last Sun- day, in one of the wildest and most beautiful situations I ever saw. The effects of these e.xertions have been very happy, both among the Roman Catholic descendants of the Portuguese, and the heathen. I have confinned, since I came into the island, 360 persons, of whom only sixty were English, and in the great church at Colombo I pronounced the blessing in four different languages, English, Portuguese, Singhalese, and Tamul. "Those who are still heathen are professedly worshippers of Buddh, but by far the greater part reverence nothing except the Devil, to whom they offer sacrifices by night, that he may do them no harm. Many of the nominal Christians are infected with the same superstition, and are therefore not acknowledged by our missionaries ; otherwise, instead of 300 to be confirmed, I might have had several thousand candidates. Many thanks for the kind trouble you took to get subscriptions for the female schools at Calcutta. I hope we shall be able to raise nearly money enough for them in India. On the whole, I rejoice to believe that, in very many parts of this great country, ' the fields are white already to harvest ' ; and it is a circumstance of great comfort to me that in all the good which is done, the Church of BOMBAY AND CEYLON England seems to take the lead, that our Liturgy has been translated into five languages most used in these parts of the world, and that all Christian sects in the East seem more and more disposed to hold it in reverence. Still little, very little is done in comparison with all which is to do. — Ever your affection- ate son, Reginald Calcutta." For the first three weeks of the variable month of October, when the monsoons change, the Discovery was becahned or tossed by baffling winds in the Bay of Bengal. A terrific gale, which wrecked many a native vessel, spared the Bishop and his party ; they were able to rescue thirty-one of the Laccadive islanders, whose frail craft, trading with cocoa-nuts to Bengal, had foundered. At length, on the 21st of October, the Bishop of Calcutta landed at Chandpal Ghat, historic spot, under the usual salute, having spent sixteen months on the first part only of the visitation of his vast jurisdiction. The careful and ex- perienced annalist of Christianity in India, ^ Mr. Hough, de- clares that Reginald Heber had travelled over a greater extent of country, and had encountered more perils than, perhaps, had fallen to the lot of any missionary since the days of the Apostles. ' The History of Christianity in India from the commencement of the Christian Era. By the Rev. James Hough, M.A., late Chaplain to the Hon. E. I. Company at Madras, vol. v., London, i860. CHAPTER XII MADRAS 1825 Hei;er had planned his visitation of Northern India, Western India, and Cc)lon so that he might attend to the business of the diocese at Calcutta, and return to the south of India to begin his tour of inspection from Madras by Christmas. His wife was of opinion that, but for the repeated detentions in the first tour, he might have avoided the great heats of Southern India, and have " been sometime longer spared to his family and to that country for whose eternal welfare he was labouring to the utmost of, and, alas ! beyond his strength and ability." But he loved such toil, and all India, native and European, responded to his self-sacrificing energy and genial loving-kindness. More than once, as Hindoos like the head of the Mullik family in Calcutta joined with British civilians and soldiers in the generous support of Bishop's College and of the Missionary and Bible Societies and charities for which he pleaded, Reginald Heber declared to his wife that if it were possible to educate their children in India and to preserve their health, he would give up all thoughts of returning to England, and would end his days among the objects of his solicitude. His first act, on returning to Calcutta, was to repeat his successful experience in Bombay and Ceylon, where he had secured the personal assistance of the high officials and resi- dents in forming a diocesan committee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, followed by collections in all the MADRAS 293 churches. What Mountstuart Elphinstonc had thus done in Bombay, Lord Amherst and the officials were invited to do in Calcutta, at a meeting held in the Bishop's house after he had preached on Advent Sunday a missionary sermon. At that time of transition in the history of the infant Evangelical Church of India, he was prudent in giving the assurance that nothing in the proceedings would give offence to our uncon- verted fellow-subjects, or be at variance with a wise respect for their feelings and prejudices. Meanwhile, he was carefully fostering the mission under Mr. Christian which he had opened among the Sontal and other Paharees, and had resolved to extend its operations to the Garrow and other highlanders in Assam, for whom the Welsh Presbyterians have recently done much. Richard Heber, who survived Reginald till the year 1833, had written to him, in the interests of the Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge, a letter which called forth a statement of his labours for that as well as the other two Missionary Societies of the Church of England, after which he proceeds : — "Calcutta, i<,th December 1825. " In spite of these labours and drawbacks, and of the far heavier and more painful circumstance of separation from home, and my oldest and dearest friends, I should be extremely ungrate- ful if I did not speak well of India, and acknowledge myself happy in my present situation. . . . The circumstance which I have felt most painfully was niy long separation from my wife and children, a measure, however, which my subsequent experience of some of the countries which I had to pass through sufficiently showed to have been no unnecessary sacrifice. In Madras, whither I am going the latter end of next month, I yet hope that they may accompany me, but I am not certain, as it must depend on in- formation which I am collecting. Mrs. Middleton made the journey, and though I am compelled to go at a later period of the season, and in hotter weather, I have no doubt that Emily might go with perfect safety. But for the children I am not without apprehensions. At all events my separation from them will, I trust, be far shorter than the last ; nor, though I hear much of the beauty of the south of Malabar, and look forward with great interest to seeing the S)'rian Christians, can I think that Emily will lose so much of glorious jirospect and romantic manners 294 BISHOP HEBER as she did by not accompanying me up the crags of Almora, and ainong the wild and warlike tribes of Malwa. Bombay and Ceylon we saw together, and she, as well as I, was greatly delighted with both, particularly the natural beauties of the latter. The former was rendered particularly interesting to us from the renewal of my old acquaintance with Archdeacon Barnes, and from the terms of intimacy on which we lived with Mr. Elphinstone, the most re- markable man in India for talents, acquirements, undeviating good-nature, and flow of conversation. We were his guests for almost three months, and I found something fresh to admire or like in him every day. Everybody in India does him justice as an excellent man of business, a ' grand homme d'etat et de guerre,' a conqueror and a legislator. . . . " Emily and I have gained much in our Calcutta society by the appointments of Sir Charles Grey and Lord Combermere. Grey is looking extremely well, and very little altered from what he was in England ; he is very popular here, so is also Lord Combermere, from his constant accessibility and close attention to business, as well as by his good-natured and cordial manners. He is now, I apprehend, engaged in the siege of Bhurtpoor, un- less the usurper of that little State has submitted without coming to blows. If the war really goes on, and the city falls. Lord Combermere will add greatly to his own reputation and that of the English name, inasmuch as Bhurtpoor is the only fortress, and the Jats the only people in India who boast that they have never been subdued either by the Mogul emperors or the English, having, as you are aware, beaten off Lord Lake with great loss in many successive campaigns. I did not see the city, except at a distance, but passed through the country, and was very hospit- ably and civilly treated. I thought them a very fine military race, and their territory one of the best governed in the north. "The army under Lord Combermere is considerable, amount- ing to near 25,000 men, with a fine train of artillery; there are only, however, about 3000 of these Europeans. . . . Should he fail, it is unhappily but too true that all northern and western India, every man who owns a sword, and can buy or steal a horse, from the Sutlej to the Nerbudda, will be up against us, less from disliking us than in the hope of booty. And still more unfortunately, it is not easy to say where another army can be found to meet them, now that Bombay is fully occupied on the side of Sindia, and all the strength of British India in Ava. From Ava and Arracan the news continues to be bad ; it is but too certain that our army is melting away with sickness, to which MADRAS 295 natives and Europeans appear equally liable ; and there are various rumours as usual in Calcutta yet more gloomy. "With Emily's best love and good wishes, and my own daily prayers for your happiness, and, if it pleases God, our prosper- ous meeting again, believe me, dear Heber, ever your affectionate brother, REGINALD Calcutta." A week before, he had written to the Society for Promot- ing Christian Knowledge, urging it to send more missionaries to the Coromandel coast, from Madras city to Palamkotta, and pleading that these should be Englishmen. " While I am thus anxious for the speedy arrival of missionaries, I trust I am not illiberal in expressing a hope that the Society will supply us with episcopally ordained clergymen." Such had been the difficulty even up to the year 1826 in finding clergy- men of the Church of England willing to go out as foreign missionaries, that the three Anglican Societies had employed Lutherans with orders generally considered Presbyterian. Of these Schwartz was the greatest, but undoubtedly several were men of imperfect theological and literary training. The Church Missionary Society encouraged three of its Lutheran missionaries to apply for re-ordination according to the rites of the Church of England. To the Rev. Deocar Schmidt, who had sought to dissuade the Bishop from this act, he replied in a letter which states the case of those who hold the grace of orders, and believe in the historical validity of apostolical succession, with a charity which unchurches none in the highest sense. "Calcutta, 22,rd December 1825. "... You suppose that I generally admit ordination by presbyters without a bishop to be valid ; I do not admit this. All I said is that, when a Christian nation has, by unfortunate circumstances, lost its apostolical succession of bishops, the continuance of ministers being a thing absolutely needful and essential, those good men are not to be censured who perpetuate it by the best means in their power. And were I to return to Germany, I would again, as before, humbly and thankfully avail myself of the preaching and sacramental ordinances of the Luthcraii Evangelical Church, not doubting that they are a true church of Christ, and that the Spirit of God is with them, as I trust He is with us also. 296 BISHOP HEBER " But, though an imperfect ordination may, doubtless, be accepted by our Lord and common Master, and though a Church, under circumstances such as I have described, may remain a true church still, it does not follow that, where this supposed deficiency may be supplied, it may not be advisable for a minister of the Gospel either to seek for fresh orders himself, or to counsel others to do so. And this may be more especially advisable where his or their ministerial utility is likely to be much aug- mented by a closer union with a Church under (what I conceive to be) the ancient discipline. We (that is, the members of our Church) have no right or inclination to judge other national Churches. But our own flocks have a sacred right to be well satisfied as to the Divine commission of those whom other spiritual rulers set over them. Even where the smallest doubt exists of the perfection of the order received, and their conformity with apostolical practice, it may be a part of Christian prudence to choose the safer side. And even where this doubt is not felt by ourselves, yet, if its existence in others impedes our usefulness, we have the highest possible warrant, in the case of St. Paul and Timothy, for condescending, even in a more material point, to the failings and prejudices of our brethren. Accordingly, if a preacher ordained in the method practised in Germany foresees a marked advantage to Christ's cause in a closer alliance with his Episcopalian brethren, I see not that he dishonours his previous commission by seeking our praj-ers and blessing in the form which we think most conformable to God's will. And the humility is, surely, anything but blamable which stoops for a time to even an inferior degree and inferior duties than those which he has already exercised. " For I see no weight in the argument that holy orders cannot be repeated without profanation. In the first place, it is a matter of doi/l)t whether the first orders were valid or no, and, in the very fact of fresh orders being given without a formal renunciation of the former, it is plain that the fresh orders are tacitly stib condifione. But, secondly, there is nothing, as I conceive, in the nature of ordination which makes it profane to repeat it on just grounds, or reasonable scruple on the part of the Church or its rulers. Ordination stands on a different ground from baptism. It is not a new creation, but a solemn de\otion of a man to a particular office, accompanied by prayer, and, as we believe, an accession of the Holy Spirit. But though a man can be only once jrgaicra/c, he may he often reneu'ed and qiiickcticd by the Holy Ghost, and there is no reason, a priori, why he should not MADRAS 297 receive an outward ordination (as he certainly may receive an itiivard call) to a new sphere of action in the Church, as well as to a new office in it. I do not say that this has ever been the practice of the Church, though I still think that something very analogous to it may be found in Acts xiii. But I say this to show the difference between the two cases of re-baptizing and re-ordain- ing, and that the same risk of profanation does not attach to the last as, I admit, does in eveiy doubtful case to the former. "Accordingly, I need not remind you that the great body of ancient Christians allowed the validity of baptism (the matter and 7i'ords being correct), whether conferred by heretics, schis- matics, or laymen. But though the ancient Church never re- baptized, they most certainly re-ordained in the case of the Meletian and Novatian clergy, as appears from Theodoret, Ecclcs. Hist., !. i. ix., and Coftc. Niccn., can. 8. " Still, I have no right or desire to judge devout and learned divines of another national Church. If they come to sojourn among us, satisfied with the commission which they have received, or if they desire our help in their efforts to convert the heathen, I gladly meet them as Christians and fellow-labourers. I rejoice sincerely that Christ is made known so widely through their means. I gladly admit them (as I should desire myself to be admitted in Germany or Holland) to the communion of our Church, and to all that interchange of good-will and good offices (as in the case of the missionary societies of our Church) which is essential to our carrying on the Gospel work in concert. But I am not inconsistent with these feelings if I think that the differ- ence between us, though it should not interrupt our communion, is in itself a misfortune to be remedied. Nor do I feel the less love and reverence for their character and talents when I earnestly wish them to become in all points like ourselves, except those sins of infirmity, of which I am mournfully conscious." Accordingly, on St. Andrew's Day 1825, Bishop Heber had held an ordination in St. John's Cathedral, when the Rev. T. Reichardt of Basel, Rev. W. Bowley, and Rev. Abdool Massee'h, Henry Martyn's convert, all having already received Lutheran ordination, were admitted to the order of deacons, and on the 21st December to the order of priests. Mr. Robinson thus records the double events : — 298 BISHOP HEBER " Calcutta, 30M November. "... All the clergy dined with the Bishop this evening. We were nineteen at table — the largest number of clergy ever present at one time in India. I sat by Abdool Massee'h, and we had a great deal of talk in Persian, as he speaks no English. After the usual toasts of ' The Preacher and his Sermon,' and ' The newly- admitted Deacons,' the Bishop gave 'The Native Church at Agra and its founder, Mr. Corrie.'" " 2U/ December. " How delightful have been the interesting solemnities of to- day ! Abdool Massee'h and the others who were before admitted deacons were ordained priests. Archdeacon Corrie preached an excellent sermon, in which you will easily imagine his feelings almost overcame his utterance, for they were all in some sense his children. Mr. Adlington, a young missionary whom he had educated almost entirely, was ordained deacon at the same time. Poor Abdool Massee'h has been ill some days, and was quite overpowered by the service ; he nearly fainted after the act of ordination. The good Bishop went through the Hindostani part of the ser\-ice without difficulty. One of the most interest- ing solemnities of our Church at all times is the admission of new candidates to the sacred office, and the pledge so solemnly de- manded and willingly given, which separates them for ever from the sccularities of the world to the stewardship of God's family. But the peculiar circumstances of this country, the tried and well-known character of the men themselves, and the bright prospects of futurity which opened on the mind even from this early and partial dawn, all conspired to make the scene before