I E) RA RY 
 OF THE 
 U N IVLR.5ITY 
 or ILLl NOIS
 
 OUR MISSIONS 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS GRACE 
 THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 
 
 BY 
 PIERS CALVELEY CLAUGHTON, D.D. 
 
 BISHOI' SUCCESSIVELY OF ST. HELENA AND COLOMBO 
 
 HonDon 
 
 RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 HIGH STREET 
 
 TRINITY STREET 
 
 1S73
 
 OUR MISSIONS 
 
 My Lord Archbishop, 
 
 The happy conjunction of the Bishop of 
 Bombay's letter on Missions with the day of 
 Intercession appointed by your Grace, will, I 
 doubt not, lead many to take up the subject 
 seriously who may not heretofore have given it 
 the consideration it deserves. Suffer me, as one 
 deeply interested in the work, and sympathizing 
 with the spirit of earnest faith and zeal which has 
 prompted the utterances of that remarkable letter, 
 to address to your G-race some suggestions which 
 have occurred to my own mind. And first, whilst 
 I greatly admire the tone of the Bishop of Bombay's 
 letter, I will at once observe that I do not entirely 
 agree with him. He writes under the fresh honest 
 impulse of one conscious of the magnitude of the 
 work before him, and who has just realized the 
 feebleness of the efforts hitherto made to carry 
 it on. 
 
 And his Diocese is one which may well impress 
 him with the strongest sense of the insufficiency 
 of our past efforts. In Madras, or, in a less degree, 
 in Calcutta, he would have been able to give a 
 more hopeful and cheering report of Missions as 
 
 B 2
 
 4 Our Missions. 
 
 they are. In the former, indeed, there are dis- 
 tricts in which Christianity is already a power — 
 where it has asserted its claim on the acceptance 
 of entire sections of the population. In both of 
 these Dioceses it is a leaven secretly working, an 
 idea taking as yet many forms, but tending in 
 the same direction, to the uprooting of idolatry and 
 superstition ; and whilst many of those who are 
 influenced by it are at first carried away by a 
 reaction which acts as the negation of Religion, 
 and others embrace for a time a cold Deism, I 
 have little doubt myself that these are but phases 
 into which minds, necessarily unsettled and shaken 
 in their convictions, pass, not unnaturally, before 
 they settle into a reasonable and well-grounded 
 acceptance of the great Truth which has for the 
 first time confronted them. What I have chiefly 
 regretted in connection with this part of my 
 subject, was the injudicious treatment of one of 
 the leaders in this new movement. I allude to 
 the reception of Baboo Chunder Sen, who was 
 allowed to return to India under the false im- 
 pression that in England we saw little difference 
 between his immature and unsatisfying system, 
 and the great Christian Creed. 
 
 But as yet the Bishop of Bombay has little to 
 do with such questions or such hopes. He has an 
 enormous heathen population — I use the word in no 
 harsh sense — I mean that they are not believers in 
 the true God ; that they do not know, for they have 

 
 Our Missions. 5 
 
 not heard of — Jesus Christ Whom He has sent. And 
 of these races there is one — that of the Parsees — 
 requiring the most judicious treatment possible, and 
 learning far greater than I fear belongs to many 
 of our Missionaries, whilst to meet them he has 
 but a few scattered English clergymen — not, 
 indeed, as one has most unjustly described them, 
 in common with the re^t of our Missionary bre- 
 thren, selfish and lazy, but earnest and faithful 
 men — it is not their fault that they are few — a 
 mere handful, where we want a host. What I 
 mean to assert is simply that we have not occu- 
 pied the ground in anything like sufficient strength ; 
 that our organization at home is wholly inade- 
 quate; that our very conception of the task be- 
 fore us is not worthy of so great an object, and 
 our support of it in men and funds insufficient, 
 and (what is almost worse) varying and uncertain. 
 And the great value of the Bishop of Bombay's 
 well-timed and vigorous letter is that it tears the 
 veil of self-conceit from our eyes, and shows us 
 the actual state of things — lays bare the terrible 
 condition of the vast population committed to 
 our oversight in the mysterious Providence of 
 Grod, and calls on us as with a trumpet-sound 
 to take the field, under the banner of our Lord 
 and Saviour, against the '' principalities and 
 powers," — the false creeds and debasing super- 
 stition which have so long held back the races 
 of India from all true progress. The Bishop has
 
 6 Otir Missions. 
 
 but too truly described them as " crushed and 
 ground to dust by a religion which " (I quote his 
 words in their substance), "while it idolizes life in 
 a brute, . . . looks with scorn and contempt upon 
 the bodies and souls of men." 
 
