A CHARGE 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 THE RIGHT REV. 
 
 HENRY ALEXANDER DOUGLAS, 
 
 BISHOP OF BOMB A V, 
 
 AT HIS 
 
 PRIMARY VISITATION 
 
 IN 
 
 S. ^rijomas's (iTatfjcUral, 3i5omijag, 
 
 O/r Tuesday, the 12th yanitary iSjj. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 Secrnd icic'iic 
 
 ILantioit: 
 \V I L L I A J\I WELLS G A R D x\ E R. 
 
 2 I'ArKRNOSTER BUILDIX'JS. 
 
 I A/;.
 
 A CHARGE. 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 Ix meeting you, my dear brethren of the Clergy, thus for the tirst 
 time formally in visitation, though not until the close of the sixth 
 year in which I have been called to preside over the church of this 
 Diocese, let me name, as among the chief reasons for the delay, that 
 I was unwilling to speak to you on those questions which pertain to 
 the spread of our Lord's kingdom in India without that more exact 
 knowledge which only experience could furnish. Let me begin, too, 
 by expressing my deep gratitude, first and above all, to God, tor the 
 manifold mercy and goodness which He has shown to us during that 
 period, so preserving our lives that only two of the Clergy of the 
 Diocese have been removed by death j and this but as one of many 
 blessings ; next, to yourselves, for the kindness with which you 
 received me and have ever since treated me, for the readiness with 
 which you have followed such counsels as God has put it into my 
 heart to give you, for your patience in bearing with many short- 
 comings and imperfections, for the sympathy with which you helped 
 to strengthen me in great personal afHictions, and in all things for 
 your fellowship in that work of the Gospel which God has given us 
 to do for Him in this land. To you, also, my dear brethren of the 
 Laity, whom I may regard as representing the Christian people of the 
 Diocese, I would express my thankfulness. As a traveller, through- 
 out the length and breadth of this Presidency. I am deeply indebted 
 for the hospitality which you have constantly offered me. The zeal 
 with which many of you have supported the Clergy, both Chaplains 
 and Missionaries, calls for my warm acknowledgment. Some also 
 have given freely of their substance to support the missions and other 
 labours of the Church, and thus have set an example which I am sure 
 that many more will imitate, when they become alive to our responsi- 
 bilities, as rulers of this great empire, and learn, through a due appre- 
 ciation of their own exceeding privileges, how far more blessed it is
 
 to give than to receive. It is thus with a glad heart that I meet you, 
 and with the hope that Pie whose presence is promised where even 
 two or three meet in His name, will graciously vouchsafe His blessing 
 to us. Already, we of the Clergy have been united as closely as is 
 possible to each other in that Communion of our Lords Body and 
 Blood, which is the truest bond of souls. We shall, also, I tnist, be 
 knit together in mind and heart through those counsels in which we 
 shall mutually participate. And I hope that we shall again go forth 
 to our several works strengthened and refreshed by sympathy, and con- 
 scious of that support which is afforded through the inhabitation of one 
 and the same all-hallowing Spirit, and through fellowship in thought, 
 in action, and in prayer. 
 
 Statistics. 
 
 It is not my intention to dwell at any great length on the statistics 
 of the Diocese, however important these may be as evidences of the 
 work which is being done. I have twice visited the whole Diocese. 
 I have confirmed, during six years, some 1700 persons, of whom one- 
 third were natives of this country. So large a proportion of the con- 
 firmed are mere temporary sojourners, that it is to confirmations 
 among those who are the permanent inhabitants of the country that 
 we must chiefly look for any index of increasing strength. 
 
 During six years, seven persons have been admitted to the Holy 
 Order of Deacons, of whom four were natives of this land. Six of 
 these seven, and four others, have been admitted to the Holy Order 
 of the Priesthood. I regret much that the number of ordinations of 
 native clergy is so small, and that there is no immediate prospect of 
 any great addition to their number. But until a College is founded 
 expressly for the education and training of Catechists and Clergy this 
 defect is not likely to be remedied. The establishment of at least 
 one such College has been an object which I have had in view ever 
 since I came to India, and has been brought to the notice of our 
 Missionary Societies as of paramount importance. Without it, 
 growth is almost impossible, and other labour is unfruitful or well- 
 nigh vain. 
 
