THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the collection of 
 Julius Doerner, Chicago 
 Purchased, 1918. 
 
 246.3 
 
 T79u 
 

Ik£ LIBRSftY 
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 (INiVEhSITT fiF ikUNOIS 
 

 
 
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 illustraliuji^ Missionary work. 
 
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 P'.. 
 
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 PAPERS ON THE MISSIONARY WORK 
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5- U U . 3 
 
 Tl‘t ^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE had several objects before me in writing these 
 papers. 
 
 1. It has often been mentioned to me with regret 
 that no existing book gave to busy people a sketch 
 of missionary work, as carried on both by our Church 
 and by other bodies, in each part of the world. This 
 want is now, I hope, in some degree supplied. I have 
 endeavoured to steer between wearisome dififuseness 
 and the brevity which would sketch a large subject 
 only in outline. I have refrained, as far as was pos- 
 sible, from indulging in statistics. 
 
 2. I entertained the hope that such a book as the 
 present, besides being serviceable to those who already 
 care for missionary work, might induce others to take 
 an interest in it. The missionary spirit is not such a 
 power in the Church of England as it ought to be. 
 I believe that if more were known of the labours of 
 our missionaries who are now at their posts, a lively 
 sympathy with them would be generated in many 
 hearts, and the depreciation of their efforts, which 
 is too often the result of scepticism and indifference, 
 would be silenced. 
 
 3. By simple narrative of what is now going on in 
 
 '01280 
 
IV 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 foreign lands I wanted to cheer those who are apt 
 to despair of the missions of the nineteenth century, 
 and to lead them, if I might, to share what with me 
 is a matter of firm belief, that in no age of the world 
 have there lived truer or nobler missionaries than 
 some who are now engaged in the work, and that 
 never at any time was the prospect of success so 
 bright. It is well to distrust ourselves and our work ; 
 but it is not well, with imperfect knowledge of the 
 facts, unduly to extol the labours of others, because 
 we either have an unacknowledged preference for the 
 communion to which they belonged, or have but 
 a feeble faith in our own. The histories of ancient 
 missions have a romance about them which is attrac- 
 tive ; but when we have removed what is legendary, 
 and made allowances for what is uncertain, we need 
 not fear the result, if we compare our own efforts 
 with those of earlier times. Had St. Augustine lived 
 in our days he would have been the subject of severe 
 criticism : one trembles to think what religious news- 
 papers would have said about him, when his spirit 
 failed him after he had reached Aix, and he returned 
 to Rome and entreated Gregory to allow him to 
 abandon his undertaking, as he and his forty com- 
 panions feared to travel further through the bar- 
 barous countries. Pictures and picturesque writers 
 have described his interview with the heathen King 
 Ethelbert on the Isle of Thanet ; but similar inter- 
 views, which have been attended with far greater 
 peril, have taken place in our own days on territory 
 more barbarous even than was Kent in the sixth 
 century, and have attracted but little notice. When 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 V 
 
 Dr. Wolff penetrated into Bokhara and confronted 
 tyrant after tyrant, his life was not worth a day's 
 purchase ; when South African bishops and mis- 
 sionaries have had conferences with suspicious Kafir 
 chiefs, and have even demanded the release of their 
 subjects whom they had doomed to die for witch- 
 craft, the peril of such meetings was greater by far 
 than any to which St. Augustine was ever exposed. 
 The coral reefs and beaches of many an island in the 
 Pacific, the villages of Bornean Dyaks, the palace of 
 the Burmese sovereigns, the audience chamber of the 
 king of the Niger country, have been the scenes of 
 meetings between heathen and Christian, full of peril 
 to the latter, and fraught with results which cannot 
 yet be estimated. 
 
 The same school of writers have pourtrayed the 
 early missionaries tramping through Europe in 
 palmer’s garb or monkish habit, and crossing stormy 
 seas in impossible vessels, and the contrast between 
 such travels and the journeys of modern bishops and 
 missionaries, who, in civilised clothing and with all 
 appliances to alleviate severities of climate, travel by 
 express trains and magnificent steamers, is, no doubt, 
 a violent one ; but, as I think, not more violent than 
 would be the contrast drawn by a competent hand 
 between the degrees of civilisation possessed by the 
 two epochs at which they severally lived. What 
 I specially desire to contend for is, that the spirit 
 which we admire in the elder is still present in the 
 younger generation : the Church, as well as the world, 
 does not always know its greatest men. 
 
 A tolerably extensive and personal acquaintance 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 with many who are now labouring in the missionary 
 field teaches me that there are not a few among them, 
 who, if the occasion arose, would be found walking in 
 the path which has been trodden by Mackenzie and 
 Patteson. I contend, further, that all the aids which 
 true civilisation affords are to be taken gratefully into 
 account, when we estimate the probability of our 
 success. These supply, in no small measure, the lack 
 of those miracles, wherewith in apostolic times the 
 Word was confirmed, and prove far more valuable 
 than the curious arts” which are not unfrequently 
 met with in the legendary missions of mediaeval days. 
 
 Having neither the wish nor the ability to enter on 
 the field of ecclesiastical history, I have recorded 
 only the doings of missionaries who have lived within 
 the present century. For the sake of clearness, some 
 who lived in earlier times have occasionally been 
 mentioned. It is impossible to write intelligibly 
 about Indian missions, for example, without alluding 
 to Xavier, Ziegenbalg, and others ; but this has been 
 done in the briefest manner possible. I have not 
 suppressed the names of many living soldiers of the 
 Cross; indeed, one of my objects has been to show 
 how noble work is being done at this moment by 
 men who are unknown to the Church as well as to 
 the world ; but I hope I have succeeded in my 
 endeavour to abstain from words of eulogy, which 
 should never be written by the lesser of the greater. 
 
 London, Advent, 1872. 
 
I N D E X. 
 
 India — I ts Early History and Commerce 5 Invasions by Hindus, Ma- 
 hometans, Portuguese, Dutch, and English 5 Extension and Results 
 of British Rule 5 Difficulties of Conquering and of Ruling India . l 
 
 II. 
 
 Difficulty of Converting India greater than Difficulty of Conquering 
 it} Variety of Races, Languages, Creeds } Mahometanism, Hin- 
 duism, Buddhism } Caste } Qualifications of a Missionary } Com- 
 parison between Soldiers and Evangelists } The Indian Episcopate... 8 
 
 III. 
 
 Pioneers of Truth in India } Jews } Apostolic Missions } Malabar 
 Church} Travellers} Embassies} Alfred the Great} Xavier} 
 Ziegenbalg } The English Chaplains } Schwartz, Carey, Martyn ... 16 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Indian Episcopate, 1814 — 1866} The Episcopate established 
 with difficulty } Bishop Middleton } State of India in 1815 } Draw- 
 backs} Native Ministry } Bishop’s College } Bishop Heber} Bishop 
 Wilson } Visitation of Burmah } Bishoprics of Madras and Bombay } 
 Calcutta Cathedral} Mutiny} Bishop Cotton } Views on Missionary 
 Work, and on Creed of St. Athanasius } Education } Additional 
 Clergy Society} Native Ministry } Visitation of Assam } Death ... 
 
 V. 
 
 Condition of Calcutta Diocese in 1867} Church Missions in Ben- 
 gal, when established } Calcutta and neighbourhood } Cawnpore } 
 
 Delhi } The Mutiny } The Missions Restored } Their Present 
 State } Punjab } Cashmir } Central Provinces } Santhals } Khonds } 
 
 Kols } Number of Missionaries and Converts } The Brahmo Somaj 35 
 
 VI. 
 
 Madras : its Early Settlement and first Missions } Jesuits } Ziegen- 
 balg } Decay of Missions} Tinnevelly} Travancore } Shanars } 
 Edeyengoody } Rev. R. Caldwell} Rev. T. Brotherton } Syrian 
 Church } Native Clergy and their training } Medical Missions } 
 
 Schools } Gifts of Heathen Natives 46 
 
Vlll 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Diocese of Bombay; Growth of the City of Bombay; Its future; 
 
 Bishop’s Scheme of Missions ; Parsees ; Effects of Civilisation on 
 Conversion of India, and of Missions on its Political condition; 
 
 Incident of the Mutiny ; Prospect of the Permanence of British 
 Rule in India 56 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Ceylon; its Early Settlement; The Portuguese; The Dutch ; their 
 Missions; English Missions in Ceylon; The Episcopate; St. 
 Thomas’ College and Cathedral ; The Heathen Population ; Their 
 Races and Creeds ; Buddhism : its Founder, and his history ; 
 
 Growth of Buddhism ; Its Literature and Morality 64 
 
 IX. 
 
 Burmah. — Burmese Distinct in Race, Language, and Creed ; Need of 
 a Bishop at Rangoon ; Bishop Cotton’s Opinion ; Mission to the 
 Karens ; Judson ; Roman Missions ; Missions of the Church of 
 England ; Schools ; Mission at Mandalay ; Gift of Her Majesty the 
 Queen ; Burmah as a Field for Missions ; Strength of Buddhism in 
 Burmah 73 
 
 X. 
 
 Borneo and the Straits.— Sir J. Brooke : his Schemes and Dangers ; 
 
 Our Present Knowledge of Borneo ; DifEculties of Government ; 
 
 Dyak Habits ; Borneo Church Mission Fund ; its failure and 
 adoption by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel ; Cha- 
 racter of Sir J. Brooke’s Government ; Bishop McDougall ; The 
 Mission Planted in Peril ; Converts ; Chinese and their Clergyman ; 
 Athanasian Creed ; House of Charity ; Future of Dyak Race ; 
 
 Straits Settlements ; Singapore Mission 85 
 
 XL 
 
 China and Japan. — Obstacles to Missions ; Confucianism ; Tao-ism ; 
 Buddhism ; Early Missions ; Nestorians ; Jesuits ; Their method 
 and success ; American Missions ; London Missionary Society ; 
 
 Bishops Boone and Williams ; Church Missionary Society ; See of 
 Victoria ; Bishops Smith and Alford ; Russian Missions ; Japan and 
 its prospects ; Our past dealings with China ; Opium Wars; Emi- 
 gration of the Chinese and its probable results 
 
INDEX. 
 
 IX 
 
 XII. 
 
 FACE 
 
 Africa. — Growth of the Anglican Episcopate ; Four Colonial Bishops 
 Consecrated at one time j State of the Cape Colony in 1848 ; Con- 
 verts to Mahometanism j Nonconformist Missions in South Africa ; 
 
 Bishop Gray’s Visitations ; Division of the Diocese ; Sir G. Grey’s 
 policy } Zonnebloem College ; Synods ; Diocese of St. Helena ,* 
 Namaqua Land : its population ; Central Africa ; Bishop Gray’s 
 Labours and death 107 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Bishop. Armstrong; Limits of Diocese of Grahamstown and its De- 
 pendencies ; Variety of Races ; Missions to Kafirs and Fingoes ; 
 
 Sir G. Grey’s Schemes ; Bishop Armstrong’s Death j Kafir Cha- 
 racter ; Famine ; Rain Doctor ; Extension of Missions j Grahams- 
 town Institution ; Systems of Missions ; Kafir Hymns j Missionary 
 Life in South Africa 116 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Natal ; Missions from the first extra-Diocesan ; Various Races and 
 Creeds ; Zulu Chiefs ; Captain Allen Gardiner ; Rev. F. Owen ; 
 
 Natal Colonised by the Dutch and the English ; Various Missions ; 
 Bishopric Founded ; Bishop Colenso’s Plans and Fellow Labourers ; 
 Consecration of Bishop Macrorie ; Progress in consequence ; 
 
 Mission at Spring Vale under Dr. Callaway; Civilisation and 
 Christianity ; Highflats ; Clydesdale ; Ordination of Natives ; 
 Summary 125 
 
 XV. 
 
 Livingstone’s Appeal to the Universities; Meeting at Cambridge; 
 Archdeacon Mackenzie Consecrated; The Missionary Party; 
 Difficulties and Blunders ; Station at Magomero ; Deaths of Bishop 
 Mackenzie, Rev. H. Burrup, H. C. Scudamore, and Dr. Dickenson ; 
 
 Work on the Station ; Bishop Tozer’s arrival ; Abandonment of 
 the Station and the People; Zanzibar: its facilities; Training 
 Lads for Native Ministry ; Translations ; Sickness and Deaths ; 
 
 No Impression made on the Mainland ; The Zambesi approached 
 from Zululand 1 34 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Zululand Bishopric the result of Bishop Mackenzie’s Example ; 
 Foundation of the Mission in i860; Rev. R. Robertson; Settle- 
 
X 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 ment in the Wilderness j Wagons for Houses ; Panda j Native 
 Superstitions; Witchcraft; Stations at Kwamagwaza and St. 
 
 Paul’s; Difficulties with Chiefs ; Arrival of Bishop in 1870; 
 Confirmation ; New Stations towards the Zambesi 146 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Orange Free State; Its early Settlers; Visitation in 1850 by- 
 Bishop of Capetown; Clergyman withdrawn in 1854; Bishop 
 Consecrated, 1863 ; Hottentots, Basutos, Baralongs ; Trans-Vaal 
 Republic ; Wesleyan and French Missions ; Chiefs Moshesh and 
 Moroko ; their Sons Christians ; Missionary Brotherhood ; its 
 Labours and Successes ; The Diamond Fields ; Bishop Webb ; 
 
 His Consecration at Inverness ; His Reception at the Diamond 
 Fields 154 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Early Colonisers of St. Helena : Portuguese, Dutch, English ; Visited 
 by Bishop Gray in 1849 and 1857; Bishopric founded in 1859; 
 Contribution of Residents to the Endowment ; Missions to 
 released Slaves ; Bishop Welby ; Rev. T. Goodwin ; Exodus of 
 Slaves annually ; Improvement in Negro resident Population ; Life 
 in St. Helena ; Island of Ascension ; Visits of Bishops 16 1 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Tristan D’Acunha — Position of Tristan D’Acunha ; Original Settle- 
 ment ; Jonathan Lambert and his companions ; Military Settle- 
 ment founded and abandoned ; Corporal Glass remains ; A 
 Colony of Six Souls ; Its Government ; Search of Education ; 
 
 Visits of Clergy ; Report of Archdeacon Wise ; Rev. W. F. Taylor, 
 Resident Pastor ; Exile ; Death of Glass ; People compared with 
 Pitcairners ; Visit of Bishop of Capetown ; Removal of majority 
 to the Cape; Visit of Duke of Edinburgh “ 167 
 
 XX. 
 
 Mauritius — Colonised by Portuguese, Dutch, and French ; By 
 Treaty of 1814 given to England; Conditions of that Treaty; 
 Anglican Church Starved; Bishopric founded, 1854; Limits of 
 Diocese ; Population, large, varied, migratory ; Successive Bishops ; 
 Seychelles ; Slave Trade ; Diocese should be made Metropolitan ; 
 
 Need of Confederation 178 
 
INDEX, 
 
 I 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Madagascar — Early Missions of Romanists ; Independents ; Expul- 
 sion of Foreigners j Fate of Native Christians j Country Reopened } 
 Missionaries Returned j British Embassy ; Bishop Ryan j His ar- 
 rangement with the Dissenting Missionaries ; Unfortunate Results j 
 The Church excluded from the Capital, and limited to the deadly 
 Coast } Work of the Church 5 Opposition j No Episcopal Govern- 
 ment j Immorality of the Native People j The attitude of the 
 Church towards Nonconformist Missions ; Testimony of Bishops of 
 Bombay and Grahamstown j The example of the Bishop of Lich- 
 field in New Zealand and Melanesia 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Sierra Leone. — Sierra Leone the great work of the Church Mis- 
 sionary Society } Difficulties of West Africa compared with those 
 of India j Inherent degradation j Sickness and Deaths of Mission- 
 aries j Fourah Bay Institution j High Education j Bishopric of Sierra 
 Leone 5 Three Bishops died in Seven Years j Abbeokuta and its 
 History 5 First Mission ; Persecution j Growth j History of Bishop 
 Crowther 5 Mission to the Niger established} Prospects, Christian 
 and Social, of the Niger Territory 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Missions of Daughter Churches } Liberia j Cape Palmas j Bishop 
 Payne 5 Mission surrounded by Heathen and Mahometan Tribes} 
 Difficulties in consequence } Betrothals of Children } Native 
 Ministry} The Rio Pongas} Rev. H. J. .Leacock } Invitation to 
 Fallangia } Career of Chief Wilkinson } Mission House} Leacock’s 
 Sufferings and Death } His Successors ; Results of the Mission } 
 Slave Trade checked by Industry and Trade 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 West Indies and Guiana. — Original Population of the West Indies} 
 General Codrington } Bishoprics of Barbados and Jamaica } State 
 Help} Church Inert} Subdivision of Dioceses} Nassau} Disendow- 
 ment } Trinidad Bishopric } Guiana } Its Colonisation } Early Mis- 
 sions } Moravians } Mr. Brett and his work among Four Races of 
 Aborigines } Difficulties and Great Success } Coolies : Missions 
 among them 
 
 xi 
 
 page 
 
 i8s 
 
 198 
 
 207 
 
 214 
 
XXV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Patagonia and Terra del Fuego. — Allen Gardiner : his zeal ana 
 lack of prudence ; Zululand ; South America ; Roman Opposition ; 
 
 Malay Archipelago ; Falkland Islands j Picton Island j Deaths of 
 Gardiner and his Comrades j Mission Revived, 18575 Casimuro ; 
 
 Mr. Schmid : his voluntary exile j Its results } Fuegians and their 
 habits 5 Jem Button ; Mission Station j Industrial Training} Mis- 
 sion Ship 5 Ushuwia } Bishop Stirling 22} 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Australia. — Early Settlement ; Convicts first sent, 1787; Spirit of 
 that time } Rev. R. Johnson : hindrances to his ministrations } 
 
 Famine } Church built and destroyed ; Rev. S. Marsden ; Romanist 
 Converts ; Rev. J. Dixon } Norfolk Island } Sir W. Burton 5 
 Archdeacon Broughton} The Bishopric of Australia 231 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 New Zealand. — Captain Cook } Description of Maoris } Dealings 
 with them similar to subsequent dealings with Melanesians} Their 
 Reputation } Dr. Marsden } Tippahee } Marsden visits England } 
 
 Lands in New Zealand 1814} Maori Race and Creed} Their 
 Religious susceptibility } Honghi } Visits England } Marsden’s re- 
 peated visits to New Zealand } Bishop Broughton } Growth of 
 English Colony } New Zealand, British Territory } Bishop Selwyn. 237 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Bishop Selwyn } His Last Sermon in England } Visitation and 
 arrangements of Diocese ; Land Question and Natives } Heke’s 
 Rebellion } Mercy shown to Civilians } Archdeacons } Native 
 Teachers and Martyrs} First Native Deacon} Rising of 1862; 
 Hau-haus} Rev. C. Volkner Massacred} Lapse of Converts} 
 Extension of Episcopate} Canterbury Settlement} Wellington, 
 
 Nelson, Waiapu, and Dunedin Dioceses } The Maoris and their 
 present condition 243 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Melanesia. - Origin of Melanesian Mission } Nature of the Work } 
 
 Other Missionaries } Bishop Selwyn’s First Voyage } Australasian 
 Board of Missions } Perils of the Work } Bishop Selwyn in Eng- 
 land } Rev. J. C. Patteson } Sir J. Patteson 252 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Return of Bishop Selwyn with Rev. J. C. Patteson ; The “ Southern 
 Cross” 5 French Occupation of Southern Islands; Pitcairners; 
 
 Norfolk Island ; Opening of Northern Groups ; Mota ; Winter 
 Schools at Lifu and Mota ; Wreck of “ Southern Cross ” ; Kohi- 
 murama ; Consecration of Bishop Patteson; Longer Voyages; 
 
 Santa Cruz ; Attack ; Curtis Island ; Norfolk Island ; Its Advan- 
 tages ; Work of the Settlement ; Ordination of George Sarawia ; 
 
 More Islands Visited ; Massacre at Nukapu ; Its Causes ; Re- 
 venge taken by H. M. S. “Rosario” ; Subsequent Work of the 
 Missionaries 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Australia. — Work now Parochial in Character ; Bishop Broughton ; 
 
 Efforts of the Church of England on the first Colonisation of Aus- 
 tralia ; Three new Dioceses ; Subdivision of Original See ; Gold ; 
 
 State Aid ; Coolie Labour ; Self-supporting Dioceses ; Supply and 
 Demand ; Ministrations to Squatters ; Education ; Theological 
 Schools ; Colonial Clergy ; Synodal Action 279 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Aborigines of Australia ; Identity of dispositions with ourselves ; 
 
 Their ill-treatment; Norway and Sweden; Their Treatment of 
 Lapps ; Capacities of Aborigines of Australia ; Adelaide and Perth ; 
 
 Neglect of Natives in Eastern Dioceses ; Sir George Bowen ; Sta- 
 tion at Somerset ; Cruelties of the OfTicials ; Power of a Christian 
 Teacher; Habits of the Blacks; Mr. Kennett ; Prince of Wales’ 
 
 Island ; Withdrawal of Settlement, and of the Mission ; The 
 Marquis de Beauvoir ; A Wholesale Murderer 289 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Hawaii. — Discovery by Captain Cook; Vancouver; Petition for Eng- 
 lish Teachers; Characteristics of the Hawaiians; Tapu; Presby- 
 terian Missions; Visit of King and Q^ueen to England; Kame- 
 hameha IV. a Theologian; Asks for Bishop and Clergy; Departure 
 of Mission; Troubles; Opposition; Death of Prince; Work; Death 
 of the King; Sisterhood; Lack of Funds; Absence and Resignation 
 of Bishop Staley; Prospects of the Mission; Consecration of Bishop 
 Willis lOQ 
 
 260 
 
XIV 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 America. — Early Discoverers and Evangelisers ; Master Wolfall; First 
 Celebration of Holy Commnnion on American Soil ; Virginia; New 
 England; Baltimore; Pennsylvania; Foundation of the Missionary 
 Societies of the English Church; Episcopate Desired and Refused; 
 A Non-juror Bishop; A Loyal Clergy; Confessors; Wesleyan 
 Schism; Independence of Thirteen States; Connecticut and Bishop 
 Seabury; Bishops White and Provoost; Domestic and Foreign 
 Missions of American Church; Utah; Influence of the Church; 
 Lambeth Conference 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Bishop Inglis, the First Bishop in British North America, 1787; 
 Bishop Mountain of Quebec, 1793; Subsequent Growth of the 
 Canadian Episcopate ; Loyalty of the Church ; Favours of the 
 Crown ; Quebec Cathedral ; Bishops Stewart and Strachan ; 
 Trinity College, Toronto; Bishops Medley and Fulford; State 
 Help; Clergy Reserves; Freedom of the Canadian Churches; 
 Their Present Condition 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Native Races of America better treated than those of other Colo- 
 nies; Sir W. Raleigh ; Nicholas Ferrar; New England Company; 
 John Eliot; John Wesley; Mohawks and Oneidas; Loyalty; 
 Favours Shown by Queen Anne and George III. ; Their Settlement 
 in Canada; Visited by Bishops Stewart and Strachan; Indian 
 Reserves ; Sault S. Marie ; Manitoulin Island ; See of Algoma ; 
 Walpole Island ; Result of Twenty-eight Years’ Work ; The Theo- 
 logical Affinities of the Indians 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Newfoundland. — Newfoundland, and Its Special hardships; Com- 
 parison with other Fields of Labour; People; Climate ; First Mis- 
 sionaries; Bishop Inglis; Pew System; Bishop Spencer; Bishop 
 Feild ; The “Hawk”; Voyages of Discovery; Rev. J. G. Moun- 
 tain ; Harbour Briton ; Rev. W. W. Le Gallais ; His Death ; St. 
 George’s Bay; Rev. F, G. Hall ; “ Out-of-the-World ” ; Bay of 
 Islands; Rev. Ulric Rule; White Bay; Rev. R. H. Temple; 
 Living with the Fishermen ; St. John^s College ; Endowment ; 
 Hereditary Clergy ; Coadjutor Bishop; The “Hawk” laid up; The 
 “ Star ” succeeds ; and is Lo<!t j QTt of the “ Lavrock ” 
 
INDEX. 
 
 XV 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Labrador. — Its Hardships and Barrenness; Extent ; Visit of Bishop 
 Feild ; Rev. A. Gifford, H. Disney, G. Hutchinson ; Aborigines : 
 Western Labrador ; Rev. R. Wainwright ; St. Augustine’s Mis- 
 sion; Rev. J. Hepburn; Visitation of Bishop of Quebec; The 
 Magdalene Islands 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Rupert’s Land. — Early Discoverers ; Charter granted to Hudson’s 
 Bay Company ; Natives Preserved but not Civilised ; No Religious 
 Ministrations for 150 Years; Two Roman Priests, 1818 ; Growth 
 of Roman Church; Rev. J. West, 1820; Archdeacon Cochran; 
 
 His Work ; Rev. H. Budd ; Presbyterian Prejudices ; Visit of 
 Bishop Mountain, 1844; See Founded, 1849; Progress of the 
 Colony; Manitoba; Communication Opened; Railways; Immi- 
 gration; Extension of the Episcopate; The Present a Time of Crisis. 361 
 
 XL. 
 
 British Columbia. — A Colony in 1858, a Diocese in 1859; P**®" 
 
 spects. Material and Spiritual ; Disappointment ; Gold Fields ; 
 
 Work of the Clergy among Diggers ; Rev. J. Reynard at Cariboo ; 
 Missions to the Indians ; Yale ; Lytton ; Metlakatla ; Kincolith ; 
 Metlakatla, a Christian State, Self-contained and Self-governed 369 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Roman Missionaries. — Their Obedience and Self-sacrifice; Earlier 
 Roman Missions; Spain, Portugal, France; La Propagation de la 
 Foi: its Origin and Success; College of the Propaganda ; Seminaire 
 des Missions Etrangeres at Paris; Training and Discipline ; Corea 
 Martyrs; Lutheran Devotion 381 
 
 XLII. 
 
 The Eastern Church. — Her Connection with Britain; Her Greatest 
 Work not in Modern Times ; Conversion of Russia ; Vladimir ; 
 
 His Inquiries into the Truth ; His Conversion and Baptism ; 
 
 Mixed Motives ; Progress of the Faith ; Missions of the Present 
 Day ; More thorough Work ; Conviction as well as Conversion ; 
 Probable Contact between Eastern and Western Churches ; China ; 
 North-West America ; Kamschatka ; Prospects 390 
 
 PAGE 
 
 356 
 
XVI 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Moravians. — Their Origin and Constitution; The Count of Zinzcn- 
 dorf ; Herrnhut ; Their First Mission to the West Indies ; Mis- 
 sions of the Present Time ; Testimonies to the Value of their 
 Work; Labrador: its Early Missionaries; Results of Converting 
 and Civilising the Esquimaux; Traffic with Natives; The Schooner 
 “ Harmony ” ; Thibet Missions ; Corrupt Buddhism of Thibet ; 
 Medical Skill and its Advantages 397 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 The Heathen World. — Majority of Mankind Heathen ; Assaults 
 on Missions ; Their Value ; Probable Decay of Heathenism in the 
 East ; Mahometanism : its Power to be accounted for ; Growth 
 of Christian Nations ; Spread of the Gospel in the Present Age 
 analogous with the Spread of it in other Times ; the Daughter 
 Churches of England : their Development and their Liberty 408 
 
 XLV. 
 
 The Future of the Anglican Church. — Lack of Men and Means; 
 Contrast between Churchmen and Dissenters; Ignorance of Mis- 
 sionary Work among the former; Hence Apathy and Indifference: 
 Objections of Friends to would-be Missionaries: not unreasonable; 
 Missionaries neglected ; The class of Men to be employed ; Re- 
 lations between Missionaries and Societies; Insufficient Pay; Cheap 
 Missionaries ; Unjustifiable in a Wealthy Church 418 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Missionary Societies. — Proposed “ Board of Missions ” : Visionary 
 Scheme ; Proper Functions of a Board of Missions ; Cost of such 
 a Board as was Proposed by Convocation ; Necessary Cost of 
 Raising Funds ; Bazaars, &c. ; Systematic Benevolence ; Missionary 
 Meetings : their Advantages ; Need of spreading Information on 
 
 Missionary Subjects 431 
 
 Conclusion 438 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 I. 
 
 That a few foreigners should have possessed themselves of 
 a vast country, 15,000 miles away from their island home, 
 and have therein exercised government, preserved peace, 
 and adjusted the various and intricate relationships of many 
 tribes and peoples, speaking different languages and em- 
 bracing different creeds — this has been declared to be one 
 of the most astonishing facts of history : perhaps it is still 
 more astonishing that India, so vast in area, so fertile in 
 natural resources, so rich in all the elements of material 
 grandeur, should ever have become the prey of an alien 
 power, however great : it may be that in its wealth and in . 
 its diversities of race lies the secret of its subjection. Amid 
 the obscurity which surrounds the history of the land and of 
 its inhabitants, one fact is abundantly clear, that a country 
 possessing every variety of climate, and a soil capable of 
 producing, in richest abundance, the fruits of these widely- 
 extending regions, must naturally have attracted the mer- 
 chants of the world, and that the variety of races who dwelt 
 within its limits, bound by no common tie, whether of poli- 
 tics or of religion, conduced inevitably to its disintegration. 
 
 In days so remote as to be almost prehistoric, the Hindu 
 invaders, bringing with them the beautiful Sanscrit language, . 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 a knowledge of which is even now in itself a polite education^ 
 poured into India from the north-west ; with them the navi- 
 gators of Arabia and Persia were wont to trade. Next to 
 them the Phoenicians, those energetic pioneers of our mo- 
 dern commerce, grudging the delay inseparable from the 
 long route through Arabia by Petra and Palmyra, established 
 a direct communication between ancient Tyre and India, 
 and built a fleet of ships on the Red Sea. In course of 
 time, Alexandria, rising into the first rank as the emporium 
 of Oriental merchandise, carried to the towns on either 
 shore of the Mediterranean the products of India. With 
 the fall of Alexandria i.nto the hands of the Romans, the 
 commerce was transferred to the empire, until at length 
 Pliny complained in one of his letters that the intercourse 
 between Rome and India had begotten a love of luxury 
 which emptied Italy of its gold. The coins of the date of 
 Julius Caesar, Tiberius, and Caligula, which have been 
 found, in considerable numbers and admirably preserved, 
 both in Tinnevelly and in Ceylon,*^ bear testimony to the 
 intercourse which once existed between Rome and India. 
 For a while the followers of the Warrior Prophet of Arabia 
 became possessed o-f Roman commerce ; but on the disin- 
 tegration of the Mahometan Empire, Alexandria recovered 
 some of its former commerce and importance. The route 
 that was opened from the Black Sea to the Indus and the 
 Oxus conferred a short-lived importance on Syria and Con- 
 stantinople ; the growing taste for eastern luxuries, which de- 
 manded direct communication, gave rise to the commercial 
 cities of Italy, and brought Genoa and Venice into the first 
 rank. The bulk of Indian commerce came overland by the 
 way of the Euphrates and the Red Sea; until, in 1498, 
 
 * A packet of 1,800 Roman coins was found at Batticaloa in 1872 ; they 
 were chiefly copper, and of the reigns of Valens, Theodosius, and Constantine 
 the Great. 
 
INDIA. 
 
 Vasco di Gama, having rounded the Cape of Good Hope, 
 landed at Calicut on the western coast of Hindostan. For 
 more than three centuries this continued to be the highway 
 to the East, until the “ Overland Route was again opened, 
 to be still further improved by the opening of the Suez 
 Canal. 
 
 Many nations, then, have traded with India ; indeed its 
 products were at all times such as to attract the existing 
 commerce of the world. Three nations only have attempted 
 its subjugation — Portugal, Holland, and England. The 
 Portuguese, flushed with their recent triumphs, aimed at the 
 sovereignty of the world ; and a Papal Bull conferred on 
 them the dominion of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India. 
 Their prosperity was shortlived ; the Dutch superseded 
 them, and the trade of the East was transferred from Lisbon 
 to Amsterdam. In the last year of the sixteenth century, 
 Queen Elizabeth gave by a charter to a company of mer- 
 chants the exclusive right of trading for fifteen years in the 
 Chinese and Indian Seas. From this humble beginning 
 there sprang' the East India Company and British rule in 
 India. The charter thus granted was renewed from time to 
 time ; and those whose first object was commerce, grew at 
 length into the anomaly of an irresponsible sovereign power, 
 until, within the memory of the present generation, India 
 became a colony of the English Crown. The several steps 
 by which the provinces and states of Hindostan passed 
 into the possession of England are clearly marked. AVe 
 went to the country in the first instance to trade ; for twenty 
 years we were mere sojourners, and possessed no territory ; 
 then the first British settlement was established in Madras : 
 thirty more years elapsed, and the East India Company 
 founded a settlement at Hooghley, which in 1698 was re- 
 moved to Calcutta, then an insignificant village. In 1662 
 the Portuguese had given the town and island of Bombay 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 as part of the dowry of Katherine, wife of Charles II., by 
 whom it was made over to the East India Company ; but it 
 was not until 1765 that the English rule was absolute in 
 Bengal. How that rule has grown and established itself in 
 the East is indeed a marvellous story ; kingdom after king- 
 dom has fallen to our lot ; conquest, treaty, and annexation 
 have each done their work ; some territories have lapsed for 
 lack of heirs, or by the failure of heirs to make good their 
 claims ; in other cases a series of iniquitous rulers has made 
 it an act of mercy to the governed to transfer them to the 
 impartial rule of a Christian sovereign ; and the Proclama- 
 tion of the Queen in 1858 consolidated the power which 
 had grown up in ways so diverse, and laid on the Crown 
 of England the responsibility of governing one-fifth of the 
 human race. 
 
 It will serve to clear the ground if we endeavour to 
 understand the extent of our Indian empire and the condi- 
 tions of the various races who within its borders live under 
 our rule. Few persons who have not visited this mysterious 
 land can realise its immensity and the diversity of its 
 peoples, its languages, and its resources. The India ot 
 to-day is not the India of twenty years ago ; the British 
 frontier has been extending itself rapidly and widely, and is 
 now identical with that of India itself. Sir Bartle Frere * 
 has given a very striking instance of the development of our 
 power; he tells us of an officer who, in 1808, served on 
 outpost duty at Tanna, twenty miles north of Bombay, and 
 at that time the northern frontier of the British possessions 
 in Western India, and who had lived to command, fifty 
 years later, a brigade at Peshawur, a frontier station more 
 than 1,000 miles as the crow flies in advance of his quarters 
 where he had served as a subaltern ; almost the whole of 
 
 T’he Church and the Hge, p. 326. 
 
INDIA, 
 
 5 
 
 the intervening territory having in the meantime fallen under 
 the rule of the English Crown. British India now extends 
 from Peshawur to Singapore. Its area is nearly equal to 
 that of Europe ; it contains not one nation but a company 
 of nations, who differ one from another as much as Spaniards 
 differ from Russians, who speak different languages, who 
 possess various degrees of civilisation, from that of the cul- 
 tivated Hindus, who, in remotest times, were skilled in 
 architecture and music, who were proficient mathematicians 
 and masters of the drama, and who invented the game of 
 chess, to the degraded savagery of the aboriginal tribes who 
 now inhabit the Central Provinces or linger in the Burmese 
 mountains, and in the Andaman Islands. 
 
 The subjection of such a country by a comparatively 
 small force is an astonishing fact ; still more wonderful is 
 its retention and government. Two nations have conquered 
 the India of their times, and have failed to hold it ; it was 
 reserved for England not only to conquer but to give to it 
 the highest products of modern civilisation, — railways and 
 telegraphs, just laws impartially administered, education of 
 the most advanced kind, and even a share in the government 
 of the country. More than once the British supremacy has 
 been threatened. At a moment of apparent security, when 
 Affghanistan had been recently acquired, and we were occu- 
 pying a position which, commanding Central Asia and Persia, 
 promised to be an impregnable rampart against all invasion, 
 suddenly and without warning, the country, which had been 
 so easily subdued, rebelled against us, our troops were 
 slaughtered, and the whole of our Eastern empire seemed 
 about to be broken up. Again in 1857, the mutiny was so 
 formidable and extensive that those who thought our rule 
 was over, had no insufficient grounds on which to base their 
 opinion ; but in both cases the danger which threatened for 
 a while only established our power more firmly. Within a 
 
6 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 fe\y years of our reverses in Affghanistany three powerful 
 nations, were defeated by us, and the reduction of the dis- 
 affected provinces in the days of the famous mutiny was 
 followed immediately by their settlement and administration; 
 the skill of our civilians in this latter work was not less 
 admirable than the zeal and the courage of the generals and, 
 their soldiers who had conquered the rebellious districts. 
 1 1 is not a matter of surprise that from time to time muttered 
 threats of outbreak should be heard ; fanatical Wahabees 
 incite their fellows to some deed of violence, or a blood- 
 thirsty Hindu glories in the perpetration of a diabolical acf, 
 for which he gladly pays the penalty of his life. How. long 
 it may be necessary to rule India as a land that may at any 
 moment rise up against its rulers, no one can predict ; a 
 country so vast is not wholly reduced to contentment and 
 to obedience in one or in several generations ; the fires of 
 discontent may smoulder for long; nevertheless the spec- 
 tacle which India now presents is unequalled : a handful of 
 civilians and soldiers govern and hold a vast empire, and 
 their rule confers on the land, day by day, advantages, 
 material as well as moral, which it would never have known 
 had it continued free and unconquered. 
 
 This result has been accomplislied by no ordinary men ; 
 India has been subdued by a race of giants. The names of 
 Clive and of Wellington, of Hastings and of Munro, of 
 Malcolm and of Elphinstone, of Napier and of Outram, of 
 Hardinge and of Gough, of Clyde and of Canning (and may 
 we not add of Mayo ?), are for ever identified with gifts of 
 the very highest kind ; and only such men as these could have 
 made India what it is. They dared much and suffered much, 
 luit they had unlimited resources at their command, and 
 they were backed by the prestige of the mightiest nation of 
 the world. Thus they conquered arid thus they ruled. 
 
 The difficulties which met them are but a portion of the 
 
INDIA, 
 
 1 
 
 difficulties which stand in the way of those who aim at the 
 spiritual conquest of India. What those difficulties are, and 
 of what nature have been the efforts of those soldiers of the 
 Cross who have laboured to surmount them, will form the 
 subject of some of the following papers. 
 
8 
 
 IT. 
 
 We have shown in the last paper how great a work has 
 been the subjection of our Indian empire : we desire now 
 to show how much greater must be the task of evangelis- 
 ing that land, and how strikingly in each instance the very 
 circumstances which favoured our arms and the administra- 
 tion of our laws, militate against the successful prosecution 
 of the work of conversion. 
 
 In the first place, that same diversity of races of which 
 Ave have already spoken is a great element of a conqueror’s 
 success. It is easier by far to subdue a country which is 
 held by many peoples, sympathising but little one with 
 another, than to dislodge from their fatherland a homo- 
 geneous race, inspired by the energy which is begotten of 
 patriotism. To the missionary this diversity of race is a 
 hindrance greater than can be described : it is a task severe 
 enough for any ordinary mind to have to acquire, probably 
 in middle life, a strange language, and specially one whose 
 structure and characters are altogether different from those 
 which are already known to him ; but the curse of Babel at 
 once confronts the Indian missionary, and, until he has 
 acquired at least one of the native languages, he is simply 
 useless for the work which he has set himself to do. Sup- 
 posing him to have acquired with much pains a moderate 
 knowledge of the language which he has adopted, he pro- 
 bably will speak it at best with broken accent and with 
 stammering tongue, and in a manner which, grating on the 
 
INDIA, 
 
 9 
 
 sensitive ear of an Oriental, will irritate him and make him 
 a more unwilling listener than when he was addressed 
 through an interpreter. The acquisition of a single language 
 will but show the missionary how great are his deficiencies 
 still, and make him more eager to possess the means of 
 communicating with the other tribes with whom he meets. 
 Moreover, a readiness of speech sufficient for purposes of 
 conversation and of business is by no means sufficient for 
 the man who has to speak on theological subjects, and he 
 is harassed by the thought that an error in the selection of 
 his words, or even in the pronunciation of any particular 
 word, may convey a meaning which he never intended, and 
 may present to the hearer a view of the truth hardly removed 
 from a false or an heretical one. 
 
 The different nationalities to whom he addresses himself, 
 however slight may be the bond of union with each other, 
 agree in regarding the missionary as a representative of an 
 alien race, of a civilisation which, compared to their own, 
 is as a thing of yesterday, of a religion of which they at 
 least know that its tendency is to contradict and overthrow 
 the creed which has formed the hopes and fears of their 
 remotest ancestors, and to which they are themselves 
 attached, if not by feelings of devotion, at least by preju- 
 dice, and by the thought that its influence is bound up 
 intimately with their own. Beyond acquiring the spoken 
 language, the missionary should make himself master of 
 the civilisation, the literature, and the mythology of those 
 whom he desires to convert ; and to this end he must 
 devote himself to the study of Sanscrit. He soon finds 
 that the literature of the West is not enough. He is con- 
 fronted by problems of science, philosophy, law, and re- 
 ligion, which will never meet him in more practical Europe, 
 and to these he must bring all his powers. The natural 
 politeness of the Hindus is not sufficient to make them listen 
 
lO 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 to a man who is ignorant of their own system. The Christian 
 teacher, therefore, must not only know his own creed, and 
 be able to publish its truths in an intelligible form, he 
 must know also the errors of Hinduism, and be able to set 
 them forth, and show wherein they are false. To spiritual 
 agents he may and must trust for his own comfort and 
 support ; but between himself and the man whom he wishes 
 to convert it is merely a question of truth against error, 
 of what is credible against what is incredible ; and if he 
 would convert he must convince. 
 
 Infinite as are the creeds with which he will be brought 
 in contact, the Indian missionary will have to confront the 
 adherents of three principal systems of religious belief — 
 Mahometans, who are scattered up and down in India, 
 forming in the Punjab two-thirds of the population, while in 
 Tinnevelly they are in the proportion of one in eighteen; 
 Hindus, of whose mysterious creed, with its system of caste, 
 something must be said ; and Buddhism, whose followers 
 are supposed to amount to between 400,000,000 and 
 500,000,000. Of the followers of Mahomet it is enough to 
 say that, while holding the knowledge of and faith in the one 
 true God, and consequently in closer affinity with us than 
 are the heathen, they are, and ever have been, the most 
 determined opponents of the Gospel, and, where they can be, 
 the most bitter persecutors of those who differ from them. 
 Of Buddhism we shall hear more when we come to treat of 
 Burmah and other regions in whicli it is dominant. Of 
 Hinduism we now proceed to write. 
 
 Any but the very briefest sketch of this mysterious creed 
 our space forbids. On the primitive sacred writings of the 
 Hindus, the earliest storehouse of our common language, 
 and abounding in what is pure and simple and quaint, the 
 fancies of an enervated race engrafted much that is loath- 
 some and monstrous, gross idolatry and vice masked under 
 
INI>IA, 
 
 El 
 
 the name of religion. The leading features of Hinduism 
 are contained in the system of Caste/^ This system can 
 be traced to a period so early as nine centuries before 
 Christ ; but it nowhere appears in the sacred Vedas, whose 
 still greater antiquity is hereby proved. From the head of 
 Brahma there came the Sacerdotal caste, or Brahmins. 
 These are the sole depositaries, interpreters, and teachers 
 of. the four Vedas which sprang, at the time of their emana- 
 tion, from the mouth, as the Brahmins had from the head, 
 of Brahma. From the arm or shoulder of the Deity there 
 sprang the warrior or Kshattrya caste; from the breast, the 
 seat of life, the Vaisya or productive caste emanated ; and 
 from the foot the Sudra or servile classes had their origin. 
 Among the Hindus caste is not the effect of circumstances, 
 neither is it a merely social arrangement : it is an essential 
 and unchangeable ordinance, the greatest sticklers for which 
 are to be found not merely among the Brahmins, who may 
 be supposed to be personally interested in its retention, but, 
 strange to say, among the Sudras, who are the victims of 
 its austerity throughout their whole lives. The mere eating 
 from a vessel used to contain the food of a person of 
 another caste is enough to produce contamination ; and 
 the man who infringes his caste is cut off by that very act 
 from human society. How great must be the penalty of 
 the convert to Christianity in a land which is under bondage 
 to this ordinance is evident on the slightest consideration. 
 The reception of baptism, the worshipping in a Christian 
 church side by side with the alien race, the partaking from 
 the same chalice and from the hands of the alien priest the 
 Holy Eucharist, estranges him at once and for ever from 
 his family and friends ; and this among a people in whose 
 estimation family ties are unusually powerful. Surely the 
 convert in India is won with greater toil and in the face of 
 greater opposition than ever met the evangelisers of ancient 
 
12 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Greece or Rome. Those nations had no * sacred books 
 which the people regarded as the immediate revelation of 
 the Deity. They had no priestly caste, with whose power 
 the people conceived that their own independence was 
 wrapped up. It is true that the Greeks and Romans per- 
 secuted the professors of the new and suspected faith. 
 They often cried, “ Christianos ad leones ! ” But though 
 the Christian was persecuted to the death, he was not 
 placed out of the pale of humanity, which is the lot of the 
 Hindu convert who gives up his caste. 
 
 It is against such a religious system as this that the 
 evangelist has to contend, and in the struggle he has need 
 of profoundest wisdom and patience : on the one hand he 
 sees a system of foul idolatry, the inevitable effect of which 
 is to degrade and enslave the people among whom it is 
 dominant, and he is tempted to think of it and to act 
 towards it as being wholly an accursed thing : on the other 
 hand he should remember that this system, be it what it 
 may, acts as a restraint on the poor pagan, withholds him 
 from crime, — from motives of fear it is true and not of love, — 
 leads him to many acts of prayer and of self-denial, and is 
 the only spiritual food, poor and unsatisfying no doubt in 
 the eyes of more favoured people, which the wisdom of God 
 has yet placed within the reach of a majority of the earth’s 
 inhabitants : and so if he be wise he will feel with St. Augus- 
 tine that in every religion, however many its errors, there is 
 some real and divine truth. When the missionary meets 
 with the lower types of Indian races and confronts the gross 
 systems of religion which prevail among the aboriginal 
 tribes, the difficulty of accepting this precept will become 
 still harder. 
 
 Thus we see how many are the qualifications required in 
 those who would be evangelisers of the East. Not only 
 must they have the gift of acquiring rapidly some at least of 
 
INDIA, 
 
 13 
 
 the many languages which are spoken ; not only must they 
 add to the civilisation and the highest cultivation of the 
 West an intimate acquaintance with the far older civilisation 
 of the East, and a familiarity with those religious systems, 
 each of which may well be the study of a life : they must add 
 to these the graces of patience, faith, long-suffering — be 
 ready to seize on what of good is to be found amid a mass 
 of corruption, the particles of gold embedded in the clay, 
 and after all be prepared to see no result of their toils, and 
 yet to labour on without losing hope in their work, or faith 
 in the tidings which they have to deliver ! 
 
 These qualifications presuppose that men who possess 
 them are of the very highest type: and here the contrast 
 between the conquerors and evangelisers of India is very 
 marked. For the subjugation of the land the highest talent 
 has been available : the greatest generals, the best dis- 
 ciplined troops, the wisest administrators have proudly given 
 themselves to the task : it is no depreciation of services so 
 distinguished to say that rewards the most splendid were to 
 be reaped by those who rendered them : they were the 
 representatives of the most powerful nation of the West, 
 and all the appliances which wealth and skill could afford 
 were at their command. Among the soldiers of the Cross 
 there has been devotion and chivalry as great as any age 
 of the world can show : and in the ranks of the missionary 
 army which has besieged the strongholds of Eastern 
 superstition, there have been men of the very highest intel- 
 lectual gifts ; but these have necessarily been few. The 
 prestige of the English nation has injured rather than pro- 
 moted their work : they have been identified with the con- 
 quering race without receiving the homage which is rendered 
 to victorious arms : the Portuguese missionaries received 
 support both material and moral from their own sovereign ; 
 the missionaries as well of Nonconformist bodies as of the 
 
14 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Church have received at no time support, but in many in- 
 stances actual opposition, amounting in the earlier days of our 
 rule to direct prohibition, when attempting the work which 
 they had left their homes to perform. The Government by 
 maintaining a very economical establishment of bishops and 
 chaplains for the spiritual benefit of our soldiers has shown 
 that we are not altogether a creedless people : but the con- 
 nection which exists at present between the State and the 
 Church at home has never in the slightest degree forwarded 
 the work of the Church in India. From the first it has 
 dwarfed, crippled, and repressed it. The existence of the 
 episcopate was deferred for many years ; and when at length, 
 in 1814, Bishop Middleton was consecrated Bishop of 
 Calcutta, having for his diocese the whole of India, to 
 which were added at various times, Ceylon, Mauritius, 
 Australia, and New Zealand, he was consecrated in private 
 as though the episcopate was a feeble concession made to 
 the foolish but troublesome importunity of a few fanatics; 
 his consecration sermon was suppressed, and he was sent out 
 to India as something contraband to find twenty English 
 regiments without a single chaplain to minister to them ! 
 And though the non-Indian Appendages of the See have 
 long since been formed, chiefly by private munificence, into 
 separate Sees, and India itself has three bishops to care for 
 more than one hundred and fifty millions of souls, inexplic- 
 able reasons of state policy alone hinder a vast extension 
 of the Indian episcopate. The portion of the diocese of 
 Calcutta on this side of the Ganges, is as far as from Lon- 
 don to Constantinople ; the portion on the farther side of 
 the Ganges is about half as long, and if the bishop would 
 speak to the people committed to his care in their own 
 tongue the wonderful works of God, he must acquire some 
 fourteen languages, while the Bishop of Madras would have 
 to learn only six, and the Bishop of Bombay five principal 
 
INDIA. 
 
 ^5 
 
 languages. Successive bishops have urged the evident 
 necessity of dividing a diocese so huge and unwieldy : the 
 feeling at home is so strong that the money required for the 
 purpose would immediately be forthcoming, but in vain are 
 attempts made to give to our spiritual warfare the benefit of 
 more perfect organisation. 
 
 It has been calculated that the missionaries of all Chris- 
 tian bodies in India have been in the proportion of i to 
 200,000 of the population. Of the majority of these it is no 
 disparagement to say that they have not been men of the 
 very highest intellectual calibre. However great their devo- 
 tion, and however useful their labours, the case could hardly 
 have been different : the funds available have not been on 
 a scale to command or to compensate great talent, being 
 supplied not from the Imperial Treasury, but from the pre- 
 carious offerings of devout people, the larger portion of 
 whom do not belong to the wealthier classes, but who make 
 sacrifices for the propagation of what is the ground of their 
 own faith and hope. On meagre stipends, without the sym- 
 pathy, but not always without the jealousy of those in 
 power, our missionaries have done their work : added to 
 their other difficulties they have had the very serious one 
 which the evil lives of professing Christians have presented 
 to observant heathens ; and it must always be remembered 
 that moral conquests are far more difficult of achievement 
 than material ones. The man who is conquered by sword 
 and spear yields to the force of circumstances which he 
 can no longer withstand : the man who is taken captive by 
 spiritual weapons yields of his own free-will, and confesses 
 that hitherto he has been living in error and in ignorance. 
 
III. 
 
 Before considering the more remarkable of those who, 
 living at different times and representing various religious 
 bodies, have laboured for the conversion of India, it may 
 be worth while to glance at the opportunities which have 
 been offered to that land, within the times whose history is 
 authentic, of learning something of a purer faith. 
 
 It is more than a mere supposition that the ancestors of 
 the Jewish communities, who are even now settled in Bom- 
 bay, arrived in India before the invasion of Alexander. 
 They must have brought with them the books of the Law, 
 the knowledge of the true God and the expectation of the 
 Messiah ; there is more than presumptive evidence that the 
 Gospel was preached, if not by St. Thomas himself, yet by 
 his disciples, in the earliest age of our era, that numerous 
 converts were made among the J ews and among the heathen 
 by these early missionaries in the maritime provinces of 
 Southern India, and that these Christians, driven by per- 
 secution across the Peninsula to the Malabar Coast, took 
 refuge in Travancore. It is certain that a Christian Church, 
 deriving its bishops from the patriarchs of Antioch and 
 Babylon, has existed in Malabar and in the neighbourhood 
 of Cape Comorin for more than fifteen centuries, and that so 
 early as the ninth century the character of its members 
 attracted the notice of the native princes, who granted to 
 them certain privileges in token of the esteem in which they 
 held them. From time to time messengers and missionaries 
 
INDIA, 
 
 17 
 
 were sent from the Churches of Europe and Western Asia to 
 visit their Eastern brethren and to instruct them more fully. 
 Our own Alfred the Great sent missionaries from his remote 
 and semi-barbarous kingdom, that was destined one day to 
 possess the whole peninsula of Hindostan. As Mahomet- 
 anism declined from its early vigour, and literature and 
 trade emerged from the desolation in which the overthrow 
 of the Roman Empire had involved them, explorers, both 
 laymen and clerks, availed themselves of the opportunity of 
 Eastern travel. The Scriptures found a place in more than 
 one Indian library, and the morality which they inculcated 
 could not but be felt. Meanwhile the St Thom^ Christians 
 in Malabar, although infected with Nestorianism and other 
 superstitions, remained ignorant of the Papal supremacy, 
 the cultus of the Virgin Mary, and transubstantiation, until 
 the arrival of the Portuguese in the latter half of the fifteenth 
 century. They welcomed their European fellow-Christians 
 as brethren, but disputed points of doctrine soon estranged 
 them, and on the expulsion of the Portuguese from India, 
 some sixty years later, the Malabar congregations on the 
 coast were absorbed into the Church of Rome, and the 
 churches of the interior regained their independence. A 
 Syrian bishop has assisted at ordinations held by the late 
 Bishop Wilson of Calcutta and Bishop CaiT of Bombay, and 
 it is impossible not to feel a lively interest in every effort 
 made with a view to intercommunion with so venerable a 
 branch of the Catholic Church. 
 
 The part that Xavier played in familiarising the native 
 races with the existence of the Christian creed can never be 
 exaggerated : the numbers of his converts may be fabulous, 
 his method of attracting them must be open to question, but 
 his zeal and unsparing self-devotion lighted a fire that never 
 has been quenched. One of his axioms is a golden saying, 
 which should ever be treasured not only by the missionary 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 to the heathen, but by all professing Christians who live in 
 the midst of heathens. It is as follows : — 
 
 “ The living exhibition of the Christian character is the 
 lirst great instrument of Christian conquests over idolatry : 
 the inculcation of Christian truth is the second/^ 
 
 After Xavier, the next name of note in the roll of those 
 who have contributed to the conversion of India is that of 
 Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, in 1706. The Danish sovereign 
 and people were deeply impressed with the duty of mission- 
 ary work, alnd many a time they received the missionaries of 
 the English Church, and harboured them in safety within 
 their own territory, when the British authorities, through fear 
 of arousing the jealousy of the natives, forbade them to land 
 on the shore of India, or at least to remain on British soil. 
 Even Ziegenbalg, although sent out with the full approval of 
 Frederick IV., was discouraged and opposed by the Danish 
 authorities themselves on the spot. Nothing disheartened, 
 he and his companions gave themselves to prayer and study; 
 as the Jesuits had done, they especially laboured to acquire 
 the Tamul language, and were soon able to converse and 
 preach with fluency. Their mission extended, but the funds 
 which they had hitherto received from Denmark decreased, 
 and were supplemented both by the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge and the daughter Society for the Pro- 
 pagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which latter society 
 in 1709, out of an income of less than ^ 1,400, gave the sum 
 of ;^2o. With Ziegenbalg's death, funds from Denmark 
 almost ceased, and the Danish missions were adopted by 
 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
 
 Thus from time to time, from the beginning of the historic 
 period, some witness of the true God and of the Christianas 
 hope was brought to Hindostan. Now a company of Jews, 
 now an embassy from a Western Power, now a simple 
 traveller, now an artist or student, left some word or deed 
 
INDIA. 
 
 19 
 
 behind him, which was destined to prepare the way for the 
 missionary who was to come in later days, while the Malabar 
 Church never ceased within its narrow limits to set forth the 
 visible machinery of a Christian community. The chaplains 
 who were maintained by the State, although few in number 
 and unable generally to divert their attention from the 
 soldiers, who formed their flock, to the heathen around, in- 
 directly exercised a great influence in favour of Christianity : 
 not for what they did in their own persons, although, indeed, 
 some of them were bright examples of missionary zeal, but 
 because they were the living witnesses of the fact that the 
 country which sent them out had a national creed and was 
 not ashamed to profess it. Such a policy is entirely con- 
 sonant with Eastern ideas, which would regard a creedless 
 nation as an anomaly too 'grotesque to be possible. The 
 oriental mind comprehends difference of religion, what it 
 cannot comprehend is no religion. Brahmin may despise the 
 unprivileged European, the Buddhist may be shocked at the 
 man who destroys life and displays no extravagant asceticism ; 
 the Mahometan may proudly keep aloof from him who 
 adheres to his own Prophet Jesa ; but the bitterest contempt 
 of all three classes will be reserved for the man who appearj; 
 to have no God : who never worships nor prays, who has no 
 outward shrine or symbol of his faith and in that re- 
 markable State Paper of 1858, in which the Sovereign of 
 England proclaimed her assumption of the sovereignty of 
 India, there was nothing which so impressed the native mind 
 as the passages in which, while all her subjects were promised 
 fullest toleration for their religious feelings, Her Majesty 
 declared her firm adherence to her own creed. 
 
 In these papers it has been the writer’s intention to dwell 
 at length only on the labours of men who have lived within 
 
 * Ramsden Sermon^ 1^59) late Dean Milman, 
 
 C 2 
 
30 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 the present century ; but it is impossible worthily to deal 
 \with the question of Indian missions without tracing the 
 history of such work from the beginning, and dealing, how- 
 ever briefly, with some of the many secondary matters which 
 surround a problem so intricate. Three men, differing in 
 most things from each other as widely as it is possible for 
 men to differ, remain to be considered in the present paper, 
 • two of whom continued their labours into the nineteenth 
 century. They are Schwartz, Henry Martyn, and William 
 Carey : Lutheran, English Churchman, and Baptist, — one 
 of gentle birth, one from the lower middle-class, one from 
 the lower artisan class, — one a German student, one a 
 senior wrangler, one a self-taught man, — they all laboured, 
 each in his separate fashion, for one common end ; and 
 when we come to estimate the results of those labours, it 
 may be that the man of fewest intellectual gifts will be found 
 to have left the deepest mark, and to have done more than 
 his two cotemporaries towards the perfection of that work at 
 which they all aimed. 
 
 Christian Friedrich Schwartz was born in 1726, in Bran- 
 denburg, and his mother, who died before he was old 
 \ enough to remember her, dedicated her child to God while 
 . on her deathbed, and charged her pastor and her husband 
 to fpster any inclination for the ministerial office which might 
 appear in his growing up. No such inclination was visible 
 for many years : at length he met with a Danish missionary 
 Avho had returned to Germany to carry through the press a 
 version of part of the Bible in Tamul, and from him he con- 
 ceived the idea of offering himself for the work in which his 
 friend was engaged. He at once met with the hindrances 
 which have kept so many men out of the mission field : his 
 friends opposed his scheme — he was the eldest son and it 
 was improbable that his father would allow him to go. But 
 the conduct of that devout father reminds us of the conduct 
 
INDIA, 
 
 2 I 
 
 of another ‘Christian parent who, some century later, gave 
 up his eldest son to the work of God in the South Pacific 
 Ocean. The elder Schwartz devoted three days to prayer, 
 and at the end of them, coming down gravely from his 
 chamber, he called his son, gave him his blessing and bade 
 him depart in the name of God and win many souls to 
 Christ. 
 
 It is not intended to sketch at any length the labours of 
 one whose career is familiar to all who have any acquaint- 
 ance with missionary work. The blessing of his good father 
 seems to have accompanied him in his work : he attracted 
 companions of like mind with himself ; their simple habits, 
 which indeed were rigidly ascetic, made a great impression 
 on the heathen, who regard asceticism and self-denial as 
 necessary accompaniments of religious faith. They travelled, 
 two and two, on foot through the villages ; their German 
 patience and endurance, their steady judgment, their mar- 
 vellous integrity influenced all. Schwartz himself seems to 
 have had a gift of acquiring languages which has only been 
 equalled in modern times by the martyred Bishop of Me- 
 lanesia, with whom we have already compared him, and while 
 disregarding all comfort, he had a native dignity which gave 
 him power over rajahs and attracted to him the humblest 
 Shanar. After long training at the mission station whicli the 
 Danes established at Tranquebar, he went, just a century ago, 
 and founded the first mission in Tinnevelly, still the brightest 
 spot in India, where now Christian villages ministered to by 
 native priests and deacons, and raising among themselves 
 much of the worldly means required for the ministry of the 
 Word and Sacraments, stand forth in beautiful contrast with 
 the sullen heathenism around, the living epistle and abiding 
 fruit of that act of faith by which in distant Germany a de- 
 vout Lutheran dedicated his first-born to the service of God. 
 When, in 1798, Schwartz breathed his last, he could pohU 
 
22 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 to hundreds of converts, to multitudes of peasants saved 
 from oppression and starvation, to a higher tone of adminis- 
 tration throughout the different departments of the Govern- 
 ment, and respect won for the office of a missionary from 
 the heathen rajahs, as well as from the poorest of their 
 subjects. For some years before his death increasing in- 
 firmities had hindered him from taking the long journeys he 
 had been wont to make, but he preached to the people as 
 vigorously as ever, seated in a huge bamboo chair, which 
 is now an honoured possession of the Ven. Archdeacon 
 Robinson, himself the friend and chaplain of Heber. 
 
 William Carey, whom we have called a self-educated 
 man, was born in 1761, in Northamptonshire; what little 
 education he received was given to him by his father, who 
 kept a school, but the teaching given in a village school 
 more than a hundred years ago must have been very 
 limited, and it is only the truth that he educated himself 
 He was an ardent student : he picked up Latin for himself, 
 and after being apprenticed at the age of fourteen to a 
 cobbler, he, by a laborious process, acquired a knowledge 
 of the Greek Testament. 
 
 Coming under the notice of Scott, the Commentator, he 
 joined the Baptist sect, and began to preach at the age of 
 eighteen. Whether he was an indifferent shoemaker or 
 whether his preaching tours interfered with his trade, we 
 know not, but it is certain that he had difficulty in earning 
 a maintenance, while an unhappy marriage and perpetual 
 ill-health added to his anxieties. At the age of twenty-five 
 he obtained the pastorship of a chapel, which was worth 16 
 per annum, and a school, which was a failure in his hands, 
 continuing also to work at his trade. The geography lessons 
 touched a chord in his heart ; he knew little enough of the 
 science, but he pasted up sheets of paper on the walls of his 
 little shop, and the broad tracts of heathenism, compared 
 
INDIA, 
 
 23 
 
 with the little spots which denoted the presence of Chris- 
 tianity, led him to brood over the subject and filled him 
 with a longing to give himself to the work of evangelisation. 
 The many difficulties that stood in his way we have not 
 space to record ; some seem in these days almost incredible. 
 Proposing for a subject of consideration at a Ministers* 
 Meeting, “ The Duty of attempting to spread the Gospel 
 among the Heathen,** he was at once silenced and told that 
 if God wished to convert the heathen. He could do it with- 
 out human aid. The Calvinism both of his own sect and 
 of the Scotch Kirk in those times declared missionary work 
 “highly preposterous,’* and regarded missionaries themselves 
 as rightly suspected by the Government Succeeding after 
 infinite pains in reaching Calcutta, only heavier misfortunes 
 befell him. He struggled on alone till 1799, when he was 
 joined by four other Baptist teachers, among whom was 
 Marshman. These had no sooner landed than a panic 
 arose at the mischief which they would do, and they were 
 ordered to re-embark ; but they found shelter in the Danish 
 mission at Seram pore, which was to become in time the 
 centre from which many missions would emanate, while its 
 light attracted labourers from other countries, and of other 
 denominations, to undertake the work which this struggling 
 liandful of weakened, suffering men were trying to do. 
 Printing, translating, keeping school, preaching in the 
 streets, this little body laboured on, receiving no help from, 
 but much suspected by, those in power. A change was at 
 hand— Lord Wellesley had founded the college in Fort 
 William, in which Europeans should be trained in native 
 languages, and laws, and customs, in order to fit them for 
 the Civil Service, and when all was provided except the 
 teacher, the only qualified person to be found was the mis- 
 sionary cobbler who had acquired the Bengalee for the love 
 of God. He was made, nay, asked to become the teacher 
 
24 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 with a salary of ;£ 6 oo a-year, and the Government that had 
 forbidden him to land, was now glad to secure his services 
 and to consent to his continuing his missionary work as well. 
 The salary thus earned kept the Serampore community free 
 from anxiety on the score of money. Not without many 
 fluctuations the trio of friends, Carey, Ward, and Marshman, 
 struggled on until 1823, when Ward died of cholera; Garey 
 died in 1834, in his seventy-third year, and Marshman fol- 
 lowed in 1837, his latter days being clouded by the shock 
 he received at the danger of his daughter, the wife of 
 Lieutenant Havelock, who twenty years later was the best 
 known and most honoured soldier in India. The Seram- 
 pore Mission was then once more connected with the 
 Baptist community. Carey had not lived in vain : he 
 kindled the flame of missionary zeal in England as Xavier 
 had done long before in India. From America and from 
 England other spirits were drawn to the work ; and among 
 the latter was Henry Martyn. 
 
 It was the recital of Carey's life's story in the rooms of 
 the Rev. Charles Simeon, that first suggested to Martyn the 
 missionary career which he adopted : but it was ; as a chap- 
 lain, and not as a missionary, that he went to India. We 
 have said in the previous paper that the evangelisation of 
 India has not attracted men of such genius as did its con- 
 quest ; but a comparison between Carey and Martyn leads 
 us to qualify that remark, and to observe that often, where 
 God gives that especial grace for missions which appears 
 only once in a generation, it seems to be almost inde- 
 pendent of school and university. The senior wrangler has 
 left no mark worthy to be compared with the result of 
 Care); 's labours ; it is true his abilities were hampered by a 
 narrow and gloomy spirit, made morbid by incessant self- 
 introspection and a dread of everything bright and cheerful 
 It was not likely that a mind so little able to sympathise 
 
INDIA. 
 
 25 
 
 with odiers should attract or impress : the few who knew 
 Martyn well, admired him and entertained for him a love 
 not unmingled with awe ; but to the majority he seemed 
 ungenial and repellent He left behind him the example of 
 his devoted zeal — may we not add the warning of a cramped, 
 unsympathising spirit ? His translations were the works of 
 an accurate and elegant scholar, and probably no other man 
 could have done them so well. He died at the early age of 
 thirty-one, a stranger in a strange land, with no European 
 near to receive his last words or to support him in his last 
 moments. Firmly and without flinching he bore the burden 
 and heat of his brief day, and, doubtless, service so devoted 
 has met with the only reward he could have desired. The 
 contemplation of his career makes us regret that mere faults 
 of temper and manner should have dwarfed capacities sg 
 great and so promising. 
 
26 
 
 IV. 
 
 It has been already mentioned that when, in 1814, the 
 Bishopric of Calcutta was established by letters patent, the 
 concession thus made on the part of the Government was a 
 grudging one, that the consecration took place in private, 
 that the sermon was not printed but suppressed, and that 
 the bishop was sent out to India almost as though the 
 whole transaction were fraudulent. But it was a great step 
 to get the episcopate at all : our missions — strange anomaly ! 
 were carried on by Lutheran pastors, and the system of the 
 English Church was a scarcely-veiled Presbyterianism, with- 
 out the discipline and organisation which Presbyterianism 
 pure and simple would have enjoyed. The first bishop was 
 an exceedingly happy selection : a profound scholar, a well- 
 read divine, an experienced parish priest, taking a lively 
 interest in those societies which the increased spiritual life 
 of the mother country was bringing into existence, he surely 
 was chosen for his onerous office by the great Head of the 
 Church. The preparation which Bishop Middleton made 
 for his five months’ voyage in the ‘‘Warren Hastings,” 
 fitting up the stem cabin “widi a library of more than a 
 hundred works, Hebrew, Greek, Persian, Latin, French, 
 English — theology, classics, mathematics, history, and poetry,” 
 contrasts strongly with the rapid transit of an Indian bishop 
 now, who rushes through Europe and is installed in his 
 cathedral within a month of his leaving England : the 
 advantages are much in favour of the modern missionary. 
 
INDIA, 
 
 27 
 
 and the same means which bring him so quickly to the 
 field of his labours, enable him to get through much more 
 work than was possible to his predecessors. 
 
 Bishop Middleton found enough to occupy a long epis- 
 copate in putting into order the existing Church machinei*}^ ; 
 and had he given no attention to missionary work among 
 the heathen, he would have been open to no severe 
 criticism. Scarcely a decent church was to be found ; 
 services were held in verandahs, in riding -schools, any- 
 where ; many of the chaplains had no desire for episcopal 
 rule, and persisted in regarding the Governor-General as 
 their bishop. Moreover, he was thwarted at every turn by 
 the unelastic tendency of the legislation adopted for the 
 Church at home, and in no degree calculated for the 
 Church when brought in contact with heathenism. Thus, 
 when he wished to ordain some catechists who had been 
 trained by Schwartz, the miserable doubt beset him whether 
 the Act of Uniformity contemplated or allowed the service 
 to be used in a language other than English ; and whether 
 tl>e oath of supremacy, which, not being British subjects, 
 they were unable to take, might be dispensed with. As 
 though the burden were not enough already, the Govern- 
 ment extended his letters patent in 1817 so as to include 
 Ceylon; and in 1823 there was added the care ‘‘ of all 
 British subjects within the limits of the East India Com- 
 pany’s Charter” all Asia), “ and in islands north of the 
 Equator, and all places between the Cape of Good Hope 
 and Magellan’s Straits;” and again, in 1824, New South 
 Wales and its dependencies,” — including, that is. New Zea- 
 land and Tasmania, — were added to the nominal (for it could 
 only be the nominal) government of the Bishop of Cal- 
 cutta. ^ 
 
 But the far-seeing mind of Middleton at once was im- 
 pressed with the fact that the only way to plant Christianity 
 
28 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 in a heathen land is to train up patiently but boldly a 
 ministry from among the converts who may be given to the 
 missionary's toil. In 1820 he had the happiness of laying 
 the foundation-stone of Bishop^s College, near to the city 
 of Calcutta; and he rightly regarded this as the probable 
 nursery of a native clergy. Other subsidiary purposes the 
 college was intended to serve, and these intentions have 
 been realised : from its press translations of the Psalms and 
 other works required for the missions have issued ; within 
 the college walls missionaries have ever received a wel- 
 come; it has afforded a high education to many youths, 
 Native, Eurasian, and European ; like the more modern 
 Cathedral Mission College, which is the creation of the 
 Church Missionary Society, it has sent many students to 
 compete for degrees at the Calcutta University. This last 
 work, it must be admitted, does not seem to fall within the 
 scope of a missionary institution : the excellent schools 
 planted everywhere throughout India now supersede the 
 necessity which once existed for Christian teachers to impart 
 secular learning only or even primarily ; and it is a pity 
 to divert their energies to work which does not fall within 
 the scope of their proper duty. 
 
 The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in whose 
 hands the management of Bishop's College is vested, has 
 for years been endeavouring to utilise the foundation more 
 thoroughly, while aiming perhaps at giving a less profound 
 education. It seems only reasonable to think that by a 
 careful selection of promising youths, who have given proof 
 of their sincerity by working, in subordinate positions, in 
 the various missions, a body of Christian teachers might be 
 raised up within the walls of Bishop's College, who, retain- 
 ing their simple habits of life and their native dress, might 
 go back to their heathen friends in no degree demoralised 
 by the adoption of western habits (which an Englishman 
 
INDIA, 
 
 29 
 
 cannot safely lay aside), but strengthened by contact with 
 more powerful intellects and impressed by the daily services 
 and devotions of college life, and determined to commu- 
 nicate what they have themselves received. It must be 
 confessed that hitherto Bishop Middleton’s wishes have, in 
 this one respect, not been realised. 
 
 Amid his many cares the good bishop found time to visit 
 the whole of his diocese within the limits of India proper, 
 Bombay, Ceylon, and Madras, a work of infinitely 
 greater toil in those days than now; but in 1822 he suc- 
 cumbed, utterly worn out by anxiety and toil. 
 
 Reginald Heber, the second bishop, is perhaps the best 
 known of all the band of missionaries that England has 
 sent out. It was not so common an occurrence then 
 (indeed, the opportunity was not given), as it has been 
 since, for men of high attainments and gentle birth and 
 brilliant prospects to accept the labours of the colonial 
 episcopate, often on an income which a successful trades- 
 man would despise. 
 
 Heber found the advantage of entering into the labours 
 of such a man as Middleton ; the laws which had been 
 supposed to forbid the ordination of foreigners had been 
 relaxed, and he had the privilege of admitting the first 
 native to the ministry of the Church. A visitation of his 
 diocese occupied him for considerably more than a year. 
 For ten months he was separated from his wife, who joined 
 him at Surat, and went with him to Bombay and Ceylon ; 
 and in 1826, within tliree years of his consecration, he 
 died while ministering, to his own great delight, to the 
 converts whom Schwartz had made in Trichinopoly. 
 
 The brief episcopates of Bishops James and Turner were 
 followed by the lengthened labours of Bishop Wilson, whose 
 vigorous administration made itself felt for twenty-six years. 
 At the age of fifty-four he was ready and willing to fill the 
 
30 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 gap in which four bishops, all younger than himself, had 
 died within nine years. He was the first bishop to visit 
 Penang and Burmah, in which last country he saw a good 
 deal of Judson and the American Mission; and he waged 
 a desperate and unflinching war with the question of caste, 
 which, itself contrary to the equality of the Gospel, aflbrded 
 an opportunity, and even an inducement to converts to 
 revert to their heathenism, whereas, when once it was 
 broken, the Rubicon was irrevocably crossed. 
 
 In 1835 he had the happiness of seeing the Madras 
 Presidency formed into a bishopric, and two years later the 
 Diocese of Bombay was constituted : the two first bishops 
 of these new sees were his own trusted and well-loved 
 friends. In 1847 consecrated the Cathedral of Calcutta, 
 to which he had himself contributed ;^2 0,000 ; the non- 
 Indian portions of his diocese had been divided and sub- 
 divided into separate sees ; he had visited Borneo, and there 
 consecrated the church built by Sir J. Brooke at Sarawak ; 
 and in 1856 he, together with the Bishops of Madras and 
 Victoria, consecrated to the missionary see of Labuan that 
 noble pioneer of the Gospel, Bishop McDougall, the first 
 bishop in Anglican Orders consecrated beyond the limits of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 The old prelate’s last days were days of national sor- 
 row and humiliation. His last sermon was preached on 
 July 24th, 1857, the day appointed by himself (but ignored 
 by the civil officials) as a day of fasting under the cala- 
 mitous mutiny. Slaughter seemed at the gates ; Sir Henry 
 Lawrence was dead ; what might be the tidings from Cawn- 
 pore and I^ucknow no one knew, nor cared to ask ; but the 
 old man’s natural force was in no degree abated. He 
 consoled and cheered, he prayed and guided, and at the 
 same time declared that the present troubles were punish- 
 ments for the timid and unchristian policy of the Govern- 
 
INDIA. 
 
 31 
 
 ment and the vicious and irreligious lives of too many of 
 the people. 
 
 The bishop who succeeded Bishop Wilson had not only 
 to take up the vast amount of work which that active brain 
 had originated : the time at which he entered on his work 
 was altogether unprecedented; the mutiny was quelled, but 
 the country was not yet pacified ; the rumblings of the strife 
 were still to be heard in the north-west ; the country had to be 
 settled, the disaffected curbed, the conquered encouraged to 
 subordination ; the missions had to be re-established, in 
 some instances to be built up again from the foundations 
 which were red with the blood of pastors and catechists who 
 had been murdered at their posts. It was a wise choice that 
 selected for a position of such unparalleled difficulty George 
 Edward Lynch Cotton. He never sought the high office of 
 Metropolitan of India : he was called to it, and, so far as 
 his own inclination went, he shrank from it unfeignedly, and 
 on the morning of his consecration he spoke of the office 
 that was to be entrusted to him as “a burthen,” the laying 
 down of which he could leave “ cheerfully and confidently 
 in God’s hands.” His intellectual powers were just those 
 which fit a man to cope with the subtle oriental mind, and 
 his calmness of judgment and unvarying sense of what was 
 equitable led him always to accord to an opponent’s position 
 a careful and painstaking consideration. With the work of 
 missions, while he lived at home, he had never shown any 
 warm sympathy, but on this and many other subjects his 
 views underwent a great change. Year after year he learned 
 more and more, and as he learned, he had the manliness to 
 declare what he had learned ; indeed, with him to do so 
 was not manliness, which perhaps implies an effort — it was 
 the simple result of the sense of justice inherent in his mind. 
 Thus he wrote from Benares in 1862 : When I see all these 
 missionaries and their wives at work, wholly given up to the 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 32 
 
 endeavours to promote the highest welfare of these Hindus, 
 I feel that here is one great branch of the true evidence to 
 the reality of Christianity, and of many of its doctrines. The 
 other branch is the New Testament itself, . . . . and against 
 these proofs F. Newman and Theodore Parker and Comte 
 thunder in vain.^^ Again, in 1864, he wrote from Tinnevelly 
 to his successor at Marlborough, ‘^We have just finished a 
 fortnight’s most interesting visitation of the Tinnevelly Mis- 
 sions. I assure you that I have been deeply impressed with 
 the reality and thorough-going character of the whole busi- 
 ness, and I entreat you never to believe any insinuations 
 against missionary work in India, or to scruple to plead, or 
 allow to be pleaded, the cause of the S. P. G. or the 
 C. M. S.” 
 
 So with regard to the Baptismal Service and the Athana- 
 sian Creed, the bishop was careful to publish in his famous 
 charge of 1863, that he had learned much by coming to 
 India. On the latter topic he wrote : — 
 
 ‘‘The errors rebuked in the Athanasian Creed resulted 
 from tendencies common to the human mind everywhere, 
 
 and especially prevalent in this country It contains 
 
 no theory of the Divine Nature, but contradicts false 
 opinions about it, and states the revealed truths of the 
 Trinity and the Incarnation without any attempt to explain 
 them. It especially censures four errors : the heresy of 
 Arius, . . . of Sabellius, . . . ofNestorius, . . . of Appol- 
 iinarius. Now these four tendencies correspond to four 
 forms of error which are in full activity among us here. . . . 
 Now, if we remember that all these heresies sprang from 
 tendencies which have given birth to separate religions of 
 widely-extended influence, in the midst of which we in India 
 are living, we may surely pause before we expunge from the 
 records of our Church an ancient protest against the appli- 
 cation of these tendencies to Christianity, since whenever the 
 
INDIA, 
 
 33 
 
 educated classes of this country generally embrace the 
 Gospel, there will be need of watchfulness, lest its simplicity 
 be perverted by the revival of errors which all had their 
 origin in Eastern philosophy/’ 
 
 The activity of Bishop Cotton continued unabated, while 
 year by year, as his views enlarged and his experience of his 
 work was deepened, his energy was more and more fruitful 
 of results. Every cold season was devoted to the labour of 
 visitation, and the fact that the diocese (which had again 
 become, by the addition of new territories, as large as the 
 original diocese administered by Middleton and Heber) 
 could only be visited once in four years, induced him to 
 repeat the petition which had been made by Bishop Wilson 
 for a sub-division. Lahore and Rangoon were the two 
 towns which ought, in his opinion, to have been at once 
 made the seats of bishops. 
 
 The affairs of the Calcutta University received from him 
 much attention, and he delighted in receiving at the Palace 
 educated Hindus for discussions on controverted questions, 
 theological or otherwise. But the great work which specially 
 interested him, and which, indeed, was his own creation, was 
 the education of Anglo-Indian youth, of the middle as well 
 as of the poorer classes. It was the link between his old life 
 and his new, and he entered on it with eagerness. The con- 
 dition of India had been changing rapidly : it had become 
 like an ordinary colony. Instead of the English population 
 consisting chiefly of civil and military servants of the Crown, 
 railways, public works, telegraphs, and the like, had brought 
 out a large population belonging to a lower social stratum ; 
 these could not afford to send their children to England for 
 education, and if they kept them in the plains, they would 
 not only droop and wither under the scorching climate, but 
 would be demoralised by contact with native heathen 
 servants. The bishop’s idea was to erect schools for these 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 in the Himalayas, and he claimed help for their endowment 
 as a duty on the part of Englishmen who had reaped the 
 benefit of such endowments in public schools at home. 
 Through the Additional Clergy Society he also managed to 
 provide the ministrations of the Church for the increasing 
 class of Eurasians and Europeans who came under the care 
 neither of chaplains nor of missionaries, and the future native 
 Church with its indigenous ministry was never lost sight of 
 by him. He looked forward to the time when foreign 
 Theodores and Augustines would be succeeded by Indian 
 Stigands and Lanfrancs ; and in the hands of intellectual 
 Orientals, built up in sound learning, he thought the “ daily 
 disputing in the bazaars or under the trees would prove a 
 more potent instrument of conversion than when carried on 
 by Europeans. 
 
 In August, 1866, the bishop left Calcutta for Assam, to 
 visit the tea planters, who were living pretty much cut off 
 from religious privileges, and the missions of the Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel in that province. On 
 October 3, when the tour was nearly ended, and some of 
 the party had already returned to Calcutta by train, the 
 bishop halted at Kooshtea and consecrated the cemetery, 
 telling his hearers that such consecrations were ‘Tor the 
 benefit of the living, not of the dead ; that departed souls 
 suffered no injury, if their bodies were left in a desert place 
 or on a field of battle, or in any other way were unable to 
 obtain the rites of burial.'' In the deepening gloom of the 
 coming night he turned his steps to his vessel, which he was 
 destined never to reach. In crossing the plank he must 
 have slipped : a splash was heard and he was seen no more. 
 The efforts made at first to rescue him from death, and after- 
 wards to recover his dead body, were alike in vain. The 
 rapid current of the Indian river swept over him, and his 
 labours were ended ! 
 
35 
 
 V. 
 
 When Bishop Milman sailed for Calcutta, in Februar)^, 
 1867, a fortnight after his consecration, he found the diocese 
 in a better state of organisation than any of his predecessors 
 had received it. Middleton and Heber had to reduce 
 chaos to order, and the effects of Bishop Wilson’s rule had 
 been temporarily destroyed by the mutiny : but the eight 
 years of Bishop Cotton’s statesmanlike administration had 
 not only restored but had also extended the organisation 
 which had once existed, and many new fields of work had 
 been opened. As this paper will deal with the Presidency of 
 Bengal, the present seems to be a convenient time to take a 
 survey of the missions of that district from the beginning, 
 and to glance at their present conditions and prospects. 
 The Church Missionary Society began their missions in 
 Calcutta in 1815, and the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel in 1818. It had been part of Bishop Middleton’s 
 far-seeing plans to establish gradually good vernacular 
 schools within reach of as many of the native population as 
 possible. Three circles of missionary schools were formed 
 by the latter society in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 Calcutta, — viz., Tollygunge, Howrah, and Cossipore. How- 
 rah, which is the Wapping of Calcutta, has not progressed 
 as well as the other two circles. In the marshy, malarious 
 districts of the Sunderbunds, with a climate that may well 
 be called deadly, missionaries have laboured and lived 
 and died, and the results of their labours are now abundant. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 The Mission of Tollygunge is for ever connected with 
 the name of Charles Driberg, who, as the senior missionary, 
 has been almost the bishop of a large circle of missions. 
 When Bishop Heber visited Ceylon he stayed with a Cap- 
 tain Driberg, of the Ceylon Rifles, and was struck by the 
 intelligence of his two sons, who ultimately came to Bishop’s 
 College, where they were under the Principal, Dr. Mill, the 
 future Christian Advocate of Cambridge. For thirty-seven 
 years Charles Driberg was an ordained missionary of the 
 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. He was in the 
 very first rank as a Bengali scholar and preacher : offers of 
 preferment in England, or of service under the Indian 
 Government, he more than once or twice refused : his whole 
 heart was in his mission ; and on Easter Day, when, accord- 
 ing to custom, the Christians from the daughter missions com- 
 municated at the Mother Church at Tollygunge, he had the 
 happiness year by year of feeding hundreds of his spiritual 
 children with the bread of life. In 1871 this experienced mis- 
 sionary died at his post, and in the midst of daily extending work. 
 
 In Calcutta itself, and in its neighbourhood, both the 
 societies of the English Church are represented : the Society 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel possesses the educational 
 establishment known as Bishop’s College, on the opposite 
 side of the River Hooghley, and the Church Missionary 
 Society has its own college in Calcutta, which offers an 
 education of a high class. The Church Missionary Society 
 alone represents the Church of England in the Punjab and 
 Cashmir, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 seems to have appropriated Burmah and Assam as its own 
 sphere ; it has also recently adopted the German Mission at 
 Chota Nagpore. 
 
 In the year 1833 this society established a mission at Cawn- 
 pore, some 750 miles N.W. from Calcutta. It was already 
 sacred ground : here Henry Martyn had laboured, and had 
 
INDIA, 
 
 37 
 
 built a church, which, however, was no longer standing : here 
 Corrie, eminent amongst the chaplains of the East India 
 Company for his missionary zeal, had gathered together a 
 handful of converts : it was destined yet to receive a sub- 
 limer consecration by the death of Christian witnesses. The 
 missionaries established schools, and by using the cold 
 season for preaching tours managed to make their influence 
 felt over a large area. Some twenty years later the mission 
 was established at Delhi. The way had been prepared by a 
 devout chaplain, the Rev. M. Jennings. Delhi was rich in 
 historic association to the Hindu and to the Mahometan r. 
 to the former it recalled the glorious era, so distant as to be 
 almost mythical, when the Hindu rulers were the type of 
 chivalry, and had not known defeat ; to the latter it was 
 the capital of the Great Mogul, whose splendour many living 
 Mussulmans had seen and shared : even to the English its 
 imperial magnificence was a goodly sight, but to Mr. Jen- 
 nings, and a few pious souls who met in his house for 
 worship, the daily spectacle of 150,000 people given up to 
 idolatry or to fanatical Mahometanism, and some few among 
 them groping after the truth, touched their hearts, and they 
 resolved to collect money with which a mission might be 
 founded and maintained in this ancient capital. The first 
 fruits Mr. Jennings reaped himself. In 1852, Chimmum 
 Tail, the surgeon of the station, and I.ala Ram Chandra, 
 were publicly baptized after the second lesson at Evening 
 , Service. The event caused the greatest excitement among 
 the heathen, who crowded into the church and behaved 
 with much decorum, and the Christians offered prayers for 
 them, both publicly in church and in private, on the Friday 
 and Saturday previous : many, too, communicated on the 
 Sunday morning, whose hearts were full of the coming 
 event. Dr. Fall died a martyr’s death in 1857. Lala Ram 
 Chandra is still alive, and had a long interview with Bishop 
 
38 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Cotton when he visited Delhi in 1859; the Bishop wrote 
 of him : — 
 
 “ To-day Ram Chandra called, the native Christian, who 
 narrowly escaped death during the mutiny, but is now 
 established as the master of the Government School here, 
 and is the spiritual father of Tara Chand ” (a missionary 
 now at Delhi) ‘^and other converts. He is an able mathe- 
 matician, and his book on Maxima and Minima has been 
 published with a preface by De Morgan.^’ 
 
 In 1854 the mission was launched; two clergymen, the 
 Rev. J. Stuart Jackson, a Fellow, and A. R. Hubbard, a 
 Member of Caius College, Cambridge, came out from 
 England, and took up the work which had been prepared 
 for them. The future Bishop of the Zambesi, Charles 
 Frederic Mackenzie, was a Fellow of Caius, and was asked 
 by Mr. Jackson to find him colleagues : he felt that he 
 could not urge others to go while he remained at home, 
 and he volunteered himself for the Delhi Mission ; but the 
 remonstrances of friends, who told him his duty was to 
 remain at Cambridge and carry on the many good works 
 which his influence had enabled him to start, detained him 
 for awhile in this country. The missionaries laboured for 
 three years, established a good school, and got together a 
 little Christian congregation, and at the end of that time 
 Mr. Jackson was ordered to England on medical certificate. 
 Suddenly the Indian mutiny broke out : warning there 
 was none — the Government officials were as unprepared as 
 were the missionaries ; the whole of the North West Pro- 
 vinces were in terror and consternation. At Agra and 
 Lahore the English and the native Christians found shelter 
 within the walls ; the missions at Cawnpore and at Delhi 
 were utterly extinguished. At the former place, Messrs. 
 Haycock and Cockey were massacred ; at Delhi, the chap- 
 lain, Mr. Jennings, the real founder of the mission, his 
 
INDIA, 
 
 39 
 
 daughter, and Captain Douglas, a warm supporter of it, 
 were among the first victims ; Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Sandys, a 
 catechist, Mr. Mackay, a Baptist catechist, Mrs. Thompson, 
 and her two daughters, who belonged to the Baptist Mission, 
 were also killed. Ram Chandra escaped, but Dr. Chimmum 
 Tail, and a Baptist Christian converted from Mahometanism 
 were seized by the mutineers. They were offered life and 
 liberty as the price of forsaking their Christian profession, 
 but they wavered not for a moment, and the crown of 
 martyrdom *was won by them. Mr. Macallum, of the 
 Additional Clergy Society, was killed at Shahjehanpore, four 
 missionaries of the American Presbyterian Mission perished 
 with their families at Futteyguhr, and two members of the 
 same mission were killed at Sealcote. 
 
 Before the mutiny was quelled, the Society for the Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel invited volunteers for Delhi, and the 
 Rev. T. Skelton, a Fellow of Queen’s College, Cambridge, 
 re-founded the mission in 1859. About the same time the 
 Cawnpore Mission was built up from the desolation in which 
 it had been buried. At the latter place, Christ Church, the 
 Government church was restored, having been gutted by 
 the mutineers, and handed over to the society as a Memo- 
 rial Church. A large orphanage for boys and girls, with 
 church and school-house, has also been provided at Asrapur, 
 a suburb of Cawnpore. Bishop Cotton laid the first stone 
 of the Memorial Church, dedicated to St. Stephen, at Delhi, 
 in 1865. The church is strictly a Missionary Church. The 
 services, which are all in Hindustani, are held twice daily : 
 the Christian boys from St. Stephen’s College form the 
 surpliced choir : the lights at the evening services attract the 
 heathen, who remain quietly in the capacious porch and 
 listen to the service in their own tongue. The Church 
 Missionary Society has built a similar church near the prin- 
 cipal gate of the great Sikh city of Amritsir, where the 
 
40 
 
 UNDER ms BANNER. 
 
 heathen form a great part of the congregation. The Delhi 
 Mission has recently lost the services of the Rev. J. H. 
 Crowfoot, Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, whose great 
 erudition well qualified him for the work. He found his 
 help readily sought for by young natives who were studying 
 for the Calcutta University the books which he had himself 
 studied at Oxford, — Mill, Sir W. Hamilton, and the like. 
 The Rev. R. R. Winter, the senior missionary, has now been 
 at Delhi some thirteen years, and under his care, and that of 
 the Rev. Tara Chand’, a native, who was converted by Ram 
 Chandra, and ordained by Bishop Cotton, work of various 
 kinds has been carried on : the educated classes are visited, 
 and questions are discussed freely ; preaching tours are 
 made through the neighbouring districts in the cold season ; 
 an excellent Christian education is given in St. Stephen’s 
 College, and a Zenana mission of much promise has been 
 commenced on a large scale. 
 
 Prominence has been given to these two missions because 
 they acquired a painful notoriety from the fate which befel 
 them, alone of our Church missions, in the mutiny. The 
 Church Missionary Society . occupies Agra, Lucknow, 
 Lahore, and other stations extending to Cashmir. At the 
 latter place it has started a medical mission, now suspended, 
 which Bishop Cotton thought was “ the only gate which 
 has any chance of being opened.” The difficulties which 
 Cashmir presents are infinite. A Hindu ruler governs a 
 population wholly Mahometan; and so great is his jealousy 
 of our power, ,that no European is allowed to winter in his 
 territory, and all our doings are suspected. At Agra the 
 Church Missionary Society has excellent mission schools, 
 and at Lahore a theological college, which has the ad- 
 vantage of the learning and piety of the Rev. T. V. French, 
 Fellow of University College, Oxford. 
 