 There are three points which I would venture 
 to lay before your G-race, in connection with the 
 Bishop of Bombay's statements. The present state 
 of Missions, his proposals for their improvement, 
 and some suggestions which I would make, not 
 as a change, but as an additional feature in our 
 organization of Missions. 
 
 First, I cannot take the same view with the 
 Bishop of the present position of our Missionaries 
 among the heathen, either as to their weakness 
 (except in point of numbers), or the principle on 
 which they work. That many of them are married, 
 so far from being a hindrance, is, I believe, an 
 element of strength and success. In point of 
 climate, there is no greater difficulty for the wives 
 than for their husbands. They are themselves 
 often most useful partakers of the labours of 
 their husbands. In schools, in tending the sick, 
 and often in gaining influence with the men 
 under teaching, they are not unfrequently singu- 
 larly successful ; whilst there are some functions, 
 and those most important, of the labour which 
 they can alone discharge. The Zenana Missions 
 are of course entirely theirs ; and, I must observe, 
 ia married Mis;<ionai*y has access to tlie houses of
 
 Our Missions. 7 
 
 natives, in some cases, where it would be difficult 
 for one unmarried to enter the family circle on 
 terms of familiar intercourse. 
 
 I do not consider the comparative costliness 
 of the two systems is quite correctly stated by 
 the Bishop. With the exception of the children, 
 for whom provision must be made, a clergyman 
 and his wife, living as tlie Missionaries certainly 
 do, simply and most economically, are, after al], 
 the cheapest arrangement as a matter of finance. 
 The wife has her own especial sphere of use- 
 fulness in domestic cares, and frequently wards 
 off the approach of sickness by her foresight, — 
 far better, surely, than to encounter the long 
 array of risks, expenses, and sorrows consequent 
 upon failing health. There is a good deal said 
 on the subject of self-denial in Missionaries, 
 which is more attractive in theory than sound in 
 practice. In the climate of India, it is quite a 
 mistake to increase unnecessarily the trials to which 
 the English constitution must be exposed. The 
 truth is, that privations are inevitable. Strengthen- 
 ing food it is difficult to provide. What we should 
 scarcely designate as luxuries at home, are there 
 sometimes necessaries, and often not to be procured. 
 Climate itself constitutes so severe a strain upon 
 the strength of the system, that to add, I will not 
 say fanciful, but unnecessary and additional auste- 
 rities, would be perilous, and often fatal. 
 
 I mast here observe that I do not consider that it
 
 8 Our Missions. 
 
 would be wise to present the English or European 
 character to the natives of a different race, in a 
 false or assumed guise. They are well aware, that 
 with us the use of animal food and wine, and the 
 marriage of our clergy, are national customs, and 
 they would quickly notice the seeming inconsis- 
 tency of an order of men sent to teach them, 
 having different habits to the rest of their own 
 countrymen. To *' become all things to all men," 
 did not, I think, in S. Paul's case, mean that he 
 pretended to be a Gentile amongst Gentiles, but 
 that with either Jew or Gentile, he used his lawful 
 liberty according to the expediency of a wise 
 charity. Moreover, we have to uproot a false idea 
 of merit in self-abnegation, much the same in 
 character as that which the same Apostle spoke of 
 as "will-worship and humility and neglecting of the 
 body."* To those who know how the whole theory 
 of virtue with these races is based upon this false 
 principle, I need not prove that it is important 
 that we should not, even indirectly, give counte- 
 nance to such a belief. 
 