 Of late there is evidence of an increasing interest in Missions on 
 the part of European Christians. The contributions to the Church 
 Missionary Society in its general fund and for its local objects amounted 
 in the last annual report to 16,000 rupees. Towards the general fund 
 of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel about 4500 rupees 
 were contributed last year, and at the several Mission Churches or 
 
 % f
 
 5 
 
 stations of that Society a sum of nearly 8000 rupees was collected, 
 making in all about 12,500 rupees. Besides, a special fund, amount- 
 ing in 1874 to about 4000 rupees, was raised to support a Mission 
 conducted by the Cowley Fathers, so that the total contributions 
 towards missionary objects in 1874 may be estimated at about 32,500 
 rupees. The contributions to tlie Additional Clergy Fund amounted 
 only to about 1000 rupees, though they were sufficient to meet the 
 demands on that Societ3^ But for some years the Government of 
 India has been pressed to make an allowance for at least two more 
 Clergy to be employed at Parell and Lanowlee, among the servants 
 of the railway companies, and has now given some indications of a 
 readiness to contribute the sum usually granted in such cases. The 
 demands, therefore, on the Additional Clergy Fund are likely to 
 increase during the current and future years, and I feel sure that there 
 will be no lack of willingness to aid in sending to our fellow-country- 
 men at these railway stations the ministry of the Church. 
 
 I desire to commend to your support through an annual collection 
 in your churches the fund for church building. Our older European 
 stations with scarce an exception are now supplied with churches. 
 But at Bhosawul an effort is now to be made to supply the railway 
 servants with a church. At Parell, too, and Lanowlee, as soon as 
 clergy are provided, the erection of suitable places of worship will 
 become an object of importance. Some, too, of our Missions are 
 gradually advancing to a position in which churches will be necessary 
 to the development of their work. And altogether it is desirable 
 that this fund should be placed in a flourishing condition. It amounts 
 at the present time to about 8000 rupees. But I am anxious that a 
 capital sum of at least 10,000 rupees should be provided, and to raise 
 the existing funds to that amount is an immediate end. 
 
 The average annual contributions, other than those for missionary 
 purposes, amomit on the average to 40,000 rupees,* and the intorma- 
 tion which I receive warrants the assertion that towards all such 
 objects as it is a manifest duty to support — matters affecting worship 
 and the furnishing of churches, education, especially of the orphans 
 and the poor, diffusion of Christian knowledge, &c. — there is every 
 readiness to subscribe, when appeal is made for assistance. In future 
 I shall ask you for annual returns, and I shall feel obliged if you will 
 make the return as soon as possible after the issue of the usual papers. 
 Besides objects of local interest and missions, the Diocesan Board of 
 
 * N'ote. — This does not include any portion of a sum of about 25,000 rupees 
 raised during the past three years for school buildings.
 
 Education, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the Fund 
 for Church Building, the Indo-British Institution, and the BycuUa 
 Schools, are those which seem to have most claim on general sympathy. 
 And I feel sure that you will use your best endeavours to obtain for 
 all these the support which they need. 
 
 II. 
 
 Missions. 
 
 But having thus drawn your attention to that which I may call our 
 Diocesan machinery, in the hope that you will do all in your power to 
 perfect its efficiency, I would at once take up that subject of Missions, 
 which so overshadows all others by its greatness, and holds our whole 
 life as a Church so bound up within itself, that I desire to concentrate 
 upon it all your interest, believing that in so doing I shall best promote 
 our general vitality, and, through that, the vigour of each separate 
 department in our varying work. And, if in dealing with this subject, 
 which is so complex, and so encompassed with difficulty, I should 
 express opinions or recommend practices which fail to commend 
 themselves to some of you, you will, I hope, consider that I have no 
 desire to dogmatise, or to do anything but address myself to an 
 enlightened and spiritualised intelligence. I hear on every side, from 
 men of every school, proofs of some dissatisfaction with the results 
 of our present methods, and of a conviction that that absence of 
 marked success which we deplore is to some extent traceable, to 
 defects of system which may be amended. At the same time, during 
 my recent visit to England, and after conference with many who can 
 influence its policy, I have seen in the mother Church an arising 
 determination to bring to bear on the work of converting this vast 
 dependency efforts more commensurate than the present with the 
 difficulties which impede it. And therefore, on the present occasion, 
 I desire, as if in conference with you, who are so well able to form a 
 judgment in the matter, to bring out into distinct consciousness before 
 ourselves, what we have to do, and thus to see the means which are 
 really fitted for its accomplishment. 
 
 The Work of the Church in its Missionary Capacity. 
 