 In the Central Provinces the Church Missionary Society 
 
INDIA, 
 
 41 
 
 has missions to the Sonthals, and the Bishop of Calcutta 
 has long contemplated a mission to the Khonds^ two of the 
 aboriginal tribes who have never been subdued by the 
 Brahminical invaders. Their religious rites and doctrines 
 vary in almost every district ; and as they have no organised 
 priesthood, and their legends and hymns are preserved only 
 by oral tradition, it is almost impossible to collect and to 
 reduce to system materials so scattered and indefinite. 
 
 In Chota Nagpore, which forms part of the Central 
 Indian plateau, there is a very large population of Kols, 
 among whom in their different tribes extensive missionary 
 work has been carried on for nearly thirty years. Simple and 
 hardy, very merry and very dirty, with no caste to minister 
 to their pride, and no very elaborate superstition to depress 
 them, these people have been doing the hard work of 
 India for generations, just as the Chinese are now doing 
 in California and in Queensland, so that they have been 
 called the ‘‘Navvies of India.’' In 1844 Pastor Gossner 
 sent out from Berlin four Lutheran missionaries to Cal- 
 cutta : the scene of their future work was not settled ; 
 they waited for some providential guidance. Among the 
 Coolies engaged in repairing the roads they saw some men of 
 peculiar appearance. They found they were Kols (pigs) 
 from Chota Nagpore, and that they belonged to a people 
 among whom no missionaries had ever laboured ; they 
 therefore determined to establish themselves at Ranchi, 
 the civil station of the district, and they reached that place 
 in March, 1848. For five years, with true German patience, 
 and equally true Christian faith, these brethren lived on 
 scanty pittances, exposed to much persecution, and not a 
 single convert had they made. In 1850 four Kols pre- 
 sented themselves. They had read portions of the New 
 Testament in Hindi, and, in the words of the inquirers of 
 old, desired that they might “ see Jesus.” They could not 
 
42 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 be persuaded that He was no longer visible, and they went 
 away abusing the missionaries. In a week’s time they re- 
 turned with the same request, declaring that they would 
 never rest until they had seen Him. By the missionaries’ 
 efforts they did see Him with the eye of faith, and were 
 soon after baptized. In the next seventeen years the 
 mission extended rapidly, and there were more than 10,000 
 converts. Bishop Cotton was much refreshed by his visit 
 to this “peasant Church,” as he called it, in 1864, and 
 declared that the mission was one of the three great suc- 
 cesses in India. Meanwhile, the funds which had bedn 
 supplied from Germany failed, and there were internal 
 dissensions between the older missionaries and fresh-comers 
 from Europe. The Rev. F. Batsch, who had all along been 
 the main support and leader, shared the wish of the founder, 
 Gossner, that the mission should be joined to the English 
 Church, and in 1869 the European residents at Chota 
 Nagpore joined with Mr. Batsch and his colleagues in a 
 petition to Bishop Milman that he would adopt it. After 
 due investigation, the bishop returned to Chota Nag- 
 pore, and received seven thousand K 61 Christians into 
 the Church of England, and ordained the Rev. F. Batsch, 
 H. Batsch, H. Bohn, and a native catechist, Wilhelm 
 Luther. The German clergy wished to have an English 
 brother at their head, and the Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel, having adopted the mission, invited the Rev. 
 J. C. Whitley to move from Delhi. The work is very onerous, 
 involving much itineration. Churches have had to be 
 built, and more are needed ; but there has been no abate- 
 ment of the promise of success which surrounded the 
 mission when it was adopted by the bishop.* 
 
 The evangelisation of India is attempted by many bodies 
 of Christians. The Church of Rome has its almost countless 
 missionaries at work. Presbyterian Societies, Scotch and 
 
INDIA. 
 
 43 
 
 Irish, the United Presbyterians, the Free Kirk, the Wesleyans, 
 the Welsh Wesleyans, the London Missionary Society, the 
 Basle and other German missions, the American Baptists, and 
 other minor societies, share the work with the English Church. 
 In our own missions there are now in the diocese of Calcutta 
 nearly one hundred ordained missionaries actually at work, 
 of whom twenty are natives, and the number of baptized 
 converts under the care of these missionaries exceeds 
 20,000. No doubt the variety of the agencies at work is 
 an evil. All diversities of creeds, inasmuch as they repre- 
 sent division where we desire to find union, are and must 
 be so ; and the evil is increased when, as is sometimes the 
 case, missionaries divert their energies from their proper 
 work and proselytise from other bodies. But the supposed 
 hindrances which they put in the way of missionary progress 
 are very much exaggerated. 
 
 The advanced education, by which the latest civilisation 
 of the West has been brought to bear on the acute intellects 
 of the East, has been specially the contribution of Scotland. 
 In Bombay Dr. John Wilson, and in Bengal Dr. Duff, have 
 been more than conspicuous in this department. That a 
 belief in Hindu superstitions can long survive the reception 
 of a liberal education, is simply impossible, and it is the fact 
 that the attitude of “ young Bengal toward their ancestral 
 religion is altogether changed. Here and there an inquiring 
 spirit is led to accept Christianity. The most striking 
 result is the Brahmoistic movement which is spreading 
 among the educated Hindus, the apostle of which has 
 recently been in England. Its founder, Ramahoun Roy, 
 and his followers, began by attacking some parts of Chris- 
 tianity, and, rejecting the later Puranas, took their stand on 
 the Vedas. Criticism showed that these did not contain 
 the whole truth, and Ramahoun Roy took refuge in a philo- 
 sophical Unitarianism, and his followers, some avowedly, 
 
44 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Others in their hearts, became adherents of some one or 
 other of the various missions. 
 
 The more recent development in the Brahmo Somaj has 
 been brought into notice by the visit of its leader, Keshub 
 Chunder Sen, to England. His practical, although not 
 avowed, alliance with Unitarianism showed the tendency 
 of his mind. He came to England not as a learner, but 
 as a critic. Our divisions were paraded before him, and 
 almost gloried in, as though beneath and among them all 
 was the religion which he loved ; but, while thoroughly 
 eclectic, and admitting that some truth was found in all, 
 he was not enamoured of a creed flimsy and incapable of 
 definition, and so far from disregarding external divisions 
 for the sake of the truth which they had in common, he 
 earnestly begged that our divisions might not be given to 
 India. And yet he did not see that he was but proposing 
 still another division, and the creed which he propounds 
 is the haziest possible : a religion of morality and of hu- 
 manity, built up on a sentimental admiration for our Lord’s 
 human character, will never long retain the enthusiasm of its 
 adherents ; and this is all that he had to offer — a religion 
 without distinctive creeds, without theological standards, 
 that paid no attention to the learning of the past, but cared 
 only for the advancement and happiness of the present. 
 
 When the laws of gravitation cease to have power, and 
 a cone will stand upon its apex, then perhaps, but not 
 before, a system which borrows from Christianity its forms, 
 and claims to rival its powers of spiritual elevation, but 
 which excludes the confession of an incarnate Saviour 
 and Mediator, will satisfy the cravings of a sin-laden 
 soul. That those who have groped their way out of Pan- 
 theistic or Deistic mazes to a knowledge of the Fatherhood 
 of God have taken an upward step, none can doubt. 
 Whether the Brahmoists are more accessible to the Chris- 
 
INDIA, 
 
 45 
 
 tian missionary is another matter altogether. Experience 
 shows us that affinities do not always lead to union — e.g.,, 
 the Mahometans are more bitter opponents of Christianity 
 than the heathen. 
 
 Weighty and true were the words which St. Augustine 
 spoke from his own experience, “ O Lord, Thou madest us 
 for Thyself, and our heart is restless till it find rest in Thee.*^ 
 
46 
 
 VI. 
 
 It was within the limits of the future Diocese of Madras 
 that the East India Company first established themselves in 
 1620 ; for sixty years there was no church of any kind, nor 
 any visible token that the English settlers had any religion 
 at all. The Romanists occupied the field at a very early 
 period of the missionary history of this presidency, and their 
 adherents are at the present time largely in excess of the 
 converts made by other bodies. The Jesuit fathers who 
 were stationed at Madura, extended their labours in the last 
 century over a very wide area, and the missions that they 
 formed were afterwards directed by the authorities who had 
 their headquarters at Goa, on the western coast. The first 
 mission not connected with the Church of Rome was 
 founded at Tranquebar in 1705, by Ziegenbalg. The So- 
 ciety for Promoting Christian Knowledge established the 
 first mission of the English Church in Madras in 1726 ; and 
 the noble work afterwards done by Schwartz and his com- 
 panions in Southern India has already been alluded to. 
 But the missionaries were all Germans and in Lutheran 
 orders ; and so dead was the missionary spirit both in the 
 English Church and among Nonconformists, that the former 
 would seem never to have contemplated the work being 
 taken up by ordained ministers ; and the case of Carey has 
 already shown us that missions found no favour with the 
 Baptist body, to which he belonged. 
 
 Never was the need of the episcopate more plainly de- 
 clared. Schwartz, Kohlhoff, and their companions, had been 
 
INDIA, 
 
 47 
 
 giants among missionaries ; but it was only the struggling of 
 single souls and the fighting of single swords : the episco- 
 pate alone could give continuity to the work, and so, when 
 Schwartz died, and Kohlhoff became weakened by age, 
 the successes which they had obtained, not being followed 
 up by younger men, their converts were scattered. In 1787 
 there had been more than 17,000 Christians in the Tran- 
 quebar district alone. In 1814 the Church Missionary 
 Society commenced its missions in Madras itself; and in 
 1824, when the twelve older missions of the Society for 
 Promoting Christian Knowledge were transferred to the 
 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, there were only 
 five missionaries nominally engaged in the work, and of 
 these only three were present at their stations, so disastrous 
 had been the quarter of a century of apathy and neglect. 
 Since that time the two Church societies have covered the 
 presidency with a network of missions, the success of which 
 will certainly compare favourably with the results of similar 
 efforts in any age or in any land. The stations of the two 
 societies often join and interlace each other, and no such 
 division of the diocese exists as has been shown to be the 
 case in the distribution of the missionaries in the Diocese of 
 Calcutta. 
 
 Tracing the missions from Cape Comorin in a north- 
 ward direction, we have before us, first, the two districts of 
 Tinnevelly and Travancore, so identified with missionary 
 successes as to have been erroneously regarded as co-exten- 
 sive with the whole field of our Madras missions. The 
 province of Tinnevelly is about 120 miles from S. to N., with 
 an average breadth from E. to W. of 60 miles. Between it 
 and Travancore, which forms the western side of the extreme 
 Indian peninsula, there is a lofty range of mountains, which 
 offers a grateful sanatorium to Europeans, when prostrated 
 by long residence in the sandy plains. The population of 
 
48 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Tinnevelly maybe taken at 1,500,000, the majority of whom 
 are Shanars. The population of Travancore is not quite so 
 large. The Shanars are Hindus j and although not of 
 Brahminical origin, the system of caste prevails among 
 them; their hereditary occupation is the cultivation and 
 the climbing the palmyra-tree ; by Hindu usage this busi- 
 ness is restricted to one caste, while all are free to engage 
 in trade or in agriculture. They appear to have immigrated, 
 from time to time, from the northern coast of Ceylon, the 
 inhabitants of that portion of the island still bearing very 
 close resemblance to them in many ways : they speak the 
 Tamul language, and the majority of them seem to be con- 
 tent to devote themselves to the hard labour at which their 
 ancestors wrought, although some of the more enterpiising 
 have taken to trade and farming. 
 
 The religion which they profess is pure and simple devil- 
 worship; the notions which they have of God are con- 
 nected with attributes of goodness ; for Him therefore, 
 having no fear, they have no adoration : but nothing befalls 
 them without the intervention of evil spirits. It is among 
 a people so sunk in superstition that the Gospel has 
 found its most numerous converts. There is nothing in 
 the history of missions which eclipses the marvellous pro- 
 gress of the Gospel in Tinnevelly. It would be easy to 
 illustrate this by many facts. When Dr. Caldwell went 
 first to Edeyengoody (which means ‘‘The home of the 
 shepherd ’^), he found among the inhabitants of six villages, 
 which forty years before had embraced the Gospel, only 
 one man who had remained steadfast. Three years later 
 missions were opened at Christianagram and Sawyerpuram, 
 and it may be said that the whole district is now under 
 direct Christian teaching. In the Tinnevelly group of 
 missions connected with the Society for the Propagation 
 of the Gospel, there are now 195 villages, with four Euro- 
 
INDIA. 
 
 49 
 
 pean and sixteen native clergy, 216 lay agents, 23,000 bap- 
 tized members, and nearly 6,000 communicants. In this 
 district Dr. Caldwell is, so far as a priest can discharge the 
 episcopal office, the practical overseer and guide ; the work 
 has been the work of his life, and he now sees the fruit of 
 his patient labours. 
 
 The missions at Sawyerpuram, Nazareth, and Christiana- 
 gram were for many years under the guidance of a remark- 
 able man, Thomas Brotherton. A graduate of Cambridge, 
 Mr. Brotherton laboured for thirty- three years in Southern 
 India, and, following the example of Schwartz, he led a far 
 more ascetic life than Europeans can generally lead with 
 safety in India. Even to the heathen his simplicity of 
 character and innate goodness seemed so unusual that 
 they were wont to say that ‘‘ he was not a man of 
 this age of the world. Not less successful have been the 
 labours of the Church Missionary Society clergy, both in 
 Tinnevelly and in Travancore. In the latter province the 
 ancient Malabar Church exists, and the relations between 
 the members of that venerable Church and the more highly 
 educated Western Christians, who find themselves in such 
 proximity to them, demand the exercise of true and un- 
 deviating charity and courtesy. 
 
 The success which has been vouchsafed to these missions 
 in the extreme south of India must not engross our atten- 
 tion to the exclusion of those which exist in other parts 
 of the presidency. They reach as far northward as Secun- 
 derabad, 400 miles from the city of Madras, and westward 
 to Bangalore, some 200 miles distant; and in the Telugu 
 country both societies have extensive missions. But it is 
 not of the number of mission stations that the Church of 
 England may glory so much as of the men who are now, in 
 the providence of God, directing them. Bishop Middleton 
 foresaw from the very beginning of his episcopate that the 
 
 E 
 
so 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 great end to be desired for India was a native ministry; 
 that until that point was attained Christianity must be a 
 foreign institution ; and with this view he founded Bishop^s 
 College. Bishop Cotton repeated many times his own con- 
 victions, which were identical with those of his predecessor. 
 It may now be said, without any exaggeration, that the 
 problem has been solved by very humble machinery, and 
 within a very recent period. 
 
 It has been declared that if the Sepoys had been success- 
 ful in carrying out their threat, and had swept the hated 
 English into the sea, we should have left no proofs behind 
 us that the country had been occupied for more than two 
 centuries by a Christian people. The Portuguese churches 
 remain to this day, witnesses that those people were not 
 ashamed of the religion which they professed ; to the Dutch 
 equal credit attaches ; but for ourselves, it must be con- 
 fessed that the number of churches and native pastors would 
 have been miserably insignificant fifteen years ago. But now 
 the case is altered. Churches, substantial and of a character 
 worthy of their use and of their builders, stand here and 
 there throughout India as tokens of our faith ; in Delhi and 
 Cawnpore they are memorials of our brethren who were not 
 ashamed of their Lord, and who died the martyr's death ; 
 in our rural mission stations they are humbler structures of 
 sun-dried brick and thatch : but better than all material 
 temples is the spiritual temple, which years of patient labour 
 have built up. If the English armies were to retire from 
 India to-morrow, there would be left behind the undying 
 witness of the efforts of the English Church, in the Christian 
 congregations which she has gathered in from the heathen, 
 and taught and nurtured in the Catholic verities of the 
 Gospel. Not only are there more than 70,000 members of 
 her communion in the Diocese of Madras alone, but they 
 are ministered to by seventy-six clergymen of their own 
 
INDIA. 
 
 51 
 
 race, who speak their own language, and who can enter into 
 their feelings, and even into their prejudices, as only natives 
 can. These clergy have undergone a long training and pro- 
 bation. They are in almost all cases the children of Chris- 
 tian parents, and have been educated in the vernacular 
 schools which are to be found in all the missions. Having 
 given promise as children, they have been employed, on the 
 completion of their education, as teachers in the mission 
 schools, and those who have approved themselves in that 
 capacity have undergone a fuller training for the post of school- 
 master or catechist. After a still further probation, the most 
 eligible, who appear to have a vocation for still higher ser- 
 vice, are sent to a theological college, from whence, after 
 diligent and personal instruction, they either go forth again 
 as catechists or are presented to the bishop for ordination, 
 and are sent to be curates to the English missionaries. 
 During their three years^ training at the seminary, great care 
 is taken lest they should become “ Anglicised in habits ; 
 they therefore wear their native dress, and provide themselves 
 with food, as they would do in their own homes ; so that on 
 their becoming pastors, they require no larger sum for their 
 maintenance than their native brethren would earn in secu- 
 lar life : ;^6o per annum is the maximum income of a native 
 pastor, and of this the larger portion in many cases, in some 
 cases the whole, is provided by the native Christians. 
 
 There needs but the native episcopate to complete the per- 
 fect organisation of the Church of South India. The accom- 
 plishment of this has been hindered by many difficulties ; to 
 have two bishops in the same area would be a defiance of 
 canonical order ; to have a native suffragan, who should 
 preside over the native congregations, but have nothing to 
 do with the European congregations, would be to perpetuate 
 in its most offensive form that system of caste, which is con- 
 trary to the first principles of the Gospel, and the power of 
 
 E 2 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 52 
 
 which, so far from being extinct, has given some trouble to 
 the missionaries, even within the last year. It seems but 
 reasonable that when a Church has for years given its sons 
 to the work of the ministry, not only without evil results, 
 but with every sign that their ministr)'- has been both power- 
 ful and acceptable, that same Church should be trusted to 
 wield the higher graces of the episcopate without regard to 
 race or colour. If their English brethren deny to them so 
 just a concession, they will convict themselves of being 
 upholders of the unchristian system the power of which 
 they have endeavoured to destroy in the missions. 
 
 The native Christians show great zeal in bringing their 
 heathen friends to share their privileges. They have been 
 well trained in this from the beginning. In 1858 Dr. Cald- 
 well called together his native flock at Edeyengoody and 
 formed a native missionary association for spreading the 
 Gospel west of the River Nattar. Out of their poverty they 
 employed three schoolmaster-catechists, two schoolmasters, 
 and three itinerating catechists. The work extended into 
 the district of Radhapuram, twenty miles long by twelve 
 broad, and in seven years the missionary association ceased 
 to exist because its object was attained, and the country for 
 whose conversion it had been formed had become a new 
 centre of missionary work. 
 
 The sight which a native congregation presents is very 
 striking, as they retain the attitude of devotion common to 
 their heathen brethren, and prostrate themselves, their knees, 
 foreheads, and hands touching the ground. There is one 
 mistake which our missionaries frequently make, which does 
 much to repel the heathen from Christian worship : they 
 persist in reading the prayers instead of reciting them with 
 musical intonation ; reading is essentially artificial ; the 
 natural way in which petitions are made is that which is 
 known to us as intoning ; the beggar in the street, the child 
 
INDIA, 
 
 53 
 
 when reciting its simple prayers, both intone their petitions : 
 Jews, Brahmins, Mahometans, Buddhists, the Indians- of 
 North America, all chant their prayers. Bishop Heber 
 found a whole nation, the Bheels, who did so. On the 
 authority of Mr. Layard, the Nestorians in Kurdistan are 
 said to observe this custom. Captain Cook found it among 
 the South Sea Islanders. Bishop Selwyn stated that the 
 New Zealanders, when they became Christian, said their 
 prayers in a low monotone, which sounded like the swell of 
 a distant surf. Dr. Wolff, when taken prisoner by some 
 people whose bearing was very threatening, hit on the 
 expedient of chanting ; they understood not a word that 
 he said, but they recognised the musical recitation as con- 
 nected with prayer, and said, ‘‘ Lo ! here is a man of God ; 
 and one of our own missionaries at Canandagoody reported, 
 many years ago, that he could not get the people to attend 
 when he was “reading prayers.^’ He tried the experiment 
 of chanting, and they not only ceased their listlessness, but 
 after service expressed their delight. 
 
 In this diocese many of the missionaries combine with 
 their spiritual functions the practice of medicine. It will be 
 remembered that Bishop Cotton stated that in his opinion 
 the medical mission of the Church Missionary Society at 
 Cashmir was “ the only door that has any chance of being 
 opened.’^ In the missions of that Society several of the 
 native clergy are qualified to practice in medicine. At 
 Sawyerpuram, the missionary of the Society for the Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel, the Rev. Dr. Strachan, who acquired 
 a love of medical science while at St. Augustine’s College 
 at Canterbury, employed the furlough in Europe which ten 
 years’ work in India had secured for him, in walking the 
 hospital at Edinburgh, where he obtained the highest 
 honour of his year. Such a power over the afflicted bodies 
 of men has necessarily a great influence on their hearts ; 
 
54 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 and at Sawyerpuram not only has Dr. Stradian’s house been 
 besieged by suffering applicants for his aid : the acquaint- 
 ance thus made with the heathen, who have come from all 
 parts, has commended to them the arguments of the Chris- 
 tian teacher, whose good offices they had previously ex- 
 perienced ; and the Government authorities have recognised 
 the services of Dr. Strachan by making a grant in aid of 
 his dispensary. 
 
 The story of the missions in Madras would be incom- 
 plete if no further mention were made of the great educa- 
 tional machinery which forms so prominent a part of the 
 missionaries^ work. Especially important are the girls’ 
 schools, both because in their heathen state Hindus grudge 
 education to their daughters, and in view of the necessity 
 of the next generation having the training of Christian 
 mothers. Many hundreds of children are now being trained 
 in Christian and housewifely habits in our boarding-schools ; 
 and a simple custom exists by which a scholar is supported 
 by the offerings of some one parish or school at home. 
 The protege is perhaps baptized by a name chosen by its 
 supporters, and, in acknowledgment of the small sum, gene- 
 rally ^4 per annum, remitted for its support, the donors hear 
 from time to time of its progress, both moral and spiritual. 
 It is bonds such as these which realise for us the truth that 
 we are all one in Christ Jesus. Another noteworthy fact is, 
 that the civilising influence of the missionaries and the 
 benefits of their teaching are now appreciated by the Hindu 
 Rajas and Zemindars (yeomen), who, although remaining 
 heathen, yet subscribe at times, with truly Eastern munifi- 
 cence, to schools or to endowment funds for catechists and 
 ])astors. - 
 
 Such, then, is briefly the story of the evangelisation of 
 Southern India : the Diocese of Madras far outstrips the 
 older Diocese of Calcutta, both in the number of converts. 
 
INDIA. 
 
 55 
 
 and still more of native clergy. In explanation, it must be 
 mentioned that the Shanars are a race far inferior in point 
 of intelligence and social status to the Brahmins of Bengal ; 
 that the former are a people who, for many many genera- 
 tions, have borne the burden of the oppression of their 
 superiors and of hard toil, while the latter, for perhaps a 
 greater length of time, have been born to rule. This must 
 be remembered in explanation of the fact, but not in 
 depreciation of those who have chosen the better part : the 
 course which the Gospel is running in Southern India is but 
 in strict analogy with the events which marked the con- 
 version of the Roman Empire. The slaves, the down- 
 trodden, the poor, saw in a religion which proclaimed the 
 spiritual liberty, equality, and brotherhood of all its ad- 
 herents, the visible realisation of that on which their 
 thoughts had dwelt as on an almost impossible future : the 
 leaven worked upward. So may it be in India : the Chris- 
 tian may be allowed to indulge in a dream — rather in a firm 
 belief — that the time will come when the leaven shall work 
 upwards from Shanar, and Pariah, and Sudra, and down- 
 wards from Brahmin and Kshattrya, and the whole mass 
 shall be leavened with the Gospel, and all shall see and 
 know that there is neither bond nor free, but that all are one 
 in Christ. 
 
56 
 
 Vll. 
 
 For some reason, difficult to explain, the Diocese of Bom- 
 bay has received less of the care of the mother Church 
 than the missions of the other Indian dioceses. It seems 
 strange that this should have been so. Bombay itself is 
 the nearest to England of the three presidency cities, and 
 from the time when it was made over, a small and un- 
 healthy island, to the English Crown, as the dowry of the 
 bride of Charles II., it has grown to be the second com- 
 mercial city in the world. London alone surpasses it in 
 importance ; and the rapidity with which it has risen to its 
 present station is without parallel, except in the instance of 
 Chicago. Its trade connects it not only with the nations of 
 Europe, but with Zanzibar and the little-known eastern 
 coast of Africa. It would seem that its commercial im- 
 portance must go on increasing as Indian railways are 
 multiplied and converge on its harbour : it will then become 
 more exclusively than ever the great western port of Hin- 
 dustan. 
 
 The Church Missionary Society, which commenced its 
 Bombay Mission in 1820, has fifteen missionaries at work, 
 of whom four are natives. They have eight stations, which 
 cover a large area ; but the work has not made such pro- 
 gress as in the other dioceses. The Society for the Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel has bestowed still less care on Bombay. 
 It established a mission at Ahmedabad in 1830, which was 
 soon discontinued, the solitary clergyman who had founded 
 
INDIA, 
 
 57 
 
 it dying befote he had made much impression. In 1842 
 the same mission was again attempted, but it was starved 
 for lack of funds and had to be abandoned, and the society 
 undertook no missionary work in the diocese again until 
 i860. Since then it has assisted in founding several chap- 
 laincies for railway employes and the engineers and others 
 engaged on board the steamships or several companies. 
 It has also made some provision for the English-speaking 
 population in the city of Bombay, who are apt to be left 
 uncared for, as belonging to the congregations neither of 
 the Government chaplains nor of the missionaries ; but for 
 the heathen it has done comparatively little. 
 
 When Bishop Douglas arrived in Bombay in 1869, he at 
 once wished to move the missionaries from Bombay itself, 
 where they had met with little success, and to station them 
 in the country. He has elaborated an admirable scheme, by 
 which at least two ordained missionaries would be placed at 
 each of the towns which are military or civil stations. A 
 large heathen population is naturally drawn to these spots, 
 and the missionaries, in working among them, would have 
 the advice of the Government chaplain in cases of difficulty, 
 and the support and sympathy of the civil and military 
 officials who would witness their labours. The experiment 
 has answered exceedingly well at Kolapore, in the Mahratta 
 country, which was the first place selected, and whose rajah 
 was friendly. It is now being tried at Poona, but the lack 
 of suitable men has thrown the work of the ordained mis- 
 sionary on the chaplain, the Rev. S. Stead, who, in spite of 
 feeble health, has gathered in 125 converts. The deplor- 
 able dearth of men fitted for this work has shown the 
 bishop how great is the need of a native clergy ; and he is 
 now aiming at the establishment of a Theological College 
 at Poona. Among the converts there must be ample 
 material out of which a native clergy could be formed, but 
 
58 
 
 UNDER HIS DANNER. 
 
 the machinery for giving the requisite training has to be 
 supplied. 
 
 In Bombay, besides the Mahometans and the Brahmins, 
 there is a colony of about 100,000 Parsees, the followers of 
 Zoroaster. That they are fire-worshippers, which is the 
 popular belief, they themselves deny. Their religion is 
 obsolete and powerless; its customs, however, some of 
 which are most revolting, are still observed by the more 
 conservative of the body, although they attach no spiritual 
 meaning to them. Keen and successful men of business, 
 the Parsees have been called the Anglo-Saxons of India: 
 they are often to be seen in England, where they carry on 
 vast commercial operations, and make their presence known 
 by gifts on a scale of munificence equally vast. Why 
 should men, so full of the enlightenment of the times, 
 continue in an effete superstition, proof against the appeals 
 of Christian missionaries, the allurements of Hinduism, and 
 the proselytising Mahometans ? This, indeed, is a question 
 not easy to be answered. 
 
 We have now considered the past and present condition 
 of missionary work in India proper. Ceylon will fall under 
 our notice in another paper, in which we shall consider our 
 work among Buddhists. We have seen how many were the 
 difficulties of conquering and holding India, and how much 
 greater are the difficulties of evangelising it. These papers 
 will have been written in vain if they do not show that 
 enough has been already accomplished to assure us that the 
 task is not an impossible one, and that it will surely be 
 accomplished. If further proof of the power of missions 
 were needed, it would be found in the bitter hatred with 
 which the work is regarded by philosophical Easterns, and in 
 the unceasing depreciation which it meets with in England 
 from men who abhor distinctive teaching and a dogmatic 
 creed. 
 
INDIA, 
 
 59 
 
 The religions of the East are altogether effete in the light 
 of Western learning and civilisation, and the followers of 
 them know them, in many cases, to be so ; but they shrink 
 from embracing the religion of their conquerors. Many 
 circumstances combine in thus influencing them : they see 
 that Christians do not agree among themselves, and the 
 truth which is offered for their acceptance comes before 
 them in varied and sometimes in opposing forms ; but, 
 much more than this, the flood of Western scepticism, 
 which in its many forms — positivism, pantheism, eclecticism, 
 &c. — has sprung up in Europe and in America, at the very 
 time when the truth was growing daily in influence among 
 Orientals, has acted most fatally on inquiring spirits in 
 India, and left them without faith in their old creed and 
 unwilling to accept a new one. It is sad to read in a 
 report of the Church Missionary Society that many edu- 
 cated men, whose convictions were too strong to allow them 
 to advocate either Sikhism or Hinduism, had found in Brah- 
 moism a vantage-ground, both against Hinduism and Chris- 
 tianity, and that they were encouraged to speak with equal 
 lofty contempt of both by the enthusiastic reception which 
 Keshub Chunder Sen had met with in England. 
 
 It is the opinion of some of the most thoughtful of Indian 
 statesmen, that if England does not Christianise India, her 
 tenure of it will not last much longer. Portugal and Holland 
 have each possessed India, but have failed to retain it. Why 
 God has entrusted that country to English rule is, indeed, a 
 profound question. We received it with undeveloped re- 
 sources, its people lying under the burden of iniquitous 
 laws and bloody superstitions ; we made roads which would 
 bear to our rule testimony as abiding as do the roads on 
 which we still travel in England to the occupation of the 
 Romans ; we opened her ports to the commerce of the 
 world, and so brought India into the comity of nations; 
 
6o 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 more recently we have covered the land with a network of 
 railways and electric telegraphs ; while our postal service 
 reduces the time of communication between London and 
 Bombay to three weeks ; we have also imposed on it just 
 laws, impartially administered, and have opened to the 
 youth of India a way to high offices in the Government of 
 their country. These elements of advanced civilisation are 
 now in the possession of India ; but railways and telegraphs 
 and such like things will never truly civilise a land, nor 
 satisfy the yearnings of spirits which crave for more lasting 
 things. Neither are they the highest gifts which our relation 
 to India compels us to offer to it. It will be found, more- 
 over, in the times of crisis, that they will not suffice to 
 secure our hold on that land. Nothing is more painful than 
 to listen to the extravagant eulogy which is heaped on 
 modern civilisation by persons who do not care to consider 
 whether what they so describe is worthy of the name. It has 
 become the fashion to speak of the “ GospeL^ of civilisa- 
 tion, and to apply a word so sacred even to schemes which 
 are conceived in selfishness and perfected in crime. The 
 intercourse of the civilised white man has been a bitter 
 evangel to many of the so-called ‘‘ inferior’^ races, and it is a 
 miserable abuse of words, which speaks of the Gospel of 
 the fire-water,^^ for which the Red Indian will barter the 
 very blanket which is to shelter him from the Arctic cold ; 
 or of the Gospel of the opium traffic, which has been the 
 blot on our dealings with the East ; or of the Gospel of the 
 Queensland planter, the sacred interests of whose trade 
 demand cheap Coolie labour, obtained at the cost of the 
 lives of Christian missionaries, and which generates an 
 undying feud between the untaught natives and those who 
 wish to give to them the true Gospel. 
 
 There are philosophers, no doubt, to whom all creeds are 
 exploded errors, things to be replaced by positive knowledge ; 
 
INDIA. 
 
 6l 
 
 there are merchants and traders to whom cheap production 
 and open markets are the Alpha and Omega of their creed ; 
 but to these and such as these, with whom no other argument 
 is likely to prevail, let us repeat, that only in the conversion 
 of India to Christianity lies the ground of our hope of long 
 possessing it. This is the deliberate opinion of high 
 officials, civil and military, whose lives have been spent 
 in that country. Experience, too — the experience of public 
 events — teaches the same truth to all who have patience to 
 receive it. The real preservers of India as a British pos- 
 session are the men who, from the love of God and with no 
 prospect of personal gain, are labouring to evangelise it. 
 Their work is humble enough in its details : in its results it is 
 magnificent. They are the butt, always ready, for the gibe of 
 the flippant and the careless ; and at the very time they are 
 rendering service which neither the statesman nor the 
 soldier can supply. The well-known author of 77ie Eng- 
 lishman m India is never tired of relating that when he 
 first travelled up the country he was moved with pity, not 
 wholly free from contempt, when he saw an English mis- 
 sionary teaching a few boys, under the shelter of a veran- 
 dah, to read Milton’s Paradise Lost. The contempt was 
 increased when he learned that the missionary was a very 
 distinguished Oxford man and a Fellow of his College ; and 
 the young civilian went on his way, and the missionary and 
 his fruitless toil alike passed from his remembrance. 
 
 Years, many years afterwards, the civilian and the mis- 
 sionary met again : the scene was the Fort at Agra. The 
 mutiny was sweeping through the North West Provinces, and 
 the terror-stricken handful of Europeans sought shelter 
 within the walls of the nearest towns. Fear ministered to 
 their suspicion and indiscriminate abhorrence of the natives. 
 Moslem and Brahmin and Christian were equally enemies 
 in the eyes of our countrymen ; they had not learned then 
 
62 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 that the mutiny had been brought about by the craft of 
 Mahometans working on the fanaticism and superstition of 
 the Hindus. Every native was an object of dread. At 
 such a time as this a body of Hindus approached the fort 
 and sought to be admitted, declaring that they were Christians 
 and would meet with no mercy from the insurgents. The 
 officer in command of the fort refused to let in a horde of 
 men, who probably were in league with the mutineers, and 
 then it Avas that the missionary came forward and demanded 
 that they should be admitted, he being surety for their 
 fidelity, or that he should himself be let out, that he might 
 share their fate. This was an appeal that could not be 
 resisted ; the missionary was allowed to open the gate and 
 let in his friends and children one by one. 
 
 The labours of past years had not been in vain ; he had 
 taught them better things even than the poetry of Milton. 
 During the siege that followed, their fidelity was conspicuous 
 and their help invaluable, and their religious faith never gave 
 a sign of wavering. Our enemies were the Mahometans whose 
 creed we had flattered, and the Hindus whose superstitions 
 we had humoured ; the only persons in the mutinous districts 
 who proved faithful to our rule were the Christians who had 
 been won by the patient toil of the missionaries. What hap- 
 pened in 1857 in one part of India is much more likely to be 
 repeated on a larger scale as time goes on. We are sweep- 
 ing away, as rapidly as English education can travel, with 
 the vast wave of Western civilisation, the many ancient 
 beliefs and inveterate prejudices with which India has long 
 been held in bondage. The question now is, not whether 
 idolatry can last, for it is already doomed, but whether the 
 kingdom of Christ shall or shall not be erected on its ruins. 
 There is a middle course, indeed, Avhich it is sad to con- 
 template. We may leave India to itself— without a creed, 
 without a religion. Having swept away such dim revelations 
 
INDIA. 
 
 63 
 
 of higher things as their ancient creed allowed to them, — 
 having shown them that the system which formerly exercised 
 some restraint on them, and led them to make sacrifices and 
 to offer prayers, was false, and having by that very act inclined 
 them to disbelieve in all revelation, — we may leave the 
 Hindus in a state worse than their first, to grope their way 
 through grosser superstitions still, until, with the help which 
 English and American sceptics will not be slow to offer them, 
 they stand forth The Church of the Future.’^ Then with 
 intellects sharpened, with passions educated, their hearts 
 possessed by a sordid love of gain and of conquest, restrained 
 by no fears, trammelled by no superstitions, guided by no 
 purer aspirations, how long will the millions of India, thus 
 educated by their conquerors, continue our subjects ? Better 
 for them had they been left to the practice of the duties 
 which their ancient religions imposed on them, and which 
 they were wont to observe with reverence and exactness, 
 -than thus be brought by a spurious civilisation into a condi- 
 tion in which neither hope nor fear suggest aught that is 
 elevating, and where the motives which have most influence 
 on the spirits of men exercise no power. 
 
 If from such causes as we have sketched the British rule 
 in India shall ever become a thing of the past, in vain will 
 be all our past triumphs in war, in vain will be our material 
 triumphs in the domains of science and of skill. In the 
 highest of all human efforts we shall be proved in the face 
 of the whole world to have failed disgracefully. 
 
64 
 
 VIIL 
 
 Ceylon has gone through the same ordeal as India, and the 
 liistory of the Pennisula is, in its general outline, the history 
 of the Island, which hangs like a gem on its southern point. 
 Portuguese and Dutch, each have held it, and each have 
 done their best to evangelise it. When the Dutch were 
 driven out of the island in 1795 some 350,000 
 
 Christians behind them : the converts of the Portuguese 
 Mission were supposed to be hardly fewer in number : the 
 Treaty of Amiens finally made the island over to the British 
 Crown, and in 1 8 1 1 the non-Roman Christians had dwindled 
 down to 150,000. The Scriptures had been largely trans- 
 lated into Singhalese and Tamil in the last century, and the 
 churches, both Portuguese and Dutch, which still remain, 
 bear testimony of the zeal of those nations. 
 
 The story of the English missions in Ceylon is not credit- 
 able to us. Bishops Middleton and Heber both visited the 
 island, and the first Bishop of Madras, in whose diocese it 
 was included, showed great anxiety for its welfare, and visited 
 every part of it. In 1 845 it was made an independent diocese, 
 and Bishop Chapman was its first bishop. On his arrival he 
 found the land at every step given up to idolatry : the churches 
 few and at wide intervals, and the clergy miserably insuffi- 
 cient. With the heathen worship many ceremonies of the 
 Roman Church had been incorporated, and some festival days 
 in the Roman calendar had come to be observed. In 1862 
 
INDIA. 
 
 6s 
 
 Bishop Piers Claughton, of St. Helena,- succeeded to Bishop 
 Chapman, and in 1871 Bishop Jermyn was consecrated on 
 Bishop Claughton’s resignation. 
 
 As an old Eton master, Bishop Chapman was sensible of 
 the blessing of a good school and college, and, impressed as 
 he was with the need of a native clergy, he made successful 
 efforts to establish a theological college and a collegiate 
 school. Events have shown the wisdom of his plan : the 
 College of St. Thomas continues to train and send forth a 
 body of highly educated clergy, who do good service in the 
 missions. In 1854 the bishop had the satisfaction of con- 
 secrating the Cathedral of St. Thomas, where day by day 
 the service of the Church is reverently offered. 
 
 The two Church societies have thirty-four missionaries at 
 work in the Diocese of Colombo, of whom only fourteen are 
 Englishmen. There is a considerable number of colonists 
 engaged in coffee planting : many of these are gentlemen of 
 good family, and are well-educated ; for these the Bishop is 
 anxious to provide more regular ministrations than in their 
 remote clearings they have hitherto received, and a chap- 
 lain to a coffee planter’s estate has a pleasant sphere of 
 work in which he can do much good. 
 
 Among the heathen population there are Mahometans, 
 Hindus, and Buddhists. In the northern half of the island 
 we meet principally with the Hindus, who are one in race 
 with the Shanars of Tinnevelly ; there are also many immi- 
 grants from Malabar, and in the interior some aboriginal 
 tribes who are still in savagery : in the southern portion the 
 people are for the most part Buddhists, and to a consider- 
 ation of this mysterious creed we shall devote the rest of this 
 paper. 
 
 For an adequate treatment of a religion so ancient, and 
 whose adherents are far in excess of those of any other 
 existent creed, the writer of these pages has neither the 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 ability nor the space : those who would wish thoroughly to 
 understand a matter so intricate and a system so profound 
 will have to wade through many larger books indeed, it 
 is only with much diffidence and reverence that at the best 
 such a matter should be handled ; as Professor Max Muller 
 has wisely reminded us — 
 
 “ We speak glibly of Buddhism and Brahmanism, forget- 
 ting that we are generalising on the most intimate convic- 
 tions of millions and millions of human souls, divided by 
 half a world, and by thousands of years/' 
 
 The student of ancient religions needs such a reminder 
 as this. These creeds are not wholly grotesque fables : nay, 
 every religion, even the most degraded, has something 
 which ought to be sacred to us, for in all religions there is 
 a secret yearning after the true though unknown God ; and 
 especially in the religions of the East, whose devotees aim 
 at nothing but re-union with Deity, and pursue that aim with 
 an almost utter forgetfulness of earthly objects, we find an 
 example of pious abstraction, from which the busy Western 
 may learn a lesson. For the missionary, as well as for those 
 who care for his work, to aim at the conversion of the 
 heathen without previous study of that from which they are 
 to be converted, is a most unphilosophical reversal of the 
 natural order of things. Bulwarks sometimes look less for- 
 midable to those who have got within the citadel than to 
 those who standing in front attempt to overthrow them, and 
 the bulwarks of many a false religion may be seen to rest, 
 in spite of all that is false in them, on the foundation of 
 reverence and faith. 
 
 * Especially he Bouddha et sa Religion^ par J. Barthelcmy Saint Hilaire j 
 Chip from a German Workshop, by Professor Max Muller j Christ and other 
 Masters, by Archdeacon Hardwick ; and Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, to 
 which works these papers are under obligations, which arc hereby gratefully 
 acknowledged. 
 
INDIA, 
 
 (^1 
 
 Buddhism may be regarded as a third stage of that 
 religion which in a previous paper we have described as 
 Hinduism. In the very earliest stage, when the people were 
 emerging from the twilight of intelligence, processes of 
 nature and the elements themselves having been first made 
 by poetic sentiment into symbols of religious feeling, came 
 at length to be objects of worship. To that period there 
 succeeded the heroic age, when, after the era of the Vedas, 
 men became of the likeness of gods, and a mixture of 
 anthropomorphism and polytheism prevailed : a theory of 
 gross materialism was then dominant; the doctrines of 
 transmigration of souls and the incarnation were everywhere 
 prominent features of Brahminism, and caste, an ordinance 
 which, as has been mentioned, is nowhere found in the 
 Vedas, held the people bound. A nation sinks as its 
 mythology sinks, and then there comes a time when, the 
 lowest depth having been reached, the moral sense is 
 awakened — it may be in a society of thinkers, it may be in 
 the breast of one man superior to his brethren — and a move- 
 ment is made which some call rebellion, and others reform. 
 Early in the seventh century before Christ Guadama was 
 born in that part of the kingdom of Oude which lies at the 
 foot of the Nepaulese mountains ; he was the son of a king, 
 who belonged to the Kshattrya or Warrior class, and was as 
 a child remarkable for his beauty and his accomplishments. 
 He was devoted to meditation, and his father, to prevent 
 him from sinking into a mere dreamer, married him at an 
 early age. The marriage was the happiest possible, but it 
 failed to interrupt his meditations. The materialism of the 
 Brahminic creed he revolted from : for himself he strove 
 after the supreme intelligence, which he felt sure must exist 
 somewhere, if only it could be found. Few things in history 
 are more touching than the account of Guadama, or, as he 
 was known at first, Sakya Mouni, the solitary one of the 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 race of Sakya, whose tender and noble spirit, insensible to 
 the attractions of the court to which he belonged, was 
 driven by the contemplation of human misery to struggle to 
 escape from the bondage of the world even at the cost of 
 iannihilation. 
 
 The account of Guadama^s life falls within the scope of 
 historic legend, if not of history itself, and is not dependent 
 on mere myth ; it is therefore with the more interest that 
 we read of the chain of circumstances which led to his 
 conversion from Brahminism, and to the establishment of 
 the creed which bears the name which he subsequently 
 adopted. On three several occasions when driving out of 
 the royal city he met an old decrepit man, whose faculties, 
 mental and bodily, were spent, — a sick man, parched 
 with fever and terror-stricken at the approach of death 
 — and a corpse lying on a bier, with friends and rela- 
 tives wailing around. The effect was just what such spec- 
 tacles would be likely to produce on a dreamer : it did 
 not occur to him to minister to the needs of the aged, the 
 sick, or the sorrowful ; he only regarded them as subjects 
 for his own meditation, and he conceived a deeper repug- 
 nance for youth which must end in old age, for health 
 which is liable to sickness, and for life itself, which lasts so 
 short a time and terminates in death. He sighed to be 
 able to lead captive these three — old age, disease, and 
 death. A fourth incident suggested to him the means by 
 which he thought his desire might be accomplished. He 
 saw a fakeer, or mendicant, standing in the street calm and 
 abstracted, wearing his religious garb with an air of dignity 
 and apparently free from all mundane considerations. 
 Asceticism had always been, and still is, a great power in the 
 East, and Guadama saw in the practice of it a solution of 
 his difficulties, and the path which would lead him to the 
 only real life. He had not at this time thought of elabor- 
 
INDIA, 
 
 09 
 
 ating a system of his own : he contented himself with study- 
 ing under famous Brahmins, but this was in vain ; he then 
 withdrew with five friends into solitude, and spent six years 
 in retirement and in the practice of austerities. There he 
 learned that asceticism was a stumbling-block rather than a 
 help, and this conviction cost him the loss of his five friends, 
 who at once deserted him. Left to himself he worked out 
 his own system, and became the subject of ecstatic visions : 
 in time he conceived that the knowledge for which he had 
 been seeking was his, and henceforth he assumed the name 
 of Buddha, ‘‘the enlightened one.’’ For some tin>e he 
 hesitated whether he should publish his knowledge or lock 
 it up in his own breast, but the love of his fellows prevailed, 
 and he determined to communicate his secret for the benefit 
 of suffering humanity. 
 
 He preached at Benares, then a chief seat of Eastern 
 learning, and wherever he went he made many converts. 
 This was only natural. Brahminism could only spread itself 
 by persuading its converts that they were Sudras, inferior in 
 everyway to the Brahmins, their hereditary teachers : Buddha, 
 on the other hand, declared, “ My doctrine is like the sky — 
 there is room for all without exception.” Such a doctrine 
 in a country enthralled by caste could ensure for itself 
 acceptance ; thieves, sweepers, beggars, the outcast, and the 
 oppressed came round Buddha, as did many kings likewise, 
 confessing their sins, and the new religion needed but time 
 to prove that it could bear transplanting ; that while Hindu- 
 ism could live only within a certain area. Buddhism could 
 strike its roots into the soil wherever it might be carried. 
 At the age of 80 Buddha’s labours ended, and he entered 
 “nirvana,” of which something will presently be said, b.c. 
 543, some two centuries before the invasion of India by 
 Alexander. 
 
 His work survived him : the converts made by him in 
 
70 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Cashtnir were the first-fruits of his labours. From its cradle 
 at the foot of the Nepaulese hills his creed went forth and 
 covered Ceylon, Burmah, Siam, Nepaul, China, Tartary, 
 Thibet, Mongolia, and reached even to the outskirts of 
 European civilisation, traces of it being visible on the bor- 
 ders of Russia. At this moment its adherents number more 
 than 450,000,000. This work of conversion was the result 
 of a system of missions, elaborated with care and prosecuted 
 with zeal ; its mark is left in monasteries, topes, and rock- 
 hewn temples, still to be found in all stages of decay. For 
 a thousand years it held its own in Hindostan, when it was 
 driven out by the revival in force of the creed from which 
 it had been a reaction ; but in the lands which are enume- 
 rated above, it still flourishes in all the pride of power 
 and of numbers. 
 
 What, then, is Buddhism, which numbers its followers by 
 hundreds of millions? Briefly, it is atheism and nihilism. 
 It admits no reality in creation, and therefore it cannot 
 receive the notion of a Creator : it contemplates no God, 
 nothing but mind minding itself ; and yet the morality 
 which it taught was the highest conceivable. To the few it 
 was a metaphysical philosophy ; to the multitudes it was a 
 religion which they embraced. The commands which it 
 laid upon them tended to the repression of the individual 
 will, and consequently to the happiness of the many. Those 
 who aimed at a higher standard in the religious life had to 
 practise the sternest asceticism, to be clothed in rags, to beg 
 their food from door to door, to live not in houses but 
 among the tombs, and the reward held out was not happi- 
 ness on earth, still less in a future state, which finds no 
 place in the Buddhist creed, but that knowledge which ends 
 in “nirvana,^’ or complete annihilation. On the nature of 
 nirvana many learned papers have already been written, 
 and probably from time to time fresh and fresh treatises will 
 
INDIA, 
 
 71 
 
 deal with it. According to the best authorities nirvana ” 
 is extinction. The older literature of Buddhism teaches 
 plainly, as it seems, that it is nothing short of annihilation, 
 not merely of all that we associate with the idea of exist- 
 ence, but specially of the thinking principle. The Oriental 
 scholars, who do not accept this view, regard ‘‘ nirvana as 
 a dreamless sleep, from which there is no awaking, so that 
 the difference is scarcely more than a question of words. 
 
 And this is the religion which compels men to make many 
 prayers, which leads them to give largely of their means, to 
 make many sacrifices, to observe seasons of fast and festival, 
 to practise a morality of the severest kind, and which sup- 
 ports and comforts in trial and sorrow, nay, even trains 
 them to bear trials and sorrow with patience and indif- 
 ference. “ It is incredible,’^ says Professor Max Muller, 
 “ in how exhausted an atmosphere the Divine spark within 
 us will glimmer on, and even warm the dark chambers of 
 the human heart.” 
 
 The ancient literature of Buddhism is abundant, and is 
 now accessible ; but fifty years ago the sacred books of 
 Buddhists, Brahmins, and Parsees were alike unknown in 
 Europe ; all that was then known was obtained, bit by bit, 
 from the versions of travellers in China, Japan, Thibet, 
 Burmah, or Mongolia, and their testimony, such as it was, 
 served to prove the fact, that the terminology of the Budd- 
 hist creed was derived from the Sanskrit tongue, and that its 
 birthplace was in India. In 1824 a civil servant of the 
 East India Company discovered in the possession of the 
 Nepaulese priests a collection of Sanskrit works, which 
 proved to be the Buddhist Canon, and the priests stated 
 that some of the documents had been in the monasteries for 
 1700 years, and that the whole collection had been trans- 
 lated into the language of Thibet some 600 years before. A 
 Hungarian traveller, whose love of philology had led him 
 
72 
 
 UNDER Ills DANNER. 
 
 to master the language of Thibet, was set to work at trans- 
 lating these documents, and it was shown that they were 
 translations of the originals which had so recently been 
 brought into the light of day in Nepaul. Almost at the 
 same time a Russian savant^ who had acquired a knowledge 
 of Mongolian, was enabled to translate the Buddhist Canon 
 in that language, and within ten years from the first disco- 
 very m Nepaul the Buddhist literature of Ceylon, wTitten in 
 Pali, the ancient language of that island, was also unearthed. 
 It was stated above that Buddhism was spread by a regular 
 system of missions founded immediately after Buddha’s 
 death, and the discoveries of the present generation prove 
 the identity of the sacred Canon which was sent forth from 
 Nepaul to Thibet and Mongolia in the North, to China in the 
 East, and to Ceylon in the South, and translated into the 
 languages of those countries. From Ceylon again the Pali 
 Scriptures were translated into the languages of Burmah and 
 Siam, when the missions were extended to those countries. 
 Probably no age of the world has witnessed more assiduous 
 translating than that which marked the early years of Bud- 
 dhist missions, and the labours of some at least of the trans- 
 lators were rewarded ; for when, in the sixteenth century, the 
 island of Ceylon was invaded by a Tamil dynasty, the 
 conquerors destroyed every scrap of Buddhist literature. 
 The religion was not extirpated, it continued to be the 
 creed of the island ; but when after two centuries the in- 
 vaders were subdued and Buddhism resumed its original 
 position, it found itself without authentic standards of doc- 
 trine, and the Cingalese obtained from Siam copies of the 
 Canon which they had themselves sent thither centuries 
 before. 
 
 Of the present condition of the Buddhist faith, its monas- 
 teries and pagodas, and of the effects which missions have 
 had upon it, we shall treat in subsequent papers. 
 
IK 
 
 Had the order been followed which will generally be 
 observed in these papers, the Burmese Missions would have 
 been considered together with those of Bengal, as being 
 equally with the latter under the government of the Bishop 
 of Calcutta. It seems desirable, however, to separate them, 
 both because the people with whom we shall have now to 
 deal are entirely distinct from the inhabitants of India 
 proper in race, in language, and in creed ; and also because 
 the accident which makes Burmah at present a portion of 
 the Diocese of Calcutta, will, it is hoped, soon be reckoned 
 among things of the past. Bishop Cotton most earnestly 
 desired that a bishopric should be established at Rangoon ; 
 he declared that it was impossible for any Bishop of Calcutta 
 adequately to influence and guide distant missions to a 
 people altogether alien from those among whom he chiefly 
 laboured. The Hindustani and Bengalee languages he 
 acquired sufficiently for the purpose of addressing the cate- 
 chumens whom he confirmed. These languages, although 
 quite distinct, have some common elements, belong to the 
 same Aryan family, and are in their structure simple ; but 
 the Burmese language belongs to the Turanian group, is 
 very difficult, and if acquired by a Bishop of Calcutta, could 
 only be learned at the cost of neglecting other and even 
 more necessary work. 
 
 It has been mentioned in a previous paper that a mis- 
 sionary who aims at being an efficient evangeliser, must 
 
74 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 master not only the language, but also the mythology, the 
 literature, and the religious system of the people whom he 
 would convert. It must be evident to all that Hinduism 
 and Mahometanism present a field of study sufficiently 
 wide for any mind, however powerful ; but when the litera- 
 ture of Buddhism is added, the task is simply an impos- 
 sibility. 
 
 In any history of Burmese Missions the place of honour 
 is due to the labours of the American Baptists, whose work, 
 not among the Buddhist races, but among the Karens, an 
 inferior tribe, who in great numbers inhabit the mountainous 
 districts, is very interesting. Bishop Cotton was wont to de- 
 clare that the three great missionary successes in India were, 
 the Church of England Missions in Tinnevelly, the German- 
 Lutheran Mission at Chota Nagpore (which is now absorbed 
 into the Church of England), and the Mission of the 
 American Baptists to the Karens. This was an offshoot 
 from the famous Serampore Mission, the work of Carey, 
 Ward, and Marshman, and it owes its existence to the 
 jealousy of the Government officials. In the early part of 
 the present century two Baptist missionaries essayed to 
 land at Calcutta, and were forbidden to do so ; one was at 
 length permitted on account of the sickness of his wife, 
 the other was ordered to embark again. Instead of return- 
 ing to England he sailed with one companion to Rangoon, 
 anxious to investigate the results of the Roman Missions 
 in that locality. The English traders encouraged them to 
 remain, and they immediately set to work at the study of 
 the language, and the production of a vernacular Bible. 
 But troubles arose : a war was imminent between the British 
 and the Burmese Governments, and the missionaries were 
 regarded by the natives as spies. It was not until 1812 
 that the Baptist Mission was floated into working condition 
 by the arrival of one whose name is for ever bound up with 
 
BUR MAH. 
 
 75 
 
 the evangelisation of Burmah — Adoniram Judson. The 
 labours of this remarkable man we cannot attempt to 
 describe at any length : if to render a life-long service in 
 presence of bitter personal sorrows and gigantic difficulties 
 constitutes martyrdom, then indeed he was a faithful witness 
 for what he believed to be the truth; from 1812, when he 
 landed, until 1850, when he died, his labours were con- 
 tinuous. He lost two wives, victims of the unwholesome 
 climate and of the hardships to which they were exposed. 
 He was himself a prisoner for many months, his life being 
 always in peril; but his labours were not without visible 
 fruits, for he could declare, even after twenty years* resi- 
 dence, that he was living ^Tn a country no longer heathen, 
 the fruits and rice being cultivated by Christian hands, no 
 dwellings being in sight that were not Christian dwellings, 
 and whose inmates talked and lived and looked like Chris- 
 tians.’* 
 
 Bishop Wilson visited Judson on the occasion of his 
 going to Burmah, and the visit was returned, when Judson, 
 in feeble health, and seeking restoration in a sea-voyage, 
 was welcomed cordially at Calcutta. The work of Judson 
 was carried on by Dr. Mason (who joined him as early as 
 1831, and is still in Burmah), and by a considerable staff of 
 missionaries. At Kemmendine, three miles from the city 
 of Rangoon, they have a large college, where Karen youths 
 are thoroughly taught in Scripture, arithmetic, geography, 
 and the grammar of their own language ; they know no 
 English, and so are, unfortunately, debarred from the study 
 of many works which would be of great advantage to them. 
 The number of Karen Christians in connection with these 
 missions is between thirty and forty thousand. 
 
 The troubles of the American missionaries were very 
 much aggravated by the suspicions under which they lay, 
 when, from time to time, the country was threatened with 
 
76 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 war. In 1825, when Sir A. Campbell was in a position to 
 enforce his own terms, he demanded the release of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Judson, although they were not British subjects, from 
 the bondage in which they had long been — an imprison- 
 ment the hardships of which were of the most painful and 
 odious description. It was not until 1852 that the British 
 power was permanently established in Burmah, and the 
 missions of the English Church, as they have been estab- 
 lished subsequently, have been free from the drawbacks to 
 which the earlier labourers were exposed. The Roman 
 Missions in Burmah are of long standing, and are widely 
 extended ; the Vicar Apostolic of Pegu, Bishop Bigandeh 
 has given the best years of his life to Burmah, and is sin- 
 gularly proficient in the language and in the literature of the 
 country. The Missions of the Church of England, as repre- 
 sented by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 
 in Burmah are comparatively young, but they have been 
 and are excellently manned, and have been extended as 
 widely, and are, at least, as full of promise as any missions 
 of the same age in any part of the world. The people 
 themselves are well disposed ; free from the pride of caste, 
 bright and intelligent, conscious of the many advantages 
 to be gained from English books and Western civilisation, 
 they have been called the Irish of India, as the Parsees 
 have been called the Anglo-Saxons. Among such a people 
 the work of a teacher has many attractions. 
 
 In 1857 the Government chaplain at Moulmein laid the 
 foundation of a mission in that town, which is the capital 
 of the province of Tenasserim, and in 1859 the Rev. A. 
 Shears was sent from England to take up the work thus 
 commenced. In i860 he was reinforced by Mr. J. E. 
 Marks, then a layman, but now the senior missionary in 
 Burmah, whose peculiar gifts as a teacher have done very 
 much towards making our Burmese missions what they are. 
 
BURMAH, 
 
 77 
 
 From the first it was determined that the chief instrument 
 of evangelisation in this land should be education ; for that 
 the people were eager ; theological or metaphysical subtle- 
 ties they do not care for, and they show no desire to listen 
 to the preacher as he addresses them in the bazaars or 
 streets. For such a mission Mr. Marks was a man out ot 
 ten thousand ; he is one of those to whom teaching is not 
 only a delight but an instinct, and he had been in the habit, 
 when living in England, of holding a night-school in the 
 East of London, after spending the whole day with his 
 own pupils. Under his care the Moulmein School rapidly 
 increased, and in less than two years from its commence- 
 ment he was able to present for examination three hundred 
 scholars, of divers races, when Bishop Cotton visited Burmah 
 in the winter of i86i. Shortly after this Mr. Shears’ health 
 gave way, and he was ordered to England, but not until 
 he had laid the foundation of a girls’ school at Moulmein 
 and a boys’ school at Rangoon, which has since developed 
 into a widely-spread group of mission schools and stations. 
 Single-handed, Mr. Marks, who had in the meantime been 
 ordained, laboured at Rangoon and superintended the 
 school at Moulmein; much of the New Testament and 
 Prayer-book he had translated and carried through the 
 press ; continually he urged the need of reinforcement, but 
 the call met with no response from England. 
 
 From the Diocese of Fredericton a young clergyman, 
 who had read the story of Mr. Marks’ labours, volunteered 
 to join him, and the Rev. H. B. Nicholls arrived in March, 
 1864. With this increase to the staff the school progressed 
 rapidly, but only for a brief space ; the year that had com- 
 menced with so much promise ended sadly. In December 
 Mr. Nicholls died of brain fever, and four days afterwards 
 Mr. Marks was ordered to England in a very shattered state 
 of health. Little more than a year elapsed before Mr. Marks 
 
78 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 was again at his work, and the interval had not been spent 
 unprofitably. During his sojourn in England he tol(j^ the 
 simple story of his work in all parts of the country, from 
 Edinburgh to Penzance, and his unvarnished eloquence 
 raised up many sympathisers. He returned to India with an 
 enlarged staff, and was able to establish in Rangoon a girls’ 
 school, whose success has been uninterrupted. This is the 
 more gratifying, inasmuch as English residents in Burmah 
 prophesied certain failure, as the natives, while valuing 
 education for their sons, considered it a needless, almost 
 harmful luxury for their daughters. 
 
 Bishop Milman visited Burmah very soon after his arrival 
 in India, and was much encouraged by all that he saw. 
 The schools were in full vigour; 240 boys were present 
 at the examination, of whom about ten per cent, were 
 Christian ; the girls’ school, the pupils of which were not of 
 the lower but of the upper classes, was full of promise. 
 From the first the education given had been distinctively 
 Christian ; no child was admitted whose parents did not 
 consent to its receiving religious instruction, — a conscience 
 clause was unknown in Burmah, — and it was the bishop’s 
 opinion that, as pupils went forth from the schools, there 
 would be need of greater and more complete ministerial 
 supervision ; and also that the time was at hand when the 
 central school at Rangoon should throw out offshoots which 
 should aggress on the heathenism which pervaded the whole 
 land. Mr. Marks accompanied the bishop on his visitation 
 up the Irrawaddy as far as the frontier town of Thyet Myo, 
 some 240 miles north of Rangoon. Wherever the steamer 
 anchored they were met by requests for teachers. ^ The 
 immediate result of that voyage was the establishment of 
 schools at several towns on the Irrawaddy; to have sup- 
 plied them with masters from England would have been 
 impossible; but the school in Rangoon, which had had a 
 
BUR MAH. 
 
 79 
 
 start of some years, was now in a condition to send out some 
 of its own scholars, whom Mr. Marks had trained as pupih 
 teachers, and who were quite competent to manage these sub- 
 ordinate schools. The Rev. C. Warren is in charge of the 
 educational department of our Burmah Missions, and he 
 visits each of the schools from time to time, closing those 
 which do not succeed, and opening new ones where there is 
 a promise of success. The Moulmein school is likely to be 
 given up : the cost is great, and the results are small in 
 towns which are Europeanised, while the schools in purely 
 Burman towns are full of promise ; a girls’ school is founded 
 at Prome, another at Thyet Myo, both offshoots of the 
 Rangoon school. The Rev. C. H. Chard, who is stationed 
 at Thyet Myo, and who has a special aptitude for Burmese 
 literature, has some few youths under his care, of whom it 
 is hoped some will become ordained missionaries. The 
 Rev. J. Trew, another member of the Rangoon staff, has 
 devoted his time to itinerating in the country districts, and 
 his method of evangelising the people is unconventional 
 and to some degree original. He travels in a gharri, with 
 a catechist and a servant, and sometimes is accompanied 
 by some boys belonging to the school. He cannot be 
 accused of luxury, for he describes a recent tour in the 
 following words : — “ I am thankful to say that, though in 
 the mountains for five weeks during the most unhealthy 
 season, I escaped on the whole very well. Fever I had 
 slightly all the time, but suffered most from acute inflam- 
 mation of the eyes brought on from exposure to heat and 
 cold; rains and rivers thus caused me much pain, and I 
 have not yet entirely recovered. One lesson I learnt, and 
 that is, to do without what we so often deem necessaries. 
 I took a small stock of beer — this was soon exhausted ; a 
 bottle of brandy, the only one I had, was broken ; no milk, 
 little sugar, no bread or biscuits — cakes made of pounded 
 
8o 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 rice became quite a luxury. Then, too, my boots were 
 worn out. The leeches not only bit and bled me, but their 
 bites became sores.^* At the end of the day’s journey he 
 goes either to the traveller’s bungalow or to the head-man 
 of the village. After a bath and dinner, the people come 
 round him for conversation, for medical advice, which he is 
 able to give, or for amusement. Sometimes he plunges at 
 once into discussion, but this is only when he is known, * 
 and can allude to some previous conversations. If it is his 
 first visit he introduces himself by means of a magic lan- 
 tern ; the slides, representing scriptural scenes, give plenty 
 of opportunity for a running catechetical lecture. Not a 
 few adult baptisms have been the result of these missionary 
 tours, and on some occasions the idols, which are in every 
 Burmese house, have been given up to the missionary as no 
 longer of use. Mr. Trew has faith in the axiom that a 
 living Christian is a tree, whose seed is in itself, and he is 
 not afraid to employ his young converts as unpaid evange- 
 lists ; indeed, it is found that these, in whom the glow of 
 their conversion is recent, are very successful in attracting 
 and impressing others, and the fact that they are thus placed 
 in a position where their example is powerful for good or 
 evil, tends to sober them, and to make them watchful over 
 their own conduct. Altogether then, with five schools in 
 Rangoon itself, and a group of smaller schools on the Irra- 
 waddy, with an able Tamil catechist to care for the immi- 
 grants of that race, with an itinerating clergyman continually 
 breaking fresh ground, and another clergyman training up 
 candidates for the native ministry of the future, the missions 
 in British Burmah may be said to be in a promising con- 
 dition. 
 
 They are not confined, however, to British territory. So 
 long ago as 1863 Mr. Marks met in Rangoon a son of the 
 Emperor of Burmah. Never losing an opportunity, he gave 
 
I^URMAH, 
 
 8i 
 
 him copies of several Christian books which he had trans- 
 lated into Burmese, and talked with him on religious topics. 
 The result was that the prince invited Mr. Marks to the 
 capital. It was not until the autumn of 1869 that Mr. 
 Marks was enabled to visit Mandalay, and then he did so 
 at the request of the sovereign. He took with him five 
 Burmese lads from his school as an introduction, perhaps as 
 a specimen of his work. At a state interview which the 
 king gave him Mr. Marks presented a copy of the Book of 
 Common Prayer in Burmese, printed by the Society for 
 Promoting Christian Knowledge, and specimens of the work 
 done in the girls’ school at Rangoon. 
 
 The result of the interview was that the king offered to 
 build at his own cost a church, a large boarding-school, and 
 a mission-house, and to send his own sons to the school. 
 These promises have been kept right royally. The princes, 
 it is true, no longer come to school, for they were attended 
 by so many nobles, and were the subjects of so much 
 etiquette, that the time that should have been devoted to 
 education was absorbed by ceremony. Mr. Marks, there- 
 fore, goes to them, and gives them instruction in the palace. 
 The church has been built, the clergy-house has been occu- 
 pied for more than two years, and the king’s munificence has 
 never wavered. One fact connected with the Church at 
 Mandalay is particularly interesting. Mr. Trew, before sail- 
 ing for Burmah in 1870, preached on behalf of the Society 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel at Whippingham, and 
 related the story of the king’s bounty. The Queen was 
 worshipping in her parish church on that day, and was so 
 struck by the conduct of a heathen king in building a church 
 for her Christian subjects, that her Majesty expressed a 
 desire to give a font to the church, in which, with God’s 
 blessing, many a Burmese convert might one day be 
 admitted into the Christian covenant. The Christian 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Queen’s pious desire has been accomplished, and a magni- 
 ficent font of ample proportions now stands in ‘‘Christ 
 Church,” Mandalay. 
 
 Mr. Marks’ position is one of no little peril. He has to 
 walk very warily. At present he is in the favour of the 
 king ; but the temper of an Eastern despot is uncertain as 
 the wind. It is not for a moment pretended that the king 
 has any leanings to Christianity, although he is interested in 
 its truths, and shows no mean aptitude for discussion of 
 serious subjects. It is quite conceivable that his kindness 
 to an English clergyman may not be altogether free from 
 selfish motives ; and it is known that he is very ambitious 
 to introduce machinery, steamers, and even railroads into 
 his kingdom. More than once or twice Mr. Marks has 
 been compelled to explain that he knows nothing about 
 politics, or commerce, or machinery, but that he is a 
 missionary, and nothing else. To these must be added the 
 fact that the J esuit missionaries were at Mandalay long ago, 
 and are not likely, unless they are altogether more than 
 human, to witness with complacency the favour accorded to 
 an heretical teacher. Yet for more than two years, in the 
 very place where Judson, not half a century ago, was thrown 
 into a dungeon and treated with the refinements of cruelty, 
 Mr. Marks and his English schoolmaster and Burmese 
 pupils have been living within a gunshot of the royal palace, 
 without a guard and without lock or bolt to their doors. So 
 little does the Church at large know of what some of her 
 members are doing and suffering even in these prosaic days, 
 that it is possible that some who read these pages may 
 learn for the first time of the missions to Burmah, of the 
 King of Mandalay, and of our brethren who are working in 
 those lands. 
 
 A glance at the map will show how important is the 
 position of Burmah. Tt is the natural highway to China, 
 
BUR MAH. 
 
 83 
 
 and will be used as such at no distant day ; and from our 
 missions in Burmah aggression might be hopefully made into 
 that mysterious and little-known land. There is within its 
 borders an immense population, the majority of them being 
 free from caste. These are tribes of whom our knowledge 
 is imperfect : Karens, Shans, Singphos, Paloungs, Khyens, 
 Toungthoos, and others. In Chittagong there is an im- 
 mense trade, but no mission of any kind. In Arracan, 
 with the capital Akyab, there has been, since the withdrawal 
 of the American Baptists, no mission, with the exception of 
 those of the Romanists; and our stations in Pegu and 
 Tenasserim, prosperous and extending as they are, serve 
 only to show more clearly how many large towns are at 
 present wholly untouched. 
 
 In the last chapter a tolerably full account of the Buddhist 
 creed was given. In Burmah our missionaries are con- 
 fronted by that religion in its greatest vigour and in its 
 purest form. In Thibet it is mixed up with many ceremonies 
 which can be proved to be borrowed from the Roman 
 Ritual. Prayers are in some cases offered by machines, 
 which by the pulling of a cord scatter in the air strips of 
 paper with printed texts in Pali. In Tartary it is corrupted 
 with witchcraft and charms. In Ceylon Guadama^s tooth 
 is worshipped as a relic, although modern science has ruth- 
 lessly proved that the tooth in question is not human ; and 
 dancings, which are credited with powers of exorcism, are 
 much practised. In China, where it is found in its lowest 
 form, the Buddhists worship the shades of their ancestors 
 and demons of various kinds ; but in Burmah it seems to 
 adhere to its original type, for there the people’s worship 
 consists only of strict observance of fast and festival, and of 
 offerings of fruit and flowers to the shrine of Guadama. 
 The strength of the creed lies in its monastic system and in 
 the grandeur and antiquity of its pagodas. The education 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 of the young has always been in the hands of the priests or 
 poonghyees. At an early age the boys are sent to the 
 kyoungs or monasteries for education. In time they go 
 forth into the world and pursue seculai callings ; but some 
 have acquired a love of the religious life, and return to 
 the kyoung, and at twenty years of age are eligible for the 
 office of poonghyee. To this they are solemnly set apart : 
 they take vows of poverty; they are allowed to hold no 
 property, but are pledged to wear rags, and a yellow robe 
 over their rags to proclaim their office, and to beg their 
 food from the faithful. The vows so taken are not irrevo- 
 cable ; and if, as is often the case, the hardships of such a life 
 are found to be too great, they are allowed to return to the 
 world and to secular pursuits. When once this is done no 
 subsequent change of mind is possible : the doors of the 
 monastery^ have closed on them for ever. 
 
 Until we have arrived at a clear estimate of the inherent 
 strength of Buddhism, — its antiquity, its wealth, its endow- 
 ments, the numbers of its adherents, far in excess of all 
 professing Christians throughout the world, the splendour 
 of its pagodas and monasteries, its necessary hold on the 
 minds of the people, — we are not in a position to estimate 
 the labours of our missionaries ; still less are we justified in 
 feeling disappointed if the walls of this citadel, so ancient 
 and so strong, have not fallen down as soon as we, in 
 miserably insufficient numbers, have commenced the siege. 
 
85 
 
 X. 
 
 The mission to Borneo is wholly a mission of the present 
 generation, and the field has been exclusively in the posses- 
 sion of the English Church. Until 1838 it is probable that 
 no European had set his foot on the soil of Borneo. He who 
 acquired this distinction was remarkable on many accounts. 
 Born in 1803, James Brooke served as a cadet in the Indian 
 navy, and was wounded in the Burmese War. Having 
 relinquished his profession, he made a voyage for the sake * 
 of pleasure, and in search of health, to the China seas, and 
 the sight of the islands of that archipelago, each a gem of 
 perfect beauty, but with resources undeveloped and inhabit- 
 ants debased by slavery and piracy, suggested to him the 
 task of offering to them civilisation, and of throwing them 
 open to the world. It must be borne in mind that at that 
 time the exact geographical position of the islands had not 
 been ascertained; the navigation of those dangerous seas 
 was accomplished without the aid of any but the most un- 
 trustworthy of charts. The little, however, that was known of 
 the Malay races gave the European sailors good grounds for 
 regarding them as their natural enemies, for the stories of 
 their piratical expeditions were not more horrible than true. 
 I'he natural products of these islands were lying dormant, 
 profitless to mankind, and, in the midst of such possible 
 wealth, the slave trade was the only commerce which was 
 pursued vigorously. To suppress this traffic, to release the 
 oppressed, to reclaim the pirates by engaging them in lawful 
 
86 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 commerce, were the humane objects which Mr. Brooke set 
 before himself. Enthusiastic as he was, he did not allow 
 his plans to be marred by impulsive action ; he laid them 
 wisely, and sought for trustworthy companions. For a whole 
 year he trained on board his own yacht a crew of English 
 sailors, on whose personal attachment to himself he could 
 implicitly rely, and it was not until 1838 that his yacht 
 sighted Sarawak, then a town of 1,500 people, but now possess- 
 ing a population of nearly 30,000. It does not fall within 
 the scope of this paper to detail the many adventures which 
 necessarily befel a pioneer and a reformer in such a country 
 as Borneo. Mr. Brooke was perpetually exposed to 
 oriental treachery, intensified by religious fanaticism ; his 
 life was hourly in danger, and his displays of courage of the 
 very highest type were innumerable. In 1842, three years 
 after his first landing, he was made Governor of Sarawak, 
 with full powers, the Rajah Mudah Hassim ceding to him a 
 government which he had found to be a burden, and the 
 Sultan of Bruni consenting to the arrangement. 
 
 After a lapse of thirty years, our knowledge of Borneo is 
 very slight. The island itself is the largest in the world (for 
 Australia takes rank as a continent). On the eastern and 
 southern sides the Dutch have commercial settlements ; of 
 the interior the sum of our knowledge is that it is peopled 
 by an interesting race, superior to those with whom we have 
 had dealings, and that they are independent, owing no 
 allegiance, and paying no taxes. The province of Sarawak 
 is on the north-west side, and of this and the adjacent parts 
 into which our missions have been pushed, we now know a 
 good deal ; but even after a quarter of a century the state 
 of the country is almost unique, and the missionaries who 
 are stationed “up the rivers” and around the jungle may be 
 regarded as taking the outpost duty of the evangelistic army. 
 Their isolation is extreme and their discomforts many. In 
 
BORNEO AND THE STRAITS. 
 
 
 the distant stations in Zululand, or on the rivers of Guiana, 
 the missionaries have to forage for their own food, and their 
 daily dinner depends much on the success of their own or 
 others’ rifles. This is not with them a very precarious state 
 of things, as game of some sort is abundant ; but in Borneo 
 the wild animals are few and unfit for food, and, beyond the 
 stock of poultry kept for conversion into curry, the European 
 has to resort to tins of preserved meat sent out to him from 
 England, a costly, wearying, and unwholesome kind of 
 food. 
 
 To administer the government of a country in some 
 respects so primitive, but in others defiled with the corrup- 
 tion found in more civilised states, was a herculean task. 
 Mr. Brooke had to deal with the dominant Malays, bitter 
 and bigoted Mahometans, and with their slaves, the Dyaks, 
 a docile gentle, people, without definite religion, and pos- 
 sessing only the most indistinct notions concerning a 
 Supreme Being. The Chinese were also represented in 
 great numbers. Among these people human life was a thing 
 of no value ; every man lived in a state of war, his weapons 
 ready for use and himself nothing loth to use them on the 
 slightest pretext ; their very homes were citadels, being 
 built on piles for protection from their enemies. The life 
 among the Dyaks is essentially a communal one, each house 
 being a village. One which Mr. Brooke visited, and which 
 was a counterpart of others, was 600 feet long, with one 
 common street 2 1 feet wide running the whole length, and 
 having doors on one side which opened into the several 
 rooms. On the occasion of his visit, thirty human heads 
 were hanging from the roof-tree. Of these trophies the 
 people are very proud ; until a youth has secured a number 
 of these ghastly spoils he is not admitted to full privileges in 
 his tribe : to take a certain number of heads is to assume 
 the ^^toga virilis'' But amid this unmitigated savagery 
 
88 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Mr. Brooke met with a condition of things which is supposed 
 to be limited to more civilised communities ; the rajahs had 
 each their following of sycophants, who sinned with im- 
 punity, and it was a difficult task to deal out justice to all 
 with even hand. Plots and outbreaks, detected or sup- 
 pressed, were of daily occurrence, and Mr. Brooke, with 
 Captain Keppel of H.M.S. “Dido,’^ had a perilous time. 
 In 1845 Labuan, an island on the north-west coast of 
 Borneo, was ceded to Great Britain, and Mr. Brooke was 
 made confidential agent in those parts by the Foreign 
 Office. 
 
 Hitherto missionary work in Borneo had not been 
 attempted, but in 1846 Mr. Brooke appealed to England 
 “ to raise the Dyaks from their unparalleled wretchedness.’^ 
 Neither of the Church societies had funds with which to 
 enter on a field so wide and so unknown : a special organ- 
 isation was therefore set on foot by private persons. It 
 shared the fate of all such schemes; at first people are 
 attracted by a new mission, to be started under new auspices 
 and supported by associations distinct from those which are 
 familiar to them and of long standing. While enthusiasm 
 is fresh, money flows in, but the enthusiasm dies, and new 
 blood is not forthcoming ; meanwhile it is discovered that a 
 small mission fund is raised at a much higher percentage of 
 cost than the larger income of a society, and with insolvency 
 looking them in the face, the remnant of the supporters have 
 either to witness the collapse of their scheme, or to seek for 
 themselves absorption into one or other of the existing 
 societies. This was the fate of the “ Borneo Church Mission 
 Fund,” commenced in 1846, and even from the first aided 
 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In 1852 
 its funds were exhausted, and it was saved from failure by 
 being transferred to that society, which had just kept its third 
 jubilee and had funds at its disposal. In 1847 three clergy- 
 
BORNEO AND THE STRAITS. 
 
 89 
 
 men had been selected, of whom one died before the party 
 had arranged to sail, and of the other two, one soon returned 
 to England, and the Rev. F. T. McDougall laboured single- 
 handed for a considerable time. 
 
 Of the government of Sarawak we shall have nothing 
 further to say. Rajah Brooke laid the foundations of a 
 future kingdom, and he secured for the country the blessings 
 of the Christian faith. His administration has been estimated 
 very differently by different people ; to some he appeared a 
 mere brave, hardly superior, except in skill, to the pirates 
 with whom he warred ; others declared him to be an ideal 
 ruler, wise and far-seeing, as philanthropic as he was firm ; 
 perhaps the true judgment of posterity will lie between these 
 two. In many respects he disappointed those who admired 
 him and expected most from him. The prophecies which 
 his detractors hazarded concerning him were equally un- 
 fulfilled. To the mission he did not give the support which 
 was looked for ; he was autocratic in his government, and, 
 regarding Christianity too exclusively as an engine of civili- 
 sation, he was inclined to dictate the form which the 
 Christianity of Borneo should assume, and the doctrines 
 which should be delivered to or withheld from the people. 
 In his later days, his views became less and less in harmony 
 with Church standards. The mission then owed very little 
 to him. The one man to whom, under God, the conversion 
 of Borneo will in time to come be attributed is its first 
 bishop. The fact of Bishop McDougall being still spared, 
 after twenty years of such perilous labour as few men in any 
 age have undergone, to fulfil the more peaceful functions of 
 an English vicar, ought not to be the cause of suppressing 
 the record of those labours until his fame has become 
 posthumous. Of the three first missionaries, he alone re- 
 mained at his post ; his experience as a Fellow of the College 
 of Surgeons came into use immediately on his arrival, and 
 
90 
 
 UNDER HIS DANNER. 
 
 the question of the worth of medical missionaries was settled 
 in his person. For three years he laboured single-handed. 
 He acquired the language, made translations into Malay 
 and Chinese, pioneered the way into the Dyak country so 
 that he might know where to place his colleagues when any 
 came to him, and built a mission-house and church at Sara- 
 wak, which latter was consecrated by Bishop Wilson in 1851. 
 In that year three clergymen joined him, one of them being 
 the Rev. Walter Chambers, the present bishop. Mr. 
 Chambers went to the station prepared for him among the 
 Sea Dyaks on the Batang Lupar to the east of Sarawak, and 
 another missionary was sent to the same people on the 
 Lundu River to the west. Thus the work was extended, 
 and just at that time the funds which had supported it 
 collapsed, as has been mentioned above. 
 
 On the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel taking 
 over the mission, an attempt was made to give to it the 
 benefit of an episcopal head ; but the usual difficulties, 
 technical and legal, were interposed. In 1855, however, 
 these were removed, and on St. Luke’s Day Dr. McDougall 
 was consecrated Bishop of Labuan, in the Cathedral of 
 Calcutta, the first instance of an Anglican bishop being 
 consecrated outside the limits of the United Kingdom ; the 
 first occasion, too, on which four bishops of the English 
 succession had been assembled in the capital of Hindostan. 
 It was a legal technicality that assigned to the new bishop the 
 title of Labuan, which was the sole territory belonging to 
 the British Crown in those regions, and on his arrival in 
 Sarawak the absurdity was the more apparent, by the fact of 
 the rajah objecting to the use of such a title by a bishop 
 ministering in his territory, and he therefore appointed him 
 Bishop of Sarawak as well. 
 
 From time to time fresh labourers came out to Borneo, 
 either as additions to the staff, or to take the places of those 
 
BORNEO AND THE STRAITS. 
 
 91 
 
 who could not bear the equatorial climate, the humid atmo- 
 sphere, the monotony of days of almost uniform duration 
 throughout the year, or whose physical courage was not 
 equal to the perpetual state of alarm in which the English 
 colony lived. In 1857, when the missions were visibly 
 extended, churches having been built, schools prospering' 
 and more labourers loudly called for, a rebellion, on the 
 part of the Chinese, suddenly threw the whole work into 
 confusion. Some of the European officers were killed, but 
 the rajah himself escaped. The bishop and his family, 
 together with some of the missionaries and the Christian 
 converts, hid themselves in the jungle, and ultimately took 
 refuge in the fort at Linga. Returning at the end of a 
 month, the bishop found his home entirely ransacked ; but, 
 worse than all, while the Chinese had been either killed or 
 driven into the country, the old bloodthirsty spirit, which 
 had been put to sleep by the efforts of the missionaries, 
 was aroused anew; the passion for taking heads was re- 
 kindled, and it was a long time before the Dyaks could 
 settle down once more in peace to receive Christian teach- 
 ing. Two years later a Mahometan plot was hatched, and 
 two Europeans fell victims ; piracy and head-taking were 
 revived, and the mission made little visible way. 
 
 But the missionaries remained at their posts, doing, if not 
 all they wished, the utmost that was possible. The small 
 flocks were tended, the schools were organised, the lan- 
 guages were studied more thoroughly and translations made, 
 the sufferings of the people, whether Christian or heathen, 
 were relieved by medical skill, and thus quietly, almost 
 imperceptibly, the truth was advanced. 
 
 In 1863 Buda, the son of a notorious pirate-chief, having 
 met with some Christian Dyaks, became himself an inquirer, 
 and put himself under Mr. Chambers' instruction. The 
 next year he returned with wife and child for further 
 
92 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 teaching, and returned to his own people to work as a 
 catechist among them; the result was, that in 1867 Mr. 
 Chambers, who paid them a long visit, was happy in bap* 
 tizing 180 of the people, who, but very recently, had been 
 the most dangerous enemies of the English and the most 
 notorious of the pirates of Borneo. 
 
 From the first the missionaries bestowed much labour on 
 tlie Chinese, which has been well repaid. This is one of 
 the many instances, of which more will be said in another 
 paper, where the Chinese, so inaccessible in their own land, 
 yield themselves readily to Christian influences when they 
 are removed from home associations. One of their number, 
 who landed with a party of 3,000 immigrants in 1849, and 
 who had come with them from China as their Confucian 
 teacher, was among the earliest inquirers into Christianity. 
 After a time he was baptized and laboured as a catechist ; 
 and in 1865 he was ordained deacon. 
 
 The following incident of his preparation was recently 
 related by Bishop McDougall in the Lower House of the 
 Convocation of Canterbury, which confirms the testimony 
 of Bishop Cotton to the value of the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 The bishop said, “ When the Rev. Foo Ngyen Khoon 
 was instructed in the teaching of the ‘ Quicunque vult,’ his 
 earlier training as a catechist having been limited to the 
 Apostles’ and the Nicene Creeds, he said, ‘‘Why did you 
 never teach me this before ? I have had the greatest diffi- 
 culty in understanding your doctrine of the Trinity ; now I 
 understand it in a way I never understood it before : this is 
 the thing to teach the Chinese.” 
 
 The work among this race is interrupted from time to 
 time by their migratory habits ; but if the sincerity of their 
 faith is to be tested by visible fruits, it need not fear the 
 test. In 1865 the Chinese resident in Sarawak conceived 
 the idea of building a “ House of Charity,” for the shelter of 
 
BORNEO AND THE STRAITS. 
 
 93 
 
 Christians out of work, and for the temporary reception of 
 their countrymen whose homes were up the river when 
 business called them to Sarawak, and who at present were 
 subjected to temptations by lodging with the heathen, or by 
 resorting to the opium shops for society : from the offertory 
 at their services and by their private gifts the design was 
 carried out, and the ‘‘ House of Charity is a diocesan 
 institution. 
 
 The Borneo Missions extend now over the whole of the 
 country governed by Rajah Brooke, and the outposts are 
 opening the way for the evangelisation of the interior. The 
 number of baptized persons is about i,6oo ; but the result of 
 the mission is not to be measured simply by such statistics. 
 The general tone of the community is raised, and hundreds 
 who have made no profession would be shocked at the 
 thought of doing things in which the last generation 
 gloried. The time has now come when the fruits of past 
 labours should appear in native candidates for the ministry. 
 Many, both Dyak and Chinese, are labouring diligently and 
 consistently as catechists and teachers ; but the bishops 
 have not yet been able to give, except in the case of the 
 Chinese clergyman already mentioned, such attention to 
 theological training as would fit their pupils for the higher 
 duties of ordained ministers. 
 
 The Dyaks who have renounced heathenism have not 
 been urged to lay aside any old customs, save such as are 
 inconsistent with Christianity, or repugnant to health, 
 decency, morality, or piety. From the first it has been 
 determined that the Church of Borneo shall not be an 
 exotic ; and in laying the foundations of such a Church, we 
 may bear in mind that we are dealing, not only with a 
 manly people, skilled in the arts both of war and of peace, 
 but with a race which has not (so far as can be discovered) 
 emigrated from other parts, but is still dwelling in the land 
 
94 
 
 UNDER HJS BANNER, 
 
 which' was its cradle, and bids fair to increase both in num- 
 bers and in importance. 
 
 The Straits settlements are now under the episcopal 
 charge of the Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak. Of mission 
 work little is being done in these parts by the Church of 
 England. There are Government chaplains at Singapore, 
 Penang, and Malacca; at Singapore the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel has had a mission for some 
 years. The work is extremely difficult, on account of the 
 variety of races and creeds that have to be dealt with ; a 
 single* ordained missionary can at best only hope to direct 
 the labours of catechists or native clergy. Tamils, Chinese, 
 Malay-Chinese, are here in tens of thousands ; they remain 
 a few years and then depart, either to their own countries, 
 or to fresh fields of labour, so that if brought under Chris- 
 tian teaching, while the missionary grieves at their loss, they 
 become ready dispensers of the truths which they have 
 received. Few places can be found more important than 
 Singapore. From an insignificant fishing village, with a 
 population of 150 souls, it has grown until it has become 
 the key of Eastern commerce. The forethought of Sir 
 Stamford Raffles, who made it a free port, secured for the 
 English Crown this splendid station. The same wise ad- 
 ministrator provided for its spiritual development by build- 
 ing a church, now replaced by a more ambitious structure, 
 which is called the cathedral, and in which the present 
 Bishop of Labuan was enthroned, and by the endowment 
 of a college, of which he wrote, “ I trust in God that this 
 institution may be the means of civilising and bettering the 
 condition of millions.^^ 
 
 In view of the importance of Singapore, with its polyglot 
 population constantly arriving, and, after a short sojourn, 
 departing again, and in consideration of the 300,000 Ma- 
 hometans who are scattered up and down the Straits, it 
 
BORNEO AND THE STRAITS. 
 
 95 
 
 must be confessed that the Church of England is not 
 making the most of her opportunities. The mission even 
 of Singapore has been for some time without a head, no 
 suitable priest having been found to take up the varied 
 works, in the midst of which the former missionary, 
 Mr. Venn, fell a victim to cholera. 
 
XI. 
 
 ‘‘ O MIGHTY fortress, when shall these impenetrable brazen 
 gates of thine be broken open ? ” was the mournful exclama- 
 tion of Valignani, as he gazed in sadness at the mountains 
 of China. His predecessor, Xavier, foiled in his attempts to 
 set his foot in the heart of the country, had succumbed to 
 fever on the coast of San-cian thirty years before. Those 
 gates have not yet opened ; the ramparts stand almost as 
 firm and impregnable as they were three centuries ago ; and 
 it is only right to add that the greatest impression that has 
 been made on them is the result of the labours of those who 
 inherited the toil of Valignani and Xavier. 
 
 If we are appalled by the thought of India as a land to 
 be won by the Christian soldier, the feeling is intensified 
 when we consider the problem of the evangelisation of 
 China. Of its early history our knowledge is gained almost 
 wholly by inference ; of its present condition our informa- 
 tion is extremely limited. Its language, although divided 
 only into dialects, and therefore not presenting so many 
 obstacles as do the distinct languages of India, is the most 
 difficult of any — without a phonetic alphabet, each character 
 a separate word, possessing both sound and meaning. Its 
 civilisation, at the same time, is the most ancient in the 
 world ; forty centuries ago, thriving and well-ordered com- 
 munities existed within the limits of the present empire ; 
 its scientific axioms passed the mountain barrier which 
 separated it from Hindostan, and were accepted by scholars 
 
CHINA AND JAPAN, 
 
 97 
 
 in India ; while its fabrics and potteries were treasured in 
 the West, just at the time when European empires were 
 slowly being consolidated, as, one by one, they emerged 
 from barbarism. 
 
 The people too, cold, practical, unimaginative, living 
 within their own civilisation and despising the outer world 
 as barbarous, needing not the material rampart to seclude 
 them — for already a barrier, not of stone, but of creed and 
 of thought, had effectually cut them off from sympathy with 
 others — what race could be more unpromising ? Add to 
 these considerations that the Chinese have had at least 
 three established religions, existing side by side and sup- 
 ported by the State ; that these are dominant over an empire 
 whose actual limits are hard to define, and among scarcely 
 fewer than 400,000,000 human beings, and it will be seen 
 that the difficulties in the path of the Christian missionary 
 can hardly be exaggerated. 
 