us one of deeper and more powerful interest. It was an awful and touching moment when the Veni Creator was sung by the congregation, the Bishop reading the verses from the altar, surrounded by twenty of his clergy kneeling in their surplices. All seemed to feel the beautiful devotion of this heavenly hymn, and to join with one heart in the sublime in- vocation of the ever-blessed Spirit. Who can doubt that such prayers were answered ? Father Abraham was present with his vicar during the whole service. He embraced the Bishop at the door of the vestry, and I attended him to his carriage, where he and Ter Joseph embraced me, and expi-essed their pleasure at thus joining with us, and their sense of the honour with which they had been received. MADRAS 299 "All the clergy dined with the Bishop in the evening, where I had the pleasure of having the venerable Abdool Massee'h by my side. He speaks Persian with perfect fluency, and much greater purity than most of the learned Musalmans in this country. He has great urbanity and courtesy of manners, beautifully and harmoniously blended with the gravity which becomes his advanced age, his fervent piety, and his sacred office. His con- versation is varied and accomplished, and is not only marked by the knowledge of the world which his former life and his missionary labours have naturally given him, but adorned with the lighter elegancies of the Persian classics, and enriched with the rare accompaniment of good taste and judicious reflection. Its peculiar charm, however, is the happy adaptation of the exquisite expressions of Saadi and Nizami, which are familiar to him, to the purposes of Christian feeling. This happy talent has made him very acceptable to the more educated among his countrymen, and he is a welcome visitor at the Court of Oudh, where the King has more than once engaged him in conversation on the subject of Christianity, and in controversy on its evidences and doctrines with some of his learned Moollahs. He often meets with hard names and angry looks from the more bigoted amongst them ; but his soft answer generally turns away their wrath, and while they hate his religion, they are still constrained to admire the man. He drank wine with me at dinner, but it was only to avoid the rudeness of a refusal ; and he explained to me afterwards that he very seldom touches it, and would rather abstain from what might lessen his influence among the Mohammedans. I fear he carries this abstinence beyond his strength, for the infirmities of age are fast growing on him, and he requires a more generous diet. He seemed much pleased with the distinguished kindness and respect the Bishop paid him, but it was the pleasure of a man who valued the distinction for the sake of him who conferred it, and who loved the praise of God more than the praise of men." " 2Ziid December. "... The Bishop's conversation this e\ cning was remarkably brilliant and entertaining. It happened to turn on a great variety of subjects, and displayed the riches of his memory, and his play- ful and happy fancy. The description he gave us of the meetings in Wales, which he had witnessed, for competition in music and poetrj', was very interesting, particularly the rusticity of the candidates for fame, literally the coarsest and humblest persons. 300 BISHOP HEBER He was present on the occasion with Lady Harriet Wynne, who declared herself so delighted at what she heard, that she ex- pressed her intention of having her son, then lately born, edu- cated in Welsh as well as English. The Bishop having announced this for her, the company received it with glad applause, and a peasant in blue worsted stockings, who had not been a competitor for the prize, stepped forth and pronounced some beautiful coup- lets in answer, of which something like this is the substance : ' Strike the harp with the hand of joy, for two messages of joy are brought to us — that our chief still loves his people, and that a child is born to his house. What shall I prophesy of the boy that is born ? Brave of heart like Cadwallon, and tuneful as the bards of old. May he live, and may his hand perform the deeds of Cadwallon, and his harp echo the strains of Taliessin 1 ' This was a man with the rough manners and coarse dress of a Welsh peasant ! " The station of Chinsurah, adjoining the oldest of the Com- pany's settlements in Bengal at Hoogli, was this year ceded by the Dutch, and the quaint old church fell to be supplied by Bishop Heber. He settled Mr. Morton as missionary- chaplain there, and he was welcomed by Mr. Mundy of the London Missionary Society, and by Mr. Lacroix, missionary from the Netherlands, who now joined that Society. Heber and Lacroix, who became the greatest preacher in BengaH down to his death, forty years after, were men of apostolic spirit, and worthy of each other.^ After preaching twice on 8th January 1826, and next day examining a long-deserted house amid a jungly garden, with the view of making it the parsonage. Bishop Heber was seized with the same deadly fever which, under similar circumstances, had been the cause of Dr. John Leyden's death. The disease affected his head, making him deaf for a long time, a circumstance to which his wife ascribed the last fatal event in the bath at Trichinopoly three months after. Like Henry Martyn, Reginald Heber was always the friend of the Armenian people and their Church — older than Con- ' The mission here was soon after given up by the Society for tlie Propaga- tion of the Gospel, and was made over by tlie London Missionary Society to the Free Church of Scotland, wliich has long had a College and an Evan- gelistic and Medical Mission at Hoogli-Chinsurah. MADRAS 301 stantine. From their centre of Echmiatzin, under the shadow of Ararat, they are to be found in cities so remote as Ispahan and Cairo, Calcutta and Bombay, Constantinople and Peters- burg, Moscow and Amsterdam. The oldest of Christian peoples, the Gregorian Armenians are the finest and least effete of the Oriental Churches. To the commercial virtues of the Jews they add the historic claims and high character of the earliest Christian kingdom. In Calcutta and Chinsurah they have long formed a community respected at once for their intellectual culture and active loyalty. Even of the United Armenians of the Roman Mechitarist order on the Venetian isle of San Lazzaro, Byron wrote, when his better nature asserted itself, as " the priesthood of an oppressed and noble nation, which has partaken of the proscription and bondage of the Jews and the Greeks, without the sullenness of the former or the servility of the latter." ^ With their picturesque church of St. Nazareth, in its quadrangle of old gravestones, shut in from the bustle of the China Bazaar of Calcutta, Heber was familiar. On his arrival from Ceylon the Bishop of Calcutta found waiting for him the Vertapet Abraham, sent from his convent on Mount Sion by the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem as commissary to the churches in India. How he took part in the ordination of priests and deacons in St. John's Cathedral has been told. Attended by Ter Joseph, the vicar of Calcutta, and Messrs. Jacob and Avdall (the last about to print his translation of the History of Armenia - by Michael Chamich), Abraham visited Bishop's College. " I read over to Father Abraham our Bishop's letter to the Syrian Metropolitan in Malabar," writes Robinson. " He was exceedingly delighted with it. ' It is apostolic,' said he, ' like one of St. Paul's.' " In the last of his letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury, written when he was beginning his voyage to Madras, Bishop Heber expressed the hope that in the six months before August 1826 he might, by God's blessing, " complete the circuit of the southern stations of the Presidency of Madras and the Syro- Malabaric Churches in Travancore, besides paying a short visit to Ceylon." He sought directions and assistance in enabling the ' See Good Words. "The .Armenians, their Past and Future," vol. xix. - In two volumes, printed at Bishop's College Press, Calcutta, 1827. 302 BISHOP HEBER clergy in India to marry, under pressing circumstances, without the canonical preliminaries of banns or license. What he wrote seventy years ago is, unhappily, true still, notwithstand- ing all the efforts of one of his successors. Bishop Cotton, when Lord Lawrence was Viceroy : " It is not possible to become acquainted with the temptations, and almost inevitable ruin of body and soul to which a European soldier, without a wife, is exposed in India, without feeling the propriety of throwing as few obstacles as possible in the way of lawful marriage." In this respect the British Army in India is worse off than in Heber's time, although hill stations, the railway system, and the troopships obviate the purely military objections to the withdrawal of the rule which practically forbids the soldier to marry. Mrs. Heber had been no less busy in promoting the educa- tion of native girls. Mr. Robinson writes : — " l^h January 1825. "This morning the Archdeacon and Mr. and Mrs. Wilson breakfasted at the palace. Mrs. Heber is a very active friend to the new system of female education, and has been successful during our late journey in procuring large additions to its funds. These, together with a princely donation of 20,000 rupees from a rich native here,i emboldens them to buy land and build a central school without delay. The Bishop was busy in drawing plans for the building. The rest of the morning I spent with him, despatching forty-two letters to different stations, desiring the clergy to preach in aid of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and soliciting the patronage of the principal persons among the laity." ' ' 28M January. " The Government have secured accommodations for us on the Bussorah Merchant^ which is moving slowly down the river. Our whole population is thrown into great joy by the news, just arrived, of the fall of Bhurtpoor : Lord Combennere took it by stomi on the 1 8th instant. The attack was most triumphant, though it is the strongest place in India. We had 30,000 men before it and I 50 pieces of artillery : our loss is very considerable. The storm has covered Lord Combermere with glory ; and his merciful as 1 Rajah Budinath Roy. MADRAS 303 well as soldici-like conduct greatly endears him to tlie Army. The Bishop, who has watched with lively interest the progress of the siege, from his connection with the Commander-in-Chief and his personal regard for him, rejoices greatly in this splendid termina- tion of his first Indian campaign, and dwells with great delight on the noble forbearance he has shown, not only to the inhabitants in the progress of hostilities, but in the determination which he avowed to him before he left Calcutta of rather protracting an affair, which an instant attack might have rendered more brilliant for himself, in order to prevent the greater waste of human life. One of his Lordship's arrangements I cannot help mentioning to you, because the Bishop frequently notices it, and as it is evidently so exactly in accordance with his own generous nature : several small parties were posted at different points in the neighbourhood of the city in order to facilitate the flight of the defenceless inhabit- ants, and secure them from injury and insult." Compelled by the approaching hot season to leave behind him his wife and children, Heber began his second tour of visitation on 30th January 1826. He and Robinson dropped down with the tide and current to the inn at Fultah, forty miles below Calcutta. There he found Dr. Joshua Marshman on his way to England. ^Vhen breakfasting together they talked of the conversion of India by the agency of its own sons. As Mrs. Marshman, as well as Mrs. Heber, had been left behind, the Bishop playfully asked what the world would say to the desertion of their wives by two ininisters of the Gospel. They parted with expressions of mutual esteem and regret. Dr. Marshman, his son tells us,^ often remarked that Heber was the most formidable enemy of dissent he had ever encountered, for his disposition was so candid and amiable that every one felt ashamed to differ from him. Heber was still ailing when he went on board, with a little library of books, which he devoured at the rate of two volumes a day, besides attending to his heavy correspondence. Robin- son writes : — " yd February 1S26. " The Bishop came into my cabin after breakfast, and said he found that, besides the European crew, there was a detachment of ^ Life and Times of Carey, Marshman and Ward, by John Clark Marsh- man, vol. ii. (Longmans). 304 BISHOP HEBER invalid soldiers on board returning to England, probably in a very ignorant and demoralised state, after their long residence in this country, and that he thought we might be exceedingly useful to them in the course of the voyage. He proposed, therefore, that we should go down alternately every morning to instruct them and pray with them. I begged him not to interrupt his own more important avocations for these low^er duties, which I would gladly undertake alone, if he would commission me to do so ; but he would by no means consent to relinquish his share in them. ' I have too little,' said he, ' in my situation, of these pastoral duties which are so useful to the minister as well as to his people ; and I am delighted at the opportunity thus unexpectedly afforded me — it will remind me of dear Hodnet. Besides, it is very possible that the mere circumstance of my going down may impress them more strongly, and incline them more to listen to us both.' He had his prayer-book in his hand, and after speaking to the com- manding officer, went below immediately. Is not this worthy of a bishop ? What inexpressible dignity do such simple labours add to his high and sacred office ! We had family prayers in the cuddy after tea, which w ill be continued during the voyage. I need not tell you that all the passengers gladly assented to the proposal. What is there that he could ask them that they would not assent to for all are delighted, even on this short acquaint- ance, with the life and variety of his conversation and the gentle- ness of his manners." "4//i February. " On going down to the poor soldiers this morning, I found the effect of the Bishop's visit yesterday to be just what might have been expected. His kindness and condescension have pre- pared them to receive with thankfulness all that is said to them ; and before I began to read, they could not help saying, as they collected round me, ' Only think of such a great man as the Bishop coming between decks to pray with such poor fellows as we are!' " ' ' dill February. "The Bishop is busily employed re-writing his charge for Madras. After delivering it there it will be printed ; but not till he has gone through the south, and is able to speak of the success of missionary labours from his own knowledge. He means to add notes, containing much valuable information of that kind, and which from him will come with weight and authority. He asked MADRAS 305 me to-night if I thought he ought to publish as much as he had written in answer to the Abbe Dubois. I told him, certainly ; that the Abbe's work had done much harm in a large circle, and that, though others had answered him, a 'blow from his great hammer' was still wanted. He was kind enough to say he would show me the manuscript before it went to the press. He says the report given of it in the Calcutta papers was so accurately and well done that his friends concluded at home he had already published it, and quarrelled with him for not sending them copies ; and that he had been much affected by the last letter which he had received from his aged mother, who, on reading the extracts in the news- papers, writes to him that she understands the tenderness of his motive in not sending her a copy, lest he should alarm her fears by his mention of the climate as one ^lohcrc labour is often death."' " 25M February. " We anchored in Madras Roads this morning. " The season is so far advanced for travelling that the Bishop can only afford to spend a few weeks at the Presidency, despatch- ing the business of more immediate importance, and deferring other matters of general regulation till his return from the South. This will just afford time for the necessary arrangements for our journey ; but so many things will be crowded into this brief space that I fear his strength will be exhausted. A large packet of letters was waiting for him ; and, among others of great and pressing interest from different quarters of his diocese, there is one from the Syrian Metropolitan, entreating his aid and assistance in the difficulties that had unexpectedly arisen from the cabals formed to oppose the establishment of his authority." "Sunday, 261 k February. " The Bishop preached in the morning at St. George's, the Presidency church, to an overflowing congregation. His text was Phil. i. 21, To die is gain, and his sermon one of his most impressive and masterly compositions. The remembrance of this his first sermon at Madras will never be effaced from the minds of those who heard it, not only from its many striking beauties, but as being almost a prophetic intimation that he was then hastening to the last scene of his earthly labours. How little did they imagine while hanging on his lips that the triumph of the text was so soon to be fulfilled in him ! " X 3o6 BISHOP HEBER " 27/// February. "After breakfasting with the Governor, and calHng on Sir Ralph Palmer, the Bishop was engaged with visitors till three o'clock. He was much struck with the beauty and situation of Mowbray, on the banks of a small river, and commanding a view of St. Thomas's Mount, and was as much delighted at meeting an old college friend in the Chief Justice, as I was in recognising most unexpectedly a school-fellow of my own standing at Rugby in one of the other judges. A few such meetings, he said, would almost make us forget the seas that separate us from our countrj'. At five, after an early dinner, I attended his Lordship to the Female Asylum, an admirable institution containing about 300 girls, and supported partly by Government, partly by private con- tributions, and partly by their own skill and industrj' in embroidery