 I can conceive no more complete description of the work of the 
 Church, in its missionary capacity, than the words of St Peter, when 
 having spoken of the gifts which God bestows of everything pertain-
 
 ing to life and godliness, and of the exceeding great and precious pro- 
 mises of the Gospel, he adds, as the end to which all led up, "that 
 by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped 
 the corruption that is in the world through lust." The Church has, 
 as its mission to the world, to make men " partakers of the divine 
 nature." Human nature everywhere is corrupt, and "very far gone 
 from original righteousness," so that men "without Christ" are also 
 " without God in the world," " dead in trespasses and sins," " fulfil- 
 ling the desires of the flesh and of the mind," " children of disobedi- 
 ence," and "children of wrath." Apart from Christ, human nature 
 as a whole is tainted, and each individual specimen of that nature is 
 personally corrupt, the sin of his origin breaking out into sin of act, 
 each one having his " understanding darkened, and being alienated 
 from the life of God through the ignorance that is in him, because of 
 the blindness of his heart," his will also being wrongly biassed, so that he 
 neither sees truth clearly, nor loves things that are excellent, nor resolves 
 well. The fault is in his nature ; yet not so in his nature that he can 
 shift from himself the responsibility of doing the evil which he chooses, 
 or blame any one but himself for the depravity of his will. That is 
 man's natural condition. What, then, has God done for his recovery ? 
 He has re-made human nature by joining it to His own. He has 
 re-created human nature by His Son's Incarnation. Moved by no 
 external influence, and seeing nothing in us, or in anything beyond 
 Himself, which could be a reason for His action, out of that pure love 
 which is His own essence, He gave His Son to man, making Him 
 Man. " The Word was made flesh," and dwelt as in a tent in " us ;" 
 not, that is, only in an individual man, but in human nature ; and 
 now men, united with that flesh, can be partakers of the divinity 
 which is enshrined within it. Thus as " in Adam " — through union, 
 that is, with Adam, our first parent, our root, our origin, our spring 
 — men die J so also "in Christ" — in union with Christ, as the new 
 Head and Root of human nature — men live. Nothing can be more 
 clear than the teaching of God's Word on this subject, mysterious as 
 the doctrine is ; and we do but need to remind ourselves that it is 
 not less real than it is wonderful. It is no mere metaphor wliich St 
 Paul uses when he says, for instance, that we are God's " workmanship 
 created in Christ Jesus," and that one Mho is in Christ is "a new 
 creature," and that "we are members of His Body, from His Flesh, 
 and from His Bones." Such words are not figures, but literal 
 representations of intense though transcendent realities. Eve was not 
 more really taken out of Adam, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.
 
 8 
 
 than redeemed men are formed out of tlie opened Body of the Second 
 Adam, and out of the blood and water which flowed on the Cross 
 from His gored side. They are partakers of His divine nature, because 
 they are made one with Him as very Man. 
 
 The Church, then, in its missionary office, goes out over the world 
 to propagate human nature, as made anew in Jesus Christ. Human 
 nature, as made in Adam, spreads by the law of natural productive- 
 ness, the life which began in Adam flowing, as in a natural stream, 
 from parent to child, and covering the earth with men formed in 
 Adam's likeness. Human nature as re-made in Christ spreads by 
 grace. Finding an olive-tree wild by nature the Church goes out, by 
 command of its Head, to graft the wild olive "contrary to nature" 
 into Christ, the "good olive-tree; " and the wild olive, thus grafted 
 in, "partakes of the root and fatness of the olive-tree," and in God's 
 chosen ones bears the fruits of holiness. Finding human nature 
 corrupt the Church changes, revives, and literally re-creates it. He, 
 Who in the beginning formed man out of nothing, working super- 
 naturally in His Church, accomplishes a new creation of individual 
 men, so that old things pass away from them, and all things are made 
 new in them by the Spirit of God. And the second propagation by 
 grace is as real as that by nature : nay, is as much more truly real as 
 God is more real than man, for the first Adam has only such substance 
 and reality as belongs to the created, but Christ imparts to those who 
 share His Nature the permanence and necessary immortality which 
 inheres in Him essentially as God. 
 
 Such is the light in which the missionary work of the Church 
 appears, looking manwards. It brings God near to man, and, indeed, 
 gives God to man, so uplifting and reviving man. Looking God- 
 wards, its work is of another character : its object is to bring man 
 near to God. In Christ Jesus those who sometime "were far off" are 
 made nigh by the Blood of Christ," which it applies to them. 
 Through Him men "have access by one Spirit unto the Father." 
 The Spirit unites them with the Son, and in the Son with the Father, 
 making them sons of God. Thus our Lord has opened the Kingdom 
 of Heaven, and in Him men have boldness to enter the holiest by 
 His Blood. The veil which screened God from man, keeping man at 
 a distance, has been removed, and the mere figures of truth which hid 
 God from man, even while they revealed Him as far as was before 
 possible, have been exchanged for close communion with the Father, 
 through the realities of grace. We still see, but as in a glass, darkly, 
 in comparison wilh the " face-to-face " vision of that coming glory,
 
 9 
 
 when mortality shall be swallowed up in lifej but the spirit of adop- 
 tion is now given to those who come to God through faith iu Christ, 
 and men may speak to God as their true P'ather : for "where the 
 Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty " of access to the divine presence. 
 The mercy-seat of God is now set up on earth in Him Who reconciles 
 peace with righteousness ; and sons of the new Adam, " beholding as 
 in a glass the glory of the Lord," are now, during life, "changed into 
 the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the 
 Spirit." 
 