 It is not true that Confucius was the founder of the religion 
 of China as Guadama may be said to have been the founder 
 of Buddhism. Confucius (or Kong-fu-tse, more properly) 
 was born b.c. 551, and was, therefore, for eight years con- 
 temporary with Guadama, but he only remodelled the sacred 
 books, which, mostly in a lyrical form, had existed for cen- 
 turies. These sacred works, it should be observed, have 
 only been accessible to English students within the last ten 
 years, and the triumph of translating and explaining them is 
 due to Dr. Legge, of the London Missionary Society, who 
 has devoted the better part of his life to the task. Con- 
 fucius was eminently conservative : the sayings which he 
 originated, and which we can now study for ourselves, are 
 pithy and sententious, in some instances magnificent ; but 
 he contented himself mainly with inaugurating social reforms, 
 and in urging on prince and peasant implicit reverence for 
 the ancient sacred books. His .system was narrow, and its 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 tendency was to repress activity of thought; his theories, 
 whatever they were, remained in an incomplete state until 
 the end of the twelfth century of our era; then, when in 
 England the Barons were demanding of King John the 
 privileges of Magna Charta, the ethics of Confucius were 
 being moulded into a creed which was simply king-worship. 
 By them the emperor is invested with a sacerdotal as well 
 as with an imperial character ; he wears sacrificial robes, and 
 in his own person offers sacrifices in temples, where no sub- 
 ordinate dare officiate. There is in this system no sense of 
 personal demerit ; it is, in brief. Pantheism. Sacrifices are 
 offered not merely to the heaven and the earth, but to a host 
 of minor deities, to spirits of the rivers and of the hills, as well 
 as to the stars. The Jesuits in the sixteenth century endea- 
 voured to establish a common ground between Christianity 
 and Confucianism, in a belief in an all-pervading Spirit, but, 
 whatever idea of the kind may have prevailed in the earlier 
 phases of the system, the unity of God had long ceased to 
 form the basis of the Chinese creed. 
 
 The second religion of China is Tao-ism, or the religion 
 of the Fixed Way. Its founder, Lao-tse, was born b.c. 604, 
 half a century before Confucius. In striking contrast with 
 him, he resembled Sakya Mouni, in that he despised the 
 practical, and abandoned himself to meditation. Maxims 
 of policy and government he cared not for ; but to subdue 
 all mundane thoughts, and to cultivate a longing for the 
 unseen and the eternal, appeared to him to be the supreme 
 duty. The ‘Tao^ of Lao-tse,* in its exalted meaning, is 
 declared to be entirely void of thought, of consciousness, of 
 judgment, of activity, of intelligence. It is the deification 
 of that one transcendent way by which all beings came at 
 first into existence : it is fixed, impassable, eternal ; and in 
 proportion as mankind are more devoted to the doctrines of 
 apathy and inaction, they are said to walk directly in the 
 
CH/NA AND JAPAN. 
 
 99 
 
 Tao, to approach the Tao, and eventually to gain the Tao.”’^ 
 As with Buddhism, so with Tao- ism, the morality inculcated 
 is of a high and attractive type : it leads men to conquer 
 themselves, to ignore natural inclinations and to do good 
 deeds without the slightest sense of satisfaction ; in neither 
 system is a righteous God recognised. How or why this 
 religion degenerated from its high aims is not clear ; but to 
 the missionaries of the seventeenth century the Tao-ists 
 seemed the most degraded and hopeless of all ; though still 
 possessing much power and held in high respect, they had 
 sunk to the level of jugglers and tricksters, and kept the 
 people in subjection by magical arts and soothsaying. 
 
 These two religions ran their course in China for some five 
 centuries, and failed equally in satisfying the higher cravings 
 of the soul. About the sixtieth year of the Christian era, just 
 when St. Paul first saw Rome, the fame of Buddhism having 
 reached China, a deputation of mandarins crossed into 
 Northern India for the purpose of learning something more 
 definite about this mysterious creed ; they returned with a 
 Hindu teacher, a large stock of books, and a portrait of 
 Guadama ; and thus at one step Buddhism became a re- 
 cognised religion of China. But it was transplanted only to 
 deteriorate, not, indeed, in numbers, for these increased 
 rapidly, and temples and monasteries, the material signs ct 
 the zeal of the converts, were multiplied; but in its doctrines 
 the Buddhism of China is the most corrupt of all the forms 
 which that religion has assumed. 
 
 Christianity has been offered to China from many sources 
 and at many times. At an early date a Nestorian church 
 established itself in the empire, but it was either uprooted or 
 died out in course of time. The Jesuits commenced their 
 missions in the sixteenth century, and it must be admitted 
 that the largest measure of missionary success in China has 
 
 * ChrUt and other MaiterSy vol. ii. p. 65. 
 
lOO 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 been accorded to the Roman Church, spite of the persecu- 
 tions to which they have been exposed. They have more 
 than 500 foreign clergy, and a host of natives of different 
 ecclesiastical degrees. To sensuous and materialistic races 
 the objective teaching of Romanism is more acceptable 
 than the abstract method of other bodies ; the lives of the 
 Roman missionaries have likewise attracted and impressed 
 the mass : they have become all things to all men, living in 
 the same way, wearing the same garb. In the reredos of the 
 Roman Catholic cathedral the figures of our Lord and the 
 Apostles are all represented in Chinese garb, and their faces 
 are distinctly of the Chinese type; the numerous sisterhoods 
 and societies of religious women in connection with these 
 missions have also contributed largely to the result. 
 
 From America and from the London Missionary Society 
 labourers were sent to China before the country was really 
 open to foreigners. The labours of Dr. Legge, of the latter 
 society, in translating and reducing to system the Chinese 
 classics have already been mentioned. Medical missions 
 were adopted in China almost from the first, and have 
 proved a great blessing. In 1844 the Church of the United 
 States determined at the General Convention to appoint 
 three foreign missionary bishops, one of whom should be 
 sent to China. Dr. Boone, who had laboured in Batavia 
 and in Amoy, was consecrated the first bishop, and he deter- 
 mined to make his head-quarters Shanghae, which seemed 
 the best basis of operations from which to reach ultimately 
 the interior of the country. Bishop Boone’s labours were 
 continued for twenty years ; his life w'as, indeed, full of 
 varied incidents. Having first studied law, he determined 
 to adopt missionary work as the labour of his life, and tliat 
 he might be thoroughly qualified for it, he applied himself 
 to the study of medicine. Connected by his marriage with 
 one of the wealthiest families in South Carolina, he never 
 
CHINA AND JAPAN 
 
 lOI 
 
 turned aside from the path which he had chosen ; unsparing 
 of himself, wise and judicious, he won the respect of the 
 foreign residents in China, and gained sympathy with his 
 work, for his own sake, from many who had been indifferent 
 to the work itself. In 1866 the Rev. C. M. Williams was 
 consecrated his successor. The American Church has now 
 in China, besides the bishop, nine clergymen, of whom 
 two are natives, and an equal number of lay workers. In 
 j^^the Church Missionary Society commenced a mission, 
 which languished after four years ; and in 1 844, when the 
 five ports had been opened by treaty, the society sent two 
 clergymen, one of whom became the first Bishop of Hong 
 Kong, to survey the land and to report on its capabilities. 
 The opening of the five ports gave an impetus to missionary 
 zeal on behalf of China, and an effort was made to give to 
 our missions an episcopal head. An appeal having been 
 made, the required funds were soon provided, 11,000 
 being the munificent gift of “ A Brother and Sister,’^ who 
 chose to remain anonymous. It was determined that the 
 bishop should aim from the first at training a native ministry, 
 and for this purpose a college was established with some 
 portion of the Endowment Fund, of which the bishop was 
 to be the warden. 
 
 The first bishop, Dr. George Smith, was an experienced 
 Chinese scholar, and he entered into the pious designs of 
 the founders of the bishopric ; his letters-patent gave him 
 ‘‘jurisdiction over all persons in Holy Orders of the United 
 Church of England and Ireland living within the dominions 
 of the Emperor of China, or within any ship or vessel not 
 more than one hundred miles from the coast of China ; ” 
 but he regarded as his great work, not the government 
 of the few chaplains who were stationed in the large 
 cities, but the spread of the Gospel through the heathen 
 land. In 1866 Bishop Smith retired from his see to spend 
 the rest of his days, in enfeebled health, in England. Of 
 
lo^ 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Bishop Alford's episcopate,, which dates from February 2, 
 1867, and which ended in 1871, little can be recorded, as 
 from various circumstances the diocese was deprived of the 
 bishop's presence for more than half of that time. He visited 
 the several chaplaincies, inspected and wrote an interesting 
 report on the capacities of Japan as a field for missions; 
 and he baptized and confirmed the converts whom the mis- 
 sionaries had won ; but until the vernacular language has 
 been acquired, no missionary can effectually do his work. 
 The endowment so piously provided will not, it is to be 
 hoped, be allowed to lie idle, and . in any future plans 
 that may be formed, the distinctly missionary work, which 
 was contemplated by the donors of the. fund, should receive 
 the most scrupulous care. 
 
 It is not without much opposition and peril, — nay, not 
 without many martyrdoms, — ;that missions, as well Roman 
 as others, have been carried on in China ; and of our own 
 efforts as a Church we cannot speak without shame. . The 
 Church Missionary Society has now in this almost limitless 
 cotmtry seventeen ordained clergy, but the trying climate 
 always compels a considerable percentage of this number 
 to be on furlough. The Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel commenced a medical mission at Pekin in 1863, 
 which was shortly afterwards withdrawn. The prospects, 
 therefore, of our missions in China cannot be said to be 
 bright ; we have done enough as a Church to convict us 
 of acknowledging our responsibility, but almost nothing 
 towards fulfilling that responsibility. It should be stated, 
 Avhile we are estimating the various forces at work for the 
 conversion of China, that there has been a Russian mission 
 established at Pekin for more than a hundred and fifty 
 years. It numbers seven ecclesiastical and four lay mem- 
 bers, who return to St. Petersburgh after a service of ten 
 years — an unwise system, which removes the labourer just at 
 the very time when he has become, perhaps, inured to the 
 
CHINA AND JAPAN 
 
 103 
 
 climate, certainly when he has mastered the language and 
 familiarised himself with the people and their habits. 
 
 Of the missions in Japan it is as yet too early to prog- 
 nosticate the fortune. Opposition, both secret and open, 
 is offered to the spread of Christianity, and the peril of 
 living in a country where life is not valued, and where 
 justice, or that which is so called, is administered recklessly, 
 is very great. The American Church has one missionary 
 there, and the bishop, who has supported him by his pre- 
 sence, looks to the alteration of treaties by which the 
 profession of Christianity will become lawful, as the only 
 ground on which to build hopes of success. The Church 
 Missionary Society has two clergymen in the country, but in 
 their cases also it is too early to look for results. There is 
 a great eagerness on the part of the Japanese to learn Eng- 
 lish, and they are attracted by English institutions, and this 
 certainly is a great point. 
 
 Perhaps we have no right to expect that we can now 
 impose the Christian faith on China, when in our dealings 
 with it as nation with nation we have acquired so evil a 
 reputation. It is only seventy years since Lord Macartney, 
 the representative of the English Crown, commended his 
 countrymen to the Chinese as being a creedless people. 
 
 The English never attempt, he said, to disturb or dis- 
 pute the religious worship or tenets of others ; they have 
 no priests or chaplains with them, as have other European 
 nations.’^ The way in which we forced the opium trade on 
 China, when it was strictly a contraband article ; the wars 
 in which we engaged in order to find a market for the 
 deleterious drug ; the Thae-ping insurrection, which deluged 
 China with bloodshed and rapine, and which was the result 
 of one of these wars, — these are but sorry credentials for the 
 messenger of the Gospel of Peace. 
 
 The ‘‘brazen gates” which Valignani apostrophised are 
 
104 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 not yet opened — they can hardly be said as yet to have 
 been forced ; nevertheless there is hope that one day they 
 may be opened wide, not by European or American mis- 
 sionaries, but by the Chinese themselves. In a literal sense 
 they have been opened, but from within : they have opened, 
 and the Chinese, whose forefathers were content to live 
 within the restricted limits of their antique civilisation, have 
 in recent times gone forth in swarms to the most distant 
 parts of the world. It is hardly exaggeration to say that 
 they are now ubiquitous : everywhere the Chinaman retains 
 his characteristics ; he is the same cheerful, civil, industrious 
 toiler, living on what would be scanty support for a native 
 of another land, and speedily becoming a capitalist and an 
 usurer. In his own land he has small inducements to 
 hoard, for as soon as he is known to be worth money he is 
 ‘‘ squeezed ” by the Mandarins : he is requested to make a 
 loan to the Emperor and he dare not refuse, although he 
 knows perfectly well that the loan will never be repaid. We 
 have seen in the preceding paper how he fares in Borneo 
 and Singapore, and how accessible he is to the arguments 
 of the missionary. In temporal matters he does not prosper 
 so well in these regions as when he is farther away from 
 his native land, for he is apt to meddle with politics and to 
 maintain communications with the secret societies of China, 
 which are not favourable to worldly success \ but in remoter 
 regions he prospers even in spite of the legislation, which 
 aims specially at his repression and extirpation. In Cali- 
 fornia he is heavily taxed; in Victoria (New South Wales) 
 he is taxed almost to the point of prohibition; in Louisiana., 
 and other Southern States, he is a contraband article alto- 
 gether ; but no protective legislation passed in the interests 
 of native industry can stay the advance of this pushing 
 race. Hindered in one quarter, they not only seek fresh 
 fields, but they persevere until they pass the barrier. In 
 
CHINA AND JAPAN. 
 
 105 
 
 Columbia they are the washermen, the porters, and the 
 sweepers ; in San Francisco, although they are treated as 
 ‘‘ black-fellows are in Australia, and their evidence is not 
 taken in causes to which white men are parties, they 
 literally swarm, and their numbers are one-tenth of the 
 whole population ; in New South Wales and Queensland, 
 where they are still denied the rights of citizens, they cannot 
 be fewer than 60,000 ; and in Guiana and India, where they 
 do the hard labour on plantations and railways and drain- 
 age works, they are increasing at an extraordinary rate. A 
 Chinaman will make money where others fail : he will wash 
 patiently the dirt from a claim that an Englishman has 
 abandoned, and from the cradle which he has rocked he 
 will bring forth the tiny specks of gold, which will not only 
 provide him with food and shelter, but will add something 
 to his hoard. Skilful mechanics, the Chinese will turn their 
 hands to carpentering or tailoring, and in some countries 
 they have been successful as market gardeners. From these 
 humbler crafts they are working their way upwards, and in 
 the employ of the Messageries hfiperiales^'' and other steam 
 ship companies, Chinese quartermasters and helmsmen are 
 not unfrequently to be found. In the Sandwich Islands 
 thousands of them work as Coolies on the sugar plantations, 
 while in the mission schools of Burmah, Chinese boys are 
 remarkable for their industry and quickness. 
 
 Of all the “ cheap races the Chinese are the cheapest : 
 on the scantiest wage, and in spite of contempt and even 
 cruelty, they get through a large amount of work, and it will 
 puzzle legislation to repress their energy and their emigrat- 
 ing instinct. And the remarkable thing about them is, that 
 they all look to return to their native land ; the money 
 which they hoard is to be spent in their beloved celestial 
 home. It is this that makes them so important in a mis- 
 sionary point of view. Hated by the whites, who regard 
 
io6 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 them as a pack of lying, pilfering, effeminate heathen, they 
 may in many instances carry back with them only over true 
 stories of cruelty, injustice, and bullying, as their experience 
 of “civilisation but they may carry back tidings of better 
 things. To this end they must be sought out by the 
 missionary : their instinct is to herd together in a “ Chinese 
 quarter,’^ just as the Irish do in large towns in England, 
 and if they are left uncared for, their presence is made 
 known from time to time by crimes of blackest dye ; but, 
 as has been before stated, they are singularly open to 
 religious impressions. The only country in which the mis- 
 sionaries report badly of them is Columbia, and there the 
 few clergy seem to be so fully occupied by their labours 
 among the colonists and the aborigines as to have had no 
 time to care for the Chinese ; but where they have received 
 attention, the report is uniformly favourable. In Australia 
 they are declared by the police authorities to be “ the best 
 of citizens,” while the bishops and clergy mention not only 
 their willingness to receive instruction, but to communicate 
 to their friends that which they have received. In Guiana 
 they compare favourably with Christians of other races, and 
 of their doings in Borneo we have already written. 
 
 Therefore we may well ask. Is it impossible that the 
 evangelisation of the mysterious Chinese Empire shall one 
 day be accomplished, not by the immediate action of foreign 
 missionaries, but by the labours of its own sons, who have 
 received the truth in the strange countries whither they 
 have been attracted in the order of Providence by the love 
 of gain, and have returned to their fatherland wealthy, not 
 in the possession simply of the reward of their toil but of 
 the higher and truer riches? Two captive youths in the 
 fourth century were the means of converting Abyssinia, and 
 there is nothing impossible, or even improbable, in the con- 
 jecture which has been hazarded of the ultimate conversion 
 of China. 
 
* 107 
 
 
 XII. 
 
 St. Peter’s Day, 1847, marked a great epoch for the 
 English Church, for on that day in the Abbey of West- 
 minster, in the presence of eleven bishops, representing both 
 the home and the colonial sees, four men, each possessing 
 singular gifts and graces, and for each of whom there were 
 prospects sufficiently bright to have tempted him to remain 
 at home, were solemnly set apart for the then scarcely known 
 trials and labours of the colonial episcopate. There had 
 been no such day in the previous history of the Church, and 
 it is literally true that no such day has since been witnessed. 
 It was the fruit of that far-seeing effort of Bishop Blomfield, 
 who in 1840 called the attention of the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury to the fact that in our colonies we were laying the 
 foundation of future empires, while in spiritual things, by 
 accepting the legal idea of the Caroline Order in Council, — 
 by which all British subjects in foreign parts were under 
 the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, — we were 
 practically spreading a Presbyterian form of religion, and 
 taking no securities even for its permanence. At that time 
 there were only ten colonial sees, — viz., four in America, 
 three in India, two in the West Indies, and one in Australia ; 
 and of these five were supported by imperial or colonial 
 funds. In 1841 the Bishopric of New Zealand was estab- 
 lished, the first fruits of Bishop Blomfield’s appeal ; in the 
 following year the Dioceses cf Tasmania and Gibraltar 
 
io8 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 received their first bishops, and that of Barbadoes was 
 sub-divided into Guiana and Antigua. In 1845 the province 
 of New Brunswick was separated from Nova Scotia, and 
 Dr. Medley became first Bishop of Fredericton ; and now, 
 in 1847, Capetown, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Newcastle, 
 were added to the roll of our colonial sees. This is not * 
 the place in which to show the wisdom of doing the 
 Churches work in the Church’s own way, neither need we 
 apply the logic of figures to prove that in all of these 
 dioceses the clergy have been multiplied again and again, 
 and that three out of the four original dioceses have 
 been formed into others. In this paper we deal with the 
 labours of Bishop Gray and of his clergy, first in the whole 
 of Southern Africa, and subsequently in the more restricted 
 area of the Diocese of Capetown, an area nevertheless some- 
 what larger than that of Great Britain. 
 
 In going to South Africa as a Christian prelate, the 
 bishop went to a moral wilderness. The colony had been 
 a British possession for more than forty years. The Dutch 
 had left visible signs of their occupancy, as they had in the 
 preceding century in India, in churches and clergymen, 
 and by our treaty with them their religious establishment 
 was supported by Government funds. In the eastern 
 province the Church Missionary Society had sent a mis- 
 sionary to the Zulus, who, in the then unsettled state of the 
 country, was obliged to return to England after a brief 
 sojourn. In the whole diocese at the time of Bishop 
 Gray’s consecration there were only thirteen clergymen, of 
 Avhom eight were supported by the colonists and two were 
 military chaplains. And at that time the mother country 
 was sending out emigrants at the rate of 50,000 per annum 
 to the colony, and no spiritual provision was made for 
 them. For the Hottentots and the Mahometans no one 
 cared ; but the latter were zealous for the spread of their 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 109 
 
 own faith, and instances were not wanting in which English 
 Christians apostatised and became followers of the false 
 prophet. 
 
 Bishop Gray sailed for Africa very shortly after his con- 
 secration with a staff such as, whether we regard the 
 numbers, the faith, or the ability of its members, few 
 modern bishops have been so fortunate as to attract to 
 themselves. In 1848 he made his first visitation, which 
 lasted four months, from August to December, travelling 
 in a waggon by day, and letting down the back of the seat 
 when it became necessary to convert it into a bed at night- 
 fall After six weeks’ journeying he reached Grahamstown. 
 It is hardly necessary, save for the purpose of contrasting 
 what was with what is, to record at this distance of time the 
 state of things with which he met. In the district to which 
 emigrants mostly resorted he found at one spot a population 
 of 1,500, who were not within sixty miles of a church. On 
 this his first journey the bishop visited an English family, 
 whose child, almost at the point of death, was practically as 
 the heathen, not knowing what prayer was. On another occa- 
 sion an English lady told him that she had lived thirty-eight 
 years in Africa, and had never seen the face of a clergyman. 
 We would not multiply instances such as these, although we 
 might easily do so ; but we must not ignore the fact that 
 wherever the bishop went, the prospect of the Church being 
 brought within their reach cheered the settlers, who had 
 long been deprived of her ministrations. One farmer walked 
 a distance of 180 miles in order that he might be confirmed, 
 and his case was by no means a singular one. Neither may 
 we omit to mention that the bishop was always an honoured 
 guest at the mission-stations of those religious bodies who 
 had been long in the field. Moravians, Independents, 
 Presbyterians, Wesleyans, not only received him with hospi- 
 tality and kindness, but in some instances openly declared 
 
no 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 their satisfaction at the new life visible in the Church in 
 South Africa. 
 
 It was while he was on this visitation that Bishop Gray 
 had an interview with Sandili, Kreli, Umhala, and other 
 Kafir chiefs, and so laid the foundation of those missions 
 which, under the care of successive bishops of Grahamstown, 
 have been so successful. The country was only just then 
 delivered from the third Kafir war, and after an interval of 
 three years— a golden time when so much might have been 
 done for their civilisation had only there been men and 
 money — the fourth Kafir war broke out. In 1850 the 
 bishop had completed the fourth visitation of his diocese, 
 the last journey occupying nine months, and extending to 
 the Orange Free State, Natal, Kaffraria, and Grahamstown. 
 On this occasion he prepared an elaborate scheme for the 
 benefit of the heathen population in Natal, and he left that 
 colony “full of hopes and fears for the future.” After an 
 episcopate of three years, in which he had visited not 
 merely the whole of the continental portion of his diocese, 
 but had also found time to reach St. Helena — the first 
 bishop who had ever set foot on that island — he could 
 witness the growth of the Church on all sides. The 
 clergy were quadrupled, churches were being erected, the 
 colonists were becoming alive to their duty of seconding 
 their bishop’s efforts. A diocesan college school was 
 established near Capetown, a mission to the Mahometans 
 in and around that city was in working order, and other 
 schemes were in course of preparation for the evangelisation 
 of the hostile and ignorant Kafirs and the more hopeful and 
 docile Zulus. 
 
 In 1853 the diocese was divided, and the sees of 
 Grahamstown and Natal were established, and the hopes of 
 commencing work among the heathen tribes seemed to be 
 in a fair way of being realised. Meanwhile the country 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 III 
 
 continued in a most unsettled condition, mutterings of war 
 being heard only too plainly, and raids were made by 
 Kafirs and avenged by the colonists, to the perpetuation of 
 old feuds and the increase of the evil feeling that already 
 existed. The colony was fortunate in having for its 
 Governor Sir George Grey, who having already done great 
 things in New Zealand, and shown a singular aptitude for 
 dealing with the native races, was now prepared to follow 
 the same wise and humane policy in South Africa. It was 
 an eminently economical policy likewise. He determined 
 to spend ;^45,ooo per annum for the civilisation of the 
 native races. Of this the colonial funds could only con- 
 tribute ;^S,ooo, and the balance was drawn from the im- 
 perial treasury. It was a large sum, but it was rather less 
 than the annual cost of a single regiment, and bore no 
 proportion to the cost of another Kafir war, which could 
 only be warded off by a policy of pacification. The mis- 
 sionary institutions which were thus founded by the bishops, 
 in conjunction with the Government, were within the limits 
 generally of the dioceses of Grahamstown and Natal, and 
 will be mentioned at greater length in another paper ; but 
 at the time that such admirable schemes were being matured 
 for the more distant and barbarous parts of the colony, the 
 Bishop of Capetown was enabled, also by the aid of the 
 Governor, to found the college at Zonnebloem. To this 
 place was transferred the diocesan school, which had now 
 existed for some years. The estate of Zonnebloem cost 
 ;^6,ooo, of which the bishop raised ;^3,5oo, and the 
 Governor provided the balance, and vested the freehold in 
 the Bishops of Capetown for ever. The institution then 
 became both a college for the education of the sons of 
 chiefs and other great men among the Kafirs, and also an 
 industrial school for lads taken from a lower stratum in 
 Kafir society. Some of its scholars have been sent to 
 
II2 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 England to complete their education and to lay in a stock 
 of enlarged ideas ; but the experiment is not without hazard, 
 for our fickle climate seems to develop any tendency that 
 they may have to consumption, and some have died in this 
 country, and others have returned in haste to save their 
 lives. Those who have gone forth from Zonnebloem to 
 missionary work have done well ; they have proved them- 
 selves both faithful and intelligent, and in their stations, in 
 the midst of their own people, have had influence such as 
 no white teacher can ever hope to possess. Although the 
 college is in the Diocese of Capetown, the Kafir scholars 
 have to go out of its limits to find congregations of their own 
 race. In the industrial department a great and visible 
 triumph is gained if a Kafir, who in his native state finds 
 his supreme happiness in lying in the sun or smoking in his 
 hut, while his womankind do just enough work to provide 
 for his few needs, can be brought to appreciate the dignity 
 of labour. They make good carpenters, tailors, and shoe- 
 makers, and they are not without some artistic tastes ; and 
 when one reads of Kafir lads getting prizes for drawing or 
 carving at the Capetown School of Art, one feels that the 
 old and the new are indeed brought in contact, and there 
 is little need of the gift of prophecy to say which will 
 prevail. 
 
 Before this point of time of which we are now writing, 
 the bishop, who had been made metropolitan, had estab- 
 lished a Diocesan Synod. In 1859 the see of St. Helena 
 had been founded, the work among the colonists had been 
 pushed on, and a feeling of self-help had been elicited. 
 Work among the colonists also implied increased care for 
 the coloured people, whether heathen or Christian ; for in 
 this diocese it is rare to find a congregation wholly white or 
 wholly coloured. 
 
 In Capetown itself the work of the Rev. T. F. Lightfoot 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 
 among the Hottentot and the heathen had outgrown all the 
 limits of existing buildings; and in the far west of the 
 diocese, in Namaqua Land, more than 300 miles from the 
 city of Capetown, a heterogeneous population had been 
 drawn together by the establishment of copper mines, which 
 are still being worked, and in connection with which a rail- 
 road has been made, which conveys the ore over the sandy 
 plains to the sea. For these people the bishop had to 
 provide clergymen and churches. 
 
 In 1859 Dr. Livingstone’s appeal turned the attention of 
 the Church to Central Africa; and when, in 1861, Arch- 
 deacon Mackenzie, having just arrived from England, was 
 consecrated on the Feast of the Circumcision to the work 
 to which he devoted the rest of his days, not the least of his 
 comforts was the fact that from Mr. Lightfoot’s flock he 
 could select three Christian companions, natives of the 
 region to which he was bound, and from which they had 
 been torn in childhood by slavers, and had afterwards been 
 emancipated by British ships of war. 
 
 We say nothing of the noble struggle which Bishop Gray 
 has waged unflinchingly with heresy and false doctrine. He 
 has been called on, not only to spread the truth, but to 
 defend it when attacked ; his episcopate has been a 
 troubled one, but it has been a glorious one. Nowhere, 
 not even in New Zealand, has there been a growth and 
 development of the Church so rapid, so extended, and so 
 wisely consolidated ; and yet it is of such a man as this 
 that it has been said that he cared more for building up tlie 
 system of the English Church than for converting the 
 heathen. He succeeded to a heritage of neglect, and 
 found the colonists professedly Christian, yet living on the 
 verge of heathenism. How he travelled thousands of miles 
 in a 'Country where the roads were of the most primitive 
 kind, and means of locomotion difficult ; how he encouraged 
 
 I 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 II4 
 
 Struggling congregations to help themselves ; how he 
 pledged his own private resources munificently for the good 
 of the Church ; how his forethought, almost without the 
 aid of others' counsel, laid the foundations on which the 
 existing missions have been built up, — these things we have 
 already mentioned. It is to his master mind, under Gad, 
 that the present state of things is to be attributed. For 
 five years he toiled alone. The gigantic diocese over which 
 he journeyed was too vast for any one man to guide or care 
 for. Within sixteen years from the date of his own conse- 
 cration it was divided and subdivided, until the single 
 episcopal chair in the city of Capetown had grown into six 
 bishoprics ; another, the Diocese of Zululand, has since 
 been added. Instead of the thirteen clergy whom he 
 found in the whole of South Africa in 1848, there are 
 now 132, of whom fifty-one are in the Diocese of Cape- 
 town. Provincial and diocesan synods are in full opera- 
 tion ; the property of the Church is vested in the synod of 
 the province, and full facilities are possessed for the exten- 
 sion of the episcopate at any time when circumstances may 
 seem to require it. 
 
 The work of self-devoted women among the fallen and 
 the ignorant, which is one of the most hopeful signs of our 
 own increased life at home, has been introduced into Cape- 
 town. Many ladies live together in a common home, and 
 devote themselves, under the bishop's guidance, to the 
 suffering and the sorrowful ; while another lady, Miss Arthur, 
 has for many years conducted an Orphanage, which she 
 supports from her own resources and with the help of her 
 friends in England. Such a tale of work, wisely conceived 
 and patiently accomplished, is, indeed, without parallel. 
 There is one epithet which truly describes the labours of 
 the first Bishop of South Africa : they have been un- 
 wearied.” Other terms may fitly be applied to them, vary- 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 
 ing with the point from which they are regarded ; but alto- 
 gether, independently of their magnitude, or their wisdom, 
 or their fidelity, from the day when the burthen of the 
 episcopate was first imposed on him, in the judgment of all 
 who are qualified to speak of them, the labours of Bishop 
 Gray have been unwearied.^^ 
 
 Alas ! that even as we write tidings are brought which 
 forbid us to speak henceforth of the labours of this great 
 Confessor and Prelate except as of things that are past. 
 On Sept. 1, 1872, he entered into rest, and two days later 
 was followed to his grave by a concourse of sincere 
 mourners, of many races and of divers creeds, such as has 
 rarely assembled at the tomb of any man. There is nothing 
 to be added in these pages : other pens will doubtless write 
 the memoir of one who has filled so high a place, to the 
 glory of God and for the good of man. It is only simple 
 truth to say that Robert Gray has been the founder of the 
 Church of South Africa, and this is no mean epitaph. 
 
While Bishop Gray was engaged single-handed in preparing 
 his plans for the conversion of the heathen of Africa, a 
 movement was originated in England which aimed at the 
 more adequate dealing with fallen but penitent women. 
 The design was conceived in the hearts of two or three 
 men living apart, and, until the common aim brought 
 them together, unknown to each other; but the one man 
 who was especially the means of raising the work of guiding 
 female penitents from the level of a task performed by a 
 paid servant to the height of a labour of love rendered for 
 God’s sake by self- devoted women, — the one man who 
 substituted for the old-fashioned penitentiaries, which in 
 their grim aspect and stern code of regulations resembled 
 closely the Union or the Gaol, the more attractive and 
 appropriate Homes ” or Houses of Mercy,” — was called 
 away from the schemes, then only developing into realities, 
 to be the first Bishop of Grahamstown. 
 
 When it had been suggested that he should give up paro- 
 chial work and become the first warden of a new House of 
 Mercy, such as he had proposed to establish, he wrote, — 
 
 I assure you, by God’s help, I only want to see my 
 way ; could I be convinced that I ought to undertake it, I 
 will, by God’s help, accept the post. As regards wife and 
 children, a point on which I am most anxious, I will now 
 only say that whatever is a father’s providential course, I 
 believe is the providential course of wife and children.” 
 When called on to undertake the labours of the episcopate, 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 II 
 
 he took counsel with his friends ; and to one he wrote, I 
 need not say what a trial it is to go, but I hope and trust I 
 shall go with a good 'heart/^ Such was the man : recog- 
 nising in all things the hand of Divine Providence, and 
 willing in all things to be guided by it unreservedly. 
 
 The south-eastern coast of Africa runs diagonally from 
 S.W. to N.E., and the limits of the Diocese of Grahamstown, 
 as defined in the letters-patent, commenced at the Great 
 River, about longitude 25° E., and extended to the Keis- 
 kamma River, a distance along the coast of about 180 miles 
 as the crow flies ; eastward of this river there lies the pro- 
 vince of British Kaflfaria, a wedge of country in the shape 
 of an equilateral triangle, the base being the coast-line of 
 about eighty miles ; on the east of the River Kei, the boun- 
 dary of British Kaflraria, the territory of Independent 
 Kaffraria, with a coast-line of 180 miles, reaches to the 
 colony of Natal, whose south-western limit is the River 
 Umzinkulu. The breadth of these tracts of country inland 
 varies from about 150 to 300 miles : numerous rivers 
 run into the sea at right angles to the coast, and add 
 much to the fertility of the soil as well as to the difficulties 
 of travelling. It was over this vast area that Bishop Arm- 
 strong aimed at establishing mission stations ; he was not 
 content with the legal limits of his diocese ; in his own 
 words the Church’s duty was to break bounds ” ; the sur- 
 rounding country claimed his care, and in the interests both 
 of religion and of peace, under the newly-established British 
 rule, he was bound to regard the whole territory as his 
 diocese. Thus the bishop was brought face to face with 
 the various races, — Kafirs, Hottentots, Eingoes, Dutch, and 
 English. Moravians, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, had all been 
 in the field before the Church of England ; and the Mora- 
 vians, by their simple devotion and practical wisdom, had 
 made a great impression. The way for the bishop had 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 ii8 
 
 been well prepared by the handful of clergy who had been 
 his pioneers ; especially Archdeacon Merriman (who has 
 since been entrusted with the rule of the diocese) had, from 
 the date of his first coming from England with Bishop Gray, 
 been most active in travelling from one end to the other of 
 his future diocese, and had acquired among the Dutch the 
 title of The Walking Predikant/’ But the time had now 
 come in which mission work, if it was to be ever done, must 
 be commenced on a large scale. The wise proposals of Sir 
 George Grey, mentioned in the preceding paper, were sub- 
 mitted to Bishop Armstrong, and, as may be imagined, 
 were warmly approved by him. No less a sum than 
 ;^45,ooo per annum was offered to the Church of England, 
 on the stipulation that men and money were forthcoming on 
 her part to utilise the lands and buildings thus placed at her 
 disposal. It was a time of crisis : Bishop Armstrong had 
 no funds of his own, but he pledged the Church of England 
 to an expenditure of ;^4,ooo per annum. The Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel undertook the responsibility 
 which the bishop had assumed. The time was not propi- 
 tious ; men’s minds were occupied with the events of the 
 Crimean war, which were just then especially disastrous. 
 The appeal came in the middle of that terrible winter of 
 1854-5, when our soldiers were starved and frozen on the 
 heights of Sebastopol, and when, in addition to the unusual 
 burden of increased taxation and provisions at war prices, 
 private benevolence was likewise heavily taxed throughout 
 the United Kingdom; but the venture so made in faith 
 there never was reason to regret ; the money was forth- 
 coming, and the missions were established. Sir George 
 Grey’s scheme included a mission to the Basutos, who live 
 within the limits of the Orange Free State ; but this part of 
 the plan was not realised. Bishop Armstrong first accom- 
 plished the establishment of missions to the Amakoso 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 II9 
 
 Kafirs, who, to the number of 90,000, were divided into 
 three tribes under the chiefs Umhala, Sandili, and Kreli. 
 Umhala had been visited by the Bishop of Capetown in 
 1850, and, probably on that account, had not joined in the 
 war which was subsequently waged against our occupation. 
 On the occasion of that interview he had asked the bishop 
 to send him a teacher, and now he was informed by Bishop 
 Armstrong that the promise was fulfilled. He pledged him- 
 self to protect the missionaries and to send the people to 
 their schools. In addition to the three missions just men- 
 tioned, a fourth was established at Grahamstown itselt, and 
 placed under the care of a Berlin missionary, who had 
 sought and obtained episcopal orders. But the guiding 
 hand that was to direct these extending works was soon 
 withdrawn, and in 1856 Bishop Armstrong's brief episco- 
 pate of little more than two years was terminated by death. 
 
 His successor. Bishop Cotterill, lost no time in taking up 
 the work of the diocese ; but now things were not so pro- 
 mising. A terrible delusion stalked through the land : the 
 missionaries had not had time to impress Christian truths 
 on any considerable number of the people, for the Kafir is 
 not susceptible of fresh influences, although very stable when 
 won. The civilisation of such a people will probably pre- 
 cede anything like a general conversion ; although their very 
 name, given to them in scorn by the Mahometans, means 
 infidel, they are much given to meditation on spiritual sub- 
 jects, and have a large share of that superstition which is 
 the shadow of faith. They lay much stress on visions and 
 omens, and grope in a stumbling manner after the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead and the truths which surround that mystery. 
 In June, 1856, within a month of Bishop Armstrong's de- 
 cease, a Kafir named Umhlakaza, living near the mouth of 
 the Kei River, related the dreams of a girl who professed to 
 have heard the voices of dead chiefs commanding the 
 
120 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Kafirs to kill all their cattle, and promising that when this 
 was accomplished, the forefathers of the race and all their 
 herds would come to life again, and the corn-pits would be 
 filled without effort. 
 
 Strange to say, in a pastoral country whose sole wealth 
 consists of flocks and herds, this crusade was preached with 
 dire effect : maize and millet were thrown away, and the 
 cattle were slaughtered as fast as was possible, the traders 
 making a good harvest for the time by buying hides at 
 nominal prices. Meanwhile the spirit of witchcraft was 
 awakened, and an unusual drought, which prevailed for 
 months, drove people to the Rain-doctor. One of these 
 impostors, seeing the clouds gathering, promised Umhala, for 
 four cows, to bring rain ; the contact with missionaries had 
 made the chief a sceptic, but after a while he compounded 
 for one ox, and a thunderstorm followed, but accompanied 
 with little rain. Just as gipsies in England explain their 
 failures by the fact that the hand has not been crossed by a 
 silver coin of sufficient value, so the deficiency of rain was 
 attributed to the shabby proportions of the chiefs offering. 
 Mr. Greenstock, a missionary, gained some credit by pre- 
 dicting an eclipse of the moon in October, and the more so 
 because the seer, who had obtained an inkling of it, had 
 fixed it for August. January ii, 1857, was the night fixed 
 for the resurrection of the chiefs and their cattle, and by 
 that time the land was brought to the very verge of famine 
 by the terrible destruction of their herds and corn. Chiefs 
 as well as people wandered about picking up a precarious 
 livelihood ; but vast numbers of the people died from actual 
 starvation. Their dead bodies lay by the roadside with the 
 famine-belt drawn tightly round them in sad testimony of 
 their sufferings. Some of the adults came into British terri- 
 tory and hired themselves as servants, and the children were 
 received in large numbers at the missions. 
 
AFRICA 
 
 121 
 
 Out of this terrible visitation much good arose. The 
 people saw through their infatuation, and were drawn by 
 the kindness which they had received to the missionaries. 
 Occasion was taken, therefore, to plant more missions ; two 
 of those already founded were abandoned and the esta- 
 blishments transferred to other sites, the people in whose 
 midst they had been originally placed having migrated in a 
 body. In the year 1859 eight large missions had been 
 founded, and at the present time the Society for the Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel has thirteen distinct missions among 
 the various Kafir tribes, Amakoso, Tambookies, Amapondo, 
 Amapondamisi, Amakoko, and the Fingoes. These now 
 extend and form a continuous line of outposts from the city 
 of Grahamstown itself to Griqua Land, where the recent 
 efforts of Bishop Macrorie and Dr. Callaway have thrown 
 out an offshoot from Highflats to Clydesdale, some thirty 
 miles distant. One native, Paulus Masiza, has been or- 
 dained, but he died shortly afterwards. At Grahamstown 
 itself the Kafir Institution, which it was once a hard matter 
 to supply with scholars, is now so popular that admission 
 is gained only after a competitive examination, which pro- 
 mises well for the supply of native catechists and clergy. 
 The plan on which these missions are worked is not in all 
 cases uniform. In some the Kafirs live round the head- 
 quarters, in others they are scattered in kraals, six or eight 
 miles away : in all a spirit of self-help is evoked ; in all the 
 daily service is held, and the work of teaching by native 
 catechists is carried on unceasingly. Their little chapels, 
 which are required by those who live at a distance from the 
 central station, are built by themselves and at their own 
 cost. Discipline — the lack of which the Church at home 
 mourns — is carried out firmly and wisely. There seems no 
 attempt to denationalise the converts ; for the adoption of 
 civilised habits, both in clothing and furniture, seems to 
 
122 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 follow naturally on their accepting Christianity. One of the 
 missionaries, who prides himself on being no smoker, has 
 attempted, foolishly it may be thought, to deprive his con- 
 verts of that which is the solace of the majority of men, 
 civilised and uncivilised, all over the world. The present 
 Bishop of Grahamstown is not likely to lend his authority 
 to this exercise of discipline ; for in the very interesting 
 journal of his recent visitation to Kafirland he describes 
 how he took possession of a hut for the night, and “ when 
 we had spread our blankets under us, after a pipe over the 
 fire, we went to sleep.^’ 
 
 It has already been stated that the Kafirs are a stolid 
 race, not very easily impressed, but that when an impression 
 has been made it is lasting. They take readily to the 
 regular life which they lead on the mission lands, and ap- 
 preciate the fixed hours for labour and for worship. The 
 Wesleyans and the Scotch Presbyterians conduct their mis- 
 sions on a similar plan, as being eminently adapted to the 
 people. The Psalter is a great power among the Kafirs ; 
 their pastoral habits have led them to assimilate the spirit of 
 the words of the shepherd king, and in some instances they 
 have written many hymns, which, with all the disadvantages 
 of being translated, are far above the average of our English 
 hymns. 
 
 To live in a delightful climate under a bright sky, in a 
 well-watered country, and where rain neither falls frequently 
 nor is required to fall frequently; to deal with a simple, 
 intelligent people, and to see them following one’s teaching ; 
 to be removed from a conventional state of things and to 
 inhale the fresh air of a primitive state of society, where the 
 laws of etiquette are unknown, — surely this is an attractive 
 picture ; and it may be thought that a missionary in South 
 Africa is a fortunate man, whose life is but a prolonged pic- 
 nic in a perpetual summer. But his career is not without 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 123 
 
 its hardships. The pleasures of living among semi-savages 
 are apt to pall, and even the restraints of civilised life 
 begin, after a time, to have more attractions than once they 
 possessed. The feeling of isolation from men of like mind, 
 the utter deprivation of all discussion on indifferent sub- 
 jects, — these, in time, become great trials to a man, unless 
 he can derive all the support he needs from things unseen. 
 It is a trial to a man, who is impressed by the surrounding 
 scene, to live for years on the arid Karroo, where all is glare 
 and scorching sun above and white stones and dried-uj) 
 sticks on the ground. One clergyman states, without a 
 word of complaint, but as an unusual fact, that until the 
 Bishop of Capetown visited Namaqua Land lately, he had 
 not seen the face of a brother clergyman for five years. 
 The missionaries who are now settled with some measure of 
 comfort among the Kafirs have lived for years, either in 
 the bee-hive huts of their people, or in wattle-and-daub 
 erections, the work of their own hands ; and in all cases, to 
 their credit be it said, they have built their churches before 
 they have begun the permanent mission-house. Camp life 
 is attractive to read of, and, to a certain extent, pleasant to 
 lead ; but heat and dirt, and scanty food and doubtful water, 
 to say nothing of the inseparable mishaps of travel, become 
 in time a burden. It was no idle complaint, but a simple 
 record of fact, when Bishop Armstrong entered in liis 
 diary, — 
 
 “ I get used to dirt, and eat and drink without looking : 
 it certainly is a trial.^’ 
 
 Of the difficulties which must ever accompany missionary 
 work it is not necessary to write a word. 
 
 Bishop Cotterill, after a service of fifteen years in Africa, 
 has been summoned to take his place in the College of 
 Bishops of the Church in Scotland. One immediate result 
 of his translation is likely to be the establishment by that 
 
124 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Church of a bishopric in Independent Kaffraria, which is 
 equal in area to the whole of Scotland. No better wish 
 can be offered for that venerable communion, which gave to 
 America the first of the sacred line who now preside over 
 the Church of the United States, than that, according to 
 her means, she may send forth to all parts of the world 
 messengers of those truths and stewards of those mysteries, 
 which, in spite of persecution and contempt, it has been her 
 privilege to maintain and to dispense to the faithful in her 
 own land. 
 
125 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The area of the colony of Natal is about one-third of that 
 of England and Wales ; the extent^ therefore, of the diocese, 
 which is conterminous with the colony, is not so consider- 
 able as that of many others ; but from the very first, as well 
 from force of circumstances as from the wishes of the 
 mission staff, the territorial limits of the diocese have been 
 disregarded, and the work of evangelisation has been pushed 
 forward in all directions. To the north-west, where the 
 Quathlamba range separates the colony from the Free State, 
 the whole country has been, if not occupied, at least sur- 
 veyed with a view to missionary occupation ; to the south- 
 west our stations have extended into Griqua Land and 
 Independent Kaffraria, until, as has been shown in the 
 preceding paper, they complete the chain of outposts which 
 have been thrown out from Grahamstown ; and in the north- 
 cast the missions which were early established across the 
 Tugela River among the Zulus have now their own bishop, 
 and under his energetic direction are rapidly spreading 
 northward. It must be remembered that Natal did not 
 become an English colony until 1845. Before that date, 
 circumstances had at various times caused it to receive la 
 population differing in race and in creed : Romanists and 
 Wesleyans had long ago established their missions, and the 
 Dutch had, of course, brought with them the ministers of 
 their faith ; but the immediate cause of the mixed popula- 
 tion of Natal was the atrocious cruelty of three chiefs of 
 
126 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Zululand — Chaka, Dingaarn, and Panda. In 1828 the two 
 first-named of these became a terror to the few English 
 settlers who even then had ventured into that little-known 
 country. There were in Natal at that time the remnant of 
 the aboriginal tribes, who had fled into the woods as often 
 as Chaka made incursions into the country ; these forays 
 were of such frequent occurrence that the land was utterly 
 laid waste and well-nigh depopulated, and, as its value was 
 nominal, in a moment of generosity the bloodthirsty chief 
 gave what is the present colony of Natal to an English 
 settler. He again passed through it in 1829 on his way 
 to Independent Kaffraria, and on his return from this foray 
 he was killed by one of his brothers named Umslaangen, 
 who, together with his followers, was shortly afterwards 
 massacred by the more infamous brother Dingaarn. In 
 1834 the Dutch, who were the earliest settlers in Africa, and 
 who had enslaved both the aboriginal Hottentots and the 
 Malays and negroes whom they had imported, disgusted with 
 the humane legislation which made slavery penal throughout 
 the British dominions, quitted their farms and established 
 themselves north of the Orange River. Coveting, however, 
 a territory with a more fertile soil, and nearer to the sea- 
 board, they thought to obtain it from Dingaarn by a display 
 of force. During the three or four years which they spent 
 in making up their sluggish minds, matters had somewhat 
 changed in Zululand. Captain Allen Gardiner, an officer of 
 the Royal Navy, a man of much zeal, but not gifted with an 
 equal share of practical wisdom, had visited Dingaarn, and 
 had found such favour in his eyes that he made him an offer 
 of the whole colony of Natal, an act that would have been 
 more munificent if the territory had not been already sur- 
 rendered by his elder brother some years before to 
 another Englishman. Captain Gardiner used his influence 
 with the chief to secure the reception by him of the Rev. 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 127 
 
 F. Owen, who was sent by the Church Missionary Society 
 in 1837. Wlien, then, the Dutch Boers in the following year 
 thought by a military display to obtain from Dingaarn a 
 grant of land such as had been offered to Gardiner, the only 
 result of their policy was to irritate the savage ; by craft he 
 inveigled a number of them into his power, and seventy of 
 the Boers were murdered in cold blood, with many of their 
 children and the Hottentot servants. 
 
 Of the remnant who were still living in the Orange Free 
 State, many put their all into their waggons and crossed the 
 Quathlamba range into Natal, where there was an English 
 representative. Sir Benjamin Durban. The atrocities of 
 Dingaarn continued to send his Zulus over the Tugela into 
 Natal, and he also sent his troops into that district to harry 
 the settlers. Terrible bloodshed ensued, but after a long 
 struggle the Zulus were beaten. The settlers made a treaty 
 with Dingaarn to receive no more of his “ deserters,” as he 
 called them, ‘‘refugees” as they should have been called, on 
 condition that those who had already escaped from him should 
 not be claimed. The terms were agreed upon. Captain Gardiner 
 acting for the English ; many, however, continued to pass 
 into the colony whom Captain Gardiner, with an overstrained 
 sense of obligation, sent back to the tyrant, who put them to 
 a lingering death. The desertions continued : indeed the 
 colonists, who were in great need of labourers, secretly en- 
 couraged the Zulus to come to them ; and Captain Gardiner 
 sent them back, but now with a request that they might be 
 put to death “speedily.” At length the point was reached 
 beyond which even his conscience could not refuse to yield, 
 and the demand for their “ extradition ” was refused. The 
 Rev. F. Owen had left the country in the midst of these 
 disasters, and the Church Missionary Society has never 
 resumed its work in these regions. The Dutch meanwhile 
 established themselves in Natal, and built the town of Pieter 
 
128 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Maritzburg. They formed themselves into a free republic, 
 under the protection of the King of Holland. After many 
 disputes they were driven out by the English, and settled 
 north of the Orange River, a district which was then known 
 as “The Sovereignty,’’ where, as being on British ground, 
 they acknowledged the Queen of England as their sovereign, 
 while they were nevertheless allowed to make their own laws. 
 Others again made a second migration over the River Vaal, 
 where they formed an independent republic. In 1845 Natal be* 
 came a British colony, and in 1854 the English Government 
 withdrew from the Sovereignty, which henceforward was called 
 “The Orange Free State.” Thus we can account for the 
 various races with which Natal is peopled — the aborigines, 
 the Zulus, the Dutch, the Hottentots, and the English ; over 
 the borders, towards Kaffraria, we have the Griquas, a half* 
 caste people, while the progress of commercial enterprise 
 has introduced Coolies, speaking Hindustani, Tamil, and 
 Telugu, from different parts of India. 
 
 It has already been mentioned that Romanists and 
 Wesleyans established missions long before the Church of 
 England did so ; the same may be said of the Moravians, 
 — those ever-toiling patient pioneers, — the Lutherans, the 
 Independents, and the Americans. A preceding paper has 
 shown how the Bishop of Capetown visited this part of his 
 diocese soon after his consecration, but not until every 
 penny which had been placed at his disposal, and very much 
 of his own private moneys, had been pledged. In 1853 the 
 Rev. J. W. Colenso was consecrated first Bishop of Natal, 
 and he immediately left England to make a visit of inspec- 
 tion, in order the better to realise the wants of his diocese, 
 Returning within six months, he applied himself to the raising 
 of the requisite funds. In 1855 he had established three 
 missionary stations, being large estates on which the natives 
 would be allowed to settle, and, in daily contact with English 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 129 
 
 teachers, would imbibe both civilisation and Christianity : he 
 had also founded two lesser missions to the heathen. With 
 great energy he applied himself to the study of the language, 
 and compiled a Zulu dictionary. He had fellow-labourers 
 of unusual gifts : one was Archdeacon Mackenzie, who was 
 the head of a large training institution at Ekukanyeni — 
 “Home of Light;” another, the Rev. R. Robertson, has 
 since made himself a reputation as a missionary of the 
 patriarchal type in Zululand ; while a third, Dr. Callaway, as 
 missionary, physician, farmer, printer, ethnologist, and 
 philologist, has built up a work of an altogether unusual 
 character in the south-west part of the district, across the 
 River Umkomanzi. The missions in Zululand were so 
 promising and attractive, that Bishop Colenso wished to give 
 up his residence and his work in the colony, and to super- 
 intend them in person. At length it was determined that 
 Archdeacon Mackenzie should have the charge of them, 
 and in 1859 he came to England to consult with the 
 authorities at home. At that very time Livingstone was 
 enlisting the enthusiasm of Churchmen in the interests of 
 Central Africa, and Mackenzie was summoned to work in 
 those regions, to which he dedicated the remnant of his 
 unselfish life, and in which his body awaits the great Easter 
 morning. 
 
 It was when matters were thus full of promise that there 
 came that sad cloud which checked growth, which chilled 
 faith and love, and caused bitter pain to many hearts as 
 well in England as in Africa. We have no wish in these 
 pages to dwell on this miserable affair or on its consequences. 
 Supposing that Bishop Colenso is the subject of special 
 enlightenment and the recipient of certain truths, a know- 
 ledge of which has been denied to the great body of 
 Christian people in all lands and in all ages, one fact is 
 clear, that the bargain to which in 1853 lie was a consenting 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 UNDER HIS DANNER, 
 
 party has not been kept, and that his teaching, irrespect ive 
 of its truth or falsity, is not the teaching which he was com- 
 missioned, and which he undertook to deliver. Of the sad 
 and disastrous results to the diocese, where in the presence 
 of a heathen majority Christians were struggling and con- 
 tending for the possession of churches, and the little flock 
 was split into rival camps, we do not care to write ; of the 
 evil results, which were felt in England, there is no need to 
 write, for they are too well known. Men’s courage was 
 tested and tried ; they had to make their choice between 
 the judgment of civil courts on dry technical questions of 
 law and the integrity of the truth of God. At length, after 
 every conceivable artifice had been used to prevent it, the 
 consecration of Bishop Macrorie on the Festival of the Con- 
 version of St. Paul, 1869, in the cathedral at Capetown, as 
 ^‘Bishop of the Church in Natal and Zululand, in com- 
 munion with the Bishops of the Province of South Africa, 
 and with the Church of England/’ gave to the faithful in 
 those countries a leader and a spiritual father. It is not 
 pretended that this appointment has allayed all the bitter 
 feeling that existed, or has won all to the truth, — a result so 
 very desirable was never for a moment expected ; but it is 
 undeniable that the faithful have been encouraged to fresh 
 efforts and greater sacrifices, that new stations have been 
 opened, and that the missions to the heathen have been 
 extended. From the first. Bishop Macrorie has acted on the 
 determination which he formed, to seek no redress from courts 
 of law. Dr. Colenso has seized on the churches and parson- 
 ages which in some instances had been built by the very 
 hands of the clergy thus dispossessed, but all has been 
 endured. Lately an attempt has been made to divert the 
 property of the Church from the purposes to which it was 
 devoted in perpetuity ; new churches have had to be erected 
 out of scanty funds, and they are well filled and highly 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 T3I 
 
 valued by the people who have erected them for their own 
 use and for the glory of God. 
 
 The missions in Zululand now form a distinct diocese, 
 and deserve a special notice. The Mission of Spring Vale, 
 founded by Dr. Callaway in 1858, is a cheering instance of 
 success. It was planted on an estate containing about 
 3,000 acres, and Dr. Callaway lived at first in a bee-hive 
 hut which the Kafirs made for him : he then taught them 
 how to build for him a square cottage of wattle-and*daub, 
 and, having established himself and his family therein, he 
 set to work to teach them higher things. Of useful arts 
 they knew nothing : their agriculture was limited to scratch- 
 ing the ground with a hoe ; their grass huts were foul, miser- 
 able hives, about seven feet high, without chimney, window, 
 or door. Polygamy was a recognised institution among 
 the people ; their religion was limited to a dark superstition. 
 God was to them a fetish, and their profoundest faith was 
 given to the medicine-man and the rain-doctor. Dr. Calla- 
 way is no ordinary man ; he did not limit his views of his 
 duty to merely spiritual labours, neither did he think, as 
 some missionaries conceive, that he had it in charge to run 
 a tilt against decent clothing and other tokens of advancing 
 civilisation. On the contrary, he endeavoured to raise his 
 people sociall}^, to get them to build better houses, to be- 
 come more skilful herdsmen and shepherds, to till the land 
 more intelligently, to substitute comely garments for tattered 
 blankets and ridiculous head-gear; he gave them medicine 
 when they were sick (he is himself a physician by education 
 and by diploma), and was not above acting as a veterinary 
 surgeon when their cattle were ailing. Then he taught 
 them to use spade and plough, to make sod fences, to mould 
 bricks, and to lay them when burnt, and to thatch their 
 houses. This instruction inspired them with respect for 
 their teacher, who did not neglect other things. Daily 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 services in Kafir and English, daily schools for adults and 
 children, constant catechisings and direct teaching, to say 
 nothing of the influence of the daily life of a Christian 
 family, were not without results. Dr. Callaway’s medical 
 knowledge was, and is, in great demand, and a “ hospice ” 
 forms part of the group of buildings at Spring Vale. The 
 work of translation and printing has been diligently followed : 
 the whole of the Book of Common Prayer has been trans- 
 lated, and the greater part of it is in type. The New Testa- 
 ment, more than half of the Pentateuch, the Books of Isaiah 
 and Jeremiah, are all translated, and most of them have 
 been printed, very large grants for the press-work having 
 been made by the Society for Promoting Christian Know- 
 ledge. Dr. Callaway has also translated and printed many 
 hymns, both English into Zulu, and the hymns of his con- 
 verts (for, as was mentioned in the preceding paper, they 
 compose hymns of real merit) into English. In the midst 
 of occupations so manifold, he has refreshed his mind by 
 investigations into the folk-lore, the ethnology and the 
 philology of the people for whom he has done so much, — 
 and his contributions to our knowledge of these sciences 
 have been appreciated by European savants. 
 
 The mission at Spring Vale has thrown out off-shoots, 
 which promise in time to rival in vigour the parent stock. 
 The first new station was at Highflats, some few miles to the 
 westward : here is now stationed the Rev. Thurston Button, 
 whose whole life, with the exception of the time spent at St. 
 Augustine’s College, Canterbury, has been passed in South 
 Africa; he can therefore speak Kafir as perfectly as his 
 mother-tongue. Some thirty miles still further westward, at 
 Clydesdale, an estate of 4,500 acres, in the midst of a large 
 Griqua population, work has been begun akin to that which, 
 fifteen years ago. Dr. Callaway began at Spring Vale. This 
 is our furthest outpost in this direction, and efforts must be 
 made to occupy the intervening space between it and the 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 133 
 
 stations already mentioned as having been pushed on to the 
 eastward from Grahamstown. 
 
 On the 4th Sunday in Advent, 1871, Dr. Callaway had 
 the pleasure of presenting to Bishop Macrorie as candidates 
 for Holy Orders two natives, whom he had known for more 
 than eighteen years, and who for a long time had been 
 engaged as catechists, and had brought many of their 
 countrymen to Christianity. Their names are Umpengula 
 Mbanda, and William Ngewensa ; they are both men of 
 superior abilities, and possess a large share not only of 
 biblical knowledge, but also of general information. The 
 examination which they passed is ample proof of their intel- 
 lectual fitness ; while their power of preaching in idiomatic 
 phrase makes them far more useful as evangelists than any 
 foreigner could hope to be. The effect of their ordination, 
 both on themselves and on the natives around, has been 
 very good ; they seem fully alive to their duties, and their 
 hearts are “gladdened and strengthened to enter on an 
 enlarged sphere of duty.^^ The natives on their side are 
 gratified at finding black men attaining to a dignity which 
 before they thought was beyond their reach. When the new 
 deacons first appeared in surplice and stole, their friends 
 and neighbours were astonished, and after the first celebra- 
 tion, when the Rev. William Ngewensa had administered the 
 chalice, the people gathered round him with much warmth 
 of affection. 
 
 Thus the Church of this portion of South Africa, hardly 
 yet twenty years old, and having been exposed to trials all 
 the more severe because they were so unexpected, has yet 
 passed out of the first stage, and before one generation 
 has been removed, possesses Bible and Prayer-book in the 
 native tongue of her children, and from the midst of these 
 children has the promise of a native ministry, who in the 
 ages to come shall feed their brethren with the Word and 
 sacraments. 
 
^34 
 
 XV. 
 
 In December, 1856, Livingstone, who had completed a 
 residence of sixteen years in Africa, suddenly returned to 
 England. His great feat, so recently accomplished, insured 
 for every word he uttered unlimited attention ; but the hero 
 of the hour was just the same simple-minded man that he 
 had ever been. He repeated the memorable words which 
 he had uttered so often : I regard the geographical feat as 
 the . beginning of the missionary enterprise.’^ He felt that his 
 work had been to act as a pioneer, and that where the road 
 had been opened the messengers of the Cross should follow 
 without delay. And now that the road had been opened 
 into an entirely strange land, — a road that could only be 
 trodden with much difficulty and by men of unusual re- 
 sources and courage, — he came to the Church of England 
 and to the Universities to accept the challenge which he 
 threw down. He was by birth and hereditary prejudices a 
 Presbyterian. He had himself taken the money of a Non- 
 conformist missionary society ; but yet for this most arduous 
 work he thought the best qualified men were to be found in 
 the Church of England, and in her ancient seats of learning 
 and of true religion. But his appeal produced no imme- 
 diate fruits ; and in March, 1858, he returned to Africa, 
 having, as it seemed, accomplished nothing. Shortly after 
 this the Bishop of Capetown was in England, and he fanned 
 into a flame the spark which Livingstone had struck ; and 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 135 
 
 on All Saints' Day, 1859, a meeting of unusual importance 
 was held in Cambridge, members of the sister University 
 having been deputed to attend it, which fairly launched the 
 mission to Central Africa. The hour had come and also 
 the man; for, expected by no one, there had suddenly 
 appeared in Cambridge Archdeacon Mackenzie, who, as 
 was mentioned in the preceding paper, had returned to 
 England to advise with the authorities before heading the 
 missions to Zululand. It was felt at once that here was 
 the leader, providentially pointed out, to take up the work 
 suggested by Livingstone. He had every conceivable quali- 
 fication : academical distinction, unlimited popularity in the 
 University, zeal for missionary work, shown first in his 
 desire to labour at Delhi, as mentioned in a previous paper 
 (page 38), and, latterly, by a residence of some duration in 
 Africa, experience of the languages and customs of the 
 South African tribes, and, above all, child -like faith and 
 humility, so genuine and so profound as to be a source of 
 amusement as well as of admiration to all who knew his 
 great powers and capabilities. It was in the midst of the 
 enthusiasm of this great meeting, which seemed to promise 
 the inauguration of a new era of missionary work, of zeal, 
 of self-denial, and, as it was hoped, of triumphs, that 
 Mackenzie’s far-seeing humility prompted him to whisper 
 to his neighbour, “I am afraid of this. Most great works 
 have been carried on by one or two men in a quieter way, 
 and have had a more humble beginning.” 
 
 Events have shown that he was right. The new era has 
 not been inaugurated, the expected triumphs have not been 
 won. The Cambridge committee, in their report read on 
 that occasion, disclaimed the idea of founding a new mis- 
 sionary society, and expressed a hope that, after the few first 
 years, the mission might be handed over to the Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel. In this the committee 
 
136 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 probably remembered the history of the Borneo Missions, 
 which had an independent starting-point, and in five years 
 were adopted by that society; but in the hearts of many, 
 who were impressed by the magnificence of the inaugu- 
 rating meeting, there was, no doubt, a conviction that the 
 new association was destined to eclipse all former efforts, and 
 to set before them a model to which they might be conformed. 
 As a matter of fact, the Universities Mission continues to 
 be a distinct missionary society, with its staff of officers 
 and agents throughout the country. At one time the cost 
 of an organisation so extensive, for an object so limited in 
 sphere, was out of all proportion to its receipts, and an 
 arrangement was made by which the accounts of the 
 mission are kept by the Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel, and the local work of the association is done 
 by unsalaried agents. In other respects the visions, not of 
 the immediate founders, but of many enthusiastic supporters 
 of the mission, have not been realised. What man can do 
 has been done ; but to insure success is not in man’s power. 
 Bishop Mackenzie was as great in physical as he was in 
 spiritual gifts ; and in the days when the worship of muscle 
 was at its fever height, this circumstance added much to 
 the popularity of the undertaking which had so competent 
 a leader. His powers of mind and body alike he freely 
 gave ; and after nine months’ incessant travelling over 
 England, he left for Africa in October, 1859, and was con- 
 secrated on January ist, i860, “ Bishop of the mission to the 
 tribes dwelling in the neighbourhood of Lake Nyassa and 
 River Shire.” Five days later he sailed for Natal, and on 
 February 9th the whole party met Livingstone at the Kon- 
 gone mouth of the Zambesi. The mission staff consisted 
 of the bishop. Rev. L. J. Proctor, H. C. Scudamore, and 
 Henry Rowley, Mr. H. Waller, the lay superintendent, 
 Gamble, a carpenter, Adams, a labourer, and three native 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 137 
 
 converts, mentioned in a previous paper as having been 
 trained by Mr. Lightfoot at Capetown. 
 
 It would be simple presumption to attempt to detail at 
 any length in these pages the labours of these gallant men. 
 The story has already been told, with that rare and simple 
 fidelity which is the sign of the highest power, by one who 
 bore no insignificant part in this exploit,"^ and nothing 
 is left to be written on the subject. Those who would study 
 the life and character of an unconscious hero of the highest 
 type, will read with pleasure and profit the Memoir of 
 Bishop Mackenzie by his friend the Bishop of Carlisle, an 
 example, almost without parallel, of what a biography 
 should be. In this paper, therefore, the fortunes of the 
 little company can only be rapidly glanced at. 
 
 At the mouth of the Zambesi their troubles began. For 
 some reason the forethought and sagacity of Livingstone, 
 who met them at this spot, were at once at fault. Fearing 
 to ascend the Zambesi immediately after the rainy season, 
 when the marshes, becoming exposed, are very unwhole- 
 some, and wishing also to come in contact with the Portu- 
 guese as little as possible, he advised going to the River 
 Roovooma, some eight degrees north, and so reaching Lake 
 Nyassa by a south-west course. But the ‘‘ Pioneer/’ the 
 steamer lent to Livingstone by H.M. Government, drew 
 five feet, and the Roovooma was shallow, and three weeks 
 were spent in working thirty miles, so that they were glad to 
 get away at all, a feat rendered daily more difficult by the 
 decreasing volume of stream. On May ist the party began 
 to ascend the Zambesi. Here, for nine days, they had a 
 good stream ; and although they had frequently to stop to 
 cut fuel for the steamer, and all the party were more or less 
 attacked by fever, they kept up their spirits ; but when they 
 
 j> * The Unhjersities Mission to Central Africa^ by the Rev. Henry Rowley. 
 
138 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 came to the River Shire (pronounced Chirri), the same 
 difficulties met them which had driven them away from the 
 Roovooma. The stream was shallow, and sand -banks 
 abounded. Again Livingstone’s sagacity was sadly, strangely 
 at fault. He had ascended the stream two years before, 
 but he had not taken into account that his vessel then drew 
 thirty-three inches and now drew sixty. After eight toil- 
 some weeks, the “ Pioneer ” reached a spot, familiar to us 
 now as “ Chibisas,” from whence they struck out on foot in 
 a north-easterly direction for the high lands, hoping to find 
 a suitable site on which to settle. How they came on 
 several parties of slave dealers, how they released the 
 captives from the heavy forks which were fastened round 
 their necks, how the Manganja, who were their friends, led 
 the mission party to defend them from the hostile Ajawa, 
 who were preying on them, — these are now familiar facts. 
 At the end of July they settled at Magomero, and here 
 were left by Livingstone, with their rescued slaves as the 
 first material on which to work, in a lovely spot, 4,000 feet 
 above the level of the sea. Here, after further conflict 
 with the Ajawa, the party began their proper work. The 
 languages were studied and reduced to system, and the 
 natives were sent to work at regular hours, under the 
 guidance of the Cape men ; huts were speedily built, and the 
 daily office said in one of them, which was called the chapeL 
 Schools were established, and the Sunday observances im- 
 pressed the people much. At length things got into such 
 order that Mr. Waller wrote, What a luxury a chair is ! 
 what a rest it is ! We have now a table, albeit a very 
 rickety one, and our beds are off the ground — an approach 
 to civilisation which, with the sitting to take our meals, 
 astonishes and delights our bones as much as it does the 
 admiring group of natives.” But Magomero was not a 
 healthy site. Spite of its elevation, it was a hole,” by 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 139 
 
 reason of the much higher lands which surrounded it. 
 Fever attacks were therefore frequent; but what was more 
 serious, a famine was impending throughout the whole 
 region. 
 
 In November the bishop went, hoping to meet Living- 
 stone at Chibisas, and there he greeted the Rev. H. Burrup, 
 who had recently arrived, but only to find speedily that the 
 land of his adoption was to be his grave. 
 
 In December the bishop again started to reconnoitre the 
 country about the River Ruo, and to punish the Ajawa for 
 an act of treachery. Dr. Dickenson, a medical man, and 
 Clarke, a shoemaker, had meanwhile reinforced the mission. 
 For eight days the bishop and his party trudged on their 
 weary way through swamps and morasses, hoping to reach 
 the mouth of the Shire, to discover, on December 31st, that 
 they must then return to Magomero and start afresh on 
 a journey of 200 miles, if they would keep their appoint- 
 ment with Livingstone. After one night’s rest the bishop 
 and Mr. Burrup set out on their expedition, accompanied 
 only by one of the Cape men. Arriving at Chibisas, they 
 borrowed a canoe, and two nights afterwards they were 
 upset by the boat grounding on a sand-bank. That mishap 
 was fatal. Wet through, they wrapped themselves in their 
 soaked blankets and passed the night in this plight ; their 
 quinine and other medicines were lost when the canoe cap- 
 sized, and they had no means of warding off the inevitable 
 fever that ensued. Helpless and sad, but not cast down, 
 the two sufferers comforted each other; and on January 
 31st, 1862, just thirteen months after his consecration, the 
 bishop breathed his last on the Island of Malo ; and Mr. 
 Burrup, by the brief sunset light, buried him under an 
 acacia-tree, and read as much as he could of the Burial 
 Service in the deepening gloom. 
 
 It was a dying man who thus ministered to the dead. 
 
140 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 He returned with difficulty to Magomero, and within a few 
 days he was followed to his grave by the small company of 
 sorrowing friends at the head-quarters. From this time the 
 work of the mission was steadily persevered in, although the 
 spirits of all were tried, not only by the loss of their friends, 
 but by the increasing famine. The natives were brought to 
 like their work, for which they received regular wages ; the 
 schools were carried on, the surviving missionaries became 
 more at home with the vernacular, and from time to time 
 journeys had to be made at great peril in order to obtain a 
 supply of food. On January ist, 1863, the Rev. H. C. Scuda- 
 more died, and in March following Dr. Dickenson was laid 
 by his side in a beautiful spot outside the village. Mean- 
 while, on Feb. 2nd, 1863, Bishop Tozer had been consecrated 
 in Westminster Abbey, and in May arrived at the mouth of 
 the Zambesi. There he heard the sad fortunes of the 
 original mission party. In the following month he arrived 
 at Magomero, and found the survivors weakened and suffer- 
 ing. The bishop wished to move the station to Morumbala, 
 which is more accessible from the coast ; the older mission- 
 aries, who felt an interest in their native following, which the 
 bishop, as a stranger, perhaps could not feel, urged that they 
 should move only to MTami, twenty miles distant, and so keep 
 their people with them. But the counsels of the new-comers 
 prevailed, and Morumbala was adopted for a time. Mean- 
 while Rowley and Proctor were invalided home, and of the 
 original party of English only Waller survived. He deter- 
 mined not to abandon the poor people, who had proved 
 themselves worthy of all the kindness which they had 
 received, to be the prey of the first gang of men-stealers that 
 might descend on the country, and he contrived to make 
 terms with a chief of the Ajawas, by which they became his 
 people, and he pledged himself to defend them. This cir- 
 cumstance showed that the mission party might all have 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 I4I 
 
 returned to the hills with perfect safety. Mr. Waller having 
 provided for the bulk of his people, brought with him to the 
 Cape some dozen women, who were dependent on the 
 mission, and twenty native boys, whom Bishop Tozer had 
 had with him at Morumbala, but whom he abandoned 
 together with the place ; for all of these Mr. Waller found 
 places in Capetown, and of the boys, two, who had been 
 subsequently educated in Bombay, accompanied Livingstone 
 in his last expedition. In 1864 Bishop Tozer had arrived 
 at the Cape to decide on a new base of operations. The 
 mechanics whom he had brought out with him were sent 
 back to England, and Zanzibar was chosen by him as the 
 spot from which the objects contemplated by the founders of 
 the mission might be attained. The mainland then, in which, 
 if much had not been done, much had been suffered, was 
 deserted ; but the occupation of it even for so short a time 
 cannot have been in vain. Mr. Rowley thus wrote of the 
 expedition : It is not as we hoped — it is not as we in our 
 blindness expected it would be ; but to say that the life and 
 death of Bishop Mackenzie were in vain, that the life and 
 death of those his fellow-workers, who so soon followed him 
 to the grave, were in vain — is to question the purpose of 
 Almighty God. No, they did not live in vain, they did not 
 die in vain.’^ These words are true and weighty. Of the 
 people entrusted to the Ajawa by Mr. Waller, when Bishop 
 Tozer broke up the station on the mainland, Mr. Rowley 
 hazarded the following prediction : — They will be living 
 in the constant expectation of seeing some of us again. I 
 have no doubt that they are acting in some sort as mission- 
 aries to the Ajawa — not, of course, in the highest sense, 
 they were not prepared for that ; but in everv assembly they 
 will speak of what we did, they will tell of our love and 
 kindness as well as of our power, and they will be able to 
 say that love for God, the desire to do God’s will and to make 
 them acquainted with the knowledge of the Lord, were the 
 
142 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 mainspring and motive of all our actions. For years to come 
 the English missionaries will be talked of in the villages of 
 the Ajawa. Around their fires at night, by the blacksmith^s 
 forge, under the khotla tree, wherever men congregate in 
 that land, our words will be recorded, our deeds recounted, 
 and the simple lessons of right and wrong, of truth and good- 
 will, which we were able to instil into their minds, will not 
 be lost ; they will be disseminated. For years to come these 
 people will live in the expectation of seeing us again. This 
 prediction has been realised, for when, in 1867, the first 
 Livingstone search expedition was organised, the commander 
 of that party came in contact with these people, and found 
 that they lived in expectation of seeing their “ English 
 Fathers ” again, that they had called their children after 
 them, and that the memory of their good deeds was fresh 
 and green in the breasts of the simple people. More than 
 this, the land was fertile and food abundant. It was proved 
 that the famine which had caused such terrible suffering was 
 altogether an unprecedented event, and the Shire, which the 
 deeply-laden “ Pioneer had taken eighty days to ascend, 
 while her passengers were prostrated with fever, had been 
 ascended in the light-draft steel boat of this well-found ex- 
 pedition in thirteen days, another instance of the ill-fortune 
 and repeated blunders which beset the original mission. 
 
 From this time, then, the mission to Central Africa has 
 been settled at Zanzibar, an island twice the size of the Isle 
 of Wight, Its geographical position seemed to promise 
 every facility for communication with the inland tribes. The 
 committee in England, to whose judgment the matter was 
 referred, agreed with Bishop Tozer in his opinion that it 
 was the best sphere open to him, and the bishop has sted- 
 fastly adhered to his resolution not to regard Zanzibar as a 
 field for mission work in itself, but only as a means of 
 ultimately reaching Central Africa. So far as can be gathered 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 143 
 
 from his letters, he has neither made nor attempted to make 
 any impression on the adult population, whether African or 
 Mahometan, of that island. The Sultan, with whom he has 
 been on good terms, has given into his hands some lads who 
 have been rescued from slave dhows, and on the estate 
 which he purchased with the money raised for him at the 
 Theological College at Wells, he has specially devoted him- 
 self to the education of these and other lads, with the hope 
 that some at least of them may become hereafter ordained 
 missionaries. In this respect his work has been in wise imi- 
 tation of the example set many years ago by the missionaries 
 in Madras, where the native clergy are now more numerous 
 than the European, and retain, in their new spheres, the in- 
 expensive habits of life common among their own people. 
 The labours of his friend and colleague. Dr. Steere, have 
 been indeed invaluable. While turning his hand to work of 
 all kinds as there was need, he, more than any other member 
 of the missionary staff, has shown a remarkable power of 
 acquiring the vernacular ; and his Suahili Handbook and his 
 many translations are sufficient testimony to his diligence 
 and his ability. But after all the question will arise, 
 whether Zanzibar is the best spot on which these works 
 could have been accomplished. The bishop landed there 
 in 1864, and up to the present time no permanent impression 
 has been made on the mainland. Members of the mission 
 have from time to time visited it, and had interviews with 
 the chiefs, but the effort has been made with great difficulty, 
 
 * This he could well afford to do ; for, according to the author of The 
 Search for Li'vingitone (Simpkin, Marshall & Co.), “ The Sultan himself is a 
 miserable Arab ; yet he is allowed to keep up a Slave Market under the very 
 flutter of the Union Jack, Tricolour, and Stars and Stripes, which decimates 
 annually vast tracts of African soil. Last year (1867) he received as tribute 
 two dollars per head on 20,000 slaves, thus sold under our very noses, whilst, 
 a few miles out at sea, every on<» of them might have been lawfully liberated.’* 
 — p. II. 
 
144 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 and even at the cost of life. The missionaries of other 
 societies who have long been on the Eastern coast do not 
 report favourably of it, either in the matter of health or 
 missionary success. The Church Missionary Society con- 
 templates the probability of withdrawing their missions from 
 Kisulidini and Mombas, still further to the north, which 
 Bishop Tozer has visited. ‘^The United Free Methodists” 
 have also missions in this neighbourhood, but they appear to 
 be of a very limited character. Moreover, in the district of 
 Usambara, which is opposite to Zanzibar, the language 
 spoken is not Suahili but Shambala ; so that with the fact 
 admitted that the continent has been reached only in the 
 most fragmentary manner, the visits paid to it being brief in 
 duration and at considerable intervals, the question remains 
 whether the preparatory work hitherto carried on at Zanzibar 
 might not have been accomplished in a healthier region, at 
 a less cost of sickness and human life. The self-devotion of 
 the missionaries has been in truth excessive. To join an 
 undertaking whose progress has been marked by deaths, or 
 by sickness which compelled the sufferers to return to 
 England, at a rate altogether disproportionate to the 
 numbers of the staff, and without parallel in any modern 
 mission, implies, indeed, a large amount of self-sacrifice; 
 but to risk life and strength needlessly may be courage, but 
 it is not the highest prudence. At the worst, almost all 
 that can be said against the adoption of an island whose 
 climate is notoriously about the most unwholesome in the 
 world, and to select it as a basis of operations, is that to do 
 so is an error of judgment. Events have occurred subse- 
 quently which justify us in thinking that some position on 
 the mainland, either in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
 original settlement, or in the Transvaal Republic, or in Zulu- 
 land, might have been chosen, and that the ‘‘ tribes around 
 the Lake Nyassa,” whom Bishop Tozer has regarded as 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 145 
 
 the ultimate object of his care, would have been reached at 
 an earlier date and with less cost of suffering and of human 
 life than is now likely to be the case. 
 
 When, in 1864, the bishop wrote, — To have gone 
 to Zululand would have been to abandon absolutely 
 Central Africa,” he hazarded a statement which the course 
 of subsequent events is likely to contradict; for his friend. 
 Bishop Wilkinson, at the end of his first year of work 
 in that country, was able to report in January, 1872, that 
 he had pushed his way northward to within 400 miles 
 of the Zambesi, while Zanzibar is 700 miles still further to 
 the north, and that he hoped next year to throw out new 
 stations which would bring him even closer to the Zambesi. 
 That river is the northern limit of the country assigned to 
 Bishop Wilkinson. We may hope that his energy will enable 
 him shortly to reach it, and that from Zanzibar Bishop 
 Tozer, or those who succeed him, for increasing ill-health 
 has caused the Bishop to express a desire of resigning his 
 position, may force their way southward, and that the land 
 in which the bodies of Mackenzie and his comrades expect 
 the great awakening may again be the scene of missionary 
 labours, whose fortunes shall not be so disastrous as were 
 those of the earlier efforts. 
 
 X 
 
146 
 
 XVL 
 
 With a notice of the Dioceses of Zululand and Bloemfontein 
 the record of missionary work in the southern portion of the 
 African continent will be brought to a close. From a pre- 
 vious paper it will have been gathered that Bishop Colenso 
 at one time considered the promise of missionary success 
 in Zululand so great that he proposed to resign his position 
 in Natal, and devote himself wholly to the heathen tribes 
 living across the Tugela. It was afterwards arranged that 
 Archdeacon Mackenzie should head this mission, and he 
 had come to England to make the necessary arrangements 
 for doing so, when the call to him to go still further north 
 and establish a mission in the newly-opened central regions 
 seemed too distinctly providential to be neglected. 
 
 If we may anticipate by some years the course of events, 
 this seems to be the place to record that, although the mis 
 sion to Zululand was not destined to be directed by him, 
 it owes its first bishop to the example of his zeal, and the 
 endowment of the see to those who reverence his memory^ 
 The Rev. T. E. Wilkinson, who was consecrated first bishop 
 in Zululand on St. Mark’s Day, 1870, received liis first 
 impressions of the sanctity and reality of missionary work 
 from reading the Memoir of Bishop Mackenzie. If any- 
 thing may be said to happen by chance, then it was a chance 
 that put this book into the future bishop’s hands. (The word 
 ‘‘ chance ” is used reverently, and not without a firm belief 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 147 
 
 that chance had nothing to do with it.) In a strange house, 
 on a wet day, the book was taken up, and the result was 
 that Mr. Wilkinson, then a curate in charge of a Suffolk 
 flock, became from that hour an enthusiastic missionary. 
 Not indulging in dreams or in visions of what he would do, 
 if the opportunity offered, he showed the reality of his con- 
 victions, not by yearning after an improbable condition of 
 things, but simply by doing the work that lay close at hand, 
 and doing it with his might. He made his rural parish a 
 model of what every parish in England might be if only its 
 spiritual guides were convinced, as was he, of the urgency 
 of the missionary claims made on it ; and it may be added 
 that, until the clergy are so impressed, the Church will not 
 take the position which it ought. True missionary fervour 
 is always contagious : in these pages not a few proofs are 
 given of this statement. The present is yet another instance. 
 The zeal of the pastor was communicated to his people. 
 They were a rural flock, which is not generally the most 
 capable of enthusiasm, or the most open to such influences ; 
 but the fire of earnest devotion is a great power, and the 
 farmers gave their money, and the humbler classes made 
 offerings according to their ability. More than this, Mr. 
 Wilkinson infected the young with his own spirit, and he 
 undertook the training of some who were moved to offer 
 themselves for the work itself. One of these, Samuel 
 Speare, has been for three years at Zanzibar. As was 
 natural, Mr. Wilkinson felt an especial interest in all things 
 connected with the noble missionary, the story of whose 
 life had given such a turn to his own thoughts and feelings. 
 He threw himself with heartiness into the effort that was 
 made to raise a memorial to Bishop Mackenzie ; and when 
 the modest sum of ;^4,5oo (hardly more, by the way, than 
 wealthy men have given for a single painting with which 
 to adorn their dining-room, and one-third of the sum recently 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 given for a race-horse) was raised to commemorate the 
 martyr of the Zambesi and to maintain a chief pastor in 
 Zululand, what more natural than that the man whose heart 
 had been warmed by the example of that saintly prelate 
 should be called upon to undertake the work which at one 
 time bade fair to be his own ? There was nothing of the 
 “ Volo EpiscoparV^ in this case. But for the reticence 
 which is rendered necessary by consideration of those who 
 are still living, it would be easy to write of the many, not 
 unnatural, objections that were in the way of his responding 
 to the invitation. Bishop Wilkinson is not the first, neither 
 is he likely to be the last, who has turned his back on the 
 placid contentments offered by family livings and well- 
 endowed preferment, and the charms of society and the 
 endearments of family ties, and chosen to throw in his lot 
 with the heathen and the colonists ; and while such men 
 are granted to her the Church of England need not 
 tremble for her position as a living branch of the Church 
 catholic. 
 
 We now go back to the first establishment of our missions 
 in Zululand. It was in i860 that the Rev. R. Robertson 
 first broke ground in this country. For four years he had 
 laboured in close proximity to and warmest friendship with 
 Mackenzie and his sisters at the Umlazi within the colony 
 of Natal. He loved his work, and the fruits were beginning 
 to appear; so much so, that in April, i860, he wrote, “What 
 we have looked and longed for is now beginning to come to 
 pass : our influence for good upon the people around us 
 is showing itself. But in September of the same year he 
 left his ripening work for Zululand, “assuredly gathering” 
 that it was a Divine hand that called him thither. In out- 
 ward surroundings it was no change for the better. They 
 went, not as small a party as was advisable, for some 
 of their converts insisted on going with them, although to 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 149 ' 
 
 go to Zululand was in their case to return to a land which 
 had been to them a land of slavery, and from which they 
 had escaped into Natal, and sought protection under the 
 British flag, but they went to a land that was literally a 
 howling \vilderness. They made a journey of 200 miles 
 over a mountainous but roadless country, intersected with 
 rivers, which were spanned by no bridges, and which could 
 be forded only under favourable circumstances. The two 
 waggons in which they made their journey were also their 
 dwellings for four months after their arrival in the country, 
 some of their followers living under tents which they took 
 with them. The fact of their reaching their new station at 
 the commencement of the rainy season did not add to their 
 comfort; and Mrs. Robertson, with energy and tact in 
 teaching and winning the savages almost unrivalled, was 
 nevertheless a confirmed invalid. The country was ruled 
 by Panda, the youngest of three brothers mentioned in a 
 previous paper as having between them caused the deaths 
 of a million people. In bearing and courtesy of manner he 
 was every inch a king ; but he was troubled by domestic 
 dissensions, his children being jealous of him and of each 
 other. One of them, Cetywayo, had been named as his 
 successor, and was, and still is, practically the ruler of the 
 land. In such a country human life was of no value ; from 
 the royal family downwards, family feuds, dissensions, 
 witchcraft, sorceries, and bloodshed seemed to be the 
 order of the day. Of civilisation there was not a sign ; but 
 the ancient mythology and customs, without a knowledge of 
 which no missionary can ever hope to make any impression, 
 were almost as intricate as those of India. Polygamy every- 
 where prevailed. The people were ground down by their 
 rulers. Witchcraft was and is an institution. ‘‘No case, 
 great or small, can happen in which they have not recourse 
 to their protecting or avenging spirit, through their witch 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 150 
 
 doctor.” Often the most harmless people are smelt out” 
 by these rascals, and are speedily convicted and subjected 
 to a horrible death by impalement. The trade of a witch- 
 doctor is not likely to languish for lack of professors of the 
 craft, for its privileges are many; immunity from service in 
 the levies, and from all other work, together with abundance 
 of food, are among the chief. 
 
 It was in such a wilderness, material and spiritual, that 
 the Robertsons settled. They occupied the most advanced 
 outpost, passing on their road the Norwegian mission which 
 has long been settled here. In 1861 they were joined by a 
 Norwegian, Mr. Samuelson, who had been ordained deacon 
 by Bishop Colenso. Their home was at Kwamagwaza, a 
 mountainous spot, 4,000 feet above the sea level, granted 
 to them by Panda. In time Mr. Samuelson started a new 
 mission at St. PauFs, some twenty miles off, and in 1866 
 they were joined by Mr. Jackson, of St. Augustine's College. 
 They had a difficult path to tread. On the one hand they 
 resolved to refrain from taking the part of the people against 
 their rulers ; on the other, they felt it their duty to reprove 
 the rulers whenever their laws and customs were grossly in 
 defiance of justice. To beard such irresponsible and cruel 
 tyrants demands the very highest courage ; and if but the 
 circumstances were known, it would be found that in' remote 
 Zululand, in the last decade of this prosaic age, there have 
 been as chivalrous deeds of Christian valour performed as 
 ever were chronicled in the days of romance. 
 
 Building, translating, doctoring, learning the language 
 and compiling grammars, baptizing their occasional con- 
 verts, teaching the children, farming the mission lands, — 
 thus the trio of faithful men laboured. At times favoured 
 by the king and prince, at others running the risk of offend- 
 ing by boldness of speech, they have made their presence 
 felt. In 1870, to their great joy, they received their 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 15 t 
 
 bishop. In knowledge of the language, in familiarity with 
 native customs and modes of thought, he was inferior to 
 them all. In years perhaps he was their junior ; but he 
 was the completion of their missionary organisation, and it 
 was his to dispense gifts and graces which heretofore had 
 been wanting. Soon after his arrival he confirmed twenty- 
 one natives ; a small band truly, but no inconsiderable 
 harvest in a land where ten years before the only token 
 of the presence of civilised men was a couple of bat- 
 tered tents pitched on the waste. The bishop was cor- 
 dially received by Panda, who regarded him as ‘‘the 
 king of the teachers,'' and Cetywayo, the real king, pro- 
 mised to send his son to the bishop to be educated by 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Jackson and Mr. Glover were soon despatched to 
 found a new station to the northward, at a spot called 
 Etaleni, and the bishop determined to lose no time in push- 
 ing his way to the Zambesi, the northern limit of the district 
 assigned to him by the Provincial Synod of South x\frica. 
 It was necessary first to erect more buildings, and specially 
 a school, in which promising natives may be educated to 
 become catechists, and, if God will, clergy. This took the 
 best portion of a year. The bishop had to superintend 
 everything in person, and the difficulties of building in a 
 desert place, “ two hundred miles from a tin-tack or a penny- 
 worth of glue," can only be learned by experience. These 
 having been surmounted, and one wing of the future college 
 completed, the bishop, after three weeks' j ourneying, reached 
 the kraal of the Prince of the Amaswazi, a race of people 
 superior to the Zulus, as the Zulus are superior to the Kafirs 
 of Natal. For 1,100 miles north of this spot the land was 
 utterly untouched by the hand of a missionary, the nearest 
 Christian station being that of Bishop Tozer at Zanzibar. 
 The result of this toui was the establishment of a station in 
 
152 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 the Amaswazi country, for which Mr. Jackson, one of the 
 former staff, and a younger colleague, volunteered. The 
 people are a magnificent race, peaceful and industrious, and 
 there is really no reason why, if men are forthcoming, the 
 whole region of the Zambesi should not very shortly be 
 occupied. The country near the coast, eastward of the 
 Bombo range of hills, is much more difficult of access : it is 
 a land of death, and there are precipices up which no 
 waggon could be taken, while around the base of the moun- 
 tainous ridge the Tsetse fly, which is fatal to oxen, is pre- 
 valent. The hope of reaching the Amatonga tribes, who 
 inhabit this terrible land, is therefore not an immediate one ; 
 but neither is it remote, whatever the result may be. Nine 
 traders, in the exercise of their calling, recently ventured 
 into this region, and not one returned. A member of 
 the bishop's party has nevertheless volunteered to make 
 the experiment, at all events on the confines of the 
 Amatonga country, and the bishop intends to be his com- 
 panion. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that zeal is contagious, and that 
 where the sacred fire of missionary love is kindled, labours 
 and their results go on increasing in something like geome- 
 trical progression. Bishop Mackenzie was not permitted to 
 cross the Tugela and labour in Zululand, as he had pro- 
 posed. It was ordained that he should work and die in 
 another country, and that with his death the work which he 
 had commenced, over which he had prayed and toiled, and 
 at the outset of which he died, should be abandoned, at 
 least for a time, and, as man judges, that no visible 
 results should be gathered in; but such would be only a 
 hasty and unreflecting judgment. Had he accomplished 
 much less than he did on the Zambesi, neither his life nor 
 his example of humble self-sacrifice would have been with- 
 out result, if from his grave beside the African stream there 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 153 
 
 rose up that lesson of faith which counts not cost nor seeks 
 earthly reward, and by th.e simple record of his life and 
 character there was struck that spark of zeal which impelled 
 Bishop Wilkinson to go forth from his English home, and 
 to “bury himself (as the phrase is) in the wilderness of 
 Zululand. 
 
154 
 
 XVll. 
 