and other work. Dr. Rottler, the senior missionary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, has been the chaplain for more than twenty years, and the venerable man was catechising them when we arrived. The Bishop begged him to proceed with his instructions, and was moved even to tears by the affectionate and simple manner in which he taught them, and the evident attach- ment of the children to their aged pastor. The Bishop addressed a few words to them in his own winning and impressive manner, and gave them a holiday to-morrow. A public dinner at Government House closed a busy and e.xhausting day." "ist March. " In the afternoon he visited the Male Asylum, an institution justly celebrated as the place where Dr. Bell first introduced the system of education which has since become famous throughout the world. A noble building is half finished for the schools ; but the house, where Dr. Bell formerly resided, appears to be but little changed except from the injury of time, and is still occupied by Mr. Roy as the Superintendent of the Asylum. There may perhaps be an unwillingness to alter what reverence for the founder of the National System of Education in Great Britain induced Bishop Middleton to denominate classic ground. His Lordship examined three classes, and begged a holiday for the boys to-morrow. He thought it by far the best specimen of the system he had ever seen, and was not less pleased with the appearance of health and enjoyment among the lads in their noble playground, which forms a striking contrast with the confined premises of the Free School in Calcutta. Many of these soldiers' MADRAS 307 orphans have Uirned out excellent schoohnasters, surveyors, and even architects ; and nearly the whole expense is defrayed by the Male Asylum Press, conducted by sixteen young men, ancl ten apprentices, all selected from the Institution." " \oth March. "The Bishop held his visitation at St. George's, attended by fourteen of the clergy. His charge was much improved by the introduction of a good deal of matter connected with subjects of local interest, and especially some additional remarks on the Abbe Dubois. Mr. Lawrie, the junior minister of the Scotch Church, called on the Bishop after the service, and introduced the missionaries of the London Society, for here, as elsewhere, admiration and respect for him seem to form a point of union for members of every Church. A request has been made to him by some of the lead- ing members of society that he would print the sermons preached during his residence at Madras, and he has consented to do so on his return. Several times, as we have been riding by St. George's, he has remarked its beautiful structure rising amidst the palms that surround it, as a striking emblem of the peaceful and gradual establishment of Christianity in India ; and to-day, as we were going to church, he mentioned his intention of complying with this request, and promised to make a sketch of St. George's for the frontispiece of the little volume with this appropriate motto — Cresci/i' fe/iccs, eoce crcscitc Palmer As in Bombay, the year before, Heber had enjoyed the society of the greatest administrator, Mountstuart Elphinstone, in Madras he soon learned to appreciate the extraordinary ability and high character of another of the group of remark- able Scotsmen then ruling the East — Sir Thomas Munro. That Glasgow boy had raised himself, alike as soldier and statesman, to be the noblest benefactor of the millions of South and Central India. When in 18 19 the Hon. Hugh Elliot ceased to be Governor of Madras, and Lord William Bentinck declined the appointment, George Canning was about to nominate another as the successor, but on the Court of Directors suggesting the name of Munro, the great statesman at once said, " Nay, if you have such a card as that, it must be played." At the usual parting dinner given to the new Governor by the Court of Directors at the London Tavern, Canning declared that whatever the sources from which power 3o8 BISHOP HEBER is derived, all were agreed that it should be exercised for the people, and if ever an appointment had taken place to which this might be ascribed as the distinguishing motive, it was Munro's. Lord William Bentinck, himself soon to become Governor-General, hastened to congratulate Munro that his great and noble services had at last toiled through to their just distinction. The officer who had ruled Madras for five years, after carrying out the military and revenue systems for the good of its millions of peasantry, was a man after the heart of Heber, and they appreciated each other.^ "There was something so mild, so amiable, and so intelligent about Heber that it was impossible not to love him," wrote Munro. Mr. Robinson gives us this picture of the two men and of Lady Munro : — " iiih March. " The Bishop, attended by the Archdeacon and eight of the clergy, visited the Nawab, or rather his uncle the Regent, Azim Jah Bahadur (for the Nawab himself is an infant). We were in our robes, and the Bishop in his Doctor's gown. " Thence we went in our robes to Lady Munro, to whom the Bishop presented the vote of thanks from the Society for Promot- ing Christian Knowledge, for her kind patronage, particularly of the schools at Vepery, to which she has been in the habit of pre- senting annual prizes from her own bounty. I have seldom 1 When, in 1821, George Canning resigned the office of President of the Board of Control, Munro wrote to him in terms like more than one passage of Heber's Journal : " I always dread changes at the head of the India Board, for I fear some downright Englishman may at last get there who will insist on making Anglo-Saxons of the Hindoos. ... I have no faith in the modern doctrine of the rapid improvement of the Hindoos or any other people. The character of the Hindoos is probably much the same as when Vasco da Gama first visited India, and it is not likely that it w-ill be much better a century hence." After urging the opening of vernacular and English schools, by which, however, "we shall not raise their moral character," he recommended the opening of high offices to the natives, which, ten years after. Lord \\'illiam Bentinck began, and which has continued in increasing numbers to the present time. But he added, "All that we can give them without endangering our own ascendency should be given. . . . The sphere of their employment should be extended in proportion as we find that they become capable of filling properly higher situations." See the late Dr. John Bradshaw's Sir Thomas Munro and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency in Sir W. W. Hunter's series of the " Rulers of India." See also the maxims and suggestions collected from Munro's writings at pages 282, 283 of Gleig's Life, 1861 (John Murray). MADRAS 309 witnessed a more interesting or affecting picture : the beauty and gracefulness of Lady Munro, the grave and commanding figure of the Governor, the youthful appearance and simple dignity of the dear Bishop, the beloved of all beholders, presented a scene such as few can ever hope to witness. Sir Thomas listened with deep interest to every word that the Bishop addressed to her, and then said, while he pressed his hand and the tears were rolling down his venerable cheeks, ' iMy Lord, it will be in vain for me after this to preach humility to Lady Munro ; she will be proud of this day to the latest hour she lives.' ' God bless you. Sir Thomas ! ' was the only answer the feelings of the Bishop allowed him to make ; ' and God bless you, my Lord ! ' was the earnest and affectionate reply." " \ 2th March. " The Bishop preached to an overflowing congregation at the chapel in the Black Town in the morning, and, great expedition having been used in completing the preparations for lighting St. George's, he preached the first evening lecture there, which he has established instead of the former afternoon service. The church was crowded to excess, and the Bishop's farewell address, from the words He sent them away, was a forcible and touching appeal to the hearts of his audience, especially begging them to continue their attendance at this new service, which he had suggested for their greater comfort, and charging them to remember him in their prayers. The somewhat singular text, together with the felicitous transition from the former and argumentative part of his sermon, to the concluding address, and its application to the immediate circumstances of the occasion, made a lasting impression on the minds of his auditors. Alas ! they heard him again no more ; ^ ke sent tkein away' with his last blessing ! " At Madras, in the closing passages of his Jdiirnal, Heber, for the first time in those years of incessant activity and fre- quent exposure under the Indian sun, describes himself as " almost worn out." In a fortnight he had preached eleven times, had presided at a large meeting of the Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge, had visited six schools, had given two large dinner parties, and had received and paid visits in- numerable. This he had done in a climate which he found decidedly hotter than the March he had spent in Calcutta, when the season was unusually sultry. He pronounced Vepery BISHOP HEBER church to be the finest Gothic ecclesiastical building he had seen in India, and sketched it as on the other side. This is the suburban church of Madras in which the present Arch- bishop Maclagan worshipped when stationed there as a captain of Madras Sepoys. The last three weeks of his life were spent by Heber in the character of chief missionary, in which he delighted, ^\'ith a zeal, a self-sacrifice, and an apostolic wisdom which Ziegen- balg and Schwartz had never surpassed, and the leaders of the Missionary Societies since in the fruitful fields of South India have rarely equalled, he marched from town to town and village to village ever about the Father's business. He left Madras, having formed more than one missionary project, which he hoped to complete on his return. Notably did he anticipate what it fell to others, and of other Churches, to establish long after, and on a wider basis — the establishing of a seminary, not merely for catechists and schoolmasters, but for the training of native ministers "for the immediate supply of the Peninsula." In spiritual, as in civil affairs, he would, at that early time, have taught the natives self-reliance, self- support, and missionary extension. His letters to his wife contain these passages : — "Madras, 27//; February 1S26. "... I breakfasted this morning with Sir T. Munro. He was very kind, and expressed regret that the want of accommodation in the Government House prevented his asking me there during my stay. In the course of my conversation with him I saw many marks of strong and original talent." " Madras, March 1826. " The chaplains here are a remarkably good and gentlemanly set, and I am greatly impressed with reverence for the worthy old missionary. Dr. Rottler. The weather is very hot — as hot, they say, as it is likely to be here ; but I am extremely well. Nobody could be kinder or more considerate than both Sir Thomas Munro and Mr. Hill have shown themselves. They have assigned me a most comfortable set of tents ; assigned me (what you will be glad to hear) a surgeon, Mr. Hyne, the deputy assay-master, said to be a very clever and agreeable man, and a young officer, Captain Harkness, by way of guide, and to command the escort, who knows the language and country of Travancore well, besides 312 BISHOP HEBER lending- me two saddle-horses, and a small stock of plate, my own being, as they tell me, insufficient for the numbers of which my party will now consist. All this consideration is so much the kinder in Sir Thomas Munro, because he is now much occupied with domestic distress. Lady Munro being about to return to England with one of her children who is ill. Lady Munro is a very lovely woman, and of remarkably pleasing manners ; ever)'- body here seems to regret most honestly her going away, saying that her whole conduct has been made up of good manners, good heart, and sound solid judgment. I do not know that higher praise could be given to a ' lady governess.' "I set out on Monday, the 13th, via Trichinopoly, etc., to Travancore. I shall, I am told, find it very hot, but, with care, shall run no risk in point of health. There are some beautiful churches here ; the other buildings are less handsome than I expected, the country less green than Bengal, and the climate, at this season at least, considerably warmer. Much as I feel your absence, I cannot repent of having left you behind. No accom- modations are to be obtained in the Neelgherry hills, and to take children at this season through Travancore, everybody tells me would be madness." "Camp near Alumbuka, one Day's March from Pondicherrv, xbth Man-h 1826. " I am very well, and am travelling comfortably through a pretty country, in which almost everything reminds me of Ceylon (I mean its sea-coast). I have excellent tents and horses, and like my fellow-travellers very well. Sir T. Munro has written to all the Collectors on the road to assist me in every way (as was done by the Government of Bengal on my former tour), and has himself taken great pains to settle everything for me beforehand. Captain Harkness, the commander of the escort, says he has even directions, in case Mr. Hyne should fall ill, to press the first surgeon, or assistant-surgeon, whom he may find, to accompany me as far as may be necessary." By palanquin from Madras city, the Bishop reached his camp at Sadras, the old Dutch fort, thirty-five miles to the south. ^A'ith curious interest he inspected and sketched the five Dravidian monolithic temples and the ridge of granite into which caves were cut about 700 a.d., famous as the Seven Pagodas of Mahabalipooram, the city destroyed by the Chalook- MADRAS 313 yas, " with its ruins laslied by the surf, and the romance of its submarine palaces." " 15//; Mank 1S26. " We found our tents pitched near a beautiful tope of mango- trees at the village of AUumparva, famous along the whole coast for the finest oysters. The Tahsildar met the Bishop with all due honours, but rather exceeded the instructions he had received from Government in bringing the dancing-girls as well as the village music. Both form part of the usual honours paid to persons of rank in travelling, but the Government, with very proper con- sideration, in their circular instructions to the prov incial authorities, have expressly forbidden the former as an indecorous accompani- ment to the progress of a Christian Bishop." 1 " l-]tk March. " We arrived at Pondicherry after an intensely hot march, and found our tents pitched on a burning sand, about a mile from the town. . . . We were received at Government House in a most cordial and hospitable manner, and among the guests at dinner the Bishop was pleased to find the Vicomte de Richmont, who has lately arrived from Europe to succeed to the Government, and brought letters for his Lordship from Mr. Elphinstone at Bombay. He is an accomplished man, and has travelled much in India, Persia, and many countries of Europe. His fellow-traveller, Monsieur Belanger, is also an intelligent young man ; and an old gentleman, who has employed many years in antiquarian researches, and has seen much of the northern pro\ inces of Hindostan, was not the least amusing of the party. The conversation of these gentlemen with the Bishop was lively and brilliant. He talks French with considerable ease and fluency, and it would be difficult for men of any country to start a subject of conversation, however foreign from his own immediate pursuits, with which his various and discursive reading has not made him in some degree familiar ; there is a playfulness also in his mode of communicating what he knows, and a tact and consideration for the national and literary prejudices of others, that particularly endeared him to the little circle of to-day. "After dinner, while the Bishop walked out with M. Cordier, the Governor, I went with the rest of our party to visit the college and church of the Jesuits. " On my return, I found the Bishop had been requested to con- At this place the Journal of the Bishop himself breaks off. 3'4 BISHOP HEBER firm four young persons, the children of an Enghsh officer, deceased, by a French lady. We went immediately to their house, and he spent an hour in examining and conversing with them on the subject of religion. I was much struck with the patience and earnestness of his manner in this interesting service, and not only the ease, but the manifest delight with which he left the crowded party of the Governor, which was an.xiously expecting his return, for this une.\pected call of duty. The fatigue of travelling, the excessive heat, and the constant engagements of the day had all been extremely exhausting, and we have to march at three to- morrow morning ; yet he did not shorten in any degree what it was right to say." " March. "A long and sultry march brought us to Cuddalor, where we were hospitably received by Colonel Eraser at his beautiful villa of Mount Capper. . . . There are here at present i8o soldiers, of whom 140 are Protestants. Most of them are married to native Christian women ; and Major Hicks, the commanding officer, has an excellent school for the education of their children." " 19M March. " The Bishop preached in the morning an admirable sermon from Rom. vii. 24, 25, containing many excellent remarks on that difficult chapter which might be of great use to the student in theology, at the same time that the whole sermon was full of practical benefit to the poor soldiers who formed the bulk of the congregation. The church is a respectable old building, belong- ing to the Mission, but the accommodations very inconvenient, and much in want of repairs. The chaplain is allowed the use of it for the performance of English service, and on this ground the Bishop intends to apply to Government for a small monthly rent, as well as for the necessary repairs and alterations. He has given Mr. Rosen a plan for a different arrangement of pews and benches, by which it may hold nearly 200 persons. It was built in 1766-7 from the materials of Fort St. David's, the works of which had been destroyed during the war. The church register reaches back to the year 1768. " In the evening service, which the Bishop established to-day, and desired Mr. Allen to continue, he confirmed thirteen candidates, and there was an excellent congregation of soldiers, whose attend- ance is altogether voluntary. There are two Tamil services for the native Christians ; but their numbers appear very small — not MADRAS 3'5 more than fifty or sixty persons, — and those chiefly of the serving or labouring classes, and the wives of soldiers." " 20ih March. " The Bishop has passed a most fatiguing day in the investiga- tion of the Mission property, and devising some plan for its future improvement." " 21 si March. " We made a night's run to Chillumbrum (Chedamburam), a mode of travelling which the Bishop exceedingly dislikes, but it is necessary in order to enable us to spend Easter Day at Tanjor." Heber was unusually interested in this the first of the five great Siva pagodas of South India he had seen, with its obscene " secret " represented by a curtain, behind which the phallic emblem is invisible. From his camp he wrote to his friend, AVynn, President of the Board of Control, on the question of caste and caste practices in the native Church.