 Thus it is our mission to unite God with men and men with God. 
 And this involves the co-ordinate aim of uniting men with one another. 
 Idolatry and false religions are everywhere disjunctive, uniting men 
 only as races or as nations, or on some principle of limitation, and 
 thus, by the very bond which they supply, separating those whom 
 they unite from all whose lineage, or abode, or other binding principle 
 is different. The unity of all human blood, which Revelation de- 
 clares and Apostles preached, is not only denied by them as a truth, 
 but it is practically set aside as a ground of religious communion. 
 False religions contradict nature, and separate men. But the true 
 religion, recognising the nature which is common to all, joins men to 
 each other socially, in God. And it does this by giving to men a new 
 human nature, through participation in the divine Nature of Jesus 
 Christ. Thus it is a necessary part of our aim to knit men together 
 in the bonds of a divine society, to graft them into a divine tree, to 
 make them members of a divine body, to admit them to a divine 
 kingdom, to join them to a divine family, of which Christ is the life. 
 Nor is this in any way at variance with the truth that to unite men 
 with our Lord is our especial aim. It is, in fact, only another form of 
 the same truth. It is not that men must be grafted into the tree, and 
 so pass on to Christ ; or become members of His body, and so 
 be joined to Himself j or enter the kingdom and so approach the 
 King. Our Lord now lives on earth in His mystical body, and to be 
 joined to that body is to be joined to Him, as to be joined to Him is 
 to be joined to His body. That is to say, it is our mission to make 
 men partakers of the divine nature, and in fultilling that mission, we 
 necessarily at the same time incorporate them in one divine society, of 
 which they are the members, and the incarnate Son of God the 
 Head. By conferring on them the gift of God, which is the spnng 
 and source of love to God, we at the same time make them akin to 
 all who have the same gift, and sow in them the seed of a new life, 
 which is also the love of their neighbour. 
 
 A 2
 
 lO 
 
 Briefly then, as the case required, I have described the nature of 
 our mission to those who are strangers to the covenant of promise. 
 We come here, sent by the great Head of the Church, to those who 
 are "without God " in the world. And it is our office to bring it to 
 pass that they, ceasing to be "without God," should "have" Him. 
 Dead they are, and we are sent to give them life, by giving them the 
 Son, of Whom St John says, " He that hath the Son hath life, and 
 he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Wonderful is the 
 mission, so wonderful that only a high faith can acknowledge or be- 
 lieve it. We are but men, weak, fallible, infirm, sinful : yet in these 
 "earthen vessels," outwardly so little worth, we, as representatives of 
 Christ our Head, carry a treasure, priceless as God Himself, even the 
 gift of the divine nature to our fellow-men. At the same time, our 
 Lord, through our ministry, opens with His own key Heaven itself, 
 that those who will receive our gifts may enter into the presence of 
 His Father, and admits them here into fellowship with each other, as 
 members of the Church, " which is His Body, the fulness of Him 
 Who filleth all in all.'' Such things as these are passing w^onderful, 
 but they result from the love of Him Who is infinite, and Who " so 
 loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
 
 What the Preaching of the Gospel is. 
 
 And now the question arises. How do we carry and impart this gift? 
 First, by preaching the Gospel. And though this may seem a familiar 
 subject, yet for clearness' sake, we shall do well to remind ourselves 
 what the preaching of the Gospel is, as set forth to us by the Word of 
 God and its earliest preachers. Here, too, we cannot do better than 
 recall that which, on St Paul's showing, is at once the scriptural, and all 
 but the most ancient, form of Gospel preaching to the Gentiles, when 
 he says, "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen 
 through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham saying, ' In 
 thee shall all nations be blessed.' " That is the primeval Gospel, pro- 
 claimed by an angel to him who was justified by faith, and it is the 
 preaching of the Incarnation as the source of blessing to the whole 
 world; or, to keep to the particular form of thought which we have 
 had before us from the beginning, it is a declaration that all men 
 through faith should be made partakers of the divine nature, by union 
 with that Son of Abraham who is also the Son of God. But let us 
 descend hy one long leap of nearly 1800 years, from the Gospel as
 