 The Orange Free State ” has been mentioned more than 
 once in the previous papers. It was at one time part of the 
 Cape colony, and was visited by Bishop Gray in the early 
 days of his episcopate. Its first settlers were the Dutch, 
 who wandered so far from the sea-board in order to be free 
 from the English rule ; here they formed a country in which, 
 for a time at least, they could indulge in the luxury of keep- 
 ing slaves ; here they formed themselves into a republic, 
 having declared their political independence. But English 
 settlers soon followed them, and it became the duty of our 
 Government to annex the country to the colony, and it was 
 known as the Sovereignty beyond the Orange River.'^ It 
 was when this state of things prevailed that the Bishop of 
 Capetown first went to Africa, and in his visitation tour of 
 1850, — a record of work as simple and as interesting as 
 ever was v/ritten, — the bishop describes his visit to the 
 Sovereignty and the efforts of the English at Bloemfontein 
 to build for themselves a church. Archdeacon Merriman 
 afterwards visited Bloemfontein, and laid the foundation of 
 the church of St. Andrew in 1850. But before the church 
 was finished, the constant disputes with the Boers led the 
 English Government to abandon the Sovereignty, which, 
 since 1854, has been an independent republic. It was 
 supposed, therefore, that the English would leave the 
 country ; the church accordingly was not finished, and the 
 clergyman, who had been working at Bloemfontein, was 
 
 • 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 IS5 
 
 withdrawn. In the register books of the church there is 
 this entry, ‘‘The Orange River Territory abandoned by the 
 British Government. Chaplain left March 28, 1854.’^ But 
 there was no decrease in the number of English who settled 
 in the republic, and for these very little was done. Bishop 
 Armstrong sent a clergyman from Grahamstown, who re- 
 mained for a time, and then there was another blank. The 
 settlers, not unnaturally, joined the Dutch Church or the 
 Wesleyans ; some were received into the Roman Church, 
 others simply lapsed into careless ways. It was not until 
 1863 that work was resumed by the Church of England, 
 and in that year a bishop was consecrated, and his sphere 
 of work was defined as the Orange Free State, Basuto 
 land, and the Transvaal Republic, the latter being the 
 second of the independent States which the Dutch formed 
 when driven away from Natal by the treachery of Dingaarn. 
 The area, therefore, to be covered is a very extensive one, 
 and the races and languages are very different. The Dutch 
 are the most numerous, and their Hottentot servants speak 
 the language of their masters. There are many thousands 
 of English in the Free State, and their presence attracts the 
 educated among the Dutch to the Church of England, the 
 more so as there have been recently serious divisions in their 
 own body. The Basutos, who cannot be much fewer than 
 200,000, live in small villages with about 300 people in 
 each. The Barolongs, on the other hand, live in towns : at 
 Thaban ’chu alone there are not fewer than 14,000 of them. 
 The Wesleyans have worked among them for forty-five 
 years, the French Protestants for thirty-five years ; the latter 
 are said to be missionaries of a very high type, patient, 
 simple, and diligent, but the people are prejudiced against 
 them because they are French : they have been so much 
 connected with the English Government that they are drawn 
 to everything that is supposed to represent it. The Trans- 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 15^ 
 
 vaal Republic, which is 200 miles distant from Bloem- 
 fontein, is twice as large as England, and the population in* 
 this locality has lately overflowed all limits by the discovery 
 of diamonds and the consequent ‘‘ rush to the fields. 
 
 When the first bishop went to this diocese, he imme- 
 diately experienced the benefit of Bishop Gray’s earlier visits. 
 When he visited the great chief Moshesh, “ the chief of all 
 the Basutos,” he was able to talk to him of his two sons, one 
 of whom was being educated at St. Augustine’s College, the 
 other at Zonnebloem. The condition of this chief was very 
 touching ; for years he had been asking for a missionary, and^ 
 although still a heathen, he desired Christian teaching for 
 his people, and had shown his appreciation of it by securing 
 it for two of his sons. But his mountain fortress of Thaba- 
 Bassio (which means Mountain of Light ”) reniained in 
 darkness, and, as far as he himself was concerned, the dark^ 
 ness was never removed, for although most friendly to the 
 clergy he professed that his time for learning had gone by. 
 
 In the early days of the mission there was sent out from 
 St. Augustine’s College a young student named Mitchell. 
 In 1865, having shown a decided preference for missionary 
 over colonial or pastoral work, he was sent to Thaban ’chu, 
 an important settlement of the Barolongs. At that time the 
 only Christians in the district besides himself were two sons 
 of the chief Moroko, one of whom had been educated at 
 Zonnebloem, the other at St. Augustine’s. Mr. Mitchell 
 soon learned the language, kept school for adults and chil- 
 dren, and held five services every Sunday. From this 
 centre he made tours throughout the districts, ringing a bell 
 at each station, at the sound of which the Kafirs came 
 together quickly. In 1867 the bishop married the two 
 Christian sons of this chief to two young women who had 
 been among the early converts of the mission, and who were 
 baptized on their wedding-day. 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 157 
 
 The barriers which once were in the way of Christianity 
 are now removed; even polygamy has lost its hold, and 
 Moroko, the chief, although not a Christian himself, has 
 allowed his wives to embrace the truth, till he is now left 
 with one wife, and seems content to be so. The next in 
 authority is so far convinced that he admits himself afraid 
 to come to church lest he should be converted. ‘The 
 Barolongs make no attempt to retain their native customs, 
 however harmless they may be, when they are persuaded of 
 the truth of Christianity. This is especially the case with 
 the women ; when the missionary sees them leaving off the 
 folds of beads on their legs and arms, and their heads 
 covered with a handkerchief instead of a mixture of clay and 
 fat, he knows what is about to happen, and in a while his 
 expectations are fulfilled ; new faces are seen at the cate- 
 chism-class, and at the daily and weekly services, and the 
 whole demeanour is changed. It is not denied that con- 
 verts might be good Christians without abandoning barbarous 
 dresses and fashions ; but, as a matter of fact, the two 
 changes take place simultaneously, and the one is an index 
 of the reality of the other. 
 
 In 1866, the old building commenced in 1850, and which 
 the colonists, disheartened at being deserted by their chap- 
 lain in 1854, had allowed to become a ruin, was completed, 
 Iiaving been almost erected afresh from the foundation, and 
 was solemnly consecrated as the Cathedral Church of 
 St. Andrew. The work had been accomplished in the face 
 of great difficulties, for just at that time the country had 
 been ravaged by a civil war, and when it was completed 
 the visible result was not magnificent : the church had 
 neither transept, aisles, nor tower, and it held only 200 
 persons ; but those who had toiled to complete it thoroughly 
 appreciated the comfort which it afforded to them, — a com- 
 fort which none can realise who have not been compelled 
 
158 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 for three years to worship in a rude barn. A house was 
 opened at the same time in close proximity to the church, 
 which had been built for the residence of the bishop. 
 
 In 1867 an experiment in the missionary work of the 
 Church of England was made in this diocese : a missionary 
 brotherhood, under the leadership of the Rev. Canon 
 Beckett, went and established themselves in the wilderness. 
 Their purpose was to settle on a tract of land sixty miles 
 from any town, but in the midst of a native population, and 
 by labouring with their own hands, after the manner of the 
 Moravians, to accustom the natives to the sight of honest 
 labour, and from their central station to go forth and evan- 
 gelise the heathen. It must be allowed that the experiment 
 has on the whole been a great success. It is a difficult task 
 to bring together a number of young men of different degrees 
 of education and social position, and to form them into a 
 harmonious community, bound together by common work 
 and wholesome discipline. Some of the earlier members 
 either felt or showed that the life was not suited to them 
 and withdrew from it. It was not a luxurious life, especially 
 at the outset, for the brotherhood were unable to enter on 
 the farm which they expected to occupy, and to save ex- 
 pense they lived in a cave, to the detriment of the health of 
 some of the members, for more than a year. Their industry 
 has been very great ; they have proved themselves untiring 
 evangelisers. Their printing presses are all too small, and 
 their stock of type too limited to allow them to do the work 
 which they now want to accomplish. When the discovery 
 of the diamond fields caused a ‘‘rush'’ from all parts of 
 Africa as well as from all other countries to those parts, the 
 diggers would have been utterly without Church privileges 
 but for the members of the brotherhood. Several of them 
 were in deacon’s orders only, and owing to the continued 
 vacancy of the see, two young deacons, who had been sta* 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 159 
 
 tioned in the Transvaal Republic, were debarred from the 
 Holy Communion for more than four years. This was a case 
 in which men were wanted rather than money, for the dig- 
 gings had attracted many young men who had been trained 
 as Churchmen in Capetown and Grahamstown, and who 
 from the first offered a tithe of their findings for the support 
 of the Church. To the daily increasing population the 
 Venerable Archdeacon Kitton, of Kaffraria, endeavoured, 
 by a sojourn of six months, to supply the ministrations of 
 religion; but early in 1871 the second Bishop of the 
 Orange Free State entered on his work. In the Provincial 
 Synod of South Africa it was agreed that the diocese should 
 be hereafter known as that of Bloemfontein, and the vast 
 district now placed under the pastoral care of Bishop Webb 
 may congratulate itself on the man who has been given to it 
 for a spiritual father. A distinguished Fellow of University 
 College, Oxford, his prospects in England might fairly have 
 included some high positions. Already in possession of a 
 rural benefice in one of our most lovely counties, it must 
 have been an act of simple devotion which led him to ex- 
 change present position and future prospects for a difficult 
 work among a people, the large majority of whom are 
 heathen, or indifferent, and in a country that is arid and 
 uninteresting. 
 
 Having been selected for his present work while the 
 Bishop of Capetown was in England, it was convenient that 
 he should be consecrated in this country ; but in this, as in 
 other instances, the free action of the Church is hindered 
 by the restraints of legislation, which is altogether obsolete 
 when brought in contact with her increasing growth, and 
 the consecration had to be held at Inverness Cathedral, the 
 ‘‘Jerusalem Bishopric Act ” having no force north of the 
 Tweed. 
 
 Of Bishop Webb’s labours the newspapers in the Free 
 
i6o 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 State write in the most grateful terms * and this testimony is 
 the more remarkable as the tone of the J^ree Press of the 
 Republic (which enjoys a freedom bordering closely on 
 license) has hitherto been very hostile to the English 
 Church. Among the diggers there is, as has been men- 
 tioned, a considerable element of Church people, who have 
 gratefully appreciated the zeal with which the bishop has 
 himself laboured for weeks among this motley population, 
 and the provision which he has made for them by stationing 
 several clergy in the fields. This being so, they have no 
 doubt done much towards forming a wholesome public 
 opinion. As a matter of theory, it is the special function of 
 the press to form public opinion ; as a matter of fact, the 
 press often follows it. 
 
:? 
 
 i6i 
 
 I 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The area of the Diocese of St. Helena is remarkably limited ; 
 and those persons who estimate the necessity of the episco- 
 pate, or at all events of the personal presence of a bishop, 
 by the number of clergy whom he has to lead, or the amount 
 of correspondence which he has to conduct, were disposed 
 to ridicule the proposal to establish a bishopric on a small 
 island which possessed only six clergymen. It had formed 
 part of the Diocese of Capetown since 1847, previous to 
 which it had been under the care of the Bishop of London ; 
 and surely a population of 5,000 Church people ought to 
 find all their yearnings for episcopacy amply met, when they 
 were separated from the cathedral city and the bishop^s 
 chair by little more than a thousand miles of ocean. Until 
 the establishment of the See of Capetown it had been rather 
 a Government station than a colony : its importance as a 
 halting-place on the long voyage to India had been recog- 
 nised by the Portuguese three centuries ago, but as that 
 slave-dealing nation increased its possessions on the African 
 mainland, so it neglected St. Helena. In 1651 it became 
 a possession of the East India Company, and many emi- 
 grants from England accepted offers of land, and settled in 
 the island, employing slaves from Madagascar to cultivate 
 their farms. The island was alternately taken again and 
 again by Dutch and English. In the latter half of the 17th 
 century many families who had been ruined by the Great 
 Fire of London here made a home with the wreck of their 
 
 M 
 
i 62 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 possessions. The great event of historical interest is of 
 course the imprisonment of Buonaparte at Longwood, from 
 1815 until his death in 1821. 
 
 When Bishop Gray found time, in 1849, visit this 
 remote part of his diocese, he was the first Anglican prelate 
 who had ever set his foot on its soil. The people, therefore, 
 were unconfirmed, the cemeteries and churches unconse- 
 crated. Of the latter the number was very small ; the build- 
 ing used for worship at Longwood was the billiard-room, 
 which had been built for the amusement of the ex-Emperor ; 
 and such churches and cemeteries as did exist were in the 
 hands of the governor, and had never been conveyed to 
 the Church. In 1857 the bishop again visited St. Helena, 
 but the expenditure both of time and money was a great 
 burden on the resources of Bishop Gray, whose hands were 
 already more than full, and in 1859 Bishop Claughton was 
 consecrated to the newly founded see. The establishment 
 of the bishopric gave great pleasure to the Church people in 
 the island, who showed their gratitude by raising towards 
 the endowment the sum of ;^i,ooo. Their numbers are 
 limited, and the majority of them are very poor ; but at the 
 time that they raised this sum they were paying off by a 
 rate a debt of 1,2 00 on a church recently completed, and 
 were building a new one at a cost of ^^ 2 , 000 — a sufficient 
 answer to those who ridiculed the establishment of a bishopric 
 on an island so small and with so limited a population. 
 
 But however limited the resident population, there is a 
 migratory class of suffering folk, the victims of the hateful 
 slave trade, for whom the Church has performed great deeds 
 of mercy at St. Helena. Our Government has spent immense 
 sums annually on the repression of this traffic. Whenever a 
 slaver is taken by a man-of-war, the officer in command is 
 bound to convey his prize without delay to the nearest 
 English port where there is an Admiralty Court, in which 
 
AFRICA, 
 
 163 
 
 the case may be adjudged. The number of slaves dis- 
 charged at St. Helena is so large that the Government has 
 provided an institution for their reception : they arrive in 
 the most pitiable state, their condition being all the worse 
 the longer they have been at sea. They are crowded together 
 on deck and in the hold, and are passed over the side at 
 the end of their voyage like bales of goods : the dying and 
 the dead are mixed together, and it is often difficult to dis- 
 tinguish between them. It was while the Bishop of Cape- 
 town was making his first visit to St. Helena that a slave 
 ship was brought in with a freight of 560 souls : they were 
 a particularly healthy cargo, the death-rate among them 
 being about one per diem; but in the hospital on shore 
 at the same time there were 300 sufferers : for these no pro- 
 vision was made beyond food and medicine. The institu- 
 tion cost 1 0,000 annually, but the trifling additional cost 
 of a chaplain or a catechist was not provided. Bishop 
 Claughton, immediately on his arrival, addressed himself to 
 remedying this disastrous state of things. He boarded the 
 first prize that was brought in, and in his description of the 
 scene declared that the gaunt skeleton forms, the abject 
 apathetic looks of the miserable captives, as they were set 
 free on English soil, reminded him of Charon and his crew 
 of Shades. With one of his clergy he devoted himself to 
 the instruction of these poor negroes : in a dreary gorge 
 called “ Rupert's Valley," he and his interpreter sat under 
 the scanty shade of the green bamboo-tree, which grows 
 here and there in a stunted fashion, surrounded by a circle 
 of scholars. Sickness and disease had made many of them 
 listless, but the majority had eager and attentive looks, and 
 showed an increasing intelligence as their instruction pro- 
 ceeded. The bishop was happy in being able after due 
 preparation to baptize 230 of these poor people, who were 
 about to leave for the West Indies as free labourers. The 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 work thus commenced by Bishop Claiighton has been con- 
 tinued by his successor, Bishop Welby ; and specially ought 
 we to notice the labours of the Rev. T. Goodwin, who for 
 some years has given himself wholly to the care of these 
 African slaves. In a missionary point of view few works can 
 be more important. These unhappy creatures are, by the 
 wise and Christian policy of England, not only made free, 
 but they are enabled to use their freedom and to provide 
 for their own wants by honest labour. They are consigned 
 to our possessions in Demerara or the West Indies, and to 
 employers who are responsible for their being treated well : 
 they are free men, but slavery has reduced them to the 
 condition of children, and it is necessary that, at first at all 
 events, the Government which has given them liberty shall 
 take a parental interest in their doings. Some 3,000 negroes 
 every year are landed and go forth again from St. Helena 
 alone ; their stay on the island often extends to some 
 months, as ships are not always ready to remove them. 
 Such a length of time is sufficient to give them much religious 
 instruction, and the result of their teaching is that they seek 
 to be baptized : it follows, therefore, that a steady stream of 
 Christian negroes, who have received their spiritual freedom 
 as one of the results of their personal freedom, is yearly set- 
 ting forth to other lands, each of whom in his individual 
 character may be a missionary to his brethren. 
 
 Of the Africans who remain at St. Helena, many are 
 blind, the sufferings to which slaves are exposed on board 
 ships often inducing ophthalmia of the severest type ; for 
 these Mr. Goodwin uses the books with raised letters. But 
 the work of teaching such poor people demands the very 
 largest share of patience, as they are not acquainted with 
 the English language, and acquire it very slowly. Of the 
 labouring negro population on the island a much better 
 report can now be given than would once have been the 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 1(^5 
 
 truth, and much of this improvement is due to the mis- 
 sionary work performed in Rupert’s Valley. The negro is 
 by nature lazy, and his life at St. Helena is of a kind to 
 foster such a tendency. His labour depends on the ships in 
 port : when he has work, he must get through it in haste and 
 confusion ; but the ship sails, and until another arrives he 
 has a long interval of idleness, in which his hard earnings are 
 squandered recklessly. Formerly the negroes had little en- 
 couragement given to them : they shrank from joining the 
 English congregation, who perhaps would not have wel- 
 comed them, but since their race has received the special 
 care of the Church, they attend regularly both the schools 
 and the services. 
 
 Life in St. Helena has its drawbacks, neither few nor 
 inconsiderable : the area is confined, the society limited, 
 and a dull monotony makes itself felt. White ants and rats, 
 which are so numerous as to be pests, and which no one 
 has yet been able to eradicate, add much to the lesser 
 worries of existence. Provisions are nearly double the 
 price that they are in England ; and since the opening of 
 the Suez Canal the number of ships which touch at the 
 island is immensely diminished, and, in consequence, 
 the commercial prosperity of the community has suffered 
 accordingly. 
 
 Some 500 miles to the south-west, the island of Ascension 
 claims the care of the Bishop of St. Helena. In 1861 
 Bishop Claughton visited it, and by a singular coincidence 
 was enabled to consecrate its church on the festival from 
 which the island derives its name. At the same time several 
 cemeteries were consecrated, confirmation was administered, 
 and not a few adults, the majority of them Africans, but 
 one or two being British soldiers, were baptized. In 1865 
 the island was again visited by the Bishop of St. Helena, 
 Dr. Welby, and a confirmation was held. Altogether Ascen- 
 
i66 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 sion must be a dreary spot : it is itself the summit of an 
 extinct volcano, and the general prospect is that of exten- 
 sive bare fields of black lava rocks, which have cooled and 
 hardened in long parallel streams running down to the sea, 
 with enormous conical hills of red and yellow cinders, with- 
 out wate’*, or gardens, or trees, or a blade of green. At the 
 back of the island there is a farm and beautiful garden, and 
 the single spring of water which supplies the wants of the 
 people and of the ships. Here there is a large airy hos- 
 pital, to which many of our sailors stricken with coast fever 
 are brought, very frequently to die. To this institution a 
 chaplain is attached, and the great depression of spirits 
 which accompanies coast fever makes the sympathising 
 ministrations of a clergyman specially acceptable to the 
 sufferers. 
 
 The Church has few more desolate or barren spots in 
 which she gathers together her children than the rugged and 
 storm-beaten rock which is named after the Ascension of 
 Her Lord ; yet here the negro and the English — members of 
 the enslaved race and of the race which gave to it its free- 
 dom — kneel together, equally members of that divine body 
 in which alone liberty, equality, and fraternity of the highest 
 and truest sort are to be found. However isolated the lot 
 of our brethren, the presence of the Church and the offices 
 of the Book of Common Prayer remind them, by every 
 prayer that is offered and every rite which is administered, 
 that in spiritual things they are not isolated, but that their 
 worship is part of that chorus of adoration and of praise 
 which at every hour is being offered in the very words of 
 the English Liturgy from some part of the globe. 
 
 One Christian settlement there is even more remote and 
 destitute than that ‘of Ascension ; it is also within the limits 
 of the Diocese of St. Helena, but it must be noticed in a 
 separate paper. 
 
i6j 
 
 XIX. ^ 
 
 The spot to which belongs the distinction of being the 
 most distant outpost of the Church of England, and the 
 most remote settlement which the colonising Anglo-Saxon 
 has ever founded, is Tristan D’Acunha. Never to have heard 
 its name is not incompatible with the advantages of a good 
 education, and an acquaintance with its exact whereabouts 
 would hardly be expected even in a competitive examina- 
 tion. Some 1,200 miles south of St. Helena, and 1,500 
 miles south-west of the Cape of Good Hope, with no other 
 land nearer to them, in the very middle of the South 
 Atlantic Ocean, there stand three miserable rocks. Distant 
 from each other about thirty miles, they form a triangle. 
 Of these one is called Inaccessible,^^ and rightly so ; for it 
 is a huge rock, rising precipitously 2,000 feet out of the sea, 
 and only at one or two spots, in the calmest weather, could 
 a landing be effected. The second is called Nightingale 
 Island — not after the bird whose music has inspired so 
 many verses, but with much more prosaic justice after a 
 stolid Dutchman of that name. The substitute for the melody 
 of the nightingale^s song is the incessant scream of the pen- 
 guins and other sea-birds who have ever held undisturbed 
 possession of the rock, and who are the only creatures for 
 whose habitation it is in any degree adapted. The third, 
 which is much larger, being nearly square in shape, and 
 each side being about five miles in length, has monopolised 
 tht name which properly belongs to the trio. Like the 
 
]68 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Other two, it is a vast rock, rising almost perpendicularly out 
 of the sea some 3,300 feet, and in the centre a lofty cone 
 ascends some 5,000 feet more, so that the peak, which is 
 seen at an immense distance by passing ships, is about 
 8,300 ^eet above the level of the ocean. There are on this 
 island one or two narrow strips of land between the base of 
 the rock and the sea ; and in one of these valleys, not 
 a mile in width, and extending inland for nearly five miles, 
 until a huge wall of rock forbids all further advance, as 
 sensible and enduring a work for God has been carried on 
 as can be found in any part of the world. This work has 
 been done by two men, of neither of whom the world has 
 probably ever heard : one was an ex-corporal of the Royal 
 Artillery, the other a young Englishman engaged in a 
 London warehouse, and who volunteered to go as an 
 ordained teacher and minister to the little settlement at 
 Tristan D’Acunha. Before, however, their work is de- 
 scribed, some notice is due to the locality in which that 
 work was performed. 
 
 The motives that induced any man to wrest these miser- 
 able islands from the undisturbed possession of the goats 
 and the birds, which were their only suitable inhabitants, 
 are hard to be understood. Auri sacra fames^^ will bid 
 men do and dare much ; and it was the hope of getting 
 wealth, mingled perhaps by the desire to escape from public 
 notice, that led to the first settlement of Tristan. 
 
 It was in 1811 that an American named Lambert, accom- 
 panied by an old pirate, to whom voluntary exile seemed to 
 promise immunity from worse things, and a Spanish lad 
 who had deserted from his ship, first took possession of this 
 island. He claimed it as his own, and advertised the fact 
 in the Cape newspapers, inviting, at the same time, the 
 custom of all nations. His visions were, no doubt, extra- 
 vagantly bright. He planted largely tobacco, coffee, sugar, 
 
TRISTAN d' AC UNHA. 
 
 169 
 
 and other tropical plants, expecting, in such a latitude and 
 from a virgin soil, to reap abundant crops. He had not 
 considered the force of the wind, which blows freely over 
 so many hundreds of leagues of ocean on this defenceless 
 spot, and which, when it comes from the south, brings from 
 the Antarctic Pole cold enough to check the growth of even 
 hardy plants. The expected crops were never gathered in, 
 and Lambert’s reign terminated mysteriously : there was too 
 much reason to fear that he was murdered by his comrade 
 the pirate, who, in his turn, is supposed to have destroyed 
 himself. The colony, therefore, had hardly been established 
 when murder and suicide formed part of its history. 
 
 In 1816 it became a British possession, and few things 
 serve better to enable us of these days to realise the terror 
 with which Napoleon, some fifty years ago, filled even that 
 British nation, which had conquered and banished him, than 
 the fact of our fathers thinking it worth while to fortify this 
 remote spot. 
 
 Buonaparte was at St. Helena, 1,200 miles away across 
 the ocean, and to prevent so eligible a spot from falling into 
 the hands of the French, who might possibly, with the 
 genius of that remarkable people, find means of communi- 
 cating with their deposed idol even at that distance, the 
 English Government sent 100 soldiers of the Royal En- 
 gineers and Artillery, who threw up batteries, built houses, 
 cleared the land, and sowed some of the corn with which 
 they had been provided. They remained here for a year, 
 when the absurdity of the scheme made itself manifest, and 
 the soldiers were withdrawn. As they were about to em- 
 bark, one of the party, William Glass, a corporal of the 
 Royal Artillery, asked permission to remain behind ; and 
 the result was that he and two of his comrades, with his 
 wife and two children, six souls in all, were left in that 
 remote spot, dependent wholly on passing vessels for com- 
 
IJO 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 munication with the outer world, and sometimes for a whole 
 year they were without even this amount of intercourse with 
 their fellows. How the settlement grew and the population 
 increased ; how, from time to time, the kindly little colony 
 gave refuge to shipwrecked crews, until they could be taken 
 away ; how, on one occasion, forty-four persons, passengers 
 and crew of a ship that was wrecked on Inaccessible Island, 
 made for nine weeks great demands on their stock of pro- 
 visions, which was not so large as were their hearts ; how' 
 on another occasion, in 1824, an Englishman, travelling for 
 his own pleasure, was landed on the island while his ship 
 was taking in a supply of water, and, the wind rising sud- 
 denly, the ship had to weigh anchor and run for days before 
 a gale, and he was left for eight months a member of this 
 unique society, — our space forbids us to recount. The whole, 
 but brief, history of the colony has been written in an at- 
 tractive manner by one who had much to do with its highest 
 interests.’'^' The population, which numbered six in 1817, 
 amounted to ninety-five in 1855. In that time 115 persons 
 had been born in the island and eighteen had died. 
 
 From the first. Corporal Glass was the leader of the little 
 society, and was called “ the Governor.^^ He had no com- 
 mission which gave him that rank, but he had been the 
 superior of his comrades in the army ; and the commanding 
 officer, who had given to him the government stores and 
 buildings when the settlement was abandoned, had re- 
 garded him as the chief, and an agreement was signed by 
 his companions that, in the partnership on which they 
 entered. Glass should be the principal. Born in Scotland, 
 he had been bred a Presbyterian ; but while acting as ser- 
 vant to an officer he had become attached to the Church of 
 England. Imbued with the spirit of the Book of Common 
 
 * T/ie Utmost Parts of the Earth. Society for Promoting Christian Know- 
 ledge, 1856. 
 
TRISTAN D'ACUNHA, 
 
 171 
 
 Prayer, he ruled his family wisely and piously. In a patri- 
 archal fashion he was priest as well as father; and night 
 after night, when the day's work was ended, he assembled 
 his household and read the Evening Service. There was no 
 fear of the Sunday being unobserved until, as has some- 
 times happened even among communities of baptized 
 persons, the very account of the days has been lost, and 
 one day has been as the rest. His sense of the value of 
 education is abundantly proved by his having sent his two 
 eldest children more than 20,000 miles in search of it : 
 first to England, in charge of the captain of a whaler, who, 
 being unable to care for them as he wished, sent them in 
 another whaler to Cape Horn, from whence they came back 
 to their island home ; and, secondly, to the Cape of Good 
 Hope, where, after six years' residence, they obtained such 
 an amount of education as that colony, nearly fifty years 
 ago, could give. In worldly matters the settlement made 
 progress. Their trade was wholly with whaling ships, who 
 dealt with them for potatoes, poultry, and the oil which 
 they had extracted from sea elephants. Their prosperity 
 received a check whenever they set up in trade on their own 
 account. In spiritual things, all that the pious teaching 
 and example of a good but unlearned layman could effect 
 was done ; but no clergyman had ever landed at Tristan. 
 In 1835 a missionary named Applegate touched at the 
 place on his way to India, and baptized during his stay 
 twenty-nine persons, varying in age from a few weeks to 
 seventeen years. 
 
 In October, 1848, the ‘‘Augusta Jessie," bound to Cey- 
 lon, being short of water, was obliged to stand “off and 
 on" in the neighbourhood of the island for some days, as 
 unfavourable weather made it difficult to embark their full 
 casks. Among the passengers was the Rev. John Wise, 
 afterwards Archdeacon of Colombo, and now Vicar of 
 
72 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 St. Mary’s, Ramsey. He preached several times to the 
 people, and baptized forty-one persons. Mr. Wise was much 
 impressed by the religious life of the community and by the 
 humility of the old man, who had done so much to keep 
 alive among them the faith and fear of God. He wrote an 
 account of the settlement to the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, and asked that a supply of books 
 might be sent to them, and hinted, almost as at a thing 
 impossible of accomplishment, that a resident clergyman 
 would be cordially received. 
 
 Governor Glass had expressed a great desire to have 
 some book of sermons sent to him 3 for, said he, read 
 them a sermon every Sunday, sir, and we don’t half under- 
 stand them yet, so they must be doing us good ; but I 
 should like another book.” The good corporal’s stock of 
 sermons proved on inspection to be limited to two volumes 
 of Blair’s Sermons ; and it will readily be conceived that, 
 if difficulty of comprehension was the test of usefulness, 
 they could hardly be supplanted with advantage. 
 
 The school-books were sent, and, as it happened, the 
 teacher who was to use them arrived before them ; for they 
 were delayed at St. Helena. 
 
 The report of Archdeacon Wise drew from an anonymous 
 Churchman an offer of ;^5o per annum towards the support 
 of a clergyman at Tristan ; and there was at that time a 
 young man, who, having been engaged in business in 
 London, was reading for ordination, and who was willing 
 to banish himself to this remote spot, and to be content 
 with the sum so piously offered. Early in 1851, after 
 spending a week in vain endeavours to sight the islands, 
 which were so little known that their very position was not 
 correctly marked in the charts, Mr. Taylor was landed : it 
 was a great event for Tristan and its people, and every- 
 thing was done to provide for his comfort that was possible. 
 
TRISTAN D ACUNH A, 
 
 173 
 
 The gales are so tremendous, that the walls of houses can- 
 not be built more than eight or nine feet in height, and 
 they are at least two feet in thickness. As no lime is found 
 in the island, mortar cannot be used ; the stones, therefore, 
 are dovetailed together, and building is attended with diffi- 
 culty. Nevertheless, in two months a prophet’s chamber 
 was erected for their clergyman and plans matured for 
 building a church. The services, meanwhile, were held in 
 the “large room” at Government House, just sixteen feet 
 by twelve, the seraphine serving as prayer-desk and pulpit. 
 The school was commenced on the first Monday after 
 Mr. Taylor’s arrival ; and when Easter came round, in about 
 two months after his landing, he had prepared a little 
 company of devout communicants, of whom only two had 
 ever before had that privilege ; and his choir had been 
 trained to sing the Easter Hymn, so familiar to all congre- 
 gations throughout the world. Those whose marriages had 
 been sanctioned only by the civil law, as represented in the 
 person of the governor, now sought the Church’s blessing 
 on their union, and there seems no reason to doubt that in 
 that distant island there was much real, although unosten- 
 tatious, religious feeling. 
 
 But to the clergyman it must have been a trying life. 
 The change from the busiest city in the world to a miser- 
 able rock in mid-ocean, where for months and months there 
 is not even the distraction of a passing ship, and where the 
 society is composed wholly of persons inferior in education 
 to himself, surely such a life is a martyrdom of no unheroic 
 type. For two years after his arrival he heard not a word 
 of his friends or of the outer world, and the joy of re- 
 ceiving letters and papers after such an exile is hard to 
 describe, and almost too much to experience. Life under 
 such conditions has few events. One great one was the 
 completion of the church in 1852 ; and a more important 
 
174 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 one occurred in 1853, when the good old governor died, in 
 the sixty-seventh year of his age. For thirty-seven years he 
 had been absent only for a few weeks, when he made a 
 voyage to the Cape. His sphere was a limited one ; but 
 within its limits it may truly be said that he did what he 
 could.’' Few men, indeed, are to be found who, with 
 humble abilities, have more consistently and devoutly 
 walked, and led others to walk, in the true faith and fear 
 of God. As patriarch, magistrate, and priest of his own 
 household he was ever true to his duty, and the result of his 
 pious example was shown in a manly and God-fearing people. 
 
 There is another island population, whose original ele- 
 ments were not altogether unlike those of which the Tristan 
 community was composed, viz., the Pitcairners. It is quite 
 conceivable that in both of these cases the temptations 
 which beset people of the same social position, when living 
 in daily contact with the world, have been to a great extent 
 withheld, and that a higher standard of morality than is 
 ordinarily met with is no more than might be expected. 
 This, no doubt, is true ; but we believe that the Tristan 
 community, perhaps from having led a harder life in a severer 
 climate, and in which daily work is a condition of main- 
 tenance, will be found to be of tougher moral fibre than the 
 community at Pitcairn ; and if it be so, they owe not a little 
 of their spiritual vigour to the wise discipline of the man 
 whom they regarded as their ruler and example. 
 
 For three more years Mr. Taylor ministered to his island 
 flock. He had now a church, which had formerly been a 
 dwelling-house, but which the builder and owner gave up 
 on easy terms to be used as a church. Here, day by day, 
 the prayers were offered, and every Sunday the Holy Com- 
 munion was celebrated. The people continued to lead 
 the same industrious lives : the men engaged in cultivating 
 the ungenerous soil, in fishing, and, when occasion offered. 
 
m IS TAN' D^ACUNHA, 
 
 175 
 
 in boarding the whale-ships ; the women spinning and knit- 
 ting the wool of their own sheep into clothes for themselves 
 and their families. But the difficulties of living increased 
 as the population became larger. The soil was more ex- 
 hausted as each successive crop was gathered in ; and, to 
 add to their troubles, the whales — which had attracted the 
 vessels from which the islanders obtained their flour, to say- 
 nothing of their letters and papers — ceased to frequent 
 those latitudes, and ships were rarer visitors. 
 
 But although it became increasingly evident that the 
 island must be abandoned to the birds and goats, whose 
 original possession ought never to have been disputed, Mr. 
 Taylor had no thought of abandoning his people. 
 
 In 1856 the Bishop of Capetown found time, amid the 
 cares of his vast diocese, to make a voyage to the little 
 settlement at Tristan. He confirmed thirty persons, and 
 found that Mr. Taylor’s labours had been as satisfactory as 
 they had been self-denying. He saw likewise the unsuit- 
 ableness of the place for human habitation. Already their 
 market was failing them by the withdrawal of the whale- 
 ships, and the land was impoverished. The young men 
 left their homes and shipped on board the vessels that put 
 in from time to time ; while the daughters, who found no 
 such opportunity of escaping, were left behind. Political 
 economy was defied, therefore, on all sides, and the people 
 were nearly of one mind to accept the bishop’s offer to send 
 a large ship and remove the whole community, pastor and 
 people, to the Cape. This was done, and Mr. Taylor has for 
 the last fourteen yea^s, together with the majority of his flock, 
 been established on the mainland. His service of more 
 than five years on the storm-beaten rock in the mid-Atlantic 
 would have earned for him far higher promotion, if in this 
 world true service always met with its reward. The men 
 who give the one are, happily, indifferent to the other. 
 
176 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Yet one more phase of the Tristan people has to be 
 recorded. Home is sweet, even on such a miserable spot ; 
 and when the rupture had to be made, some of the com- 
 munity could not find it in their hearts to abandon their 
 scanty comforts, their weather-beaten cottages, and their 
 impoverished land; they therefore declined a passage in 
 H.M.S. ‘^Geyser,’' which had been sent to fetch them. 
 
 In August, 1867, H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh visited 
 the island in H.M.S. ‘‘ Galatea, and was cordially wel- 
 comed by the survivors of the original colony. It was a 
 gala day for the islanders ; for the Duke not only purchased 
 largely of them the fresh provisions which they had for sale, 
 but gave them useful presents to the value of more than 100. 
 He found that the good government which had been instituted 
 by Glass fifty years before was still in force ; the patriarch 
 among them, named Green, making bargains on behalf of 
 the community, and generally taking the lead, although he 
 modestly volunteered the statement that he had no sort of 
 authority beyond what was spontaneously accorded to him. 
 The Duke spent some hours on shore, and visited the 
 several houses as well as the grave-yard, in which a hand- 
 some marble headstone has been placed by his sons to the 
 memory of Governor Glass. The church is now of course 
 disused. The people are in the same condition as they 
 were in 1851, when Mr. Taylor volunteered to share their 
 lot. The chaplain of the ‘^Galatea’' went on shore and 
 baptized sixteen children in the presence of their parents ; 
 and one of the mothers, by her own desire, returned thanks 
 for her safe delivery. 
 
 The little settlement is henceforth to be known as ‘‘ Edin- 
 burgh;^’ but although with reduced numbers the wants of 
 the people are fairly met, it is to be hoped that the day 
 is not far distant when they will make up their minds to 
 abandon their inhospitable home. 
 
TRISTAN D'ACUNHA, 
 
 177 
 
 As the islands now belong to the Cape station, it is 
 almost impossible for the Bishop of St. Helena to reach 
 them in one of H.M. ships. It is not likely that another 
 Mr. Taylor will be found, willing to banish himself for the 
 sake of some thirty-five people who persist in living out of 
 the world; but it is a painful thought that even such a 
 handful of Christians as these should be beyond the reach 
 of the Churches ministrations. 
 
178 
 
 XX. 
 
 It would be much to the credit of our country if in the 
 history of a few of its many colonies it could be recorded 
 with truth that, from the first, provision had been made for 
 their spiritual needs. It is humiliating to have to state that 
 Portuguese and Spaniards and Dutch, who are generally 
 supposed to have failed as colonisers, left signs of their 
 occupancy of such dependencies in the churches which 
 they erected, and sometimes in the endowments which they 
 provided, while England, as a country, has done little or 
 nothing to show that it was a Christian power. The story 
 of Mauritius is only another chapter in the history of India, 
 of Ceylon, and of the Cape. The Portuguese, recognising 
 its value as a resting-place on the route to India, took 
 possession of it, but stocked it only with cattle, sheep, and 
 goats ; for the century during which it was a Portuguese 
 possession, it received no other inhabitants than the animals 
 which v/ere landed there. The Dutch, who obtained it in 
 1638, named it after Maurice, Prince of Orange, their 
 Stadtholder. Their rule peopled the island with slaves 
 from Madagascar and from Mozambique, and with the 
 convicts from their own country. In 1712 the French suc- 
 ceeded the Dutch, infinitely to the advantage of the colony, 
 for they introduced industrial pursuits, agriculture, art, and 
 commerce, and provided for the public services of religion. 
 The wave of the French Revolution reached to this remote 
 spot and gave rise to many commotions, social and re- 
 
MA URITIUS, 
 
 179 
 
 ligious. In 1814 the island became a British possession, 
 one of the conditions of the treaty by which it was trans- 
 ferred being, that all existing religious establishments should 
 be continued. After a century of French occupancy these 
 establishments were naturally in connection with the Roman 
 Catholic Church. It was, of course, simply a matter of 
 good faith that these conditions should be observed, and a 
 Roman Catholic cathedral was built with British money at 
 a cost of ;^i 3,000. At the present time the Church of 
 England would probably neither expect nor desire such 
 aid for herself from Imperial funds ; but sixty years ago it 
 was only customary for the State to originate as well as to 
 subsidise the efforts of the Church, and the treatment which 
 the national faith received in Mauritius is strangely at 
 variance with such a policy. While Roman bishops and 
 priests were salaried by the Government, and churches built 
 at public expense for their worship, no English chaplain 
 was appointed until 1821, and twelve more years elapsed 
 before he received a colleague. The Government still 
 provides part of the income of the bishop, and sup- 
 ports three chaplains, partially maintaining four others, 
 while a Roman bishop, a vicar-general, and twenty-five 
 Roman priests, are maintained by public funds. There 
 was little zeal in the English Church in the early part of 
 the present century, but it is hardly conceivable that more 
 would not have been done had an appeal been made to 
 such zeal as existed, than was effected by the unwilling 
 assistance of the State. Nothing tends more to show the 
 great improvement in the general religious life of the Church 
 than the consideration of the reception which such a policy 
 would meet with in these days. Just now it seems not 
 unlikely that the portion of the Anglican bishop’s income 
 that is derived from public sources may be withdrawn, in 
 consistency with the general policy of disendowment which 
 
 N 2 
 
8o 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 is being adopted in the colonies ; but there can be no doubt, 
 not only that the deficiency will be supplied, but that an 
 impetus will be given to his work. As with clergy so with 
 churches : not until 1828 was any building provided for the 
 English congregation, and then an old powder magazine, 
 which held six hundred persons, was converted into a cruci- 
 form church. Episcopal rule was a still distant boon. 
 Mauritius was comprised nominally among the many islands 
 and continents that belonged to the See of Calcutta : on 
 the foundation of the See of Colombo it received much 
 attention from Bishop Chapman, who, during a sojourn of 
 six weeks, consecrated the churches and confirmed many 
 people. In 1854 the Diocese of Mauritius was con- 
 stituted, and Bishop Ryan was consecrated on St. Andrew's 
 Day, the endowment being provided by the Society for 
 Promoting Christian Knowledge, the Society for the Pro- 
 pagation of the Gospel, and the Christian Faith Society, 
 and supplemented by a grant from Imperial funds. 
 
 The diocese is small, but the outlying portions of it are 
 very remote. Mauritius itself is only about the size of the 
 county of Worcestershire; but 900 miles to the north 
 thirty islands form the Seychelles group, and 1,000 miles 
 eastward of these lie the Chagos group, and nearer to 
 Mauritius are several smaller islands. The population on 
 all of these have a claim on the bishop's care, and receive 
 from time to time his visits. 
 
 But if Mauritius be limited in area, the density of its 
 polyglot population, the majority of whom are very migra- 
 tory in their habits, make it a most important field for 
 missionary work. Half of the population are Coolie immi- 
 grants, who, to the number of 250,000, are attracted 
 thither from India, two-thirds coming from Bengal and 
 one-third from Madras. The system is under Government 
 management and the Coolies are well cared for; their 
 
MA VRiriVS. 
 
 i8i 
 
 engagement is for five years, after which they either return 
 to India, or, having acquired a taste for roaming, wander 
 away to some other labour-market. It follows, then, that 
 about 50,000 of these people are annually flowing into and 
 sailing away from Mauritius, where they have been brought 
 in contact with white men and the civilisation which they 
 possess. Of these, some become Christians, some are con- 
 verted to Mahometanism, others remain in heathenism. 
 On the western coast there is a large population of Mala- 
 gache from Madagascar, and of East Africans. Of the 
 religious bodies working in Mauritius, the dominant one is, 
 as is likely to be the case after a century of French occu- 
 pation, the Roman Church. The two missionary societies 
 of the English Church have supported teachers and clergy 
 for many years ; the necessity for the former, and the 
 expense of supporting them, have been much lessened 
 of late years by Government grants in aid ; for the Coolies, 
 clergymen, and catechists have been brought from India, 
 the Bengali-speaking missionaries from Calcutta, while the 
 'rheological Seminary at Madras, which has trained so many 
 native clergy for that diocese, has rendered a similar service 
 to the Tamils in Mauritius. The work among these people 
 has been very successful — a fact which is the more gratifying 
 when it is considered that from their migratory habits they 
 possess great facilities of carrying into all parts of the world 
 the lessons of truth which they have received. Several 
 natives have been admitted to Holy Orders, and their lives 
 have been eminently self-denying and exemplary; at pre- 
 sent only two such are among the clergy of the diocese, the 
 others having died at their posts. Hurricanes and pesti- 
 lences have sorely tried the people of Mauritius, and in 
 1867 the population was decimated by a virulent fever, 
 which appeared likely never to leave the island : 35,000 
 persons died from it in the first six months of that year, 
 
i 82 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 and there was then no sign of its abatement. In the midst 
 of the sorrows of this visitation, heightened as they were by 
 the presence of famine, Bishop Ryan laboured at the head 
 of those who sought to alleviate the sufferings of the people. 
 When the plague was over he returned to England and 
 resigned the see. Two bishops who have succeeded him. 
 Bishops Hatchard and Huxtable, have died, each after an 
 episcopate of a few months only. The former found the 
 climate fatal to him after a life spent in an English country 
 parish ; the latter had been tried by long residence in India, 
 and subsequently in Mauritius, where he had laboured 
 unceasingly as a missionary during the terrible fever. 
 
 The Seychelles group of islands are very important by 
 reason of their geographical position. They are a con- 
 venient rendezvous for Her Majesty’s ships which are en- 
 gaged in the repression of the slave trade. In spite of our 
 efforts, the whole interior of Central Africa is being drained 
 of its population by professedly Christian nations. It has 
 been mentioned in a previous paper that the Sultan of 
 Zanzibar, who owes the position which he holds to the 
 moral support of England,, Portugal, America, and other 
 Christian powers, derives a very large income from the 
 traffic in human flesh ; every slave that is brought into the 
 market represents three or four more who have died either 
 in resisting capture or under the cruelties inseparable from 
 a long journey on foot and from the subsequent voyage ; 
 but when our sailors have done their work and captured 
 a slaver, and brought her into an English port, their 
 duty is ended. Some 30,000 slaves are by them dis- 
 charged every year at the Seychelles ; their liberty is given 
 to them, but they know not what to do with it. The 
 British officers, who have gained for them their freedom, 
 sigh as they leave them, helpless although free, on soil that 
 is strange to them. It seems to need simply the expen- 
 
AfA UIZITJUS. 
 
 183 
 
 diture of money and thought to provide for the physical 
 and spiritual wants of these people : it has been done 
 already at St. Helena and Sierra Leone, and there can be 
 no reason why what has occurred on the Western should 
 not be repeated on the Eastern Coast of Africa. 
 
 So far from the truth is it that the establishment of a 
 bishopric at Mauritius was unnecessary, and that the suppres- 
 sion of the see would involve no injurious consequences, 
 that it is clear to all who will forecast the events of the 
 next few years, that the see ought to be made metropolitan. 
 Consolidation and confederation are among the foremost 
 wants of our colonial churches just now; it is a hyper-papal 
 policy of centralisation that binds the churches of our 
 communion in either hemisphere to the See of Canterbury. 
 Colonists will not tolerate such a policy in matters of tem- 
 poral government ; colonial Churchmen are not likely long 
 to endure it in matters of ecclesiastical rule. It is true 
 wisdom at an early date to group the dioceses as they 
 increase in numbers and importance into their several 
 Metropolitanates. It has been done in Australia, in New 
 Zealand, in North America, in Southern Africa, by the 
 action of the Church herself, and in India by the civil 
 power. Mauritius will not long be the isolated see that 
 it now is. In Madagascar, within a very few years, there 
 will be more than one or two bishoprics, and the mis- 
 sionary episcopate for Central Africa, which at present 
 lingers at Zanzibar, is, for practical purposes of communi- 
 cation, more remote from Capetown (of which province 
 Bishop Tozer is a suffragan) than from England, while 
 with Mauritius communication is both easy and frequent. 
 
 Here, then, might be formed a new province and college 
 of bishops, who might from time to time take counsel 
 together and devise plans for the extension of their work ; 
 their numbers would not, perhaps for some generations, be 
 
184 
 
 UND'EK HIS BANNER. 
 
 large, neither their means abundant; but wealth and 
 numbers are not the foremost considerations — the latter, 
 if not the former, will come in time; the great thing is to 
 have laid wisely and well the primitive and apostolic foun- 
 dations of the Church, on which after generations will build 
 up a lasting superstructure. 
 
i85 
 
 XXL 
 
 In the preceding paper it has been shown that the pecu- 
 liar condition of the population of Mauritius makes the 
 Church in that island essentially of a missionary cha- 
 racter ; its most prominent and manifest duty in this 
 respect is to carry the Gospel, in its integrity of faith and of 
 organisation, to the neighbouring island of Madagascar. 
 Within three days’ sail of Port Louis, some 500 miles to the 
 westward, this magnificent island, equal in area to the 
 whole of France, with a population of between four and 
 five millions, offers an almost boundless field for missionary 
 effort. Roman missions were established here more than a 
 hundred years ago, and had a monopoly of the country 
 until 1818, when the English Independents sent fourteen 
 teachers, who reduced the language to writing, translated 
 much of the Holy Scriptures, and built two chapels in the 
 capital, Antananarivo, besides establishing preaching stations 
 elsewhere. They instructed many children in their schools, 
 and about 200 adults made formal profession of Christianity. 
 After a residence of ten years, on the death of King Ra- 
 dama I., the queen who succeeded to the throne, dreading 
 with more than feminine jealousy the intercourse of civilised 
 nations, cut off as far as possible all communication between 
 her subjects and foreigners : the missionaries were ordered 
 to withdraw from the island, and with this edict they com- 
 plied ; their converts, of course, were left behind, and were 
 exposed to much persecution — not, as it would seem, simply 
 
i86 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 because they were Christians, but because, in the blind and 
 unreasoning jealousy of the queen, Christianity appeared to 
 be intimately connected with danger to her rule ; the deaths 
 which many of these young converts died were the punish- 
 ment of supposed political offences rather than of the simple 
 profession of a forbidden creed. What is known of their 
 constancy and their faith is derived only from the testimony 
 of their friends who survived, some of whom, to save their 
 lives, had to remain in hiding for many years ; and tradition, 
 more or less oral, extending over a period of thirty-three 
 years, from 1828 to 1861, is not to be implicitly relied on 
 in matters of minor detail ; nevertheless there is no reason 
 to doubt the general accuracy of the statement that among 
 these imperfectly-instructed Christians not a single case of 
 cowardly apostacy occurred. In 1862, under the milder 
 rule of Radama II., the island was again open to traders 
 and to missionaries. The London Missionary Society re- 
 turned to the work which they had abandoned a generation 
 ago, and sent twelve missionaries. The Roman missions 
 were restored in force, fourteen priests being immediately 
 stationed at the capital alone. An embassy from the British 
 Government was sent to the new king in 1862, and Bishop 
 Ryan, then the Bishop of Mauritius, who was a member of 
 the embassy, delivered to the heathen sovereign a Bible, 
 which had been sent from the Queen of England for that 
 purpose. On this occasion the bishop asked the king’s 
 permission to establish missions from the Church of Eng- 
 land on the northern and eastern coasts of Madagascar, 
 and the king expressed his readiness to receive Church 
 missionaries at the capital itself. With a consideration, 
 which subsequent events have shown to have been un- 
 fortunate, Bishop Ryan, lest he should seem to be dis- 
 courteous to the dissenting missions, left the country at 
 once, not waiting for the ceremony of the coronation, and 
 
MAD A GASCAR, 
 
 187 
 
 declaring that he would begin at the coast. This was done 
 in consequence of an understanding arrived at previously 
 between the bishop and the senior missionary of the Inde- 
 pendent body, by which the latter pledged himself to occupy^ 
 the capital and the adjoining villages. When a deputation 
 of nobles afterwards waited on the bishop for the purpose 
 of asking him to establish a Church mission in the capital, 
 he declined to receive them. 
 
 It is right that this whole story should be told dispas- 
 sionately, and the facts of the case be recorded. The line 
 which the bishop pursued has proved to be an unfortunate 
 one ; and had he then known the circumstances of the 
 country and of its population, he would probably have 
 acted differently. Happily, his action in a country outside the 
 limits of his own diocese in no degree pledged the Church of 
 England ; for to be excluded from the capital of Mada- 
 gascar is to be excluded from all influence with the domi- 
 nant race. There are many tribes in the island, some of 
 whom have not yet been reached at all by missionaries ; 
 but over all the various tribes there is one ruling race, the 
 Hovas. These reside at or near the capital ; for purposes 
 of government or of commerce they visit other places, but 
 their head-quarters are always at the capital. More than this, 
 there is a religious sentiment surrounding the capital which 
 makes “ Imerina,^* the province in which it is situated, 
 to be to the Hovas what Jerusalem was wont to be 
 to the Jews. The inland part of the island is very moun- 
 tainous, the soil is rocky, and the climate healthy ; on the 
 coast and for miles inland, the whole region is a swamp, 
 where fever of the most fatal kind is rife. This was the 
 district, and among the slave population dwelling there, in 
 which the Church of England commenced its labours. That 
 the description of soil and climate given above is the true 
 one, will be abundantly proved by the after-history of the 
 
i88 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 mission, and the tale of sickness and death which forms 
 part of the chronicle of its doings. Nevertheless the pre- 
 sence of the Church in this deadly country has had this 
 good effect; it has rendered false the accusation which used 
 to be made with truth that Protestant missionaries left the 
 coast to the fever and to the devil,” while they themselves' 
 lived at the capital. But though it has silenced this sneer, 
 our position has hindered the growth of our work ; it has 
 made the Church appear among an eminently aristocratic 
 race as a religion fit only for slaves ; it has caused the use 
 of the Prayer-book to be abandoned, even when it had been 
 adopted for some time in the provinces, because on arrival 
 at the capital our converts found it to be unknown, or, if 
 known, to be regarded as the manual merely of the lower 
 class. 
 
 The agreement made by Bishop Ryan with the Inde- 
 pendents was unfortunate in its immediate consequences, as 
 well as in the later results, which are felt at the present 
 time. The opening of the kingdom of Madagascar in 1862 
 was too great an event to escape the notice of the Church at 
 home; and early in 1863 a most influential committee, in- 
 cluding the Archbishop of Canterbury and more than twenty 
 bishops, as well as many influential laymen, was formed, 
 without conference with the Bishop of Mauritius, for the 
 purpose of sending and supporting a bishop in Madagascar. 
 On the recommendation of Bishop Ryan, who returned to 
 England on hearing of its proceedings, it was determined to 
 accept his offer of personal superintendence of the missions 
 to Madagascar, then about to be established, for three years, 
 and to use all efforts during that time to raise the requisite 
 funds for the sending to the island a bishop and clergy. In 
 1864 young clergymen were sent. Messrs. Campbell 
 and Maundrell, of the Church Missionary Society, were the 
 first to sail, but in consequence of adverse winds they were 
 
MADAGASCAR. 
 
 189 
 
 carried out of their course, and did not arrive, at Vohimare, 
 their station on the north, for some months ; Messrs. Hey 
 and Holding, the missionaries of the Society for the Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel, meanwhile had landed at Tamatave, 
 the main port of the island on the east coast, which has 
 since been the head-quarters of that mission. The work has 
 been carried on in spite of great difficulties. Of the two 
 missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 
 one died from the effects of the climate and the hardships to 
 which he was exposed; and the other, after repeated attacks 
 of fever, has had to return permanently to England. For 
 years they lived in a native house, with a roof constructed 
 only after the Madagascar fashion, through which the rain 
 came freely, while beneath their feet the soil was like a sponge, 
 the black water oozing through the sand perpetually. They 
 built a sufficiently good church of wood with an iron roof, 
 and here the daily service was held from the beginning. 
 The Hovas stood aloof from them, the Romanists opposed 
 them, and their efforts had to be directed principally to the 
 Bctsimisarakas, the lowest class of the people. A printing 
 press was set up, and many hymns which had been trans- 
 lated were printed, together with occasional offices from the 
 Prayer-book and other works. Out-stations were formed, 
 and the whole coast was explored north and south of Tama- 
 tave for about 140 miles in all; the smaller stations have 
 thrown out offshoots, and in spite of opposition, sickness, 
 and death, — in spite of this mission having had for years only 
 one ordained missionary, who was clergyman, schoolmaster, 
 musician, printer, doctor, and general manager, — at the end 
 of 1870 it had ten stations with five churches, it num- 
 beied between 500 and 600 baptized members, with 
 an equal number of catechumens. The system of boldly, 
 and in faith, relying on the services of converts answered 
 thoroughly ; and for years there have been among the native 
 
190 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 catechists in this district at least two men in all respects 
 worthy to be admitted to the diaconate, if only a bishop 
 had been within reach to ordain them. 
 
 The clergy supported by the Church Missionary Society, 
 from no fault of their own, but from the uncertainty which 
 always surrounds work among a heathen people, have had a 
 smaller measure of success. The station at Vohimare, which 
 was the first which they founded on their arrival in 1863, 
 they abandoned in 1866, in consequence of the migration of 
 the people; nevertheless they had not laboured in vain 
 during these three years : their teaching was treasured, and 
 their few converts gained others from among their country- 
 men, and in 1869 the missionary was invited to return, and 
 after a residence of eighteen months he was able to record 
 forty-seven baptisms and thirteen marriages ; — the latter 
 being a very important feature in any work among a people 
 so grossly immoral. The missions which were formed in the 
 south after the temporary abandonment of Vohimare have 
 been more successful ; nevertheless here, as elsewhere, the 
 Church has suffered from the fact that its missions have 
 been placed in an unhealthy district, causing much sickness 
 to the missionaries, and among a people that have no poli- 
 tical influence in the kingdom. 
 
 The king who welcomed Bishop Ryan to Madagascar has 
 long since been removed, and the subsequent government of 
 the country has been in female hands. The greatest opposition 
 has been offered to the extension of the Church to the capital, 
 and to the government of its missions by a bishop. The un- 
 derstanding arrived at in 1862 by Bishop Ryan and the Dis- 
 senting missionaries has been unfortunate in every way. The 
 offer of episcopal guidance of the Madagascar Missions made 
 in 1863 by Bishop Ryan has never been realised, and never 
 could have been realised : such guidance as could be given 
 by correspondence has, no doubt, been given ; but the 
 
MADAGASCAR, 
 
 I9I 
 
 guidance which was limited to advice could as well have been 
 given by a layman, and of practical knowledge of the needs 
 of Madagascar and its infant Church, the Bishop of Mauri- 
 tius possessed very little, inasmuch as his personal experience 
 of Madagascar was limited to the six weeks spent in that 
 country in 1862, as a member of the British embassy, and 
 not as a missionary, and more than twelve months before 
 any representative of the Church of England had established 
 himself in the island. As a matter of fact, the Church has 
 been represented to Hovas and Malagache as a Presbyterian 
 body ; of directly episcopal ministrations there has not been 
 a shadow or a pretence ; the converts have never seen a 
 bishop ; confirmation has never been administered, and the 
 formation of a native ministry is rendered impossible while 
 there is no bishop to convey to the candidates the grace 
 of orders. Meanwhile Romanists, Norwegians, Swedes, 
 Quakers, and Independents establish themselves where they 
 will ; and the Church of England, on the strength of an 
 imaginary compact, which one of the supposed parties to it. 
 Bishop Ryan, has been most eager to disavow, is restricted 
 to the malarious coast district, and her ministrations are con- 
 fined to the very lowest of the people. For, so long ago as 
 1866, Bishop Ryan declared that the Church was free, and 
 was bound to place clergy at the capital, and that the time 
 had come when a bishop should lead them. Increasing 
 work among the Indians at Mauritius had convinced him of 
 the impossibility of giving to Madagascar the personal care 
 which young missions always require, and in 1868 he re- 
 signed the bishopric altogether. The delays of the civil 
 authorities in doing their part towards filling that see, and the 
 speedy deaths of his two successors, have shown only too 
 painfully and too clearly the hopelessness of expecting that a 
 work so vast as the oversight of the Madagascar Church can 
 ever be undertaken as a parergon by the Bishop of Mauritius. 
 
192 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 On what grounds a body of English Nonconformists, 
 whose existence dates from the seventeenth century, can with 
 hyper-papal autocracy monopolise a country, and resent the 
 presence of other religious bodies, is an enigma which can 
 be solved on no recognised principles of interpretation. 
 Such a rule, if it were of universal acceptance, — and, as con- 
 taining a great principle, it is simply untenable if not every- 
 where applicable, — would deprive that body of their very rai- 
 son d^etre in England ; nay, it would banish them from Ma- 
 dagascar itself, since, if such claims rest on the mere fact of 
 precedence in point of time, the Roman Missions anticipated 
 them by at least a century. It is stated on good authority 
 that the superstition which vests this supremacy in one body 
 of Christians is so firmly accepted, that, while protesting 
 against the extension of the Church, they have not only 
 tolerated but even invited the presence of other Protestant 
 bodies. Again and again the Hovas whom the missionaries 
 of the Church have converted and baptized during their 
 residence at the coast, have been discouraged on returning 
 to the capital to find no congregation to which they could 
 attach themselves; to discover that the Church to which 
 they owed their spiritual life was despised as the Church of 
 the outcast and the slave, and that the Prayer-book, to which 
 they looked for teaching, was contemptuously flouted. And 
 the missionaries who have spent their strength and risked 
 their lives on the plague-stricken coast ask, not without 
 legitimate indignation, ‘‘How long is our Church to be 
 banished from the capital where Romanists and Dissenters 
 of every kind live and work without let or hindrance, and 
 how long are our missions to be crippled and deprived of 
 that grace of the episcopate which alone can give them per- 
 manence and extension?” The answer of timid counsel is, 
 “ Until the Nonconformist missionaries, who had ten years' 
 start of you, consent;” that is, until the Greek Kalends. 
 
MADAGASCAR. 
 
 ^93 
 
 The answer of faithful men, who believe in the Church as 
 the Divine organisation for the conversion of the world to 
 Christ, will be, “ Not a day.” It is said, indeed, that the 
 capital, and the whole province of which it is a part, is already 
 Christian, and that the presence of another religious body — 
 where now there are five, with all the varying shades of 
 theological opinion, from Romanism to Quakerism — will 
 disturb the delightful Christian peace which now pervades 
 the happy province of Imerina. The conversion of a nation 
 in a day may form the theme of a prophet’s rhapsody — it is 
 not seen in prosaic life ; the numbers of Xavier’s conversions 
 have been vilipended by those wlio did not agree with his 
 theology; the conversions in Madagascar, if they existed, 
 would exceed anything that ever was recorded of Xavier. 
 On the testimony of Nonconformists resident in the country, 
 the morality of the people is still of the lowest type, and 
 becomes not the more attractive by being lacquered over 
 with a thin varnish of Christian phraseology. The Mala^ 
 gache are an intelligent and inquisitive people, and to talk 
 of theological systems, and specially of their relations to the 
 State, is natural to them, and, perhaps, is regarded by them 
 as part of their religious duty. From their own statements, 
 it is very clear that they are well trained in the tenets of 
 political dissent, and are kept duly informed of the canards 
 which appear in those English newspapers which flavour ultra- 
 Radicalism with a modicum of such Nonconformist pietism 
 as girds at episcopacy and other doctrines of the Church. 
 It is among a people in whom the simplicity which is met 
 with in the pure heathen has been marred by the politico- 
 religious squabbles that distract us at home that the Church 
 has now to do her work ; few tasks can be more difficult, 
 and it is humiliating to think that these difficulties have been 
 increased by our own timidity. In a land where slavery is 
 still practically an institution, the dominant race is prejudiced 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 against her and persecutes her members. This is no ex- 
 aggerated statement; for there exists in Madagascar an 
 institution known as Fanompoana/* that is to say, free 
 labour given to the Government in lieu of taxes : this the 
 Malagache can be called on to render at any time by the 
 local authorities. The spirit of religious persecution is very 
 often the first sign of any religious persuasion ; and it is not 
 to be wondered at if, as is often the case, a catechist or 
 teacher is called away by a semi-heathen magistrate and 
 made to pay this labour service just at the time when his 
 people were gathered round him, and his work was beginning 
 to tell. The Church, however, has survived greater diffi- 
 culties than those which meet her in Madagascar. The creed 
 which conquered the empires of the ancient world, and which 
 leavens and purifies our modern civilisation, will not be 
 baffled by the spurious religionism of a semi-heathen island, 
 which is steeped in the foulest sensuality, while it repeats 
 the intolerant shibboleths of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The relations of the Church of England to the people in 
 Madagascar open out a great question, — viz., the attitude 
 which the Church ought to assume in heathen countries of 
 which other religious bodies have attempted the conversion. 
 The answer to this will depend entirely on the measure of 
 faith which each man possesses in the Church. Those who 
 regard one religious body as being as good as another, who 
 recognise in the Church no specially Divine organisation, to 
 whom episcopacy and an ordained ministry and the Apostolic 
 succession are matters of indifference, will, if they are con- 
 sistent, allot the different countries of the world to those 
 bodies, whether Romanist or otherwise, who have been first 
 in the field. The test is not a very dignified one, but it will 
 have the advantage of simplicity. Those who regard their 
 Church as the Divine body on which the Holy Ghost 
 descended, and to whom the ends of the earth shall be 
 
MADAGASCAR. 
 
 195 
 
 given, will agree with the Bishop of Bombay, who, in de- 
 fence of the charge of interference, recently said, — 
 
 ‘‘We, as a Church, have our own duties to the heathen, 
 and our own responsibilities — duties entirely irrespective of 
 what may be done by other Christian associations, and 
 responsibilities from which nothing can deliver us. Every 
 priest of the Church is bound at his ordination to seek for 
 Christ’s sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for His children 
 who are in this naughty world, that they may be saved 
 through Christ for ever. Every member of the Church, as 
 well as every priest, has been commanded by the King to go 
 into all the world, by deputy if not by person, and make 
 disciples of all nations. Every priest, therefore, by ordina- 
 tion, and every member of his congregation, is pledged to 
 take his share in the conversion of the heathen.” If we 
 think that those who have separated from the Church at 
 home have done so to their own misfortune, with what con- 
 sistency can we accept their standard as sufficient for the 
 heathen whom they convert ? 
 
 The proposal, which has been made seriously, that the 
 half-instructed Malagache should be afforded an opportunity 
 of deciding after trial of various forms of Church worship, 
 discipline, and government, which best suited them, carries 
 with it its own refutation : it is parallel only to the pro- 
 posal of an aged statesman that English children should 
 be taught only that most indefinite thing, “our common 
 Christianity,” until their fifteenth year, at which time they 
 would be able to decide for themselves whether they would 
 “join any or what branch of the Christian Church,” in 
 which are contained ail shades of faith, from Romanism 
 to that of the “ Peculiar People.” 
 
 It has been attempted to justify this policy of non- 
 interference by the precedent of great missionaries, even in 
 apostolic times ; but he would indeed be a bold man who 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 would pervert the conduct of St. Paul (Rom. xv. 20) into a 
 policy which is content with an imperfect Gospel— in plain 
 words, with ‘‘another Gospel.^^ A great example of the 
 present century has been quoted in testimony that the 
 presence of the Church of England in Madagascar at all is 
 an act of unchristian interference. It is said that the first 
 Bishop of New Zealand carefully abstained from visiting 
 those places where other missionaries had anticipated him. 
 The answer to this statement is that, had he done so, he 
 would most culpably have neglected to visit a considerable 
 portion of New Zealand itself. In the journal of his first 
 visitation, it is recorded that on reaching the southern island 
 he found that the Maories had been carefully trained by 
 Wesleyans to discriminate between Weteri (Wesley) and 
 Hahi (Church), and that they asked him at once to which he 
 belonged ; but it would be ridiculous to suppose that in that 
 southern island, which has now three bishoprics, the Bishop 
 of New Zealand recognised the exclusive freehold of the 
 Wesleyans. It is true that when Bishop Selwyn went 
 beyond his diocesan limits, and entered on the work of that 
 noble Melanesian Mission, where he had his choice of some 
 200 islands, each with its own language or languages, and 
 extending over 60 degrees of longitude, and where he could 
 only hope to make an impression on a few, he passed by 
 those which had already been the subjects of missionary 
 efibxt, and whicli happened to be in the healthiest latitudes ; 
 and with unselfish boldness, akin to that which made the 
 Church missionaries content to labour and die on the fever- 
 stricken coast of Madagascar, while others enjoyed the 
 purer air of the mountainous inland region. Bishop Selwyn 
 pushed on to the equatorial groups, where Europeans pay 
 the penalty of continual residence. 
 
 Had these 200 islands been compacted into a continent, 
 it is preposterous to suppose that the bishop would have 
 refrained from landing on it because on one, and that the 
 
MADAGASCAR. 
 
 197 
 
 healthiest, portion of it some Nonconformist missionaries 
 had landed before him ; indeed, the bishop’s conduct in 
 New Zealand contradicts the ridiculous hypothesis. The 
 whole question is one which must be decided by circum- 
 stances, and surely the man to whom is entrusted a work at 
 once the most sublime and the most unselfish that can be 
 entrusted to mortal, — viz., the conversion of the heathen, — 
 must be competent to act on his own judgment J^ro re nata^ 
 without being fettered by persons at home, whose knowledge 
 must be very imperfect, but whose prejudices may be strong. 
 Agreements as to non-interference are always undesirable, 
 and those who are parties to them live very often to repent 
 of their action. 
 
 We have quoted the conduct of Bishop Selwyn, a noble 
 type of a missionary, and the arguments of the Bishop of 
 Bombay, whose episcopate promises to be distinguished by 
 large measures of missionary zeal, and we conclude with 
 an extract from a recent journal of one who for more than 
 a quarter of a century has been a faithful pioneer of the 
 Church of Christ, and who freely acknowledges the good 
 that other bodies have done for the heathen. The present 
 Bishop of Grahamstown, better known as Archdeacon 
 Merriman, writes, — “The scruples I once entertained about 
 teaching on the field, or rather supposed field, of other 
 missionary bodies has of late years been largely modified \ 
 for when thousands and tens of thousands are perishing for 
 lack of knowledge, and are without a teacher, it is quite idle 
 for missionary bodies to claim territorial boundaries, and so 
 between them to try and shut out the English Church from 
 approaching the masses of heathenism that yet lie around 
 us. At all events, our fellow-Christians ‘of other denomina- 
 tions’ act so freely on this principle in regard to our parishes 
 in England, that they cannot be surprised at our doing the 
 like in regard to the assumed territorial boundaries which 
 they have marked out for themselves in South Africa.” 
 
198 
 
 XXIL 
 
 “ 'The white 77 ian's grave” is the ill-sounding title which 
 Sierra Leone has earned for itself, and if at no distant period 
 its moral condition had been described truly, some equally 
 ill-sounding term must have been used. The whole of the 
 West Coast of Africa, indeed, still bears the marks of the 
 slave trade, for which, at one time, it would seem to have 
 existed. The natives were regarded for long as the merchan- 
 dise of those who called themselves the superior races, and, 
 just as the nobility of a people is the greater when it has 
 been handed down from generation to generation, so the 
 long-continued degradation under which the African has 
 suffered makes the process of his civilisation the more 
 arduous. So far back as the year 1752 the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel sent an itinerating missionary to 
 the negroes on the Guinea coast, and some fifteen years 
 later a native African, educated and ordained in England, 
 was sent to the same region ; but these were merely desul- 
 tory efforts. The whole credit of the evangelisation of 
 Sierra Leone, and much of the adjoining country, is due to 
 the Church Missionary Society. '‘^Africa a?id the East ” — 
 these were the regions for whose benefit that society was 
 originally founded at the beginning of the present century, 
 and in 1804 it commenced its labours in the then almost 
 unexplored coasts of Western Africa. In an earlier paper, 
 the difficulties of missionary work in India have been de- 
 tailed ; they can hardly be more numerous or more serious 
 
SIERRA LEONE. 
 
 199 
 
 liian those which were presented at Sierra Leone. The two 
 countries are, in truth, widely different : of the civilisation 
 which meets one in the East, there is not a shadow in Africa ; 
 the variety of races and of tongues is to be found, but the 
 toil of acquiring the languages meets with no reward beyond 
 the power of exchanging ideas with the people. It opens 
 the door to no literature, and throws light on no historic 
 civilisation. With the people the English teacher can have 
 little in common, for he finds them steeped in the barbarism 
 begotten by generations of slavery, and a prey to the vices 
 which naturally beset a people for whom the future presents 
 nothing bright nor elevating. Sunk in superstition, the victims 
 of sorceries and witchery, living in dread of fetishes, and 
 putting trust in amulets and charms, — these are the people 
 among whom seventy years of faithful labour have raised 
 the Standard of the Cross, and established a Church which 
 is no longer dependent on external aid, whether for men or 
 for money, but which gives her own sons to the ministry of 
 the Word and Sacraments. It was indeed a forlorn hope on 
 which those pioneers of the Gospel set out ; forlorn, whether 
 we regard the material out of which they essayed to build 
 up a Christian community, or the certainty of sickness and 
 death to themselves. To die at their posts was the lot of 
 many of them — a lot cheerfully accepted. The mortality 
 in this mission has been without parallel, if we except 
 the small staff which has of late years resided at Zanzibar ; 
 the soil ‘‘ which the slave trade had dyed with blood ” has 
 been watered with the blood of patient martyrs, and over 
 their graves a goodly tree has sprung up. 
 
 The missions of the Church had hardly commenced in 
 these parts, when, in 1807, England abolished her own slave 
 trade. In this colony, in the following year, there were libe- 
 rated slaves who spoke more than one hundred languages. 
 In the first ten years one half of the missionaries were buried 
 
200 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 in the land for whose conversion they had toiled. Such a 
 sacrifice was necessary at first; but all along the need of a 
 native ministry was recognised, and preparations were made 
 for training catechists and pastors selected from the converts. 
 It would be easy to relate the toil and sacrifices which have 
 marked the progress of the West African Church ; it will be 
 sufficient to show its present condition, and to compare it 
 with its small beginnings. Ignoring for a moment the off- 
 shoots of the early mission, there are now in the Diocese of 
 Sierra Leone forty-three clergy, of whom twenty-nine are 
 natives. The institution which the Church Missionary 
 Society established at Fourah Bay has more than answered 
 the designs of its founders : its advantages have been sought 
 by native chiefs for their sons, just as in Southern Africa 
 Kafir chiefs, while remaining heathens, have sent their sons 
 to the college at Capetown. It is of course a great matter 
 thus to train the future rulers of the land ; but the greater 
 work is to train from among the people their own sons, who 
 shall return to their homes and minister in sacred things to 
 their kindred. The men trained within these walls are no 
 ill-instructed guides ; the very books which they study are 
 a refutation of the charge that the African intellect is in- 
 capable of high cultivation : Butler* s Analogy Whatelefs 
 
 Logic are standard books in the institution ; its students 
 have a critical knowledge of the Greek Testament, and 
 the attainments of the native clergy have secured for 
 some of them appointments as chaplains under the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Until 1851 the Church of Sierra Leone had received no 
 episcopal ministrations ; there were more than 10,000 mem- 
 bers, of whom one-fifth were communicants ; a whole genera- 
 tion had grown up, baptized in infancy, but unconfirmed ; four 
 native clergymen had been brought to England for ordina- 
 tion, and the extension both of the Church and of the 
 
SIERRA LEONE. 
 
 201 
 
 indigenous ministry demanded a resident bishop. The 
 demand was met, and the first three bishops of Sierra Leone 
 died within seven years. Bishop Vidal was consecrated in 
 1852, and in 1854 he sank after a fatiguing visitation, in 
 which he had confirmed 600 persons. Bishop Weeks, who 
 had been inured to the climate by a long service in the 
 country as a missionary, reached the diocese after his con- 
 secration in November, 1855 ; in sixteen months his labours 
 were terminated by fever. During his brief episcopate he 
 had added to the ranks of the clergy eleven natives. Bishop 
 Bowen, who was consecrated in 1857, died in May, 1859. 
 Few more noble records of Christian heroism can be found 
 than the simple story which tells how the vacant places in 
 the Church of Sierra Leone have been filled. How in the 
 din of battle, with passions excited and nerves strung up, 
 soldiers have stepped forward into the ranks that have been 
 swept by the enemy^s fire, and have taken the vacant post 
 of peril, the history of our great wars does not fail to show ; 
 but here, in calm faith and not in the heat of passion, with- 
 out hope of earthly glory or reward, the soldiers of the Cross 
 have come forward and been ‘‘ baptized for the dead with 
 the baptism of suffering and of pain. 
 
 It is time, however, to mention the developments of the 
 Church of Sierra Leone, which commenced before the arrival 
 of the first bishop, and which have been of a very remark- 
 able character. Some 1,300 miles to the eastward of Sierra 
 Leone lies the Yoruban country; for generations it seems 
 to have been the spoil of neighbouring tyrants, — kings of 
 Dahomey, and Mahometan Fellatahs, — who struggled with 
 each other for the possession of its people, in order to sell 
 them for slaves. Half a century ago a small company of 
 Yoruban s, hunted from place to place, took refuge in a cave, 
 and their comparative safety induced many others to join 
 them. The little society outgrew the cave, and becoming 
 
202 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 bolder, ventured out into the hills, and built huts, and began 
 to cultivate the land. Others joined them, until the refugees 
 of 130 towns had been collected together. They built their 
 separate villages, calling them after the names of their 
 former homes, and the whole colony they called Abbeokuta. 
 Within thirty years their numbers had grown to 80,000 — an 
 industrious, peaceful community of heathens, who offered 
 even human sacrifices to the divinities in which they be- 
 lieved. Many Yorubans, who had not escaped the grasp of 
 the man-stealer, had been released from the ships which were 
 carrying them across the Atlantic and had been landed at 
 Sierra Leone. There they were converted by the mis- 
 sionaries to the Christian faith, and with this faith and 
 knowledge they desired to return to their own land. In 
 1842 some 300 of them had carried to Abbeokuta a report 
 of English kindness, and of the English religion which they 
 had learned ; and the heathen, moved by the strange tidings, 
 sent messengers to Sierra Leone, praying that teachers might 
 be given to them. A young catechist named Townsend (a 
 name for ever bound up with the evangelisation of this 
 region) started at once to inspect the country, and was 
 warmly welcomed. He was a layman, and he had to go to 
 England to be ordained. The following year he set out for 
 Abbeokuta with two clergymen, of one of whom, Mr. Crow- 
 ther, more will be said presently. For two years they were 
 detained at the coast by the disturbed state of the country, 
 but at length they reached Abbeokuta itself, and in the open 
 streets, in the markets, in the piazzas of the chiefs’ houses, 
 anywhere and everywhere, the Gospel was preached. . The 
 progress of this mission has been chequered, but not per- 
 manently checked, by the persecution of heathen potentates, 
 who cannot forgive the suppression of the slave trade and 
 the introduction of lawful commerce. The atrocities of the' 
 neighbouring kings of Dahomey, with whom murders and 
 
SIERRA LEONE, 
 
 203 
 
 bloodsheddings are everyday occurrences, have reached the 
 Abbeokuta Christians. In 1867 all the churches, save one, 
 were despoiled, the missionaries were forbidden to assemble 
 the people for worship, and finally they had to retire to 
 Lagos ; but the first to return was a native priest. One of 
 the churches which had been destroyed was rebuilt by a 
 chief as an act of expiation, and out of the apparent extinc- 
 tion of Christianity there arose a greater zeal than had 
 before existed. The Yoruba Mission, then, which is not yet 
 thirty years old, has covered the whole region. Out of a 
 colony of idolaters, some 3,000 converts are now living in 
 cheering contrast to the heathenism which surrounds them. 
 Already five native clergy minister to them, and in the 
 schools the next generation is being taught the truths which 
 were once unknown to their parents. 
 
 Missionary literature is declared to be always dull and 
 commonplace ; readers who are content with the truth 
 must forego the excitement of fiction. But surely truth is 
 often stranger than fiction ; and if a novelist were to sketch 
 the history of a slave boy, who was bartered first for a horse 
 and returned as an unfair exchange, and on two subsequent 
 Occasions was bartered for rum and tobacco ; whose spirit 
 was then so broken that he tried to commit suicide ; who 
 was afterwards sold to Portuguese traders, rescued by an 
 English vessel, converted to Christianity, educated, and 
 ultimately ordained, and was consecrated a bishop : — if a 
 novelist could imagine such a series of events, he could not 
 fail to be acceptable to the readers of sensational literature. 
 If he drew still more largely on his fancy, and declared that 
 the parents from whom the slave had been wrenched in his 
 childhood he met again after a separation of twenty-five 
 years, that his heathen relatives received from him their 
 first knowledge of Christian truth, and that his mother died 
 under the roof of her son’s episcopal residence, it would be 
 
204 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 said, perhaps, that fancy had exceeded the limits of proba- 
 bility. And yet this is a simple history in barest outline of 
 the Bishop of the Niger country. Edjai, a Yoruban lad, 
 was seized by a Mahometan gang in 1821 ; he went through 
 the vicissitudes detailed above, until he found himself on 
 board H. M.S. ‘‘Myrmidon,” free and petted by officers 
 and crew; he was baptized, in 1825, “Samuel Crowther,” 
 the name of a well-known London clergyman. Educated in 
 the Church Missionary Society’s Institution at Fourah Bay, 
 he was ordained in 1843, and accompanied Mr. Townsend 
 to Abbeokuta. There, in the country whence he had been 
 dragged into slavery, he found his mother and sisters, and 
 was the means of bringing them into the Church. Yet four- 
 teen years later, in 1857, he founded the mission in the 
 Niger country. Here, as in ancient times, the missionary 
 bishop has confronted heathen monarchs and told them of 
 their error. The bishop (for Mr. Crowther was consecrated 
 Bishop of the Niger in 1864) has more than once been 
 seized and his life imperilled. The slave trade, cannibalism, 
 polygamy, the ignorance of heathens, the fanaticism of 
 Mahometans, these are the obstacles against which he has 
 had to contend. 
 
 In 1867 a substantial church was built at a place called 
 “ Onitsha ; ” at the same time the daughter of an influential 
 chief resolved to be baptized in spite of the remonstrances 
 of her friends. These two events raised the jealousy of the 
 heathen to fever heat : the Christians were fined, and with 
 the fine a female slave was purchased and dragged two miles 
 to the river side, and there sacrificed to the gods to atone 
 for the sin which had tolerated Christianity in the, land. 
 When the passions of the people were thus roused. Bishop 
 Crowther demanded an audience of the king. He showed 
 how much better a subject he was himself as a Christian, 
 than he would have been had he remained a heathen. The 
 
SIERRA LEONE. 
 
 205 
 
 king at first relented so far as to order all Christians out of 
 the land, guaranteeing to them a safe exit ; but this edict 
 he cancelled, and toleration was established. ‘‘ Safety ever 
 accompanies duty,” said a native pastor on that occasion ; 
 
 when we are in God^s way we are under God’s wing ; 
 protection and preservation we shall have if God may 
 thereby be glorified ; but sometimes danger is better 
 than safety, and a storm more useful than a calm.” His 
 words are capable of a wide application. Would that 
 persons would remember that peace and safety are not 
 necessarily the chief good, nor caution always the highest 
 virtue ! 
 
 This work, now carried on by a native bishop and nine 
 native clergymen, is strictly an indigenous mission ; in this 
 respect it is unique among Anglican missions. Not a single 
 European has a share in it. There is a difficult future before 
 it, but the obstacles already surmounted give promise for 
 the future, and prove the capacity of the African for self- 
 government and self-support. 
 
 By this mission the horrible slave trade has received a 
 great check; the practice of human sacrifice is at an end 
 within the Niger country, and the neighbouring chiefs find 
 themselves unable to procure slaves to be immolated by 
 their priests. Instead of the indolence which accompanies 
 the easy gains of the slave dealer, commerce with its attendant 
 activity has been introduced far up the rivers. The future 
 of the country as a Christian land is all the brighter for 
 being under the care of a missionary bishop who can take 
 so wise and practical a view of the position as does Bishop 
 Crowther in the following passage : — The Gospel must 
 now be followed by the plough and the workshop ; indus- 
 trial schools must be established. The Mahometan system 
 of begging will thus be corrected, the folly of indolence will 
 be exposed, and the native Christians, earning their liveli- 
 
2o6 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 hood by honest labour, will also contribute, as Christians 
 ought to do, for the support of their Church/’ And the 
 man who wrote these words, in which are contained the 
 soundest principles of Christian and political economy, was 
 once a negro slave. 
 
207 
 
 XXIIL 
 
 In addition to the labours of the Church Missionary Society, 
 and of the now indigenous churches which that society has 
 been the means of planting, there are on the West Coast of 
 Africa two fields occupied by other agencies in communion 
 with the Church of England : they each have their special 
 interest in that they are the efforts of daughter churches. 
 Immediately adjoining the English colony of Sierra Leone 
 is the American republic of Liberia, and still eastward of 
 this is the independent colony of Maryland, better known to 
 us by the name of Cape Palmas. In this country, which 
 has a seaboard of between 300 and 400 miles, and with a 
 breadth inland varying from 100 to 30 miles, the Church 
 of the United States has had missions since 1835, which 
 since 1851 have been under a resident bishop. The re- 
 public of Liberia was founded in 1821 by free blacks, who 
 were sent from North America under the auspices of the 
 American Colonisation Society. The object of its founders 
 was to provide an outlet for the blacks, who might enjoy a 
 degree of independence which local prejudices would refuse 
 to them on American soil : it was supposed, too, that the 
 example having once been set, the policy of manumission 
 would be very generally adopted. These were the objects 
 proposed by many humane men who joined the Colonisation 
 Society : they regarded hopefully the prospect of introducing 
 Christianity and civilisation among the 30,000,000 negroes 
 who inhabited Western Africa. There were those, however, 
 
2o8 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 who thought that, by exporting from America the free negro 
 population, they should secure the permanence of slavery 
 when the natural guardians of the servile people were re- 
 moved. Against this policy some of the American bishops 
 boldly protested, and as an effort of colonisation the scheme 
 has not been a success. The work of the Church, however, 
 has been a noble one : the difficulties have been enormous — 
 foremost among them is the climate, which has swept away 
 very many of the missionary staff. There have also been 
 political difficulties : the Mission of Liberia has been de- 
 pendent for its government on the bishop at Cape Palmas, 
 and there have been disputes from time to time as to any 
 supposed jurisdiction which the bishop of an American 
 colony claimed to exercise in an independent republic. 
 These, however annoying, have not permanently obstructed 
 the work of the mission. It has been eminently blessed in 
 its first bishop, who is worthy of being classed with the 
 best missionaries of any age. Arriving in Africa in 1837, 
 and consecrated in 1851, he continued at his post for 
 thirty-four years, and only when permanently disabled for 
 further work did he resign his bishopric in 1871. For 
 twenty-one years his wife shared /ns labours, and undertook 
 many others which only a woman could fulfil. In spite of 
 feeble health she never rested, founding schools and super- 
 intending their management, and visiting the heathen in 
 their smoky huts: in her own words, she “laboured for 
 them as long as she could, and then she ceased not to 
 pray for them.'' 
 
 The heathen and Mahometan tribes which crowd into 
 Liberia, and extend indefinitely into the interior beyond, 
 are the ever-widening fields which beckon the missionary 
 to advance. The difficulties of his work are much increased 
 by the close contact into which the heathen and the con- 
 verts are brought, and apostacies are not unfrequent. It 
 
WESTERN AFRICA, 
 
 209 
 
 has been found necessary to defer the baptism of the 
 children in the boarding-schools until it is tolerably certain 
 that they will remain ; for many, after being baptized, have 
 been claimed by their parents, and girls have been claimed 
 by their husbands — girls of six years of age, who have been 
 betrothed, and part of whose dower has been paid. The 
 thought of baptized children running wild in the bush with 
 their heathen families has been a great grief to the clergy. 
 It is needless to state that among adults only recently con- 
 verted from heathenism, still familiar with its vices and 
 customs, and with dispositions prone to fall into them, not 
 a few have been unable to resist, and have lapsed into the 
 idolatry from which for a time they had escaped. Neverthe- 
 less the work of the last thirty-five years, which has cost so 
 many lives and drawn forth so much self-denial, cannot be 
 said to have failed. Beyond the general impression made 
 in the neighbouring tribes, a mission cannot have been in 
 vain of whose clerical staff of thirteen eleven are natives of 
 the country, which has 500 communicants, and from its 
 schools is training the best of its sons to minister to their 
 brethren as ordained priests and deacons. 
 
 Such is briefly the work of the American Church on the 
 West Coast : the second mission, of which mention has been 
 made, is some 180 miles north of Sierra Leone, and is the 
 work of the Church in Barbados. The Rev. H. J. Leacock, 
 who, as a native of that island, had witnessed throughout his 
 whole life the many wrongs that had been done to Africa, 
 endeavoured in 1854 to found a mission, which should in 
 some degree atone for the physical sufferings of her children 
 by offering to them spiritual gifts. He gave himself to the 
 work, for the only tie that had hitherto kept him in his 
 parish was now broken by the death of his wife of cholera. 
 Landing with Bishop Weeks at Sierra Leone, in 1855, he 
 was uncertain where to commence his work, when his atten- 
 
 p 
 
210 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 tion was directed to the Pongas rivers and the country 
 adjoining. Her Majesty’s ship ‘‘ Myrmidon” gave him a 
 free passage, and her commander, Captain Buck, introduced 
 him to King Katty, who promised to protect him, and to 
 send him children to be educated. King Katty was not a 
 very interesting person : he had been brought up in the 
 atmosphere of the slave trade, and suspected missionary 
 work as being hostile to it; moreover, the Mahometan 
 chiefs, who were his neighbours, did all in their power to 
 prejudice him against Mr. Leacock. He promised fairly 
 enough ; but when the “ Myrmidon” had sailed away, and 
 Mr. Leacock and his lay-colleague were alone on that ter- 
 rible coast, amid a heathen and Moslem people, all was 
 changed. The children did not come to be taught, but 
 their parents came and stole everything that they could 
 secretly carry away from the unprotected hut in which 
 these evangelists lived ; then Mr. Leacock was attacked by 
 fever, and all things combined to damp his energy and to 
 try his faith. While lying in his hut, hands and feet swollen 
 with mosquito bites, and coast fever weighing him down, 
 the pilfering natives teaching him in no uncertain manner 
 the apparent hopelessness of the task which he had under- 
 taken, he received a strange visitor : this was Lewis AVib 
 kinson, son of a chief of Fallangia, who brought an invitation 
 from his father. No change could well be a change for the 
 worse, so Mr. Leacock went with him, ill as he was. On 
 arriving at Fallangia the old chief greeted him with the 
 words, Welcome, dear sir, to this roof, thou servant of the 
 Most High,” and then, with much agitation, he repeated the 
 ‘‘ Te Deum.” Here in the heart of a heathen land, overrun 
 with the abominations of the slave trade, was a petty chief 
 welcoming a clergyman for his office sake, and giving thanks 
 in the words of the Church’s Song of Praise. An explana- 
 tion was ready : the chief in his boyhood had been edu- 
 
WESTERN AFRICA. 
 
 211 
 
 cated under the roof of a clergyman in England ; returning 
 to Africa in 1813, while still retaining his English name, he 
 had fallen into heathenism. For twenty-two years there 
 was no thought in him of the better things which he had 
 once known and learned : then in 1835 a severe illness 
 brought him to himself, and for twenty years he had been 
 endeavouring to recover the teaching of his boyhood, and 
 had prayed that a missionary might be sent to him. That 
 prayer was now answered, and the old man’s joy knew no 
 bounds : he at once gave land and a residence to Mr. 
 Leacock, until a permanent building could be erected. The 
 mission-house was ultimately built by the American and the 
 English Churches, the very slaves in the Southern States 
 contributing to the cost. This was not very ruinous : ;^5o 
 was all that was required. The friends of the mission in 
 Sierra Leone recommended a more convenient and costly 
 structure, but Mr. Leacock wrote, — Such a house cannot 
 be built but at a great expense : we have a fine site, cool 
 and dry, and mud for walls will serve any of God’s mis- 
 sionaries, and grass is a cool covering for them ; if a mis- 
 sionary wants marble and cedar, we do 7 i^t want hbu^ 
 
 These were the words of an old man, who had already 
 suffered much from the climate ; but his patience was equal 
 to his courage. When recovering from an attack of fever 
 he wrote, — As invalids, we require good, nourishing, but 
 simple diet : ground-nut soup and boiled cassava are not 
 exactly the thing, nevertheless we are satisfied.” 
 