 Do not let me be mistaken, I would not say 
 one word to throw discredit upon the strictest 
 self-denial of Christian ministers, either at home 
 or abroad; and such things must, in both cases, 
 be left to their own judgment. I am defend- 
 ing our present Missionaries from the imputa- 
 tion, not of luxurious habits, for that were 
 
 ^ Col, ii. 23.
 
 Our Missions. 9 
 
 unnecessary, but of having adopted an unwise 
 system in carrying their English habits of rehgious 
 life with them into heathen lands. I believe that 
 " honesty is the best policy," and I give the natives 
 of India credit for quite sufficient intelligence to 
 appreciate the simple example of an English 
 clergyman's family life. I will only notice further 
 in the Bishop's statement, that I think, uncon- 
 sciously, he overstates the expense of Missionaries. 
 This varies, of course, with circumstances, and 
 especially, is affected by the success of the Mission. 
 Thus, it will cost double to establish a Mission in 
 China, where, at present, our success is small, to 
 what it would in Madras, where native clergy are 
 being rapidly introduced, and where the converts, 
 now numerous, are contributing to the support of 
 their clergy ; but heathens will not, as Englishmen 
 seem to expect, pay for their conversion. The 
 earlier stages of any Mission are the most expen- 
 sive ; the last is that of the self-supporting church 
 and congregation. 
 
 I pass to the Bishop of Bombay's suggestions 
 as to our future Missions. He would establish 
 brotherhoods of clergy and laity. He considers 
 that we should present the Gospel of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ in the form of a visible polity ; that 
 from the first we should show them the beautiful 
 and perfect order of the system which we expect 
 them to join. There is so much of truth in this, 
 so much that no English Churchman can fail to
 
 lO Our Missions. 
 
 respect and admire, that I must preface my obser- 
 vations on this part of his letter with the assurance 
 that I am not his critic, much less his opponent. 
 But I am constrained to speak out of my own ex- 
 perience, in modification of his advice. It is by 
 preaching, in the strictest sense, that the Gospel 
 will be spread. The very period in which this, 
 one of the various means of grace, has its especial 
 importance, is the earliest — the infancy — of a 
 Church. Even Baptism, so closely connected with 
 discipleship, must follow, not precede, the convic- 
 tion produced by '' hearing." And, I must say that 
 to those who have seen the first dawnings of 
 Christian belief in heathen minds, there can be 
 no doubt of the true source and secret of Mis- 
 sionary success. To see, after months of careless 
 inattention, the sudden change to earnest and 
 intent regard; to listen, as I have done, to the 
 hurried question, ** What shall we do?" — to de- 
 scribe this is but to reproduce the Scriptural account 
 of the first conversions. And what was the word 
 preached, or proclaimed, that led to this ? It 
 was the love of God the Father as manifested 
 in his Son Jesus Christ. The Apostles did not 
 stop to prove even their own commission, much 
 less to describe the system of the new community 
 they were founding. All this, however, followed 
 in its turn. The converts baptized joined them- 
 selves to the Apostles' Doctrine and Fellowship, 
 and in these, with breaking of Bread and Prayers,
 
 Our Missions. . 1 1 
 
 ** continued steadfast," that is, were at once united 
 in worship, and built up in the Faith which they had 
 embraced. It is the same, I need scarcely assure 
 your Grrace, with the work in our own day. 
 The Grospel message changes men's hearts (it is 
 the work of the Spirit), and when so changed the 
 Church is their safety and their fold of security, 
 but Christ is the Door : " By Me," as He said, if 
 they enter in, they shall " go in and out, and find 
 pasture." 
 
 I would say more. I believe that even those 
 who enter the Mission field with far other views 
 — divided from us, their brethren (if they are 
 of Christ), and with a wholly inadequate sense of 
 the necessity for union amongst Christ's people, 
 succeed often in producing a sincere conviction of 
 the truth of Christ's Grospel. I cannot, with the 
 Bishop, think that we may ignore their success ; 
 rather, believing in its reality, I anticipate the 
 future union of their converts with ourselves. Here 
 again I may adduce the intelligence of natives in 
 support of my views. I have never heard the 
 distinction between the essentials of Christian 
 belief and the additions which, however uncon- 
 sciously, a sectarian preacher has to make in 
 order to enrol the convert in the ranks of his 
 followers, so clearly drawn as by one of them- 
 selves, a native dissenting convert. Greatly we 
 should weaken the Church, if we descended to the 
 same level, and did not follow the true Apostolic
 
 1 2 Our Missions. 
 
 precept, determined " to know nothing save Jesus 
 Christ, and Him crucified." 
 