 II 
 
 preached by an angel in promise, to the Gospel a* preached by an 
 angel in fulfilment. Abraham's Seed is born, and lo ! an angel, or 
 rather a chief angel, comes to announce the Gospel, as an event 
 actually accomplished. And what is that chief angel's Gospel ? " Be- 
 hold, I bring you the evangel — good tidings-^of great joy which shall 
 be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, 
 a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." The Word made Flesh, the 
 actual birth in human nature and Abraham's seed of the Universal 
 Redeemer : this is the Gospel of " the angel of the Lord." And now 
 to pass from angels to Him who spoke with a tongue equal to that of 
 angels, because kindled with the living spiritual flame of charity, what 
 was St Paul's Gospel ? " I declare unto you the Gospel which I 
 preached unto you, which also ye have received and wherein ye 
 stand " — the Gospel, too, which he received himself by special and 
 independent revelation — " how that Christ died for our sins according 
 to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the 
 third day according to the Scriptures." He adds that he saw our 
 Lord in His glory. So that here we have four great facts — the death, 
 burial, resurrection, and glorification of Christ — and these facts are St 
 Paul's Gospel j not, that is, a formal and complete statement of the 
 " whole counsel of God," but still definite and prominent specimens 
 of the few simple facts which he proclaimed as saving. Elsewhere he 
 speaks of the resurrection as " my Gospel," showing the important 
 place which it held in his teaching, and we all know how he loved to 
 dwell on " Jesus Christ and Him crucified." It is well, however, 
 carefully to mark these characteristics of St Paul as an Evangelist, 
 first, because, at once reminding us of the creeds, they show us how 
 evangelical those venerable symbols are, and how high a place they 
 should hold in the mind and prophetic system of a missionary, and 
 next, because such statements prominently declare, and that too in 
 harmony with the preaching of angels, that the religion which we 
 bring to the heathen is a religion which has its basis on the solid 
 ground of facts, and facts which deeply affect everything. So that 
 "we follow no cunningly devised fables" when we make it known, 
 and we publish to the world no mere figures, or opinions, or theories 
 about God and human life, drawn from the schools of the philosophers, 
 but make known the power and the life and the energetic operations 
 of the God-Man, Who by His Wisdom and His Might has changed 
 the relations between earth and heaven, bearing guilt, fulfilling law, 
 perfecting righteousness, and so renewing human nature. See, too, 
 how such preaching conduces to its end. Its end is that men may
 
 12 
 
 partake of God in Christ, and to this the Gospel leads us by an un- 
 swerving way. It declares the blessed tidings that God has become 
 man. It preaches that God came to earth, was born, lived, died, rose, 
 ascended, poured out His Spirit, and all for us. And therefore now, 
 if men come to Him in real earnest faith. He will give to them union 
 with Himself, and through that union, divine strength by which they 
 may live as He lived, die as He died, rise as He arose, and reign as He 
 now reigns in highest glory. It sets forth the life of One Who con- 
 tains within Himself everything that weak and sinful men can need, 
 and it invites men freely to come to Him and to be united to Him, 
 that by Him, and from Him, and in Him they may attain all good. 
 Our object in preaching is so to move men's minds and hearts, as to 
 make them capable of receiving the divine nature. But to do this we 
 must be able to produce realities and facts, actually fitted to move 
 them. Here, then, are these facts. " God was in Christ reconciling 
 the world unto Himself," and here are the facts which wrought the 
 reconciliation. On this substantial fulcrum the Church can fix its 
 lever, and with its lever working on this basis it can move the world. 
 
 How THE New Nature is Imparted. 
 
 But the preaching of the Gospel, great as it is, is not everything, 
 and when the intelligence of man has been informed, and the heart 
 kindled by the fire of truth, nature is not changed yet. The sons of 
 Adam are still in a state of nature, and nature cannot truly love God, 
 till its corruption has been exchanged for health, and its weakness has 
 put on strength, and the cherubim with their flaming swords have 
 been withdrawn from their sentryship over the tree of life. When, 
 then, a man has been brought by preaching to say in faith, " What 
 wilt thou have me to do ? " how is safety given ? how is remission of 
 sins granted ? how does a man pass from death to life ? By preaching 
 the Gospel we have brought him, let us suppose, to our Lord's feet, 
 and he has exclaimed, " Lord, I believe," but as yet he has not the 
 Son, and therefore, in any strict and proper sense of the term, he has 
 not life. How is he to be made partaker of the divine nature ? How 
 is he to be grafted into the true Vine, that so the very life of God may 
 flow up into him as a living branch, and he may live to God ? How, 
 in short, does he receive from God that new human nature, which is 
 Adam's, reformed, and re-vivified ? How is he literally born again, 
 in body and soul, through actual union, spiritual indeed, yet of his 
 whole nature, with Jesus Christ ?
 
 13 
 
 Holy Baptism. 
 