 Nothing is more noble and striking than the way in 
 which he mentions, in his letters to Barbados, the frequent 
 attacks which prostrated both himself and his companion, 
 and the unfailing cheerfulness with which he declares that it 
 is only an acclimatising process. In the intervals of fever 
 he worked with his might : the chiefs from far and near, who 
 had known Wilkinson by trading with him, now came to see 
 p 2 
 
212 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 his missionary. The old chief died in i86i, having done 
 his utmost to support the infant Church, but long before 
 this, in 1856, Mr. Leacock had sunk under an attack of 
 fever. Charles Wilkinson succeeded his father as Chief of 
 Domingia, and Lewis Wilkinson became Chief of Fallangia : 
 at both of these stations, as well as elsewhere, the Church 
 has been planted, the Prayer-book has been translated into 
 Su-Su, and as many as 300 persons have been baptized in 
 one year. Deadly as the country has proved, it has had a 
 powerful attraction for zealous and devoted men. Mr. 
 Leacock has not been the only martyr of the Pongas ; others 
 have braved the same dangers, and have met with the same 
 fate. His immediate successor, Mr. Higgs, died almost 
 before he landed, in consequence of the exposure of the 
 voyage from Sierra Leone. Mr. Neville, an English clergy- 
 man, who volunteered in 1858, lived hardly three years, 
 during which his great energy had produced vast results. It 
 was not merely the Gospel that the missionaries introduced. 
 In the train of this, the supreme civiliser, many of the fruits 
 of civilisation followed : factories and printing presses have 
 been established, and the people have been taught both to 
 grow cotton with more success and to dress it afterwards 
 by machinery, until it is worthy of the English market. 
 Industry is the great antidote to the slave trade, and until 
 that traffic is extirpated, the field is not fairly open for the 
 Christian missionary. In spite of many calamities, — of which 
 the deaths of the missionaries have not been the only ones, 
 for fire has destroyed the buildings, the opposition of the 
 heathen has followed the mission with calumny and misre- 
 presentation, and some who have given promise of devoted 
 service have not realised our expectations,^ — the mission 
 may now be considered established. Its staff is wholly com- 
 posed of natives, to whom the climate is not the enemy that 
 it is to the European ; others are being trained at Barbados, 
 
WESTERN AFRICA 
 
 213 
 
 who in time will add to their numbers. A station on the 
 Isles de Los, some six miles from the coast, is a Sanatorium 
 where invalids can obtain fresh air, pure water, and a greater 
 variety of food than is to be had on the mainland ; the work 
 of evangelising a people demoralised by all the evils of the 
 slave trade, and who live in a climate which is fatal to 
 Europeans, is not accomplished without much loss of life 
 and many discouragements. Twenty years ago the Pongas 
 country was known only to slaves and to the heathen and 
 Mahometan inhabitants ; its present condition forbids our 
 doubting about its future. 
 
2 14 
 
 1 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 A PEOPLE whose ancestors were buccaneers or slaves, or 
 who at least lived on the spoils of pirates or slave-owners, 
 are not the people likely to be conspicuous for Christian 
 zeal and devotion ; and this is, in brief, the history of the 
 original population of the West Indian Islands. Among 
 these races, here and there, some self-denying men laboured ; 
 and especially in Barbados, in 1710, General Codrington 
 set a noble example of devotion, by bequeathing two estates 
 in the island, ‘‘for the maintenance of professors and 
 scholars/^ with the view of “ doing good to men^s souls.^' 
 This was the honest phrase which the brave and accom- 
 plished old soldier used. Social elevation was not his first 
 object, but in manly. God-fearing spirit he wished “to do 
 good to men’s souls.” His design has been accomplished ; 
 for, besides the good done to the island of Barbados, it is 
 from this foundation that the labourers in the Pongas Mis- 
 sion, mentioned in the last paper, have been sent forth. 
 But such men, though bright, were rare exceptions. The 
 work of the Church was for long dull and inert. In 1824 
 the two Bishoprics of Jamaica and Barbados were founded; 
 but the position of the Church was much like that of the 
 Indian Church at the present day — it was an appanage of 
 the civil power rather than a purely spiritual society. The 
 stipends of the bishops were provided from public funds, 
 and the Legislature, which mapped the islands into parishes, 
 assigned to each a rector and a curate, whose incomes were 
 
WEST INDIES AND GUIANA. 
 
 215 
 
 a charge on the public revenue. In theory such a system is 
 excellent ; it is a public recognition on the part of the civil 
 authorities of the duties of caring for the spiritual well- 
 being of the people. In practice it is not provocative of 
 zeal, either among the clergy or their flocks. There was 
 not in the West Indies, as in the East, the same open field 
 for missionary work ; for, until 1834, the state of the slave 
 population depended on the will of their owners, without 
 whose permission the clergy did not venture to approach 
 them. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if, in a 
 society so constituted, there were frequent outbreaks on the 
 part of the slaves, which were repressed at the cost of much 
 bloodshed and cruelty ; or that the clergy, who were re- 
 garded by the slaves as in league with their masters, were 
 not acceptable to them ; and that Baptists and Wesleyans 
 possessed great influence over an ignorant race, easily won 
 by fervid preaching and a religion of excitement. 
 
 In 1842 the Diocese of Barbados was divided into three, 
 the Archdeaconries of Guiana and Antigua being made 
 separate sees. In 1861 the Bahamas, which had formed 
 the poorest part of the Diocese of Jamaica, received their 
 first bishop. This is by far the most difficult part of the 
 AVest Indies in which a clergyman can labour. The group 
 of islands are separated by bays and gulfs, through which 
 the Atlantic rolls in full force. The population, therefore, 
 is widely scattered ; communication between one island and 
 another is very difficult ; the missionary itinerates as best 
 he may, but his visits are at such wide intervals that his 
 preachings and baptizings have been compared to a shep- 
 herd setting his mark on his sheep and then turning them out 
 in the wilderness, with little prospect of seeing them again. 
 
 In those islands where the Church has enjoyed the 
 largest amount of State aid its influence is the least felt. 
 In the Bahamas and in Antigua, where the poverty of the 
 
2i6 
 
 UNDER HIS BANMER^ 
 
 distant islands is of the most abject kind, the ministrations 
 of the Church are most valued, and the greatest sacrifices 
 are made to obtain them. These dioceses have recently 
 been subjected to a process of gradual disendowment, 
 which has found them ill prepared to meet such a change. 
 The ecclesiastical organisation is imperfect, and the rela- 
 tion which the Church has borne to the State has pre- 
 vented the consolidation of the several sees into a pro- 
 vincial synod, so that no machinery existed, on the avoid- 
 ance of the sees of Barbados and Jamaica, for electing new 
 bishops. Nevertheless, it is a noteworthy fact that, simul- 
 taneously with the disestablishment of the former see, the 
 Church people in the island of Trinidad determined to 
 have a bishop of their own, provided a sufficient income, 
 and elected the Rev. R. Rawle, formerly Principal of Cod- 
 rington College, who was consecrated in Lichfield Cathedral 
 on St. Peter’s Day, 1872, and sailed immediately afterwards. 
 This is surely a fact which proves that times of depression 
 are sometimes times of extension and of progress. 
 
 Although on the mainland of South America, the Diocese 
 of Guiana has generally come to be classed with the West 
 Indian sees ; and when a West Indian province is formed, 
 it will probably form a part of it. Bishop Austin, the first 
 and present occupant of the see, after an episcopate of 
 thirty years, is now the senior of the colonial bishops. 
 
 The early attempts to colonise this country, whose area 
 is larger than that of Great Britain and Ireland, were not 
 happy. It was the El Dorado of Raleigh, from which that 
 unfortunate adventurer returned to his prison and to death. 
 Neither Portuguese, nor Dutch, nor French, seem to have 
 been successful. Under the English rule its resources have 
 been developed, and its wealth has been brought to this 
 country to be spent. Among the early labourers who 
 ministered to the slave population, the Moravians — those 
 
}F£ST INDIES AND GUIANA, 
 
 217 
 
 ubiquitous evangelisers — are conspicuous. For seventy 
 years they had the field to themselves in the Berbice, and 
 then they retired. 
 
 In 1831 the Church Missionary Society worked with 
 considerable success among the Indians in the Essequibo ; 
 but in 1853, when the Government determined to establish 
 a convict settlement in the neighbourhood of their mission, 
 the Society withdrew from the colony. In 1834 the negroes 
 became apprenticed labourers, and in 1838 were fully 
 emancipated. Bishop Coleridge took great pains to anti- 
 cipate this event by providing them with all the appliances 
 of religion. 
 
 In 1840 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 secured the services of a clergyman and a catechist, who 
 should work among the Indians. The clergyman was at 
 the last moment unable to sail, and the catechist, Mr. Brett, 
 went alone. No more successful missionary work has been 
 accomplished in any country or in any age than on the 
 rivers of Guiana, and the prime agent throughout has been 
 Mr. Brett. He arrived two years before the establishment 
 of the episcopate. From Bishop Austin, whether as arch- 
 deacon or bishop, he has received that cordial assistance 
 and support which such a bishop would be sure to give ; 
 but throughout the design and the execution of all the 
 schemes for converting the Indian have been Mr. Brett^s 
 alone. There are four distinct races among whom our 
 missions have been established, — the Arawaks, Caribs, 
 Waraus, and Acawoios. 
 
 The three first of these tribes have been living side by 
 side in the coast district for 300 years, and not the 
 slightest intermixture of their language has taken place. 
 It was among the Arawaks on the Pomeroon River that 
 Mr. Brett first began to work. His residence was one of 
 three ruinous huts ; tiger-cats and snakes were the most 
 
2i8 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 frequent companions of his solitude. He was a young man, 
 and the Indians have an h priori respect only for old age. 
 He commenced a school for the negro children, thinking 
 their example would be followed, but it had exactly a 
 contrary effect; for the antipathy of the Indians to the 
 negroes was almost invincible. The sorcerers of the 
 country, seeing their craft was in danger, threatened death 
 to all who listened to the white man ; and under these 
 influences the natives did everything, short of committing 
 personal violence, to drive Mr. Brett away. There was 
 nothing in the missionary's surroundings to impress the 
 savages. In all the matters of daily life they were his 
 superiors. The civilisation which they met with in the 
 towns, they cared not for in the woods. They could build 
 their canoes, and manage them dexterously when built ; 
 with their arrows they could bring down the wild animals 
 which abounded in the forest, or they could catch the fish 
 in the rivers at will ; but the white man was only a poor, 
 effeminate creature, living in one of their huts, but mani- 
 festly without their powers of adapting himself to such a 
 condition, while for his food he was dependent on their 
 skill and their benevolence. All these discouragements, 
 with the addition of frequent attacks of fever, enough to 
 break down ordinary faith, did not drive away Mr. Brett. 
 He visited again and again the settlements, not only of the 
 Arawaks, but of the Caribs, a neighbouring tribe. The day 
 broke in time. For ten years Mr. Brett lived alone ; but 
 long ere this his work had begun to tell. A single Indian, 
 named Sacabarri, in spite of sorcerers and the arguments of 
 friends, came, like Nicodemus of old, and asked to receive 
 instruction. He gave two of his children to be taught, and 
 then the spell was broken. The chief of the Arawaks pro- 
 mised his friendship, more than a hundred of his tribe 
 joined the Church, and the school was full. 
 
IV£ST INDIES AND GUIANA, 
 
 219 
 
 In 1843 the bishop visited the mission, and the fruit of 
 three years’ work was seen in forty natives, who were con- 
 firmed and admitted to communion. Mr. Brett at this time 
 was ordained deacon. The infant Church had hitherto 
 been gathered together by a young catechist and his first 
 convert. Of the latter, who at his baptism received the 
 name Cornelius, it must be recorded that, until his death 
 in 1868, he continued the unwearied servant of the Church, 
 and with his last words he charged his sons to continue the 
 labours in which for twenty-eight years he had found so 
 great delight. 
 
 The work among the Caribs was as successful as was that 
 among the Arawaks ; the Waraus were approached at a 
 later period. In 1851 more than a thousand Arawaks and 
 Caribs had been baptized ; and on the occasion of the 
 bishop’s visit members of the two tribes, who for genera- 
 tions had never met without indulging in all the cruelty of 
 Indian warfare, knelt side by side in fullest amity to receive 
 the Holy Eucharist. The success had not been uninter- 
 rupted by any means. Small-pox at one time decimated 
 the people ; and the scourge was declared by the sorcerers 
 to be in revenge for their harbouring Christian teachers. 
 Mr. Brett’s health gave way more than once, and he was 
 obliged to retire to the capital city, and even to England ; 
 and during his absence a pseudo-Christ arose among the 
 tribes and claimed their allegiance, but not one of them 
 apostatised; and the visitation of sickness, so far from 
 prejudicing them against the Gospel, rather humbled them 
 to receive it as a wholesome discipline. All this time Mr. 
 Brett was diligently at work reducing the several languages, 
 with their numerous dialects, to an intelligible system. 
 
 In 1853 the Acawoios came to inquire into the merits of 
 Christianity. A chief and twenty-four attendants were sent 
 as an embassy. They bore an evil reputation as poisoners 
 
220 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 and thieves ; they have now been gathered in in large 
 numbers. The chief was not baptized until 1866 ; and 
 after two years he died, mainly in consequence of the long 
 journeys which he had taken at his advanced age to visit 
 the mission, and to secure for his people the blessings of 
 the faith. His efforts have been rewarded ; for his people 
 are now the most promising of the four races of which we 
 have spoken. In 1867 Mr. Brett made an expedition to 
 the Acawoios living above the great Falls of the Demerara 
 River. An English settler undertook, with the help of two 
 native youths and the Catechisms which Mr. Brett had 
 translated, to continue to instruct them when he had left. 
 The following year the Indians learned that the bishop 
 would come up the river to the foot of the falls, and there 
 they determined to meet him. On his arrival he found 
 that the Indians had carried their canoes to the foot of the 
 rapids, and had formed an encampment while waiting for 
 him. It was a scene which recalled the events of a far 
 earlier age of the Church. There in the primeval forest 
 was a tribe of Pagans earnestly seeking Christian instruc- 
 tion. The bishop remained with them for days, and, after 
 examination, baptized 241 adults and 145 children. Two 
 days were spent in the administration of this sacrament. 
 The earnestness of the recipients, the reverent awe which 
 possessed the lookers-on, the ground streaming with the 
 baptismal water poured over each in succession, — these 
 made up a scene almost unique and never to be forgotten. 
 The chief, wishing to be more within reach of instruction, 
 cleared a settlement at the foot of the Cascades, near the 
 scene of their baptism, and built a school chapel there. 
 A catechist remained behind with them; and the arch- 
 deacon paid a visit to the mission ten months after, the 
 bishop had been there : seventy-nine Acawoios were then 
 baptized, making 535 baptisms within ten months Jn the 
 
IVjEST indies and G DIANA, 
 
 221 
 
 district where, two years before, the Gospel had never been 
 heard. 
 
 In 1871 the bishop and Mr. Brett made a visitation of 
 the missions on the Pomeroon and Essequibo. At one 
 station they found a beautiful church, which had been built 
 by the Indians in four years, under the direction of Mr. 
 McCloggin, their catechist, who is a native of Africa. Thus 
 the red men of Guiana, who had been won to the Gospel 
 by a white missionary, receive their instruction from a black 
 teacher. Mr. Brett’s labours have been so abundant, that 
 there is now no Indian people within the limits of Guiana 
 who cannot learn the rudiments of the faith in their own 
 tongue from the translations which Mr. Brett has made, 
 and which the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 
 has printed. On this occasion a supply of Catechisms had 
 been sent some weeks in advance of the bishop. They 
 had been well used ; for no sooner had Mr. Brett begun the 
 Lord’s Prayer in their language, than the whole tribe took it 
 up, and their voices were as the sound of many waters. 
 
 The thirty years of work performed by Mr. Brett repre- 
 sent more of “peril, toil, and pain” than are to be found in 
 many of the semi-mythical labours which have conferred 
 on the doers of them the honours of canonisation. Soldiers 
 and statesmen have deservedly received peerages and pen- 
 sions for services infinitely less arduous — yet who has 
 heard of Mr. Brett? He has written a very interesting 
 book, which has been read perhaps by one person out 
 of every hundred thousand of the people of England, and 
 by many of them even has been forgotten ; but of himself 
 and his labours — whether he still lives or whether his labours 
 are ended — who beyond his few friends knows? How 
 different is the treatment which the man receives who 
 deserves well of the State from the honour in which the 
 Christian soldier is held ! 
 
222 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Besides the missions to the aborigines, with whose con- 
 version the memory of Mr. Brett will for ever be connected, 
 the vast Coolie population of the diocese has not been over- 
 looked. In temporal matters these people just now seem 
 likely to receive every attention ; in spiritual things they 
 have long been cared for. Their diversity of race and 
 language adds much to the difficulty of doing so. From 
 Bengal and from Madras missionaries have followed them, 
 who are able to speak to them in Bengali or Tamil. The Ma- 
 hometans, here as elsewhere, are most bitterly opposed to 
 the Gospel ; but the Hindus, removed as they are from the 
 restraints of caste, are much more ready converts than in 
 their own land. The attitude of the Chinese is very pro- 
 mising : they are most open to Christian teaching, and most 
 liberal in paying for the erection of schools and chapels; 
 but of this notice has been taken in a previous paper. 
 
 This diocese has been singularly blessed in the bishop 
 who, from the first, has directed its missions to the various 
 heathen races, and has also built up the Church among the 
 colonists. If it were lawful to extol the labours of one 
 who occupies a position so high in the Church of Christ, 
 it would be no difficult matter to do so ; but it would be 
 unbecoming. This much, however, must be recorded, tliat, 
 after a residence of some forty years in a notoriously trying 
 climate, the effects of which have compelled his family to 
 live in England, and have made his home a solitary one, 
 Bishop Austin has shown no sign of withdrawing from the 
 duties of his office ; but even when advancing years would 
 justify him in giving the reins into younger hands, he con- 
 tinues with unabated zeal and vigour the work to which his 
 life has been devoted, and sets before his people a living 
 example of a devoted Christian bishop and a high-minded 
 English gentleman. 
 
XXV. 
 
 For some obscure reason, connected probably either with 
 tlie rhythm of their names or the remoteness of their situa- 
 tions, Patagonia and Timbuctoo have long done the duty of 
 contributing the jocular element to the witticisms of persons 
 who think missions a fitting subject for ridicule and con- 
 tempt. With the glib repetition of these long words the 
 ‘‘ reductio ad absurdian ” seems perfect to the hasty gene- 
 ralisers, whose conclusions keep pace with their prejudices. 
 In spite of its outlandish name and position, Timbuctoo is 
 not likely long to continue the property of the anti-mis- 
 sionary wit, as it is in a fair way of being reached from the 
 missions on the West Coast of Africa, and in Patagonia mis- 
 sionaries have lived and died, and their successors are now 
 labouring, not without visible results. The forerunner of the 
 little band, who have selected these utmost parts of the 
 earth as the scene of their labours, was ‘Allen Gardiner, 
 whom we have already mentioned in connection with Natal. 
 Of his zeal and devotion there can be only one opinion. 
 The same would justly be said of his judgment, his patience, 
 and his powers of leading an expedition, were it not that 
 admiration for the graces which he possessed may tempt 
 us to overlook his palpable lack of those qualities. Dis- 
 heartened with his failure in Zululand, he left Africa, nor 
 would he return when the country was again settled, and 
 the confidence which he had inspired would have gathered 
 together once more the Kafirs whom he had known and 
 
224 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 protected. This was a great error in judgment His 
 Quixotic spirit, not strong enough to withstand the sense of 
 failure in Africa, carried him away to the Indians of South 
 America. An attempt to establish himself in Chili utterly 
 failed, and in making it he exposed himself to many perils. 
 Going still southwards, he found the peaceable tribes living 
 contentedly under the teaching of Spanish priests (who of 
 course would not welcome him), and the warlike tribes 
 unable to distinguish between him and his Spanish oppo- 
 nents. Without any plan he wandered hither and thither, 
 ready to enter the lists with heathenism wherever he 
 could. It was but a guerilla warfare, without science, judg- 
 ment, or forethought. He had no base of operations on 
 which to fall back, no outposts who could report on the 
 difficulties ahead and around. What wonder that he failed ? 
 Amid all these visionary schemes, adopted and acted upon 
 without consideration, he at this time wisely refused to sink 
 into a distributor of tracts and Bibles among the converts 
 of the Roman priests. This was his one instance of prac- 
 tical wisdom ; and it would be well if in these same regions 
 his example had been followed, but the reports of the mis- 
 sionaries lead us to think that a convert from Popery is 
 now regarded as a triumph as great as one gained from 
 heathenism. 
 
 Having failed in two continents. Captain Gardiner next 
 tried the Malay Archipelago. He was foiled in his attempt 
 to reach Borneo, which had not yet been visited by Mr. 
 Brooke. In broken health he went thence to the Cape, 
 and after a brief sojourn hastened again to South America, 
 having heard of a tribe in the Cordilleras who seemed to be 
 easy of access ; but again he was thwarted by the jealousy 
 of Roman priests, and he sailed for the Falkland Islands, 
 determined thence to make an attempt on Patagonia and 
 Terra del Fuego. 
 
PATAGONIA AND TERRA DEL FUEGO. 
 
 225 
 
 On one of these dreary islands he put up a wooden hut, 
 which he had brought with him from the mainland, and 
 there his long-suffering wife and children were left, while he, 
 after several fruitless attempts to get a passage, at length 
 sailed in a miserable ship for Fireland. His interviews with 
 the sullen Fuegians proving a failure, he crossed the con- 
 tinent, where he found the Patagonians hospitable and 
 intelligent ; but their nomadic habits made it impossible to 
 influence them. Returning to the Falklands, and failing to 
 get a ship to carry his family to Patagonia, he sailed for 
 England, and prayed the Church Missionary Society, the 
 Wesleyans, and the Independents, each in their turn, to 
 take up the cause of the Patagonians ; but their hands were 
 full and their finances low. With a stock of Bibles and 
 tracts this impulsive man made a hurried trip to Rio, 
 intending both to checkmate his old opponents, the Spanish 
 priests, and to reach some tribes in the interior. The only 
 result was the promise of ;£ioo per annum from some 
 English colonists for Patagonia. Having made this be- 
 ginning he returned to England, founded a small society, 
 and in 1844 he was again in Patagonia, and this time with 
 a companion, a Mr. Hunt ; but they soon were again in 
 England. In the next five years he made at least three 
 voyages to and from South America, and in 1850 he landed 
 at Picton Island with three Cornish fishermen, a surgeon, a 
 carpenter, and one other. On this occasion the expedition 
 had been fitted out with some small degree of care. Four 
 boats were attached to it, and they carried six months’ 
 provision ; but the same blundering zeal which had charac- 
 terised former efforts marred this also, and caused the 
 deaths of the whole party. It was found that their numbers 
 were not sufficient to manage their large boats, and that the 
 smaller boats could not live in the rough seas of those 
 coasts. The stock of powder too, on which they were 
 
 Q 
 
326 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 mainly dependent for fresh meat, had been carried away on 
 board the ship which brought them from Liverpool. The 
 natives beset them persistently, pilfering wherever they 
 could, and being proof against all overtures. The vessel 
 which was to have been sent from the Falkland Islands with 
 fresh supplies never reached Picton, and in October, 1851, 
 some ten months after the first arrival of the mission-party 
 at the island which was to be their grave, another vessel, 
 sent by the governor, succeeded in making the harbour, 
 and found the wreck of one of the boats. Further search 
 along the coast was rewarded by the discovery of the un- 
 buried skeletons of the seven. The journal of Captain 
 Gardiner was found, and it gave a complete record of the 
 pathetic story, the last entry being in Gardiner’s own hand 
 on September 6th, when he had been five days without food. 
 Exposure, scurvy, and starvation — these had swept away the 
 whole of the expedition. It was a terrible sacrifice ; but it 
 is a sacrifice that will be made again and again, so long as 
 men will despise the practical wisdom which counsels fore- 
 thought in mundane matters, as though it were incompatible 
 with spiritual zeal. It is hard to hit on the due proportion 
 of things. While some men demand as a preliminary con- 
 dition of their contemplating mission-work accurate and 
 trustworthy information about the range of temperature, the 
 degree of rainfall, and the nature of the soil of the country 
 in which they propose to live, others seem to think that 
 the mere fact of being engaged in a spiritual work raises 
 them altogether to a sphere in which they are superior to 
 material things, and in which such matters as food and 
 clothing and shelter may be left to chance. 
 
 With the deaths of Captain Gardiner and his companions 
 the mission was for a time suspended. In 1857 another 
 party, of which the Rev. A. W. Gardiner was a member, 
 landed on the coast of Patagonia. They knew of two 
 
PATAGONIA AND TERRA DEL FUEGO, 
 
 227 
 
 people resident in the country who would give them a 
 helping hand : one was a native named Casimuro, who by 
 some accident had long ago been conveyed to Valparaiso, 
 where during a year's stay he had learned Spanish, and 
 witnessed the results of European civilisation. On returning 
 to his home he discerned, in its full proportions, the utter 
 barbarity of his people, and he longed to make them such 
 as he had become himself by residence in Chili. In 1853 
 Casimuro went on board Her Majesty's ship “Vixen," which 
 was on a surveying expedition to Patagonia, and commu- 
 nicated to the captain his desire to elevate his countrymen. 
 The captain recorded this circumstance in his log, and 
 through the Admiralty it came to the knowledge of the 
 missionaries. At the same time a Danish professor at a 
 Chilian university was made by the authorities of the country 
 their representative at Punta Arenas, a frontier town on 
 Magellan's Straits. He was most friendly to the mission, 
 and by his good offices a young layman, named Schmid, 
 was commended to the natives. For a year this young 
 missionary with infinite courage lived among the Patago- 
 nians. Their food was his ; he shared their tents ; where 
 they moved he moved. Having some knowledge of the 
 tailor’s craft, he worked at it, and so won their respect that 
 the chief offered him his daughter in marriage. All this 
 time he was studying their guttural language, and he con- 
 structed a grammar, besides making an extensive vocabulary. 
 He found that they possessed not the shadow of a religion, 
 the supreme object of their reverence being the medicine- 
 man. They lived, after patriarchal fashion, in hordes of 
 about 200 under a chief, whose voice decided for war or 
 peace, or for change of station. In the graves of their dead 
 they buried his horses and dogs, his weapons and his orna- 
 ments, all, in fact, that he possessed, not with the idea that 
 they would be of use to him in a future state, for such a 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 phase of existence does not enter into their minds, but 
 simply to help them in forgetting that such a person ever 
 existed. 
 
 Surely this was an adventurous life. To live among a 
 race of savage nomads, sharing their coarse food, their foul 
 tents, and their wandering life, however it may satisfy at 
 first the longings for the romantic, must soon prove to be a 
 terrible existence. Had Mr. Schmid been a scientific 
 traveller, an ethnologist or a geographer, a botanist or a 
 geologist (and he must indirectly have rendered some 
 services to these sciences), or had he been a military 
 explorer or a political spy, he would have been feted and 
 made free of numerous learned societies, and have received 
 medals, and even still more substantial rewards. Being only 
 a missionary, his work is unappreciated and himself unknown. 
 
 Having made this degree of progress, he felt that a per- 
 manent impression could be effected only by a protracted 
 residence among them; but fearing for his own spiritual 
 life, thus secluded from Christian fellowship and ministra- 
 tions, he sought for a colleague. Two such persons were 
 waiting for him in the Falklands, and, thus reinforced, the 
 faithful man returned. Casimuro and the chief who had 
 offered to Schmid the honour of being his son-in-law pro- 
 tected them : not a thing was touched, and their personal 
 safety was secured. Thus Patagonia was to some extent 
 opened. 
 
 Across the Straits of Magellan the Archipelago of Terra 
 del Fuego, consisting of many islands terminating to the 
 :southward in the one which gives the name to Cape Horn, 
 was lying untouched by missionary effort. It contained the 
 bones of Gardiner and his comrades, and on that account 
 was already holy ground. There are in these islands two 
 large tribes, whose languages are wholly distinct. The 
 people, dwarfed in stature, wearing only an apology for 
 
PATAGONIA AND TERRA DEL FUEGO, 22() 
 
 clothing, picking up a precarious livelihood in the caves and 
 on the beaches, and of necessity nomadic in their habits, 
 may be classed among the lowest types of humanity. Their 
 homes are mounds of shells, and round the hollow top of 
 the mound a conical booth is set up with brushwood and 
 birch bushes. Round a wood fire, which burns in the centre 
 of this hollow, the naked Fuegian lies, curled up with his 
 knees on his breast, and his head resting on his neighbours 
 thigh. Among these people, too, a way of access was 
 opened. One of their number had been brought to Eng- 
 land on board a man-of-war in 1830 ; and although twenty- 
 five years had elapsed, he retained a lively remembrance of 
 English kindness ; neither had his impressions of religious 
 truths, elementary as they were, been effaced. ‘‘Jem 
 Button — -a name given to him by the English sailors, and 
 which could have been hit upon only on board ship, and 
 more convenient for our present purpose than his original 
 name of twelve syllables — welcomed the English, and be- 
 came to them interpreter, dictionary, guide, and friend. He 
 and his family came to live at the mission-station for a time. 
 It was intended that on their return they should act as 
 decoys to others. The missionaries spent weeks with him 
 in his native cove, trusting their lives, their boats, and all 
 they had to the natives. The result of their visit was that 
 three families returned with them to their station, which 
 they persisted in calling by the incongruous name of Cran- 
 mer. Here the men were instructed by a catechist, the 
 women were shown by the missionary's wife how to be 
 useful, and the lads were taught daily by the clergy. This 
 was the commencement of the mission — a much wiser one 
 than that which had been attempted by Captain Gardiner. 
 The natives soon learned to read, to write, and to work. 
 They had no religious opinions to abandon, and they the 
 more readily adopted those of their teachers. 
 
230 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 The society for which Captain Gardiner sighed so long 
 dates from 1850, when he left England for the last time, 
 and its work, while extending to certain places in South 
 America, has its head-quarters at the Falkland Islands. The 
 multiplication of Church agencies for the same object is to 
 be regretted, especially when, as in the case of the South 
 American Missionary Society, about 28 per cent, of the 
 sums raised in England is spent in this country. But the 
 missionary work is now carried on in a practical manner. 
 On one of the Falkland Islands called Keppel, recently 
 uninhabited, there is now a mission-station, church, schools, 
 and industrial farm. A mission schooner named after 
 Captain Gardiner sails between Stanley, the town of the 
 Falkland Islands, and the other stations, conveying the 
 members of the mission to and fro, and keeping them supr 
 plied with provisions and stores. At Ushuwia, on Terra 
 del Fuego, in the midst of many difficulties, a station has 
 existed since 1869. A clergyman and two catechists are 
 resident, and are doing what they can to humanise as well 
 as to convert the miserable natives. Already their thievish 
 habits have been checked. Ushuwia has more than once 
 been necessarily left to the care of natives, and the belong- 
 ings of the mission have been found intact. In Patagonia 
 the work appears at present not to be extending ; but the 
 sufferings and death of Allen Gardiner, and the chivalrous 
 devotion of Mr. Schmid, have not been in vain. The 
 foundation was laid at great and needless cost, and others 
 are building on it. 
 
 In 1870 the Rev. W. H. Stirling, who had for some years 
 been engaged in these missions, was consecrated Bishop of 
 the Falkland Islands, having his head-quarters at Stanley. 
 
23 ^ 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The foundations of our Australian colonies were laid in 
 crime ; the earliest settlers were convicts. It was a simple 
 process which disposed of our home-grown crime by trans- 
 ferring it to the other side of the world, but the manner of 
 carrying out the policy reflected scanty credit on our politi- 
 cal sagacity. Little could be expected from a society which 
 was composed of the refuse of the mother country ; and so 
 imperfectly did the statesmen of the last century understand 
 the theory that a social system, if it is to be strong and 
 healthy, must consist of varied elements, each dependent on 
 the rest, and all compacted into a harmonious whole, that 
 they were content to people a new country with one, and 
 that the basest, element, in the expectation that, by some 
 means or other, the natures which in England had defied 
 laws both human and divine, would be altogether different 
 at Botany Bay ; but 
 
 “ Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.** 
 
 The same year (1787) which witnessed the establishment 
 of our first colonial bishopric also witnessed the exportation 
 of our first batch of convicts to Australia. It was a dreary 
 time : the perfumed blasphemies of Voltaire had been 
 wafted over Europe, and were preparing the way for the 
 shock which so soon was to flood the continent with atheism 
 and anarchy. The religious sentiment in England must 
 have been at its lowest point ; neither in public nor in 
 private life would Christianity seem to have had any power. 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 232 
 
 The American colonies, so recently become independent, 
 were no longer available for the reception of convicts, and 
 the gaols were filled until they overflowed with moral and 
 physical contagion. The recent discovery of New Holland 
 by Captain Cook suggested that in that distant continent 
 our convicts might be turned adrift, to the relief and con- 
 venience of the home-country; and in May, 1787, six trans- 
 ports, with 800 convicts, were sent to Botany Bay, under 
 convoy of a frigate, a store-ship, and three tenders. The 
 voyage was then a perilous undertaking, and it lasted eight 
 months. The Government, with paternal forethought, secured 
 the good discipline of the convicts by sending 200 soldiers 
 with them ; but a clergyman, a schoolmaster, any one to 
 speak to them words of hope, of encouragement, or of 
 pardon, formed no part of the projected expedition. Just 
 at the last moment a clergyman offered, as a labour of love, 
 to accompany the party, and, through the influence of the 
 Bishop of London, he was allowed to do so. This was the 
 Rev. Robert Johnson, a name almost unknown even to 
 Churchmen at this distance of time, but which deserves to 
 be chronicled for the sake of a work of almost unparalleled 
 devotion. During the voyage Mr. Johnson could only 
 benefit the passengers on board the one ship in which he 
 himself sailed ; the other ten, therefore, were left to 
 themselves. The whole fleet put into Rio Janeiro, and 
 while they were in harbour, the good chaplain held services 
 on all the ships in turn. At length the convicts were landed 
 on the site of the present city of Sydney. Some of them 
 received free grants of land, others were employed in laying 
 out farms, and some were sent to Norfolk Island to report 
 on its capabilities. The absence of all religious restraint 
 was soon apparent ; on board ship the very sternest disci- 
 pline had kept up something like order ; now that such dis- 
 cipline was impossible, it was found that the long voyage. 
 
AUSTRALIA, 
 
 233 
 
 with its enforced idleness, had made them more depraved 
 than before. Thefts, desertions, and murders were frequent, 
 and punishments of the most barbarous kind were the 
 only repressive means which suggested themselves. Famine 
 added to their difficulties ; the ships which had been de- 
 spatched from England with stores never reached Australia; 
 but in 1790 a thousand more convicts were landed, thus 
 making the prospect of starvation more imminent. By the 
 following year there were 3,500 convicts in the colony. It 
 was among such a degraded population as this that the 
 worthy Mr. Johnson laboured without hope of earthly re- 
 ward; he received no support from the officials. Those were 
 the days when the spiritual life of Englishmen at home was 
 as cold as it could be, and when it was a frequent boast 
 among residents in the East that the mere profession of 
 religion was left when they rounded the Cape of Good 
 Hope. The convicts were ordered to attend church, and 
 were fined for their absence to the amount of 2 lbs. of flour 
 from their weekly rations ; but their church-going was only 
 a roll-call ; they were drawn up in the open-air, the soldiers 
 with loaded fire-arms keeping guard, and the officers and 
 the governor of the colony never thinking of attending in 
 person. For six years there was neither a church nor the 
 probability of one being built by the Government, and 
 therefore, at a cost of ;^4o, Mr. Johnson built one himself. 
 It was soon burned down by the convicts ; and then the 
 governor ordered stone churches to be built, more as a 
 punishment to the prisoners, who had thought thus to 
 escape the infliction of church-going, than for any spiritual 
 good to be gained by them. For seven years Mr. Johnson 
 laboured alone in this most unpromising field ; but in 1794 
 the Rev. S. Marsden joined him, having been sent out by 
 the Government, and they worked together among the in- 
 creasing convict population until 1800, when Mr. Johnson 
 
234 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 returned to England, after a dozen years of service as noble 
 and as unselfish as ever was rendered. For seven years 
 after this Mr. Marsden was the solitary chaplain. It is 
 unnecessary to trace at length the troubles which beset him 
 in the performance of his duties : it would seem that the 
 whole population, the civil and military authorities as well 
 as the convicts, made no profession of religion, and never 
 dreamed of voluntarily attending his ministrations. The 
 congregations dwindled down to mere handfuls, and in 
 1825 the chaplain informed a new governor that only five 
 or six persons were in the habit of coming to church. That 
 governor. Sir Thomas Darling, then announced his intention 
 of coming himself, and expected that his example would 
 be followed by the people.” 
 
 From the first there had been among the convicts a 
 number of Romanists, for whom, as well as for the rest, no 
 provision had been made; neither for them had any Mr. 
 Johnson been found to volunteer his ministrations, so that 
 they had been utterly cut off from all religious exercises. 
 There was among them in 1803 a priest, James Dixon, who 
 had been sentenced to transportation : this circumstance did 
 not, of course, interfere with the validity of his orders, and 
 by an official notice he was set free to enable him to 
 exercise his clerical functions.” He ministered at the three 
 largest settlements in turn, and the convicts who belonged 
 to liis communion were marched to church on the occasion 
 of his visits. What became of him is not known, but after 
 he left, ‘‘the only religious consolation which the Roman 
 Catholic prisoners enjoyed for more than two years was a 
 consecrated wafer, left in the house of one of them by Mr. 
 Dixon, around which these men of sorrow, as many as could, 
 were wont to assemble and offer up their prayers, no voice 
 but the silent one of faith, not a priest of their religion 
 within 10,000 miles.” 
 
AUSTRALIA, 
 
 235 
 
 Year after year more prisoners were sent to Australia, 
 until, in 1817, of 17,000 souls, which formed the whole 
 population, 7,000 were convicts. On the first establish- 
 ment of the settlement at Sydne}", a party had been sent to 
 explore and report on Norfolk Island, and 200 convicts, 
 with two companies of soldiers, were stationed there : the 
 devoted Mr. Johnson visited them after they had been there 
 two years. In 1826 this island, which has since been 
 made sacred to us by its connection with our martyred 
 Bishop Patteson, was made a penal settlement ; it became a 
 pandemonium : the wretched criminals were chained toge- 
 ther day and night, and not the slightest attempt was made 
 to raise them spiritually. Once a-week they were marched 
 to a parade-ground, still chained, and a young officer would 
 come to the front and read some prayers ; other religious 
 observance there was none. What wonder that both in 
 Norfolk Island and in Australia crimes of the most horrible 
 atrocity were daily occurrences ? Punishments were power- 
 less ; there were instances in which men on being sentenced 
 to death thanked God that their miseries would soon be at 
 end. In 1834 a truly Christian judge. Sir W. Burton, grieved 
 at having daily to try his wretched countrymen for capital 
 offences, uttered a manly protest against the whole system : 
 from his seat on the bench, as well as by representations to 
 the home Government, he proclaimed the fact that the 
 utter absence of all religious observances had produced the 
 inevitable results which he had witnessed and had deplored. 
 At the same time the Archdeacon of Australia (for this vast 
 continent had been added to the Diocese of Calcutta) came 
 to England, and brought the condition of those distant 
 settlements before the eyes of the authorities. His appeal 
 was not in vain ; some attempts were immediately made to 
 remedy the crying evils which he had exposed, and in 1836 
 he returned to Australia as its first bishop. 
 
236 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 This paper is intended to serve as an introduction to the 
 following paper on New Zealand ; but it was necessary first 
 to deal with the original settlement of Australia, because 
 from that continent the earliest attempt was made to evan- 
 gelise New Zealand. With the establishment of the Austra- 
 lian episcopate, and the introduction of a Christian element 
 into the penal system of the country, the early history of the 
 Australian Church and colony closes : the subsequent exten- 
 sions cf^both will be treated of in another paper. 
 
237 
 
 XXVIL 
 
 Although New Zealand was discovered by a Dutchman, 
 Abel Janssen Tasman, in 1642, it was reserved for the 
 famous Cook, some 125 years later, to prove by sailing 
 round the islands, and by passing through the straits which 
 separate the northern from the southern island, that it was 
 not, as had been supposed, a continent. Cook was probably the 
 first European who effected a landing. He found the people 
 a set of brave and intelligent savages, living in perpetual 
 warfare, and cannibalism one of their institutions. He 
 established friendly relations among them, and gave them 
 some pigs, fowls, and potatoes. From this time whale ships 
 would put in for water, and open communication with the 
 people. It seems strange at this period to observe how our 
 early intercourse with the New Zealanders was the counter- 
 part of our more recent dealings with the Melanesians ; in 
 each there was the natural distrust of a savage and cannibal 
 people, followed by friendly barter and good feeling ; in each 
 this condition of things was frequently interrupted by deeds 
 of rapacity and cruelty on the part of the white man, for 
 which the savages, with undiscriminating justice, wreaked 
 their vengeance on the next white man who came in their 
 way. These tragic events gave them a bad name. There 
 was not the same rapidity of communication in those days, 
 and the islands were practically more remote than are the 
 Pacific groups now, and consequently the facilities for de- 
 ciding on which side the blame chiefly rested were not so 
 
238 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 great as now ; the burden, therefore, was cast entirely on the 
 savages. But Captain Cook had observed that, spite of their 
 being always engaged in tribal wars, they were affectionate 
 and kind to each other; there were some streaks of 
 gold amid the clay, but there was still abundant cause for 
 their evil reputation. In 1772 twenty-eight men had been 
 cut off from a French ship ; in the following year ten men 
 were killed and eaten in triumph, and in the year 1809 the 
 whole crew of H.M.S. Boyd'' were massacred. To visit 
 such a savage people in their own land appeared to be like 
 courting death. But a way was opened : their innate energy 
 and love of adventure often led them to Australia, and there 
 they became objects of great interest to Dr. Marsden, the 
 Government chaplain mentioned in the last paper. Among 
 the many cares which devolved upon him as chaplain to the 
 neglected convicts, — cares infinitely increased and aggravated 
 by the hostility shown to him by the civil authorities, — he yet 
 found time to think of the conversion of the strange islands, 
 with their utterly barbarous peoples, a thousand miles across the 
 sea. Whenever the Maories, therefore, came to Port Jackson, 
 they found a friend in the chaplain, and a welcome at his par- 
 sonage. At one time he had thirty of these strange guests 
 under his roof, who were hardly restrained from the practice 
 of the most objectionable of their customs even when in- 
 mates of a clergyman's house, and receiving his hospitality. 
 Among these visitors in the year 1809, immediately after the 
 massacre of the “ Boyd's" crew, was a chief named Tippahee. 
 From him Mr. Marsden learned very much about the 
 country and people, and the result of a voyage which he 
 made to England was that the Church Missionary Society 
 sent out a schoolmaster, a carpenter, and a shoemaker, who 
 should, under Marsden's guidance, try to civilise as well as 
 convert the Maories. They arrived safely in Australia, but 
 a recent massacre of an English crew on the coast of the 
 
NEW ZEALAND, 
 
 239 
 
 northern island had inspired such terror that for more than 
 two years they could find no ship willing to take them. At 
 length, on December 20th, 1814, the little party, headed by 
 Marsden, and accompanied by a Maori, Duaterra, the 
 nephew and successor of Tippahee, who had sailed with 
 them from England, landed on the northern island. The 
 place on which they first set foot was the scene of the recent 
 massacre ; a clearly providential care had secured for them 
 a friend and interpreter in Duaterra, and that very night 
 Mr. Marsden slept safely on the soil of New Zealand, the 
 warriors lying around with their spears’ heads buried in the 
 ground, as a token of peace and amity. 
 
 The Maoris are the purest branch of that Polynesian 
 race, the cradle of which is supposed to have been the 
 Hawaiian Islands, and their superstitions represent accu- 
 rately the state of religious feeling which has long obtained 
 through the great mass of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. 
 With all their cannibalism and savagery they have united a 
 large measure of spiritual susceptibility ; their Pantheon far 
 exceeds in the number of its divinities those of Greece or 
 of India ; everything is invested with a supernatural power, 
 every circumstance of their lives is supposed to be directed 
 by an ever-active, ever-present Divine agency. These con- 
 victions made it a difficult matter for them to receive the 
 idea of our Creator. There were gods of the day and gods 
 of the night; innate powers in earth and in heaven which 
 separated the firmament from the land. Everything that 
 was seen was supposed to be the work of some special 
 deity ; and these gods possessed the passions of men, were 
 cannibals, and had to be feared and appeased. Every tribe, 
 moreover, worshipped some one or more of its departed 
 ancestors, whom it consulted as an oracle in matters of grave 
 importance, and the ‘‘ atua” (divinity) replied in a mysterious 
 sound, “half whisper, half whistle.” When the first mis- 
 
240 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 sionaries preached the Gospel in New Zealand, the Maoris 
 consulted their ‘^atua^' whether the white men's teaching 
 was true, and it is a remarkable fact that the answers in- 
 variably declared Jesus Christ to be the true God : to these 
 answers the rapid growth of Christianity in New Zealand is 
 to be in part attributed. Long before they had any inter- 
 course with Europeans, the Maoris practised a rite which 
 outwardly resembles Christian baptism, although a further 
 examination will show that it had nothing in common with 
 it. After the birth of a child it was carried to a priest, 
 who, using some preliminary forms, recited a long list of the 
 names of its ancestors, from which at last he selected one. 
 As he pronounced this name, he sprinkled the child solemnly 
 with a small branch of a native shrub. In some parts of the 
 island the ceremony was performed in a running stream, in 
 which the child was immersed at the time of the name 
 being given. So much for the outward resemblance : in 
 intention and meaning the difference was as wide as possible. 
 From the moment of its birth a Maori child was regarded 
 as holy, and to be handled only by the initiated; the 
 neophyte was dedicated to the God of War, and the best 
 thing asked for him was that he might ‘‘ flame with anger 
 and be strong to wield a weapon." It is not necessary to 
 point out the contrast between these and the conditions of 
 the Christian sacrament. Of the religious usage known as 
 the ^‘Tapu," common to all Maori and Polynesian tribes from 
 New Zealand to the Sandwich Islands, something will be 
 said when we notice the work in Honolulu. 
 
 It was, then, among a people thus sunk in superstition 
 that Marsden landed with impunity in December, 1814, and 
 on Christmas Eve of the same year preached to them on the 
 significant text, “ Behold, I bring you glad tidings," Duaterra 
 acting as interpreter. Their conversion was not so rapid as 
 
 * See CMst and other Masters : Religions of Oceanica^ vol. ii . 
 
ZEALAND, 
 
 241 
 
 is generally supposed ; their savage natures were hard to 
 subdue, and many were the outbursts of passion and ven- 
 geance, which might well have damped the ardour of a man 
 less resolute than Marsden. The presence of a white man 
 was valued as he contributed to the comforts of the Maori, 
 but his religion did not attract. At length a chief named 
 Honghi, who, without abandoning cannibalism or polygamy, 
 had befriended the missionaries, was sent to England at his 
 own request. Here he had an interview with George IV., 
 who gave him, as the most appropriate present from a 
 Christian sovereign, a supply of fire-arms. Impressed with the 
 beauty of the monarchy as seen in England, he determined 
 not only that New Zealand should have the benefit of that 
 institution, but that he would himself be the monarch. On 
 his return he challenged a neighbouring chief, and with the 
 muskets which the English king had given him managed to 
 gain a victory. He drank the blood of the chief whom he 
 had killed, and devoured his eye ; his followers cooked and 
 ate as many of their enemies as they wished, and kept the 
 rest as slaves. This, it must be borne in mind, was six years 
 after Marsden’s first landing, and was the conduct of one 
 who had befriended the mission and himself. Neither was 
 this a solitary case : rather it v.^as a specimen of what fre- 
 quently happened. In 1822 Marsden returned with the 
 Rev. H. Williams, afterwards Archdeacon Williams, but nine 
 years of labour made no sensible impression. In 1825 the 
 Rev. W. Williams, now the Bishop of Waiapu, joined the 
 mission staff. The natives insisted on being paid in powder 
 for any services which they rendered to the missionaries, 
 and were angry when refused. Meanwhile the English 
 colonists were settling in increased numbers in the island, 
 and their constant affrays with the Maoris rapidly reduced 
 the native population. Marsden from time to time visited 
 New Zealand, making his seventh and last voyage in 1837. 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 242 
 
 As early as 1833 the whole of the New Testament and the 
 Prayer-book had been translated and printed. In 1836 
 the Bishopric of Australia was founded, and New Zealand 
 formed a part of that see. In 1838 Bishop Broughton visited 
 the islands and inspected the various missions, which had* 
 been entirely supported by the Church Missionary Society, and 
 admitted to the priesthood the Rev. O. Hadfield, the present 
 Bishop of Wellington. The distance of New Zealand from 
 Australia is more than 1,000 miles ; the increasing duties of 
 the bishop on the continent made it impossible for him to 
 give to the island church the care which it demanded, and 
 Bishop Broughton therefore recommended the establish- 
 ment of a bishopric for New Zealand. Two years later, by 
 the wish of the Maoris themselves, those islands were added 
 to the British dominions. An English company had already 
 bought large tracts of land from the natives, and had founded 
 the town of Wellington on the southern shore of the 
 northern island; this was soon followed by New Plymouth 
 on the western coast, and by Nelson on the northern shore 
 of the middle island, opposite to^ Wellington. With the 
 establishment of New Zealand as an independent colony, 
 the Bishop of Australia lost his legal jurisdiction over the 
 Church in the islands; the urgency of the case was a 
 stimulant to the zeal of Churchmen, and it was determined 
 that the first result of the newly-founded Colonial Bishoprics 
 Council should be the establishment of a New Zealand see. 
 
 On October 17, 1841, Bishop Selwyn was consecrated 
 first Bishop of New Zealand and of the isles adjoining. 
 
243 
 
 XXVIIL 
 
 Within two months of his consecration Bishop Selwyn 
 sailed from Plymouth for his distant diocese : his last Sun- 
 day in England was spent in Exeter, and not a few people 
 still remember vividly the effect of his sermon in the cathe- 
 dral of that city, the text being, ‘‘ How shall we sing the 
 Lord’s song in a strange land ? ” Strange, indeed, was New 
 Zealand to the minds of English people thirty years ago ; 
 there had been no so chivalrpus a venture hitherto made by 
 the Church of England, and many hearts were strangely 
 moved by the sight of the youthful bishop, turning his back 
 on bright prospects in his native land, and going (to use his 
 own words) far hence to seek for a place for the temple of 
 the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob ; in the 
 hope, like David, of finding it Gn the wood.’” Neither 
 could any country now be selected for missionary work, of 
 which we should know so little, and yet so much that was 
 terrible, as was then known of New Zealand. Marsden, the 
 brothers Williams, and other faithful men had been sent out 
 by the Church Missionary Society, and had worked hard and 
 gathered together congregations; but, as is always the case, 
 the labours of such men were not generally known, and 
 the horrible records of cannibal outrages had found a much 
 wider circulation, and made a more lasting impression. 
 Moreover, the establishment of a colonial see was a greater 
 novelty in 1841 than it is now. The present century had 
 witnessed the erection of the three Indian bishoprics, and 
 R 2 
 
244 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 two also in the West Indies ; but although these had long 
 been desiderated, their establishment was a concession 
 wrung from the government which provided their incomes 
 rather than the result of personal self-denial. The sees of 
 Australia and Newfoundland had introduced a new and 
 better order of things in 1836 and 1839, respectively. The 
 diocese of New Zealand was another hopeful fact : it dated 
 almost from the foundation of the colony itself, and it 
 promised to be the forerunner of that wide extension of the 
 colonial episcopate which is by far the happiest and most 
 important event in the post -Reformation history of the 
 Anglican Church. 
 
 During the long voyage the bishop acquired such a know- 
 ledge of the native language as enabled him to speak readily 
 to the Maoris when he landed in May, 1842. Having im- 
 mediately formed plans for the ecclesiastical divisions of the 
 islands, for the education of the natives, and for the gradual 
 endowment of the Church, he made his first visitation of the 
 northern island and part of the middle island ; this occupied 
 five months, and the journeys were made principally on foot. 
 The bishop’s shelter was a tent, which also ser^^ed the pur- 
 pose of a church ; this, which was the gift of a pious lay- 
 man, William Cotton, was carried by some of his Maori 
 companions. In 1844 the southern island was visited, and 
 here it was that the bishop was met by Wesleyan converts, 
 who had been carefully trained to distinguish between the 
 Church and that sect, and to prefer the latter. Meanwhile 
 difficulties were springing up, which have appeared again 
 and again, which much interfered with the work of the 
 clergy. English towns were formed amid the wastes far 
 away from the villages of the natives, but curiosity, and 
 afterwards profit, attracted the Maoris to the spot. It was 
 found that the English had many wants which the natives 
 could supply. Pork, fish, grass, wood, even manual labour 
 
NEtV ZEALAND, 
 
 245 
 
 were in demand, and met with adequate recompense. The 
 natives, therefore, settled in the neighbourhood of the white 
 men : they derived many advantages, but not a few evils. 
 Their religious teaching had been rudimentary, and the im- 
 pression made had been imperfect : they admired the 
 Englishman’s skill, and, with the imitative instincts of the 
 savage, tried to be as he was. They observed, among other 
 things, that the Englishman did not always go to church, and 
 never attended the school, why therefore should they ? An 
 uneasy feeling also began to appear among the natives 
 when they witnessed the increasing numbers of the English ; 
 they foresaw that they would be themselves outnumbered in 
 a few years. Foreign influences were at work to persuade 
 them that they were the slaves of the English, and that the 
 Royal standard, which was flying on the top of the hill, was 
 the emblem of their slavery. John Heke, a native, who had 
 been distinguished in earlier wars, but had recently been 
 living peaceably at a mission station, was the ringleader in 
 this insurrection : he gave notice of his intention, and two 
 days afterwards he fulfilled it by cutting down the offend- 
 ing flag-staff, and then he disappeared. It was essentially a 
 war against the emblem of their subjection, and against the 
 soldiers who defended the flag. Heke and his followers did 
 no harm to the civilians, but even warned them away, and 
 helped them to move their belongings ; this, therefore, was 
 a remarkable contrast to their deeds of twenty years before, 
 and for this merciful policy all the credit must be ascribed 
 to the missionaries. The war ceased, but not its evil results. 
 Such wars have frequently occurred since, and those who 
 ridicule missions have declared that the whole body of 
 Maori converts were deceivers and hypocrites ; that their 
 Christianity was only a thin lacquer of religious phraseology, 
 and that they easily relapsed into barbarism. Is this taunt 
 justified by fact ? They engaged in war, it is true j they 
 
246 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 smote their enemies hip and thigh. Are these actions 
 limited to New Zealanders ; and, if not, are they limited 
 always to barbarians, or semi-Christians ? Within the last 
 ten years we have seen the most civilised and polished 
 nations, in either hemisphere, shedding each other's blood 
 like water, and exercising all their skill in the endeavour to 
 find weapons which will make war more terrible and car- 
 nage more extensive. Let it be remembered that the Maoris 
 have, whether deluded or not, been fighting, as they sup- 
 posed, for their fatherland, which had been wrested from 
 them — a sentiment which in Europe passes for patriotism. 
 In our own days we have seen a Christian nation going to 
 war, not in defence of its own soil, but for the sake of a 
 geographical idea,’^ and no one has ventured to assert that 
 Napoleon III. and the accomplished French people were 
 truculent savages. In the midst of all these troubles Bishop 
 Selwyn continued to visit his diocese, and to provide for its 
 efficient administration. The school at Waimate was trans- 
 ferred to St. John's College at Auckland. Already the 
 bishop had marked in more than one of his converts qualities 
 and graces which gave him hopes of a native clergy at no 
 distant period ; already, too, he found that the edifying'^ 
 of the New Zealand Church required the subdivision of the 
 diocese. Pending this consummation, now so happily 
 accomplished, he appointed the Rev. W. Williams Arch- 
 deacon of Waiapu (of which he is now bishop), and sub- 
 sequently he constituted four other archdeaconries. The 
 duties of an archdeacon have been found by some persons 
 hard to define, and small witticisms have been exercised at 
 the expense of those officers : it may be well to give the fol- 
 lowing extract from the bishop’s Charge of 1847, which gives 
 some idea of archidiaconal functions at the Antipodes : — 
 
 It is to be hoped that the title of a ‘ Dignitary ^ of the 
 Church will never be heard in New Zealand. It is well 
 
NEW ZEALAND, 
 
 247 
 
 said by the venerable Bede, ‘ that the title of Bishop is a 
 name, not of honour, but of work and I appeal to one of 
 my archdeacons whether I did not tell him, when he was 
 following me on foot along the narrow track of a native path 
 on the side of a wild hill, with a few faithful natives for our 
 only retinue, that if I designed ^he office of archdeacon to 
 be a mere peacock’s feather, to distinguish one clergyman 
 above his brethren, I would not offer it to the acceptance of 
 any one who had borne his Master’s cross, in retirement and 
 self-denial, in the mission-field. The course of life to which 
 I invited the archdeacons was to unite with me in a com- 
 bined system of helpfulness and work.” 
 
 The system of evangelisation tours made by native con- 
 verts among their heathen brethren was adopted at an early 
 stage of the mission : indeed, from the first Bishop Selwyn 
 in full faith utilised the native Christians as missionaries. 
 In 1846 a congregation of 2,000 met at Whanganui, and 
 382 communicated : it was then determined that two 
 converts, named Manihera and Kereopa, should go and 
 preach to a tribe with whom their own tribe had been at 
 war. On their way they were warned that they were running 
 into certain peril, but this did not deter them. Ten natives 
 accompanied them ; a body of their enemies secreted them- 
 selves in the bushes, and when the Christians approached, 
 hred on them. The two teachers were killed, Kereopa on 
 the spot, but Manihera lived long enough to bind up his 
 wounds, and to give to the only one of his ten companions 
 who had been injured his Testament and some papers that 
 he had with him, telling him that that was indeed great 
 riches : having thus bequeathed what most he valued, he 
 leaned his head against a tree and died. Thus the native 
 Church of New Zealand had soon its martyrs, who died in 
 the midst of their work. In 1853 the first native deacon 
 was ordained, the Rev. Rota Waitoa (the first name being 
 
248 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 equivalent to Lot, as Maoris cannot pronounce He 
 
 was only the forerunner of seventeen others ; and amid all 
 the lights and shadows, the successes and the disasters of 
 the New Zealand Church, there stands forth this comforting 
 fact, that the native clergy have without exception proved 
 faithful and staunch. 
 
 In 1862 a serious insurrection took place in the northern 
 island under a native, William Tamihana, the king-maker. 
 The bishop attended a large gathering of the natives at the 
 chiefs house, and offered to act as mediator, stating very 
 clearly his opinion that the fault was not wholly on the side 
 of the natives. It was the old dispute about land, and the 
 interpretation of a treaty for the purchase of land. Battles 
 were fought, and all the worst passions of the natives, that 
 had so long been put to sleep, were aroused ; everywhere it 
 was declared that victory had been with the insurgents ; the 
 hope of plunder was excited, and those who had no desire 
 originally to take up arms, were now told that, unless the^ 
 did so, they would have no share in the booty. When the 
 spirit of lying got possession of them, there was not lacking 
 a still further delusion. A chief had shown such symptoms 
 of insanity that his people had bound him, first with cords 
 and afterwards with chain and padlock ; from both of these 
 he escaped, and declared that the angel Gabriel had released 
 him. From a lunatic he came to be esteemed a prophet : 
 he foretold a great victory, which was supposed to have been 
 realised when a small reconnoitring party of soldiers were 
 cut off. From a prophet he was declared to be the angel 
 Gabriel himself. A worship was compiled for his followers,, 
 which was a mixture of Romanism, Wesleyanism, and Church 
 doctrines, associated with the fanaticism and license of 
 Mahometanism. To propagate this creed by the sword 
 became a virtue, and no restraints were put on the worst 
 passions of our nature. Under the influence of visions they 
 
NEir ZEALAND. 
 
 249 
 
 reverted to cannibalism, and called their priests and leaders 
 Incas, after Peruvian custom. Something of every creed 
 they adopted : they affected the name of ‘‘ Universal,” called 
 their doctrine ^‘Pai Marire” (all-holy), and themselves 
 ‘‘ Hau-haus ” (or barkers) from their habit of going about 
 barking like dogs. In their worship at Poverty Bay they 
 practised a bitter lamentation, unlike anything witnessed 
 before : it was a mourning for their lands which they had 
 lost ; it had an overpowering effect on the bystanders ; it 
 touched their amor patrice^ and those who were before 
 unaffected joined in the fanatical movement. The delusion 
 was nothing short of violent mania. At this moment two 
 clergymen landed from a small schooner in the midst of the 
 infuriated crowd : one of them, Mr. Volkner, had lived 
 among them for years, and felt confident that his influence 
 among them was undiminished; but he knew not the 
 devilish spirit that was among them. In a moment he was 
 seized, and savagely murdered : with St. Stephen's prayer 
 on his lips he joined the multitude of those who “came out 
 of great tribulation.” 
 
 There were others besides the natives whose faith was 
 sorely tried at this time. It must have been a bitter grief to 
 the bishops and other missionaries, who had toiled so long, 
 to see the spark, which had been kindled by the arbitrary 
 and encroaching policy of our colonists, fanned by the 
 bungling of magistrates, the jealousy of the natives, and the 
 misrepresentations of enemies into a flame, which destroyed 
 the greater part of their painful labours. Of their converts, 
 many could not stand the sifting to which they were exposed : 
 it was a palpable assault of the evil one, before which they 
 fell. Very pathetic were the words which the bishop wrote 
 in 1863 : — “I have now one simple missionary idea before 
 me, — of watching over ‘the remnant that is left.* Our 
 native work is a remnant in two senses; a remnant of a 
 
250 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 decaying people and a remnant of a decaying faith. The 
 works of which you hear are not the works of heathens ; 
 they are the works of baptized men, whose love has grown 
 cold from causes common to all churches of neophytes from 
 Laodicea downwards.’^ 
 
 Of the development of the Church in New Zealand little 
 need be said, as it is an oft-told story. The episcopal chair 
 set up in 1841 has now grown into seven dioceses, each 
 with their own organisation and representative synods, and 
 together constituting the provincial synod of New Zealand : 
 the senior bishop is the metropolitan. In 1851 an attempt 
 was made to found in the middle island a distinctively 
 Church colony, in which the support of the clergy, the 
 erection of churches, and the education of the young should 
 be provided for in proportion to the increase of population 
 by grants pf land for perpetual endowment.- The idea, 
 however pious, was Quixotic ; it failed to some extent, and 
 rightly. Great as is the evil of religious division, uniformity 
 is not to be attained by secluding a small community within 
 a supposed happy valley, from which the ordinary snares of 
 humanity are shut out ; the very attempt will produce either 
 hypocrisy or rebellion against the restraint. With this as 
 with other temptations the true policy, by which a manly 
 Christian character is formed and strengthened, is to pray 
 not to be taken out of the world, but to be kept from the 
 evil thing. The colony of Canterbury, however, possesses a • 
 population of a higher character, and belonging more exclu- 
 sively to the educated classes than probably any other of 
 the British dependencies. It became a bishopric in 1856, 
 and under the rule of Bishop Harper the Church has been 
 wisely extended and consolidated. The discovery of gold 
 on the western coast has attracted a heterogeneous popula- 
 tion, for whom spiritual provision has been promptly made. 
 In 1858 the dioceses of Nelson, Wellington, and Waiapu, 
 
ZEALAND, 
 
 251 
 
 were constituted and in 1866 that of Dunedin. The 
 Maoris have never recovered the convulsions in which their 
 faith was shipwrecked : those who did not apostatise con- 
 tinue to live on the lands reserved for them, and are 
 ministered to by their own clergy. In the dioceses of 
 Waiapu and Christ Church they have shown great zeal in 
 building a church for their own use : at the very time when 
 the English were making war upon them, the Maoris in the 
 former diocese collected the endowment of that 
 
 bishopric, besides having raised an Endowment Fund of 
 ^500 for the native pastorate. None of the English settle- 
 ments have done so much ; in none of the provinces of the 
 northern island have the English made a competent pro- 
 vision for supplying themselves with the means of grace, 
 still less have they attempted to provide clergy and schools 
 for the Maoris. The very diocese which Bishop Selwyn 
 vacated by his translation was wholly unendowed ; a per- 
 manent income has since been secured for the see by the 
 energy of its first incumbent. Meanwhile the Maoris are, 
 as a people, declining in numbers : if it be the will of God 
 that they shall be removed, it is still the office of the Church 
 to tend and feed these feeble representatives of a once 
 manly race, while yet their day lasts. 
 
252 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 When the letters-patent constituting the Diocese of New 
 Zealand were issued in 1841, the limits of the see were 
 declared to be ‘‘ New Zealand and all the islands adjacent 
 thereto, and lying between 34® 30' north, and 47® 10 
 south latitude, and between 166° 5' west, and east lon- 
 gitude.’^ A glance at the map will show that such a diocese 
 was, for practical purposes, boundless. Bishop Selwyn’s 
 duties would have called him across the whole breadth oi 
 the tropical zone, and some 12 degrees north of the tropic 
 of Cancer. Much more to the purpose was the charge 
 laid on him by the Venerable Primate (Archbishop Howley) 
 not to confine his efforts to New Zealand, but to watch over 
 the progress of the Gospel throughout the coasts and 
 islands of the Pacific. This was the origin of the Mela- 
 nesian Mission. In 1847, when Bishop Selwyn had, after 
 five years’ work, brought the diocese into a condition of 
 order and system, he applied himself to the task of carrying 
 the Gospel to some of these islands. There is no part of 
 the world which could present so many difficulties : it is 
 recorded of John Wesley that, when surveying the whole of 
 the heathen world, he declared that its evangelisation was 
 not only possible but probable, except in the case of these 
 islands. Each had its own language or languages ; indeed, 
 it has been found that on a small island there have been 
 two or three distinct tongues and tribes of people, who 
 never met without bloodshed ; add to this that the climate, 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 253 
 
 Specially of the more Equatorial groups, is ill-suited, if not 
 fatal, to an European after a continuous residence ; that the 
 people were without exception barbarous and cruel as the 
 Maoris had been forty years before ; that there was not, as 
 there had been in Marsden’s case, any emigration from 
 among them which enabled that missionary to understand 
 something of their language and their dispositions before- 
 hand ; and the problem, of which Bishop Selwyn attempted 
 the solution, was indeed a difficult one. In the Polynesian 
 groups, — for the Fiji Islands, whose people are themselves 
 the “ transition-link between the black and copper-coloured 
 races,'^ divide Polynesia from Melanesia, — the work can be 
 carried on without the perpetual drawback of ill-health. In 
 Melanesia, however, both jungle fever and low fever, ague 
 and kindred disorders, render a prolonged residence on any 
 one island a reckless squandering of human strength and 
 life. In some of the Loyalty Islands, which are simply 
 coral reefs upheaved from the ocean, there is an absence of 
 all dense vegetation, and on these the London Missionary 
 Society has laboured for many years, and found them the 
 sanatoria of the Pacific. The same may be said of Erro- 
 mango, one of the New Hebrides to the north of the 
 Loyalty group, where the Nonconformist missionary John 
 Williams, after many years of admirable work in Tahiti, 
 was martyred. The character of’ the islanders, when the 
 missionaries first approached them, was of the most imprac- 
 ticable kind ; they were without a semblance of self-restraint, 
 of filial affection, almost of natural feelings. Infanticide, 
 suicide, cannibalism, and burying alive were established 
 customs; girls jumped from the cliffs with their children, 
 young men hanged themselves, women would swim out to 
 sea to be devoured by sharks, simply to escape a few 
 minute’s anxiety, pain, or grief ; wars were perpetual and 
 feuds hereditary. It was among such a people as this that 
 
254 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 in 1847-8 Bishop Selwyn commenced that work which 
 has since enlisted so much chivalrous devotion, by which 
 the Cross has won many triumphs, and whose disasters 
 have been caused not by the heathen, but by our own coun- 
 trymen. In his first cruise he visited the islands of the 
 Friendly and Navigator groups, which were in the hands of 
 Wesleyan and Presbyterian missionaries : the native teachers 
 from the latter mission had penetrated to places far removed 
 from their own homes, and in many instances their lives 
 had been sacrificed to their zeal. On the southern islands 
 of the New Hebrides (the most northern point in this 
 visitation) trading establishments of a primitive kind were 
 found, and the Roman Catholic missionaries were working 
 their way towards the Equator with much courage ; but one 
 French bishop had retired from New Caledonia, another 
 had been martyred in Ysabel, and of the native teachers 
 who had come from the healthier East, not a few had suc- 
 cumbed to climate. The bishop’s method was a bold and 
 simple one : he would approach an island in the ship’s boat, 
 wade or swim ashore, leaving the boat as a means of escape, 
 if necessary, and on the coral beach would meet the armed 
 natives. No women would appear, as they are always re- 
 moved when war is probable : a few fish-hooks would be 
 given away, or other trifling presents made; a few names 
 would be learned and written down, and the visit would 
 end. No litanies were sung, no banners were carried aloft, 
 still less was there a Christian Queen Bertha on shore to 
 prepare the way for the bishop. It was essentially a work of 
 faith and of patience : to have endeavoured to move more 
 rapidly would have ensured immediate and permanent 
 failure. This visit was the first of a series. Returning in a 
 few months’ time the bishop would find himself no longer a 
 stranger ; he would now be received with confidence ; the 
 women and children would come down to the beach, and 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 2^55 
 
 perhaps one or two boys would be allowed to return with 
 him to the college at Auckland for the summer months, 
 the bishop bringing them back to their warmer islands for 
 the winter. 
 
 In 1850 the Australasian Board of Missions was formed 
 after conference of the Bishops of Australia and New Zea- 
 land, and the Melanesian Mission was solemnly adopted by 
 those young churches, the oldest of which had not existed 
 for a generation, as their proper work. In pecuniary mat- 
 ters the Australian churches have continued to help this 
 mission, but only on one occasion has an Australian bishop 
 personally shared in the work ; indeed, it has been impos- 
 sible for those prelates, with their large sees and growing 
 populations, to do so. In 1852 the Bishop of Newcastle 
 accompanied the Bishop of New Zealand in his yacht, 
 the Border Maid.^^ Visiting or sighting fifty-three islands, 
 he was able to hold intercourse with the people of twenty-six, 
 and from eleven of them he was allowed to take away 
 scholars. This work was attended with many dangers. At 
 Fate, one of the New Hebrides group, a plot was formed 
 to cut him off and to seize his schooner, but adverse winds 
 prevented him approaching the island, and thus providen- 
 tially his life was spared. At Malicolo, in the same group, 
 the bishop had gone ashore with the boats to procure water, 
 leaving on board the Bishop of Newcastle, the mate, and 
 two or three sailors. Many canoes surrounded the ship, 
 and the natives, who were very savage in their bearing, 
 endeavoured to board, but were overawed. At last they 
 consulted together and made for the shore — the boats were 
 lying near the beach, one man being left in each, while the 
 bishop and his party had gone inland : on the beach were 
 about a hundred men fully armed ; it was evidently intended 
 as soon as the canoes reached land to seize the boats and 
 prevent the bishop’s escape. It was an anxious moment ; 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 256 
 
 the Bishop of Newcastle consulted with the mate, and 
 found that, as far as material weapons went, they were 
 powerless; the little company on board joined fervently in 
 prayer for the deliverance of their friends, and on the island 
 Bishop Selwyn had detected the evil looks of the people 
 and retreated, getting into the boats amid a shower of 
 arrows, which providentially did no harm. 
 
 In 1854 Bishop Selwyn visited England : the time had 
 come when his diocese must be divided, and there were 
 many arrangements to be completed, which could not be 
 effected without his personal conference with the heads of 
 the Church at home. During his stay he told the story of his 
 twelve years’ labour in all parts of the country, but especially 
 he preached four sermons on the Sundays in Advent before 
 the University of Cambridge, which have had results more 
 visible, although perhaps not more widely-spread, than had 
 the Bampton Lectures of Archdeacon Grant, which some 
 years before were delivered at Oxford. One of the imme- 
 diate results of these sermons was the offering himself for 
 missionary work of the future martyr of Central Africa. It 
 has already been stated that Mackenzie was willing himself 
 to go to the newly-formed mission at Delhi, and that he 
 only yielded to what he was assured was his duty when he 
 consented to remain at Cambridge for a time ; it was but 
 for a brief space, for, as has been mentioned, he soon after- 
 wards went to Africa, to which land the remnant of his life’s 
 labours was given. It was during this sojourn in England 
 that the story of the work in Melanesia attracted John 
 Coleridge Patteson. A Eellow of Merton College, Oxford, 
 the centre of a wide circle of friends, ministering in a rural 
 parish in one of the fairest scenes of England’s most beau- 
 tiful county, this young clergyman’s lot was happily placed : 
 neither could the most sensitive conscience have questioned 
 whether he was rightly placed ; for in addition to his pastoral 
 
MELANESIA. 
 
 257 
 
 duties among his parishioners he was able to lighten and 
 minister to the growing infirmities of a well-loved father. 
 It was not youthful enthusiasm nor romantic ardour that thus 
 attracted him from a sphere of manifest usefulness, but a 
 feeling of self-sacrifice. An offer of service made on any 
 less worthy grounds would in time have become evident 
 in relaxed zeal, in abated labours, in murmurs at insufficient 
 success, perhaps in a return to England. There was nothing 
 of this in Bishop Patteson ; his character deepened with 
 experience ; he became year by year more engrossed in his 
 work ; the dangers which beset him he never mentioned, 
 and against the atrocities of white men, supposed to be 
 civilised and Christian, which with sadly prophetic foresight 
 he mentioned as not unlikely to cause the death of himself 
 and his friends, he protested, not in the tone of one per- 
 sonally injured, but only with the righteous indignation 
 which such deeds excite in all honest hearts as hindrances 
 of the Gospel and of civilisation. We know now where he 
 had learned the rudiments of that modest but brave faith, 
 which has since borne fruit, so glorious yet so sad, on the 
 shores of Nukapu. He had been imbued from childhood, 
 in a thoroughly Christian home and in England's greatest 
 school, with lessons of manliness and gentleness, of self- 
 denial, of postponement of inclination to duty, and of con- 
 sideration to others. What manner of man his father. Sir 
 John Patteson, was, may be gathered from the following 
 letter which was printed in the JVew Zealaiid Church News 
 for December, 1871 : — 
 
 ‘‘Feniton Court, March 25, 1855. 
 
 My dear Bishop, — Your blessing is, indeed, valuable 
 to me, and I accept it with many thankful feelings, unworthy 
 of it as I know myself to be. 
 
 ‘‘I firmly believe that my dear boy is going to New 
 s 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 258 
 
 Zealand from the purest and holiest motives, and have no 
 doubt that it will please God to protect you and him, as 
 He has hitherto vouchsafed to protect you in your holy 
 labours. I do in no respect repent having given my con- 
 sent to his going, and shall part with him to-morrow, not 
 without some grief, but with joy that God has been pleased 
 to give me such a son, and with perfect submission to His 
 will, as to our ever seeing him again in this world. He has, 
 during the short time he has been at Alfington, been 
 enabled to do a world of good, — that is, has been the 
 favoured instrument of doing it, — and I think him adapted 
 to the work which he has undertaken. If it should turn out 
 otherwise, either from health or any other cause, I feel quite 
 sure that you will discover it and send him home. But if 
 he prove an effectual instrument in New Zealand, as I 
 heartily pray Him he may be found, I shall feel that I have 
 in some sort made a present of him to the work of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and that it is a blessed thing to have so 
 done. My age of sixty-six years is such that I cannot wish 
 to be continued here for ten years, unless there be any work 
 for me to do in which I may serve God. May His gracious 
 hand and favour be upon you both, night and day, and may 
 I be able to lay hold on the righteousness that is in Christ 
 Jesus, and through His merits be allowed to meet you both 
 again in a better world. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 ‘‘J. Patteson. 
 
 To Right Rev. the Bishop of New Zealand.” 
 
 Here, indeed, was a type of an English layman. A man 
 of acutest intellect, who had worn the ermine of the judicial 
 bench with infinite honour to himself, accepts with feelings 
 of unaffected humility the blessing of a bishop, and on 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 259 
 
 parting with his well-loved son for ever feels that he has 
 in some sort made a present of him to the work of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ/^ Simplest faith joined with devotion 
 the most profound ! If the Church had more of such sons 
 as was this distinguished judge, we need not sigh for the 
 return of a mythical age when England was called the 
 Land of Saints.’’ 
 
 Bishop Selwyn sailed three days after Judge Patteson’s 
 letter was written, accompanied by the future Bishop of 
 Melanesia. His brief sojourn in England had been the 
 means of raising up for our Church the two bishops who, 
 in our generation, have conferred on the episcopate the 
 glory of the martyr crown. Humanly speaking they were 
 the spiritual sons of the first Bishop of New Zealand, whose 
 whole career has been one of undeviating obedience and 
 self-denial ; they were worthy of their spiritual father, and 
 their devotion is sufficient to sweeten the sordidness of 
 any age. 
 
26 o 
 
 XXX. 
 
 On the return of Bishop Selwyn to New Zealand in 1855, 
 the prospects of the Melanesian Mission were full of en- 
 couragement. A suitable Church-ship, the “Southern Cross,” 
 which personal friends had provided, followed him from 
 England ; and in this yacht, far more commodious than the 
 little “ Border Maid” and other vessels that had been 
 chartered for the earlier voyages, a more complete and 
 extended visitation of the islands was made than had 
 hitherto been possible. Just at this time the French took 
 possession of New Caledonia and the Loyalty group, and 
 pushed their own missions. In that same group the London 
 Missionary Society had long had representatives. In the 
 southern New Hebrides, to the north of the Loyalty Islands, 
 the Presbyterians from Nova Scotia had long been at 
 work, and some of their missionaries had lost their lives; 
 thus the whole, of the southern portion of Melanesia, where 
 the climate is healthy and residence both feasible and 
 pleasant, appeared to be occupied by European missionaries, 
 although not of our communion. With a chivalrous self- 
 devotion, Bishop Selwyn chose to address himself to the 
 conversion of the northern islands, which had not yet been 
 touched, and where the climate was, so far as it was known, 
 extremely unhealthy. In the previous year the descendants 
 of the mutineers of the “Bounty” had been moved from 
 Pitcairn to Norfolk Island. Thus, in the middle of the 
 Pacific there was a little English colony, which claimed the 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 261 
 
 bishop’s care, and who, in their turn, might help him in his 
 work among the heathen. It is unnecessary to say much of 
 the history of this unique community. Every one who 
 reads this book will most probably have read that much 
 more interesting one, Pitcairn^ s Island, by the Rev. T. B. 
 Murray. Such a people are not perhaps to be judged by 
 the same standard as ourselves. A luxurious climate, in 
 which the trial of plenty removes the stimulus to industry 
 and supplies constant temptations to idleness, is not con- 
 ducive to the formation of a self-reliant character. More- 
 over, the Pitcairners are a mixed race, in whom the energy 
 of the Saxon is weakened by the innate indolence of the 
 Papuan. They have not had the advantages of intercourse 
 with the world, and therefore it is not to be wondered at 
 if their characters are lacking in moral force. They have 
 the habits of children — of good children, doubtless — but 
 yet of children who have been over -petted and sheltered 
 too much from the buffe tings of the world. If we may 
 anticipate matters somewhat, this is the place to mention 
 that when the bishop found in Norfolk Island a suitable 
 head-quarters for the mission, in which his scholars might 
 be kept under instruction all the year round, whereas the 
 harsher climate of New Zealand obliged them to return to 
 their tropical homes for the winter, at great expense, and 
 to the great delay of their own education, the Pitcairn 
 people expressed the strongest disapprobation of the plan ; 
 and their friends in England, from whom more wisdom 
 was to be expected, joined in the outcry. It was supposed 
 that contact with heathens and semi-heathens would in- 
 juriously affect their morale, whereas, in the progress of the 
 mission and in the working of the Church-ship, the people 
 might have found means, both for the enlargement of their 
 spiritual sympathy and for their temporal advancement. 
 Some eleven years later, in 1867, the mission was esta 
 
262 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 blished finally on Norfolk Island, and the presence of its 
 staff has been of great service in many ways to the original 
 community. Had their scruples been disregarded at first, 
 much expenditure of means, of time, and of labour would 
 have been spared. 
 
 It was while on this visitation that the ‘‘Southern Cross’' 
 touched at Norfolk Island. Here Mrs. Selwyn remained 
 for eight weeks, during which the bishop sailed further north- 
 ward than on any previous cruise. As the southern portion 
 of the Melanesian field had been left, although full of 
 promise, the northern islands seem to be opened in a 
 wonderful way, and to offer their choicest youth. Landings 
 were effected on sixty islands, and thirty-three scholars were 
 brought back to New Zealand, the majority of them from 
 the larger islands of Bauro and Guadalcanar, in the Solo- 
 mon group. 
 
 In the Banks’ Islands, which form the northern portion of 
 the New Hebrides, an admirable harbour, known to us as 
 Port Patteson, was discovered in the midst of a group of 
 islands, whose inhabitants, although not so intelligent as 
 other Melanesians, were the only tribes who did not practise 
 cannibalism. Mota, or Sugar Loaf Island, in this group, 
 has since become a very important station. With these lads 
 on board, and Mr. Patteson daily utilising them as gram- 
 mars and lexicons, the “Southern Cross” returned to Nor- 
 folk Island. Already the young savages had been brought 
 under something like discipline; and, to the astonishment 
 of the little settlement, the bishop was rowed ashore by 
 a crew of Solomon Islanders, wearing rings in their noses, 
 who were now perfectly tractable, although a few weeks 
 before they had never seen a white man. On Norfolk 
 Island the whole resident population of suitable age was 
 confirmed, and the yacht, with the bishop, returned to New 
 Zealand. Here, during the summer months, school was 
 
MELANESIA. 
 
 263 
 
 carried on — the scholars teaching their own languages to 
 the missionaries, and receiving in return lessons in industry 
 and self-control, as well as instruction in reading and 
 writing, and all tending to open their minds to receive 
 Christianity ; but at the approach of winter these delicate 
 Papuans had to be carried back to their warmer homes. 
 This was a great tax. The nearest island from which they 
 came was three weeks' sail from New Zealand ; and all the 
 interruption to the routine of their work, ail the trouble and 
 delay and expense of the double voyage across a stormy 
 sea, might have been avoided, had not the Pitcairners 
 objected so strongly to the mission occupying a portion of 
 Norfolk Island. To remedy the inconvenience as far as 
 possible, Mr. Patteson remained during the winter of 1858 
 with his Solomon and Banks’ scholars at Lifu, on the 
 Loyalty group ; but this could only be a temporary expe- 
 dient. In the year i860 again Mr. Patteson wintered at 
 Mota, teaching the people and communicating by boat with 
 neighbouring islands; but a long sojourn here is and must 
 be attended with much risk to Europeans. 
 
 In i860 the mission sustained a great loss by the wreck 
 of the ‘‘Southern Cross” on her return voyage from the 
 Banks’ Islands. At the same time the college at Auckland 
 became too small for the increasing numbers. An estate of 
 some 157 acres at Kohimarama, near Auckland, was therefore 
 purchased: the munificent authoress of The Daisy Cham 
 having given ;^2,ooo — the then profits of that charming 
 story — for the purpose. On this was erected the Mis- 
 sionary College of St. Andrew. Now at length the ma- 
 chinery seemed to be complete. Its plan had been tested 
 by the experience of a dozen years ; its teachers were in 
 full work; its permanent home, as it was supposed, was 
 built; a new “Southern Cross” was to be sent from Eng- 
 land; and there was one man who, beyond all others, 
 
264 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 seemed marked out to lead the mission onward, if Provi- 
 dence so willed, to greater successes. Mr. Patteson had for 
 six years thrown all his zeal and all the powers of his mind 
 into the work. In acquiring and reducing to grammar and 
 system between thirty and forty languages, he had shown 
 that he was a second Mezzofanti ; and amid the manifold 
 cares which devolved upon him, nothing was too minute for 
 him. In 1861, on St. Matthias’ Day, he was consecrated a 
 missionary bishop; and the work which had been founded 
 by Bishop Selwyn henceforth devolved on him. 
 
 This was a remarkable year for the Anglican Church. 
 On the first day of 1861 Bishop Mackenzie was consecrated 
 at Capetown, for the Zambesi; in the following month 
 Bishop Patteson was consecrated for Melanesia; and in 
 England, only technical and legal difficulties delayed the 
 consecration of the first Bishop of Honolulu until the 
 month of December. For the first time the Anglican 
 Church extended its episcopate beyond the limits of the 
 British dominions; and in one year, from the Antipodes, 
 from South Africa, and from England itself, three missions 
 were sent forth to carry, in their integrity, the graces and 
 sacraments and organisation of the Church to heathen 
 lands. 
 
 In 1862 the bishop, having a passage given him by the 
 captain of H.M.S. Cordelia,” penetrated further north than 
 he had ever done before, and reached the Island of Ysabel, 
 on the seventh parallel of south latitude, from which a 
 scholar was brought to New Zealand in the following year. 
 The missionary voyage of 1862 was made in a hired vessel, 
 of which the captain and part-owner was a native New 
 Zealander. 
 
 In 1863 the new ‘‘Southern Cross” arrived, in the com- 
 mand of an officer of the Royal Navy. This mission vessel 
 has rendered essential public service, since her voyages 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 265 
 
 Jiave been really the voyages of a surveying ship ; and the 
 charts, drawn by her captain, are the, most trustworthy, — in 
 some instances the only ones that can be obtained. The 
 years 1863 and 1864 were chequered by troubles. In the 
 first, a serious epidemic attacked the scholars at Kohimarama; 
 and in the second. Bishop Patteson and his crew were 
 attacked by the natives of Santa Cruz, and two young 
 Pitcairners died of their wounds. Nevertheless, both in 
 the college and in the islands, the work had begun to tell. 
 From the first the lads had been trusted, and a sense of 
 honour and self-respect had been begotten in them. Seven 
 had been baptized in this year, others were in preparation, 
 and all were advancing in civilisation and in habits of 
 industry. In the islands, specially in the Banks^ group, 
 the barbarous habits of the people were mollified and 
 subdued, and the reports, brought by the scholars of their 
 experiences at Kohimarama, had disposed their relatives to 
 receive their missionary visitors with kindness. 
 
 In 1864 the work was brought before the Australian 
 Churches (as it had been fourteen years before), and the 
 immediate result was a promise of considerable support 
 from the several dioceses; at the same time the incon- 
 venience of having the head-quarters of the mission so far 
 from the islands was more and more felt, and the govern- 
 ment of Queensland offered Curtis Island, on the north- 
 east coast of Australia, as being conveniently placed, and 
 affording a climate and food more like that which was 
 natural to the Melanesians than New Zealand. On inspec- 
 tion, Curtis Island proved unsuitable; and in 1867 a 
 settlement was offered to Bishop Patteson on Norfolk 
 Island, the natural head-quarters of the work. The Pit- 
 cairners had not only laid aside the objections — to which 
 more attention was paid in 1856 than they deserved — but 
 from two of their body having been killed at Santa Cruz in 
 
266 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 1864. and others being still connected with the mission, 
 they had come to feel a warm sympathy with it. In Octo- 
 ber, 1867, Bishop Patteson wrote: “We have made our 
 great move (great for us small folk) from Kohimarama to 
 Norfolk Island. I believe that our change is likely to turn 
 out well. The climate and powers of producing native 
 food — yams, bananas, and maize — are greatly in favour of 
 it. We have some wooden buildings up, enough to accom- 
 modate, after our fashion, about eighty or ninety Mela- 
 nesians and eight or ten English unmarried people.’^ 
 
 In 1868 an outbreak of typhoid fever among the Pitcairn 
 people, who seem to have been ignorant of all sanitary pre- 
 cautions, reached the mission, although it was three miles 
 distant and a strict quarantine had been observed. This 
 prevented any voyaging to the islands, lest the infection 
 should be spread. There were some advantages in this : 
 the lads were able to pursue their studies without inter- 
 ruption ; and the necessary work attendant on the settle- 
 ment of a large community on land, which, however fertile, 
 was uncultivated, and without houses or fences, was pushed 
 on vigorously. The mission now more closely resembled 
 a Moravian settlement than any mission of the Church of 
 England. It was to be dependent on its own land and its 
 own crops for its support. Tea, sugar, and coffee had to be 
 imported at first; but as soon as the land was fenced, 
 a large breadth was planted with yams, sweet potato, and 
 maize, which are the main articles of food among the 
 natives. The work of the printing presses was not allowed 
 to be neglected ; several of the lads proved very exact 
 compositors. The whole of the Prayer-book had by this 
 time been translated and printed, and the bishop had com- 
 pleted the translation of the fourth Gospel. In the school 
 the variety of languages made many classes necessary, and 
 so added to the labour of the teachers. By this time many had 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 267 
 
 been baptized, and when they returned to their homes they 
 did not stand alone, but had the advantage of mutual support. 
 
 The mission had now become so established, and its 
 routine so stereotyped, that a sketch of its daily work, con- 
 tributed to Mission Life by a naval officer, may be given as 
 an illustration of the general principles on which it has been 
 conducted. 
 
 At 7 A.M. the whole community meets in chapel. As it 
 would be impossible for every language spoken by the many 
 members of the congregation to be used, either in hall or 
 chapel, the language of Mota, one of the Banks' Islands, 
 has been adopted as the common tongue, and this is under- 
 stood now by the scholars who come from thirty or forty 
 islands, each with its own language or dialect. The psalms 
 are chanted, the hymns sung in parts and in capital tune, — 
 for the Melanesians have good ears for music. To morning 
 prayer succeeds breakfast, where, with the exception of tea, 
 as a concession to English habits, all fare alike and sit at a 
 common table, the diet being chiefly vegetables, with biscuits 
 and milk. After breakfast there is school for an hour and 
 a-half ; then work of all kinds — planting, fencing, digging, 
 building, printing, and what not. At one o'clock comes 
 dinner ; then work again until tea, which is at six. Evening 
 classes and prayers follow, and bed-time is early. The 
 bishop and the white teachers, clergy and laity, retire to 
 their own rooms after evening prayers, but it is understood 
 that they are not inaccessible ; and at this time some of the 
 more thoughtful and intelligent of the lads come to them, 
 and, with the shyness of an Englishman, painfully speak of 
 their difficulties, and ask for help and guidance. Some 
 of these difficulties have been suggested by the scriptural 
 instruction which they have received : this, to the more 
 advanced classes, is given in the form of lectures, at which 
 they take notes, for the aid of their own memories. On 
 
268 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Saturday work and school are suspended, and the whole 
 party goes fishing, bathing, playing rounders, or otherwise 
 diverting itself/^ 
 
 In this community there is no servant seen. It is, liter- 
 ally, a community, having work and all things in common. 
 The teachers set the example in all kinds of work by doing 
 their own part : it is not the life of a democracy, but of an 
 united Christian family. The domestic question which 
 troubles English society is unknown in the less conven- 
 tional atmosphere of Norfolk Island. This arose from the 
 necessity, in the first instance, of showing a party of savages 
 how everything was to be done. Whether it was feeding 
 the pigs, milking the cows, or washing cups and plates, the 
 missionaries had first to do it with their own hands. How 
 different is this from the contemptuous treatment which 
 ‘‘black fellows and “niggers'^ receive from English gentle- 
 men in other parts of the world ! The Christian only is 
 a true gentleman and Christianity the only true civiliser. 
 
 In December, 1868, a great event befel the mission — the 
 ordination of the first native. George Sarawia, a native of 
 Vanua-Lava, one of the Banks^ Islands, came away from his 
 home with Bishop Selwyn ten years before. Up to that time 
 he had never seen a white man; in 1859 his friends pre- 
 vented him returning to Kohimarama ; in i860 he came 
 back, and had never left the mission since. The ordination 
 was held in the little chapel at Norfolk Island dedicated to 
 St. Barnabas. Mr. Bice, of St. Augustine's College, was 
 ordained at the same time. The service was wholly in the 
 Mota language ; fifty-five Melanesians were present, and had 
 so studied the ordination service for several weeks as to be 
 able to follow it intelligently. In the middle of 1869 the 
 Rev. George Sarawia was stationed at Mota, with his wife 
 and two married couples, natives of the island, and com- 
 municants, who were able to assist him in school and to 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 269 
 
 teach their countrymen by example and precept. Land was 
 purchased and a wooden house was built, and the station 
 was called by the lads Kohimarama, in memory of their old 
 station in New Zealand. 
 
 In 1869 ^ very satisfactory cruise was made. The bishop 
 spent a month at Mota, the guest of George Sarawia ; the 
 Solomon group was carefully visited — Mr. Atkin spending 
 three weeks on shore at San Christoval and Mr. Brooke ten 
 days at Florida. The people of the northern islands are far 
 more intelligent than in the southern : they are artistic in 
 their work, decorate their canoes and weapons with taste 
 and much pains, and are a strong testimony to the theor}^ 
 that these islands were originally peopled by an emigration 
 from the more cultivated races of Asia. 
 