 Again, let me not be misunderstood. I honour, 
 more than I can well express, the Missionary zeal 
 of those bodies of Christians, who are not ex- 
 ternally in accord with ourselves. Far from 
 grudging them the triumphs they have won, I 
 rejoice with them ; and I fully believe that the 
 great work of Christian conversion is going on 
 by their instrumentality, as well as by our own. 
 I differ from them in believing that they can 
 perpetuate the sect as, happily, they can sow the 
 seed of Christian truth in heathen lands. Their 
 good work is but hastening the day of glad re- 
 union amongst believers in all lands. 
 
 The Bishop of Bombay suggests that brother- 
 hoods of clergy should be sent, as at once freed 
 from some hindrances which attach in his estima- 
 tion to the married, and as more likely to settle 
 permanently into a change of habits adapted to a 
 new climate, and a differing race. He would 
 oppose caste to caste ; borrowing, in some degree, 
 his system from those he would convert, and meet- 
 ing organization with organization ; founded, of 
 course, on a truer principle, and only in appear- 
 ance agreeing with the human system which he 
 seeks to uproot and overthrow. 
 
 Now, I shall not adduce arguments against him 
 on this head, but I am glad that he does not tie 
 us down to his own plans. He is, as I have known
 
 Our Missions. 13 
 
 him of old, in the best sense, liberal and com- 
 prehensive. He invites us to action on his own 
 system or another combined with it. If we do 
 not like brotherhoods, or a celibate Missionary 
 staff, at least, he urges, let Missionaries be sent, 
 earnest devoted men, in greater numbers, with 
 better organization. Let us do something more 
 worthy the cause we undertake ! Let it not 
 rest with two Societies, however excellent, — ill- 
 supported, I fear, we must with the Bishop 
 admit, — to discharge the entire debt and duty 
 of the great Church of England to the heathen, 
 brought within her reach, as they are to no 
 other Church in the whole world. In all this 
 we surely must agree with him, — however we may 
 differ as to details, certainly no words of mine are 
 intended to weaken but to enforce his stirring ap- 
 peal to the consciences of Englishmen who have 
 faith in their Church and Creed. 
 
 I have only to add to these remarks such 
 suggestions as my own Missionary experience 
 has led me to think worthy of the attention 
 of those who in England, under your G-race's 
 wise and temperate guidance, control our Mis- 
 sions abroad. I make them with hesitation, I 
 acknowledge, not from any doubt of their being, 
 in the main, worthy of trust, but because I fear 
 they will seem to contradict some very widely- 
 spread notions on the subject which have obtained 
 and preserved their hold on the minds of the great
 
 14 Our Missions. 
 
 majority, and especially of the most devoted ad- 
 herents of this great cause, now unhappily suffer- 
 ing detraction from opponents, and contempt 
 from worldly-wise men, who as they would 
 ignore religion in the amelioraton of their own 
 countrymen are only consistent in denying its 
 value in the regeneration of other nations. 
 
 I would then, if your Grrace will permit me to 
 advise, have our Missionaries enrolled on a different 
 system to that which at present prevails — which is 
 to take for permanent service a few carefully 
 selected and trained men, — I would encourage 
 young men, not uneducated, yet not of necessity 
 specially trained, to go for a term of years into 
 the Mission field, to serve there (as at present, the 
 most earnest of our younger clergy take curacies 
 in large towns) and then to return, if they desire 
 it, and bring the experience obtained by labour 
 abroad amongst heathens to the Mission work at 
 home, amongst Christians, so called, but often 
 requiring a treatment not so unlike that which 
 Missionaries have to adopt as we commonly 
 suppose. 
 