^ His position as one ignorant and inquiring he thus stated, at the same time, to Schreyvogel, one of the Danish missionaries at Tranquebar, which he had not been able to visit : — " In order to gain more light on the subject, a select Com- mittee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has been, at my desire, appointed. In the meantime, I am most anxious to learn from every t|uarter, especially from a Christian minister of your experience and high character, the real truth of the case. God forbid that we should encourage or suffer any of our converts to go on in practices either anti-Christian or immoral; but (I will speak plainly with you as one brother in Christ should with another) I have also some fears that recent missionaries have been more scrupulous in these matters than need requires, and than was thought fit by Schwartz and his companions. God forbid that we should wink at sin ! But God forbid, also, that we should make the narrow gate of life narrower than Christ has made it, or deal less favourably with the prejudices of this people than St. Paul and the primitive Church dealt with the almost similar pre- judices of the Jewish converts ! " It has occurred to me that if either you or Dr. Ciemmerer (to whom pray offer my best wishes and respects) could find time ^ See p. 444, vol. iii., of i82q edition of Yiithcx i J ournal and Correspondence. 3i6 BISHOP HEBER on Easter Monday to come over to meet me at Tanjor, my doubts might be the better cleared one way or the other, and other matters might be discussed in a few words, of much advantage to the cause of missions in this country. — I remain, reverend and dear sir, your faithful and obedient servant, " Reginald Calcutta." After dealing in this tentative spirit with the caste difficulty, which it fell to Bishop Wilson afterwards to settle in a thorough manner, approved of by all save the Lutheran missionaries,^ Heber added : — ■ "The Protestants, however, are not the only people whose differences I have to compose. The Malayalim, or Syro-Jacobite Churches in Travancore, are also in a flame, and I am, as it appears, to be their umpire. " The way in \\ hich I propose to do it is by assembling a general synod of their clergy, in which the claims of the rival metropolitans and the customs of their Church shall be openly discussed, and the votes given by ballot.- Vexatious and unfortunate as the ' The late accomplished Director of the Berlin Mission in India, Dr. Grunde- mann, after thirty years' administration of the India Mission, and five months' study of the Mission on the spot in 1890-1891, thus formulated the extreme Lutheran view as to the method of Christian Missions : " Missionary practice should be more influenced by the object of missionary effort — the nations. The gathurinp; together of congregations which detaches Christians from their connection with the national life, and places them in opposition to it. should be looked on .as a hindrance to the chief problem of missions — the Christian- isation of the nations." It follows that caste should be maintained in the native church, as it has al\va_\s been maintained by the Lutheran, lest the nominal adherents, who can hardly be called converts, should be denationalised. See the Thcologischc iiiid Lileratuyzeitung for September 1894. See also Christianity and Caste, by the Rev. Arthur ^Largoschis, S.P.G. (Calcutta. 1893), for a statement of the present attitude of the Tinnevelli Christians to caste, a list of Heber's "Articles of Inquiry, " and Bishop Caldwell's opinion. - The policy of Heber towards the ancient Nestorian Church on the Malabar coast of India has been carried out by the Church Missionary and London Societies, and by the Free Church of Scotland, with the best results. The Rev. W. J. Richards writes in the C. M. Intelligencer for March 1895 :— "The missionaries, under the guidance, first of Bishop Speechly, and, since i8go, of Bishop Hodges, have imposed upon themselves — certainly for the last quarter of a century — the self-denying ordinance to receive no SjTians into our Church, and this has had the effect of saturating the SjTian Church with spiritual ' blood which is the life. ' The Cottayam College for an English education, and the Divinity Institution, have always had Syrian youths, the former in large numbers, under the influence of the Bible and spiritual MADRAS 317 occasion of such an assemljly will be, it will be to myself extremely interesting and curious, since by no other means could I have hoped to become so intimately accjuainted with this most ancient and interesting Church, which, corrupt as it is in doctrine and plunged in lamentable ignorance, appears to preserve a closer resemblance in its forms and circumstances of society, than any other now in existence, to the Christian world in the third and fourth century after our Saviour. Meantime I am visiting the principal civil and military stations, by nearly the same course which Bishop Middle- ton followed in the year 18 16, hoping to reach Travancore early in May, and to return to Madras by the tract which he did not visit, of Mysore, Bangalore, and Arcot. The country, as far as I have yet advanced, is (though not generally fertile, and almost universally flat) as beautiful as palms, and spreading trees, and diligent cultivation can make it, and the ancient Hindoo temples, though inferior in taste to the magnificent Musalman buildings of which I sent you a description from the north-west of India, are, in size, picturesque efYect, and richness of carving, far above any- thing which I had expected to meet with. . . . " Indeed I do not eat the bread of idleness in this country. Since my arival at Madras, little more than three weeks ago, I have preached eleven times (including my visitation charge), have held four public and one private confirmation, visited five schools, attended one public meeting, travelled sixty miles in a palancjuin, and one hundred and forty on horseback, besides a pretty \ olumin- ous correspondence with Government, different missionaries and religion ; and when Syrians have gone to the Christian College, Madras, under the Free Church of Scotland, they have returned more enlightened to illuminate their brethren in easy-going Malayala. Think, too, of the circula- tion of the Bible amongst a people who, whether reformers or reactionaries, have not been forbidden by their Bishops, but encouraged, to read the Scrip- tures in their own tongue. During the year 1893, five colporteurs sold in the Syrian parts of Travancore and Cochin 636 Bibles and Testaments, besides 913 sold in Cottayam depot alone, and this among a population of but three millions ; whereas forty-one colporteurs sold among the fifty millions of the Madras Presidency but 705 copies in the Tamil, Telugu, and other languages. I do not here speak of ' portions.' Our Nonconforming brethren of the L. M.S. have also in their own way contributed sometlu'ng to the wave of Reformation in the Syrian Church. "When, then, I sec this interesting population of non-Roman Christians so open to the Word of God, when I consider their large numbers (including the Nasranis of British Malabar, who were over 14,000 by the census of 1871), amounting in all to 350,000 baptized people, I feel thankful to be a C. M.S. ruissionary and to belong to Travancore. His Grace the Arch- bishop of Canterbury cheered the hearts of the Reformers in 1893 by a letter of sympathy to their new Metran or Metropolitan, Mar Titus Thoma." 3i8 BISHOP HEBER chaplains, and my Syrian brother Mar Athanasius ; and the thermometer this day stands at ninety-eight in the shade. How- ever, I continue, thank God, on the whole, to enjoy as good health as I ever did in England. Busy as I am, my business is mostly of a kind which I like, and which accords with my previous studies. The country, the objects, and the people round me are all of a kind to stimulate and repay curiosity more than most others in the world ; and though there are, alas ! many moments in the day (more particularly now that I am separated from my wife and children) in which I feel my exile painfully, I should be very ungrateful indeed if I did not own myself happy. Heaven grant that I may not be useless ! When at Calcutta you have added much to my comfort by sending Grey there, who, I rejoice to say, is as popular as he deserves to be. It happens now, remarkably, that all the three Chief Justices were my contemporaries at Oxford, and that I have always been on terms of friendly intercourse with all, though Grey was the only one with whom I was intimate. . . . "Lord Combermere, during his stay in Calcutta, was a great accession to our circle, and I really believe you could have found no person better suited to play the very difficult and important task which was placed in his hands, from his good sense, his readiness in despatch of business, and his accessibility, which had gone far to gain him the good-will of the Company's army, even before his success at Bhurtpoor. ... He appears at present to enjoy a higher reputation than any Commander-in-Chief since Lord Cornwallis, or any officer who has appeared in India, except Sir A. Wellesley. In another letter to Wynn at this time Heber hit the political danger and economic wrong which lie at the root of our increasing assessments of the land tax every generation, and which the financial strain caused by the depreciated rupee has again led the Government of India to create in the Panjab and elsewhere. " There is one point which, the more I have seen of India, since I left Bengal for the first time, has more and more impressed itself on my mind. Neither native nor European agriculturist, I think, can thrive at the present rate of taxation. Half the gross produce of the soil is demanded by Government, and this, which is nearly the average rate wherever there is not a permanent settlement, is sadly too much to leave an adequate provision for the peasant, even with the usual frugal habits of Indians, and the MADRAS 3'9 very inartificial and cheap manner in wliich they cultivate the land. Still more is it an effectual bar to everything like improvement ; it keeps the people, e\'cn in favourable years, in a state of abject penury ; and when the crop fails, in even a slight degree, it involves a necessity on the part of Government of enormous out- lays, in the way of remission and distribution, which, after all, do not prevent men, women, and children dying in the streets by droves, and the roads being strewed with carcasses. In Bengal, where, independent of its exuberant fertility, there is a permanent assessment, famine is unknown. ... I met with very few public men who will not, in confidence, own their belief that the people arc o\ertaxed, and that the country is in a gradual state of impoverishment. The Collectors do not like to make this avowal officially. Indeed, now and then, a very able Collector succeeds in lowering the rate to the people, while, by diligence, he increases it to the State. But, in general, all gloomy pictures are avoided by them as reflecting on themselves, and drawing on them censure from the secretaries at Madras or Calcutta ; while these, in their turn, plead the earnestness with which the Directors at home press for more money. " I am convinced that it is only necessary to draw less money from the peasants, and to spend more of what is drawn within the countiy, to open some door to Indian industry in Europe, and to admit the natives of India to some greater share in the magistracy of their own people, to make this empire as durable as it would be happy. But as things now go on, though I do not detract any part of the ])raise which I have on other occasions bestowed on the general conduct of the Company's servants, their modesty, their diligence, and integritj', I do not think the present empire can be durable. I have sometimes wished that its immediate management were transferred to the Crown. But what I saw in Ceylon makes me think this a doubtful remedy." Passing into the district of Tanjor, well watered by the Kavari, Heber found himself in the heart of the earliest Reformed missions, second only to those of Tinnevelli. When halting in the dak bungalow of Mayaveram, on the river bank, and reading his Greek Testament, the Bishop was visited by a Lutheran agent of the Church Missionary Society, the head of thirty schools, with "John Devasagayam, one of the best catechists in the service of any mission." Again writes Mr. Robinson : — 320 BISHOP HEBER " We expected to have passed Good Friday alone in our tents but were agreeably surprised on arriving at Combaconum to find it the residence of a sub-collector ; and, though the Bishop was expected to pass through in the night, yet the necessary' prepara- tions were soon made for divine service, and he had a congregation of twenty or thirty persons, among whom were several native Christians who understood English. Mr. Mead, a Dissenting minister in connection with the London Missionary Society, very kindly sent the desk from his own chapel for the Bishop's use, and attended the service himself" "25//^ March. " We went to bed in our palanquins, which the bearers took up at midnight and brought us to Tanjor (twenty-two miles) at daybreak, where we met with the kindest welcome from the Resident, Captain Fyfe, and his lady. The Reverend Messrs. Kohlhofif and Sperschneider, the missionaries of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, waited on the Bishop in the morning, and received his directions for the service of to-morrow. The venerable appearance of the former strongly recalled to our minds the striking and well-known expression of Bishop Middleton when he parted from him ten years before and received his blessing.i He has now completed nearly half a century of Christian labour in India ; and the simplicity of his manners and character are exactly what you would expect to see in a pupil and follower of Schwartz. "After dinner the Bishop walked over the premises of the Mission, visited Schwartz's chapel hallowed by the grave of the apostolic man, and copied the inscription on the stone which covers it, interesting as being the composition of the Raja himself. "The chapel is of the simplest order, with a semicircular recess for the altar at the east end : the tomb of Schwartz is just before the reading-desk in front of the altar. Before the southern entrance are the trees under which the venerable Father used to sit and receive the reports of the catechists, and examine the children just before the daily evening service. Immediately adjoining the chapel was Schwartz's cottage, on the site of which, but considerably enlarged from the former foundations, Mr. Sper- schneider has built a house, which would be an excellent rectory in England. The Mission garden is very large, and we saw there 1 " The Bishop (according to his own expression), considering Mr. Kohlhoffs character, could not help feeUng that the less was blessed of the greater." MADRAS 32 many native Christians, among whom one was presented to the Bishop as one of the few who have offices under Government : he is a writer in the Raja's service." "26//( iManh, Easter Day. " The Bishop preached this morning in the Mission Church in the Fort, all the clergy present assisting in the service. His text was from Rev. i. 1 8 : I am lie that liveih, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore. Many of the native Christians who understood English were there, and entreated his Lordship, after the service, that he would allow them a copy of his sermon. He promised to make some alterations in the style, so as to bring it nearer to their comprehensions, and have it translated for them into Tamil. I assisted him in the administration of the Sacrament to thirty communicants of the English and fifty-seven of the native congregation ; to each of the latter we repeated the words in Tamil. The interest of this service, in itself most interesting, was greatly heightened by the delight and animation of the Bishop, the presence of so many missionaries whose labours were before us, and all the associations of the place in which we were assembled, built by the venerable Schwartz, whose monument, erected by the affection of the Raja, adorns the western end of the church. The group in white marble, by Flaxman, represents the good man on his death-bed, Gericke standing behind him, the Raja at his side, two native attendants and three children of his school around his bed. " In the evening the Bishop attended a Tamil service in the same church, which was literally crowded with the native Christians of Tanjor and the surrounding villages. The Bishop delivered the blessing in Tamil from the altar. Mr. Kohlhoff assured me that his pronunciation was remarkably correct and distinct, and the breathless silence of the congregation testified their delight and surprise at this affecting recognition of their churches as a part of his pastoral charge. I desired one of the native priests to ascertain how many were