 When once it is clearly seen that salvation is the result of a radical 
 change of man's whole nature, and that men pass from death to life 
 by means of a real re-creation, the place of the Sacraments of the 
 Gospel is clearly seen. They are the means by which the divine life 
 is given and developed in us. If salvation were only a process of the 
 mind, or a state of holy feeling and disposition, wrought in man by 
 the Spirit of God, the two great Sacraments might be the mere 
 figures and signs of a life which is not communicated by them. But 
 as salvation is not a mere mental apprehension of God, by which men 
 think themselves out of sin to holiness, or a mere emotion towards 
 God by which they rise on the wings of dev^otiou to Him, but rather 
 a supernatural revival, of which such a change and such a love are 
 particular results — Baptism, however mysterious and spiritual, so as to 
 demand faith, naturally commends itself to simple minds, as the instru- 
 ment, if God so please, of re-creation. And we who inherit the teach- 
 ing of the Church from the beginning, as embodied in the baptismal 
 service, have no difficulty in taking the words of our Lord and His 
 Apostles in their literal sense and in believing that the new birth is a 
 birth at once of water and the Spirit, so that men who are baptized 
 into the gifts, offices, and persons of the Blessed Trinity really put on 
 Christ, " buried with Him in Baptism," rising with Him also, so as to 
 be able, if they will, to lead new lives in Him. All, therefore, that I 
 would do, in thus bringing into clearness our work as having a mission 
 to this land, is to ask you to bear constantly in mind, that our Lord 
 and all things in His Religion are realities, divinely substantial. Our 
 Lord is full, not only of grace, but of truth ; of truth, that is, as the 
 contrary of falsehood, and at the same time as opposed to mere figures 
 and barren signs. From the moment that the salt of His Sacrifice 
 was cast into the waters of earth, there has been ' no more death or 
 barren land.' When He said, " I am the Truth," or when in the 
 Revelations He declared, " These things saith He that is holy. He that 
 is true,'" He asserted His own reality as well as truthfulness j and thus 
 of all that He does or bids us do, reality is the prominent character- 
 istic. That, in fact, is the distinction between the dispensation of 
 Moses and the dispensation of Christ. " The law was given by Moses, 
 but the grace and the reality came by Jesus Christ." The law, as is 
 shown in the E^pistle to the Hebrews, was a thing of shadows and 
 pictures. It was full of signs of grace but not of grace itself. It was 
 a figurative system by which men were led to God by the hope of
 
 14 
 
 that which was to come, when figures would be superseded by realities, 
 and was thus imperfect and only preparatory to better things hereafter 
 to be revealed. " The law having a shadow of good things to come, 
 and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices 
 which they offered year by year continually make the comers there- 
 unto perfect." But when our Lord appeared saying, " Lo, I come to 
 do Thy will," all shadows departed, the sun rising to the meridian, and 
 God Himself, the essence of reality, appearing in fulness of light among 
 men, and from that day such a thing as an empty sign has been un- 
 known in the ordinances of the Church of God, Mere figures from 
 that moment vanished, and signs carried in themselves the substantial 
 grace and life which our Lord conveyed, by means of them, to men. 
 All relics of Judaism have disappeared. There is no veil in the 
 Christian temple. Our Lord himself is the " new and living 
 way" into an open heaven. And thus, as we preach a Gospel of 
 facts, so, correspondingly, we administer ordinances which are 
 realities. 
 
 Confirmation. 
 
 Baptism, then, really sows in men the seed of a new nature, and 
 Confirmation follows to develop its growth. Confirmation is the 
 complement of Baptism, and is not given until intelligence has been 
 awakened, and the soul can consciously give itself to God, whereas 
 Baptism may precede intelligence. Confirmation is really, as could be 
 shown if time permitted, the means by which the abiding gifts of 
 Pentecost are imparted by Apostolic hands ; and as such it is spoken 
 of by St Paul as the sealing of the Spirit, and by St John as the 
 * imction from the Holy One.' It is also the ordination of the laity 
 to such priestly functions in worship and sacrifice as all Christians are 
 called to discharge. And thus through laying on of hands it is one 
 essential instrument of unity, bringing all beneath the'hands of the 
 bishop to receive his fatherly and apostolic blessings at the same time 
 conferring on all the full privileges of Christians, and the right of 
 access to that sacrament, in which the new-born and confirmed soul is 
 admitted to feast on the memorial sacrifice of our Lord's Body and 
 Blood. Of old when Apostolic hands were laid on men in Confirma- 
 tion the Holy Ghost was given, and the same gift still descends. Time 
 has not worn out the life which is in Christ, and Christ still lives 
 within " His Body." Still it is as true as in the days of the Acts of 
 the Apostles: "They laid their hands upon them, and they received 
 the Holy Ghost." Thus, in Baptism the Christian Soldier is enlisted.
 
 15 
 
 bvit in Confirmation he is sent forth, clothed in the whole armour of 
 God, to fight the good fight of faith and overcome the world. 
 