 I would, if your Grace will let me say it, entirely 
 alter the use of this word Missionary, and with the 
 narrow meaning now given to it, I should wish 
 the erroneous conception of the work it expresses 
 also to disappear. The clergy at home are not one 
 whit less truly Missionaries than those who preach 
 to heathens — and the distinction between the
 
 Oiir Missions. 1 5 
 
 home and foreign field of labour rests on no 
 grounds but those of a prevalent misconception 
 with regard to the nature of Missions to the 
 heathen, as distinct from a ministry to Christians 
 in our own land — viz, that the former must be such 
 for life — that it is equivalent to a forsaking of our 
 sacred calling to exchange the one field of our 
 labours for the other : such a view could not be 
 based from Scripture precept or Apostolic example. 
 And whilst it was quite lawful, and was doubtless 
 expedient, for the Church to discourage the return 
 of Missionaries in times of difficult communications 
 with foreign lands, it was at all times a question 
 of expediency, and at the present has in some 
 measure changed. 
 
 I must observe that my remarks would not 
 apply to Bishops, whose tenure of their sees 
 would continue the same as that of their brethren 
 at home^ only resigning them for ill-health, or 
 change of their sphere of episcopal duty. And 
 of other clergy I desi]:e only to create an addi- 
 tional body of men willing to answer, with- 
 out hesitation or delay, a call such as that of 
 our brother, made, too, at such a time, finding us 
 on our knees with the cry on our lips, " Send 
 labourers into Thy vineyard." On reading his 
 words, I could not but remember how often I 
 had experienced the like want — how, fresh from 
 the sight of unoccupied fields of labour, I 
 wrote urgently to friends for clergy ; how, not
 
 1 6 Onr Missions. 
 
 obtaining them, I used such materials as I could 
 find ; good coming, indeed, out of the evil, in 
 that I was led to ordain a native clergy, earlier, 
 perhaps, than otherwise I might have ventured 
 to do. Even this did not remove the necessity 
 for Englishmen to superintend the work, if it 
 lessened the necessity that they should be pre- 
 viously trained themselves, since intercourse with 
 the native clergy would have given them the 
 opportunity of acquiring on the spot all they 
 would need of practical training for their new 
 labours, thus suddenly undertaken, and especially 
 give them the best opportunity for acquiring the 
 language. 
 
 I should be sorry to lead your Grace to suppose 
 that I wished to discourage either the devotion of 
 a life to Missions in heathen lands, or the careful 
 and special training for the work, of those who 
 are willing to make a sacrifice so blessed. My 
 object is to induce a number of men in active 
 youth, to whom it would be, in fact, no sacrifice, 
 to make the experiment, and enter the Mission 
 field, at least for a time. To the Bishops whom 
 they will thus serve, their labours will be most 
 welcome (I can speak from my own personal 
 knowledge); for themselves, they will gain in 
 the experience, and in the new interests and sym- 
 pathies they will acquire, what will more than 
 compensate them for some loss of advantage, as it 
 might be considered, in their home prospects.
 
 Our Missions, 1 7 
 
 I will say a word on this last objection. I have 
 more than once been pained to hear clergymen 
 speak of the return of a Missionary with a sort 
 of jealousy ; as if it were an encroachment on 
 their rights or interests. No such feeling can be 
 justified on reflection. As a mere matter of -cal- 
 culation, they would gain by the absence of the 
 class of clergy I speak of, because on the spot 
 they would command advantages of priority in 
 preferment, if such an argument is gravely to be 
 entertained. And I must point out that many 
 would not return. I am not speaking of that 
 which cuts short our labours alike at home and 
 abroad, namely, the sudden and early call to our 
 account by the Master ; I mean that no incon- 
 siderable portion of those who are induced to try 
 the Mission field, will elect to remain in it, rather 
 than return. There is so much to cheer the 
 soldier of Christ who enters on that warfare. 
 The contest, though arduous— often perilous, is 
 yet so full of attraction, its disappointments are 
 so quickly forgotten in success, that it gains on 
 a man each year in absorbing interest. It is only 
 those who never felt its joys, who are ever con- 
 juring up the vision of men dissatisfied, giving 
 service grudgingly, ever looking for the oppor- 
 tunity to throw ofi" its chains. To such, every 
 Missionary seen at home is a sort of triumph, if 
 not an object of reproach. Did any of these strict 
 censors, when they heard from one who told him
 