present, and I found they exceeded 1300. ... I have seen no congregation, even in Europe, by w hom the responses of the liturgy are more generally and correctly made, or where the psalmody is more devotional and correct. The effect was more than electric : it was a deep and thrilling interest, in which memory, and hope, and joy mingled with the devotion of the hour, to hear so many voices, but lately rescued from the polluting services of the pagoda, joining in the pure and heavenly music of the Easter Hymn and the looth Psalm, and uttering the loud Amen at the close of every prayer. . . . Y 322 BISHOP HEBER " The Bishop's heart was full ; and never shall I forget the energy of his manner and the heavenly expression of his countenance when he exclaimed, as I assisted him to take off his robes, ' Gladly would I exchange years of common life for one such day as this ! ' Some time after he had retired to rest, while I was writing in my bed- room, which is next to his, he came back to me to renew the subject on which his thoughts were intensely fixed, and his often- repeated expressions of wonder and thankfulness at the scenes of the past day were followed by a fervent prayer for the people, for the clergy, and for himself." " 27M March. " The Bishop held a confinnation this morning in the Fort church, at which there were twelve European and fifty native candidates. . . . The missionaries and their families dined at the Residency to meet the Bishop, and at seven, after our evening drive, we attended a Tamil service at Schwartz's chapel in the Mission garden, when there were present nearly 200 natives and seven clergymen. He had received no pre\ ious intimation of this ser\'ice, but the manner in which he seized on the opportunity thus un- expectedly offered of a visitation strictly missionary, was more touching and impressive than any previous preparation could have made it. He sat in his chair at the altar (as he usually does in every church except the cathedral) ; and after the sermon, before he dismissed them with his blessing, he addressed both mission- aries and people in a strain of earnest and affectionate exhortation, which no ear that heard it can ever forget. We were standing on the graves of Schwartz and others of his fellow-labourers who are gone to their rest, and he alluded beautifully to this circumstance in his powerful and impressive charge. As this was probably the last time that he could hope to meet them again in public, he exhorted them to fidelity in their high office, to increasing diligence and zeal, to a more self-denying patience under privation, and neglect, and insult, looking for the recompense of reward ; and lastly, to more earnest prayer for themselves and the souls com- mitted to their trust, for the prince under whose mild and equal government they lived, and for him, their brother and fellow- servant. The address was short and very simple, but no study or ornament could have improved it. It was the spontaneous language of his own heart, and appealed at once to ours." "2SC/i March. " The Bishop paid a visit of ceremony to the Raja, accompanied by the Resident, and attended by all the clergy. We were MADRAS 323 received in full Durbar in the great Maratha Hall, where the Rajas are enthroned. The scene was imposing, and, from the number of Christian clergymen in the court of a Hindoo prince, somewhat singular. . . . He talked much of 'his dear father,' Schwartz, and three times told the Bishop he hoped his Lordship would resemble him and stand in his room. Perhaps few things from the mouth of an Eastern prince, with whom compliment to the living is generally exaggerated, could show more strongly the sincerity of his affection for the friend he had lost. The open- ness of his gratitude and reverence for the Christian missionary in the midst of his Brahmans, and himself still constant in his own religion, is admirable ; and if on some occasions it be a little too prominent, who would not pardon and even love a fault which is but the excess of a virtue ? He was his pupil from the time he was twelve years old till he was twenty-four, and succeeded to the Musnud the year after Schwartz died. 'And John Kohlhoff,' said he, ' is a good man — a very good man ; we are old school- fellows.' The Bishop thanked him for his uniform kindness to his poor Christian subjects and their teachers. He said it was but his duty. . . . The Bishop said, as we returned from the palace, ' I have seen many crowned heads, but not one whose deportment was more princely.' " The rest of the morning was spent in various local arrange- ments and communications with the missionaries ; and hearing with surprise that no distinct petition had hitherto been offered, according to the apostolic injunction, in their public services for the prince under whose government they lived, he composed the prayer of which I send you a copy, and which he desired might be immediately translated into Tamil, and henceforth used in all the churches of the province. " ' O Lord God Almighty, giver of all good things, we beseech Thee to receive into Thy bountiful protection Thy servant his Highness the Maharaja Sarabojee, his family and descendants. Remember him, O Lord, for good, for the kindness which he hath shown to Thy Church. Grant him in health and wealth long to live ; preserve him from all evil and danger ; grant that his son and his son's son may inherit honour, peace, and happiness ; and grant, above all, both to him and to them, that peace which this world cannot give — a knowledge of Thy truth here, and ever- lasting happiness hereafter, through Thy Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen.'" Twenty-three years afterwards. Dr. Alexander Duff, at the 324 BISHOP HEBER same age, followed in the footsteps of Heber to Tanjor and Trichinopoly, and with the same loving care traced the work of Schwartz.^ In 1864 Bishop Cotton made his visitation of Madras as Metropolitan, when he inspected the Tinnevelli and Travancore Missions,^ with results best described in his remarkable article on the subject in the Calcutta Review? When at Tanjor Bishop Heber dictated a scheme for the reorganisation of all the missions of the Church of England in South India, on the lines of village evangelisation by native ministers, each with a decent place of worship to be built for him when necessary, but thereafter maintained by the people. At Ramnad, and thence along the coast to Cape Comorin, he planned a mission to the descendants of Xavier's converts,* some of whom had already besought him to care for them. As they were in 1826 they are thus described : — " The coast is inhabited by the tribe of Paravas, the only men employed in the pearl fishery, who are all Roman Catholics. They amount to about 10,000 souls. In temporal matters they are subject to the Jadetallivan, or head man, who resides at Tuticorin, in which place alone there are nearly 5000. In spiritual affairs they are governed, but unfortunately not instructed, by one priest sent occasionally from Goa, who has frequent quarrels with the Jadetallivan, and is dreaded by the people for his extortion. The character of these people is very favourably described by those who have known them best, and a better opening could hardly be desired for a prudent and zealous missionary. Surely, if these circumstances were known in England, some one might be found willing to undertake so inter- esting and extensive a charge. If the wants of that district alone could be told in our Universities, is it possible they could be told in vain ? " We leave Tanjor with the sincerest regret, and with the strongest interest in a spot so favoured and so full of promise. 1 The Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., vol. ii. chap. xix. - Memoir of George Edward Lynch Cotton, D.D., chap. xiv. Vol. xxxix. See Bishop Caldwell's Political and General History of the District of Tinnevelly from the earliest period to its cession to the English Government in A.u. 1801. Printed at the Government Press, Madras, 1881 ; also The Madura Country, a Manual compiled by order of the Madras Government, by J. H. Nelson, M.A., Madras, 1868. MADRAS 325 The Bishop has more than once observed to me that instead of the usual danger of exaggerated reports, and the expression of too sanguine hopes, the fault here was that enough had not been said, and repeats his conviction that the strength of the Christian cause in India is in these Missions, and that it will be a grievous and heavy sin if England and the agents of its bounty do not nourish and protect the churches here founded. He has seen the other parts of India and Ceylon, and he has rejoiced in the prospects opened of the extension of Christ's kingdom in many distant places, and by many different instruments ; but he has seen nothing like the Missions of the South, for these are the fields most ripe for the harvest." When the carriage for Trichinopoly was at the door Heber excused himself for a moment, saying he must shake hands with Dr. Hyne, who was ill. "A few minutes after," his chaplain writes, "going upstairs for a book which I had for- gotten, and passing by Dr. Hyne's open door, I saw the dear Bishop kneeling by his bedside, and his hands raised in prayer. You will not wonder that I should love this man, seeing him as I see him, fervent in secret and individual devotion, and at one hour the centre of many labours, the apostle of many nations, at another snatching the last moment to kneel by the bed of a sick and dying friend, who but a fortnight ago was a perfect stranger to him." CHAPTER XIII TRICHINOPOLY THE ROCK AND THE BATH 1826 On the right bank of the river Kavari, which is so named from the "turmeric" colour of its fertiHsing current, some fifty-six miles to the west of the Bay of Bengal, isolated masses of crystalline gneiss rise from the plain. Around one of these, certainly before the days of Ptolemy, the geographer, an early Uravidian dynasty built a fort, enclosing the Rock of the Three-headed Giant, and naming the stronghold accord- ingly Trichinopoly. The summit is 273 feet above the street of the modern city. All through the nineteen Christian centuries Trichinopoly has been the centre of Dravidic Brahmanism. Two miles from the famous Rock, on the island of Srirangam, or " heavenly pleasure," the largest and most debased idol temple in the world, the pagoda of Vishnu, covers four square miles. Its imposing gateways, its gigantic towers, and its cloistered courts, gradually diminishing in size, lead the worshipper to the obscure penetralia. On the other side of the city is the still viler shrine of Siva as Jambuk- eshwar, the " lord of India." Three events redeem the Rock of Trichinopoly from such associations, now that the Christian flag of Great Britain waves from its summit over the shrines of Ganesa, Siva, and Vishnu. Here Clive commanded, marching hence on his famous expedition to Arcot, to draw off its besiegers. Here Schwartz, coming from Tranquebar, founded the first Christian mission and lived for sixteen years TRICHINOFOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 327 before settling at Tanjor. Here Heber, in the midst of labours for the people too intense, was removed by a sudden death, but not before he had so revived the work of Schwartz that the largest of all the Anglican missionary institutions in India is now the Heber Memorial School, ' which has grown into the Trichinopoly College,^ ever becoming more successful as the conqueror of the pantheistic abomination of desolation in the dark shrines of Srirangam and Jambukeshwar. Driving from Tanjor, Bishop Heber, accompanied by Mr. Robinson, and Mr. Schreyvogel, whom he desired to station at Trichinopoly, reached his camp at midnight. On Saturday, 1st April, before eight in the morning, the Bishop was met by the principal residents and conducted to the house of Mr. Bird, circuit judge. The party had not so rested as to recover from the fatigue of the previous days and weeks, and the heat was intense. Heber lost not an hour in receiving the reports of the chaplain, and of Mr. Kohlhoff as to the Mission. Trichinopoly was then the headquarters of the southern military division, and its white garrison consisted of H.M. 48th Regiment, of detachments of artillery, and of the Sepoy 1 ' ' The College represents the development of the Native School founded by the great missionary, C. F. Schwartz, in the middle of the eighteenth century, which, after having been located in vaiious other homes, was for a long time conducted in the small Heber Memorial School at Sengkulam, but was brought within the Fort about tliirty years ago, at the earnest request, nut of any one connected with the Mission, but of the Brahman students from Srirangam, the stronghold whicli the College is bombarding. . . . We enter the Fort by a remnant of the old fortification, the main-guard gate, associated with those English heroes who, on the night of 27th November 1753, during the Anglo - French Carnatic war, repulsed a surprise attack of the French from Srirangam. Through this historic gate we enter, and at once bursts into view the Rock Fort, with a great temple to Siva on its sides, and a small shrine to Gan^sa on the summit, over which waves the Union Jack — a sign that all the religions of India, in spite of their mutual jealousy, repose peace- fully under the British flag." The college now occupies "the highest position among the Anglican missionary institutions in our country. From within these walls Christian influence radiates in all directions ; while its proximity to the greatest stronghold of heathenism in Southern India, and its situation in the second town of the Presidency, the seat of many head ofifices of Govern- ment, and the junction of the chief hues of the South Indian Railway, all combine to make the College a strong Christian outpost" worthy of Reginald Heber. — Rev. Jacob Gnanaolivit, B. A., in The Mission Field for November 1894. - Fitly associated with what should henceforth be officially called Heber's College is Bishop Caldwell's Hostel, transferred from Tuticorin since the closing of the Caldwell College there. 328 BISHOP HEBER officers, while there was a full establishment of civil servants and their clerks. The Mission, which had suffered since the death of Pohle, Schwartz's colleague, still consisted of nearly 500 Native Christians, under the care of a catechist, and of Schwartz's schools, Tamil and English. The latter was sup- ported from the Vestry Fund. For the whole work in the Tamil vernacular, including the villages in, the suburbs, the sum available was only thirty rupees a month. With even more than his usual care — for his heart was enlarged by the needs and the prospects of the South India missions, which have since developed with wonderful rapidity and thorough- ness — Heber spent the hot and unresting day in mastering all the facts and planning the necessary reforms with a generous hope. As if that were not enough, he must have spent hours at his desk, before retiring, in the preparation of his sermon for the morrow, and his confirmation addresses in English and Tamil, and in writing several letters, one of them very long. To Captain Fyfe, the Resident at Tanjor, he wrote a private letter, covering an official communication for the Maharaja. Private. " Trichinoi'oly, \st April 1826. . . . To yourself and Mrs. Fyfe, for the kindness and hospitality which you have shown to us all, both in sickness and in health, as well as the impression which your agreeable society has left on my mind, what can I say more than I have already said, or to express all that I feel ? God bless you both, and make you long happy in each other and in your children I I am sorry to say that we have another invalid in our party, poor Robinson being very far from well this morning." " My dear Sir — May I request you to convey to his high- ness the Maharaja of Tanjor the expression of my best thanks for the kind and gratifying attentions with which his highness has honoured myself and my party during our visit to Tanjor, and the assurance that I shall, through life, continue to recollect with pleasure my introduction to the acquaintance of a prince so much distinguished by his virtues and talents, as well as by his courte- ous and condescending manners, and the variety of his accomplish- ments. " I feel much flattered by the manner in which his highness TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 329 has been pleased to speak of my offer to superintend the educa- tion of the Prince Sewajee, in the event of his being wiUing to give me the pleasure of his company in my present tour, and afterwards to accompany me to Calcutta. I regret extremely, though I fully feel and appreciate the causes which render this arrangement at present impossible. But I beg you, at the same time, to state to his highness that, should the improved health of the prince, or a better season of the year, make her highness the Ranee less reluctant to part with him for a time, it would be my study to make his stay in Calcutta as agreeable and useful to him as possible, both by directing his studies, and introducing him to the most distinguished society of the place ; and that in health, and every other respect, I would take the same care of him as I should, under similar circumstances, of a son of my own sovereign. " I beg you, at the same time, to offer my best compliments and good wishes to his highness and Prince Sewajee. — Beheve me, dear sir, your obliged and faithful humble servant, " Reginald Calcutta." Heber's last letter to one of his attached friends was written to ^\'ilmot Horton, the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. After sketching the character and pursuits of Maharaja Serfojee ^ and the prospects of his son Sewajee, whom he would fain have rescued from being doomed all his life ^ to doing nothing but " chew betel, sit in the zanana, and pursue the other amusements of the common race of Hindoo princes," Heber leaves us this portrait of Schwartz. " TRICHINOrOLY, \st April iZ^i). " My dear Wilmot — . . . Of Schwartz and his fifty years' labour among the heathens, the extraordinary influence and popularity which he acquired, both with Musalmans, Hindoos, and contending European governments, I