 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 In this way we reach that chief act of worship, and that priceless 
 means of grace in which the life which Baptism began is maintained, 
 increased, and perfected. Into the whole doctrine of this mystery I 
 cannot enter. I have now to deal with it in its missionary aspect, and 
 to treat of it chiefly in so far as it ministers to the union of those whom 
 we convert with that divine Person from Whom, as the sole Mediator 
 between God and man, life continuously flows. And in this aspect I 
 desire chiefly to remind you of its reality. As our Lord approached 
 the altar of Calvary all the figures of the Jewish sacrificial system 
 poised themselves upon their wings, ready to fly away, and, as He 
 said, "It is finished," they took their flight, because then the one only 
 real sacrifice which ever was offered by man to God reached its con- 
 summation. The old sacrifices departed, as soon as the one perfect 
 Victim was oflfered by the one and only Priest, because they had no 
 reality, no substance, and therefore no permanence in them. Men 
 often speak as if carnal sacrifices, such as those of the Jewish ritual, 
 were real, and the one sacrifice of our Lord was figurative, whereas 
 the truth is precisely the opposite. Carnal sacrifices, as only figurative, 
 are unreal ; the sacrifice of our Lord, though in essence spiritual, is 
 substantial and absolutely true. Nothing, in fact, is so real as spirit, 
 and the more spiritual anything is, the more real is it also. Here, 
 then, as we stand in the Upper Chamber, and at the foot of the Cross, 
 reality itself is before us : reality in word, reality in act, reality in 
 everything 5 and to import shadow or figure into anything which our 
 I>ord said or did at that tremendous crisis, when life was in the heat 
 of its conflict with every power of hell, is, I fear, to make our whole 
 faith a myth, and our redemption little else than a scene in an awful, 
 indeed, but only imaginary tragedy. When our Lord said, " This is 
 My Body," " This is My Blood," though we must believe that the 
 created elements over which these words were spoken continued bread 
 and wine, we must also be convinced that by spiritual power He made 
 them that which His creative Word called them, and that His own 
 priestly consecrating Words, spoken over the same elements by those 
 who have authority to use them, perpetuate the mystery, and through 
 living connection with His own act, done once yet done always and 
 for ever, make Him to be really present, in Godhead as well as Man- 
 hood, through the Hypostatic Union, which renders Him personally
 
 i6 
 
 inseparable from the body which He assumed for us. As, too, He is 
 thus everywhere the One Consecrator, so we cannot doubt that He 
 presents continually the One Sacrifice which His Church pleads on 
 earth, at that Altar where St John saw Him standing as the Lamb 
 slain, in priestly attitude before His Father j and thus, that our act 
 done here is not only a memorial towards man, which visibly preaches 
 the sacrifice, but a remembrancer also upon high, inseparable from 
 His perpetual presentation of Himself, and efficacious to apply to us 
 the goods, which mediatorially descend through Him only. Thus, 
 utterly divested of all carnality, our act is a most spiritual and there- 
 fore an intensely real sacrifice ; and as in every prayer which we offer 
 we plead His name, so in this we plead not His name only but His 
 very Blood which bought us, and in no figure but in the most real 
 way we enter the Holiest by the Blood of Jesus ; and sprinkled in our 
 hearts and bodies with that atoning price of our redemption, escape 
 the wrath of the destroying angel, in the awful hours of death and 
 final judgment. And, oh ! with what comfort and rapture of unutter- 
 able, unimaginable joy does the soul thrill, when it thus realises the 
 closeness to itself of that Fairest of the Sons of men, and its own 
 divinest and most beloved Lord and Master, Who thus stoops to the 
 weary and heavy laden to give them the peace which they find on His 
 Human Breast, and lovingly to waft them upwards on the wings of 
 His prevailing Intercession, to the very feet of Him whom He Him- 
 self has called " My Father and your Father, My God and your God." 
 There is a real, though memorial. Sacrifice. 
 
 And after the sacrifice there comes the feast. " Eat, O friends ; 
 drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." Of old those who sacrificed 
 ate of the carnal sacrifice ; and now, mystery of mysteries ! the par- 
 takers of the divine nature are fed on nothing less divine than the 
 sacrifice of Calvary, the Lamb of that sacrifice being the true Lamb 
 of God. Yet on what less could the sons of God feed if their sonship 
 is to grow within them " unto a perfect man, unto the fulness of the 
 measure of the stature of Christ" ? But on this subject I need but 
 remind you of our Lord's sermon in the sixth chapter of St John's 
 Gospel, literally interpreted ; for in it there is an absolute repudiation 
 of all metaphor, and the language, spiritual as it is, is almost stagger- 
 ing in its explicitness ; our Lord so earnestly desiring to impress on 
 His disciples, that His Flesh, spiritual indeed through union with His 
 Divinity, yet still Flesh, is meat indeed, and His Blood drink indeed. 
 And this our catechism follows in the statement regarding the inward 
 part of the sacrament, which it declares to be " the Body and Blood
 
 17 
 
 of Christ, verily and indeed ('realiter') taken and received by the 
 faithful in the Lord's Supper." 
 