 In 1870 Mr. Codrington spent six weeks at Mota, while 
 the bishop went northwards in the Church-ship. The jour- 
 nal of his sojourn there, the only white man among so many 
 natives, each the object of varying hopes and fears, is as 
 interesting reading as could be wished for ; the contrast 
 between an Oxford Fellow, reading for his recreation on that 
 remote island jPere Gatrfs Letters^ Liddon^s Bampton Lectures^ 
 and Max Muller's Flint Chips^ the latest products of European 
 thought, and the speculations of the people about himself, 
 some believing him to be a “Tamate," or ghost, their savage 
 ways and customs, their glimmerings of better things, their 
 imitation of English ways, and their ultimate belief that they 
 are even as the English, is very striking. No one can fail to 
 see from reading Mr. Codrington's journal how great a power 
 among such a people is one intelligent Englishman, and what 
 immense aid he possesses in the things which are to us matters 
 of everyday use, but which, utterly strange to the natives, are 
 regarded by them as evidences of the superior level on 
 which he lives. The man who could take photographs and 
 print from the negatives, who could wind up a clock and 
 
270 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 cause it to strike when standing some yards away from it, 
 was surely to be listened to when he urged the giving up of 
 charms, even the burning of them, the laying aside of 
 weapons, and the use of soap and water, to say nothing of 
 greater and higher things. 
 
 At the end of 1870 the bishop reported that at Norfolk 
 Island there were 180 Melanesians, of whom sixty-two were 
 baptized, and eleven or twelve were about to be baptized ; 
 seventeen were communicants, and seven were to be ad- 
 mitted to their first communion on Christmas Day : that 
 many more were catechumens, and that the earnestness of 
 the elder ones was shown by their proposing voluntarily to 
 go to other islands, where the dialect was like their own ; 
 that the idea of undertaking mission work was becoming 
 general, and that there were five young men whom he 
 should be ready to ordain at that time, if any immediate 
 need existed for the ministrations of native clergy : as it 
 was, he preferred to use them as lay evangelists. In 1871 
 the “ Southern Cross ” took away more than twenty native 
 Christians to settle in their own homes : at the end of that 
 year there were more than 300 Christians living on their 
 native islands, and among their own friends. In the school 
 at Norfolk Island were representatives of nearly all the 
 islands from “ Three Hills, in the New Hebrides, to 
 “ Ysabel,’^ in the Solomon group, extending over nine de- 
 grees of latitude. Four of the Solomon islanders — three 
 from Florida and one from Savo — had spent two years on 
 Norfolk Island under the care of Mr. Brooke, and had 
 returned home apparently little influenced : in the light of 
 their new teaching the heathenism of their people appeared 
 in its true colours. They asked to be brought back in the 
 “ Southern Cross.^^ On their voyage they witnessed the 
 attack at Nukapu ; and in the sufferings and death of 
 Stephen Taroaniara they saw that what had been taught to 
 
MELANESIA. 
 
 271 
 
 him was true, and they asked for baptism, that they might live 
 and die as he had lived and died. Poor, simple savages ! 
 many a savant of European fame might envy their simple 
 faith. In this year, which ended so fatally, remarkable pro- 
 gress had been made. Another clerical helper, Mr. Jackson, 
 had joined the staff from the Diocese of Christ Church ; a 
 medical man had been secured for Norfolk Island ; many 
 sojourns were made on islands that before had only been 
 visited for a few hours. Mr. Bice spent ten days on Leper's 
 Island, in the New Hebrides, the first white man who had 
 ever done such a thing, and brought away several lads with 
 him ; Mr. Brooke spent three months on Florida, one of 
 the Solomon group ; and on Savo, Wadrokal, an old pupil, 
 with four Christian natives, was placed in order to establish 
 a school. Mr. Atkin spent the last three months of his 
 useful but brief life in the Southern Solomon Islands, his 
 head-quarters being on San Christoval, but his new boat 
 enabled him to make many perilous excursions to the 
 neighbouring islands ; his companion in all these was the 
 faithful Stephen Taroaniara, who afterwards died with him. 
 Bishop Patteson spent nearly four months on Mota with 
 George Sarawia. The results of his work are shown by the 
 fact of his having baptized 293 persons, infants and adults : 
 while he was on this island teachers were sent by him to the 
 neighbouring islands of Santa Maria and Saddle Islands ; 
 but the story had better be told in the bishop’s own words, 
 and by one of the last letters which he wrote. 
 
 It was on August 22, 1871, that the following letter was 
 written to Canon Vidal, of Sydney : — 
 
 ‘‘ You will be thankful to hear that the time has arrived, 
 by God’s great goodness, for Mota to receive the Gospel. 
 Much has no doubt been done by George Sarawia’s steady, 
 consistent behaviour ; by the regular school that for two 
 years he has kept up ; and by the example of our scholars 
 
272 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 as they returned to take up their quarters for good on their 
 native island. But so it is that God’s Spirit is now working in 
 the minds and hearts of the people there, so as to be to them- 
 selves and to us a cause of thankfulness and astonishment 
 
 ‘‘We have sought to be very cautious, and have not bap- 
 tized even the children, except where they were evidently 
 sickly, or even dying. But now the parents all promise that 
 their children shall go to school, and be brought up as 
 Christians ; and many of the people are seeking to be bap- 
 tized, saying that ‘ they do see and feel the truth and bless- 
 ing of this new teaching, and have really abandoned their 
 old habits, and feel new thoughts, and hopes, and desires, 
 &c.’ Our Catechism classes have been large ; and I think 
 I may safely say that they have learned the great truths of 
 Christianity, and have an intelligent apprehension of a 
 Christian’s faith and duty. In every case, I need not say, 
 we sought to ascertain fully that there was real conviction, 
 earnestness, faith in the truths and promises of the Gospel, 
 and full purpose of amendment of life. 
 
 “ There has been no excitement and no outpouring of 
 strong feeling; but a quiet, gradual movement extending 
 itself from one party to another. 
 
 “ Men went away from evening school to sit all night in 
 their houses talking, thinking, &c. Their own accounts of 
 their timid attempts to begin to pray, of what they said and 
 did, are striking for their simplicity and sincerity. So, from 
 one to the other, the desire communicated itself, as God’s 
 Spirit wrought in the heart of each to make full profession 
 of their faith. Many said, ‘I see it, and don’t doubt at all. I 
 see that Jesus, whom the Father sent to be our Saviour and 
 Redeemer, appointed baptism for the remission of sins, for 
 gathering us into the body of the faithful. But it is so 
 great a thing, so weighty, that I fear, if I should break my 
 promise ; if I should go back to old ways.^ 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 273 
 
 Well, so it went on during seven weeks, broken by a 
 cruise of three weeks among the New Hebrides Islands into 
 two portions of three and four weeks. 
 
 “We have baptized 293 persons : seventeen lads of George 
 Sarawia’s school; forty-one grown up and mostly married 
 men and women ; the rest children and infants. 
 
 “You will, I know, pray more than ever for this little 
 infant church, and for George Sarawia.^^ 
 
 The third voyage of this year witnessed the calamity 
 which took away the head of the mission to his reward. 
 The tragedy was not unexpected either by the mission party 
 or by their friends in England. From the first the mission 
 had been conducted with great peril, in consequence of the 
 conduct of sailors and traders, who touched at the islands 
 for water or to trade with the natives for sandal-wood, which 
 they sold to the Chinese to be burnt as incense in their 
 joss-houses. For years the clergy had been in the habit of 
 mentioning in their letters that their work had been hindered, 
 and the confidence of the people in themselves shaken, by 
 the presence of vessels which kidnapped the natives and 
 carried them off to Fiji and to Queensland. In 1868 the 
 Mota people came to the bishop, and in a most pathetic 
 manner implored him to bring back to them th-eir -fnends, 
 who had been carried away by fraud, offering him two large 
 pigs, the greatest treasure they possessed, if only he would 
 do so. In the adjoining island of Ara, in 1869, the people 
 showed the bishop the spot where they had attacked a boat’s 
 crew belonging to a ship which had taken away one cargo 
 of their friends and had come back for another : “ they had 
 refrained from killing the men whom they wounded^ for fear 
 the bishop would be angry wheii he heard of it In 1870 
 Mr. Codrington found that a ship had been wrecked at 
 Whitsuntide Island, and five white men had lived comfort- 
 ably on shore with the savages for weeks : at length a 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 snatch-snatch vessel came to the neighbouring island of 
 Ambrym and carried off some people by violence ; the news 
 was carried to Whitsuntide, and, as an act of retaliation, the 
 people there killed and ate the shipwrecked men, whom 
 they had before so kindly entertained as friends. There- 
 fore, when the news came to Norfolk Island, to New Zea- 
 land, to Australia, and to those persons in England who 
 had followed the work of this mission, that on the vigil of 
 St. Matthew, the apostle, evangelist, and martyr, he who had 
 been so long the apostle and evangelist of the Pacific had 
 fallen in the midst of his labours, however great the grief, 
 the surprise was small. That the lives of Bishop Patteson, 
 Mr. Atkin, and Stephen Taroaniara were taken as a justifi- 
 able expiation of the deeds of othei white men is clear : 
 there was no grudge against them personally ; only the pre- 
 vious year they had been among the people of Nukapu. 
 The canoes met the Southern Cross '' three or four miles 
 out at sea; the natives clambered on board without fear; 
 the bishop had landed and gone with the people into the 
 village, and the boat lay on the beach for an hour. How 
 sad was the change in one year ! Sadder still to think that 
 it was caused by the greed and treachery of men who spoke 
 our language, who probably called themselves Christians, 
 who had even traded on the confidence which the people 
 reposed in the bishop, and had resorted to the dastardly 
 artifice of painting their ships like the “ Southern Cross,’' in 
 order that their wicked errand might not be suspected. 
 
 So, on the shore of the Island of Nukapu the first Bishop 
 of Melanesia died the martyr's death ; the penalty which the 
 unreasoning logic of savage laws demanded was exacted, 
 but no further insult was done to the lifeless body of the 
 saintly prelate. Wrapped in a mat, with the knotted palm- 
 branch on the breast (a suggestive emblem whatever the 
 intentions of those who laid it there), it was replaced in the 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 275 
 
 boat and floated out to the “Southern Cross,” where the 
 sorrowing companions received it, and the next day com- 
 mitted it to the deep. 
 
 Had an English gun-boat been allowed to cruise in these 
 waters for the last three years, during which the growing 
 evasions of the “Merchant Shipping Act” and the “Queens- 
 land Labour Act ” had made the people more and more 
 hostile to white men, the catastrophe might have been spared. 
 We think with shame of the numbers of our countrymen 
 who, directly they are removed from the restraints of civilised 
 life, sink into mere braves ; we think with shame of the dis- 
 honour done to our flag by such persons, while in every sea 
 English people with unjustifiable pride swagger and shout 
 “ Rule, Britannia ! ” These evil specimens of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race cannot be trusted beyond the surveillance of the 
 law; and a gun-boat would have been well employed in 
 restraining them. At length H.M.S. “Rosario” was ordered 
 to cruise in these waters, and on reaching Norfolk Island 
 her commander learned that the tragedy had occurred which 
 he was sent to prevent, but which he now resolved to 
 avenge. 
 
 The tale of the achievements of this frigate we read with 
 sorrow. The commander writes : “ On opening the village, 
 I fired a couple of broadsides at 2,400 yards. ... I left 
 the ship with the two cutters and gigs, manned and armed, 
 and pulled into the village. On arriving within a hundred 
 yards of the shore, I tried pacific measures, and called out 
 for the two chiefs, Taula and Mota, who were the men that 
 accompanied the late Bishop Patteson on shore, when he 
 was murdered ; but they immediately opened fire, several of 
 the arrows striking the boat. On the arrival of the other 
 boats I gave the order to open fire with the rifles, so as to 
 clear the bush to enable us to land, but finding it impossible 
 to dislodge them, the order was given to land and destroy 
 
 T 7 
 
276 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 the village, which was accordingly done, although the 
 natives behaved most pluckily : their loss would be difficult 
 to ascertain, though I fancy it must have been severe.” 
 
 We have no wish to criticise this achievement unjustly : 
 all at once the outraged majesty of the law, so long defied 
 with impunity, is upheld ; a bishop's death is avenged by 
 the ruined villages, the mangled limbs and forfeited lives of 
 those whom he only wished to convert and to civilise. Not 
 after this fashion would our good missionary bishop have 
 desired that the deaths of himself and of his friends should 
 be avenged. Vengeance ! there was no such word in his 
 vocabulary, save in the Christian sense of returning good 
 for evil. Indeed, as though with prophetic instinct, he had 
 protested against such a step. In his memorandum pre- 
 sented to the Provincial Synod of New Zealand he wrote : 
 ‘‘ I desire to protest by anticipation against any punishment 
 being inflicted against the natives of these islands who may 
 cut off vessels or kill boats' crews, until it is clearly shown 
 that these are not done in the way of retribution for outrages 
 first committed by white men. . . . People write incon- 
 siderately about the treachery of these islanders. I have 
 experienced no instance of anything of the kind during 
 fourteen years’ intercourse with them ; and I may fairly 
 claim the right to be believed when I say, that if the 
 Tvlelanesian is treated kindly he will reciprocate such treat- 
 ment readily. The contact of many of these traders arouses 
 all the worst suspicions and passions of the wild, untaught 
 man. It is not difficult to find an answer to the question. 
 Who is the savage and who is the heathen man ? '' In spite 
 of this, ^^a couple of broadsides ” have been poured into the 
 village of Nukapu, and a party of British sailors and marines 
 have added another to their many laurels, by inflicting a 
 loss which their commander fancied must have been 
 severe ” on the savage but plucky ” population. The 
 
MELANESIA, 
 
 277 
 
 British supremacy is therefore re-established ; it has nothing 
 to fear from Nukapu. Whether the future work of the 
 missionaries in these islands is not made an impossibility is 
 altogether another matter : the outrage on a British subject 
 has been avenged after a code far stricter than Moses’ law. 
 Had Bishop Patteson lost his life at the hands of some 
 representative, however degraded, of a powerful state, the 
 British dignity would perhaps have been appeased in some less 
 sanguinary manner, and edifying orations would have been 
 uttered, and exalted despatches written, in laudation of the 
 march of human progress, which referred the disputes of 
 nations to pacific arbitration. Circumstances alter cases, 
 and even great principles are sometimes affected by them. 
 
 Stunned as they were by the calamity, the survivors did 
 not neglect the work of the mission ; indeed, the extremity 
 of the occasion was a great test of the zeal of the converts. 
 Every member, white and black, has from the first deter- 
 mined that the work shall go on as their dear bishop would 
 have wished that it should go on, and the more advanced 
 scholars have shown a thoughtfulness and power of useful- 
 ness greater than could have been expected from them. Mr. 
 Codrington has visited Queensland in the hope of meeting 
 with some of his old scholars ; he found only four with 
 whom he could converse, and they were strangers to him ; 
 but, to the disgrace of a Christian colony, he found that not 
 the slightest effort had been made, whether by Noncon- 
 formists or Churchmen, to provide instruction of any kind 
 for the 2,000 Melanesian immigrants in the colony. 
 
 The deaths of these patient servants of the Cross have 
 tended, more perhaps than did their self-denying lives, to 
 awaken a sympathy with missionary work and a belief in its 
 reality. The sad event and the legislation necessary to sup- 
 press the infamous traffic which caused it, deservedly held a 
 prominent place in the Royal Speech at the opening of 
 
278 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Parliament in February, 1872. Money has been lately 
 given freely towards the support of the mission : among the 
 offerings was one of loj*. 4^., from ^a tribe of Dacota 
 Indians in North America, who were themselves, only four 
 years ago, sunk in apparently hopeless barbarism. Still 
 more recently a son of the revered founder of the mission, 
 the Rev. John Selwyn, has resigned his living in England, 
 and given himself as a sharer of the labours of that faithful 
 but suffering band, who amid so many perils are winning 
 the islands of the far Pacific for their Lord and Master. 
 
XXXI. 
 
 The work of the Church in Australia, or, at least, in the 
 settled districts of that continent, has outlived the heroic 
 age, and has come down to the level of ordinary pastoral 
 work, although the extent of parochial districts and of 
 dioceses make that work to be on a larger scale than 
 Churchmen are accustomed to at home. It was, however, 
 the work of heroes to minister in that newly-peopled country 
 half a century ago. The self-devotion of Mr. Johnson and, 
 at a later period, of Mr. Marsden, whose ministrations to a 
 miserable convict population were thwarted and hindered by 
 the authorities from whom they had a right to expect sym- 
 pathy, have been mentioned in a previous paper. Such men 
 were indeed the salt which saved the whole colony from 
 becoming irretrievably corrupt. Before Marsden’s death, 
 the Australian Church had received one who was destined 
 to exercise a great influence upon it : this was William Grant 
 Broughton, who in 1829 was appointed Archdeacon of New 
 South Wales, the country itself forming a part of the diocese 
 of Calcutta. At that time the colony was almost without 
 the means of grace ; there were some 60,000 English people, 
 of whom more than one-third were convicts, scattered over 
 an immense area, some in the newly-formed towns, others 
 far away in the bush, and hardly one clergyman to each 
 5,000 of the population. And what a population it was ! 
 The criminals of the mother country sent out under condi- 
 tions which were certain to make them more depraved, and 
 
28 o 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 turned loose in a land almost barren of religious privileges, 
 and in which the worship of God at stated times was 
 imposed as a matter of discipline on the prisoners, but per- 
 formed by none as a duty or as a privilege. Archdeacon 
 Broughton was a man of greater power and possessed higher 
 intellectual vigour than any of the earlier Australian chap- 
 lains ; he was not content with struggling against the 
 opposition of local officials, but he boldly appealed to the 
 mother country, and in conjunction with the excellent 
 Judge, Sir W. Burton, revealed to the whole world the pan- 
 demonium which England had raised up at the Antipodes. 
 In 1836 Australia was formed into an episcopal see, and its 
 first archdeacon became its first bishop. The labours of 
 Bishop Broughton were truly apostolic : he journeyed alone 
 (for the clergy were too few to allow of his having a com- 
 panion) over the whole of that colony which is now the 
 scene of the labours of sixteen bishops. In 1838 he visited 
 New Zealand, and was instrumental in securing the establish- 
 ment of that see. If it be said that the population of the 
 colony in those days bore no proportion to the present 
 number, the difficulties of travelling were infinitely greater 
 then than now. There were few roads and scanty entertain- 
 ment ; deeds of violence were then of every-day occurrence. 
 Even those who wished for better things were removed far 
 from all means of grace. In 1843 the bishop wrote : — 
 
 “In my present journey I have been through one county, 
 Durham, in the whole extent of which there is not a church, 
 and only one clergyman ; in the adjoining county of Brisbane, 
 there is one church and one clergyman — no more. After 
 that I shall pass through three entire counties in which there 
 is neither minister nor ordinance of religion, and the five 
 counties included in this enumeration contain a fourth part 
 of the area of New South Wales, and from a sixteenth to an 
 eighteenth of the entire population.'* The energies of the 
 
AUSTRALIA, 
 
 281 
 
 Church of England were at this time concentrated on New 
 South Wales, and surely there w^as a cause ; year after year 
 clergymen and money for their support were sent out, and 
 the work attracted many men of no ordinary gifts and talents. 
 In 1843 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was 
 maintaining forty clergymen in this diocese : a great contrast 
 to the sixteen which were at work when the bishop was con- 
 secrated, seven years before ; in the same time, the churches 
 had increased from seventeen to forty-five, and a college for 
 training candidates for Holy Orders had been opened. In 
 1840 the Legislature determined that no more convicts should 
 be sent to New South Wales. As this immigration ceased, 
 the stream of free immigrants rapidly increased, and year by 
 year the fact became more evident that the diocese needed 
 subdivision. The bishop made a sacrifice of one-fourth of his 
 income, ;^5oo per annum, to secure this object, and on St. 
 Peter's Day, 1847, of the four bishops then consecrated in 
 Westminster Abbey, three, — viz., the bishops of Newcastle, 
 Melbourne, and Adelaide, — became suffragans of the new 
 metropolitical see of Sydney. To the endowment of the first 
 two the bishop had contributed from his own income ; the 
 See of Adelaide, together with that of Capetown, founded at 
 the same time, was endowed by a member of the Church at 
 home. This was a great relief, but the dioceses thus formed 
 were still so large that the area of each may here be recorded 
 with advantage. Taking as a standard Great Britain, which 
 has an area of 100,000 square miles, we find that Sydney 
 was just that area; Newcastle was five times as large; 
 Melbourne four-fifths, or 80,000 square miles, and Adelaide 
 thrice as large. Each of these dioceses, with the exception 
 of Melbourne, has been since subdivided ; out of Sydney 
 the diocese of Goulburn was taken in 1863, with one-fourth 
 of the population, but a far larger share of the area of the 
 colony; while in 1869 another subdivision took place, and a 
 
282 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 grandson of Dr. Marsden, the Apostle of New Zealand, 
 became the first Bishop of Bathurst. Newcastle, with its 
 800 miles of coast, and stretching inland from east to west 
 some 700 miles, was relieved in 1859 of the colony of 
 Moreton Bay, or South Queensland, by the establishment of 
 the See of Brisbane, which formed the northern portion of 
 the diocese; and in 1867 a new diocese was formed between 
 Brisbane and Newcastle, and was called Grafton and Armi- 
 dale. In 1856 Western Australia was severed from the See 
 of Adelaide, and the bishopric of Perth was established. 
 Thus the episcopate, tardily given to Australia in 1836, has 
 developed into sixteen sees. In New Zealand, which then 
 formed part of Bishop Broughton's charge, there are now 
 six dioceses, exclusive of the missionary bishopric in Mela- 
 nesia. Tasmania became an independent see in 1842, and 
 on the continent of Australia there are now nine bishops. 
 This has been accomplished neither wholly nor in the largest 
 degree by Churchmen in England : the Colonial Bishoprics 
 Council and the Church Societies have made considerable 
 donations, but only to meet the far larger sums raised in the 
 colonies. Amid a striving people, who in the majority of 
 cases began life without capital, and have had to struggle 
 against many difficulties, there have been found Churchmen 
 who valued the blessings of episcopacy, and who have given 
 munificently to secure them for their posterity. The example 
 set by Bishop Broughton has had its effect on the laity : it 
 has been repeated more than once by the Bishop of New- 
 castle, who has himself contributed largely to the endowment 
 both of the original see and of those of Brisbane and of 
 Grafton and Armidale. 
 
 The history of the Australian Church since 1847 is, in fact, 
 the history of the several dioceses. Bishop Broughton con- 
 tinued his vigorous rule, to the great benefit both of his 
 diocese and of the province, until 1853. In Melbourne, 
 
AUSTRALIA, 
 
 283 
 
 reckless speculation, with its natural reaction, at one time 
 reduced the colony to the verge of bankruptcy. The city 
 had sprung up like a gourd ; land fetched a fabulous price ; 
 labourers received loj*. per diem, and a sheep was worth 
 JTT) Emigrants from all parts hurried to what promised 
 
 to be truly Australia* Felix; soon the labour market was 
 glutted, land was to be had for a nominal sum, a sheep 
 was worth only \s, 6 d. This was a time of crisis, but the 
 colony recovered from it, and in 1851 the discovery of gold 
 brought an influx of emigrants and conferred on it a 
 prosperity greater and more firmly established than ever it 
 had enjoyed before. The return of fortune to the people 
 extended to the Church, and to the cause of religion ; there 
 were many who gave largely to the Church out of their 
 newly-found wealth, but the liberality of the colony was 
 shown by the action of the Legislature of Victoria, which 
 appropriated a large annual sum to the building of places 
 of worship, and the payment of the stipends of religious 
 teachers. State aid is not the wisest shape in which the 
 piety of a community can show itself ; it taxes all alike, 
 removes from the devout the feeling that they are making an 
 offering to God, and affords to the careless an opportunity 
 of grumbling that they are taxed for the support of public 
 worship ; it establishes no bond of Christian unity between 
 the teachers and their people, and, as it may be withdrawn 
 at any time, is utterly untrustworthy as a matter of permanent 
 help. With the exception of this State aid, which has been 
 in its full extent limited to Melbourne, what has been 
 written of this diocese fairly describes the condition of the 
 other dioceses in New South Wales. In all the discovery 
 of gold, — while it has disarranged previous calculations and 
 emptied townships in which churches had been built, and 
 thrown their inhabitants houseless and churchless on a 
 barren hill-side swarming with diggers, — has necessarily 
 
284 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 added to the general wealth and prosperity of the colony. 
 In Brisbane, in a sub-tropical climate, industry has opened 
 out other fields of enterprise. In the plantations, where 
 Europeans cannot safely expose themselves to the sun, large 
 numbers of Coolies are employed, and the supposed neces- 
 sity for such labourers has led to the miserable abduction of 
 Melanesians, of which enough has been written in the pre- 
 ceding paper. There it was stated that although 2,000 of 
 these heathen were working in a Christian colony, no effort 
 whatever had been made to provide them with any religious 
 instruction. If there be any value in statistics, and if 
 extension beyond the towns into the remoter districts be 
 any true test of a Church’s vigour, the Diocese of Brisbane 
 will not compare favourably with the other dioceses of 
 Australia. The diocese whose churches are in the best con- 
 dition, — whose financial system is the soundest, and which 
 is so arranged as that neither the clergy shall be the slaves 
 of their flocks, nor the flocks the mere paymasters of their 
 pastors, — which has elicited from its members the largest 
 gifts for the endowment of its churches, and for its own sub- 
 division, and which year by year contributes most largely 
 both to the Melanesian and other heathen missions, — is the 
 Diocese of Newcastle. This diocese has likewise had the 
 advantage, unparalleled in our colonial episcopate, of the 
 uninterrupted residence of Bishop Tyrrell, since his arrival 
 from England in 1848. 
 
 In Adelaide the Church has had greater prosperity, and 
 has become independent at an earlier date than in any other 
 diocese. It has long been self-supporting : the gifts of early 
 settlers having increased in value with the other property of 
 the colony. The poorer part of the diocese, which is now 
 the See of Perth, had not the same advantages with which 
 to start ; the great dearth of labour made the construction of 
 roads, of bridges, of government buildings and other neces- 
 
AUSTRALIA, 
 
 28 s 
 
 sary elements of commercial success almost impossible ; the 
 colonists have therefore been obliged to olfer to accept 
 convict labour from England. 
 
 It must not be supposed from the rapid development of 
 the Australian Church that its resources are even now at all 
 commensurate with its needs. Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, and 
 Tasmania no longer receive any pecuniary help from England. 
 Grafton, and Armidale, and Bathurst, have never received any 
 such assistance since they were formed into separate sees. 
 It is obvious that the small grants from the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel to the other dioceses must shortly 
 be withdrawn and spent on more necessitous places. Even 
 now it seems at first sight ridiculous to send money to the 
 wealthy colony of Victoria, whose Church receives State aid 
 to the amount. of nearly 20,000 per annum ; and it is most 
 certain that when such precarious aid as the Legislature now 
 gives is withdrawn, the deficiency will have to be supplied 
 from private offerings in the colony. But we in England 
 are apt to overlook or to fail to realise the immense area 
 over which a colonial population is spread, and that in 
 spiritual things the law of supply and demand does not hold 
 good : a body of gold diggers is not likely to apply for the 
 ministrations of a clergyman, or to build for themselves a 
 church as readily as they will build a theatre or a drinking- 
 bar : the want of amusement or of refreshment they feel, and 
 they will do their best to supply it ; their spiritual needs 
 they do not realise ; the sense of them has to be created. 
 The clever author of The Clockmaker tells us that when he 
 found no one who would buy his clocks because they had 
 done without one so long that they did not need one, he 
 asked to be allowed for his own convenience to leave one 
 until his next visit. He was careful to leave a good one, to 
 hang it up and set it going. In a month^s time he would 
 fetch it, and say nothing about selling it, but the people had 
 
286 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 got SO accustomed to its tickings and warnings and strikings 
 that they now became the petitioners, and gave him what- 
 ever price he asked. To compare small things with great : 
 a visit of an earnest clergyman to a settlement of squatters, 
 or shepherds, or diggers, will teach them that they have needs 
 of which heretofore they were unconscious, and they will 
 take means for supplying themselves and their necessities, 
 but they must not be expected to meet a want of which they 
 are ignorant. Far away on the downs and in the bush of 
 Australia there must, for many years to come, be large num- 
 bers of English people removed from any but the most 
 irregular ministrations. The life of a clergyman in these 
 districts is a hard one ; he has no great dangers, except from 
 an occasional assault from the natives, but neither can he 
 look for many comforts in his work or for himself personally. 
 He can see his people only at such intervals, *and even then 
 only at the risk of neglecting the few residents in the town 
 which is his head-quarters, that he can hope to make but 
 little impression, and must not expect to see the results of 
 any that may have been made. By starting on a Monday 
 morning and riding hard until the Saturday week following, 
 he manages to hold services night by night in wool sheds, 
 in drinking bars, or even sub Dio ; he will have dropped on 
 some lonely shepherd in his bark hut on a run miles away 
 from any station, and found him perhaps an educated gentle- 
 man, a graduate or an ex-military man, but sullen and 
 broken down by a series of reverses. Here and there his 
 ministrations will be received gladly, and he will regret the 
 more the necessity of leaving those who have welcomed 
 him. Tired and worn, he will get back to his home on 
 Saturday night, after twelve days' hard riding, and hard 
 living on tea, damper, and beef, tobacco his only material 
 luxury, to find that the cessation of service on the previous 
 Sunday has offended some of his congregation, and risked 
 
AUSTRALIA, 
 
 287 
 
 the amount of his yearly stipend. The country will one day 
 be covered with parishes of more moderate size, and the 
 clergy will not have to live in the saddle. As it is, surely 
 the need of caring for the squatter population is self-evident : 
 their present condition witnesses to the past neglect of the 
 Church. Among them are many over whom friends at home 
 have prayed and sorrowed, and who, after a thoughtless 
 career in England, have gone to the colonies in the hope of 
 undoing the past. A recent work of much interest^ has 
 given a vivid description of life in a sheep station. The 
 writer, himself an Oxford graduate, tells us that he once 
 worked for a man who could barely write his name, and 
 who had seven shepherds, among whom there were an 
 Oxford graduate, a Cambridge graduate, a Dublin graduate, 
 a Wintonian, and a Crimean officer who had carried the 
 colours into the Redan ; they had come down to this work 
 as the only thing for which they were suited, and of them 
 and of the people generally he wrote, As a rule, they all 
 drink.’^ Religiofl in any visible form was never brought 
 before them. It is with communities as with individuals : 
 these men will pass away, but the next generation will 
 inlierit the irreligious tone which will have been insensibly 
 formed by those who preceded them. 
 
 The Australian dioceses have with more than moderate 
 success provided for the education of the colonists, for the 
 training of such as desire to be educated for the ministry, 
 and for the government of the Church by a system of 
 diocesan synods under the provincial synod. Many excellent 
 grammar schools fit boys to enter the University of Sydney, 
 and the ranks of the clergy are largely recruited with persons 
 born in the colony. It is, of course, very desirable thus to 
 make the Church an indigenous one, at the same time care 
 
 * Colonial Ad'venturei and Experiences. By a University Man. Bell and 
 Daldy, 1S71. 
 
288 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 must be taken that the training of the clergy shall be such 
 as shall produce a type of Churchmanship which shall have 
 assimilated all that is good that each age and each theologi- 
 cal school has given to the world. There is no doubt that 
 the majority of the colonial clergy of Australia have been 
 trained in a narrower school, and have studied within more 
 contracted limits than is good either for themselves or for 
 their flocks. The action of the Australian synods can be 
 studied with advantage at the present time, specially with 
 regard to the proper position and functions of the laity in 
 such assemblies. Recent events in Ireland have not tended 
 to show that irresponsible persons, who have had no distinct 
 theological training, and who fill no spiritual office in the 
 Church, are suitable legislators on questions of doctrine, and 
 in some of the synods of Australia the action of the laity has 
 introduced the most objectionable features of Congregation- 
 alism. It is to the interest of the whole Church that the 
 action of the clergy should not be hampered by the intimi- 
 dation of their people. No episcopate will ever be success- 
 ful when “put in commission,^' when the bishop is fettered 
 in his proceedings, and has to become either the slave of 
 the laity or their opponent, neither will a people ever learn 
 devotion who regard their pastor as their servant.. It is this 
 tyranny which is depressing and ultimately driving out of the 
 congregationalist body the more able of their ministers ; 
 such a policy will keep out of the ranks of the clergy the 
 very men who would have been its chief honour. Experience 
 of Australian synods has shown that the largest powers 
 exercised by the laity are not inconsistent with an amount 
 of episcopal autocracy which is never witnessed in England. 
 
28 q 
 
 XXXIL 
 
 In the preceding paper nothing has been said of the 
 aborigines of Australia. All mention of them was pur- 
 posely omitted. It is not a subject about which it is 
 pleasant to write, and it is a story which can be told with 
 truth, miitatis mutandis^ of nearly every one of our colonies 
 in which the ‘^superior” white race has come in contact 
 with the weaker. If proof were wanting of the identity of 
 the several members of the human family, it would be sup- 
 plied by the rapid descent of the white man to the level of 
 the barbarian, and to those indulgences of his passion and 
 his greed which are supposed to denote the savage, so soon 
 as he is beyond the restraint of public opinion or of 
 human laws. The same conclusion would be arrived at 
 from a directly opposite starting-point, when we see how 
 the so-called savage, treated kindly and not contaminated 
 by the vices of so-called civilisation, rises rapidly in intelli- 
 gence and self-control, responds readily to acts of kindness, 
 and gives proof of a capacity of learning and an appreciation 
 of spiritual truths. From our grand mistake of sending 
 first traders or criminals, secondly soldiers, and last of all 
 the ministers of religion, the aborigines of our colonies have 
 not had a fair chance. They have been brought in contact 
 with the very outskirts of civilisation and the dregs of our 
 people ; and the higher gifts, which a Christian nation 
 might have conferred on them, have been withheld. 
 Their lands, on which their forefathers have hunted, are 
 gradually taken from them. The advance of the victorious 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 UNDER ms BANNER. 
 
 race is steady and rapid ; the forests are felled ; the bush 
 is cultivated. In Australia the kangaroo and the wallaby 
 are hunted down or driven far into the interior, and the 
 natives share their fate ; but, unlike the kangaroo and the 
 wallaby, they have reasoning powers, uncultivated, no 
 doubt, and apt to jump to hasty conclusions. The idea of 
 home is strong within them, and they have a well-defined 
 sense of being wronged when they find their lands appro- 
 priated and their hunting-fields becoming year by year more 
 restricted. In the white man’s hut the “ black fellow ” sees 
 flour, sugar, tobacco, and other luxuries. His hunger is 
 keen, and so is his cupidity, just the same cupidity which 
 prompts the settler to seize on the best-watered pasture : 
 if he can do so, he will help himself ; if it is a question of 
 spearing the lonely hut-keeper, who stands between him and 
 the object of his desire, he will not hesitate. A terrible 
 retaliation takes place: the ‘‘black fellow” becomes the 
 natural enemy of the settler, to be got rid of by any means. 
 The colony is still in a state of primitive anarchy. Every 
 man makes his own laws and carries them into effect. 
 There is a race for precedence, and every day is of im- 
 portance. There is no time to think of religion for oneself ; 
 and as for converting black fellows — pooh ! the idea is ab- 
 surd : they could never receive the most rudimentary 
 instruction. They are a degraded race, utterly past the 
 hope or possibility of amendment; and so the superstition 
 becomes a faith, and the aborigines are to be extirpated, 
 together with the dingos, or wild dogs, who make havoc of 
 the flocks. The devices of English settlers for accom- 
 plishing this end makes one blush for one’s countrymen. 
 The word of a black is not taken against a white in a colonial 
 court ; a bloodthirsty sportsman can therefore shoot down 
 the natives at his pleasure without any fear of being called 
 to account, if only he will br careful to enjoy his battue 
 
AUSTRALIA. 
 
 291 
 
 alone. There have been instances in which arsenic has 
 been mixed with flour, and the squatter’s hut left unguarded, 
 in order to tempt them to pilfer the poisonous food. Where 
 measures so utterly diabolical have not been resorted to, 
 the same end has been reached by the introduction of 
 fire-water,” which is hardly less fatal in its results. Eng- 
 land may boast herself of her vast colonial dominions \ but 
 her treatment of the aborigines in all parts of the world is a 
 disgrace both to her Christianity and to her methods of 
 government. Far otherwise have the rulers of Norway and 
 Sweden colonised : through their paternal care the abo- 
 riginal inhabitants of Lapland have been preserved far on 
 into the nineteenth century, and their interests, spiritual and 
 material, are attended to, although ethnologically they are 
 a race very inferior to the Maori, and not superior to the 
 Australian. If we contrast with this the condition of the 
 North American aborigines after 300 years’ contact with 
 Europeans, or those of Tasmania and Australia after little 
 more than half a century, we have not much to be proud of 
 as a civilised or a Christian people. 
 
 The Australian aborigines, even the most degraded among 
 them which are found in the south, have been proved over 
 and over again not to be the hopeless savages for whose 
 improvement it is folly to look. On the authority, not of 
 missionaries, but of Government officials, they are declared 
 to be capable of instruction and civilisation. Some who 
 were in confinement for some breach of the law were taught 
 during their five months’ imprisonment to read fairly well, 
 to explain in English the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Com- 
 mandments, and to cut and lay stone, so that they, without 
 any help, built a small house. As members of the con- 
 stabulary, as postmen, as shepherds, as reapers, and as 
 domestic servants, hundreds of them have found regular 
 employment. Their mimetic powers are very great, and in 
 u 2 
 
292 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 tracking the path either of runaways or of persons lost in 
 the bush, their intelligence is rarely at fault. It is to the 
 lasting credit of Southern and Western Australia that in 
 those colonies the aborigines have ever been cared for, both 
 by the Government and by the Church. The Bishop of 
 Adelaide early established an institution at Poonindie, whose 
 results ought to silence for ever those who assert that the 
 blacks are sunk hopelessly. The present Bishop of Perth 
 carried to his diocese the experiences which he had gained 
 as superintendent of Poonindie, and the sympathies which 
 those experiences had begotten in him. So warmly is the 
 good bishop interested in the welfare of these waning races, 
 and so righteously indignant is he at the apathy with which 
 their condition is regarded by their white brethren, that he 
 formally resigned his bishopric some two years since, and 
 announced his intention of devoting all his energies to the 
 natives. 
 
 It must be admitted that while these two dioceses are 
 distinguished honourably by their care for the blacks, the 
 almost universal creed of the colonists is that the race must 
 die out : an unphilosophical fatalist doctrine, accepted be- 
 cause it is wished to be true. It is probably owing to the 
 power of the laity in the synods that this colonial prejudice 
 has penetrated into and influenced the councils of the 
 Church, and led her to take so little interest in the welfare 
 -of the natives. Throughout the whole of the dioceses of 
 Eastern Australia, from Melbourne in the south to Brisbane 
 in the north, either no efforts whatever have been made for 
 their conversion, or they have been made on so small a 
 scale as only to prove more clearly the existence of the 
 ■duty and the inadequate acknowledgment of it. 
 
 In Melbourne much has been done for the Chinese, who 
 have been attracted to the diggings, but comparatively little 
 for the blacks, who had the first claim. In Brisbane, where 
 
A U ST R ALIA, 
 
 293 
 
 they are most numerous, the Church has made no efforts for 
 the aborigines, nor, as was mentioned in a previous paper, 
 for the 2,000 Melanesians at work in the plantations. The 
 Church of Australia seems to have abandoned the care of the 
 native races to the Moravian Brethren, and to the Roman- 
 ists, both of whom have set noble examples of zeal and sym- 
 pathy. The Government sometimes has urged the Church to 
 its duty, and specially in Queensland, under the rule of Sir 
 George Bowen, wise and Christian measures were concerted 
 for their benefit, but the Church did not respond. The 
 whole district of Northern Queensland is unfortunately 
 situated in the matter of Church government. The northern 
 limits of the Diocese of Brisbane end with the twenty-first 
 parallel of south latitude, but the continent runs up to Cape 
 York, which is on the tenth parallel : and into the lower 
 part of this region a population is pouring, who, not being 
 within the limits of any see, have to look to the Metropolitan 
 of Australia as their bishop, between whom and themselves 
 there are eleven degrees of latitude and four bishoprics. It 
 is to be hoped, therefore, that the Diocese of Rockhampton 
 will soon be a reality. 
 
 In 1862 Sir G. Bowen made a voyage of inspection in 
 this part of his government, and he determined to establish 
 a settlement at Somerset, on the north-east extremity of 
 the Australian continent. It was a dreary position, for it 
 was 600 miles from an Australian town, and 1,200 miles 
 from the nearest civilised settlement in the neighbouring 
 archipelago. The good of the public service demanded 
 such a settlement. Vessels sailing through the Torres 
 Straits were often in want of water and fresh meat, and here 
 the settlement could supply them. It would also be a con- 
 venient depot for coal for steamers ; and accordingly a 
 party of marines and some Government officers took posses- 
 sion of the site in 1864. The Governor had also discerned 
 
294 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 the capabilities of the place for missionary work and for 
 British colonisation, which might extend southwards on the 
 continent, and northwards towards Borneo and Melanesia. 
 Here, indeed, was a promising opportunity for dealing with 
 the natives, before the usual evils of contact with civilisation 
 had befallen them ; but unfortunately the Church in Aus- 
 tralia did not avail itself of the occasion, and help had to 
 he sought from England. The Society for the Propagation 
 of the Gospel sent out, in 1866, a clergyman and an industrial 
 schoolmaster, Mr. Kennett ; but before they had arrived 
 the wonted brutality of the superior race had made the 
 natives their foes. It was not so at first : the blacks, who 
 were found in very considerable numbers, were friendly; 
 they brought in fish, &c., and worked willingly at clearing 
 the scrub and felling trees, receiving payment in biscuit and 
 tobacco. After a while an axe was lost, and a native was 
 accused of stealing it. The suspicion was not an impro- 
 bable one, although the missing axe was subsequently 
 found ; but before this discovery had been made, the sup- 
 posed culprit had been brought to the barracks and flogged, 
 pour encourager les autres. Strange to say, this act of in- 
 justice aroused the indignation of the tribe, who attacked 
 the marines and wounded two of them, one mortally. A 
 retaliation was decided upon, and three weeks afterwards 
 several natives, fishing in a canoe, were pursued and shot ; 
 soon after two more men were seen near the settlement, and 
 shot : altogether eight lives were taken in revenge for the death 
 of the marine. After a time a sort of treaty was made that 
 no native should come within certain limits of the station 
 without permission ; and matters were in this state when the 
 missionary arrived. The clerical missionary returned to 
 Brisbane after a stay of a few months, but Mr. Kennett 
 stayed manfully at his post, and showed that, spite of the 
 brutality of which they had been the subjects, the natives 
 were not yet proof against intelligent kindness. 
 
AUSTRALIA, 
 
 295 
 
 Around the mission were six tribes, fine stalwart people, 
 very superior in physique to the people of the south, and 
 bearing undoubted marks of their Papuan origin. They 
 wore scars across their chest, but were not tattooed like the 
 New Zealanders, and through the nose they wore a stick. 
 They built leafy huts for the rainy season, and in the sum- 
 mer lived wholly in the open air. They possessed sufficient 
 knowledge of sanitary matters to change their camps about 
 ever}^ fortnight. Their family life, although polygamy is 
 allowed, is of a higher type than is found among the natives 
 of the south. The women are neither ill-treated nor over- 
 worked. There are no idle days. The men fish from 
 sunrise to sunset, and in the evening the whole family sit 
 round the camp fire and take their only regular meal. They 
 have no religion, unless a belief in one evil spirit, to whose 
 malign influences all diseases are ascribed, can be so called. 
 When an unmarried person dies he is buried in a shallow 
 grave, at the corner of which they place stout posts, painted 
 red, and adorned with shells and the skulls of native dogs. 
 On the death of a married person the hair is cut off the 
 head and distributed among relatives and friends ; the eyes 
 are closed, the hands crossed on the breast, and on a stage, 
 raised above the reach of native dogs, the corpse is placed, 
 until from decay the head drops off, when it is carried for 
 months in a basket by the nearest relative. Their me- 
 chanical ability is shown in their canoes, which are made 
 of cotton-trees hollowed out, and balanced by two outrigger 
 poles, with a float of driftwood laid across. 
 
 Spite of the difficulties caused by the conduct of the 
 marines, Mr. Kennett succeeded in convincing the natives 
 that he was their friend. He arranged a place of meeting, 
 and opened school with eight children. After a while some 
 adults came. They learned the English names of things in 
 common use, and insensibly were teaching Mr. Kennett 
 
296 
 
 UNDER Ills BANNER, 
 
 much of their language. In May, 1867, the fame of the 
 school had reached to the people of Prince of Wales^ 
 Island, who sent a deputation to invite Mr. Kennett to live 
 among them, setting forth that they were more numerous 
 than the tribes on the mainland. Mr. Kennett promised to 
 pay them a visit. On the voyage his canoe was upset, and 
 he found himself on a desert island with only a bottle 
 of water and a tomahawk : thus he remained three days 
 and nights, without any food except one oyster. A fire 
 which he had lighted attracted some natives of another 
 tribe, who came to his relief when he was almost exhausted. 
 Here the savages were full of resources, while their teacher, 
 surrounded by plenty, was starving. They immediately 
 caught him a supply of fish, which they cooked, and after- 
 wards took him in their canoe to Prince of Wales’ Island. 
 The tribe whose guest he now became, hearing that he had 
 been so long without food, immediately piled up before him 
 a supply of yams, enough to last him for a fortnight. At 
 night a grand corobboree was held ; the chief adopted Mr. 
 Kennett as his son, giving him a belt of braided grass, 
 instructing him in their secret code of fire-signals, and ex- 
 changing names with him. After this simple freemasonry 
 he was one of the tribe, and could go anywhere with perfect 
 safety. 
 
 The result of Mr. Kennett’s intercourse with them was to 
 restore a good understanding between the marines and the 
 surrounding natives. The school was re-opened, and the 
 blacks came in freely. Their constant migrations and tribal 
 feuds were terrible interruptions ; but even here Mr. Ken- 
 nett’s influence was felt. A feud had existed between the 
 tribes of Mulgrave Island and Prince of Wales’ Island for 
 years ; neither would ask for peace, although both desired 
 it, and they seemed likely to exterminate each other like the 
 Kilkenny cats in the fable ; but Mr. Kennett was able to 
 
AUSTRALIA, 
 
 297 
 
 play the part of a minister of peace and effect a recon- 
 ciliation. In August, 1867, a great change befel the mission. 
 Sir George Bowen had ceased to be Governor of Queens- 
 land. The Ministry had gone out, and was followed by 
 one less enlightened and more bent on economy. The 
 marines were withdrawn, and the settlement was left to six 
 constables, a sergeant, and a squatter, who was made police 
 magistrate. The new-comers, refusing to profit by the ex- 
 perience of their predecessors, only repeated their blunders 
 and their cruelties. For the natives there was no redress, 
 their word not being taken against the whites. The old 
 ill-feeling between the two races was again engendered, and 
 only suppressed by Mr. Kennett’s influence. After being 
 more than nine months without letters and without money, 
 Mr. Kennett received a despatch from the Government, 
 informing him that his stipend, which the former Ministry 
 had guaranteed to him, would not be continued, and he had 
 no alternative but to return to England. Thus the effort to 
 evangelise the natives of North Australia has failed. Its 
 commencement was retarded originally by the apathy of the 
 Australian Church. Its progress was hindered by the law- 
 less cruelty and wicked stupidity of British soldiers, and it 
 finally collapsed through the parsimony of the colonial 
 legislature. But, in spite of all these adverse circumstances, 
 the common sense of one honest Christian schoolmaster did 
 single-handed what the military and the civil magistrates 
 failed to do, and proved conclusively that the despised 
 aborigines of North Australia, to some of whom Mr. Ken- 
 nett was indebted for the preservation of his life, are not 
 the degraded creatures whose proper destiny is to be 
 trapped or shot like vermin, but that they share with us the 
 feelings of our common humanity, and are not less sensible 
 of kindness than they are of wrong. 
 
 Do these poor creatures, or as many as are left, still 
 
298 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 think of the white man who visited them, and who alone of 
 his race showed them kindness ? Would the reader like to 
 hear something more of them and of their condition? — 
 whether they have made peace with the policemen who 
 still remained at the settlement, or have fallen before their 
 rifles ? One glimpse of them has been given to us. 
 Since Mr. Kennett left, the Marquis de Beauvoir, in his 
 travels round the world, has visited the remote settlement, 
 and he records that here “ he saw J — — , twenty-four years 
 of age, who had sixty-five notches on the stocks of two 
 rifles, each notch representing a black whom he had shot.” 
 This fiend, in the form of that humanity which he disgraces, 
 gloried in his murders, and with diabolic glee spoke of 
 tumbling over blacks like rabbits.” When a civilised and 
 Christian nation is thus represented in the remotest parts of 
 the world, the spirit of every honest Englishman is roused 
 with indignation, his cheek burns and his blood runs chill, 
 and one is tempted to ask, ‘‘ Usque quo, Domine 1 ” 
 
299 
 
 XXXIIL 
 
 It was in 1778 that Cook, when on his last voyage of dis- 
 covery, sailed on until the 19th parallel of north latitude 
 and there discovered ^‘one of a group of eight islands, 
 resting like a bunch of water-lilies on the bosom of the 
 ocean/’ No European had ever sighted them before. The 
 natives called the largest of them “ Hawaii,” and sometimes 
 the whole group went by that name ; but Cook gave to 
 them the name of his patron, the Earl of Sandwich. The 
 appliances of civilisation which an English sailor even then 
 possessed, the size of his ships, the clothing which his sailors 
 and himself wore, the guns which they fired, surrounded him in 
 the estimation of the natives with the attributes of divinity, and 
 he was treated with the most abject civility and considera- 
 tion. This pleased him much, and in the following year he 
 returned. There is too much ground for fearing that he in 
 no degree repressed the homage that was offered to him, 
 but that he even encouraged the belief that he was more 
 than human. After a time disputes arose between the 
 people and himself, and in a struggle he was killed in Keala- 
 keakua Bay, which is now a station of the Church. Fourteen 
 years later the island was visited by one of Cook’s comrades, 
 who was a wiser and better man than his captain ; this 
 was Vancouver. He had noticed on his previous visits 
 that the 'islanders had no animals but pigs, dogs, and rats ; he 
 now brought them some sheep, six head of cattle, and some 
 garden seeds. Knowing little of their language, he yet con- 
 
300 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 trived to impart to them some idea of the Christian faith, 
 and on his leaving they begged him to send them Christian 
 teachers from England. Vancouver promised to make their 
 wishes known, and he actually had an interview with Mr. 
 Pitt in the following year and delivered the message. It 
 needs only to recall the state of Europe and of England 
 itself in that year, to be prepared for the statement that the 
 petition was shelved. Statesmen had their hands full with 
 the stirring events which were happening on the continent, 
 neither was it a missionary age ; indeed the religious feeling 
 of the country was just then at zero, and the faithful few were 
 devoting all their energies to the evangelisation of the Indians 
 of America and the spread of the newly planted Churches 
 on that continent, and so a great opportunity was lost. 
 
 Assuming that the 180th parallel of longitude divides the 
 black from the copper- coloured oceanic tribes, the Hawaiians 
 would rank as Polynesians ; but there is good reason for 
 thinking that these islands were the centre from which 
 there emanated the streams of population, which proceeding 
 southward occupied the clustering islands commonly kno’wn 
 as Polynesia Proper, and penetrated even to New Zealand. 
 Thus the mythic personage Maui, around whom the chief 
 legends of New Zealand cluster, and who was supposed to 
 have drawn up those islands from the depths of the ocean 
 for his own special habitation, has given a name to one of 
 the Sandwich group ; but more remarkable still is the system 
 or ordinance of tapii {Ang/ice, taboo), which prevails from 
 New Zealand in the south to Hawaii in the north, thus 
 dominating over sixty degrees of latitude. In the island of 
 Madagascar a similar institution prevails under the name of 
 The etymology of the word is not easily arrived 
 at : everything on which the ‘HapiE' was laid by the priests 
 was sacred and could not be touched without gross impiety. 
 
 * Chrht and other Masters y vol. ii. p. 174. 
 
 f 
 
HA WAIL 
 
 301 
 
 The fact of eating anything that had come in contact with 
 what was tapu was perilous in its consequences. Such a 
 system of course conferred an immense power on those who 
 wielded it, and on it the influence of the priests depended. 
 The only salutary exercise of it which has been recorded, 
 was limited to the cattle which Vancouver brought to the 
 islands ; whether by his suggestion or from the whim of the 
 priests, these were all tapu ” for ten years, by which time 
 they had increased rapidly, and the islands were abundantly 
 supplied. 
 
 The religion which Vancouver found to exist among the 
 people was of the most rigorous kind; their ‘‘gods many'^ 
 inhabited tlie volcanoes, and were to be appeased only by 
 human sacrifices. The “tapu^^ exercised arbitrarily, im- 
 posed on the people, periodically, the intense inaction and 
 silence which are a caricature and exaggeration of ultra- 
 sabbatarianism : no fire was lighted, nor food cooked ; a 
 strict fast was kept, which extended even to the domestic 
 animals. It was to improve on this system that the king 
 had asked for teachers from England. Intercourse with 
 whalers and other ships had tended to open the native mind : 
 so long ago as 1786, two Englishmen, John Young and 
 Isaac Davis (of the former of whom more will be heard pre- 
 sently), had been taken prisoners by the king in revenge for 
 a massacre ; but they had been treated kindly by him, and 
 had risen to be chiefs. In return for this treatment they, 
 no doubt, had done something for the enlightenment of the 
 king. The oppressions of the “ tapu must have made the 
 natives envy their guests, who were under no such burthen, 
 and seemed not to be punished for neglecting it ; news too 
 had come from Tahiti of the changes which the Presbyterian 
 missions had wrought in those islands, and the king desired 
 to learn more of the Supreme Being whom the foreigners 
 worshipped; but his desire was not gratified, and in 1819 
 
302 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 he died, if not a heathen, yet without having had an oppor- 
 tunity of embracing Christianity. On the accession of the 
 young king the two dowager queens persuaded him to break 
 through the rigorous system under which the women had 
 groaned more than the men. On a state occasion a 
 banquet was prepared in Hawaiian fashion at which the 
 men were to sit at one table the women at another; the 
 young king came in and took his place at the women’s 
 table ; the chiefs followed his example ; the heathen looked 
 on in fear and trembling ; but seeing no harm befall them, 
 they declared the “ tapu” to be at an end, and then through- 
 out the islands there was a general and spontaneous demoli- 
 tion of the idols, in which the aged high-priest took part, 
 although, in doing so, he abolished his own livelihood. 
 40,000 idols are- supposed to have been destroyed in Hawaii 
 in the course of a few days, and it must be remembered that 
 up to this time no direct Christian teaching whatever had 
 been delivered in the islands. In 1820, some Congrega- 
 tionalists came from America ; the people were still waiting 
 for the English teachers for whom they had asked, and the 
 authorities had some hesitation about allowing this mission 
 to be established. In 1822 three missionaries of the 
 London Missionary Society came to Hawaii, and did much 
 in the way of mastering the language, making grammars, 
 vocabularies, and translations. King Kamehameha H. and 
 his wife came to England in 1823, to see George IV., and 
 very touching is their statement, — Our former idolatrous 
 system is abolished, and we wish the Protestant religion of 
 your majesty’s dominions to be practised here.” Their visit 
 was a disastrous one : the long voyage and our uncertain 
 climate were too mmchfor them, and they both died in London. 
 
 This miniature state has gone through all the political 
 phases and changes which befall larger empires. Com- 
 mencing with a feudal system and an absolute monarchy, it 
 
HAWAII, 
 
 303 
 
 has had its coup cTetat, its reform bills, its concessions to 
 popular demands. In 1829, the year in which their restric- 
 tions were removed in England, Roman Catholics landed 
 on the island, and through the influence of the Congrega- 
 tionalists, who have always mixed much in local politics, 
 were ordered to re-embark, and it was not until 1839 
 the visit of a French frigate secured toleration for the Roman 
 mission, which now numbers one-third of the population as 
 its converts. 
 
 In 1855 the king died, and was succeeded by his nephew, 
 Kamehameha IV. This sovereign was an altogether re- 
 markable man : he had had the advantage of visiting the 
 United States, France, and England. John Young, the 
 Englishman already mentioned, had married a native woman 
 of rank, and their granddaughter became* the Queen of 
 Hawaii, familiar to us all as Queen Emma. She had received 
 an English education and was in every way a help to her 
 husband. The king’s mind was of a class which is only occa- 
 sionally met with, that has a natural aptitude for theology. 
 He had studied the merits of various religious ‘‘systems 
 The Presbyterians and the Romanists were at work in his 
 dominions, and he could observe them daily, but he was 
 not satisfied with them. He was married by a Congrega- 
 tionalist minister, but by his own request according to the 
 liturgy of the English Church. In i860 he requested 
 foormally that a bishop and clergy might be sent to his 
 islands, thus repeating the petition made by his ancestor 
 some seventy years before. He had already translated the 
 Prayer-book, and had written a Preface commending it to 
 his people, and stating the grounds of his own preferences. 
 Bishop Staley arrived in Honolulu, which is on the island of 
 Oahu, not the largest of the group, in September 1862. 
 The establishment of the mission met with strong opposi- 
 tion ; there was no precedent for the consecration in England 
 
304 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 of a bishop for the dominions of a foreign sovereign : the 
 theological animus displayed itself in protests against imagi- 
 nary interference with the work of Protestant Dissenters; 
 the political animus became prophetic, and saw in the 
 Anglican mission only a scheme of the British Government 
 (from whom its greatest hindrances had come) for the con- 
 version of the Hawaiian kingdom into an English colony. 
 These and many similar statements were published in the 
 United States and Hawaii with a vigour and acerbity of 
 which Trans- Atlantic newspapers enjoy a monopoly. 
 
 The mission met with misfortunes from the first : the 
 American Church had always hoped to take an equal part in 
 the work, and to contribute at the outset three clergy ; but 
 the commencement of the mission was almost contemporary 
 with the civil war which rent America asunder, and amid 
 the troubles and distress thus caused, neither men nor 
 money could be expected ; then on their arrival the bishop 
 and clergy were met by the news that the young prince, the 
 hope of the kingdom, had died. These were great troubles ; 
 but under all their sorrows the king and queen were always 
 true to their promise to support the mission ; they never 
 relaxed in their efforts for the good of their people, and by 
 precept and example seconded the efforts of the clergy. 
 When on a journey, or at his country residence, this modern 
 Charlemagne would, in the absence of the clergy, himself 
 read the Offices of the Prayer-book for the benefit of his 
 people and himself, and it must be borne in mind that he 
 was no dilettante theologian, neither was theology his only 
 study ; he had comprehensive views on questions of govern- 
 ment and commerce, was a steady reader of contemporary 
 literature, and enjoyed Tennyson, Kingsley, and other writers 
 of our times. The Church in Hawaii did not long benefit 
 by the devoted services of this nursing father ; he lived long 
 enough to give proof of his simple piety and of his zeal. 
 
HAWAII, 
 
 30s 
 
 Soon after the arrival of the bishop he and the queen were 
 confirmed ; a station was founded at Lahaina on the island of 
 Maui; the native communicants formed themselves into a 
 society, which pledged itself to seek candidates for baptism 
 and for confirmation, to teach in the Sunday-schools, and to 
 read portions of the Prayer-book in small gatherings of the 
 people. The queen put herself at the head of other ladies, 
 native and foreign, who undertook the duty of systematic 
 district visiting. Often the king and queen stood together 
 at the font as sponsors for children, for whose religious 
 training they made themselves responsible ; many couples 
 who had lived in unblest wedlock were now united in holy 
 matrimony. It was indeed a time of real and blessed pro- 
 gress : 300 baptisms took place before the bishop had been 
 twelve months in the islands ; schools were multiplied, and 
 under the bishop^s advice, a system of educational institu- 
 tions was carried out in all the islands by the Government ; 
 but on St. Andrew’s Day 1863, the good Kamehameha IV., 
 almost without warning, entered into rest. 
 
 The death of the king was the signal for an outburst of 
 malignant writing in the local papers : at one time it was 
 declared that the mission was to be abandoned ; at another, 
 the whole scheme was denounced as a diplomatic ruse on 
 the part of Great Britain. The new king, however, declared 
 that he received the mission as a sacred legacy from his 
 brother, and he has been consistently true to his promise to 
 support it. Bishop Staley, spite of newspaper clamour, was 
 cordially welcomed at the Convention of the Church of 
 America, the Board of Missions guaranteeing half the 
 stipends of two American clergymen ; then Queen Emma 
 visited England, and the American Congregationalist 
 Board of Missions ” pointed out to Mr. Seward the political 
 dangers which the visit of the widowed queen to our in- 
 triguing Court would bring about, and formal despatches 
 
 X 
 
3o6 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 passed to and fro between the American minister in England 
 and Mr. Seward on this momentous question. Thus it will 
 be seen that the mission met with many difficulties : some 
 of the clergy grew weary of their work in the face of so 
 many obstacles, and returned to England ; this gave some 
 colour to the statement, industriously propagated, that the 
 mission would be withdrawn ; then funds began to fail. 
 The great element of stability was the sisterhood which had 
 gone out from England ; the first detachment sailed in 1 864, 
 having halted on their way at Hursley, and received counsel 
 and blessing from the revered author of the Christian Year, 
 The previous missions, both Roman and Presbyterian, had 
 failed to make much impression on the immorality of the 
 native women, which was as low as could be conceived. 
 In the islands of Oahu and Maui these English ladies have 
 opened schools and homes, in which the young are trained 
 to better things, and their elders are reclaimed. 
 
 In 1867 the bishop returned to England for the Lambeth 
 Conference, after a five years’ residence in the islands. Of 
 the moneys originally promised little remained beyond the 
 grant of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel ; 
 some ;2^’4 oo per annum was subscribed every year in the 
 islands, but the growing work demanded increased means. 
 Much of the bounty of English friends had been diverted to 
 the building a cathedral of a costly character, on which large 
 sums had already been spent, and the walls of the choir 
 some few feet high are still the only result. The bishop 
 therefore conceived that he had no choice but to remain in 
 l^ngland to collect more money. Our colonial prelates do 
 not seem yet to have discovered that a bishop, absolutely at 
 a standstill in the midst of his work for lack of means, 
 would be the most powerful spur that could be applied to 
 our lagging alms. Bishop Armstrong wrote truly some 
 dozen years before : — 
 
HAWAII, 
 
 307 
 
 It is among the evils of the day that unless missionary 
 bishops or other missionary clergy speechify from one end 
 of England to another, and live on platforms, little is 
 effected.'' 
 
 Not thus does the Church of Rome work. (How dis- 
 graceful to us is this frequent antithesis !) After a resi- 
 dence of thirty years the French Vicar Apostolic is supplied 
 with ample funds from Lypns, not only for the maintenance 
 of his priests and nuns, but for the erection of picturesque 
 and neat stone churches, where Anglicans have only wooden 
 church-schools." 
 
 In 1870 Bishop Staley, after having returned to the 
 islands, resigned his see. The only member of the original 
 mission party now in Honolulu is the Rev. George Mason. 
 And so this mission is said to have failed ! It has indeed 
 failed to realise the anticipations of the over-sanguine, who, 
 it must be added, enthusiastic at its outset, were among the 
 first to desert it ; but if to fail means to come short of 
 pledges given, then its failure is only partial, for the mission 
 never pledged itself to accomplish an unbroken success. It 
 has survived its first decade, and it is to be hoped that its 
 second decade will not be weighted with the many external 
 causes of disaster which beset the first. There will be no 
 civil war, let us hope, paralysing the resources of the Ameri- 
 can Church, who will now share the labours of the mother 
 Church in Hawaii. The calumnies wEich have been cir- 
 culated have been showm to be calumnies, and will now be 
 powerless to injure the work ; experience has been gained, 
 and money will now be spent more judiciously than was 
 possible at first. The Sisters' Schools have ever done 
 admirable work, and from the boys’ schools we may shortly 
 hope to meet with suitable candidates for theological train- 
 ing and ultimately for ordination. The second bishop of 
 Honolulu was consecrated on the Feast of the Purification, 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 1872, and very soon left for his diocese accompanied by 
 several persons, lay and clerical, the majority of whom had 
 been taught by him in his English parish. 
 
 If it be vouchsafed to Bishop Willis to repeat in Hawaii 
 the good works which he accomplished in a strictly mis- 
 sionary sphere in England, the Anglican mission in Honolulu 
 has a future that is full of hope. Dens faxit ! 
 
3<^9 
 
 /' 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 The claim of Columbus to be the discoverer of America 
 has not been allowed to go undisputed : there seems to be 
 good ground for thinking that the eastern part of that con- 
 tinent was known to Greenlanders and the Northmen long 
 before the Genoese sailor was born : the Mexicans have a 
 tradition that they came from the north-west, and that their 
 remote ancestors were white men ; and there is a considerable 
 probability that America was peopled from Europe by 
 means of successive emigrations by the way of Behring’jv 
 Straits, or by the chain of the Aleutian Islands, which form 
 a line of natural stepping-stones between Asia and America ; 
 but it is not with the labours either of Columbus or of 
 earlier discoverers that we are now concerned, but with the 
 colonisation and evangelisation of that land, over the greater 
 portion of which the Anglo-Saxon race has spread, and 
 whose Church is the eldest daughter of our own Mother 
 Church, and the living witness to the labours of our fore- 
 fathers. 
 
 Looking back over the lapse of three centuries we are- 
 struck at once with the care for religion which was mani- 
 fested by these hardy sailors, who were the pioneers of our 
 colonisation : it was in the early days of the first Reforma- 
 tion age that Frobisher was accompanied in his expedition 
 to find a north-west passage by “ Master WolfalV* whose 
 object was neither a geographical nor a commercial one ^ 
 
310 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 he held a high position, being “Preacher to her Majesty’s 
 Council,” and was “well-seated and settled at home, with 
 a good and large living, having a good honest woman to 
 wife, and very towardly children ; ” but he took part in the 
 perils of this voyage of discovery, caring only “ to save 
 souls and to reform infidels to Christianity.” In the records 
 of the Arctic voyages of the present century there is no 
 mention of a chaplain forming any part of those expe- 
 ditions. To this man belongs the credit of offering the 
 first religious service that was held on the continent. After 
 a terrible battling with icebergs, in which one of the ships 
 was lost, “ Master Wolfall celebrated a Communion upon 
 land, at the partaking whereof was the captain and ^any 
 other gentlemen, soldiers, mariners, and miners with him.” 
 This celebration of the Divine mysteries was the first sign, 
 seal, and confirmation of Christ’s name, death, and passion, 
 ever known in these quarters. 
 
 To Frobisher succeeded Gilbert and Raleigh, and amid 
 all their failures, expedition after expedition being despatched 
 and accomplishing nothing, it is very noteworthy that the 
 conversion of the country was steadily kept before them, 
 as being of at least equal importance with the development 
 of its resources. The laymen who went out at the first 
 were zealous in declaring “ the contents of the Bible ; ” so 
 much so, that in some instances they had difficulty in re- 
 straining the heathen from kissing and otherwise adoring 
 the book itself. When Raleigh, his fortune all spent, sold 
 his rights in Virginia to a company of merchants, true to 
 the last to the principles which he had laid down, he gave 
 ;^ioo (no inconsiderable amount in the sixteenth century) 
 for the purpose of planting the Christian religion in those 
 parts. Virginia was fortunate in the men who were influen- 
 tial members of that company. There were among them 
 Lord Delawarr, Whitaker, son of a Master of St. John’s 
 
AMERICA, 
 
 311 
 
 College, Cambridge, Sandys, the pupil of Hooker, and the 
 Saintly Nicholas Ferrar. In such hands the conversion of 
 the people was at once aimed at. The baptism of Poca- 
 hontas, the daughter of a chief, although familiar to us all, 
 loses none of its interest by its familiarity. When a rising 
 on the part of the natives threatened the whole of the white 
 population with death, the faith of one Indian convert, who 
 gave notice of the conspiracy, was the reward as well as the 
 token of their Christian zeal. 
 
 New England, which had received a settlement of Church- 
 men on*the banks of the River Kenebec in 1607, became 
 in 1620 the colony of the Pilgrim Fathers, whose feelings 
 towards the Church were as bitter as they could be : ten 
 years later Massachusetts was founded by Puritans, who at 
 the time professed intense admiration and love for the 
 Church, which they called our dear mother, ever acknow- 
 ledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in 
 the common salvation, we have received in her bosom and 
 sucked in from her breast.” This was a remarkable mani- 
 festo from people who soon after established Puritanism by 
 law, and tolerated none but their own most narrow creed. 
 In 1632 Maryland was established by Romanists, who fled 
 from the violence with which a rabble threatened them in 
 England, but in the reign of William and Mary it became a 
 Church of England colony; and in 1682 Penn and his 
 followers founded the Quaker settlement of Pennsylvania. 
 There came a dreary time of slothfulness and of frivolity, and 
 it was not until the few earnest spirits which leavened the 
 age in which they lived had taken counsel together, that 
 any plans were formed for the prosecution of the work which 
 had been foremost in the minds of Raleigh and the earlier 
 colonisers of the new world. The Puritans had done 
 nothing for the Indians; indeed these people, who had 
 braved all the perils of the ocean, and the still greater perils 
 
312 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 of an unknown country, in order to find a place in which 
 to worship God according to their consciences, seem to 
 have had no hesitation in treating the heathen not merely 
 with indifference but with most rigorous cruelty. The 
 power of the civil magistrate to enforce uniformity, which 
 had been to them perfectly unbearable in England, be- 
 came only the exercise of a godly zeal in a country in 
 which they were the majority. Possessed with the firm 
 belief that they were the chosen people, they regarded the 
 country of their adoption as their promised land, and did 
 not scruple to deal with the natives as in the Pentateuch 
 the Israelites are recorded to have treated the inhabitants 
 of Canaan. The Churchmen of Virginia had been mis- 
 sionaries from the first : the Pilgrim Fathers conceived them- 
 selves to be called to the duty of extirpating the paynim, 
 ‘‘whom probably the devil decoyed hither in hopes that the 
 Gospel would never come here to destroy or to disturb his 
 absolute reign over them.’^ In the Roman Catholic colony 
 of Maryland, the governors were bound by an oath taken 
 annually to secure full toleration to all Christian people. 
 As soon as the Government was wrested from Lord Balti- 
 more by the adherents of the Commonwealth, these fierce 
 pretenders to religious liberty proscribed “popery and 
 prelacy.’^ 
 
 It was from England and from the most devout sons of 
 her Church, whose names are still had in remembrance 
 amongst us, that the first systematic attempts to convert the 
 Indians came. The Hon. Robert Boyle, in i66i, offered to 
 lead a company of Evangelists to New England, and one 
 of the objects of the lectures which still bear his name, and 
 for whose endowment he provided, was the perpetual enforc- 
 ing of the duty of converting the heathen to the true faith. 
 
 By an order in council of Charles I., still unrepealed, all 
 British subjects in foreign parts were placed under the care 
 
AMERICA. 
 
 313 
 
 of the Bishop of London. In 1685 the then Bishop of 
 London sent a Commissary ” to Virginia, Dr. Blair : by 
 him much good was effected, and arrangements were made 
 for training English and native youths for the ministiy\ 
 Soon afterwards Dr. Bray was sent as commissary to Mary- 
 land, and he raised the number of clergy from three to six- 
 teen. Out of the representations of these good men there 
 grew, in 1698, the Society for Promoting Christian Know- 
 ledge, and in 1701, the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel in Foreign Parts. From 1702 the Church in America 
 became the special field of work of this latter society ; but 
 neither commissaries nor associations can dispense the gifts 
 of the episcopate, and for the boon of this office Church- 
 men, both in the colonies and in England, strove earnestly 
 and met with the same treatment, which still so frequently 
 befalls similar appeals in the present day. Churches re- 
 mained unconsecrated, and generations of people were 
 unconfirmed ; the clergy were sent out from England, and 
 numbers of country-born young men, who were otherwise 
 willing and competent to offer themselves as candidates for 
 ordination, were prevented doing so by consideration of 
 the delay, risk, and cost (at least ;^ioo) of the requisite 
 voyage to England. It is not generally known that from 
 one of the non-juror bishops, Taylor, two missionaries of the 
 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sought and re- 
 ceived consecration : these acts were strongly condemned, 
 not on account of ecclesiastical irregularity, but as danger- 
 ous to the well-being of the throne. The concession, so 
 earnestly sought for, seemed likely to have been made by 
 Queen Anne : four bishoprics were to be founded, and 
 arrangements had been made for the residence of the new 
 prelates, but with the death of the queen the prospect was 
 at an end. 
 
 Hitherto the profession of Churchmanship had been 
 
314 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 considered identical with loyalty to the throne and to the 
 person of the sovereign, and among the Nonconformists 
 democratic principles were supposed to find their appro- 
 priate home ; but by degrees the Churchmen of Virginia 
 began to smart and to falter in their loyalty under the 
 continual tyranny of the ministry for the time, and to regard 
 the episcopate as a right which they would demand, rather 
 than a concession which they were content to seek. The 
 clergy stood loyal to the throne, but the leader of the revo- 
 lutionary war was a zealous Churchman. The clergy had 
 sworn allegiance to the English sovereign, and conceived 
 that without perjury they could not join in the insurrection ; 
 and many were the trials to which they were subjected in 
 consequence. Mr. Inglis, afterwards the first Bishop of 
 Nova Scotia, was in charge of the principal church in New 
 York. Notice was sent to him that General Washington 
 would attend his church if only the obnoxious prayers for 
 the king were omitted ; but he paid no regard to the 
 message, and became a marked man. Violent abuse was 
 heaped on him as he walked along the streets, and threats 
 were freely used to prevent him praying for the king. More 
 than one hundred armed men entered his church with drums 
 beating and flags flying. It was supposed that if the king 
 were prayed for, Mr. Inglis would be shot; but he went 
 through the service as though nothing unusual had hap- 
 pened, and the soldiers contented themselves with drown- 
 ing his voice when the objectionable collect was read. 
 Another confessor was Mr. Beach, who, when warned of 
 his danger, declared that he “would do his duty and pray 
 for his king, till the rebels cut out his tongue.^^ 
 
 A blow befel the Church about this time, and that from 
 within. The Wesleyan connection had been at first an 
 association within the Church, and some of the most pious 
 of the clergy had favoured it. During the revolutionary 
 
AMERICA, 
 
 3^5 
 
 war discipline had been openly neglected, and some of the 
 Methodist “ Exhorters” had assumed clerical functions, but 
 had been restrained. Now, however, John Wesley, at the 
 age of eighty-two, so far contradicted the teaching of his life 
 as to lay hands, in 1784, on a person called Coke, who then 
 returned to America, and created an open schism. Wesley's 
 plea for this conduct was that there were no bishops with 
 legal jurisdiction in America. 
 
 In 1783 thirteen states ceased to be dependencies of 
 Great Britain. The declaration had been published in 
 1776. A seven years’ war had left the Church waste and 
 almost destroyed. In Philadelphia, a Rev. Dr. White, who 
 had joined the insurgents on conviction, and who had 
 Washington himself as a member of his congregation, set to 
 work to rally the scattered Churches. Seven of the states 
 joined in a convention, drew up an amended Liturgy, and 
 petitioned the Archbishop of Canterbury to consecrate such 
 persons as they might present to him for the office of a 
 bishop. But another of the states, Connecticut, had already 
 acted for itself, and with more promptitude than perhaps 
 was possible to an aggregate of states. The clergy met in 
 convention as soon as peace was proclaimed, and before the 
 troops had embarked Samuel Seabury was on his way to 
 England, elected Bishop of Connecticut by the clergy, and 
 seeking consecration. This the English bishops were afraid 
 to confer, lest they should displease the king and the 
 Government, so intimately had the Church come to be con- 
 nected with, and even to be regarded as a department of, 
 the State. The bishops of Scotland had no such scruples ; 
 they were disestablished and disendowed ; there was no one 
 to interfere with them in the discharge of their spiritual 
 functions. Poor, indeed, they were, and despised ; but they 
 had it in their power to confer on the Church of America 
 the boon for which it had been vainly seeking for more than 
 
3i6 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 a century; and on November 14th, 1784, Dr. Seabury was 
 consecrated at Aberdeen. This cut the knot, as a bold 
 policy is apt to do, which wise and good men had been 
 ineffectually trying to untie; and in 1787 Dr. White and 
 Dr. Provoost were consecrated in Lambeth Chapel Bishops 
 of Pennsylvania and New York respectively. Thus America 
 possessed now three bishops, and from this parent stock the 
 episcopate has grown as occasion has required, until there 
 are now fifty-three bishops and more than 2,500 clergy on 
 the rolls of the Church of the United States. The name of' 
 Seabury will always be held dear by every American Church- 
 man. The mitre which he wore — certainly a far more 
 suitable head-dress than the wig which our bishops have 
 abandoned only within the memory of the present genera- 
 tion — is preserved, an honoured relic, in the library of 
 Trinity College, New York, having been placed there by 
 Bishop Cleveland Coxe, who has commemorated it by one 
 of his charming Christian Ballads.^^ 
 
 The progress of the Church of the United States has been 
 indeed remarkable. It has had to contend with many diffi- 
 culties inherent in the institutions of the country. The ques- 
 tion of slavery has presented to it problems hardly less ready 
 of solution than those connected with caste in India. The 
 same question, and the prejudices on the matter of race 
 and colour which grow out of it, have prevented the Church 
 from freely drawing into the ranks of its ministry the best of 
 her sons, irrespective of race. Still recently the unhappy 
 civil war crippled her resources and threatened an open 
 schism. In the towns the Church is the religion of the 
 educated and the thoughtful ; it provides the Conservative 
 element of the general population, and the meetings of its 
 triennial convention are considered events of sufficient 
 importance to be chronicled in even the most secular news- 
 papers. It has not in the centres of trade and of civilisa- 
 
AMERICA, 
 
 317 
 
 tion discharged until recently that foremost duty of every 
 Church, the preaching the Gospel to the poor ; indeed, the 
 varied forms in which religion of some sort or other is 
 offered to the masses in America, accompanied by violent 
 excitement and mixed strongly with political considerations, 
 are altogether at variance with the sober devotion of our 
 Liturgy, which cannot compete with such attractions. The 
 Congregationalism of the American Church, which tends to 
 make the clergy the slave of their people, and which tempts 
 the ministers of God to become pleasers of men rather than 
 stem proclaimers of Divine tmth, is an evil which cannot be 
 exaggerated; but the freedom of corporate action which 
 this Church possesses enables her to enter on her mission- 
 work in those vast tracts on her own continent, which are 
 to our American brethren what the colonies are to England, 
 with a promptitude and with a completeness of organisation 
 which are legitimate objects of envy to ourselves. No nobler 
 work has ever been done than is to be found in the records 
 and journals of the missionary bishops whom the American 
 Convention has sent to the far West, where in the dioceses 
 of Nebraska, Dacotah, and Minnesota, there are 285,000 
 Indians, who are now treated by the Government with more 
 wisdom than was bestowed on their forefathers. The tide 
 of evangelisation has kept pace with — in some cases has 
 anticipated — the tide of emigration, and the missions of 
 this Church extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In 
 districts so new that their very names sound uncouth and 
 strange in English ears, and so vast that our minds refuse to 
 realise their extent, the bishops of the American Church 
 have boldly gone in advance of civilisation and of trade, 
 and living among lumberers, miners, sawyers, and all the 
 hardy but uneducated fellows who do_ the rough work of 
 pioneering, have taken possession of the new country in the 
 name of God, before it has become a stronghold of evil. It 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 318 
 
 would be difficult to imagine a more arduous field of work 
 than that of Bishop Tuttle, who has pitched his camp in 
 Utah, in the very midst of the Mormonites, where there are 
 some 50,000 persons taken captive by that abominable 
 imposture. At first his very life was in peril, but this did 
 not move him ; he went from house to house, and found 
 many persons longing to be quit of the bondage under which 
 they were groaning. Of these there were many hundreds 
 of English folk, who had been baptized in our churches and 
 taught in our village schools, but who had become victims of 
 the delusion, and had been lured away to “ the city of the 
 saints,^’ from which they desired now, above all things, to 
 escape. 
 
 The dioceses of these missionary bishops join in many 
 cases the borders of the Canadian dioceses ; and although 
 the several bishops are far apart, they have the comfort of 
 taking counsel together from time to time. Nothing can 
 exceed the warmth of cordial sympathy which exists between 
 the bishops of the sister Churches. They have frequently 
 been present at each others synods, and the consecration of 
 a new bishop in the one church is almost always attended 
 by a prelate of the other. The cordiality so often mani- 
 fested reached its height at the Convention of 1871, when 
 the Bishop of Lichfield, the Bishop of Nassau, aud several 
 English clergymen, attended by special invitation, and were 
 received with the deepest enthusiasm, which has since 
 assumed a tangible shape in the alms-dish presented by 
 the daughter to the mother Church. 
 
 The foreign missions of the American Church in China 
 and in Western Africa have been mentioned more than 
 once or twice in these pages, and need not be again alluded 
 to. Other missions, less complete in their organisation, 
 are sent to Greece and Hayti. If they seem to be few 
 in number and limited in area, it must be remembered 
 
AMERICA. 
 
 319 
 
 that the vast extent of country in the Western States is 
 the natural mission-field of the American Church, that in 
 those states the very foundations and framework of the 
 Church have had to be provided, and in a brief time, in 
 order to meet the rapidly-increasing influx of settlers. 
 The four millions of free coloured people in the Southern 
 States have also claimed and received much care from the 
 Church. 
 
 To those who worship majorities the Church of the 
 United States, which holds the fifth place in respect of the 
 number of its adherents among the religions of the country, 
 will seem to be a less important institution than the four 
 which stand above it. Into this question it is not necessary 
 to enter. Many circumstances prove that both the Church 
 and its ministers and doctrines have a real hold on the 
 affections of its members. Few who had the privilege of 
 meeting them can have forgotten the bearing of the Ameri- 
 can bishops who attended the Lambeth Conference in 1867. 
 While that remarkable gathering, so auspicious in itself, so 
 fruitful in results, which many have not yet the foresight to 
 discern, was ridiculed and vilipended in England, in the 
 United States it was regarded as the most hopeful thing 
 that had befallen the Anglican communion since the 
 Reformation. The bishops were speeded on their way by 
 the prayers of their people; farewell addresses were pre- 
 sented to them, and they were welcomed on their return 
 with Te Deums and Communions. More than this, the 
 expenses of their voyage to and from England were, in the 
 majority of cases, borne by their people, who thus felt 
 themselves to be represented at Lambeth in the persons of 
 their spiritual fathers. And worthy representatives were 
 they. Their calm and dignified bearing, combined with 
 singular absence of all conventionality, struck every one. 
 In learning, argument, eloquence, they were at least the 
 
320 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 equals of their brethren, and they were admitted to have 
 contributed much to the debates of that reverend body. 
 Many of these bishops had never seen England before, but 
 they stayed only a short time among us. One of them was 
 in England only a fortnight, giving the writer of these lines 
 the following reason for his speedy return : — “ The yellow 
 fever is active in my diocese just now, and I must be active 
 too.^^ 
 
 With the intense interest and reverence which an educated 
 American feels for everything English, these bishops did 
 not allow their enthusiasm to blind their judgment. They 
 reviewed our ecclesiastical system calmly and candidly, and 
 the result in all cases was that they returned home more 
 than content with their own position. The state of things 
 which may satisfy many in an old country appeared ponder- 
 ous, unelastic, and formal to the bishop of a free Church in 
 a Republic not yet a century old. One of the most culti- 
 vated of these bishops was for some days the honoured 
 guest of one of the most cultivated of English dignitaries. 
 He saw everything that could be seen in a cathedral city of 
 great historic interest, and he appreciated all he saw; but 
 through, and above, and under all there was something 
 missing to the man whose life had been spent in a western 
 state, where the ceremonies of life are few. On leaving he 
 gave his host a cordial invitation to visit him in America, 
 and told him he would find in his diocese what would do 
 him good; for, said he, ^‘what you want, sir, in your old 
 cathedral cities here is an infusion of good honest barbarism, 
 and 3,000 miles in my gig with me would do you a great 
 deal of good.^^ 
 
 The Church has work for all the various talents with 
 which men are endowed. Without wishing for the intro- 
 duction of Republican freedom into our chapters and 
 cathedrals, we may be thankful that in the far West there are 
 
AMERICA. 
 
 321 
 
 found men of great learning and piety, and yet possessing 
 those special gifts which enable them to commend their 
 office and their message to the manifold tribes of men who 
 are making their homes in the wilderness, and covering it 
 with cities and towns, and stocking it with all the fruits of 
 industry and civilisation. 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 The Church’s work in British North America has long 
 ceased to be surrounded with much romance or peril. 
 There will always be the inconvenience of an extreme but 
 not unhealthy climate, and there seems no probability of 
 that happy time coming when religious strife and disunion 
 will cease to vex men’s souls : for in America the diversities 
 of creed and practice are almost incredible. The Church 
 has been unable, especially in earlier days, to keep pace 
 with the population, and to occupy adequately so vast a 
 territory ; discipline, therefore, has been neglected, the 
 education of the masses has been imperfect and irreligious, 
 and the result is seen in a variety of sects whose very names 
 are unfamiliar to English ears. But, spite of these draw- 
 backs, the work of a clergyman in the more settled parts of 
 North America is analogous to that of his brethren in 
 England, with this difference, that his population will pro- 
 bably be much more scattered, and the area over which his 
 ministrations extend will be equal to that of a dozen of the 
 largest English parishes. 
 
 In 1787, the year which witnessed the consecration of 
 Bishops White and Provoost, British North America received 
 its first bishop. This was Bishop Inglis, who, as was men- 
 tioned in a previous paper, witnessed a bold confession in 
 New York, when forbidden to pray for the king. At that 
 time the diocese included all the English possessions in 
 America, but the jurisdiction of Bishop Inglis over the 
 
BRITISH AMERICA, 
 
 323 
 
 remoter portions of them must have been nominal. New- 
 foundland he never was able to visit, although clergy had 
 been labouring there for more than three quarters of a century. 
 The Canadian clergy were summoned to the visitation of the 
 bishop in 1789, and in 1793 Canada was formed into a 
 bishopric, and Dr. Jacob Mountain, a name ever since 
 intimately connected with the Dominion, was consecrated to ^ 
 be the first occupant of the see. Nova Scotia was again 
 subdivided in 1839, when Newfoundland became a separate 
 see, and yet again in 1845 by the foundation of the See of 
 Fredericton. The old Diocese of Quebec has been divided 
 from time to time. In 1839 the Diocese of Toronto was 
 formed, from which, in 1857 and 1861, the Sees of Huron 
 and Ontario respectively were taken, as the rapid increase of 
 the immigrant population made more supervision necessary, 
 and at the present time another see, that of Algoma, is about 
 to be formed on the northern side of the chain of lakes, 
 where there are many thousands of Indians still to be found, 
 who have been driven northward year by year as the white 
 races have advanced. In 1850 the Diocese of Montreal was 
 formed, and it is now the metropolitical see of Canada. 
 Far to the west, the territories so long occupied by the 
 Hudson’s Bay Company were formed into the huge Diocese 
 of Rupert’s Land m 1849, and ten years later the youngest of 
 England’s colonies, British Columbia, was made a bishopric 
 almost at the same time that it was raised to the dignity of 
 a colony. 
 
 In the roll of the Canadian bishops there are many 
 honoured names, and the record of their services proves 
 them to have been men of the highest gifts and graces. In 
 the early years of the present century, the backwoods of 
 North America presented a field of missionar}^ enterprise 
 tempting to the brave spirits who wished to go forth into the 
 moral wilderness and endure hardness as good soldiers. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Among the earlier bishops and clergy the feeling of loyalty 
 to the throne was largely mixed with devotion to God and 
 love of souls; loyalty and religion seemed to those good 
 men to be convertible terms. Thousands of refugees, 
 fleeing with horror from the republican institutions of the 
 independent states, found a resting-place over the English 
 border, where they could worship God under the protection 
 of a monarchical government, and in a Church which had 
 the most intimate relations with that government It was 
 a natural and an honourable feeling. The doctrine of the 
 Divine right of kings was firmly held, and its power was 
 much strengthened by the violence and wickedness of many 
 who had trampled it under their feet. We of the present 
 generation have lived and learned that, whatever the temporal 
 blessing of the monarchy, the Church of Christ and the 
 spread of the Gospel are not incompatible with a republican 
 form of government, and that the churches which have lost 
 the protection and assistance of the temporal power, have 
 found more than an equivalent for it in the greater freedom 
 of action and power of extension which they possess. 
 But what is good in one age is not always expedient in 
 another. 
 
 The Churchmen in British North America, who regarded 
 loyalty to their sovereign and the existing government as a 
 paramount duty, and as a virtue which could not be 
 practised outside the Church's pale, found that that virtue 
 did not go unrewarded, for they were used as a barrier to 
 fence off the revolutionary principles that raged over the 
 American border, and favours were heaped upon them in 
 recognition of their loyalty and their example. It seems 
 strange in these days to read of a king of England building 
 a cathedral in a colonial city on the representation of its 
 bishop : yet this was done by ‘‘ the bounty of George III." 
 in Quebec, in 1804, and the church was made by letters 
 
BRITISH AMERICA. 
 
 325 
 
 patent from the Crown the cathedral church of the diocese. 
 Good Bishop Mountain, however, was not content with 
 having obtained the erection of a cathedral. It is the great 
 work of the first occupant of a see to bring order out of 
 confusion, to introduce, perhaps only in outline, the system 
 of the Church, and to lay the foundations in such wise that 
 after generations shall not be obliged to alter them, but shall 
 only have to build upon them ; and so in the new cathedral 
 which the bounty of the good king had built, the bishop 
 introduced Christian worship in its highest type. The first 
 organ ever heard in Canada was brought from England and 
 erected in Quebec Cathedral, and choral services were intro- 
 duced by Bishop Mountain nearly seventy years ago. 
 
 It was while the bravest spirits in our country were offer- 
 ing themselves to the service of that country, and were 
 bearing arms in the battle-fields of Europe, that one member 
 of a noble house volunteered for the service of the Church 
 in her most distant and arduous posts. This was the Hon. 
 Charles James Stewart, fifth son of the Earl of Galloway. 
 Educated at Corpus Christ! College, he obtained a fellowship 
 at All Souls’, and thence had taken a benefice in Hunting- 
 donshire : but he felt himself called on to undertake more 
 arduous work, and specially he desired (like Mackenzie 
 some fifty years later) to fill some post for which no one 
 else seemed likely to volunteer. At first his thoughts were 
 turned to India, but hearing of the great need of clergy in 
 Canada, he determined that that should be the scene of his 
 labours. He sailed in 1807, and soon was stationed at 
 St. Armand, some seventy miles from Montreal, on the 
 frontier between the United States and Canada. There was 
 no church, no school, no parsonage, — it might be added, no 
 religion. A clergyman had resided there for some years, 
 but, failing to impress the people, he had left with his spirits 
 broken. Mr. Stewart arrived on a Saturday, and hired a 
 
326 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 room in the inn for service the next day. The landlord 
 tried to dissuade him, and warned him not only that no 
 persons would come, but that the attempt might lead to some 
 inconvenience and risk to himself. “ Then here is the place 
 of duty for me,^^ was the brave reply. In that unpromising 
 place he remained; after a month the services were held 
 under a more suitable roof than that of a tavern: in the 
 following year a church was built, and sixty persons were 
 confirmed. In this district Mr. Stewart laboured, living in 
 a single room in a farm-house, boarding with the family of 
 the farmer, and removed from all communication with the 
 educated society to which he had been accustomed until 
 1817, when the bishop moved him to another district which 
 required the same evangelising zeal and constructive energy 
 which had changed St. Armand from a godless settlement to 
 a Christian parish. In 1819 he received what with great 
 simplicity he called his ‘‘advancement^’ to the post of a 
 travelling missionary, and in this capacity he visited the 
 most remote parts of this vast diocese, until, in 1826, he was 
 called to succeed Bishop Mountain as its chief pastor, with 
 the unanimous approbation of all. Bishop Stewart’s character 
 was not of a class which we should expect to meet with in 
 the days in which he lived : simple as a child, devout and 
 studious, he avoided all excitement both in his personal 
 religion and in his public ministrations. In an age when 
 asceticism was not regarded by the English Church as any 
 part of Christian discipline, he led the life of an ascetic, 
 probably without realising the fact that his doing so was 
 singular. Luxuries, whether in food or in furniture, were 
 never to be found in the rough Canadian farm-house which 
 sheltered him; but such comforts as were available he 
 eschewed ; on Fridays his single meal was a dish of potatoes, 
 and he observed the other fasts of the Church rigidly. 
 Neither did he alter his manner of life when he became a 
 
BRITISH AMERICA, 
 
 327 
 
 bishop, and, after an episcopate of ten years, it was dis- I 
 covered that he had died entirely without means : he had 
 not only saved nothing from his income, but all his private 
 property had long since been given to the Church and to 
 the poor. 
 