 1 8 Our Missioiis. 
 
 his experience of labour in some distant field, care 
 to follow his subsequent history for a brief year 
 or two, to know if he returned to his distant 
 sphere of duties ; or to ask where he ended his 
 little-known, yet useful career ? I remember one 
 such as I now describe, to whose usefulness I 
 could testify, at whose side I have travelled for 
 days, when he was little fit to undergo the 
 fatigue. He had been at home for a short period 
 to recruit his strength, and there, I know the 
 recital of his simple story encouraged some to 
 have faith in the Church's work. For a short 
 time only he shared in it after the time to which 
 I allude. He was bearing, almost alone, the re- 
 sponsibilities of an important station when death 
 released him to his reward. 
 
 I do not wish to avoid the possible objection, that 
 some, labouring faithfully at home, may find them- 
 selves displaced occasionally by those who had left 
 England ; but surely the latter field is so large and 
 important that it will have room for all. The cry 
 '' the labourers are few " is as loud here as there : 
 and if men are more valuable for possessing larger 
 experience of life, broader sympathies, deeper 
 insight into the wants and requirements of their 
 fellows ; to say that these are gained, at least as 
 quickly in distant lands, and among differing 
 races, is of itself a sufficient reason for the 
 Church's employment of them where she needs 
 them. It is, in short, a question of her needs, ftot 
 their or others' personal interests.
 
 Our Missions. 19 
 
 Let me, without offence to any, say a word of 
 the past. I do beheve that many of our earnest 
 pastors, zealous for Christ, and anxious to win 
 souls, but given to extremes, on one side or 
 the other, in these days of much controversy, 
 would, in the Mission field, have learned to 
 manifest a like zeal, without the addition of the 
 excess or peculiarity which now hinders their 
 usefulness, and narrows their sympathies. It is 
 a common saying, and true as it is common, that 
 our two rival Societies can work harmoniously 
 abroad. What is the reason, but that the 
 Missionaries of each, individually, forget strife_, 
 in their common labours ? I would add that it 
 is the blessing of work among the heathen, that 
 we learn to value at their right estimate, what 
 I will call the fundamentals of our Religion, as 
 distinct from its accessories — it is, in fact, in 
 these that amongst the heathen the power of the 
 Grospel is known. When they have once learned 
 to know Him we preach to them, and the 
 ^' power of His sufferings," they are not easily 
 led to attach either too great or too little value 
 to those external things which testify of Him. 
 
 The question remains, are we to leave it in the 
 hands of our two Societies, or of some new organi- 
 zation, to summon this larger company of labourers 
 for the Church's work abroad ? I answer, I would 
 both use the Societies more extensively than at 
 piresent, and add the machinery of a Home Dio- 
 cesan Board of Missions, under each Bishop —
 
 20 Our Missions, 
 
 possibly a central one in each Province, connected 
 with Convocation. These would both raise neces- 
 sary funds, and arrange with the Colonial and 
 Missionary Bishops for the sending out additional 
 clergy. 
 
 Nor do I think it would be impossible to have 
 some interchange of operations with the Societies 
 for Home "Work. We want quicker circulation 
 in these, as it were, arteries of the Church : and 
 if I have said anything which seemed to imply 
 unfair preference of the '' Missionary " to the 
 *' Curate," I would gladly express my sense of 
 the abiding qualities in the latter, which stamp 
 his true value, wherever placed. My scheme, in 
 short, would only break down an existing barrier 
 between our clergy (as of late we have seen 
 done in our army), as I think and hope, to the 
 detriment of none, and yet to the perceptible 
 increase of the number of those willing to under- 
 take foreign work. The actual result would be, 
 in my belief, a permanent increase, both in what 
 we call Missionary and Home clergy, — an in- 
 crease, we must remember, equally required in 
 either field — we should, in fact, to use another 
 military illustration, " mobilize " and unite our 
 spiritual forces — whilst our Colonial Churches 
 would be, not imitations, but parts and " very 
 members " of the great National Church. 
 