need give you no account, except that my idea of him has been raised since I came into the south of India. I used to suspect that, with many admirable qualities, there was too great a mixture of intrigue in his character, that he was too much of a political prophet, and that the venera- ' Serfojee died in 1832, and was succeeded by Sewajee, on whose death, in 1855, without male heirs, direct or collateral, the titular dignity became extinct. - Compare with Alexander Duff's in liis Life, vol. ii. chap. xix. 330 BISHOP HEBER tion which the heathen paid, and still pay him, and which indeed almost regards him as a superior being, putting crowns and burning lights before his statue, was purchased by some unwarrant- able compromise with their prejudices. I find I was quite mis- taken. He was really one of the most active and fearless, as he was one of the most successful missionaries who have appeared since the Apostles. To say that he was disinterested in regard to money is nothing ; he was perfectly careless of power, and re- nown never seemed to affect him, even so far as to induce even an outward show of humility. His temper was perfectly simple, open, and cheerful, and in his political negotiations (employments which he never sought for, but which fell in his way) he never pretended to impartiality, but acted as the avowed, though certainly the successful and judicious agent of the orphan prince entrusted to his care, and from attempting whose conversion to Christianity he seems to have abstained from a feeling of honour. His other converts were between 6000 and 7000, besides those which his predecessors and companions in the cause had brought over. "The number is gradually increasing, and there are now in the south of India about 200 Protestant congregations, the numbers of which have been sometimes vaguely stated at 40,000. I doubt whether they reach i 5,000, but even this, all things con- sidered, is a great number. The Roman Catholics are consider- ably more numerous, but belong to a lower caste of Indians, for even these Christians retain many prejudices of caste, and in point of knowledge and morality are said to be extremely inferior. This inferiority, as injuring the general character of the religion, is alleged to have occasioned the very unfavourable eye with which all native Christians have been regarded in the Madras Government. If they have not actually been persecuted, they have been ' disqualified,' iotidem verbis, from holding any place or appointment, whether civil or military, under the Company's Government ; and that in districts where, while the native princes remained in power. Christians were employed without scruple. Nor is this the worst — many peasants have been beaten by authority of the English magistrates for refusing, on a religious account, to assist in drawing the chariots of the idols on festival days ; and it is only the present Collector of Tanjor who has withheld the assistance of the secular arm from the Brahmans on these occasions. The consequence is that the Brahmans, being limited to voluntary votaries, have now often very hard work to speed the ponderous wheels of Kali and Siva through the deep TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 331 lanes of this fertile country. This is, however, still the most favoured land of Brahmanism, and the temples are larger and more beautiful than any which I have seen in Northern India ; they are also decidedly older, but as to their very remote age I am still incredulous. " You will have heard, perhaps, from your brother that I had the pleasure of meeting him in Ceylon. That country might be one of the happiest, as it is one of the loveliest spots in the universe, if some of the old Dutch laws were done away, among which, in my judgment, the chief are the monopoly of cinnamon, and the compulsory labour of the peasants on the high roads, and in other species of corve'es. The Kandian provinces, where neither of these exist, seemed to me the most prosperous parts of the country. . . . " You will perceive, from the date and tenor of my letter, that I am again on my visitation tour ; again, too, I am grieved to say, separated from my family. Circumstances had detained me so late at Calcutta that the cool season was cjuite spent, and it would have been tempting Heaven to take them with me in such a journey at this time of the year. It is, indeed, intensely hot — often from 98° to 100° in the shade ; but I could not defer it to another year, and I thank God, continue quite well, though some of my companions have suffered, and I have been compelled to leave my surgeon behind sick at Tanjor.i My chaplain I feared yesterday must have remained there also, but he has now rallied. I am compelled to pass on in order to get to Travancore, where I have much curious discussion before me with the Syrian Christians before the monsoon renders that country impassable. This I hope to accomplish ; but meantime the hot winds are growing very oppressive, and must be much worse than they are before I reach Quilon. The hospitality, however, of Europeans in India assures me of house-room at all the principal stations, so that there are not, I think, above 200 miles over which we must trust to the shelter of tents alone. . . . " Ever your obliged and affectionate friend, " Reginald Calcutta." Reginald Heber's last letter was to his wife, and his last written words were for justice to the Native Christians from his own Government. " Will it be believed, that while the Raja kept his dominions, ' Mr. Hyne died of an abscess in the liver on 4th April. 332 BISHOP HEBER Christians were eligible to all the different offices of State, luhile now ihcre is an order of Government against their being admitted to any employment ! Surely we are in matters of religion the most lukewarm and cowardly people on the face of the earth. I mean to make this and some other things which I have seen, a matter of formal representation to all the three Governments of India, and to the Board of Control." Lord William Bentinck, five yeans afterwards, extinguished what the historian of British India ^ terms this "disreputable anomaly," and now the Hindoos themselves acknowledge that, by their superior character and education, their Christian countrymen are securing for themselves the highest offices open to the natives of India, distancing the Brahmans.- Sunday, 2nd April, saw St. John's Church, in the Fort of Trichinopoly, crowded by eager worshippers. " With his usual animation and energy, and without any appearance of languor or incipient disease," as his chaplain testifies, Heber preached on that hot morning from the classical passage I John V. 6-8 — T/iis is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ. Shirking no difficulty in the text, glancing with ripe theological scholarship at the Three Heavenly W itnesses, Heber devoted the sermon, which proved to be his last, to enforcing the great subject of his ministr>' — the evangelical meaning of the Atonement by blood and of Regeneration by the Spirit, for every sinner, and of the new power and duty to live as the children of God. ' By Regulation in 1831, ordaining that there shall be no exclusion from office on account of caste, creed, or nation. See Marshman's History of India, chap. xxxi. The Right Hon. H. H. Fowler, the Secretary of State for India, gave in the House of Commons in 1894 some very remarkable statistics showing the place which is being taken by natives of India in the government of their countr)'. Thirty years ago, he said, no native held any post of first importance ; now, out of 898 positions in the higher branches of the civil service, they occupy 93 ; there is one native judge in each of the High Courts of Justice ; there are 2000 native magistrates ; and of the 37,350 subordinate posts, they hold the vast m.njority. By liis Report of t/ie Public Sa-^'ice Commission (Calcutta, 1888), 1886-87, of which he was President, the Hon. Sir C. U. Aitchison, M.A. (Oxford), LL.D. (Edinburgh), K.C.S.I., C.I.E., thus completed his life's services to the people of India. The fullest details and statesmanlike recommendations will be found there. Most of them have been since carried into effect. TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 333 " It is not enough to acknowledge that He was the Son of God unless we confess also that He came 'by water.' It is not enough to say that He baptized us to repentance unless we add that He came with His own most precious blood both to purchase for us a power to repent, and to make our imperfect repentance acceptable. Nor, lastly, would it be sufficient to acknowledge the sacrifice of His blood alone unless we acknowledge that our further sanctification depends on Him from whose torn side the blessed stream flowed forth to the cleansing of the nations. . . . Those whom He saves He also sanctifies. If we believe that His death has obtained pardon for our sins, we must also believe that His grace has quickened us to a life of holiness. And if our actions do not show forth our faith, if our hearts be not right before Him, we may be sure that, so far as we are concerned, His sacrifice hath not yet taken effect, and that the curse of God is in force against our souls, pronounced against all those that work iniquity. "... What now remains but a constant and earnest recollec- tion that the privileges and the duties of a Christian go always hand in hand ; that the greater the mercies received the more need there is of showing forth our thankfulness ; that we do not cease to be the servants of God when we are admitted to the privileges of His children, but that from these last, on the other hand, a more illustrious obedience is expected, the service of love, the free-will offering of the heart, the ardour which, endeavouring to do all, thinks all too little to repay the benefits received and ex- press the affection felt, and which, after a life spent in the service of its Lord, lays down at length its tranquil head to slumber beneath the Cross, content to possess no other than His blood, and presuming to expect no further reward than His mercy." This was an appropriate introduction to the Confirmation address to forty-two Christians, delivered " with even more than his wonted earnest and affectionate manner." " I dare not doubt the last words of our Lord upon earth, when He sent forth His ministers with a like commission to that which He had Himself recei\ ed of His Father ; and when, though foreseeing — as what did He not foresee ? — the lamentable de- generacy of those who should bear His name, He promised, nevertheless, to His Church His invisible protection and presence till the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdom of the 334 BISHOP HEBER Lamb, and this same Jesus which was then taken up from us into heaven should so come again in hke manner as He was seen going into heaven. " O Master ! O Saviour ! O Judge and King ! O God, faith- ful and true ! Thy word is sure, though our sinful eyes may not witness its fulfilment ! Surely Thou art in this place and in every place where Thine ordinances are reverenced and Thy name is duly called on ! Thy treasures are in earthen vessels, but they are Thy treasures still. Though prophecies may fail and tongues may cease. Thy truth remains the same ; and though prophecies ha\ e failed and tongues have ceased, and though the heaven and the earth have grown old, and are ready to vanish away, yet it is impossible but that when two or three are gathered together in Thy name, Thou also shouldst be in the midst of them. So continue with us. Lord, evermore, and let the Spirit, the Angel of Thy presence, be with us all our days, even as He hath this day been at hand to help, to deliver and to sanctify all who came to receive Him. "... Let me entreat you to remember sometimes in your prayers those ministers of Christ who now have laboured for your instruction, that we who have preached to you may not ourselves be cast away, but that it may be given to us also to walk in this life present according to the words of the Gospel which we have received of our Lord, and to rejoice hereafter with you, the children of our care, in that land where the wear)' shall find repose and the wicked cease from troubling ; where we shall be- hold God as He is, and be ourselves made like unto God in innocence, and happiness, and immortality ! " With such words Reginald Heber closed his ministr)-, though he knew it not. The difficult acoustics of the church and the unusual heat of the day oppressed the preacher with headache and languor at its close, so that he was persuaded not to address the Tamil congregation in the evening. But he ministered to his sick chaplain, and he wrote to Mr. Fenn of the Church Missionary Society at Cottayam approving of his neutrality in the disputes in the Syrian Church. " Our conversation this afternoon turned chiefly on the blessedness of heaven, and the best means of preparing for its enjoyment," writes his chaplain. Then it was that Heber "repeated several lines of an old hymn, which, he said, in spite of one or two expressions which familiar and injudicious TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 335 use had tended to vulgarise, he admired as one of the most beautiful in our language for a rich and elevated tone of devotional feeling." The hymn was written by Charles Wesley in 1745 for the National Fast caused by the rising under Charles Edward Stuart, but was excluded from the Wesleyan Hymn-Book till 1875 (where it is now No. 853), in spite of its great popularity through other collections. In the circumstances it was to Heber as a hymn of victory in dying, and we therefore reproduce it : — • " Head of Thy Church triumph- ant, We joyfully adore Thee ; Till Thou appear Thy members here Shall sing like those in glory. We lift our hearts and voices With blest anticipation. And cry aloud And give to God The praise of our salvation. " While in affliction's furnace, And passing through the fire. Thy love we praise, Which knows our days. And ever brings us nigher. We clap our hands exulting In Thine almighty favour ; The love divine Which made us Thine Shall keep us Thine for ever. " Thou dost conduct Thy people Through torrents of tempta- tion, Nor will we fear, While Thou art near, The fire of tribulation. The world with sin and Satan In vain our march opposes. Through Thee we shall Break through them all. And sing the song of Moses. " By faith we see the glory To which Thou shall restore us, The Cross despise For that high prize Wliich Thou hast set before us. And if Thou count us worthy. We each, as dying Stephen, Shall see Thee stand At God's right hand. To take us up to heaven." In the evening Heber conducted family prayers, particu- larly mentioning Dr. Hyne, then dying, according to promise. So passed his last earthly Sabbath. When the day broke on Monday, 3rd April, Heber drove to the Tamil church in the Fort, where, after divine service, he confirmed eleven young Christians, using their mother tongue and delivering an address ; thence to the English and Tamil schools, and to the Mission-house, where he investigated the state of the schools ; he would not remain 336 BISHOP HEBER in the schoolroom, which had been shut up unventilated for forty-eight hours. The Christian converts petitioned him to place a pastor over them ; having already arranged that Mr. Schreyvogel should be stationed there, he promised that their desire would be at once gratified. Standing on the steps, he exhorted the Tamils to be Christians, not in name only, but in truth, and to have their conversation honest among their heathen countrymen, and he prayed God to pour down His blessing upon them. Bidding the venerable Kohlhoff and the chaplain, Mr. \\'right, farewell, he returned as he had come, with Mr. Doran, a young missionary. " In going and return- ing," Mr. Doran wrote to Archdeacon Corrie, "he was most affectionate in his manner, and talked freely on the glorious dispensation of God in Christ Jesus, and the necessity which rested on us to propagate the faith throughout this vast country." Still in his robes, he visited his sick chaplain, and stood talk- ing by his bedside for half an hour, with more than his usual animation, about the Mission. He said it broke his heart to witness the poverty of the congregation, lamented that he had previously had so little information of the details of the differ- ent stations, and declared his intention to require in future periodical reports from all in every part of his diocese. After some particular arrangements for the morning, he retired to prepare for the bath previous to the late breakfast of an Anglo-Indian station. Having WTitten on his Confirmation address the place and date of delivery, "he sat a few minutes apparently absorbed in thought." He had been at work of the most exhausting and exciting nature for at least four hours, under cover, but robed, and in the heat of a Madras April. As is usual in the greater official bungalows of an Indian station, a plunge and swimming bath is provided in an out- building, covered from the heat, and supplied from a spring or tank.i The bath adjoining Mr. Bird's house held seven feet of water. The Bishop had enjoyed its refreshment on the ' Nine years after, Bishop Daniel Wilson visited the spot, which is thus described in his Life by Bateman. " The bath was a building separated from the house, and standing quite alone. It was entered by a door, and lighted by windows, cut dianiondwise in stone, but unglazed. In the floor yawned the deep excavation called a bath, measuring fifteen feet in length by eight in breadth. The descent into it was by stone steps. The Bishop went down TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 337 two previous mornings. Now, aflcr resting for a few minutes as if to cool himself, he went into the ijuilding. Half an hour passed without a sound, when his servant, alarmed, opened the door and saw the body of his master under the water. Running to Mr. Robinson's room with a bitter cry, he declared that the Bishop was dead. Robinson rushed to the bath, plunged in, and, along with a bearer, lifted the body from the water, when he and Mr. Doran carried it to the nearest room. Their immediate efforts to restore animation, followed up by those of the garrison and superintending surgeons, who arrived at once, were in vain : — " the blessed spirit was already before the throne of God." The venerable Kohlhoff, who had said of him only the day before, " If St. Paul had visited the missions he could not have done more," wept aloud, exclaiming, "We have lost our second Schwartz, who loved our Mission and laboured for it ; he had all the energy and benevolence of Schwartz, and more than his condescension. Why has God bereaved us thus?" Reginald Heber was thus translated almost in a moment from unceasing service on earth to be for ever with his Master. The first shock of the cold water, acting on a nervous system weakened by overwork and recent fever, caused a blood-vessel to burst in the brain. The Calcutta physician who knew him best, "contemplating the splendid talents and ever-active energies of this beloved prelate, who knew no rest during his waking hours," declared that he was prone to dangerous disturbance of his nervous system, a cause of death which was strengthened by an unhealthy climate, and daily nourished by his natural habits. But for the last sad accident there might have been exacted " the price which exalted intelligence sometimes pays for its pre-eminent gifts." No one was so closely associated with Heber as Archdeacon Corrie, and he again and again in his correspondence ex- presses the opinion that excessive work in a climate, the necessities of which he had not learned scrupulously to regard, was sufficient to account for the sudden eclipse. and stood at the bottom. When there, he had to raise his hands above his head in order to reach the narrow ledge running round the room, so that it must have been si.