 Another Scotchman, who was destined to become a great 
 power in Canada, had settled in the colony even before 
 Bishop Stewart. J ohn Strachan had no aristocratic birth nor 
 connections ; he was a student of St. Andrew’s, and when 
 quite a young man, in 1799, been enticed out to Canada 
 by a promise on the part of the Governor of an allowance as 
 master of a school at Kingston. On his arrival he learned, 
 what many have learned before and since, that the promises 
 of ministers and governments are not to be trusted. There 
 had been a change of governors, and the new governor had 
 no desire to carryout the policy of his predecessor; the pro- 
 mised allowance, therefore, vanished into thin air. Mr. 
 Strachan was disappointed, but he opened a school on his 
 own account, and was the first to introduce into Canada a 
 classical and mathematical education. In 1803 he was 
 ordained for the mission at Cornwall, where he remained 
 nine years, and then moved to Toronto, where he was rector 
 of the parish, military chaplain, and master of a grammar 
 school. In 1823 he was made Archdeacon of York, and his 
 functions in that capacity could more easily be defined than 
 has sometimes been supposed possible. He travelled east 
 and west through the whole of his archdeaconry, often on 
 foot ; his fare was the coarsest, and his lodging was in keep- 
 ing with his food. He found about forty clergy ministering 
 to a widely-scattered population of 187,000. Everywhere 
 his visits were received with joy, but often with surprise that 
 a clergyman had found his way to such outlandish parts. In 
 1832 and 1834 the cholera raged frightfully in Toronto, and 
 Archdeacon Strachan headed the clergy in their labours of 
 
328 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 love, and by his fearless attendance on the sick and dying 
 won the hearts of all classes. In 1839 the See of Toronto 
 was formed, and with the approbation of the whole diocese, 
 Archdeacon Strachan became the first bishop. In this high 
 position he continued until his death, in 1867, combining to 
 the last, with wonderful simplicity of character, all the out- 
 ward dignity which, as he conceived, was due to his high 
 position. 
 
 The experience gained in his visitation tours as archdeacon 
 had shown him the necessity of raising up a due supply 
 of well-educated clergy. In 1842 a theological college was 
 opened at Coburg for the training of candidates for Holy 
 Orders. In 1843 the University of King’s College, Toronto, 
 began to receive students ; in six years its numbers were 
 more than a hundred, and then the Colonial Legislature 
 abolished all religious observances, and suppressed the 
 faculty of theology. Bishop Strachan protested with all his 
 might against the change, but without effect. Defeated, but 
 not disheartened, the brave old man came to England and 
 appealed for help. Having raised;^ 10, 000 in this country, 
 he raised more than ;^25,ooo in Canada, and in 1852 
 Trinity College opened its doors, and has continued to train 
 the future clergy of Canada in the Catholic faith. 
 
 In 1845 and 1850 Bishops Medley and Fulford became 
 the first Bishops of Fredericton and Montreal respectively. 
 Both of them Oxford Fellows, in the best days of that 
 University, with ripe experience as parish priests, they were 
 types of a school which, it is to be hoped, will always be 
 largely represented in the Church. In addition to their 
 theological learning they were men of much general cultiva- 
 tion : in a young colony, and in the society which is found 
 in a primitive settlement, such men are of great use : 
 their refining influences are felt to the advantage of the 
 people generally. Both of these bishops have built 
 
BRITISH AMERICA, 
 
 329 
 
 cathedrals which will compare with the churches of England, 
 and have succeeded in giving to the ritual of their dioceses 
 a beauty and a correctness which, in a pushing colony, are 
 not always aimed at. 
 
 The Church of Canada has been much troubled at times 
 by the action of the State. At one time it received large 
 assistance from it. Thus in Nova Scotia, King’s College, at 
 Windsor, was founded by George III., and drew for some 
 years 1,000 per annum from the English Government, in 
 recognition of the fact that it trained young men in loyalty 
 as well as in sound religion. In 1791, lands known as the 
 Clergy Reserves were set apart by Act of Parliament for 
 the maintenance and support of a Protestant clergy.’’ Eor 
 nearly half a century these lands lay waste ; settlers had 
 cultivated up to and around them, and their waste condition 
 was declared to be a (irawback to the welfare of the colony. 
 Their value, although uncultivated, had increased with the 
 general advance of the country, and the claim of the clergy 
 was disputed. The term “Protestant clergy” proved a 
 source of debate ; the Presbyterian ministers were Pro> 
 testants, and as the Kirk is established in Scotland, they 
 claimed a share. For the sake of peace their demand was 
 acceded to ; but after another ten years other claimants 
 entered the field, and in 1854 the whole of the lands were 
 devoted to education and secular purposes, the life interests 
 of the clergy being amply provided for, and by a system of 
 commutation the Church received a large sum of ready 
 money. These severe lessons taught the Canadians no 
 longer to lean on the broken reed of State help ; free from 
 the gifts, the Church became also free from the interference 
 of the State, and none of the present generation of Church- 
 men look wistfully back to a byegone system. Synods are 
 now in full work in all the Canadian dioceses. In Toronto, 
 the first function of the synod was to divide the diocese. In 
 
330 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 the western portion, which is the great resort of English and 
 Irish emigrants, an increase of the episcopate was absolutely 
 required, and Bishop Cronyn was elected to the new See of 
 Huron. Even then it was necessary to apply for letters 
 patent, and the new bishop had to be consecrated in England 
 under royal mandate. Not until i86i did the Canadian 
 churches attain perfect liberty, when Bishop Lewis, elected 
 to the new See of Ontario, a portion of the original Diocese 
 of Toronto, was consecrated in Canada by Canadian bishops, 
 the first bishop of the Anglican communion ever set apart 
 for that office on the soil of British North America. 
 
 While vast tracts of fertile but uncultivated land continue 
 to attract thousands of emigrants from the mother country to 
 Western Canada, it is only just that the mother Church 
 should contribute towards the cost of surrounding them with 
 the ministrations of religion. In the wilder parts, where the 
 English already settled are but a small minority in the midst 
 of a Roman Catholic majority, such help may yet continue 
 to be extended ; but in Canada generally the Church ought 
 now to be independent both in temporal and spiritual matters. 
 With her Theological Colleges at Windsor, at Lennoxville, 
 and at Toronto, a clergy is being trained from among her 
 own sons, equal in all respects to any who would be likely 
 to be sent from England. Her synods are now competent 
 to legislate in all matters which concern her welfare, and her 
 great danger lies in a desire — too evident on the part of 
 some — to narrow her theology and to repress zeal at the 
 dictation of ignorant and fanatical partisans. In a country 
 overrun with ‘‘isms^^ of every kind, the duty of contending 
 earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints becomes 
 more than ever apparent if the morality of the people is to 
 be maintained, and the proper position and influence of 
 God’s ordained ministers are to be preserved. 
 
 A Canadian parson is never likely to be a wealthy man ; 
 
BRITISH AMERICA, 
 
 331 
 
 but if the Church has not many ‘prizes^ to offer to its clergy, 
 it has few blanks. Year by year the missions are becoming 
 smaller in area, and the labours of travelling become lighter, 
 specially as the means of locomotion are increased; the 
 climate, with its extremes of heat and cold, is nevertheless 
 healthy, and the extreme isolation, which was the lot of the' 
 pioneers of the Gospel, does not befall the clergy in the 
 rapidly-growing townships. In fact, the work has now 
 passed out of the heroic stage, and is rapidly descending to 
 the level of common-place, if, indeed, any spiritual labours 
 can be so called. These remarks do not apply to the 
 Diocese of Newfoundland, and to the remoter parts of Quebec. 
 In Rupert’s Land and in some parts of Columbia the mis- 
 sionary has still to live in the wilderness under conditions of 
 the greatest hardship, but these must be treated in another 
 paper. The increasing order and civilisation which we 
 witness in the older dioceses must not make us forget the 
 self-denying toil of the labourers who have long since gone 
 to their reward, and who laid the foundation of that in which 
 we now rejoice. 
 
332 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Although the results of the intercourse of white men 
 with the Indians of North America are not creditable to 
 the former, the tales of absolute cruelty and slaughter, 
 which are too true when told of our settlers in Australia, 
 are not of frequent occurrence in the records of our 
 American colonisation. That the vices of the adventurous 
 settlers, who strike out fields of enterprise for themselves far 
 beyond the habitations of civilised communities, and conse- 
 quently beyond the reach of wholesome public opinion, will 
 ever add to the degradation of the savage and harden him 
 against the Gospel, is too probable. The oaths which fall from 
 the white man’s lips are often the first lessons which the Pagan 
 receives in the English tongue ; and in the conduct of the 
 white man, whose possessions, whose arms, whose clothes, 
 and other treasures, have already made him a demi-god in 
 his eyes, there is little or nothing which he can profitably 
 copy. Probably this is inevitable : the neutral ground on 
 which the two races meet has been well compared to the 
 “ravelled edge of the social fabric,’’ where the vices of both 
 civilisation and barbarism are seen, but the virtues of neither. 
 The only simplifier of these and all other enigmas of our 
 life is religion. In the minds of the earlier settlers of 
 America this, as we have already seen, was ever prominent. 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, out of the remnant of his fortune, gave 
 ;^ioo for the spread of the Gospel; the saintly Nicholas 
 Ferrar, with far-seeing wisdom, looked to the raising up of 
 
BRITISH AMERICA. 
 
 333 
 
 an indigenous ministry, and gave 300 for the maintenance 
 and education of three Virginian children in Bermuda, who 
 should be sent back, if qualified, to convert their brethren. 
 Cromwell gave, and Charles II. renewed, a charter to the 
 New England Society, among whose missionaries was John 
 Eliot, the Apostle of the Red Indians : the labours of this 
 zealous man built up many congregations of Christian 
 Indians, but at his death there was none to succeed him, 
 and his converts dwindled away. America, therefore, has 
 been fortunate, by comparison with other countries, in that 
 from the first some heed has been paid to the claims of the 
 heathen. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 
 from the date of the arrival of its first missionary in 1704, 
 was careful to bestow attention on the Indians in Carolina : 
 John Wesley while in Georgia tried to convert the heathens ; 
 but the colonists grudged their clergy diverting any portion of 
 their time and services to the natives, and this selfish con- 
 duct has been repeated over and over again in every colony : 
 therefore, in iSio, the Society sent itinerating missionaries, 
 whose whole energies were devoted to the care of the 
 heathen. 
 
 In the middle of the eighteentli century the Mohawks and 
 the Oneidas fought well side by side with the British troops 
 against the Erench, and again they sided with the loyalists 
 in the war of independence, so that on peace being pro- 
 claimed they moved, together with the other loyalists, and 
 settled in Canada. These must have been an intelligent 
 people, under good discipline and well drilled : they were 
 also Christians, and as such testified to the labours of the 
 clergy ; they had received from Queen Anne, who was 
 interested in the story of their conversion, a set of gold 
 altar vessels and a ‘‘ fair linen cloth beautifully inwrought 
 with devices emblematical of tlie rank of the royal donor,” 
 such was the taste of those now distant times : these trea- 
 
334 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 sures they buried in the ground during the war, lest the 
 hostile troops should seize them : the consequence was that 
 the cloth became rotten and useless, but the communion 
 plate they brought with them to their settlement on the Bay 
 of Quinta, where they built a church, to which George III. 
 gave an altar-piece with the creed and ten commandments 
 in the Mohawk language, and a loud-sounding bell.’^ This 
 church was not consecrated until 1830, w'hen Bishop Stewart 
 visited them. In 1842 Bishop Strachan found them an 
 educated prosperous community, with good farms, the 
 church and schools tilled, and nearly every one of them 
 able to read. 
 
 In 1835 Sir John Colborne, afterwards Lord Seaton, who 
 was at that time Governor of Canada, adopted a scheme 
 which was proposed to him for collecting the Indians of 
 the province on one of the many islands that stud the 
 northern shore of Lake Huron. A tour was made by some 
 friends of the red men along the string of lakes, and the 
 proposal was cordially received by the Indians. A settle- 
 ment had long before been formed at Sault St. Marie, where 
 the waters of Lake Superior fall into Lake Huron : a change 
 of governors had disconcerted the labours of its promoters, 
 and had also aroused the suspicions of the natives; but 
 another change of government and much zeal on the part 
 of the clergy had overcome to some extent these difficul- 
 ties. After a time, however, the missionary had to leave 
 and his place was not supplied : the Indians long waited for 
 the ‘‘black coat’’ who was promised to them, but they 
 waited in vain : very pathetic was their own account of their 
 distress and their patience: “We assembled,” they said, 
 “ every Sunday and prayed the Great Spirit to look down 
 upon us with an eye of pity, and to send some one to 
 instruct us.” After waiting nine years they moved to 
 Garden River, for the sake of the mission which had been 
 
BRITISH AMERICA, 
 
 335 
 
 fonned there : meanwhile a better organised mission had 
 been established under the auspices of the governor at 
 Manitoulin Island, which is some ninety miles in length, and 
 varies in breadth from two to thirty miles. The Ottawas 
 and Ojibways, tribes of one common nation and speaking 
 dialects of a common tongue, settled here to the number 
 of between 2,000 and 3,000 — a sad falling off from the hosts 
 that once inhabited these woods and fished in these lakes. 
 The large majority of these were heathen, but they were 
 loyal to the Crown which secured to them protection, and 
 in the disturbances of 1837 five hundred Indians fully 
 armed offered themselves to the governor for military 
 service. 
 
 From time to time Bishop Strachan visited these missions, 
 in which he never ceased to take a warm interest. Every 
 visitation was made with less difficulty than the preceding 
 one, as roads were formed and the country came under culti- 
 vation, but to the last the bishop's travels were tedious 
 affairs. On one occasion he wrote, — “ I found the roads in 
 many places dangerous and almost impracticable. A rough 
 strong waggon is the only vehicle that dares attempt them, 
 and even that occasionally breaks down ; and to be pre- 
 pared for such accidents we carry with us an axe, a hammer, 
 nails, ropes, &c. Sometimes we scarcely make a mile per 
 hour through the fallen trees, roots, and mud-holes that lie 
 in our way; nor is such travelling cheap; and as for the 
 accommodation, it is painfully unpleasant. I say nothing of 
 the fatigue of these journeys, the deep mud-holes, the fallen 
 trees to be cut out of the path, the jolting on the log car- 
 riages, exposure for months to a summer Canadian sun and 
 the autumn rains, because these are all incident to the dis- 
 charge of duty and not a proper subject of dissatisfaction 
 or complaint." 
 
 Thus the Indians were civilised, and by twos and threes 
 
336 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 were brought into the Christian fold : correct ideas were 
 formed about marriage ; a strong desire was manifested to 
 have their children educated, to raise the condition of their 
 women, to abjure idolatry, false prophets, and the medicine 
 bag, and a growing sense of the sin of murder, enmity, 
 and revenge became evident. The great hindrance to their 
 progress was the intercourse with the whites. Very touch- 
 ing is the description of the chieftain explaining to the 
 English settlers his desire of living at peace with them, but 
 entreating them not to bring ardent spirits for barter among 
 his tribes; they could not resist the temptation, although 
 they knew that it was death to them. The remnants of 
 this magnificent race, who have retreated before the white 
 man, will now have the special care of a new Bishop of 
 Algoma, whose diocese will contain all the settlements 
 which are in possession of the Indians. 
 
 Another Indian Reserve ” has been formed on Wal- 
 pole Island, on Lake St. Clair, the small lake which lies 
 between Lakes Huron and Erie. Here, about thirty years 
 ago, the Rev. Andrew Jamieson established himself among 
 a population of some i,ooo souls, belonging to the Ojibway, 
 Pottowatomie, and Ottawa tribes. Nothing could be more 
 miserable than the condition of the people — ignorant, dirty, 
 and wedded to the superstitions of their race. Laziness 
 had been elevated to the level of a duty, and they seemed 
 even to be devoid of any curiosity in religious matters. 
 Mr. Jamieson would enter the building which he used as 
 a church, but not a soul would come even from the lower 
 motive of curiosity. As they would not come to him, the 
 missionary determined to go to them : he visited them in 
 their camps and wigwams ; paid them the compliment of 
 formally calling on them, and these courtesies the Indians, 
 who by nature are polite, returned. Conversations led the 
 way to teaching, and at the end of a year Mr. Jamieson 
 
BRITISH AMERICA, 
 
 337 
 
 baptized two Indians, one of whom was a man of consider- 
 able influence among his tribe. 
 
 On these visitations Mr. Jamieson, who was able to enter 
 into the customs and habits of thought of his people, used 
 to send notice of his coming to the chief. At the appointed 
 time, attended by the interpreter, he would enter the large 
 wigwam, where the elders would be solemnly seated, and 
 according to Indian custom he would make presents of 
 tobacco all round. If English readers object to the picture 
 of a congregation of smokers thus preparing themselves for 
 the reception of Divine wisdom, let them remember that 
 this was the readiest means of bringing the message to their 
 hearts. It was on one of these occasions, when Mr. Jamie- 
 son after long speaking had paused to give the Indians an 
 opportunity of asking questions, that one of the chiefs, 
 laying his pipe slowly on the ground, said, “ Brother, what 
 you have told us is good news ; in truth the very best news 
 I ever heard.^^ That man has since proved to be an exem- 
 plary Christian, and of great use in recommending the 
 Gospel to his friends and relatives. 
 
 In time Mr. Jamieson mastered the language, whose 
 words are more than '‘'‘sesquipedalian^ and among a sus- 
 picious people, who ever doubted the i*ntegrity of the inter- 
 preter, this gave him great power : mind now came in con- 
 tact with mind, and heart with heart ; the people told him 
 their secrets, and he began to learn much of their inner 
 history, their superstitions, their folk-lore. He describes 
 his gratitude when standing outside an Indian wigwam 
 early one morning, he overheard a native convert praying 
 in a strain of chastened devotion for himself and family, 
 for his neighbours, and for the missionary. ‘‘At that 
 moment,’^ says Mr. Jamieson, “I was overpowered and 
 would not have exchanged places with the richest and 
 proudest peer in England ! 
 
 z 
 
338 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 The result of Mr. Jamieson^s labours of thirty years is, 
 that the Indian colony is now Christian; the houses are 
 better built and are kept clean and tidy; the farming is 
 not now limited to a few patches of Indian corn, but has 
 become an occupation and a science; the people are no 
 longer dependent on fishing and the chase, and instead of 
 spears and other weapons they have ploughs, oxen, and 
 fairly good implements of husbandry. They now contract 
 Christian marriages, and polygamy is a bygone thing ; their 
 retentive memories supply them with a never-failing store 
 of hymns and portions of the Gospel narrative ; many of 
 them are very useful as catechists ; their knowledge of Scrip- 
 ture is considerable, and at times they say things which 
 prove them to have a real grasp of the mysteries with which 
 theology deals. Thus, one of them addressing his friends 
 on the character of our blessed Lord, spoke as follows (his 
 words were taken down by the missionary) : — 
 
 “What, my brethren, are the views you form of the 
 character of Jesus ? You will answer, perhaps, that He was 
 a man of wonderful benevolence. You will tell me that 
 He showed Himself to be so by the kind of miracles which 
 He wrought. All these, you say, were kind in the extreme. 
 He created bread to feed thousands who were ready to 
 perish ; He raised to life the son of a poor woman who was 
 a widow, and to whom his labours were necessary for her 
 support in her old age. Are these, then, your only views of 
 Jesus? I tell you they are lame. W/ien Jesus came mto 
 the world He threw His blanket around Him., but the God 
 was within 
 
 A learned divine might have expressed in language more 
 theological, but hardly more forcible, the mystery of “ The 
 Word,^' which tabernacled among us. There are among 
 the learned and inquisitive Hindus not a few who con- 
 descend to admire the human character of our Lord : at 
 
BRITISH AMERICA, 
 
 339 
 
 this stage the Brahmo Somaj have arrived, and to this point 
 many among ourselves, trained to better things, have come 
 down ; but they have alike failed to realise the cardinal 
 truth, so firmly held, so forcibly illustrated by the Red 
 Indian, that over and above, and altogether independent 
 of the many beautiful qualities wherein our Lord was our 
 example, ‘’the God was within.” 
 
 Z 2 
 
340 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 If one were asked in what portion of the world the condi- 
 tions under which missionary work is carried on are the 
 hardest, the answer would probably be given without any 
 hesitation. In Newfoundland all circumstances seem to 
 combine to make the work of the clergy irksome and diffi- 
 cult to men actuated by any but the highest motives. The 
 missionary to the heathen has his trials — how great is known 
 only to God and to himself ; but if he be a man of intelli- 
 gence as well as of zeal, his daily toil is lightened as he 
 acquires a fuller knowledge of a noble language, studies the 
 system of an ancient and complicated superstition, and finds 
 his way into the history and folk-lore of the people among 
 whom he lives ; he is shocked at their idolatry, their bar- 
 barism, their lack of natural feelings, but he reflects that 
 their ancestors have been for generations held in the same 
 bondage, and he is cheered by the conviction that his mes- 
 sage is contributing its quota to the ultimate overthrow of 
 the miserable superstitions which he beholds ; it may be — for 
 human nature asserts itself in the highest and best of our 
 undertakings — that he is supported by the not unworthy 
 thought that he is in the forefront of the fight between light 
 and darkness, and so is occupying a post of special peril 
 and of honour: he may have to live in an unhealthy climate, 
 with few colleagues and remote from congenial society, yet 
 he is not utterly out of the world ; mails reach even to his 
 mission-house with tolerable regularity, and news from home. 
 
NEVVFO UNDLAND, 
 
 341 
 
 with the budget of papers, reviews, and books, so specially pre- 
 cious in foreign lands, mark a bright day for him from time 
 to time. There are, again, men at home, buried, as they 
 think, in dismal rural parsonages, with no near neighbours 
 of congenial tastes and like education, and they feel that 
 their life threatens to become mere vegetation, for lack of 
 intercourse with minds more original or better stored than 
 their own. May it be added, that from time to time A. B. 
 advertises his willingness to exercise his ministry in a dry 
 climate, or in the neighbourhood of “good society ? The 
 days when facilities for sport found place in such advertise- 
 ments have, happily, gone by, and public opinion is not 
 likely to tolerate their recurrence. 
 
 From these pictures we turn to Newfoundland. Are there 
 heathens to be found in this colony? Not indeed among the 
 aborigines for they have dwindled down to a score or two ; but 
 there are heathens, and thirty years ago these were to be found 
 in large numbers. They were not, indeed, Hindus, nor Bud- 
 dhists, nor followers of Confucius, but men, women, and chil- 
 dren speaking our own mother-tongue, wholly removed from 
 all sounds and sights of religion, and sunk into utter spiritual 
 vacancy. Some of them had gone out from England, speci- 
 ally from Devonshire and Dorsetshire, and others from 
 Jersey; their children born in the island are called Shumaks: 
 they had no superstitions to gratify antiquarian search ; 
 neither by the form of their features nor by the structure of 
 their language were they subjects of interest to the ethnolo- 
 gist ; they had no ruined temples or shrines to attract the 
 architect : they were just samples of hard-working English 
 people, who, by long contact with poverty, and by entire 
 emancipation from all Christian teaching, had sunk down to 
 an animal existence, concerned only with obtaining things 
 that perish in the using, and for the most part obtaining 
 but a scanty share. The Newfoundland missionary meets 
 
342 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 with no perils from heathen potentates and chiefs, such as 
 have surrounded the heralds of the Cross in Borneo, in 
 Africa, in New Zealand, or in Melanesia. Perils there are, 
 on land and sea, and greater still the perils of faith failing 
 and hope drooping under the dull monotonous wear and 
 tear of plodding work, a rigorous climate, and scanty means. 
 The climate which forms the subject of our frequent ani- 
 madversions at home, is repeated at Newfoundland, with 
 all its disagreeables intensified infinitely. Damp, fog, rain, 
 snow, wind, cold which makes an ordinary thermometer 
 useless for weeks together when the mercury is below zero, 
 and in the brief summer, seasons of great heat (for the lati- 
 tude of St. John’s is the same as that of Paris) ; this is the 
 climate, or, rather, these are various climates of Newfound- 
 land. Sudavit et alsit’^ vci^cy be written of the dweller in 
 these regions. 
 
 In this ungenial country missionaries, few indeed in num- 
 ber, have laboured since 1704. At that time there were 
 only about 500 English residents, but during the fishing 
 seasons many thousands of seafaring people were in the 
 harbours. St. John’s, the present capital, was the only 
 settlement that deserved to be called a town : here a church 
 was built, but the zeal of the people was such that they had 
 allowed it to fall into decay, when, in 1788, Bishop Inglis 
 inquired into their condition ; while they refused to repair 
 it, or even to fence the yard in which their deceased rela- 
 tives were lying, they had zeal of another sort. In this 
 distant spot the pew system ” was in full vigour, with the 
 “dog-in-the-manger” policy which is its shadow: the people 
 professed to have a freehold in their pews, which they let to 
 those who would use them ; and they opposed the erection 
 of a new church, lest their rights should cease with the re- 
 moval of the old one. 
 
 The Church in Newfoundland struggled for more than a 
 
NEWFO UNDLAND. 
 
 343 
 
 century against sectarianism, indifference, and neglect. No 
 Anglican bishop ever visited it until 1827, and therefore our 
 < hurches were unconsecrated and the people unconfirmed. 
 Roman bishops and priests had zealously laboured, and 
 many brought up in our communion sought for religious 
 consolation from their ministrations, despairing of ever being 
 reached by their own clergy. In 1839 the Rev. Aubrey 
 George Spencer, who had been for years a Newfound- 
 land missionary, and subsequently Archdeacon of Ber- 
 muda, was consecrated Bishop of Newfoundland. Let us 
 remind our readers of the character of the diocese to which 
 he was appointed. 
 
 Newfoundland is an equilateral triangle, with an area 
 about the same as that of Ireland ; the coast is everywhere 
 indented with harbours, “ tickles (creeks), and rivers : 
 some of these, which give refuge to the fishermen, who are 
 accustomed to pilot themselves in and out, are full of perils 
 to the inexperienced, and the cliffs are so precipitous and 
 the beaches so few, that the chances of escape are but small 
 to the ships driven ashore by gales, or, more treacherous 
 still, caught by the “ in-draught of the swell during the 
 prevalence of fog. The English, whose livelihood depends 
 on the fishing, have placed their settlements on the coast ; 
 the interior, which is rocky and has large tracts of moss, is 
 uncultivated ; indeed, the ingraia tellus scantily repays the 
 husbandman’s toil. Locomotion has to be accomplished in 
 boats, or on foot over mountains and morasses. Bishop 
 Spencer made his first visitation “in open boats through 
 fogs and icebergs,” and he found an alarming deficiency of 
 everything that could minister to Christian education. The 
 members of the Church were scattered along 1,200 miles of 
 coast, with no communication between the several coves 
 and harbours except by water, many of them utterly without 
 any hope of ever being reached by a missionary, and the 
 
344 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 few clergy utterly worn down by the magnitude of their 
 charges and the knowledge that many of their people they 
 would never reach. Bishop Spencer’s episcopate of New- 
 foundland was short-lived; in 1844 he was translated to 
 Jamaica: it was not, however, without results; he left an 
 organised diocese ; a training college and schools had been 
 established ; sixty-five churches, chapels, or licensed rooms, 
 were erected; and he had confirmed 2,765 persons, nearly 
 one-tenth of the whole Church population. 
 
 To him succeeded Bishop Feild, whose truly apostolic 
 labours for now nearly thirty years form a tale of devoted 
 service as glorious as any church or age can produce. In 
 the simplest fashion, without a thought of self, without an 
 idea of his lot being a hard one, — indeed, with frequent 
 declarations of the happiness of his life, the healthiness of 
 the climate, the abundance of all things which are absolutely 
 necessary, and not without stern reproof of those who have 
 magnified the hardships of Newfoundland life, — this vener- 
 able missionary has been year by year seeking out the 
 homes of the poor fishermen, who were living far beyond 
 the reach of the Church and without any expectation of 
 finding any to care for them. The present Primus of the 
 Scottish Church gave him on his consecration a yacht, the 
 “ Hawk : ” this was a handy square-topsail schooner, a good 
 sea-boat, sailing well ; her hold was so fitted up as to form 
 a long room, which served as a church ; with her flag, bear- 
 ing the arms of the see, flying at her peak, this good 
 “ Church-ship ” every other year, when the ice was broken, 
 carried the bishop, with his chaplain and one or two of the 
 pupils of the theological college, — who were thus going 
 through the training for their future work, — on his errand of 
 mercy to the many coves and bays with which the shores of 
 his diocese is indented : they were, in truth, voyages of dis- 
 covery. In some cases no charts were available, and the 
 
NE WFO UNDLA ND, 
 
 345 
 
 risk of navigation in unknown waters was great : but not 
 simply in this sense were they voyages of discovery ; the 
 ship would stand into a harbour, of which nothing was 
 known, and a boat or two would put out to greet the strange 
 sail, or the bishop would hail a fishing-boat, and learn where 
 the nearest settlement was to be found. Services were held, 
 sometimes on board ship, sometimes in a fisherman’s hut, 
 in fish-stores, in lofts — wherever it was possible. Children 
 would be brought for baptism, couples would be married; 
 during his stay the bishop always catechised the people and 
 taught them some prayers ; where it was possible, he arranged 
 for one of them to read prayers on Sundays : and the good 
 ship would sail away, leaving the little settlement rejoicing 
 as though a bright gleam had for a time crossed the path of 
 their dull existence ; and the bishop, while thankful to have 
 been able to impart some spiritual gifts, would be full of 
 sorrow at his inability to do more. 
 
 Work so arduous and so devoted has attracted from time 
 to time labourers of no common gifts and graces ; among the 
 pastors and evangelists of Newfoundland have been men 
 whose mental attainments would have qualified them for 
 any position in the Church, while their patience and self- 
 denial would have adorned any age. Among these was 
 Jacob George Mountain, a grandson of the first and a 
 nephew of the third Bishop of Quebec. Educated at Eng- 
 land’s greatest school, he distinguished himself by winning 
 the Newcastle Scholarship; thence he went to Oxford, and 
 was elected postmaster of Merton, the college of another 
 Etonian who afterwards gave himself to the hard work of 
 the missionary life — John Coleridge Patteson. Bent on a 
 strictly ministerial life, he declined the offer of a mastership 
 in his old school ; he had intended to find work in some 
 over-populated and neglected district at home, but an appeal 
 for men, issued by Bishop Feild in 1847, him to volun- 
 
346 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 teer to join him. His scholarship and theological learning 
 would have secured for the missionary college at St. John’s 
 a Principal such as few such institutions, at home or abroad, 
 could hope to find, and the bishop naturally offered him the 
 post ; but his heart was fixed on some hard and secluded 
 sphere among the poor. Such a post was found for him at 
 Harbour Briton, the centre of a line of coast 150 miles in 
 length, on the southern shore of Newfoundland. Within 
 the limits of the mission there were forty settlements, con- 
 sisting generally of four or five families : these had to be 
 visited as frequently as possible ; but how to do so and not 
 neglect the central station at Harbour Briton ? By the aid 
 of friends at home a second missionary was supported, and 
 then for weeks together Mr. Mountain would go on his 
 voyages of love and mercy. These were no times of ease or 
 pleasant adventure; the hospitality, always readily extended, 
 was the hospitality of fishermen’s huts, and the food at the 
 best was limited to salt meat, salt fish, tea, and molasses. 
 The evenings would find the people assembled in the largest 
 room available for prayers and a sermon, for administering 
 the sacrament of baptism, for catechising the children, and 
 giving advice and direction. 
 
 Beyond the bounds of the mission directly entrusted to 
 Mr. Mountain, there were stationed along the same coast 
 five deacons, whose work had from time to time to be super- 
 vised by him, and the deficiencies of their ministrations to be 
 supplied by one who was in priest’s orders. In the long 
 winter evenings he would prepare some young men, whom 
 he had attracted to himself, for the work of the ministry ; of 
 these several have continued on the same shore the work 
 which he at first attempted single-handed. One of them, the 
 Rev. W. W. Le Gallais, had been employed as a clerk at 
 La Poele, but he joined Mr. Mountain as catechist, com- 
 panion, and pupil. After a residence at St. John’s College, 
 
NE IVFO UNDLAND, 
 
 347 
 
 he ultimately became missionary at Channel, at the south- 
 western point of Newfoundland. Here it was soon evident 
 that the mantle of his teacher had fallen upon him. On this 
 promontory, partly rock and partly morass, Mr. Le Gallais 
 worked hard, and moulded a rough but grateful people ; his 
 church was enlarged, and it was used for daily prayer, when- 
 ever he was not itinerating : every person in his mission 
 who was qualified was confirmed, and his communicants were 
 largely increased. Preferment was offered him, and friends 
 and relatives urged him, by consideration of wife and chil- 
 dren, to seek work more highly remunerative and surrounded 
 by circumstances of less hardship; but he had not so studied 
 the rules of a missionary's life as to turn away from his work : 
 he never neglected the summons of the sick and dying, and, 
 to their credit it must be recorded, the fishermen of New- 
 foundland are always ready, even in the height of the season, 
 — their precarious harvest of the sea — to take the clergyman 
 in their boats, whatever the distance or weather, without fee 
 or expectation of any, whither his duty calls him. Such a 
 summons reached Mr. Le Gallais in Octobei, 1869. He 
 had to visit a sick woman at Isles aux Morts, seven miles 
 from his home : for more than a dozen years he had been 
 wont to attend to such calls : on his return he was caught 
 in a gale ; the open boat in which he was could not live in 
 the stormy^ sea, and of himself and his companions nothing 
 more was heard or seen. 
 
 Mr. Mountain laboured for seven years at Harbour 
 Briton, and then, at the urgent request of the bishop, con- 
 sented, his mission being now divided into several, to 
 become the Principal of St. John’s College. Here he 
 continued until, in 1856, a terrible fever visited Newfound- 
 land, which, in his ministrations to the sick, he caught, and 
 ultimately died on the Feast of St. Michael. 
 
 Few men have ever laboured in our distant missions who 
 
348 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 brought to the work higher gifts, or who abandoned brighter 
 prospects than did he. Independently of his acute scholar- 
 ship, he was profoundly versed in patristic theology, and 
 the writings of St. Augustine and St. Bernard had, by 
 constant study, become to him parts of his very self ; and 
 yet so humble, so conscientious was he, that he took 
 especial care in the composition of the sermons which he 
 would preach to his poor people, preparing himself for the 
 labour of writing them by several hours of reading and 
 prayer. His life was one of voluntary, self-imposed hard- 
 ness. He wrote on one occasion to a friend : “ I hold that 
 the soft and epicurean doctrine of the present day of 
 sparing the body is utterly contrary to the Gospel, and 
 is the mother of heresies, the daughter of self-deceit and 
 sloth, the handmaid to self-indulgence, the door to secret 
 unbelief and virtual denial of the cross of Christ, and that 
 there is no ground whatever in Holy Scripture for believing 
 that the trials and chastisements which are inflicted from 
 above are quite sufficient, without adding our own; else 
 there could be no meaning in St. PaiiFs ‘watchings and 
 fastings,^ in addition to his ‘ hunger and thirst, weariness 
 and painfulness not, of course, as having any merit in 
 themselves, — what has ? Neither faith nor works, nor fast- 
 ing nor feasting, nor weeping nor rejoicing : all must be 
 done in and for and by Christ.'' 
 
 And yet with this stern asceticism there was combined a 
 marvellous sweetness and charity, which won and attracted 
 all who came in contact with him. Once, on board a 
 man-of-war, he heard some bad language among the crew, 
 and he said to the chaplain, “ Do you not remonstrate with 
 them?" 
 
 “ It would be of no use while they are all together and 
 excited," was the reply. 
 
 With the chaplain's consent, Mr. Mountain spoke to 
 
NE WFO UNDLA ND. 
 
 349 
 
 them, and both then and at subsequent times they listened 
 to him with marked attention, even the very men who, the 
 chaplain thought, would have scoffed at any rebuke : it was 
 the unmistakable reality and earnestness which impressed 
 them. 
 
 On the western coast of Newfoundland, about 250 miles 
 in length, there are the two missions of St. George's Bay 
 and the Bay of Islands. From November till May the 
 people on this coast are literally “ out of the world.'' At 
 Channel, the nearest mission on the south coast, letters are 
 brought nominally every month by steamer, but communi- 
 cation with St. George's Bay, ninety- five miles distant, can 
 only be accomplished with much risk. Once, perhaps, 
 during the winter the attempt is made. An Indian will set 
 out with a bag of letters, charging half-a-dollar for each, if 
 he succeeds in delivering them; but very often he fails. In 
 this wide mission a young clergyman, the Rev. F. G. Hall, 
 from St. Augustine's College, was placed in 1870. His 
 first winter he passed quite alone. His parsonage was 
 furnished only with such chairs and tables as he could 
 borrow ; he had no servant ; he lighted his stove himself, 
 and two hours daily were spent in chopping wood to keep 
 his fire going; he blacked or rather ‘‘oiled" his own boots, 
 cooked his own food, and often, from sheer exhaustion and 
 cold, went without a meal to save the trouble of cooking it. 
 It was in this mission, in 1856, that the Rev. T. Boland 
 was frozen to death within a mile of his own house. In 
 these remote stations the missionary has to be physician, 
 magistrate, lawyer, and general arbitrator, as well as clergy- 
 man and schoolmaster. He must be ready at all times to 
 go anywhere and to lead the life of a poor fisherman — 
 neither better nor worse. Mr. Hall has detailed his adven- 
 tures, when answering a summons to bury a parishioner 
 some twenty-five miles off, in language so graphic and yet 
 
350 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 SO free from exaggeration, that it deserves to find a place 
 here. 
 
 Having described the “ skiff,” a small decked fishing- 
 boat, in which he embarked and weighed at ii p.m., in a 
 heavy Scotch mist, he says : — 
 
 “ In spite of the wet and the cold night air, the deck 
 seemed preferable to the combined odours of unsavoury 
 cod-fish and bilge water. The wet, however, increased, and 
 about I A.M. a retreat was necessitated to the one vacant 
 berth in the fore-cuddy. To creep into a kind of rough 
 box, about 4 ft. 9 in. long, and so close to the deck as not 
 to admit of a man lying on his side, required a little exercise 
 of ingenuity ; however, as the would-be occupant was not a 
 Banting, the feat was performed. In spite of being com- 
 pelled first to try the posture of a junction between knees 
 and chin, and then of an extension movement, by resting 
 the calves of one's legs on the top of the sharp foot-board, 
 sleep did at length visit me. In little more than a couple 
 of hours I awoke wretchedly sea-sick. Presently something 
 happened to the flue of the little stove, and then, to avoid 
 suffocation, I was dragged on deck, where I lay wrapped up 
 in a tarpaulin, to keep me clear of the spray which con- 
 tinually came over the low freeboard of our little craft. An 
 ineffectual attempt was made to swallow, from the one tin 
 mug common to all, a little tea, sweetened with molasses; 
 and then the kind fellows rolled me up again until twelve 
 o’clock, when, feeling a little stronger and propping myself 
 up against the mast, we joined in morning prayer. It was 
 not until 6 p.m. that we reached our destination at the 
 Barachoix, having thus been nineteen hours making a way 
 of twenty-five miles. 
 
 “ Having landed and refreshed ourselves with a wash, a 
 crew of six men pulled us about a mile further on, to the 
 burial-ground. Here, in the room of a house close by, 
 
NE WFO UNDE AND. 
 
 351 
 
 were crowded twenty -five or thirty people waiting our 
 arrival. Then, the former part of the service being com- 
 pleted, we all, with an extemporised sugar-loaf paper shade 
 over the flickering light, picked our way to the grave and 
 proceeded with the remaining portion of our burial office. 
 The service was rendered doubly affecting by the sobs of 
 the mourners, who themselves were hidden in the darkness 
 of the night, and by the low murmuring of the sea upon 
 the shore below, moaning as it were in sympathy with the 
 friends of the departed one. The funeral over, all returned 
 to the little room, where we had evening prayer, and a short 
 sermon from the text, ‘O grave, where is thy victory?" 
 Having given a notice concerning confirmation candidates, 
 we returned to our original landing-place, Robinson’s Head, 
 and after a hearty meal — the only one within the preceding 
 twenty-six hours — I turned into bed thoroughly fagged.” 
 
 Far to the north of St. George’s Bay the Rev. Ulric Rule 
 has been stationed since 1865. Few spheres of labour can 
 be more lonely or remote. Writing to his new neighbour, 
 Mr. Hall (a neighbour at a hundred miles distance !), he 
 thus described their position: “Goode, you know” (of 
 Channel), “ is in the world. He is at the end of it, it is 
 true ; but still he is not out of it as we are. You and I are 
 over the edge : that great ridge of Cape Pvay table-land is 
 the boundary between us and the world.” 
 
 How depressing must be the sense of being thus “ out 
 of the world” can only be learned by experience. The 
 labours of Mr. Rule have earned for him from a Roman 
 Cathotic priest the title of “the St. Jerome of Newfound- 
 land.” His work has a parallel in that of the Rev. R. H. 
 Temple, who, since 1864, has been working in White Bay, 
 on the eastern coast, 200 miles long, and tapering off at the 
 Straits of Belle Isle. These two young men went from 
 
352 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 England together ; and thus, one on the western, the other 
 on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, have been doing a 
 work which none others have volunteered to do. And they 
 have done it on a principle that is almost unique. They 
 went to minister not to heathens but to Christians, and they 
 felt that, if their ministrations were worth anything, they 
 were worth sufficient to afford them a maintenance. Luxu- 
 ries or even comforts they looked not for, but sufficient of 
 such things as they had they considered that the poor 
 fishermen ought to supply them with. Thus they threw 
 themselves on their people. They moved from cove to 
 cove and station to station, and, wherever they came, they 
 claimed food and shelter for their work^s sake. The food 
 was the inevitable salt cod and tea and molasses, with the 
 occasional but infrequent rum-and-water ; the shelter was a 
 share in the family hut, but they were always forthcoming ; 
 and thus for years these hardy, self-denying clergymen, 
 with a zeal and a patience never excelled by Roman devotee, 
 or by those patterns of primitive simplicity, the Moravian 
 Brethren, have been tending, for Christ’s sake, those few 
 sheep of His who would otherwise be wholly uncared for. 
 The kindness of strangers has enabled them to build 
 churches. Once or twice grants have been made to them 
 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and by the 
 Diocesan Church Society; but their annual income has 
 never exceeded ^^50 in money. With the first donation 
 5 which they received, each determined to build for 
 himself a decked boat, which would prevent him from tres- 
 passing on the limited room of his people, while givihg him 
 a little cabin in which he could study in private. When we 
 remember that in these latitudes the winter lasts for nearly 
 nine months, during which no communication of any kind 
 with the outer world is possible, the other privations of their 
 lot are intensified greatly. 
 
NE IVFO UXDLA ND. 
 
 353 
 
 It would be easy, and undoubtedly it would be pleasant, 
 to recount the labours of other devoted men, who have 
 given themselves to the work of the Church in this diocese, 
 of which the highest office is no preferment, except as 
 imposing the largest amount of self-denial and of responsi- 
 bility. Space, or rather the want of it, alone compels us to 
 close this chapter with some few remarks on its general 
 condition, and of the noble efforts which have been made to 
 render it as independent as possible of external aid. Poor 
 Newfoundland will probably ever be. Under this rugged 
 and sterile soil there is hidden wealth of ore which capital 
 may, at some distant day, bring to light. From its sur- 
 rounding seas and ice-floes there are harvested crops of fish 
 and of seals, which, plentiful and abundant in one year, are 
 miserably scanty in another. Some portion of the success 
 of a prosperous year reaches to the pockets of the poor 
 fishermen ; but poor they will ever be. Few of them are 
 capitalists ; they are dependent for their winter supplies on 
 the merchants, and in years of dearth they go deeply in 
 debt to them. The merchants live in England ; and as 
 many of them are not members of the Church, they cannot 
 be expected to do much towards supporting a religion 
 which they do not profess. Notwithstanding these un- 
 favourable circumstances, efforts at self-support have been 
 steadily kept in view, and of the forty-seven clergy at work 
 in the diocese, twelve are maintained wholly, and the rest 
 partially, by local resources. In the Theological College at 
 St. John’s many of the sons of missionaries have been 
 trained to follow in their fathers’ steps. Whatever may be 
 the merits or demerits of an hereditary priesthood, it is a 
 satisfactory thing that the clergy of Newfoundland, in no wise 
 cast down by the hardships of their own lot, wish nothing 
 better for their children than that they should succeed to 
 their heritage of work in the Church. For this college 
 
 A A 
 
354 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER 
 
 the bishop has succeeded in raising an endowment fund 
 of ;^6,000. 
 
 In 1867 the growing demands of the diocese made a 
 coadjutor desirable, and Bishop Feild succeeded, by the 
 sacrifice of half of his income, in obtaining the consecra- 
 tion of Archdeacon Kelly as his successor. This assistance 
 has in no degree lessened the labours of the veteran prelate, 
 although the diocese has, of course, derived great benefit 
 from it; and that the episcopate is duly valued in New- 
 foundland is evident from the fact that, in 1871, no less a 
 sum than ;^4,ooo was given for the permanent endowment 
 of the see. 
 
 In 1868 the good ship ^‘Hawk^^ — as the 
 bishop loved to call her — ^became too old for the hazardous 
 work of sailing to the Labrador and the dangerous bays on 
 the eastern and western shores of Newfoundland ; she, 
 therefore, was reduced to the ignoble duty of a coaster. 
 A new ship, the Star,” was provided by friends in England. 
 The experience of past years was now available, and the 
 Star ” was in every way adapted for her work. She was a 
 ‘Tore-and-aft” schooner, and could be sailed by fewer hands 
 than the “Hawk:” a great consideration this, for every 
 voyage costs ;^4oo, and now the voyages have to be made 
 yearly instead of every alternate year ; but, alas ! her career 
 was a brief one. The old “ Hawk” survives her. On 
 August 1 8th, 1871, the “ Star” went down off “ Little River,” 
 , and Bishop Kelly and the crew were hardly saved. This 
 was a grievous loss ! She was insured for a small sum, 
 which the underwriters generously doubled ; and an appeal 
 for help was made in England. 
 
 An officer of the Royal Engineers, who had witnessed 
 
 ♦ Oij roi &y€v 0€ov tirraro deaths opyts {OJyssey, 0.531.32) Is the motto 
 which the Bishop gave to the ‘‘ Hawk.” 
 
NE WFO UNDLA ND. 
 
 355 
 
 the labours of these bishops and their clergy, when called 
 to military service on that station, offered his own yacht, 
 the ‘‘Lavrock,^^ to be the future Church-ship of Newfound- 
 land; and in May, 1872, he sailed in her from Southamp- 
 ton, in order to present her in person to the bishop. This 
 yacht carries on her deck a small steam launch, which, it is 
 hoped, will be of great service. Nothing is more tedious 
 than the frequent calms, which hinder these voyages, 
 already limited by the brief summer during which the 
 waters are open ; nothing is more dangerous than the beat- 
 ing out of narrow harbours, with rocks on either side, or the 
 drifting with the tide towards rocks, when there is not wind 
 enough to keep off them. For the future these disagreeables 
 will be avoided, as the steam launch will be hoisted out, 
 when necessary, and will take the ‘‘ Lavrock’' in tow. There 
 are greater perils and longer voyages than are comprised in 
 a visitation of Newfoundland ; but of the missions in La- 
 brador, and how they are reached, another paper must 
 treat. The present one will have been written in vain, if 
 those who are at the pains to read it are not stirred with 
 admiration of the devotion of our fathers and brethren 
 labouring in Newfoundland, nor filled with something like 
 humility at the difference between the hardship of their 
 noble lives and the comforts and luxuries with which we are 
 ourselves surrounded. 
 
 A A 2 
 
35 ^ 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 WHi\TEVER has been written in the preceding paper of the 
 hardships of life in Newfoundland applies with even more 
 force to Labrador ; the very name is synonymous in our ears 
 with everything that is cold, dreary, and inhospitable. For 
 the Esquimaux and his limited wants it may suffice ; indeed 
 those poor people may be of that patriotic sort whose ‘‘ first 
 best country always is at home.^^ But what attractions a 
 country so dreary can have possessed for English folk it is 
 hard to imagine. Men will do much for gold ; but wealth, 
 even in the most moderate degree, can never be met with in 
 Labrador. A good season of fish or of seals may enable 
 the hardy fisherman to provide himself with clothing and 
 shelter, and coarse, but sufficient, food for the winter, but 
 no more, and a bad season will bring him face to face with 
 want. Nevertheless many hundreds of English people have 
 made their home on this unpromising soil. 
 
 The western portion of the Labrador coast, on the 
 northern side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is in the Diocese 
 of Quebec : from Blanc Sablon, and onwards almost inde- 
 finitely (for the actual limits have not been laid down), 
 the Bishop of Newfoundland is supposed to be responsible , 
 practically, the missions of the Church of England extend 
 from the Quebec side to Sandwich Bay, a distance of about 
 500 miles ; while still further to the north the patient Mora- 
 vians have six settlements, the most distant of which is 300 
 miles from Sandwich Bay. In 1848 Bishop Feild made his 
 first “ voyage of discovery to Forteau, the nearest point to 
 
LABRADOR, 
 
 357 
 
 Newfoundland, being only twelve miles distant across the 
 Strait of Belle Isle. Here he found a resident population 
 of about 200, and a large number of ships attracted by the 
 fishery. His visitation extended to Sandwich Bay, on a 
 direct line of coast 250 miles in length; the many settle- 
 ments were visited, and it was discovered that the English- 
 speaking residents numbered fully 1,200. There were two 
 races of aborigines — viz., the Esquimaux, who had been 
 instructed by Moravians, and a tribe of mountaineers who 
 were Romanists, for it should be mentioned that French 
 priests from Canada had been in the habit of visiting the 
 coast, although no permanent mission had been established. 
 The bishop found the people living without religion, but by 
 no means hardened against it : they gladly purchased Bibles 
 and Prayer-books, and declared their willingness to receive 
 and to endeavour to support a clergyman. They were, as 
 might be imagined, grossly ignorant, and regarded the art of 
 reading as a mysterious power, and the possessor of it as a 
 prodigy of learning and qualified for any post. Thus ‘‘a 
 fine reader was always in request to administer holy 
 baptism, and the people could see no irregularity in the 
 proceeding as “he could read most so well as a parson.” 
 The bishop saw that the only way of caring for these 
 people would be by placing three clergy — one at Forteau, 
 who should have charge of some forty miles of coast on 
 Newfoundland as well as seventy-five on the Labrador, 
 another at Battle Harbour, and another at Sandwich Bay, 
 each with 100 miles of coast; but where were the men? 
 In 1849 the bishop returned to Labrador with a young 
 deacon, the Rev. A. Gifford. A fisherman at Forteau 
 agreed to divide his bedroom by a wooden partition and to 
 give half of the room to Mr. Gifford, who was also to share 
 his table ; and there on that desolate shore the bishop left 
 him in August, with the certainty of hearing nothing of the 
 
358 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 outer world until the following May, or perhaps June. 
 Others followed his example : the Rev. H. P. Disney was 
 placed at Battle Harbour in 1850, and in 1853 the Rev. 
 G. Hutchinson left his parish on the slopes of the Malvern 
 Hills, and commenced a twelve years' residence on the 
 Labrador. In 1853 the first church was built on this coast ; 
 there are now five, and, instead of the gross ignorance that 
 once prevailed, the people are well instructed in Christian 
 truth, value their Church, and make sacrifices to maintain 
 it. This has been accomplished by hard labour and much 
 self-denial on the part of the clergy. They have had to 
 travel through snow and ice and fog — in the brief summer by 
 boat, amid floating ice and foam, and in the long winter on 
 sledges; they must fare as the fishermen fare, and must be 
 content to lodge on their journeys in their huts on the coast, 
 or in the rough tilts " in winter ; fresh beef or mutton they 
 never see ; salt pork and fish are the staple food, although 
 one clergyman says that he has eaten and relished “ fox, 
 white arid horned owls, raven, squirrel, field-mouse, otter, 
 musk-rat, marten-cat, lynx, and seal." 
 
 The western portion of Labrador was first visited by the 
 Bishop of Quebec about ten years ago, and along 180 miles 
 of coast he found a fishing population, similar to that which 
 the Bishop of Newfoundland had found on the eastern 
 coast. In 1862 the first missionary was stationed here. 
 Bishop Mountain (of Quebec), although seventy-three years 
 of age, accompanied him and visited the whole coast ; when 
 about to return he was detained a whole fortnight in a 
 light-house waiting for a steamer. In 1863 a second 
 ventured hither ; both of these were unequal to the climate. 
 In 1864 the Rev. R. Wainwright volunteered for the work : 
 his wife was as anxious to go as he was himself. In October, 
 when the severities of winter were already making their 
 presence felt, the missionary family, for there were three 
 
LABRADOR, 
 
 359 
 
 children with their parents, were landed at Old Fort Island ; 
 no house was ready for them, and the only available shelter 
 was a half-finished barn, fifteen feet by twenty ; it had been 
 built of green wood cut on the coast, and the seams were so 
 open, that as the inmates lay in bed they could see the people 
 outside through the chinks in the timbers. It is obvious that 
 these facilities for looking out on the passing scene would 
 allow the snow and wind to beat in until, as was the case, 
 beds, chairs, and tables were covered with ice ; but Mr. Wain- 
 wright was a man of resources : he clap-boarded the out- 
 side, stopped the chinks inside, put up a partition, and was 
 fortunate in the possession of a quantity of stout brown paper, 
 with which he lined the inside, and then declared himself 
 comfortably settled."” There was, however, great difficulty 
 about wood : a “ raft,” which his people fetched from the 
 mainland, was frozen up in the river, and when got out it was 
 thoroughly soaked; it lasted, however, until February, after 
 which it was impossible to keep constant fires through lack 
 of fuel. In this spring Mr. Wainwright accomplished 700 
 miles of journeying on a kammutik drawn by dogs, and 
 the exposure brought on snow-blindness, which prevented 
 his reading or writing. When summer came he proposed 
 to his people to form a settlement on the mainland on the 
 river St. Augustine, where there was more shelter, abund- 
 ance of wood, and a better soil. The people agreed, and 
 before another winter had set in a good mission-house, part 
 of which served the purpose of a school, and a church were 
 built, and the people gladly settled down by the side of the 
 missionary, where they could get the benefit of his teaching 
 for their children and themselves. Mr. Wainwright acquired 
 great fame in this locality for the variety of his accomplish- 
 ments. He was in constant demand as “ setter of broken 
 bones ” and surgeon generally, and his authority was fre- 
 quently invoked for the arrangement of disputes. After five 
 
360 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 years of this arduous service, the Bishop of Quebec removed 
 him to a parish in more civilised parts, where his children 
 would meet with some advantages on entering upon life. 
 He was succeeded by the Rev. James Hepburn, who carries 
 on the good work, and speaks cheerfully of his sledging in 
 winter and boatings in summer, as though they were among 
 the most pleasant recreations that a man could desire. The 
 bishop himself spent the summer of 1871 on the Labrador, 
 and declared that the tone of life among these fishermen 
 would compare very favourably with that of any Christian 
 community, and that this result was wholly to be attributed 
 to the residence of a clergyman among them. 
 
 Next to the Labrador in hardship, is the mission to the 
 Magdalene Islands, whidi, six in number, lie far out in the 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence, fifty miles from the mainland. They 
 have a population of 2,500, of which nine-tenths are Ro- 
 manists, and of French extraction. For six months in the 
 year they are altogether cut off from all communication with 
 the world. The intercourse between the islands during 
 the winter is carried on by sledges, an operation always 
 perilous, as the rapid tides make the ice unsafe. There are 
 no inns — every traveller claims and receives hospitality ; and 
 as cleanliness is almost unknown, the accommodation is not 
 the most luxurious. 
 
 It is well that we should remember these sketches of 
 missionary work and life in the extreme north ; they are in 
 no degree exaggerated, neither are they exceptional instances 
 that are quoted. The fact that labours of this kind are 
 undertaken year by year, voluntarily and without murmur, 
 on only a curate’s stipend, is surely a proof that the Gospel 
 has still a power and an attraction, which lead men to 
 choose for themselves the hardest work and loneliest sta- 
 tions, looking for nothing in return, but simply from love to 
 men and devotion to God. 
 
3^1 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Just as the alchemists who devoted their lives to ineffectual 
 attempts to discover the philosopher’s stone laid the world 
 under many obligations by the indirect and unintentional 
 results of their labours, so are we indebted to the hardy 
 sailors who for centuries endeavoured fruitlessly to find the 
 North West Passage, for the discovery of islands and con- 
 tinents which have added to the wealth and happiness of 
 the world. Although Sebastian Cabot probably sailed into 
 Hudson’s Bay in 1512, the region was not actually dis- 
 covered until a century later, when Henry Hudson gave his 
 name to that magnificent bay and opened the country to the 
 world : another half-century passed before Prince Rupert sent 
 a vessel to James’ Bay, and the charter was granted to the 
 Hudson’s Bay Company. Meanwhile the French had 
 colonised Canada, and were dealing with the Indians for 
 furs, and now the Company entered into competition with 
 them. This colony has differed from others in that immi- 
 gration has all along been discouraged. From the boundary 
 line on parallel 48° 50' to the North Pole, and from the 
 Pacific to the Atlantic, was one gigantic hunting-field, about 
 the size of the continent of Europe ; this was preserved with 
 much jealousy. Every additional immigrant made the 
 country less suited for what appeared to the Company to be 
 its final cause, the harbouring of wild animals ; the same 
 considerations which made the Company diligent preservers 
 
362 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 of the game, led them also to preserve the native human 
 races. A few Europeans they required at their forts and 
 stations to collect their spoils of fur, and to forward them to 
 England, but for the duties of hunters and trappers they 
 required a supply of Indians and half-breeds ; they cultivated 
 enough of the soil to supply their servants with bread and 
 butter and milk, but not a rood was tilled beyond what was 
 necessary for this purpose, lest the increase of the game 
 should be interfered with. But while they preserved the 
 aborigines just as they preserved the wild beasts, they did 
 nothing whatever for their spiritual elevation for 150 years ; 
 indeed, the servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company appear 
 to have been content to dispense with religious ministrations 
 for themselves, for no Presbyterian minister (the Company’s 
 servants were almost wholly Presbyterians) was sent out 
 until the present century was nearly twenty years old. The 
 first settlement was made by the English Government in 
 1811, under the Earl of Selkirk ; his successor, Mr. Semple, 
 was directed in 1815 to investigate the religious system of 
 the aborigines, but he had to report that not a trace of idol 
 or temple was visible, and he strongly urged the erection 
 of a church, and immediate provision to be made as well 
 for the settlers as for the heathen. This was violently op- 
 posed by the Company, who ever gave to the human 
 races the second place in their consideration, while they 
 reserved their special care for the beasts which gave them 
 their profits. 
 
 In 1818 two Roman priests had settled on Red River, 
 one of whom soon became Bishop of Juliopolis ; this see 
 has since developed into a province. The Bishop of Julio- 
 polis has become Archbishop of St. Boniface, and he has 
 three suffragans, a staff of priests, brothers and nuns, as well 
 as the College of St. Boniface, in which the future clergy are 
 being trained. In 1820 the Company sent out a chaplain, 
 
RUPERTS LAND 
 
 363 
 
 the Rev. John West ; at that time there was not a Christian 
 Indian in the country. Mr. West was a far-seeing man ; he 
 laid down a tme foundation, on which it would be easy to 
 build, and from the first he arranged a system of tithes, by 
 which all who benefited by the ministrations of the Church 
 should be trained in the habit of paying for them. He also 
 devoted himself to the Indians, and of two lads whom he 
 baptized and educated, one, the Rev. Henry Budd, is now, 
 after more than thirty years, the pastor of a large Christian 
 mission, founded by himself, with 800 Indian members. 
 After three years Mr. West returned to England. One of his 
 successors, who afterwards became Archdeacon Cochran, 
 laboured for forty years in this country with singular intelli- 
 gence and devotion. He reclaimed the Indians from their 
 wandering lives ; believing that a missionary's duty was to 
 humanise as well as to evangelise the heathen, he taught 
 them to plough and to reap, to grind their corn which they 
 had grown, to build houses and to thatch them with reed. 
 In all Aveathers he took his long journeys, and to all kinds 
 of work he put his hand. He failed, in common with his 
 brethren, in one respect — neither the Indians nor the set- 
 tlers were taught the duty of supporting their Church ; they 
 became demoralised by having everything done for them. 
 Moreover, the strong prejudice in favour of Presbyterian 
 worship among the Scotch settlers was very foolishly yielded 
 to by the English clergy, until the services of our Church 
 could hardly be recognised ; the prayers would be read in- 
 deed in compliance with the Act of Uniformity, but the con- 
 gregations would sit in their pews until they were ended ; 
 they would then stand, while an extempore prayer was 
 recited before and after the sermon. The churches were 
 without chancels ; the holy table was sometimes in a corner, 
 sometimes between the desk and pulpit in the body of the 
 church, and the sacred elements were delivered to the 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 364 
 
 people sitting in their pews ; not a word of the Canticles or 
 Psalms was chanted, neither was there an offertory through- 
 out the diocese ; and even in the cathedral church the Holy 
 Communion was celebrated only five times in the year so 
 recently as 1864. 
 
 In 1844 Bishop Mountain, then coadjutor to the Bishop 
 of Quebec, thinking that, if it were in no diocese, no bishop 
 could so conveniently reach Rupert’s Land as himself, 
 determined to visit those congregations; it was a journey 
 of 2,000 miles, and involved thirty-eight days’ travelling in 
 open canoes. The visit was heartily appreciated by the 
 people, and the result of his representations was the estab- 
 lishment of the Bishopric of Rupert’s Land in 1849. 
 Bishop Anderson held this see until 1864, and during his 
 episcopate the Indian and pastoral work w^as much ex- 
 tended ; ministrations were provided for the Crees, Santeaux, 
 Chippewyans, Sioux, and some Esquimaux. The enormous 
 extent of the diocese involved most fatiguing journeys, and 
 made communication difficult and often impossible : thus 
 in i860 two of the clergy were unable to attend the con- 
 ference summoned by the bishop — one being at Fort Simp- 
 son, 2,500 miles to the north-west, the other at Moose, 
 1,200 miles to the east. 
 
 It is in the future rather than in the past of this colony 
 that our great interest lies. It has been taken out of the 
 hands of the Hudson’s Bay Company, not indeed without 
 some excitement — a provisional government, a president 
 who held his office for a brief space, and an excellently 
 planned expedition which put down the insurgents — and the 
 Red River settlement is now the province of Manitoba, in 
 the Dominion of Canada, and promises to become one of 
 the granaries of the world. The soil is so fertile that wheat 
 can be grown year after year without manure ; indeed, the 
 great difficulty of the farmer is to get rid of his straw, which 
 
RUPERTS LAND. 
 
 365 
 
 has to be burned, and an act has been passed prohibiting 
 the custom of throwing the manure into the rivers. Any ad- 
 dition to the natural power of the soil would produce a crop 
 too luxuriant to ripen in the brief summer, and therefore 
 the disposal of manure, so precious to the English farmer, 
 so worthless to the Red River settler, becomes a difficulty. 
 But crops, however abundant, are only an embarrassment 
 if there be no market for the surplus beyond what is 
 required for home consumption, and hitherto Rupert's Land 
 has been so remote that all its cereals failed to profit the rest 
 of the world. Originally there were only two ways of reach- 
 ing the settlement, one by Hudson's Bay, the other by 
 Canada and the Lakes ; the first was practicable only for 
 four months in the year, the other was always hazardous, 
 and had ultimately to be abandoned. With the develop- 
 ment of the new States of Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota, and 
 Nebraska, a new route was opened to Pembina, on the 
 frontier, but even here there stretched between the settle- 
 ment and the outer world a prairie of 400 miles in extent, 
 with no roads over that distance except what rough carts 
 made. Bishop Machray compared the position of his 
 people to that of a community of some 10,000 people scat- 
 tered over an area of 100 miles, say from Aberdeen to 
 Inverness, with no communication northwards, and south- 
 wards only with London by carts, over tracts uninhabited 
 except by wandering Sioux Indians, whose absence would 
 be desirable. This state of things is now at an end. 
 Through the American States a line of railway is being 
 made at the rate of a mile a day; this runs within 160 miles 
 of the frontier, with which it is parallel. In the State of 
 Minnesota two branches have been made, which almost 
 touch Manitoba, or Red River settlement. From this point 
 for 1,000 miles westward, until the Rocky Mountains are 
 reached, there is a country, at present uninhabited, the fer- , 
 
366 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 tility of whose soil is only equalled by that of the Western 
 States of America, whose productions have made the city of 
 Chicago, the emporium of the west, so important as to excite 
 the sympathy of the world by its conflagration, and so 
 full of resources that the calamity was to itself only a 
 temporary inconvenience. Into this region, soon to have 
 railway communication with Canada — for the Government 
 Dominion has pledged itself to complete a line from coast 
 to coast in ten years — an immense immigrant population may 
 be expected to flow ; indeed, there can be no truer philan- 
 thropy than to assist in the removal of multitudes of our 
 own poor, who are willing to work, to these regions, where 
 the virgin soil invites them to settle. If it be true that we 
 are making history every day that we live, here indeed are 
 we laying the foundations of future empires, and on our 
 present eflbrts must largely depend the future, social and 
 religious, of these regions and of the people that will 
 inhabit them. The daughter Church of America has early 
 occupied the ground on the southern side of the bound- 
 ary, and the labours of Bishop Whipple in Minnesota, 
 and the other missionary bishops of the West, have been 
 unwearied. 
 
 The Bishop of Rupert’s Land, during the seven years of his 
 episcopate, has boldly grappled with the difficulties of his 
 position. He has multiplied services and sacraments ; by 
 the introduction of music he has made the services of the 
 Church more reverent and attractive ; and the offertory, now 
 an established institution, has taught the people the duty of 
 giving. By dint of hard travelling over the winter snows he 
 has visited the distant outposts and learned their needs : 
 how hazardous such visitations are can only be known by 
 experience ; the bishop has had to travel day after day in 
 a sledge and to sleep on the frozen snow, wrapped up in 
 buffalo hides, with the Angel of the Covenant for his .pro- 
 
RUPER'fs LAND. 
 
 367 
 
 tector arid the canopy of heaven for his curtain ; but what 
 can one man, however zealous, effect in a diocese the size of 
 a continent ? And here the Church of England compares 
 unfavourably with the daughter Church ; it would seem that 
 we possess neither the machinery, nor the power of self- 
 government, nor the liberality to multiply the episcopate as 
 circumstances require. Manitoba alone will now give ample 
 work to its own bishop. The huge region of the McKenzie 
 River, which the present bishop can never hope to reach, 
 ought to have its own overseer ; there are at present in it 
 three clergymen (nearly as many as the whole colony con- 
 tained when Bishop Anderson was consecrated), and a lay- 
 man who is prepared to offer himself for ordination. The 
 Moose, or southern department of tne Hudson’s Bay Com- 
 pany, with large bodies of Christian Indians within its limits, 
 has hitherto been visited with great difficulty, and such visits 
 will become almost impossible if it has to depend on the 
 bishop, resident amid the increasing duties which will fall to 
 liim in Manitoba ; and in the Saskatchewan district, where 
 there are already a Roman bishop and clergy, four Wesleyans 
 and one Presbyterian teacher, a vast population attracted by 
 the presence of gold, as well as by the fertility of the land, 
 will soon claim the care of the Church. 
 
 It is surely a providential act that opens to the over- 
 populated countries of the old world a field so vast and so 
 rich in manifold resources, whose soil can hardly be said to 
 repay, as in its virginal fertility it barely demands, the toil of 
 the husbandman, and where the climate, although extreme, 
 is dry and healthy, the summer sun ripening abundant food 
 with which to brave the winter’s cold. Whether the popu- 
 lation now flowing into this newly-opened country shall be 
 Christian or heathen, whether we shall repeat the blunders 
 and the sins which have too often marked our efforts at 
 colonisation elsewhere, or whether we shall profit by the 
 

 UNDER Ills BANNER. 
 
 experience so dearly bought in former times and in other 
 lands, these are questions which will be answered, once and 
 for ever, by the action of Churchmen within the next two or 
 three years ; when these have past, the thing will have been 
 done, w^ell or ill, and change will be impossible. 
 
369 
 
 XL. 
 
 Until 1858 little or nothing was known of British Columbia. 
 It had formed part of the hunting-grounds of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company, whose policy had been to dissuade emi- 
 grants from settling within their preserves. The soil was 
 supposed to be barren, the climate severe, and naturally few 
 persons were so venturesome as to transport themselves to 
 a region so unpromising. It was to the credit of the British 
 Government that in 1858 the renewal of the lease to the 
 Hudson's Bay Company was refused, and Columbia became 
 a British colony. The discovery of gold had attracted a 
 large and varied population, and it had become necessary 
 to protect them, and thus a new field was open to enterprise 
 and to civilisation. In 1856 the Church Missionary Society 
 had sent out a catechist, Mr. William Duncan, who has done 
 a remarkable work, of which something will be said presently. 
 In 1857 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 sent out two clergymen, and early in 1859 Bishop Hills 
 was consecrated. Thus Columbia started into existence 
 as a colony and as a Church under exceptionally favour- 
 able circumstances. Its material resources, its natural po- 
 sition, its magnificent harbours, seemed to promise for it 
 a speedy and an unexampled prosperity. Independently of 
 its gold, which is everywhere more or less precarious, its 
 coals and its timber seemed exhaustless ; and surveys of the 
 continent had shown that the railway from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacific could be made with fewer engineering difficulties, 
 and with easier gradients, through the British territory than 
 
 B B 
 
370 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 on the southern side of the frontier line. It was no rash 
 prophecy, therefore, which declared that the new colony 
 would contain within itself the Liverpool of the Pacific, that 
 New Westminster would be the link between the eastern and 
 the western world, and the port from which all the wealth 
 of North America would be shipped. Not less promising 
 were the prospects of the Church. For the first time in 
 the history of our colonies the episcopate had been given to 
 it almost simultaneously with its formation into a colony. A 
 clergyman had been consecrated, already known and proved 
 in arduous spheres of work in England, possessing many 
 friends and singular power of attracting people to himself. 
 The incomes of the bishop and of two archdeacons had been 
 provided by the munificence of one wealthy person, and the 
 eloquence of the bishop, together with the interest that 
 surrounded a new colony of such great promise, had raised 
 a very large fund for missionary purposes, independent of 
 the grants made to the diocese by the societies in England. 
 
 It must be confessed that the commercial prosperity, so 
 reasonably expected, has not yet been enjoyed. The colony 
 has gone through more than one commercial crisis. The 
 capital needed for the development of its resources has not 
 been forthcoming. San Francisco is still the Liverpool of 
 the Pacific, and the only railway communication across the 
 whole continent is on the southern side of the frontier. 
 Now that Columbia has become part of the Dominion of 
 Canada, it will no doubt soon derive the benefit of such 
 amalgamation, and the sanguine hopes of its earlier settlers 
 will be to some extent realised. Nor can it be denied that 
 the fortunes of the Church have been not dissimilar from 
 those of the colony. The crises which troubled the one 
 have troubled the other. Probably no colonial Church has 
 had such large means placed at its disposal with at present 
 so little results. The large investments in land, which were 
 
BRITISH COLUMBIA, 
 
 37 ^ 
 
 made with provident care when land was cheap, have not 
 been advantageous, although the property may one day 
 become valuable; and the failure of the means expected 
 from these sources has led the bishop to return twice to 
 this country — first in 1863-4, and again in 1869-71 — to 
 undertake the irksome task of raising money. After more 
 than twelve years of work, it is unsatisfactory to notice that 
 in the whole diocese, which is as large as both France and 
 England, there are only eleven clergy, of whom nine are 
 supported, wholly or partially, by societies in England, and 
 two by endowments, and that out of a population of 65,000 
 the members of the Church of England do not number 
 3,000. The labours of the clergy, especially in the districts 
 outside the limits of the towns, have been very arduous. In 
 the early days of the colony, when the gold fever was 
 at its height, the population, driven into the towns for the 
 severe winter, would migrate en masse to the diggings in the 
 spring, and the clergy accompanied them. Thus in 1862 
 the bishop himself spent six weeks among the miners. I'he 
 society was the very roughest conceivable. The “ ne^er-do- 
 weels^^ of all the earth seemed to be gathered together. 
 One of the clergy, finding not a soul come to church, stood 
 outside a drinking-saloon, and boldly denounced the wicked- 
 ness of the people. The yells with which he was received 
 were like those of Pandemonium ; but, doubting his own 
 wisdom, he continued to deliver his testimony, and retired 
 half convinced that he had done foolishly. Yet the bold 
 words, sternly uttered, had their effect at least on one of the 
 gamblers present, who became a firm ally of the man who 
 had without fear borne witness to the truth. 
 
 The mode of journeying was thus described by the 
 bishop: ‘‘You will see a man with stout country shoes, 
 corduroy trousers, a coloured woollen shirt, a leather strap 
 round his waist, and an axe upon his shoulder ; he is driving 
 B B 2 
 
372 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 before him a mule or horse laden with packs of blankets, a 
 tent, bacon, a sack of flour, a coffee-pot, a kettle, and a 
 frying-pan. He is a pioneer of the Gospel on his way to 
 the mines 500 miles a-head. He has considerable trouble 
 as he goes along. He has the forests to go through, and 
 fallen trees are constantly in his path; for these he has 
 to use his axe. He comes to a swamp, in which his 
 animal sticks fast ; he has to take the pack off, wading 
 himself into the swamp in order to do it ; he has to 
 carry the pack to some dry place, and then take the 
 animal out and re-pack. It takes half-an-hour to pack a 
 horse properly, and is a difflcult business. He comes at 
 length to his camping-ground ; he takes off the pack, leads 
 the horse to water, and turns him out to feed ; he fills 
 his kettle at the stream, and having cut down a tree and 
 made a fire with some of the branches, he puts it on the 
 fire. He will then cut poles and pegs, pitch his tent, unroll 
 his blankets, and make his bed. The water having become 
 hot, he takes his pan, and with flour from his sack begins 
 to make some bread. He will make two cakes the size of 
 the inside of the frying-pan ; he turns the bread over and 
 over in the pan, then puts it beside the fire, before a large 
 stone, to rise. After the bread is made you will see him 
 cutting pieces off his bacon, and then begins his principal 
 meal. While so engaged the Indians will come round him 
 and take their seats. The meal over, and the things packed 
 up, he proceeds to instruct the Indians, and long after dark 
 you will see the crowd sitting round the fire, which casts a 
 glare upon their faces ; or if there are no Indians, he will 
 go off to a camp at some distance, where he finds a party 
 of men travelling the same way, and proposes that they 
 shall have service. They look at him and wonder who he 
 is, as he has no signs of his office in his dress, but looks 
 like one of themselves ; but they have no objection, and he 
 
BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
 
 373 
 
 begins his service. By-and-bye you will hear the sound of 
 prayer, and the evening hymn closes all.’^ 
 
 • Life at a mining-station in Columbia is indeed life in the 
 rough. Well is it that men are found, with faith and zeal, 
 to lead such lives, and to keep up their spirits and energies 
 cheerily under so many discomforts. The labours of the 
 Rev. J. Reynard at Cariboo are more full of romance than 
 the wildest fiction. In 1869 he moved from Victoria to 
 Cariboo, some 350 miles up the Fraser River. Here was a 
 mining population of 4,000, made up of many nationalities, 
 English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Canadians, Americans, Austra- 
 lians, French, Austrians, Italians, Indians, and Chinese. With 
 the exception of a few women, who were no gain to any 
 society, the population was composed wholly of men. It 
 was among this people, then, that Mr. Reynard determined 
 to work. The day before he started the bishop received a 
 brief telegram from the chief justice : “ They will starve.^^ 
 This was followed by a letter, in which the judge showed 
 that ;£’5 oo per annum at Cariboo would not keep Mr. 
 Reynard and his family in food and fuel; but before the 
 letter arrived Mr. Reynard was on his way to Baskerville, 
 the principal settlement. Here he found the statements as 
 to the dearness of living all too true. He was a man of 
 many resources, and he set to work at once and built him- 
 self a cottage outside the town, into which he moved in a 
 few weeks. Services he had held in a saloon, throwing 
 himself entirely on the people, and the offertory averged 
 half-a-dollar a-head. A really earnest feeling had been 
 created, and a fund for building a church had been opened, 
 when a fire swept away the whole place. Mr. Reynard’s 
 cottage was outside the town, and so was saved ; but all his 
 appliances — books, benches, lamps, &c. — were gone, and the 
 bumt-out people were not in a condition to replace them. 
 Moreover, winter was close at hand. Nevertheless, he did 
 
374 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 not lose heart, but remained at his post. He was clergyman, 
 architect, physician, schoolmaster, musician, besides turning 
 his hand to the manifold domestic duties which must be 
 done, whether by servants or otherwise ; and at the mines 
 there are no servants. The Church of St. Saviour’s was 
 formally opened in September, 1870 ; but many had been 
 the trials of the missionary before that result was accom- 
 plished. In January the hitherto mild winter changed, and 
 at a leap ” the thermometer went down and the mercury 
 froze. At this inopportune moment Mr. Reynard’s fuel 
 failed. In the fall he had bought a lot of logs, and had 
 “ slid them down from the hill-top.” They were at some 
 distance from the house, and buried by seven or eight feet 
 of snow. In the bitter cold this poor clergyman turned out, 
 mined into the snow, and dragged a week’s fuel home. The 
 last log fell on his right hand, benumbed as it was with 
 cold, and bruised it, so as to render it almost useless for 
 many months. But church and school were never inter- 
 rupted, and Mr. Reynard’s son, a little lad of ten, gave out 
 the books, while his father with his left hand made up the 
 fire. The books stuck to the child’s fingers, so intense was 
 the frost. His father wrote : ‘‘ He would come to me 
 laughing, while his teeth chattered like castanets, with a 
 book hanging from his open palm. On reaching home I 
 found one of my feet frost-bitten, black, and the skin 
 peeled off, and now I felt beaten — cold, maimed hand and 
 foot, for the first time incapable of work.” Was it to be 
 wondered at ? 
 
 The winter became more severe in February, and in that 
 month his fifth child was born, the cold making life all the 
 harder. “ In a room twelve feet by ten, with fire burning 
 night and day, and seven persons living in it, a bottle of 
 wine froze, hoar frost covered the windows, nail-heads looked 
 like English daisies, the boards cracked like pistol-shots. 
 
BRITISH COLUMBIA, 
 
 375 
 
 and the knots flew out with great noise.” But through all 
 this heavy time Mr. Reynard kept working among, and win- 
 ning the hearts of, his people. Five nights in every week 
 he held school, one evening being devoted to music, until 
 the choruses from the ‘‘Messiah” and “Judas Maccabseus,” 
 and favourite glees and madrigals, became familiar sounds 
 on the Cariboo mountain-sides. “ Music made the winter 
 fly,” the miners said ; and therefore it is little wonder that 
 on Easter-day the grateful fellows came to church, and 
 hailed Mr. Reynard’s son, who was collecting their alms, 
 with the cheery but unconventional “Here, Georgie,” as 
 they put their dollars into the dish. 
 
 In British Columbia there are more Indians than are to 
 be found in the whole of America, east of the Rocky 
 Mountains. The tribes are numerous, and each has its 
 own language or dialect. Four missions, carried on for the 
 benefit of these aborigines, are very interesting : two are on 
 the Fraser River, directly north of Victoria, viz., those of 
 Yale and Hope, under the Rev. D. Holmes, and Lytton 
 and Lilloet, under the Rev. J. B. Good; the third far away 
 to the north-west, among the Tsimsean Indians, at Metla- 
 katla ; and the fourth, which has been recently established 
 in the same region at Kincolith, among the Nishkah 
 Indians. 
 
 The Lytton Mission grew out of the one established 
 at Yale and Hope, Mr. Good having received a request 
 from the Thompson Indians to visit them. The opening 
 seemed so propitious that he moved thither some five years 
 ago, and after a residence of three years formed a per- 
 manent station, as far removed as possible from the whites. 
 In this immense district there are many thousands of cate- 
 chumens and converts, varying in spiritual growth from the 
 level of scarcely-renounced Paganism to that of full mem- 
 bership of the Church. The labours of building up a body 
 
376 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 of converts thus diverse is very great. Mr. Good has to 
 travel far and near, and he has been much hampered by 
 lack of means and by the hindrances thrown in his way by 
 the rough white population who pass through Lytton 
 eu route to the gold-fields. His method of working is 
 necessarily unconventional. His services with his catechu- 
 mens are not in accordance with the Act of Uniformity. 
 Thus he breaks up the prayer of David into short petitions^ 
 the people repeating each clause after him: (i) “O God, 
 try me, (2) Search the ground of my heart, (3) ‘‘Prove 
 me,^* (4) “Examine my thoughts,” &c. The 15th Psalm, 
 “Lord, who shall dwell,” &c., is a frequent devotional 
 exercise, the clergyman asking the questions, and the people 
 giving in reply the signs of the people of God: “He that 
 leadeth an uncorrupt life,” &c. This teaching “ line upon 
 line, precept upon precept,” is found to be the only way of 
 impressing on the minds of a people emerging from bar- 
 barism the truths of Christianity. 
 
 The aim which Mr. Good has set before himself has been 
 to build these people up into a Church, which shall leaven 
 the whole land, if God will, without interfering with the 
 native customs in the matter of clothing, food, and dwell- 
 ings, except when they conflict with morality and religion. 
 Thus he visits them in their “ keekeollies,” or subterranean 
 houses, which are twenty feet deep, and reached only by a 
 notched pole in the centre, as well as in their summer huts. 
 He feels that with Christianity there will come as much of 
 civilisation as is necessary for them, and he contents himself 
 with making Christians of them and is not careful to 
 Europeanise them. The rule of this diocese seems to be 
 that catechumens remain unbaptized for a very long time, 
 and that they are admitted in large numbers into the fold by 
 the bishop alone. It would be presumptuous on the part 
 of those who are unacquainted with the circumstances to 
 
BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
 
 377 
 
 criticise this regulation, but during the protracted absences 
 of the bishop in England large numbers have remained 
 for long periods unbaptized, and some have died in that 
 condition. 
 
 The principle on which the mission at Metlakatla has 
 been conducted is wholly distinct from that on which 
 Mr. Good has worked. In the first place, Mr. Duncan, to 
 whom alone the mission owes its existence, is a layman, 
 trained at Highbury for the work of a schoolmaster. His 
 work is simply without a parallel, and bears ample testimony 
 to the genius of its originator. It was in 1857 that Mr^ 
 Duncan, sent out by the Church Missionary Society, was 
 stationed at Fort Simpson, on the borders of what was then 
 known as Russian America. An attempt to work among the 
 Indians at Victoria he had previously abandoned as hopeless, 
 on account of the presence of depraved white people. The 
 natives at Fort Simpson, between 2,000 and 3,000 in 
 number, he found to be sunk in more than average bar- 
 barism. They were as superior in intelligence to those of 
 Victoria as they excelled them in immorality. Cannibalism 
 was not merely a custom, but it found a place among their 
 religious rites. For some time he applied himself to the 
 study of the language, and the experience gained during 
 this process taught him that he could do little with them 
 while they were in daily intercourse with the white people 
 attracted to an Indian trading-fort. The ill-will of the 
 native sorcerers and medicine-men, as well as of European 
 whisky-sellers, made itself felt. Accordingly, Mr. Duncan 
 determined to settle at Metlakatla, a beautiful spot, with 
 commodious harbour, seventeen miles distant. He laid his 
 plans before the Indians, some of whom were anxious to 
 return to the place where they had been born, but others 
 hankered after the flesh-pots of town-life. In May, 1862, 
 about fifty Indians started in their canoes with Mr. Duncan, 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 378 
 
 Others promised to follow, and now the settlement numbers 
 about 500 Christian Indian residents, besides being a centre 
 of attraction to thousands of visitors. 
 
 Mr. Duncan has shown that he possesses qualities which 
 would fit him to be governor of a rising colony. He has 
 no doubt a strong will (one of the great secrets of success, 
 if only men knew it), and the settlement has derived great 
 benefit from the exercise of a firm and Christian despotism. 
 Nothing but a strong will and indomitable energy could 
 have accomplished what is now to be seen at Metlakatla. 
 Regular streets were laid out, and roads made by statute 
 labour ; the wretched Indian huts were forbidden, and well- 
 built frame houses took their place ; each house had its 
 cooking-stove and its clock, with its garden adjoining, and 
 its potato-ground outside the village. When a savage turns 
 amateur gardener, heathenism has nearly lost its hold upon 
 him. Mr. Duncan was made a justice of the peace by the 
 governor, and thus he had legal as well as moral force at his 
 service. The latter was used almost exclusively for the 
 Indians ; by the former he kept at a distance the whisky 
 traders and other immoral folks, who would have negatived 
 all his labours in a community whose Christianity was a 
 plant of so modern and tender a growth. He found his 
 Tsimpshean people had very artistic tastes, and could carve 
 in ivory, wood, and stone, as well as produce good results 
 as jewellers : he, therefore, set them up in these trades. To 
 prevent dealings with objectionable people he opened a 
 store in the village, where all requisites could be bought; 
 and in a little while he proposed to the Indians that they 
 should buy a schooner, in shares, which should trade to and 
 from Victoria, and be manned by themselves. This also 
 was accomplished, and the vessel, on some trips, would 
 return a profit of several hundred pounds. 
 
 The internal government of the settlement was admirably 
 
BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
 
 379 
 
 managed by this same despotic authority. Mr. Duncan built a 
 gaol and police-station, dressing his native officials in a proper 
 uniform. Mindful of hospitality, and yet not wishing the 
 clean houses of the settlement to be contaminated, or the 
 morals of the people to be lowered by intercourse with 
 travelling Indians, a guest-house was provided by the settle- 
 ment at the general expense. Having thus proved the 
 capacity of the Indians for commerce and Christianity, this 
 zealous missionary returned to England to acquire for him- 
 self a knowledge of certain crafts, and to obtain some 
 machinery; and then, like another Peter the Great, he 
 returned to instruct his people in the new arts which he had 
 acquired. 
 
 How long this Utopian condition may be preserved in 
 Metlakatla is doubtful. It cannot continue for ever : it 
 ought not to do so. General traffic and commerce will 
 force their way into the peaceful and contented settlement, 
 and bring their attendant evils ; but it may be hoped that 
 by the time they come the people will have been confirmed 
 and strengthened in character, and be able to withstand the 
 temptations. Strict prohibitory laws on the observance 
 of Sunday and on the importation of spirits will never 
 permanently make a devout or a temperate people, however 
 desirable they may be among a body of Christians but just 
 brought to the truth, and only learning the difficult art of 
 self-restraint. 
 
 While teaching them so much which must benefit them 
 socially, Mr. Duncan has given no secondary place to 
 Christian teaching; indeed, he has been indefatigable in 
 this respect. Nevertheless, it seems rather anomalous that 
 this mission, from its very foundation in 1862, should have 
 been wholly under a layman, who conducts their services, 
 preaches three times every Sunday, and baptizes the sick, 
 and should depend, for the regular administration of the 
 
380 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 Sacraments and the benefits of an ordained ministry, on 
 the occasional visits of the bishop or one of the clergy. It 
 is a remarkable and encouraging fact, that in this and the 
 other districts covered by our missionaries, crimes are so 
 rare, that hardly once in two years is an Indian brought 
 before the magistrates. There can scarcely be a stronger 
 contrast than between this state of order and the notorious 
 degradation in which the uncivilised Indians live. 
 
We can write the history of scarcely one of our missions 
 without making the painful and humiliating admission that 
 we have come late into the field; that possibly English or 
 American Nonconformists, certainly that Roman Catholics, 
 have anticipated us. Without going out of our way to dis- 
 cuss the teaching of those missionaries, still less to exagge- 
 rate the doings of all other bodies, as is the fashion with 
 witers who love to depreciate the missions of our own 
 Church and times, we cannot but admire the zeal, the self- 
 sacrifice, the patient labour, the utterly unworldly spirit, for 
 which the missionaries of the Roman Church are so de- 
 servedly remarkable ; amid our own lack of means and of 
 men, our difficulties in the way of extending our episco- 
 pate, we may be excused if we envy the discipline of that 
 Church and the obedience of its sons, who are prepared 
 to go anywhere and to do anything ” at the bidding of 
 their superiors, unshackled by family ties and by domestic 
 cares, indifferent to stipend, not counting their lives dear 
 unto them, indeed rather courting death and suffering than 
 shrinking from them. Something will presently be said of 
 the system on which these missions are now conducted and 
 the training which the missionaries receive; but first we 
 must go back some three centuries. The earlier efforts of 
 the’ Roman Church were made under the direction of Chris- 
 tian sovereigns, and were not shared by all ranks and con- 
 ditions of the people. The crowns of Por'^ugal and of 
 
382 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Spain pledged themselves to spread the Gospel in those 
 countries which the enterprise of their people were dis- 
 covering ; and their labours in India have been already 
 mentioned with honour. They found also fields of work in 
 the Philippine Islands and in South America : just in the 
 same way France carried to Canada in the north, and to 
 Louisiana in the south, the Christianity which, in one form 
 or another, has now occupied the whole of North America. 
 There came a time, however, when the conviction forced 
 itself on the Roman communion that a ' Church, which 
 claimed the whole world for its heritage, should not leave 
 to kings and to statesmen the task of enforcing that claim, 
 but that all classes within its pale should undertake the work. 
 It was a true and wise conception, but it took two centuries 
 to bring it into a practical shape. In 1663 the Abbe 
 Paulmyer, Canon of Bayeux, submitted to Pope Alex- 
 ander VII. a scheme for a missionary society, consisting of 
 all classes of people, for the conversion of le troisieme 
 mondeJ^ It was intended that every member of the Church 
 should contribute regularly to this association, and that each 
 and all should regard its work as his own ; but the good 
 Abbe died, and his idea was not realised. Another century 
 passed away, and then an association was formed of persons 
 willing to give prayers and alms for the conversion of the 
 infidels ; this languished for a while, and was finally extin- 
 guished amid the unbelief of the eighteenth century and the 
 blasphemies of the French Revolution. In 1815 Bishop 
 Dubourg, recently consecrated at Rome Bishop of New 
 Orleans, stopped at the city of Lyons, to the charity of 
 v/hose inhabitants he had been commended. Weighed 
 down, as many colonial bishops have since been, by the 
 needs of his diocese and his inability to supply them, he 
 proposed that the Church in Lyons should specially devote 
 tliemselves to aiding his work in America : an example, by 
 
ROMAN MISSIONARIES, 
 
 383 
 
 the way, which has since been followed by bishops of our 
 communion. In the following year the directors of the 
 “ Seminaire des Missions Etrangeres published the great 
 necessities of the Church in foreign lands, and endeavoured 
 to revive the association which had been formed a hundred 
 years before for the conversion of infidels, and which had 
 died a natural death. In 1820 a poor girl of Lyons, earn- 
 ing her daily bread as a weaver, received a letter from her 
 brother, a student at the College of St. Sulpice, who urged 
 her to get her friends to give one sou weekly for the support 
 of the seminary. These three circumstances — the visit of 
 the Bishop of New Orleans to Lyons, the appeal of the 
 directors of the seminary, and the effort of a poor girl, in a 
 station of life only on a level with that of a mill ‘‘ hand ” in 
 England — produced the association known as “La Propa- 
 gation de la Foi,^^ which raises the whole of the money 
 with which the widely-extended missions of the Roman 
 Church are supported. It is a testimony to the power of 
 “ pence — a power which Nonconformists in England fully 
 recognise, and to which they are largely indebted for their 
 financial success, but a power of which English Churchmen 
 as yet know very little. The association was in 1822 
 established on a broader basis, and was put under autho- 
 rity. The Bishop of New Orleans was not allowed to 
 obtrude his needs to the exclusion or to the disparagement 
 of other dioceses : very wisely, the disposal of the funds 
 was placed in the hands of a council, who could equitably 
 assess the needs of different parts of the world. No man 
 can be a judge in his own case; a missionary whose whole 
 heart is in his work is apt to think that his own field is the 
 most necessitous in the world, and if he have powers of 
 description, and often visits the mother Church, many 
 persons will be found ready to agree with him ; his story 
 is like a Chinese picture, which is void of perspective : he 
 
3^4 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 thinks of, and labours for, his own field and ignores others, 
 and his hearers, who have no special knowledge of the sub- 
 ject as a whole, naturally are led by the statements of the 
 first missionary who impresses them. It was therefore in 
 1822, as it still continues to be, a wise principle to disr 
 courage the direct applications of missionaries, whose state- 
 ments must be partial and imperfect, and to leave the allot- 
 ment of the alms of the faithful to a responsible council, 
 who can equitably proportion means to needs. The asso- 
 ciation thus formed at Lyons, and whose beginnings were 
 so humble, soon grew : province after province joined \ 
 then Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, 
 Spain, and Portugal ; three hundred bishops were enrolled 
 among its members, and in 1840 Gregory XVI. issued an 
 encyclical letter which commended the association to all 
 the churches of the Roman obedience. Its income exceeds 
 ;^2oo,ooo per annum, and is supplied not only by the con- 
 gregations of Europe, but by those of Asia, Africa, North 
 and South America, and Oceania; but two-thirds of it 
 come from France, and recently it has suffered much from 
 the financial difficulties of that country. Its grants are 
 distributed among more than 500 dioceses, its subscribers 
 are more than 1,500,000, and its ‘‘ Annals and ‘‘ Lettres 
 Edifiantes,^^ which keep the world informed of its doings, 
 are widely circulated. Two councils, sitting the one at 
 Lyons and the other at Paris, manage its affairs : it is 
 strictly an association for raising funds and for stirring up 
 sympathy with missionary work ; but with the direction of 
 missions, the choice and training of missionaries, it has 
 nothing directly to do. It must be remembered that none 
 of these countries have the vast foreign dependencies 
 which England possesses, that the claims from struggling 
 colonists are rarely received by them, that no subject 
 India, with millions of heathen, calls on them for evangeli- 
 
ROMAN MISSIONARIES. 
 