 I must apologize to your Grace for entering 
 into these details, not, I hope, thereby lessening in
 
 Oiir Missions. 2 1 
 
 the slightest degree the force of my brother's 
 appeaL The opinions which I have ventured to 
 express, I entertained, and even avowed, at the 
 Board of the " Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel," long before I had any expectation of 
 leaving England. My ten years of actual foreign 
 labour has but confirmed my conviction of their 
 soundness. 
 
 I would not draw too fair a picture of the Mis- 
 sionary's life, full, as it most frequently is, of un- 
 avoidable privation, but I would wish our English 
 brethren to understand that it has peculiar attrac- 
 tions, and irrespectively of the highest motives of 
 duty, few of those once engrossed in its labours 
 desire to relinquish them. Where we have to deal 
 with severity of climate, and especially the serious 
 effects of a life in the tropics, we cannot, of course, 
 calculate on a large proportion being able to 
 remain more than a limited number of years ; and 
 where they have exceeded the period unwisely, their 
 services, as I can testify, have in some cases been 
 of little avail. There are also causes besides those 
 of individual constitution, such as the health, or 
 education of children, which equally affect the 
 resident in such parts of the world. 
 
 I have already shown that I do not consider these 
 drawbacks a sufficient reason for confining our 
 choice of labourers to celibates, and thus forfeiting 
 the great advantage of the influence of Christian 
 family life on heathen races ; but to enlist a body
 
 2 2 Our Alissions. 
 
 of youi]ger men, willing and able to give a few 
 years to this interesting work in the outset of 
 active life, would be, I believe, alike nseful to 
 themselves and the Church at home, on the one 
 hand; and welcome to the sorely-tried Missionary 
 Church, on the other, 
 
 I will not go out of my way to meet the attacks 
 of those who affect to have no faith in our efforts 
 to convert the heathen. I have still less sympathy 
 with such as affect to take the heathen's side, 
 and uphold the superiority of their condition to 
 that which we offer them in exchange. I have 
 lived amongst them and learned to know their 
 true feelings, and wherever Christianity has been 
 embraced by any, I know that it has filled an 
 existing void, and given exactly what our human 
 nature needs in its consolations and its promises. 
 1 feel myself closer to them by such sympathy, 
 and am emboldened to plead for them as my 
 children, and to echo the words of the zealous 
 Bishop, whose letter has induced me to address 
 your G-race. 
 
 There is a work^ great and real, which, though 
 late, we have begun. If driven out of India 
 to-morrow, our Christianity — yes ! even the 
 Christianity of the Church of England ! — would 
 not cease to exist. It is stronger than that 
 of Rome, because it is more truly Catholic, being- 
 Scriptural. It will draw to itself the several 
 earnest expressions of the same Faith, taught by
 
 Our Missions;. 23 
 
 some, as sincerely if not as perfectly. Above all, 
 if we were so degenerate as to suffer this great 
 nation to deny its Religion, in this age of doubt 
 and questioning of sacred things, it is my belief 
 that there is, out of England, yet of English origin, 
 a Christianity that would re-echo to our shores. 
 From New Zealand, from West and South Africa, 
 from North America, from the Isles of the Sea, 
 and lastly, from India itself, would be heard the 
 voice of expostulation and reproach, — " foolish 
 — who hath bewitched you that ye should not 
 ol)ey The Truth ; before whose eyes Jesus Christ 
 hath been evidently set forth ? " * 
 
 Let us, my Lord Archbishop, as on the 20th of 
 December we prayed for labourers, now boldly 
 send them forth. They will come, I doubt not, 
 if we summon them with an unhesitating and 
 clear invitation. Let that invitation go forth from 
 the chair of Canterbury. 
 
 I am, my Lord Archbishop, 
 
 Your Grace's most faithful Servant, 
 
 PIERS C. CLAUGHTON, 
 
 Bishop. 
 * Gal. iii. 1. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFOBD STREET AND CHARING CEOS*.
 
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