\ or seven feet deep, and was always kept quite full of water. It caused a shudder to look down while lis'cning to the exaggerated stories told by the native servant. Z 338 BISHOP HEBER The officer commanding at Trichinopoly announced "the death this morning of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Calcutta," and the mihtary arrangements for the funeral. Major-General Hall, commanding the southern division, directed that all officers wear mourning for a month. On Tuesday, 4th April, while it was yet dawn, the distance of a mile and a half from Mr. Bird's house to the gate of St. John's Church in the Fort was lined by the troops, the 5th Light Cavalry, the 20th and 27 th Regiments of Native Infantry, and H.M. 48th, now the Northamptonshire Regiment. As the sun rose the first of forty-three minute guns, corre- sponding with the age of the departed, was fired, and the body was carried by a lieutenant, a sergeant, and twenty-four English soldiers down the long line of troops, each file presenting arms as it passed. The flag was hoisted half-mast high all the day. The pall was borne by the chief civil and military authorities. The chief mourner was the domestic chaplain, accompanied by the captain of the episcopal escort and the three missionaries Kohlhoff, Doran, and Schre>-vogel. The Native Christians and thousands of Hindoos and Moham- medans thronged to catch sight of the bier. The band and drummers of H.M. 48th supplied the solemn music of the march. On the north side of the Communion Table, from which forty hours before the Bishop had blessed the crowd- ing worshippers, the body of Reginald Heber was buried, while many wept aloud. From nine pieces of cannon three salvos were then fired. So they laid to rest, in the midst of the Christian soldiers and civilians, and of the converts, Hindoo and Mohammedan, the second Lord Bishop of Calcutta, the Chief Missionary of the East, the sweet singer of the Missionary Church, the man greatly beloved. The sudden death of Heber filled India and England with something like consternation. The Gazettes of Fort William and Fort St. George ordered the usual signs of general mourn- ing — the flag half-mast high, the minute guns fired from the saluting battery. The Government placed on his grave a marble slab, and above it erected the mural tablet which commemorates his death "in the third year of his episco- TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 339 pate," followed by the words Be ye also ready. The Mission church, where he had spoken his last words to the Tamil people an hour before his death, the Government rebuilt, care- fully preserving untouched the recess from which he had spoken. At these two Christian shrines, by the Rock of Trichinopoly and at not distant Tanjor, the missionary pilgrim ^ may receive a new inspiration to work and pray for the con- version of India beside the dust of Schwartz and of Heber. A few years after, William Carey was laid to rest among his converts at Serampore, Bengal. Half a century after, the man who most resembled Heber, John Wilson, ended fifty years of sacred toil in the old Scottish burial-ground of Bombay. Schwartz and Carey, Heber and Wilson — that is a noble succes- sion in a land rich with the dust of Christian men and women, of all services, who in the past century loved the peoples of India so as to die for them. In Trichinopoly, in Madras, in Bombay, in Colombo, in Calcutta, public meetings were held, at which the Governor- General, the Governors, the Chief Justices, and Commanders- in-Chief gave voice to the general sorrow, and raised funds for worthy memorials of Reginald Heber, such as Chantrey's in St. George's Cathedral. The two great Missionary Societies followed Bombay and Ceylon in endowing Heber scholarships for native Indian and foreign Asiatic students in Bishop's 1 Augusta Klein, who with her late sister visited Trichinopoly in 1892, writes thus in her book, Among ike Gods, Scenes of India (William Blackwood, 1895): "The church is blessed with very reverent services, and is made specially sacred by the memory of the beloved Bishop Heber, who was buried here in St. John's Church on the north side of the altar. After evensong the travellers gathered round the beautiful brass which marks his resting-place, while their thoughts go- back to that 3rd of April 1826 which, with its earnest devotions, its hard and most honourable work, and its sudden quiet call to rest, made so happy an ending to that noble Christian life." 2 Bishop Caldwell, in his Records of the Early History of the Tinnevclly Mission (Madras, 1881), a work of suggestive interest like all he wrote, notes : " It is a remarkable illustration of the way in which God, though He changes His instruments, changes not His work or purpose, that the very month after the Church in India, and especially in Madras, sustained what appeared to be almost a crushing loss in the death of Bishop Heber, it pleased God that one of the great Missionary Societies of the Church (.S. P.G. ) should com- mence its work in Madras. The friends of the Society did not wait even for the appointment of a successor to Bishop Heber, but took the first opportunity of organising themselves into a committee," as indeed Heber himself had planned. 340 BISHOP HEBER College. From the wailing chorus of eulogy which arose, we reproduce the words of Sir Thomas Munro in Madras, and Sir Charles Grey, Chief Justice of Calcutta. Sir Thomas Munro — himself soon to pass away with almost equal suddenness — said of Heber : — "... There was a charm in his conversation by which in private society he found his way to all hearts, as readily as he did to those of his congregation by his eloquence in the pulpit. There was about him such candour and simplicity of manners, such benevolence, such unwearied earnestness in the discharge of his sacred functions, and such mildness in his zeal, as would in any other individual have ensured our esteem. But when these qualities are, as they were in him, united to taste, to genius, to high station, and to still higher intellectual attainments, they form a character such as his was, eminently calculated to excite our love and veneration. These sentiments towards him were every- where felt ; wherever he passed, in the wide range of his visita- tion, he left behind him the same impression. He left all who approached him convinced that they never had before seen so rarely gifted a person, and that they could never hope to see such a one again. The loss of such a man, so suddenly cut off in the midst of his useful career, is a public calamity." The Calcutta meeting was remarkable for the presence and addresses of Lord Combermere, Holt Mackenzie, J. H. Harington, W. B. Bayley, W. Prinsep, and Charles Lushing- ton, a group of renowned administrators, as well as of Arch- deacon Corrie and Principal Mill. Sir Charles Edward Grey declared : — " . . . It is just four-and-twenty years since I first became acquainted with him at the University, of which he was, beyond all question or comparison, the most distinguished student of his time. The name of Reginald Heber was in every mouth ; his society was courted by young and old ; he lived in an atmosphere of favour, admiration, and regard, from which I have never known any one but himself who would not have derived, and for life, an unsalutary influence. Towards the close of his academical career he crowned his previous honours by the production of his Palestine; of which single work, the fancy, the elegance, and the grace have secured him a place in the list of those who bear the proud title of English poets. This, according to usage, was TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 341 recited in public ; and when that scene of his early triumph comes upon my memory, that elevated rostrum from which he looked upon friendly and admiring faces, that decorated theatre, those grave forms of ecclesiastical dignitaries mingling with a resplendent throng of rank and beauty, those antique mansions of learning, those venerable groves, refreshing streams, and shaded walks, the vision is broken by another, in which the youthful and presiding genius of the former scene is lying in his distant grave, amongst the sands of Southern India — believe me, the contrast is striking, and the recollection most painful. "... What he was in India why should I describe? You saw him ; you bear testimony. He has already received in a sister Presidency the encomiums of those from whom praise is most valuable, especially of one whose own spotless integrity, and a sincerity far above suspicion, make every word of com- mendation which is drawn from him of tenfold value. I have reason to believe that, short as their acquaintance had been, there are few from whom the voice of praise would have sounded more gratefully to him who was the subject of it. Would that he might have lived to hear it ! "... I confidently trust that there shall one day be erected in Asia a Church, of which the corners shall be the corners of the land, and its foundation the Rock of Ages ; but when remote posterity have to examine its structure, and to trace the progress of its formation, I wish they may not have to record that it was put together amidst discord, and noise, and bloodshed, and con- fusion of tongues, but that it rose in quietness and beauty, like that new temple where ' no hammer or axe, nor any tool of iron was heard whilst it was in building ' ; or in the words of the Bishop himself — " ' No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung ; Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung ! ' " That such may be the event, many hands, many spirits like his, must be engaged in the work ; and because of my conviction that they are rarely to be found, I feel myself justified in saying that his death is a loss, not only to his friends by whom he was loved, and to his family of whom he was the idol, but to England, to India, and to the world." Corrie, who was destined to fill the place of a deceased Bishop of Calcutta four times, thus wrote to his brother, the English Archdeacon : " A second escutcheon hung up in the 342 BISHOP HEBER Cathedral reminds us that two bishops have passed away from among us. My mind seems wearied with considering what may be destined for our Indian Church. The work of Missions has assumed a regular form. In the south of India regular help, and enough of it, would give Christianity an almost established form, so many natives profess Christianity. May God be gracious unto the land, and send us a man of right spirit." News of Bishop Heber's death reached England overland in August, four months after the event, and the Osprey carried the official intelligence by the Cape. We have none of Charlotte Dod's letters to Heber,^ nor any record from her pen of the friend and brother she had lost, but Maria Leycester thus expressed her grief to Augustus W. Hare, who had just before told her of the death of his uncle, Dean Shipley, two months and a half after Heber's. ".Stoke Rectory, yd September 1826. " I did not think you would a second time have had to com- municate intelligence so grievous. . . . Dear, dear Reginald ! I had hoped so confidently he would have been spared ; that so faithful a servant, so noble a pattern of what a Christian should be, would have been preserved to continue the great work for which he seemed so peculiarly marked out. . . . This is one of those mysterious dispensations in which nothing but an unlimited faith can avail us anything. Here is no selfish grief: the public loss seems almost more than the private one ; yet who that has ever felt the support and comfort of his friendship, who that ever knew the tenderness, kindness, and gentleness of nature, added to those uncommon talents and powers of mind, can ever cease to regret that they shall see him no more ? . . . I am most grateful to have had such a friend — to have been per- mitted an intimate acquaintance with a character like his ; but after receiving from him the affection and kindness of the tenderest brother, after living so constantly with him as I have done, you may well believe that it is now a hard struggle to feel that we have in this life parted for ever. " Dear Augustus, we ha\ e lost two whom we dearly loved ; but their spirits continue to live with us, their memories to rest in ^ These letters may still be extant. The probable history of them is best known by Mrs. W'olley-Dod, of Edge Hall, M.alpas. TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 343 our hearts, that we may place our hopes on that world to which they are gone before us, and so live here that we may one day be united to them in heaven." At Oxford the Treasurers of All Souls and Brasenose Colleges invited subscriptions for a monument " to perpetuate those feelings of admiration and esteem which are well known to prevail in the Kingdom at large, and to transmit to posterity a record of his eminent services in the propagation of Christianity in India." Wynn enlarged the proposal so as to represent the whole English people, and at a meeting in his house in London there began the movement which resulted in Chantrey's colossal figure of Reginald Heber in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. In Hodnet Church there has been placed, in a new chapel to the right of the pulpit, a monument of its beloved Rector, bearing Southey's inscription. In front of it is the recumbent tomb, with exquisite effigies of Blanche Emily Heber, his grand-daughter, who died in 1870 at the age of twenty-two. The east window commemorates Heber's only sister, who restored the church several years ago, and wrote the inscription on the tomb of Richard Heber. The plain old oak pulpit from which Reginald preached is still in use, and the old desk of Reformation times, with the Bible and a copy of the Paraphrases of the Gospels and Acts by Erasmus chained to the oak. These memorials of Reginald Heber have recently been completed by one in the place of his birth and church of his boyhood, St. Oswald's, Malpas. On I St May 1887 the learned historian, Dr. Stubbs, now Bishop of Oxford, then of Chester, preached there a sermon previous to the dedication of the Heber window. After the collect of the day came this special collect ; — "Almighty God, who didst give to Thy servant, Reginald Heber, many excellent gifts and graces to use them always to Thy honour and service, accept, we beseech Thee, the offering of this window, which we dedicate to Thy glory and to the beauty of Thy sanctuary in remembrance of him ; and grant that, having this memorial constantly before our eyes, we may endeavour our- selves to follow the example of his faithfulness, honesty, industry, and devotion in the imitation of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, to whom, 344 BISHOP HEBER with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glor)', now and for evermore. Amen." The text was i Cor. xi. i — Be ye followers of me, even as 1 also am of Christ. The sermon thus concluded : — " Now, after more than sixty years, we are dedicating a window to his memory in his native place. In those years the Colonial Churches of England have multiplied ten times of what they were ; the missionary churches have been founded and sown in the blood of martyr priests and martyr bishops ; India itself has passed out of the hands of the Company to the sway of our Queen as Empress. A long series of changes at home and abroad have made the world look very different from anything that Heber saw, but in the pictures of this window we have a story for all time : ^ the Saviour ' The Chester Couraiit of 4th May 1887 published the following detailed description : " The window consists of five divisions, with tracery lights above, and the design has been made doubly interesting from the fact of its not only containing Biblical subjects representing symbolically his work, but actual scenes from his life and mission have been introduced with the object of emphasising those of a typical character. "This design, which divides the window into two parts, contains, in the upper, or principal compartments, the following subjects, namely — " ist. King David in the Temple composing psalms (Hymns). " 2nd. The Magi arriving at Bethlehem (Call of Gentiles). ' ' 3i d. Descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost (The influence of the Holy Spirit, by which he worked, and in whom he trusted). " 4th. St. Paul preaching at Mars' Hill (Preaching the Gospel to the people of India). " 5th. .St. John writing his Apocalypse (\\'orks and writings). "In the small predella subjects underneath there are depicted the following — " I. The Bishop composing his hymns. ■ ' 2. Confirmation of natives. " 3. His consecration as Bishop of Calcutta. " 4. I're.aching to the natives outside the Cathedral at Calcutta. ■ ' 5. His last sermon in England (before the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, St. Paul's Cathedral, 8th June 1823). ' ' These are suitably framed in rich architectural canopy work of the fifteenth century style of Gothic art. The subject of the tracery is that of our Lord enthroned in majesty, surrounded by cherubim, seraphim, and angels holding shields, on which are depicted emblems of the Passion. Our blessed Lord crowned as king, and wearing the stole as priest, is seated on a golden throne. His feet resting on a rainbow, and seven stars around His head. This has a backgroimd of seraphs, typical of life and knowledge. Before Him, on a book sealed with seven seals, stands the Lamb, with the banner of victory ; and from the base of the throne issue four rivers, which watered Paradise. " The window is a fine specimen of art workmanship, costing ;^300, and ;^20 for new stonework. ' ' A window by Messrs. Heaton, Butler, and Bayne adorns the church at Trichinopoly, and this has been done by the same firm." TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 345 Himself above in the tracery of the window, crowned and stoled ; beneath, the pictures of the Gospel history and saintly work ; imitations of Christ ; the sweet singer ; the firstfruits to the Gentiles ; the Pentecostal outpouring- ; the preaching of St. Paul ; the beloved apostle writing his epistles ; and beneath, the imitation of this his follower — Heber, the hymn- writer, the bishop of the native Gentiles, the consecrated successor of the apostles, the missionary preacher, the devout and learned scholar. In all this, beloved, I would have you see the ideal of the ancient holiness translated into the language of to-day ; the way made clear in which men of the nineteenth century may tread in the footsteps of the apostles. " Centuries and fashions differ : in one age the hermit saint lives in the wilderness, a leathern girdle about his loins, and his meat locusts and wild honey ; in another he fights with the beasts of Ephesus, or contends with the philosophers on Mars' Hill ; in another he sits in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions ; in another he goes through the streets and lanes of the city compelling men to come in to the marriage feast ; in another he is preaching in the Polynesian Isles or in the regions of Ecjuatorial Africa ; in another he is keeping the flock of his Master in a cjuiet English village. There was something of each of these in the life of the man of whom 1 am speaking ; but in any one of these vocations, and in countless others, there is a way Zionwards for every one who has the will, and a path of light shining more and more unto the perfect day. We do honour them to-day, and try to do honour to our Lord, in thanking Him for the service of His devoted servant. We thank Him for the sweet singer whose hymns are household songs with most of us. ' The Son of God goes forth to war,' ' Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,' ' Hosanna to the living Lord,' 'Virgin-born, we bow before Thee,' ' God, who madest earth and heaven,' ' Spirit of truth, on this Thy day,' 'Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty,' 'From Greenland's icy mountains ' — these are, perhaps, best known among the gems of his Christian year, but there are many more that have given voice to holy desires, and comfort to earnest hearts. "We thank Him for the great missionary pioneer,whosevoice first in many parts of India proclaimed the conquests of the Gospel, and set an example for all of us that follow. We thank Him for the Christian gentleman who could, in the midst of English society, set a pattern of holiness without assumption, and kindly courtesy with true purity of word and thought. We thank Him for the scholar and divine, country clergyman and country gentleman, who. 346 BISHOP HEBER at the call of duty, gave up home, and country, and rest, and ease, and society, and comfort, and culture to do the will of Him that called him, and to perfect His work. We thank Him for the pattern which, in and by this His ministering servant, he set us of manly performance of duty and entire devotion to work. And thanking Him and honouring Him who has blessed His sen-ant with so many great and excellent gifts, and led him all his life through from strength to strength, we pray that we may each, according to his measure and in his own place, have grace to follow so good an example." Before going out to India, Heber had impressed on his friend Wynn, as President of the Board of Control, the need for dividing the jurisdiction offered to him into three dioceses of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, the Bishop of the first being Primate. That was impossible without an Act of Parliament, which there was no early prospect of securing. Alike by his life and by his death, Heber made the reform imperative. Not till 1828 did Bishop James, his successor, reach Calcutta to die. In December 1829 Bishop Turner was sent out, and he died in July 1831. Both made each of the three Archdeacons commissary within their jurisdiction, so that Corrie was virtual Bishop till Daniel Wilson began his long episcopate on 4th November 1833.^ The next Charter created Bishoprics of Madras and Bombay from 1835. Steadily as the work of the Church of England in the East and in Africa has extended, through the Church Missionary and Gospel Propagation Societies, missionary episcopates such as Heber longed for have been privately endowed, till now the ecclesiastical province of India and ' Bishop Johnston, of Calcutta, and the Metropohtan of India, has signi- fied his intention of resigning his see in the course of the present j'ear (1895). Should Dr. Johnston hve to carry out his intention, he will be the first Bishop of that historic see who has retired from the post of duty. Dean \'aughan has well said that there has been "a halo of true heroism" surrounding the Bishopric of Calcutta. Its first Bishop, the learned Dr. Middleton, died in Calcutta ; Reginald Heber, the poet Bishop, was found dead in his bath at Trichinopoly ; Bishops James and Turner died at their posts after very brief episcopates ; the Venerable Daniel Wilson, who resigned the valuable t)ene- fice of Islington for foreign service, expired at Calcutta at an advanced age ; Dr. Cotton, the friend of .-Vrnold, and master of Marlborough, was drowned by accident in Bengal ; and Robert Milman, whose life breathed the truest heroism, died in the midst of active missionary work on the frontier of .Afghanistan. — The Churchman. TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 347 Ceylon consists of these ten : the Metropolitical See of Calcutta, with Madras, Bombay, Colombo, Lahore, Rangoon, Travancore and Cochin, Chota Nagpoor, Lucknow, and Tinne- velli. There are other six Asiatic dioceses which have not yet been organised into a province : Jerusalem, Victoria, Mid- China, North China, Singapore, Japan and Corea. Australia has fourteen dioceses, New Zealand and the Pacific have eight, Africa has seventeen. The area in which Heber represented Christianity of the Anglican type, and to which he was chief missionary, is now, seventy years after his incessant toils, ministered to by fifty-six bishops, overseeing a staff of 2422 chaplains and missionaries. To these must be added some bishops and missionaries of the American Episcopal Churches. In England, from the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, Reginald Heber was a zealous and catholic supporter of the missions of the Church of England and the Bible Society, when nearly all his class, the Oxford clergy and the squires, kept aloof, or would have sneered the movement down as fanatical, leaving it to the Dissenters, as Southey complained. In India, like Henry Martyn, Heber's aspirations went out after the Hindoos and Mohammedans, while he was full of care for the East India Company's servants and troops, and for the chaplains. Every week he lived, every mile he travelled, caused the missionary fire to burn within him. He combined, as no other foreigner has done, the personal fascination, the influence of a high office and broad culture, the zeal of an evangelical in the best sense true to the commission of his Master, and the high faculty of organisation directed by business habits and common sense. All this made him the true founder of the Church of England Missions in India and the East. On 15th April 1826 Corrie wrote to Sherer : "Our late beloved Bishop was so entirely a Missionary that we can hardly hope to see one like him ; and in respect of temper and beauty of general disposition, to expect the like of him seems utterly hopeless. . . . Such was the natural amiability of his character that it was often difficult to say whether he acted from nature or grace. But whatever might be judged by some, at times, to be errors of judgment, the general tenor of his life was so opposed to worldly maxims, and what the world would have wished him to follow, that there seems no doubt grace 348 BISHOP HEBER was the ruling influence of his conduct. . . . How many he had drawn over to support the missionary cause ! " ^ When Reginald Heber gave his last breath to the Tamil Church of South India, and was laid down so suddenly in the heart of it, there were not more than forty thousand Christians of the Reformed Church in that region. They were not then a self-propagating church, because of the temporising policy of their Lutheran teachers as to caste and anti-Christian social customs such as had ruined the Jesuit missions. We have seen how firmly, yet judiciously for an inquirer new to the facts, Heber grasped the question and ordered investigation with a view to a decision. A fortnight after that he was no more. The results of the Committee of Inquiry fell to be dealt with by Bishop Wilson ten years subsequently. Had Heber lived, we cannot doubt that his opposition to caste customs in the Christian church and family would have been as thorough-going as his sharper successor's, while it would have been expressed in a manner more favourable to the national, or racial, or historical spirit of the converts from Hindooism. Unhappily, the Lutheran policy has not changed ; but we date the revival of the Church of South India and its mar- vellous growth from 23rd March 1826, when Heber instituted the inquiry which Daniel Wilson dealt with so conclusively in his primary visitation, '■^ and in 1894 the venerable Bishop Cell completed on the side of Tamil marriage customs. In January 1835 Daniel Wilson visited Trichinopoly, and made this comment : " I have preached in the pulpit, I have stood at the self-same altar, I have placed my foot on the very spot which contains the remains of the holy and beloved Heber. On 2nd April 1826 he preached there; the next morning he was a corpse, in the prime of life and dawn of usefulness. Such are the mysteries of the kingdom of God." Soon after the philosophic missionary, George Berkeley, had been made Bishop of Cloyne, that even greater thinker, Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, preached before the Society for ' Memoirs of the Right Rev. Daniel Corrie, LL. D. , first Bishop of Madras (1847), p. 389. - See letter dated Palace of Calcutta, sth July 1833, p. 437, vol. i. , of Bateinan's Life of Right Rev. Daniel Wilson, D.D. (John Murray), i860. TRICHINOPOLY— THE ROCK AND THE BATH 349 the Propagation of the Gospel, in the Church of St. Mary le Bow, a sermon which Hnks on the missionary poHcy of the Irish prelate on the West with the ceaseless action of the English Metropolitan of India. Bishop Butler said in 1738 : " No one has a right to be called a Christian who doth not do somewhat in his station towards the discharge of this trust [the stewardship of the Faith in behalf of others] ; who doth not, for instance, assist in keeping up the profession of Christi- anity where he lives. And it is an obligation but little more remote to assist in doing it in our Factories abroad and in the Colonies, to which we are related by their being peopled from our own Mother Country, and subjects — indeed very necessary ones — to the same Government with ourselves ; and heavier yet is the obligation upon such persons in particular as have the intercourse of an advantageous commerce with them." ^ The East India Company's Factories of his day have expanded into the dominion of the Queen-Empress, open under the new principle of toleration and education to the true Light. Since, as the chief missionary of his brief episcopate, Heber reorganised Anglican missions in India and Ceylon, in Madras province alone the 40,000 passive Christians of 1826 have increased, according to the vital law of the spiritual kingdom, under suffragan successors so greatly after his own heart and life as Caldwell and Sargent, to 600,000, with 800 of their own race ordained pastors, and nearly 4000 lay preachers. These are superintended by some 270 foreign ordained missionaries of all the Reformed churches and societies. " Can we refrain," exclaimed Heber to the Society for Promot- ing Christian Knowledge when, in 1823, the Bishop of Bristol delivered to him their valedictory address, " from indulging the hope that, one century more, and the thousands of converts which our missionaries already number may be extended into a mighty multitude ? " Two-thirds of the century only have passed since these words were spoken, and even now the number approaches a million of the natives of India professing the pure faith of the Gospel. ' One of llic greatest successors of Bishop Butler, the Right Rev. B. F. Westeott, D. D., quoted this passage in his noble sermon of 1895 before the Church Missionary Society in St. Bride's Churcli, specially applying the words to Great Britain's duty to the peoples of India. 350 BISHOP HEBER When Robert Southey wrote his defence of William Carey and the Serampore Brotherhood in the first number of the Quarterly Revieiv, the article was intended to be part of a work on all Protestant Missions, proving his " firm belief that there are but two methods of extending civihsation — conquest and conversion — the latter the only certain one," and connecting the whole subject of the reception of Christianity with that of civilisation. No writer, even up to the present time, could have done such a work better, and it is still a desideratum, as every year adds to the rich materials. In default of that, we may let Southey's verse — rarely equal to his prose — " On the portrait of Reginald Heber " complete this biography, as Ruskin's began the volume : — " Large, England, is the debt Thou owest to Heathendom ; To India most of all, where Providence, Giving thee thy dominion there in trust. Upholds its baseless strength. All seas have seen thy red-cross flag In war triumphantly display'd ; Late only hast thou set that standard up On pagan shores in peace ! Yea, at this hour the cry of blood Riseth against thee, from beneath the wheels Of that seven-headed Idol's car accurst ; Against thee, from the widow's funeral pile The smoke of human sacrifice Ascends, even now, to Heaven ! " The debt shall be discharged ; the crj'ing sin Silenced ; the foul offence For ever done away. Thither our saintly Heber went, In promise and in pledge That England, from her guilty torpor roused, Should zealously and wisely undertake Her awful task assign'd : Thither, devoted to the work, he \\ent. There spent his precious life. There left his holy dust. SOUTHEY ON HIS PORTRAIT 35' " How beautiful are the feet of him That bringeth good tidings, That pubhsheth peace, That bringeth good tidings of good. That proclaimeth salvation for men ! Where'er the Christian Patriarch went, Honour and reverence heralded his way. And blessings followed him. The Malabar, the Moor, the Singhalese, The' unillumed by faith. Yet not the less admired The virtue that they saw. The European soldier, there so long Of needful and consolatory rites Injuriously deprived, Felt, at his presence, the neglected seed Of early piety Refreshed, as with a quickening dew from Heaven. Native believers wept for thankfulness When on their heads he laid his hallowing hands ; And, if the saints in bliss Be cognisant of aught that passeth here. It was a joy for Schwartz To look from Paradise that hour Upon his earthly flock. " Yes, to the Christian, to the heathen world, Heber, thou art not dead, . . . thou canst not die ! Nor can I think of thee as lost. A litde portion of this Uttle isle At first divided us ; then half the globe ; The same earth held us still ; but when, O Reginald, wert thou so near as now ! 'Tis but the falling of a withered leaf, . . . The breaking of a shell, . . . The rending of a veil ! Oh when that leaf shall fall, . . . That shell be burst, . . . that veil be rent, . . . may then My spirit be with thine ! " CHAPTER XIV BIBLIOGRAPHY 180I-1886 I 80 1. Carmen Saculare: The University Latin Prize Poem on the Commencement of the Nineteenth Century. Recited at Oxford. 1805. A Setise of Honour: The University Bachelor's Prize Essay. Recited in the Theatre, Oxford, 26th June 1 805. 1S06. His/ory of the Cossaks to ihe. year 1535. This unfinished work was pubHshed in the Memoir by his widow (vol. i.), where it covers 122 quarto pages, with a map of the Crimea in 1788, reduced from Dezauche's. 1 807. Palestine, a Prize Poem, in Oxford Prize Poems. 8vo. I 8og. Palestine, to which is added The Passage of the Red Sea : a Fragment. 4to. London. 1812. Palestine: an Oratorio. The words selected from a Prize Poem by Reginald Heber. Sacred Harmonic Society. 4to. The music composed in the year 181 1 by William Crotch, Mus. Doc, Prof, of Music in the University of Oxford. Crotch selected the passages, and set them to music Finished on 5th November 1811, and first performed on 21st April 181 2 at the Hanover Square Concert Room. Mr. Frangois Cramer led the band. This was the first new Oratorio by an English composer for forty years. 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