 385 
 
 sation, that they are poor countries, that France especially 
 is heavily taxed, and therefore the monies which they 
 devote to the conversion of the heathen are given simply 
 from motives of a religious character, uninfluenced by poli- 
 tical considerations. 
 
 The same authorities who decry the missions of our 
 Church and age, are often extravagant in their admiration 
 of the system which trains the evangelists and apostles of 
 the Roman Church. The system may be the best in itself 
 for the people who are concerned with it, and its results 
 may be eminently successful; but it by no means follows 
 that it would flourish if transplanted to another country 
 and to another Church, or that what may suit one race of 
 the human family will suit all. The great seminary in 
 which the missionaries of the Church of Rome are trained 
 is of course that which is connected with the congregation 
 de propaga 7 ida fide at Rome. More than two hundred years 
 ago the then Pope established this college in the Eternal 
 City, in the hope of supplying the loss of the many clerical 
 colleges which throughout Europe had deserted from the 
 Roman communion. Its endowments support about 150 
 students, about one-third of whom are youths of colour of 
 every shade — Chinese, Singhalese, Negroes, Sioux and Cree 
 Indians, Thibetians, each of whom retains his own lan- 
 guage, while the colloquial speech of the college is Italian. 
 The exhibition, so well known, which is given in the college 
 on each Epiphany, is one of surpassing interest. It was 
 originated by Cardinal Mezzofanti, who was wont to con- 
 duct it in person, and its glories have hardly lessened since 
 his decease. For three hours some forty or fifty of the 
 elder students recite, declaim, or sing, every man in his 
 own tongue, in the presence of many ecclesiastical digni- 
 taries and of not a few foreigners, who are attracted by 
 curiosity to a spectacle so unique. Hardly inferior in 
 
 c c 
 
UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 386 
 
 importance and in the number of its students is the Semi- 
 7 iaire des Missio 7 ts EtraTigeres attached to the church of 
 St. Francis Xavier in Paris. In twenty years the number 
 of its postulants ^Mias grown from 25 to 150: they are 
 taken, not from the outside world, but from the clerical 
 seminaries, whose tutors select from their pupils such as 
 exhibit signs of the missionary vocation. The director 
 states that as the “ postulants almost always come to the 
 seminaire against the wishes of their parents, no charge is 
 made, neither is any payment expected for their food, 
 tuition, or clothing. The maximum age of admission is 
 thirty-five, but students generally enter about twenty ; they 
 must have finished the requisite amount of Latin studies, 
 and have passed through a course of philosophy. They are 
 trained in dogmatic and moral theology, the divine canon, 
 and Scripture ; and they also go through a liturgical course. 
 They do not acquire any medical knowledge, and it has 
 never occurred to the authorities that it would be desirable 
 that future missionaries should be able to ride and to swim, 
 and should be possessed of some mechanical skill ; the 
 education is strictly a clerical one. If in any particular 
 mission it is thought necessary to work a printing-press, 
 a student is directed to learn as much as is required to 
 enable him to teach a native, but such an accomplishment 
 is altogether apart from the regular course of instruction. 
 Some forty missionaries go forth from the gates of this 
 institution annually. No doubt the training which they 
 have received has prepared them to endure hardness ; the 
 long probation, extending ordinarily over ten years at the 
 Propaganda and three years at Paris, the weary round of 
 duties, the discipline which punishes the slightest breach 
 of the rule of silence at meals with a bread-and-water diet, 
 which limits recreation to walking in double file like a 
 village school going to church — this kind of existence, if 
 
ROMAN MISSIONARIES. 
 
 387 
 
 it does not produce some terrible reaction, no doubt leads 
 the way to self-abnegation and self-immolation. In the semi- 
 nary at Paris the training possesses another element of 
 depression. In a certain room the students spend a quar- 
 ter of an hour daily for the purpose of meditation : on the 
 walls are hung pictures which detail with extreme minute- 
 ness the tortures and sufferings of those who have laid 
 down their lives for the truth ; beneath the pictures are the 
 relics of the departed. At one place there are a few bones 
 preserved under glass; at another is a box with similar 
 contents, but hermetically sealed and unopened since its 
 arrival from China; the rope with which one was strangled, 
 the clothes which another wore at the time of his death, 
 the discipline ’’ with which another tortured himself : 
 these are the materials with which the future missionaries 
 prepare themselves for the work which they have adopted 
 as their own. It was training such as this which prepared 
 those brave missionaries in the Corea for the deaths which 
 they suffered so recently as 1866. The feeling against 
 these missionaries was begotten of political, not of religious 
 causes ; in 1839 three French missionaries had been be- 
 headed, and their successors, twenty-seven years later, knew 
 that a similar fate might be their own. Bishop Berneux, 
 the head of the mission, was warned and urged to seek 
 safety in flight. “ But,^^ said he, “ if they take me, there 
 they will stop ; but if I flee, they will pursue me, and the 
 persecution will become general.^^ His coadjutor bishop 
 was of the same mind. One by one, nine of these French 
 missionaries were executed in the presence of the survivors, 
 who had shared the tortures to which they were previously 
 subjected. The news of their constancy was brought to 
 France, and in the city of Amiens, which had given birth 
 to one of them, it was received as men receive tidings of 
 victory. In the cathedral a thanksgiving service was offered 
 c c 2 
 
38S 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 to God, who had chosen for the glory of martyrdom one 
 whom they all knew ; and, this service ended, the whole 
 city was for the rest of the day; neither did it end 
 
 thus, for others came forward and volunteered for the very 
 work" in which their brethren had fallen. 
 
 A system that produces fruits such as these must not 
 recklessly be condemned ; but it will never command the 
 approbation of Englishmen. We are not surprised to learn 
 that everything in the internal economy of these seminaries 
 speaks of prompt obedience and order, but — still more — of 
 sadness and depression. Such an existence is fatal to all 
 spring and buoyancy of spirit ; it must reduce men to the 
 condition of machines, of machines indeed that may accom- 
 plish results which challenge our veneration, but which must 
 still increase our sorrow for the machines themselves ; and 
 this it is, probably, which accounts for what is patent among 
 the Roman missionaries, viz., that their aim is rather to die 
 for Christ than to live for Him and to preach Him. It 
 would seem that heathenism is regarded as a fortress, which 
 will yield at last, when many generations of missionaries 
 have flung themselves against its ramparts and have perished 
 in the attempt. Such a plan witnesses to the bravery rather 
 than to the skill of the besiegers. 
 
 Not thus, forsooth, would we have our missionaries 
 trained ; indeed, we could not if we would, for the Anglo- 
 Saxon mind would either rebel at the system or collapse 
 beneath its burden. A man will make none the less faithful 
 an evangelist, nor, if need be, a less fearless confessor, for 
 having been trained under brighter influences and amid the 
 healthy discipline of a more social life ; his mind and his 
 body alike will be more braced, and become more likely to 
 endure the wear and tear of a missionary career. We may 
 not have as many tales of actual martyrdom to recount as 
 are found in the annals of other communions, but among 
 
ROMAN MISSIONARIES, 
 
 389 
 
 the missionaries of the present day there are men prepared 
 to do and suffer whatever they may be called upon to do 
 and suffer. May their number be increased ! 
 
 The Church of Rome does not alone possess the power 
 of evoking the missionary spirit and of commanding men 
 for the work. Some eighteen years ago a Lutheran pas- 
 teur, named Schaufifler, had two sons at the missionary 
 college at Basle. The elder left for the Gold Coast, where 
 he found an early grave. The father wrote to his surviving 
 son, “ Thy brother is with God ; it is time you thought of 
 Africa. Go and ask the inspector to let you fill up the 
 vacancy caused by your brother’s death.” To the com- 
 mittee the father wrote in similar terms, and implored them, 
 though the dead were as numerous as in the trenches before 
 Sevastopol (for it was during the Russian war that he 
 wrote), never to withdraw from Africa. Zeal is not the 
 special attribute of any one nation or church. 
 
39 '^ 
 
 XLIL 
 
 The English Church is under such deep obligations to the 
 missions of Eastern Christendom for the spiritual illumination 
 of this country ages before the arrival of St. Augustine, and 
 probably for the favour with which that mission was received 
 and for the open field which was presented to it, that it 
 must be a pleasant task to an Englishman to record the 
 efforts of that venerable Church from which his own spiritual 
 life has been derived. Her labours for the spread as well as 
 for the defence of the faith were indeed for many centuries 
 unwearied and unsurpassed, but it is in days gone by, and 
 not in the present era, that her distinctly missionary efforts 
 have been the grandest, and her triumphs the most evident. 
 In the words of her enthusiastic and learned historian, her 
 envoys pitched their tents in the camps of the wandering 
 Tartar : the Lama of Thibet trembled at their words ; they 
 stood in the rice-fields of the Penjab, and taught the fisher- 
 men by the Sea of Aral ; they struggled through the vast 
 deserts of Mongolia : the memorable inscription of Siganfou 
 attests their victories in China : in India the Zamorin him- 
 self respected their spiritual and courted their temporal 
 authority. From the Black Sea to the Caspian the monks 
 of Etchmiadzine girded themselves for this holy warfare : 
 they braved alike the Pagan and the fire-worshipper, the 
 burning suns of Tiflis and the feverish swamps of Imeretia ; 
 
THE EASTERN CHURCH, 
 
 39.1 
 
 they subjugated the border lands of Europe and Asia, and 
 planted a colony half-way up the great Ararat. 
 
 “Southward, Alexandria sent forth another army of mis- 
 sionaries. Steering through the trackless deserts by sun and 
 stars, they preached the Gospel as far as the fountains of the 
 Nile, and planted flourishing churches in Nubia and Abys- 
 sinia, Solitary monks ventured further into the kingdom 
 of Satan : through the savage Gallas they passed to Melinda 
 or Zanguebar; others, committing themselves to the 
 merchant vessels, preached the way of salvation to Cape 
 Guardafui, Zocotra, and distant Ceylon. Here the two 
 great armies of Christian warriors met, having embraced a 
 quarter of the then known world in their holy circle. ^ 
 
 Their eflbrts northwards, although later in date, eclipsed 
 all others : the conversion of Russia was on a scale unparal- 
 leled in any age, and the capabilities of an empire which 
 extend from the Pacific to the Atlantic are almost too vast 
 to be realised : it was towards the close of the tentli 
 ccntuiy, some eighty years before the Norman Conquest, 
 that Vladimir, a Russian prince, although himself of Western 
 oiigin, was brought to the confession of the truth. Many 
 had tried to win and to persuade him, but in vain. For 
 years he clung tenaciously to the heathenism in which lie 
 had been brought up; some of his people accepted the 
 teaching of the Greek missionaries, but he was unmoved. 
 Mahometans, Jews, and Bulgarians, which last represented 
 Western Christianity and the Papal authority, each in turn 
 set forth the claims of their respective religions, but to each 
 he objected, and adhered the more resolutely to his heathen- 
 ism : but what others had failed to do was at length accom- 
 plished by a Greek philosopher. The whole story of biblical 
 and ecclesiastical history was laid before him : pictures 
 
 * History of the Holy Eastern Church. By the late Rev. John Mason 
 Neale. Introduction. Vol. i. pp. 3 and 4. 
 
392 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 were used to illustrate the narrative : the Icon of the last 
 judgment, which showed the conditions of those on the 
 left hand and of those on the right, moved him to say. 
 Happy are those on the right; — woe to the sinners on 
 the left. Not yet, however, was he convinced; he only 
 determined to inquire further concerning this new creed : 
 messengers were sent as a sort of royal commission to in- 
 vestigate the religious systems of other lands. Romans, 
 Germans, Bulgarians, were inspected in turn, and each failed 
 to satisfy the strangers ; at length they came to Constanti- 
 nople : St. Sophia was then the most splendid shrine in 
 Christendom : the sanctuary ablaze with lights, the Patriarch 
 in his gorgeous vestments, seen dimly through the smoke of 
 the incense, the processions of deacons and sub-deacons, in 
 white robes and bearing torches in their hands, the humilia- 
 tion of the people - as they fell on their knees with one accord 
 and sang Kyrie Eleeson,'’ these were sights which at once 
 subdued the Russian envoys : they believed that they had 
 seen angels taking visible part in the services of the sanctu- 
 ary, and the Christians encouraged them in their delusion : 
 they returned to their northern home with one conviction 
 firmly impressed on them, viz., that happen what might, it 
 was impossible that they should remain as they were. 
 Vladimir was not at once baptized ; there were political and 
 mundane considerations connected with his ultimate ac- 
 ceptance of Cb.rstianity, which painfully detract from the 
 interest of such un event. He vowed to become a Christian 
 if the city of Cherson, which he was besieging, fell into his 
 hands ; he had also demanded the hand of the Princess 
 Anne, the sister of the Emperor Basil. At length he was 
 baptized ; and in autocratic fashion ordered his followers to 
 be baptized also. The wooden idol of Peroun, the god of 
 war, to which human sacrifices had been offered during the 
 current reign, was hurled into the waters of the Borysthenes, 
 
THE EASTERN CHURCH, 
 
 393 
 
 and into the same stream the people stepped down and were 
 baptized. 
 
 It is not thus that we would wish to see the nations con* 
 verted and gathered into the fold : what may be the value 
 of such conversions it is not hard to say, and indeed the 
 Erastianism of the Church of Russia under its present con- 
 stitution is still one of its most objectionable features. The 
 sacred and the secular are so intermingled that even its very 
 missions are not free from the imputation of being main- 
 tained from political rather than from higher motives. The 
 sight, however, of the baptism of his people seems to have 
 impressed Vladimir, who, with new-born enthusiasm, ex- 
 claimed, O Great God, look on these Thy new people ! 
 Grant them, O Lord, to know Thee, the only true God, as 
 Thou hast been made known to Christian lands, and con- 
 firm in them a true and unfailing faith ; and assist me, O 
 Lord, against my enemy that opposes me, that I may over- 
 come all his wiles.” 
 
 A church was built on the spot consecrated by so remark- 
 able an event, and whatever may have been his original 
 motive in being baptized, the grace of the sacrament was 
 diligently cultivated, and a remarkable change was apparent 
 in Vladimir’s subsequent career. Christian education forced 
 ' its way northwards : the cities of Moscow and Kieff and 
 Vladimir had each their metropolitan; conquering and to 
 conquer, the Christian soldiers went forward, and tribe after 
 tribe was brought out of darkness. The Ural Mountains 
 were no impassable barrier : Siberia received them, and 
 Chinese Tartary heard their message. 
 
 The missions of the Russian branch of the Eastern Church, 
 although neither as numerous nor as extended as could be 
 desired, appear now to be conducted thoroughly and wisely. 
 Under the Emperor Nicolas, all foreign missionaries were 
 ordered out of the country, and the circulation of the 
 
394 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Scriptures in the vernacular was forbidden ; hi^ successor 
 promotes the missionary spirit in the clergy, and encourages 
 the distribution of the Holy Scriptures. In Siberia the 
 missions are under the direction of a bishop, and the 
 Mongolian translation of portions of the Bible, made many 
 years ago by English missionaries, is used. The method of 
 teaching the people is more patient, and their instruction is 
 more thorough than was once the case : the pious Russians 
 of fifty years ago persuaded their heathen neighbours to be 
 baptized, and in an aristocratic country, whose serfs were 
 but the other day emancipated, such conversions can be 
 obtained easily and on a large scale. It must ever be a 
 point of conscience with an evangelist, who represents either 
 a superior civilisation or a dominant race, to take care that 
 the influence of his accidental position is not unduly exer- 
 cised : the English missionaries in India are often tried by 
 the ready way in which natives acquiesce in whatever “ the 
 Sahib ” asserts. Among the Russians, to whom to command 
 is natural, these precautions were not taken, and the 
 Christianity of the Siberian converts not only commenced, 
 but too often ended, with their baptism : many never saw a 
 Bible, unless it were the old Sclavonic copy kept in the 
 church; now they are carefully trained, and are able to 
 give a reason of the hope that is in them. 
 
 Of late years there has grown up in the hearts of many 
 members of the Anglican and the Eastern Churches an 
 earnest desire for inter-communion and Christian sympathy. 
 Wherever the missions of the two bodies meet on heathen 
 groupd, their work will be much facilitated, if that desire 
 can be gratified, for on it depends whether they meet as 
 strangers and rivals, each bidding against the other for the 
 conversion of the heathen, or as brethren. The missionaries 
 of our own Church have not been brought so much in con- 
 tact with the Greek clergy as have our American - brethren, 
 
THE EASTERN CHURCH, 
 
 395 
 
 as well in Asia as in the Northwestern districts of their 
 own continent. Since 1684 the Chinese Emperors have 
 allowed the descendants of a Cossack colony to have a settle- 
 ment and their own church at Pekin ; and the zeal which is 
 now impelling the Russian Church to evangelise the almost 
 boundless steppes and valleys of Asia, will probably bring 
 their outposts face to face with the growing missions of the 
 American Church in these regions. Again, in the country 
 known until recently as Russian America, but now the 
 dominion of the United States, and in California^ where a 
 considerable Russian colony has been established, the two 
 Churches have been brought into intimate relations, and the 
 zeal of the Russian clergy in dealing with the 75,000 Indians 
 in Alaska has been warmly acknowledged by their American 
 brethren. The mission in Kamschatka, which was entered 
 upon by the present Metropolitan of Moscow in 1823, and 
 superintended by him until his translation in 1868, has sur- 
 vived many difficulties, and has drawn forth a martyr spirit 
 among the clergy, not a few of whom have died at their 
 post. In this Arctic region and amid these Polar churches, 
 there are, besides the bishop, just thirty priests, with between 
 forty and fifty oratories and chapels. The missions in 
 China have already been mentioned, both in earlier papers 
 and in the present one : under the archimandrite who now 
 has charge of them they seem to have received a fresh 
 vigour, and are likely to have great influence over the 
 heathen tribes in whose midst they are planted. Much 
 more, however, may fairly be expected from the several 
 branches of the Eastern Church than we at present witness : 
 more men, more means, larger eflbrts, and, if God will, larger 
 results. With some of these churches the first duty is at 
 home, and they seem gradually to be realising the necessity 
 of educating their clergy, of inquiring into the belief and 
 practices of other churches, and of seeking to be freed from 
 
UNDER ms BANNER. 
 
 396 
 
 the superstitions which have grown up around themselves ; 
 but from the Church of Russia, with the prestige of that 
 mighty nation and of Imperial care— not, it is to be allowed, 
 an unmixed advantage^much more may be expected. It 
 seems to be her function to say to the East, ‘‘ Give up ; and 
 to the South, Keep not back/* May she rise to the sublime 
 career that is before her 1 
 
397 
 
 XLIIL 
 
 Allusion has been frequently made in these pages to the 
 missionary labours of the Moravian Brethren. Wherever 
 the circumstances of a country seem to mark it as one of 
 peculiar difficulty to missionaries, there the Moravians, with 
 chivalrous devotion, seem gladly to have stationed them- 
 selves; any book, therefore, which professes to treat of 
 modern missions, would be very incomplete if it contained 
 no notice of a body of missionaries so earnest, so self deny- 
 ing, and so successful. 
 
 The origin of the ^''Church of the United Brethren,” as 
 this body loves to style itself, is a matter of uncertainty, and 
 consequently of dispute. They claim for themselves a 
 descent from the Sclavonian branch of the Eastern Church, 
 and an uninterrupted succession of bishops from apostolic 
 times. Two Greek ecclesiastics, Cyrillus and Methodius, 
 introduced Christianity into Moravia and Bohemia in the 
 ninth century. The persecutions which fell on these people 
 during the long struggles between Eastern and Western 
 Christendom well-nigh extinguished the ‘‘ Unitas FraU'iun ” 
 which had been formed by the Moravians, Bohemians, anci 
 Waldenses, but in all their synods, and at other times, the 
 maintenance of a regular succession of ministers had been a 
 cjiiestion much agitated and discussed, and in the middle of 
 the seventeenth century one Amos Comenius was consecrated 
 bishop in Poland, to which country he had fled with the perse- 
 cuted remnant of his followers, and there set himself to the task 
 
398 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 of rebuilding his Church. He appealed for help to “ all the 
 Protestant princes in Europe/^ and English sympathy was 
 shown by the issue, in 1715, of an Order in Council ‘‘for the 
 relief and for preserving the Episcopal Churches in Great Poland 
 and Polish Russia.” Notwithstanding their claim to be an 
 Apostolic Church, confirmed, too, as it was by Archbishop 
 Potter in the last century, the grounds on which that claim 
 rests are not very distinct. They boast themselves as having 
 been “Protestants before Luther, and a Reformed Church 
 before the Reformation,” and they accept the Confession of 
 Augsberg as the exposition of their creed. Those who 
 reject their claims to possess the apostolical succession, date 
 the origin of the brotherhood from 1722, when the refugees 
 from Bohemia and Moravia formed themselves into a religious 
 society in Silesia under Nicholas Lewis, Count of Zinzendorf. 
 This remarkable man had been possessed with a life-long 
 passion for mission work, shown even in his childhood by 
 the establishment among his schoolfellows, at Halle, of 
 “The Order of the Mustard Seed,” by which these lads 
 pledged themselves to spread the Gospel at home and 
 abroad. On the estates of this nobleman the brethren, 
 driven from city to city, found peace, protection, and sym- 
 pathy. A tract of forest land was given to them by the Count, 
 and on this they built their primitive home ; they had to fell 
 the trees in order to clear the ground, and to provide 
 materials for their houses ; but in time “ Herrnhut ” (the 
 watch of the Lord) became a city set on a hill. It attracted 
 many of the persecuted brethren from other lands, until the 
 settlement numbered 600 souls, and it became a centre of 
 light to all the most distant and darkened parts of the world : 
 for from the first these pious souls, for the most part un- 
 learned in all things save their several handicrafts, felt under 
 a constraint to preach to the heathen the riches of Christ. 
 It must be added, that for some 140 years they and their 
 
MORA VIANS. 
 
 399 
 
 successors have nobly obeyed the call ; never consulting with 
 flesh and blood, never building on other men's foundations, 
 never shrinking from, but rather seeking, the most inclement 
 regions and the most unpromising spheres, depending very 
 often on their own labour for their maintenance, and always 
 poorest among the poor, these faithful men have patiently 
 laboured and prayed and preached, not regarding success, not 
 dispirited by failure, noble types of what missionaries should 
 be. We regret the imperfect and defective organisation and 
 the isolated position which this brotherhood holds in the 
 Christian world, but when we read of its missionary labours, 
 we are bound to say, “ Cuvt talis sisj utmam nosier esses 
 It was in 1731 that they received what appeared to them 
 the first providential call to missionary work. Count 
 Zinzendorf had gone to Copenhagen to attend the corona- 
 tion of Christian IV., and there he heard much of the 
 miserable condition of the negro slaves in the island of St. 
 Thomas, then, as now, a possession of the Danish crown. 
 All aglow with sympathy and compassion, he returned to 
 Herrnhut, where his tidings were like sparks applied to 
 tinder. Amid the general longing to help, two young men 
 specially volunteered for the work ; one was a day-labourer, 
 the other a potter. They were enthusiasts, no doubt, but 
 they were not fanatics ; they knew what they proposed to 
 themselves, and the difficulties in their way, but they went in 
 faith, full of courage, and upheld by the prayers of their 
 brethren. Their ‘‘outfit" they carried in their hands, and 
 they reached Copenhagen with eighteen shillings in their 
 pockets ; thence they worked their passage to the West 
 Indies in a Danish vessel, and immediately commenced 
 their labours among the slaves. In the following year, two 
 brethren, actuated by the same spirit, set out for Greenland, 
 and after six years saw the reward of their labours in the 
 baptism of their first convert. This mission subsequently 
 
400 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 became very helpful to those on the Labrador. Within ten 
 years the brethren had established themselves at Surinam, in 
 South America, the Cape of Good Hope, Western Africa, 
 Algiers, and Ceylon ; and in the educational work, whether 
 at home or abroad, for which the Moravians are ever dis- 
 tinguished, the probability of each child becoming a mis- 
 sionary is steadily kept in view. All the members of this 
 society are pledged to support its missions to the utmost of 
 their power, and to take constant prayerful interest in its 
 welfare and progress. At the present time there are ninety 
 mission stations of the Moravians in Greenland, Labrador, 
 North America, the West Indies, Surinam, Western Africa, 
 the Cape, Australia, and Thibet. They number 315 “mis- 
 sionary agents,’^ Ij37i ‘‘native assistants and overseers,’^ and 
 nearly 70,000 converts. The income by which these opera- 
 tions are sustained varies from 15,000 to ;^2o,ooo per 
 annum, a portion of which is given by persons who, not 
 belonging to the Moravian body, admire their zeal and 
 devotion. How should they not ? 
 
 Without professing to be ascetics, the Moravians have 
 voluntarily endured hardness. Without aiming at a monastic 
 life, and while strongly discouraging celibacy, they have 
 lived in community and under discipline ; while surrounded 
 by the cares as well as by the joys of domestic life, they have 
 been as little burdensome for . their maintenance as ever 
 celibate missionaries could be, for with their own trades and 
 handicrafts they have maintained themselves and their mis- 
 sions. Constantly preaching and keeping schools, they have 
 been the Dominicans of post-Reformation ages, for they have 
 civilised their people and taught them in things useful for 
 this life as well as for a future one ; and in the matter of 
 hospitality, no pilgrim ever found warmer welcome at 
 monastery gate than these good brethren are always ready 
 to extend. From all parts of the world the same testimony 
 
MORA VIANS. 
 
 401 
 
 is borne to their industry", their simplicity, and their devo- 
 tion. In one of his early visitations (in 1850) of Kaffraria, 
 Bishop Gray wrote, — “ We arrived about 5 p.m. at the 
 Moravian mission station of Shiloh. The good brethren 
 received me most kindly, and the next morning I walked 
 around their village and grounds. There is a vast superiority 
 in the Moravian establishments, so far as civilisation and 
 improvement are concerned, over all other institutions in the 
 colony. There is more work done, greater industry, and a 
 more rapid advance in agricultural and mechanical opera- 
 tions. There are two watercourses cut here, three miles 
 long, which were full, even in this dreadful drought. The 
 gardens were in excellent order, and abounded with a variety 
 of fruit-trees, walnut, peach, apricot, vine, mulberry, apple, 
 and pear. Some very large fields, all under irrigation, were 
 fenced in with a willow hedge. The churchyard — a quiet, 
 secluded, peaceful spot — was surrounded with an excellent 
 quince fence. The oak and the willow were on every side. 
 All seemed busy : I did not see any lying lazily about. 
 Several very good mud houses were in course of erection. 
 A Kafir was planing a door in the carpenter’s shop. They 
 showed me, with some pride, a bell they had just cast, 
 made out of the hoops that surrounded some ammuni- 
 tion casks, left at the station during the last war. It was 
 45 lbs. in weight, and sounded well. It seemed to me an 
 illustration of the promise, that ‘ the sword should be 
 turned into the ploughshare and the spear into the pruning 
 hook.’^^ 
 
 It was the recital of the doings of the Moravians in Green- 
 land that induced Dr. Moffatt, then a Scotch gardener, to 
 offer himself for missionary work in Africa, where he has 
 laboured among heathen tribes for half a century. From 
 Guiana and Australia the same report of patient toil among 
 the most unpromising specimens of fallen humanity is brought. 
 
 D D 
 
402 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 Of two missions only, however, can mention now be made in 
 the limited space at our command. 
 
 The mission to the Labrador was first proposed in the 
 year 1750, by John Christian Ehrhardt, a sailor, who had 
 received his earliest religious impressions from a Moravian 
 brother in the West Indies. In 1749 he went a voyage to 
 Greenland, where the Moravians had been working for six- 
 teen years. Here he saw more of their labours, and, hear- 
 ing of the heathen who lived on the other side of Davis’s 
 Straits, and understanding that they much resembled the 
 Greenlanders, he urged on the society the duty of sending 
 teachers to them. Application was made in the first instance 
 to the Hudson’s Bay Company, but that body, consistent 
 with itself in the uniform policy of secluding their hunting- 
 grounds from the outer world, refused all aid. A London 
 merchant helped the brethren to fit out a vessel, which 
 reached Nisbet Bay in safety. The Esquimaux were savage 
 as Maoris proved half a century later in New Zealand, but, 
 when addressed in Greenlandic, expressed pleasure at the 
 visit of the strangers. Ehrhardt and six of the ship’s com- 
 pany went ashore, having with them a large quantity of 
 barter goods, but they never returned, the natives having 
 fallen upon them and killed them, and after waiting some 
 days the ship had to make her way to England. 
 
 Thus the first attempt to establish missions in the Labrador 
 ended in failure, and in the deaths of seven pioneers. But 
 the effort was not in vain. A humble man, Jens Haven, a 
 carpenter, determined to take up the work. He spent two 
 years in Greenland, in order to acquire the language, and 
 then shipped as a carpenter on board one of the Hudson’s 
 Bay Company’s vessels. The astonishment of the Esqui- 
 maux at being addressed by him in their own tongue was 
 only equalled by the joy with which they welcomed a 
 stranger who had such a bond of union with them. If the}' 
 
MORA VI A NS. 
 
 403 
 
 knew anything about the fate of Ehrhardt and his companions 
 they would not confess it. Many landings were effected, 
 and much intercourse with the natives was held year by year ; 
 meanwhile three Esquimaux had been brought to England. 
 The missionaries were preparing themselves for the work 
 which lay before them, and in 1771 the permanent station 
 at Nain was established. In five years’ time another settle- 
 ment was formed at Okak, still further north. The brethren 
 had worked hard at the wooden house which was to shelter 
 the labourers at the new mission, and the timbers were 
 carried down and put together with great joy. In this year, 
 1776, the same day witnessed the dedication of the new 
 church at Nain and the baptism of the first convert ; this 
 was an angekok or sorcerer, a member of a craft which 
 exercised great power for evil over the people, and whose 
 conversion, therefore, was the more remarkable. The work 
 of these good men has now been carried on in Labrador for 
 more than a century, in spite of many difficulties, and with 
 manifold tokens of Divine favour. The sorcerers have from 
 time to time exercised all their devilish arts to withstand the 
 Gospel, and to keep the people in thraldom ; arts scarcely 
 less diabolical have been used by unprincipled traders to 
 retain the Esquimaux under their own power, and to prevent 
 them becoming enlightened by the missionaries. And then, 
 as bright gleams amid the darkness, the sorcerers have been 
 touched and converted, and have declared their former acts 
 to have been impostures; and the uniform patience and 
 gentleness of the brethren have attracted the heathen, 
 already weary with their experience of the traders, until the 
 whole race has been evangelised. There are now on this 
 inhospitable shore five stations, Hopedale, Zoar, Nain, Okak, 
 and Hebron, all to the north of the missions of the Church 
 of England. A station would long ago have been formed 
 on the Hudson’s Bay coast, had the authorities of the 
 D D 2 
 
404 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 company permitted it. An attempt has been made to 
 establish one at the extreme north for the benefit of the 
 few Esquimaux who, living apart from the rest of their 
 people, still remain heathen. Twelve times in last year did 
 the brethren endeavour to reach the spot proposed, and 
 twelve times was their little schooner driven back ; but faith 
 and zeal such as theirs will surely conquer at last. The 
 Moravians were the first Christian society who employed the 
 newly-discovered art of printing for the promulgation of the 
 Scriptures in a living tongue. Their first edition was printed 
 at Venice in 1470, and, before the Reformation had com- 
 menced, they had already published the Holy Scriptures in 
 three languages. Such a people, therefore, may be supposed 
 not to have neglected the translation of the Bible and other 
 works into the difficult Esqumaux language : specially their 
 grand old German hymns, so many of which are now used 
 by ourselves, seem to have had a great fascination for their 
 people. 
 
 It must be admitted that the aborigines are decreasing, 
 and that the time would seem to be only too near when 
 these translations will be useless, the people and their 
 language having become extinct. In no degree, hov/ever, 
 do such considerations affect our admiration for the labours 
 of the missionaries, and for the result of those labours ; for 
 it is something to have christianised a whole nation, and to 
 have protected them to a great extent from the evils of a 
 spurious civilisation. These poor Esquimaux Christians 
 have contributed their quota to the sum of human know- 
 ledge, for the gallant men who have solved the difficult 
 problem of the North West Passage have been laid under 
 obligations to their sagacity, experience,. and fidelity. They 
 have also established a claim to our sympathy by deeds 
 of humanity. In 1849 a ship belonging to the Hudson’s 
 Bay Company was lost, and the crew took refuge in two 
 
MO A FI A NS. 
 
 405 
 
 boats. Of these, one was soon lost ; the other, with nine 
 survivors, was driven southwards for 800 miles amid snow 
 and ice ; at length it drifted amid the rocks at Okak, and the 
 miserable crew, frozen and hungry, almost welcomed the 
 death which they could not but expect from the natives, who 
 came out to them in their kayaks. To their astonishment 
 they were helped ashore, and carried (for they were unable 
 to walk) to the mission house, where they found women 
 singing hymns as they did their spinning, and every care 
 was freely given to them. These gaunt and suffering men 
 then, not less than our Arctic explorers, had good reason to 
 bless the zeal which, eighty years before, had sent men to 
 work on that barren coast. 
 
 From the very commencement of this mission a barter has 
 been carried on with the natives. As a general principle, it 
 is perhaps undesirable that missionaries should have any- 
 thing to do with trade, but what is expedient in one country 
 may be inexpedient in another. The traffic with the Esqui- 
 maux has been uniformly regarded as a means towards their 
 conversion and civilisation, and it has certainly been a 
 stimulus to their energy. The brethren who have engaged 
 in it receive none of the profits, and, isolated as the mission- 
 aries are, a ship is absolutely required to supply them with 
 food, and to carry them to and from England. The cost of 
 a yearly voyage would be far beyond the means of these 
 poor people, and it is consequently a matter of necessity that 
 the ship should pay her own expenses by carrying fish, furs, 
 and oils to England. For more than 100 years the brethren's 
 schooner has gone her annual voyage, without the loss of a 
 single life, and without sustaining any material damage. The 
 simple missionaries are fain to believe that it is of Divine 
 Providence that their vessel has been so protected, and this 
 is shared by a very different class of men, who are supposed 
 to be in no degree lacking in worldly wisdom and business- 
 
4o6' 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 like habits ; but so it is, that year by year, when in the month 
 of June the “Harmony” sets out on her voyage, the under- 
 writers insure her on very nominal terms, on the strength of 
 her past immunity from danger. On her making the voyage 
 the very lives of the missionaries depend, for she brings 
 them their year’s supply of food. Once she was delayed 
 until October 30th, by which time, in ordinary years, all 
 navigation would be over. Starvation seemed imminent. 
 The Esquimaux had set to work to provide food, declaring 
 that their teachers should not starve — but just then the wel- 
 come schooner appeared ; her cargo was quickly discharged 
 amid the forming ice, and in three weeks she was safe once 
 more in the Thames. 
 
 Labrador was among the earliest mission stations of the 
 Moravian brethren : their most recent efforts have been on 
 another continent, but in hardly less lonely regions. Among 
 the high-lying valleys of the Himalayas, in Thibet, among a 
 race of stiff-necked Buddhists, three missionaries were sta- 
 tioned in 1857. In two years time they w^ere joined by their 
 three brides, selected for them by lot, according to the 
 extraordinary custom of this people, by the elders. On a 
 little spot, 14,000 feet above the sea-level, these three couples, 
 so strangely assorted, made their home. Of all forms of 
 Buddhism the most corrupt prevails in these regions ; strings 
 of beads are worn as a religious implement, a custom 
 borrowed evidently from the Roman Church. Praying 
 machines, or cylinders containing rolls of paper on which are 
 printed a text from the Kanjur and Tanjur, are in daily use; 
 by the pulling of a string a text is released, which is supposed 
 to be a prayer wafted heavenwards : the whole system of 
 the Buddhist priesthood, lamas, monks, and nuns, is in full 
 vigour. For nine years not a single convert was made ; up 
 to the present time their adult converts number only four- 
 teen, but the brethren and their wives continue patiently to 
 open their schools, which, especially the girls' schools, are 
 
MORA VIA NS. 
 
 407 
 
 increasingly appreciated. They have thoroughly learned the 
 language, and have translated much. In 1865 Brother 
 Pagell and his wife determined to found a new station at 
 Poo, in the centre of a wild province, and for the first winter 
 their mission house was a stable. At the outset their work 
 was regarded with much suspicion, and all attempts to enter 
 Thibet Proper were unavailing. In time, however, the 
 brother acquired great reputation for his medical skill/ and 
 in 1867 he was entreated to enter the Chinese territory to 
 relieve the sufferings of the people under a terrible visitation 
 of small-pox. Although himself very unwell at the time, he 
 hesitated not to trust himself to the guidance of the strange 
 envoy, and after travelling for five days over snow-clad 
 mountains, he was received as a person of high consideration. 
 He went through twelve large villages scattered over an ex- 
 tensive country, vaccinating every one, from the child in 
 arms to the greyheaded elders ; he was welcomed also in the 
 monasteries, where he vaccinated lamas and nuns, and 
 •delighted was he to find on his homeward journey that the 
 operation had in every case been successful. The honour 
 which was given to him for his skill he availed himself of as 
 a means of evangelisation ; the money that was offered to 
 him he refused, but everywhere he declared in their own 
 tongue the message of salvation. As he left the valley, in 
 which he had worked so profitably for three weeks, one of 
 the people came to take leave, and begged him “ to remem- 
 ber the valley in his prayers.” 
 
 There are no glorious records of conversions, the fruit of 
 the missionary’s toil in these barren regions, and to those 
 who look for immediate results the whole effort will seem to 
 have been a failure. Better to fail in honest labour for God 
 than to fail in serving Him at all. But it will be contrary to 
 the experience of all history, if faith so simple, and zeal so 
 primitive, do not, before very long, achieve some appreciable 
 results. 
 
4o8 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 In ihe preceding papers notice has been taken of nearly 
 every part of the world in which the Anglican communion 
 is now endeavouring to plant a knowledge of the faith 
 which has been entrusted to us. It remains now briefly to 
 survey — first, the condition of those countries which are 
 still unconverted ; secondly, of those daughter Churches 
 whose degrees of growth vary from that of a mere handful 
 of Christians, hardly yet won from the entanglements of 
 idolatry, to the maturity of an independent Church self- 
 governing and self-supporting. 
 
 (i) After more than eighteen^ centuries of Christianity, 
 hardly one-third of the inhabitants of the earth are Chris- 
 tians even in name. A learned German statistician (Berg- 
 haus) has given the following division of the human race 
 in regard to religion : — 
 
 Buddhists 3i’2 per cent. 
 
 Christians 30*7 „ 
 
 Mahometans ... 15*7 ,, 
 
 Brahmanists 13*4 ,, 
 
 Heathens 
 Jews . . 
 
 To a believer, these figures are painful ; to a sceptic, they 
 are a triumph. See,’’ says the latter, how unsuitable is 
 Christianity to the majority of men ; whatever the advan- 
 tages to Western people, it can never adapt itself to 
 Oriental minds, nor be assimilated by them. Why, then,, 
 attempt to shake the faith of the Brahmin, the Buddhist, 
 
 * See Max Muller’s Chip from a German Worhhofy vol. i. p. 161. 
 
THE HEATHEN WORLD, 
 
 409 
 
 the Parsee, in their respective creeds, which exercise over 
 them the restraints which it is the chief use of religion to 
 enforce ; which can point to origins older by centuries than 
 that of the religion which you ask them to adopt in its 
 place, which already has secured their passionate attach- 
 ment, and which satisfies them as it has satisfied their 
 ancestors for scores of generations 
 
 With persons who thus argue it is vain to argue in return ; 
 there can be no common ground between us, and little hope 
 of any being attained by force of words. The strongest 
 logic will be that of patient persevering labour. 
 
 Missions have to endure rougher assaults than those of 
 the merely indifferent philosophers, who look on all religions 
 as equally good for the purpose of a moral police, and 
 equally true (and consequently equally false) in themselves. 
 Those who value Christianity cheaply, not only ridicule, but 
 grudge, its extension, and missions are denounced as a 
 
 gigantic impracticability,’^ as an “ organised hypocrisy,’^ 
 and contempt is thrown not merely on the work, but on 
 those who engage in it. Only as it were yesterday, a dis- 
 tinguished peer laid down in the House of Lords the extra- 
 ordinary dictum that every man who engaged in missionary 
 work must, ipso facto ^ be a fanatic or an impostor. The 
 statement was not allowed to go unchallenged, and the 
 nobleman who uttered it has since enabled the world to 
 estimate the value of his opinion on religious subjects by 
 the publication of a remarkable book."^ 
 
 Thus it is, however, that that most indefinite, but powerful 
 thing, public opinion, is formed' ; and its tendency, just now, 
 is to hold missions lightly. Let us state some considera- 
 tions which may serve to show that such an opinion has not 
 been wisely formed. Admitting that the greater portion of 
 
 * Christian Theology and Modern Scepticism. By the Duke of Somerset, K.G. 
 London : James Bain. 
 
410 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 the world is heathen; that Buddhism alone, whose cardinal 
 doctrine is annihilation of that personality which the Gospel 
 clothes with such awful reality, outnumbers the adherents of 
 Christianity; that Mahometanism, while decaying in some 
 countries, is rapidly extending itself in others, and making 
 proselytes, not merely from among the followers of Brahma, 
 of Buddha, and of Confucius, but even occasionally from pro- 
 fessed Christians ; that among the purely heathen races the 
 strong man armed keepeth his goods, and is hardly dispos- 
 sessed ; yet is the prospect utterly dark and hopeless ? 
 That very Buddhist creed, which is in most violent contrast 
 to the Christian, is disintegrated, and varies from itself in 
 different regions so widely, as to be not one but many 
 creeds. Among the Brahmins divers agencies have been at 
 work, some purely secular, some distinctly spiritual, which 
 have caused that ancient creed to reel to its centre : 
 English rule, with all that follows in its train — education, 
 the press, impartial laws, commerce, railways, telegraphs— 
 has rendered it impossible that a people who enjoy such 
 blessings shall long continue the victims of a delusion so 
 palpable, and of superstitions so gross. The existence of 
 the Brahmo-Somaj, and many other circumstances, con- 
 vince us that the idolatry of their forefathers is doomed, 
 whatever may succeed to it. The efforts of missionaries 
 have offered to the people a creed at once reasonable and 
 divine, which they may substitute for it. India now needs 
 to be delivered from the attentions of ecclesiastical doc- 
 trinaires, who, themselves not building on the one founda- 
 tion, think to try their hand at erecting some imaginary and 
 eclectic Church of the future, whose standard of doctrine 
 shall satisfy everybody and offend no one. Already, as 
 has been shown, the Church has converts of the second and 
 third generation, and the native priesthood marks a great step 
 gained. Enemies and friends alike acknowledge the change 
 
THE HEATHEN WORLD, 
 
 4II 
 
 which has taken place in the native mind, whatever may be 
 its value, and it is no extravagant expectation which looks for 
 a Pentecostal ingathering from the various races of Hindostan. 
 
 The power of the Mahometan imposture is not a thing to 
 marvel at : a religion which consecrates sensual indulgence, 
 and whose founder delivered to his successors the scimitar 
 as the emblem of their apostolate, can bid high for popu- 
 larity against the Church of Christ, especially among 
 Oriental races. Ever strongly influenced by political con- 
 siderations, it may be that to the force of political events 
 rather than to spiritual causes it may one day yield. If we 
 look to the other parts of the world which are still lying in 
 heathenism, the prospects of the triumph of truth are 
 hopeful. To say nothing of the mighty spiritual forces 
 that are now everywhere at work, the stir, so mysterious and 
 so consolatory, in the heart of the whole human race, there 
 meets us the undoubted fact that Christian nations are 
 rapidly possessing themselves of the kingdoms of this 
 world : the dominions of the Crown of England are about 
 one-sixth of the whole globe ; Russia is steadily extending 
 her empire, especially in that eastern direction where she, 
 with all the prestige of her ancient creed, her venerable 
 Church, and her Christian ruler, will confront Paganism in 
 its stronghold. In America, both North and South, Chris- 
 tianity may now be considered dominant, and its tendency is 
 to seek new fields in which to plant itself. In the British 
 dominions in Australasia the same phenomenon meets us, 
 and these Churches are promising to become, in their turn, 
 centres of light. It is not probable that the Christian 
 powers of the nineteenth century will, as did Spain and 
 Portugal in the sixteenth century, themselves undertake, as an 
 imperial function, the evangelisation of their remote posses- 
 sions. Perhaps it is as well that they should not ; but we may 
 be sure that where their rule extends toleration, if not sym- 
 
412 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 pathy, will be given to missionary work, and that indirectly, 
 at least, civilisation will prove a handmaid of the Gospel. 
 
 It is not without thought that the following suggestion 
 is put forward. Is it anywhere promised to the Church 
 that it shall reduce all the peoples of the world to the obedi- 
 ence of Christ ? and is the work of missionaries to be com- 
 mended or condemned according to the number of their 
 converts ? Omitting for the present the thought of what 
 may happen in the last days, is there any age of the Chris- 
 tian Church which could stand such a test ? and if not, is 
 the work of the apostles, evangelists, martyrs, and confessors 
 for eighteen centuries to be stamped as a failure, because 
 the majority of mankind is yet unconverted ? The apostles 
 could not have been acquitted had their labours been thus 
 guaged ; 3,000 souls were, indeed, converted in one day, 
 but that event was altogether exceptional. Their work was 
 gradual and slow, without large immediate results, but not 
 without great discouragements ; a few converts here and a 
 few there, mostly of the poorer classes, and, in the midst of 
 these gains, frequent opposition and trial. One apostle put 
 to death ; another cast into prison, because it pleased the 
 people ; ” and after many years of journeyings and labours, 
 the results numerically were small. There were Churches at 
 Lystra, at Iconium, and at Athens, but their numbers were 
 not so large as to demand that special letters should be 
 written to them. The Epistle to the Romans was to a 
 Church composed of believers gathered from all parts into 
 the imperial city ; the Epistles to the Corinthians show that 
 the converts, whom apostolic toil had gained, were no better 
 in their daily morality than any other body of imperfect and 
 half-instructed believers recently won from idolatry. It 
 would be easy to sketch similar conditions of the Churches 
 progress through the ages of persecution, the days of Arian 
 triumph, of Papal disputes, of separation of East and West, 
 
THE HEATHEN WORLD, 
 
 413 
 
 and through the post-Reformation period up to the present 
 time. Another question arises : Are we anywhere taught 
 that the universal acceptance of the Gospel message is to 
 herald in the close of the existing dispensation, or are we to 
 accept literally the declaration that the Gospel of the 
 Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a wititess 
 unto all nations, and then shall the end come ? If we 
 adopt literally the latter, then it would not seem that 
 
 there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.” 
 The distant islands of the sea are now receiving the ‘‘ wit- 
 ness ” year by year. The ever-extending rule of Christian 
 powers, if it conveys only civilisation, renders easier the 
 path and expedites the labour of him who carries that which 
 is more than synonymous with it, Christianity : in three out 
 of the five divisions of the world Christianity is dominant ; 
 in the fourth it is being preached for a witness in continually 
 widening areas ; in the fifth, Africa, a fringe of light has 
 been placed around its borders, and although the centre is full 
 of darkness and cruel habitations, and Islamism is push- 
 ing itself vigorously southward from the shores of the Medi- 
 terranean until it has now covered more than half of the 
 continent, yet already assaults have been made on heathen- 
 ism, and the pioneers of the Cross have kept pace with the 
 footsteps of the merely scientific explorer."^ 
 
 In all these fields the progress of Christian truth and 
 Christian living will not be without interruptions ; it would 
 be to defy all history to expect it : there must be relapses 
 and disappointments ; unworthy motives are often mixed up 
 with the noblest human works. The “ rice-Christians ” of 
 India, so valuable to those who depreciate missions, have 
 had their counterpart in every age : Corinth and Laodicaea 
 are reproduced in every Church, specially while its members 
 
 * See a remarkable sermon, “ The Gospel F reached for a Witness f by the 
 Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. Bell and DalJy, 1869. 
 
414 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 are still neophytes. And who are we, that we should affect 
 to be surprised at inconsistencies of conduct in these young 
 Christians, whose spiritual life is, and must be, of tender 
 growth ? It was of a country that prides itself, above all 
 things, on its commercial integrity, of a people that have 
 enjoyed eighteen centuries of Christian teaching, and of an 
 age that has witnessed much religious stir, that an able 
 historian uttered recently the following words : — 
 
 ‘‘We have had thirty years of unexampled clerical activity 
 among us : churches have been doubled, theological books, 
 magazines, reviews, newspapers, have been poured out by 
 hundreds of thousands ; while by the side of it there has 
 sprung up an equally astonishing development of moral dis- 
 honesty. From the great houses in the City of London to 
 the village grocer^s shop,' the commercial life of England 
 has been saturated with fraud. So deep has it gone that a 
 strictly honest tradesman can hardly hold his ground against 
 competition : you can no longer trust that any article which 
 you buy is the thing that it pretends to be. We have false 
 weights, false measures, cheating and shoddy everywhere. 
 
 We do not discuss the value of these words : they are the 
 words of an acute observer, and were not uttered rashly ; 
 they have passed without challenge, and no attempt, so far 
 as we know, has been made to confute them : the fact that 
 they have been spoken at all may teach us a lesson of 
 humility, when estimating the morality of other nations^ 
 whose advantages have been so much smaller than our own. 
 
 (2) The condition of our daughter Churches has been 
 sketched with, it is hoped, tolerable exactness in preceding 
 papers ; it is at once the greatest proof of the value of past 
 labours, and the liveliest encouragement for the future. In 
 the United- States, England's eldest daughter, we see a 
 
 * Inaugural Hddreiideli'veredtotheUni-veruty of St, Andrew' March 1869. 
 By J. A. Froude, M.A., Rector of the University. London, Longmans. 
 
THE HEATHEN WORLD. 
 
 4IS 
 
 Church that now for nearly a century has been independent 
 and self-contained, which has flourished without State sup- 
 port, and struck deeply its roots in a land whose govern- 
 ment is purely democratic. In this Church the episcopate, 
 so tardily, grudgingly given, now numbers more than fifty 
 prelates, who with their congregations regard with warmest 
 affection the Church from which they sprang, and who form 
 one of the most abiding links between the citizens of the 
 two countries. As their mission work extends beyond the 
 limits of their own continent, it may be found that the full 
 communion which exists between the two Churches will be 
 publicly recognised by the clergy of the one being under 
 the rule of a bishop of the other Church, as is already the 
 case, on a small scale, in Honolulu, and might at once be 
 repeated with advantage in China. 
 
 The Churches which were founded by much self-denial 
 hardly a generation ago, are already attaining perfect in- 
 dependence, spiritual and material. In Southern Africa, in 
 Australia, in New Zealand, and in Canada, the organisation 
 of diocesan and provincial synods is now complete, and is 
 recognised by local legislation. In these dioceses the ex- 
 tension of the episcopate, and therewith of the whole Church, 
 is a matter dependent not on the will of Parliament, but on 
 the action of the Church herself : how useful, how abso- 
 lutely essential, is such an external machinery for securing 
 the perpetuation of the spiritual gifts of the Church is mani- 
 fest from the condition of those Churches which do not 
 possess it. Trusting' simply to the action of the civil power, 
 the Churches of the West Indies especially have found 
 themselves unable to provide for the election of bishops to 
 vacant sees, when the support of the State was suddenly 
 withdrawn. It is manifestly the duty of the Church to 
 claim for herself the independence of action which is enjoyed 
 by every other religious body : the right of sending her 
 
4i6 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 emissaries wherever she pleases, of consecrating bishops to 
 lead her missions, of subdividing existing sees. The time has 
 gone by when the aid of the temporal power can be sought 
 for spiritual objects ; but better things can be demanded — 
 perfect freedom to do her own work in her own way. 
 
 The day probably is very far distant when Englishmen will 
 be relieved from the duty of building up our colonial churches. 
 Independent of such aid as some dioceses already are, and 
 rapidly as others are attaining to such a condition, there are 
 some, such as Newfoundland, whose poverty seems to forbid 
 the hope of their ever being able to maintain amongst them- 
 selves the ministrations of the Word and Sacraments. 
 
 Amid the many social problems which meet us at home, 
 the increasing wealth of the country getting into a limited 
 number of hands, and the increasing poverty of the poor 
 becoming all the more marked by the contrast, emigration 
 seems to be the natural and only relief, and the wise direc- 
 tion of such a movement to be matter for the highest states- 
 manship. Colonisation is not now conducted on the prin- 
 ciples of two centuries ago ; then, indeed, it seemed to be 
 regarded by the aristocracy as one of the duties of their 
 order to build up our colonial empire as much as possible 
 on the pattern of our institutions at home : grants of land 
 were made to younger sons of noble houses, who took with 
 them their dependents of varied grades, by whom they were 
 surrounded in England ; but now our emigrant population 
 is taken from the poorest stratum, and surely, on all grounds, 
 it seems the wise and natural course to promote the exodus 
 of those persons who, at present a burden to society, are 
 likely in time to acquiesce in such a position, and to be 
 content with the lack of self-respect which it implies. Borne 
 down by hopeless poverty, such persons are proof against 
 the most earnest efforts of clergyman or district visitor ; in 
 their squalid homes, with each successive meal a matter of 
 
THE HEATHEN WORLD, 
 
 417 
 
 uncertainty, they are hard to impress with the vision of the 
 crowns of paradise and the joys of the redeemed. Body, 
 soul, and spirit act and re-act, and however insignificant may 
 be the things of time to the things of eternity, the fact re- 
 mains that there is nothing like having hope for the present 
 to generate hope for the future, while the utter absence of 
 the due appliances of this life is not unlikely to make a man 
 callous about the hopes of the life to come. While, then, as 
 a matter of political economy, it is true wisdom to convert 
 a pauper, who is adding daily to the pressure of our taxation, 
 and likely to become not only an useless but a dangerous 
 member of society, into a colonist and a customer to Eng- 
 land for some of her manufactures, it is a matter of Christian 
 duty to see that, as his worldly condition improves, his 
 spiritual condition shall not be uncared for. The man who 
 receives an assisted passage to one of our colonies to-day, 
 finds himself in a couple of years a landed proprietor, and 
 perhaps in ten or twelve years has added run to run and 
 farm to farm, and has become a power among his neighbours. 
 On such men as these the future religious condition of whole 
 countries may, humanly speaking, depend. It rests, there- 
 fore, with the Church which sends them forth, whether they 
 shall in their several stations be missionaries of the truth, or 
 whether they shall sink into the dreariest of all conditions, 
 that of a lapsed Christian. 
 
 In either hemisphere the Anglican communion would 
 seem to be called to this noble work of reproducing herself : 
 all things seem to favour her. The dominant faith of the 
 most powerful of all nations, it would seem that only from her 
 own supineness can she fail : hitherto she cannot be said to 
 have been unfruitful or barren, with more than one hundred 
 dioceses as the result of her labours. May the prophecy be 
 accomplished in her case, Instead of thy fathers, thou shalt 
 have children, whom thou mayest make princes in all lands/^ 
 
 E E 
 
4x8 
 
 1 
 
 XLV. 
 
 To be called to such a career as was sketched in the last 
 paper should be a sufficient stimulus to any Church or 
 people, and a Church so favoured as is our own ought 
 never to be crippled for lack either of men or of means ; 
 and yet the difficulties of obtaining these seem to be greater 
 every year. There are many causes which sufficiently 
 account for this state of things. Foremost among them is 
 the surpassing ignorance on all subjects connected with 
 missionary work, which is the special characteristic of 
 (ffiurch people, and which shows them in such violent 
 contrast with Dissenters. To the same cause must be 
 attributed the apathy and indifference for which they are 
 also distinguished. It is a painful fact that the very large 
 majority of church-goers know simply nothing at all of the 
 missionary work of the present day, and are ignorant of 
 the very names of even the most laborious and successful 
 of our missionaries ; and in this state of utter darkness 
 they are often taken captive by the reckless assertions of 
 travellers and of writers, who find their account in decrying 
 all such work. It is equally true that only a small minority 
 of the clergy give to missions their due place in their 
 teaching, leaving the annual sermon to be preached too 
 often by a stranger, and omitting all mention of the subject 
 during the rest of the year. The slightest acquaintance 
 with Dissenters shows how wide and how painful is the 
 contrast between them and ourselves. With them the 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH, 
 
 419 
 
 support of missions is a religious duty, binding on ever}' 
 individual, and not merely a denominational obligation. 
 Their admirable system of finance, by which even the 
 poorest contribute regularly to the support and extension of 
 their faith, teaches all classes that the work is their own, to 
 be done by each one of them, and not to be talked of and 
 preached about as an act of special devotion, practised 
 only by the well-to-do minority; hence, even the poorest 
 among them are familiar with the names and doings of 
 missionaries, both of the present and past generations, and 
 know much of the condition of their work. Hence the 
 offerings made by all classes among Dissenters are many 
 fold larger than those of the corresponding stations among 
 Church people ; and the aggregate incomes of their so- 
 cieties are as creditable to them as they are a reproach to 
 ourselves. 
 
 Missionary history must then be taught to our people. 
 It should be the subject of frequent catechising in our 
 schools and churches, and it should have a place in all, 
 even the highest, education. Nothing generates patriotism 
 in the young so much as the tales of heroism which are 
 part of our national history; and not until our children 
 have been fired with the records of Christian chivalry are 
 they likely either to have a due appreciation of missionary 
 work, or to volunteer for it themselves. Until their parents 
 also have been shown the true dignity of such a career, 
 they will not readily encourage their sons to follow it, or 
 even consent to their doing so. Of those, comparatively 
 few in number, whose hearts God has touched, and who 
 now offer themselves for foreign work, a large proportion 
 are thwarted in their desires by the objections of friends. 
 Parents who will gladly send forth their sons to the utter- 
 most parts of the world in the interests of commerce or of 
 science, will be shocked and heartbroken if one of those 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 sons is Qui:?fOtic enough to wish to work for God in distant 
 lands. Like the Laureate's worldly-minded mother, — • 
 
 “ With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s heart,” 
 
 worldly-minded fathers shrink altogether from the sacrifice 
 which is implied by undertaking the work of a missionary. 
 
 Such scruples are not unnatural ; neither, under present 
 circumstances, are they to be severely condemned. Parents 
 have not learned to estin^ate the true glory and dignity of 
 the work, but they have discernment enough to discover 
 that their estimate of it is the general one, and extends to 
 those who engage in it. Instead of being held in special 
 honour, the missionary is, to the bulk even of church-going 
 people, a clergyman of a lower type, perhaps a fanatic, per- 
 haps a mere dilettante^ eager to get money for work which 
 no one seems to know anything about, of which it is difficult 
 to get independent testimony, but of which such testimony 
 as is obtained is frequently unfavourable. To the credit 
 of those who, with all these disadvantages before them, 
 embrace this work, it must be admitted that a missionary, 
 when he sails from England, may expect to be soon for- 
 gotten by the Church which is supposed to have sent him 
 forth to do her work. He will dwell and toil among strangers, 
 and may be happy and successful in his work ; and well is 
 it for him if he can stay at that work and die in harness ; 
 for if health break down, and he be ordered back to his 
 native land, he will find himself a stranger among strangers. 
 His services, however devoted — nay, even if they have 
 been successful (and success is often the popular test of 
 devotion) — will give him no claim on patrons, either public 
 or private. The years of toil in foreign countries will 
 be regarded as a sort of parenthesis in his ministerial life ; 
 and the man who has spent health, and energy, and strength, 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH, 
 
 421 
 
 in converting Brahmins, or Mahometans, or Kafirs, to the 
 faith of Christ, will now have to seek and to be satisfied 
 with the status and the emoluments of a curate. 
 
 These words are not written rashly. There are men now 
 living, who, at the request of colonial bishops, and under a 
 sense of duty and of devotion, have even relinquished prefer- 
 ment and given themselves to foreign work, and after twenty 
 years of assiduous toil, have had to return to England and 
 take curacies in the very diocese in which, long ago, they 
 were beneficed. Dissenters honour such men for their 
 work’s sake. A missionary of these bodies knows that 
 during good behaviour he is certain to be cared for ; that if 
 he breaks down in a tropical climate, he will not be turned 
 loose in England, to seek a bare maintenance for himself, 
 but will be treated with love and reverence, and will be 
 provided with suitable work and emolument. To a Church- 
 man, the fact of his having been a missionary is a disquali* 
 fication and a bar to his advancement in life. It cannot, 
 therefore, be a matter of surprise, if parents, who do not 
 discern the glory of the work itself, are unwilling to give 
 tbeir sons to it. Education alone can secure for missions their 
 true position in general estimation. The popular voice is 
 not a very high tribunal perhaps, but it is a power ; and it 
 sadly needs teaching and direction in the matter of its hero- 
 worship. At present the man who exhumes some long- 
 buried heresy and rehabilitates it in some new formulae, is 
 feted and honoured, and even his blasphemies are treated 
 with respect and sympathy ; while the man who has given a 
 lifetime to the spread of the eternal Gospel is slighted as a 
 poor creature who has no originality, no claim to be an 
 advanced thinker. The man who scales and for some ten 
 minutes wrests from the tempest and the cloud the hitherto 
 undisputed possession of an Alpine peak, is regarded as 
 a greater hero, and is treated as though he had contributed 
 
422 
 
 UNDER ms BANNER, 
 
 more to the sum of human progress than the man who, by 
 years of patient labour, has laid wide and deep the Christian 
 foundations of future empires. 
 
 It is to be hoped that already there is a prospect of mis- 
 sionary work being looked on, both by parents and their 
 sons, as a possible career for those who are inclined to 
 follow it. It can no longer be said that the example has 
 to be set ; for within the last few months two bishops have 
 given their sons to the Church in foreign lands,— a son of 
 the Bishop of Lichfield having devoted himself to Melanesia, 
 and a son of the Bishop of Durham to India. 
 
 So vast is the mission field, and so diverse are the opera- 
 tions to be conducted within it, that it affords scope for 
 every kind of gift and for men of all ranks and powers. 
 They should, in fact, be taken from all grades, which would 
 thereby be connected with it by the strongest of ties. They 
 should not all be men of the higher social class, still less 
 should they be all taken from the lower. A theory has 
 been adopted by many excellent men, that wherever an 
 inclination is shown for the work, there the Church should 
 step in and foster that inclination, and provide an educa- 
 tion, without cost, for the man who is willing to give him- 
 self; such, indeed, is the practice of the Roman Church. 
 There are many objections to such a plan. Enough has 
 been written in these pages to show that the grace of mis- 
 sionary zeal is independent of school or college, and that 
 some of our most famous missionaries have been of humble 
 origin and of imperfect education. These, however, have 
 been exceptions. Besides the obvious fact, that this system, 
 if pursued for a few years, would furnish a body of mis- 
 sionaries, the majority of whom would be intellectually 
 inferior, and so would lower the whole class, there is great 
 danger in freely opening the door to the ministry to young 
 men of this type. To themselves and to their friends such 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH, 423 
 
 an offer seems to pave the way to a higher social position 
 than that to which they are accustomed. During the years 
 of their training their own zeal may grow cold, or they may 
 feel themselves unsuited for a work, of which they now know 
 more than when first they contemplated it. This difficulty 
 has often been felt in the Roman Catholic missionary 
 seminaries, whose students are largely drawn from the 
 humbler classes ; but if from any circumstances they fail 
 to realise the expectations either of themselves or their 
 friends, they have to contemplate, as their only possible 
 alternative, a rebound to the state of poverty from which 
 they have been taken, and to which their education has 
 made it doubly hard to return. 
 
 The supposed relations between societies at home and 
 the clergy who are supported by them are often, it is to be 
 feared, obstacles which prevent men of the highest stamp 
 from taking up missionary work. Societies are organisations 
 for collecting money, but they are not spiritual corporations. 
 They have no inherent powers which enable them to give 
 mission;” they have no power, save the commonplace 
 power conferred by possession of funds contributed by 
 thousands of persons, to direct missions. Probably the 
 difficulties are more imaginary than real ; but it is easy to 
 see that they may, and it is notorious that they sometimes 
 do, occur. Clergy who undertake the most tremendous 
 task that can be entrusted to any man, ought to be allowed 
 as much liberty and as much discretion as the rector of an 
 English parish enjoys as a matter of right; they ought also 
 to be under no other authority than such as is implied 
 by their ordination vows. If such men are at all fitted for 
 their work, they must be supposed to be able to form a 
 better judgment and to estimate more truly the necessities 
 of any case that may arise, than can a committee or a 
 society, some 10,000 miles away. There is no doubt, how- 
 
424 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 ever, that some such power of control is always claimed 
 and frequently exercised in England. Human nature makes 
 itself felt in these matters; there is in the heart of man a 
 love of seeing something in return for his money, and 
 a reluctance to give freely to a good work, looking for 
 nothing in return. The same weakness which allows a man, 
 who will not give five shillings simply as an offering to God, 
 to spend five pounds at a charity bazaar, where he receives 
 in exchange some trumpery article, of no use to himself 
 and of the smallest intrinsic value, tempts another man to 
 seek the equivalent of his subscription in the power to 
 direct the minutest details of its expenditure ; and it is not 
 an unreasonable supposition that men, conscious of the 
 possession of certain gifts, are not willing to work in the 
 fetters which such direction implies. 
 
 It is a degradation to a man in Holy Orders to find him- 
 self described as being ‘Gn the service” of a society: such 
 an expression ought never to be used. A missionary is in 
 the service of the Church and in a position of special 
 honour. He is no more in the service — ie., the employ — of 
 an organisation, which supplies him with the funds on which 
 he lives, than an English rector k in the service or the 
 employ of the persons who pay him tithes. And yet there 
 is a plebeian notion in the minds of subscribers at home 
 that the missionary is simply their servant ; that his whole 
 time and thoughts and energies are secured by them, and 
 great jealousy is felt if, for example, he engages in any 
 literary work, or adds anything to his yearly pittance. This 
 is a short-sighted policy. Besides the obvious fact that a 
 man who is entrusted with the solemn duty of evangelising 
 the heathen may be supposed to be worthy of confidence, 
 and so may be entrusted to do his work as and when he 
 sees best, and, in fact, never will do it well if he is not trusted 
 fully, missionaries have facilities of rendering good service 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE AXGLICAN CHURCH. 425 
 
 to the cause of science, which would specially commend 
 their work to the very classes who at present depreciate it. 
 A man cannot always be engaged in the same routine of 
 labour, however honourable or holy it may be, and a mis- 
 sionary to the heathen has probably more time on his hands 
 than a clergyman in an English parish. This leisure he may 
 employ in studying the ethnology, the folk-lore, the language 
 of the people, or the physical characteristics of the country. 
 No man can be so well situated for the prosecution of such 
 studies as a missionary ; and the occupation will not only 
 refresh him, but will give him infinite advantages for doing 
 the proper work of his calling, while, by communicating the 
 results of his researches, he will win respect for himself and 
 his missionary position.^' Many of our ablest missionaries 
 have rendered these public services, and with the happiest 
 results ; but their efforts have not always been approved by 
 persons at home, who have seen in them only distractions 
 from their higher and more imperative duties. 
 
 At a time of unparalleled dearth of missionaries it is well 
 to consider every possible cause of a state of things so 
 unfortunate. May not, then, one cause be the inadequate 
 remuneration which is offered? We say nothing of the 
 emoluments of those who accept the position of colonial 
 clergy, for there supply and demand will make themselves 
 felt. The English Churchman, who has everything provided 
 for him at home by the pious endowments of his ancestors, 
 has to acquire, when he settles in a colony, the habit of 
 paying for the support of his religion. The Nonconformist 
 emigrant has been accustomed to do so all his life, and to 
 him it appears no liardship. The Churchman only learns 
 the lesson slowly and grudgingly; but he sees that his 
 religious privileges depend on his doing his duty in this 
 
 * Se^ Professor Max Muller’s Chips frotti a German JVorkshopy under Article 
 
 Confucius,” on this subject. 
 
426 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 respect, and therefore we may leave the colonial clergy to 
 their flock's, with the conviction that an earnest priest will 
 always win for himself support and sympathy ; but among 
 the heathen no such law is found. The missionary is the 
 representative of Christians at home, who feel the obligation, 
 either in person or by deputy, of preaching the Gospel to 
 the heathen. He must be supported, therefore, by those 
 whose substitute he is. The tendency is to perform this 
 duty at as cheap a rate as possible. Subscribers of the 
 conventional annual guinea, which with mock humility they 
 call their ‘‘ mite,"' as though they in any degree resembled 
 the poor widow in the Gospel, are enamoured of the 
 •‘cheap” missionaries of the Roman Church; but they set 
 their faces against the celibate condition and the communal 
 life which alone render such economy possible, and they 
 determine that the English Church shall be presented to 
 the heathen as a social religion, and that the missionaries 
 shall at least have the liberty of marrying : this compels 
 them to forego the luxury of excessive cheapness ; but they 
 pay as little as they can, and wonder that men do not 
 volunteer for the work. They are fond of quoting, as 
 though it were a canon of universal application, that a mis- 
 sionary is to have enough to supply him with food and 
 raiment, and no more. They encourage him to hamper 
 himself with wife and family, and if his health breaks down 
 we have seen what his probable future will be. It is high 
 time that such an axiom should be protested against, and 
 in its room should be proclaimed, “ The labourer is worthy 
 of his hire.” Apostolic poverty — that is to say, the condition 
 of Christians when “all that believed were together and 
 had all things common ” — applied to the laity as well as to 
 the clergy; and if the principle is still to be in force, it 
 embraces both classes still. It seems a gross and wicked 
 travestie to limit it to men bearing the burden and heat of 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 
 
 427 
 
 the day, and who are placed in the forefront of the battle. It 
 is, in fact, an unconscious adoption of the Hindu prejudice, 
 which regards the mendicancy of the Fakir as the true and 
 only sign of a man of God. To take a practical illustration. 
 A chaplain on the Indian establishment, who has to minister 
 to English congregations, the majority of whom are soldiers, 
 receives ;^6oo per annum from the date of his arrival, which 
 is increased to ;j^i,ooo per annum after ten years’ service, 
 and is followed by a pension of annum after 
 
 seventeen years’ service. Any clergyman who could credit- 
 ably discharge the duties of a parish priest in England may 
 be supposed competent for those of an Indian chaplain, 
 and yet the advantages of the office do not attract a large 
 number of candidates. An Indian missionary, whose work 
 really demands the very highest gifts, — the power of acquiring- 
 languages, of studying the systems of ancient and intricate 
 religions and philosophies, of arguing with subtle minds, of 
 seeing things from an opponent’s point of view, a familiarity 
 with the latest thought both of our own and other nations, — 
 what is the price at which the possessor of these gifts is 
 estimated ? If his income reaches annum, it will 
 
 not exceed it, and there is no prospect of increase, or of 
 pension when he is disabled ; and, moreover, it is made up 
 of many items, the most vexatious of which, to a sensitive 
 and educated gentleman, is an allowance for each child, 
 which is painfully suggestive of the practice of Boards of 
 Guardians. If it be said that these stipends are not re- 
 garded as equivalents of the services of such men, it may 
 be asked, why, in the missionary field alone, is service to 
 go unrequited ? In the highest positions in the Church at 
 home the labourer is counted to be worthy of his hire ; and 
 if he were not so, these positions would not be filled as 
 admirably as they are. It is quite sufficient sacrifice if a man 
 gives hwiself to the work of missions ; and zeal is not 
 
428 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 necessarily chilled because the possessor of it is freed from 
 the anxiety of how he shall pay his way. It is one of the 
 evils of the Church at home that so many of the clergy 
 spend on their parishes and on th^ir schools far more than 
 they receive for their own services. Such liberality is 
 creditable to themselves, but it demoralises the people, 
 whom it relieves of their proper burdens. In the same way 
 those missionaries who, like Bishop Mackenzie and Bishop 
 Patteson, and many others, have given their substance as 
 well as themselves to their work, have relieved the Church 
 of the burden of their maintenance, which ought to have 
 been regarded by it as a privilege. The Church of England 
 may fail in many ways. She may be deficient in zeal, in 
 self-denial, in energy ; she may, which God avert, bear a 
 feeble witness to the truth, or even lose her grasp of it. 
 The one thing in which especially it seems most improbable 
 that she should fail is wealth ; and, if our proposition be true 
 that zeal is not incompatible with a sufficiency of means, the 
 Church’s truest wisdom is to secure for her Indian missions 
 men only of the highest type. One such man will be a 
 greater power, and is more likely to prove an efficient 
 missionary, than half-a-dozen men of only mediocre attain- 
 ments, who offend rather than attract the learned Brahmin 
 or Mussulman. It has been acknowledged in an earlier 
 paper that the Church in doing her work in India has not 
 been able generally to enlist talent of that high order which 
 has been at the command of the State for its work of 
 conquest or administration. The large majority of our 
 missionaries have not had the advantages implied by an 
 University education. With their present income missionary 
 societies, if they followed this plan, would not be able to 
 print so large a number of recipients of the moneys of their 
 subscribers ; but the work at whose accomplishment they 
 aim would be better done, and perhaps in time results 
 
THE FUTURE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH, 429 
 
 would SO far commend the principle of securing only able 
 evangelists, that means would be found for the support of 
 them in larger numbers. 
 
 Make missionary work a profession in which a man will 
 see as good prospect of maintenance as by remaining in an 
 English diocese, and men, honest, earnest men, with hearts 
 in their work, will be found ready to live and die in it 
 The miserable expedient of asking men to give five or seven 
 years to foreign work in the delusive expectation that such 
 service will secure them preferment in England, will then be 
 unnecessary, to the great benefit of the colonial Churches ; 
 for from few things do those Churches sulfer more than 
 from the sense of instability, which is largely aggravated by 
 the clergy leaving their work just as they have acquired the 
 amount of experience which fits them to do it thoroughly, 
 and which unfits them for that work in England for which 
 years before they were more competent than now. 
 
 It may be objected that this is but a commercial and a 
 sordid way of regarding our difficulties; that we ought to 
 appeal to the spirit of self-sacrifice, and draw out in this 
 nineteenth century some latent Augustine, or Boniface, or 
 Xavier, or Schwartz. The reply is, that such men, if they 
 really answered to the description which admirers have 
 given of them, do not appear in every generation ; but that 
 in our own day and from our own spiritual mother, there 
 have gone forth missionaries as zealous and as devout as 
 any Church or age has produced : they were undemon- 
 strative Englishmen, and they have not yet found their vates 
 sacer. They dressed as did other men, and have not been 
 familiarised to the world with aureoles around their heads, 
 or with seraphic robes about their persons ; but their work 
 was honest and sound, and will not be lost. Some of these, 
 even the noblest of them, had ample fortunes ; and this fact 
 in no degree impaired their zeal ; the only drawback was 
 
430 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 that they spent not only themselves, but also their own 
 means, and so encouraged the Church in a policy of 
 parsimony. 
 
 If the financial condition of the Church of England were 
 that of the Moravian Brethren, it would be reasonable to 
 ask her missionary clergy to add to their other troubles the 
 burden of poverty ; but in the wealthiest Church in Chris- 
 tendom such conduct is without excuse. 
 
431 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 In the last paper an opinion was hazarded that missionary 
 societies were not the best organisations for attracting men, 
 and that they had no inherent powers which qualified them 
 for the task of directing missions. Within the last few years 
 an opinion has found favour with some that they are not 
 the proper organisations which should undertake the task of 
 receiving the alms of the Church for missionary purposes ; 
 that their numbers only divide a work which should be re- 
 garded as one ; that their system is expensive ; and that the 
 multiplication of societies each with its separate home and 
 staff of officials, necessarily consumes an undue per-centage 
 of the offerings of the faithful on home machinery. In all 
 these criticisms there is some truth : how shall the evils, if 
 evils there be, be remedied ? The upper house of the Con- 
 vocation of Canterbury has elaborated a scheme for the 
 formation of “ a duly organised body which should represent 
 the Church in her missionary aspect in other words, a 
 board of missions.^' Such a scheme could hardly fail to 
 commend itself to all lovers of order and of propriety, and 
 if the mission work of the Church of England were now 
 to be commenced, it would clearly be preferable to all 
 others ; but there exist among us two societies — one with a 
 history of 170, the other of 70 years, each of which is con- 
 nected with missions of various degrees of development in 
 all parts of the world, and possesses a network of organisa- 
 tion over the whole of England for the purpose of diffusing 
 
432 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 information, and of collecting funds. Supposing for the 
 sake of argument (and the hypothesis is a large one) that 
 these two societies were, in deference to the wishes of Con- 
 vocation, to merge themselves in a board of missions, 
 making over to it all their properties, the bequests of which 
 they are trustees, and the missions for whose establishment 
 and maintenance they have raised the funds : not yet would 
 all the mission work of the Church be placed under the 
 direction of ‘‘a duly organised body;^^ there are other 
 societies, of minor importance and raising smaller sums 
 annually, but not less abnormal as instruments of Church 
 work on that account. There are also associations, under 
 various names, connected with special missions and dioceses, 
 sorne of which have paid officers, and all of which are in fact 
 missionary societies. Supposing that all of these (and their 
 number is greater than many persons imagine) likewise 
 ceased to exist, is it probable in the present state of the 
 Chtirch of England, with its utter absence of discipline, that 
 many years would elapse before other organisations, be they 
 societies, guilds, confraternities, or what not, would be 
 formed either embodying some set of opinions, or perhaps 
 only existing as a protest against the action of the “ Board 
 of Missions ? It is well to remember that in the Church 
 of the United States, within whose pale the pendulum of 
 religious thought does not oscillate between such wide 
 extremes as in our own, and where such a board has existed 
 from the commencement of its foreign missionary work, its 
 prestige has not been sufficient to prevent the establishment 
 of a society which does not affect to deny that its relations 
 to it are those of a rival organisation. The vision of one 
 missionary centre for the Anglican Church, in which the 
 whole of her evangelistic machinery should be directed by 
 authority, from which missionaries should be sent forth by 
 the whole Church, and under whose roof they should be 
 
MISSIOXA R V SOCIETIES, 
 
 433 
 
 welcomed as honoured guests when they returned from the 
 work they were no longer able to perform ; where within 
 spacious walls all should be devotion, zeal, harmony ; to 
 which, as to a sacred treasury, alms should flow in spontane- 
 ously and abundantly, and where ledgers and all the hard 
 details of worldly business should be unknown, — this indeed 
 is a beautiful scheme, far too beautiful to be realised ; it 
 would be wholly without parallel. The Church of Rome is 
 content to divide her work, to leave generally the collection 
 of missionary funds to the society at Lyons, and the govern- 
 ment of her missions, in which is involved the expenditure 
 of such funds, to the College of the Propaganda at Rome ; 
 but the proposed board of missions of the English Church, 
 absorbing into itself all existing organisations, and prevent- 
 ing the establishment of all new societies in the future, 
 whether for home or foreign purposes (for societies which 
 aim at building up the Church at home are quite as abnonnal 
 in an ecclesiastical point of view as those which are con- 
 cerned only with foreign lands), and providing under the 
 same roof both a home for its missionaries, and an oratory 
 in which those engaged in a work so solemn should find 
 means for keeping their spiritual life at its proper level, 
 would indeed be an institution that would command almost 
 universal respect. But it will not gladden the eyes nor de- 
 mand the homage either of ourselves or of our children : 
 its promoters soon discovered that the perfection at which 
 they aimed was an ideal one, and the functions of the board 
 as at present proposed are wholly unconnected with money 
 matters, and are limited so as not to interfere with the work 
 of existing organisations. 
 
 Many questions of importance will arise, specially on the 
 occasion of founding missions in new countries, when not 
 only the advice but the direction of the authorities of the 
 Church in Convocation should be sought and followed : 
 
A34 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 foremost among such questions obviously are the extension 
 of the missionary episcopate ; the limitation of the area in 
 which bishops not holding letters patent, and affecting no 
 legal jurisdiction, should exercise their spiritual government ; 
 the economising of men and means by placing Anglican 
 missionaries under a bishop of the American or the Scotch 
 Church, where those sister churches are working by the side 
 of our own, as is already the case in China, and soon will 
 be in Kafifraria. Over dioceses already gathered into pro- 
 vincial synods under a metropolitan, as in Canada, Australia, 
 New Zealand, and Africa, a board of missions in England 
 could claim to exercise no power, and societies should 
 readily acknowledge the independence which they have 
 attained, and should place funds, entrusted to them for the 
 benefit of such dioceses, at the disposal of their synods, 
 without making undue stipulations as to the manner of their 
 expenditure. 
 
 Let it not be thought that if every society were abolished 
 to-morrow a board of missions would cost nothing. The 
 work which it aims at doing is distinctly a spiritual one, but 
 it is done with human machinery. It is not wholly free 
 from s, d., and whenever a sovereign is given by A to B 
 to be expended on C, there must be a per-centage of cost 
 on the transaction, if it be only on account of the value of 
 the paper on which the receipt is acknowledged. Before 
 all other monetary transactions it is imperative that in 
 handling funds for charitable purposes every formality and 
 observance prescribed by strict rules of business should be 
 carefully complied with, and this involves ledgers, accounts, 
 and persons who are competent to deal with them. No 
 doubt the multiplication of societies multiplies expenditure, 
 and needlessly so if people were all of one mind ; but with 
 the variety of opinions and views within the Church the 
 idea of one organisation which should satisfy eveiy one and 
 
AflSS/OA^A R Y SOCIE TIES. 
 
 435 
 
 enjoy the confidence of all schools and parties is a con- 
 summation to be desired, but hardly to be expected. 
 
 In a Church whose every member did his duty voluntarily 
 there would be no need of any organisation for raising mis- 
 sionary funds ; there would be one society conterminous 
 with the Church, indeed the Church itself ; but as things are, 
 the suspension of the working of existing machinery would 
 immediately be followed by the diminution of our missionary^ 
 resources by at least three-fourths. There are a certain 
 number of Christian people, fully alive to their duties, whose 
 alms would be offered to the work of missions if no society 
 existed, if no annual report were published, and if no tidings 
 ever reached them of the work which they had aided. Some 
 few thousands of pounds probably would be thus available 
 yearly, whose collection would involve only a nominal cost : 
 for every 1,000 raised after this first natural flow of bene- 
 volence, greater efforts have to be made and larger cost 
 incurred. The power of raising money has been well com- 
 pared to the power by which water is raised : the spring 
 yields a certain supply spontaneously, but for larger measures 
 a greater depth must be reached, and each additional foot 
 is gained at increased expense. Much more money might 
 be procured for missionary purposes than is obtained if the 
 cost of raising it justified it : the matter to be settled is, 
 where the line shall be drawn at which the cost of collection 
 shall seem to be unjustifiable. 
 
 It argues little acquaintance with the method of conduct- 
 ing business affairs to expect that a machinery, so vast as is 
 required in the present condition of the Church, for main- 
 taining missionary funds even at their existing amount, can 
 be worked without considerable cost. It is, no doubt, a 
 duty to exercise as much economy as is consistent with 
 good administration, and such economy is, for the most 
 part, practised : as a rule, the smaller the income of a 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER. 
 
 society or association, the larger is the proportionate cost of 
 raising it. Some of the organisations connected with indivi- 
 dual dioceses or missions have incurred an expenditure that 
 seems almost criminal : in the larger and older societies it 
 will be found that, dividing their home expenditure into the 
 two heads of (i) collecting funds, (2) administering and 
 distributing them, the cost of the former does not exceed 
 ;^6 per cent. — a very small sum, when it is remembered that 
 the moneys so collected are gifts, which the almost countless 
 donors have to be asked, and even taught, to give, and that 
 the taxes of the country, which are paid under compulsion, 
 are, nevertheless, gathered in at a cost of nearly ^£5 per 
 cent. 
 
 It may be that some of the measures resorted to for rais- 
 ing funds are open to criticism, and even to censure ; small 
 blessing can be expected to rest on moneys raised by 
 bazaars, lotteries, drawing-room sales, and the many methods 
 in which the sacred name of charity is taken in vain. Surely 
 the responsibility of those is great, who, knowing what is 
 right, yet pander to the miserable selfishness which demands 
 something, however useless, in return for its money, and 
 calls it charity. With the wealth of the Church of England, 
 such devices, always objectionable, are simply inexcusable : 
 every repetition of them lowers the spiritual tone of the 
 people who take part in them, and adds to the difficulty of 
 teaching them the duty of self-denial. It is very interesting, 
 as a protest against this system, to notice the existence of a 
 society for the practice of systematic benevolence, which 
 insists on the principle of devoting to God a regular pro- 
 portion of our income ; the special interest of the associa- 
 tion is that, originating with Nonconformists, it commends 
 the ancient custom of tithes and the Churches rule of the 
 weekly offertory. With the acceptance of such principles, all 
 questionable devices for raising money would be at an end. 
 
MISSIONARY SOCIETIES, 
 
 437 
 
 The contempt which is sometimes heaped on missionary 
 meetings is wholly undeserved ; so far from being dis- 
 couraged, they should be promoted and multiplied in every 
 way, not necessarily as means of raising money, but of im- 
 parting information and exciting interest. Many a future 
 missionary has been won to the cause by attending the 
 meetings held on behalf of one of the societies in his parish 
 schoolroom. Such gatherings can easily be held : they need 
 not be dry, and will not be so, if common intelligence is 
 brought to bear on them, and they can be used both for 
 purposes of worship and of instruction. To expect persons 
 to contribute simply as a matter of duty to a work of which 
 they hear nothing, is to make an unfair demand on human 
 nature. Every Churchman has a right to know what his 
 Church is doing for God, and his personal interest in it is 
 likely to be none the less earnest because it is intelligent. 
 The great need at present is to inform all classes in the 
 Church of the work of missions, and to teach them the duty 
 of contributing on an altogether enlarged scale of devotion. 
 The claims of the Church abroad are not less than those of 
 the home Church ; yet even charitable people only rank 
 missions as one among the many other good works — hospi- 
 tals, schools, sisterhoods, &c. — to each of which they give 
 probably the same sum; whereas the true disposition of 
 their alms would be an equal division between work at 
 home and abroad, the latter embracing, as it does, under 
 one head, all the varied departments of charity — churches, 
 schools, hospitals, clergy, teachers, orphanages, &c. ; each of 
 which in England prefers its separate claim, and receives its 
 separate contribution. 
 
43 ^ 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 It has been objected to missionary literature that it wears 
 ever the same complexion, which has been described as 
 rose-colour shot with grey.^* I shall be quite content if 
 these pages, which aim at recording some of the missionary 
 doings of our own times, meet with the criticism which has 
 befallen worthier efforts ; for, if it be true, is it not also 
 true of the history of all mighty undertakings, which are 
 accomplished only by the patient toil of many generations 
 and many centuries ? It seems to me that the words are 
 applicable to the labours of those who have given their 
 lives to the task of making other men's lives brighter and 
 happier, or who have devoted themselves to the study of 
 any branch of science; that they are a brief but truthful 
 chronicle of all our strivings as a people after that which is 
 good, our wider knowledge, our enlightened jurisprudence, 
 our milder laws, our more tolerant spirit, our struggles for 
 truest liberty, our gradual adjustments of the constitution 
 under which we live. 
 
 Where Freedom broadens slowly down 
 From precedent to precedent.** 
 
 They represent that spirit of patient but hopeful perse- 
 verance which is begotten of faith, and that spirit of modest 
 self distrust which is a proof of faith ; the union, in short, 
 of personal distrust and of confidence in the excellence of 
 our cause and the final triumph of our work, without which 
 nothing really great can ever be accomplished. It is in 
 this spirit that missionary work must be carried on, and 
 
CONCLUSION, 
 
 439 
 
 it is in this spirit that I have endeavoured to write. I have 
 not, indeed, contemplated any ultimate result of missionary 
 work other than that which is promised to faithful labour, 
 because I cannot doubt that in some sense, and perhaps 
 with some limitations which now we cannot contemplate, 
 the day will come when the kingdoms of this world shall is 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ ; but 
 if I have failed to record temporary disaster, lack of the 
 success which was hoped for, imperfect machinery, deficient 
 zeal, it has been from oversight rather than from a spirit 
 of optimism. Indeed, our failures might be made more 
 valuable, both as teaching and encouraging us, than are the 
 successes which we have been allowed to achieve. 
 
 I know of nothing more disti*essing to earnest Church- 
 men than the thought that the glorious opportunities which, 
 as it would seem, the Providence of God is now affording 
 to the English Church, may, through our supineness, be 
 lost. It needs no unusual discernment to see that the pre- 
 sent is an age of opportunity, a time when we have unpre- 
 cedented powers of working for God, and responsibilities 
 commensurate with those powers. The work, to which the 
 English Church appears now to be called, ought to be 
 enough to elicit the most intense zeal and the most earnest 
 devotion of the noblest spirits among us. I hope that I 
 have shown how, here and there, unknown to the world 
 and even to each other, solitary men are working, who are 
 not undeserving of such a title, men who are the very salt 
 of the earth, whose simplicity and unselfishness are sweeten- 
 ing an age of much sordidness. We have but to strengthen 
 their hands, by adding to their numbers, by raising up those 
 who shall succeed to their labours, and by furnishing them 
 with those aids, material and spiritual, which they have a 
 right to claim from us. We have to originate no new work \ 
 that has been done for us : we have to lay no new foun- 
 
4|0 
 
 UNDER HIS BANNER, 
 
 dations; it is ours to build lavishly and boldly on the foun- 
 dations already laid. The war has begun ; the army is in 
 the field, but at present the regiments are few, their ranks 
 thin, their wants but scantily provided for : we have to fill 
 up the skeleton ranks, to give to the missionary army 
 abundance of men, abundance of spiritual weapons, much 
 forethought, much sympathy, many prayers, and with good 
 heart and lively faith to expect success. That expectation 
 need not be a presumptuous one, if we do our best to 
 accomplish its realisation. The scoff of the sceptic, the 
 sneer of the cynic, these are things for which we are pre- 
 pared ; but it is heartbreaking to see men, whose sympathies 
 are wholly with that which is good and true, proof against 
 all contagion of missionary zeal, and folding their arms 
 and helplessly, even pettishly, sighing for the return of 
 ideal “Ages of faith,^’ when they have it in their own 
 power, God helping them, some by personal service, some 
 by gifts of money, and all by prayers and example, to go 
 forth, and, seizing the occasions afforded to them, to make 
 the present an age of faith and of missionary enterprise 
 grander than any that has gone before. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 LONDON; 
 
 raiffTED BY Jas. Truscott \Nn SoM, 
 Suffolk Lane, City. 
 
'/