 You will thus see that the means by which our end is to be reached 
 are strictly in accordance with the nature of the end itself. We are 
 sent to impart to men the divine nature, as manifested in the person 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. And to do this we preach a Gospel which 
 has Him and His acts for its subject, and we administer ordinances 
 in which He, as Sole Mediator, gives to men, and maintains in them 
 His own life. 
 
 The Office of the Ministry should be magxified. 
 
 And now, my dear brethren, seeing that we have received this so 
 high a ministry and mission, let us not faint at the prospect of the 
 difficulties which are before us, but let us one and all bend ourselves 
 with energy and faith to the performance of our great work. It is 
 the duty of the majority among us, first and especially, to minister to 
 those who have received their faith from their fathers, and are heirs by 
 hereditary religion of the heavenly treasure. But all of us are in some 
 degree responsible for the extension of the faitji, and we can all do 
 something indirectly to spread the kingdom of our Lord and enlarge 
 His dominions. Give all of you to Missions and to your missionary 
 brethren your warm sympathy ; stir up in your several congregations 
 that zeal on behalf of Missions which will best promote their own 
 spiritual welfare ; act in every way as if your high commission 
 pledged you to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature. And you too, my dear brethren, whose mission is expressly 
 to the people of this land, magnify your office, and fan into flame 
 those gifts of the ministry which are in you, through laying on of 
 Apostolic hands. An age which is supposed to have learnt frt)m one 
 of its chief thinkers that all shams are to be hated, is ready enough to 
 ask from the Clergy that they should treat their own office as unreal, 
 and should act as if they were destitute of gifts. Let not the popular 
 voice mislead you. The Church and not public opinion is your 
 teacher. Christ and not the world is your King. Dare to take up 
 your Cross, and proclaim yourselves among the heathen as ambas- 
 sadors of Christ, stewards of the mysteries of God, representatives, in 
 short, of Him, Who is Prophet, Priest, and King of men : having had 
 intrusted to you a " ministry of reconciliation," and the powers 
 which are needed to impart the divine nature, and to bring men 
 back to God through Jesus Christ. Go ont not only as teachers, but 
 as dispensers of grace, and guides of souls. Declare as your Gospel,
 
 that God has given to men life, and that life freely bestowed on all 
 who come to His Son. Set forth the Church as His Body. Tell to 
 men who find in caste the bond which joins them, as they think, to 
 God and to each other, that there is a supernatural but visible king- 
 dom in which men of all races and classes can meet in fellowship as 
 brethren, finding in it all that heart can wish for here, and hopes of 
 fellowship with all that is best in human nature in the Paradise which 
 is above. Tell them that in this Kingdom everything is real, a min- 
 istry which represents Christ, a Gospel which consists of real facts 
 deeplv affecting all nature, ordinances which are filled with the reality 
 of life, and can make men live indeed. Publish this Gospel, com- 
 mending yourselves by the manifestation of the truth to every man's 
 conscience, and you will draw to yourselves hearts which are longing 
 for reality. The people are finding out that idols are nothing in the 
 world, and that there is no God but one. Show them, lovingly and 
 really, that one true God as He is manifested, through your ministry, 
 in Him who is the "Way, the Truth, and the Life of men. You are 
 sent by the Church to do among them a work which is supernatural, 
 and powers above nature are in you to enable you to do it. Show 
 that, humble in yourselves, you have full faith in your office and 
 calling. Men will feel then that God is with you and will be drawn 
 to Him in Whom you believe. 
 
 III. 
 
 Practical Counsels. 
 
 And now, having thus endeavoured to encourage you, those of you 
 especially whose work is distinctly missionary, and at the same time, 
 so far as I can, to share with you your great work, let me go on to 
 give you such counsels as I am able in matters of practical difficulty, 
 which are connected with it more or less nearly, and on which I seem 
 bound, in my spiritual relations to you, by God's gracious aid, to guide 
 you aright. As, too, some of these matters are of a delicate and per- 
 plexing nature, in which prejudice and party spirit may bias and 
 mislead the mind, let me begin by solemnly invoking the aid of the 
 All-Wise Spirit of the Living God, for myself, that I may speak with 
 wisdom, and yet with boldness, as I ought to speak, and for yoii, that 
 what God may indeed give me to say may assist your illuminated 
 judgment.
 
 19 
 
 Prayer for Missions, 
 
 First, I would invite you to do your utmost to carry out the 
 exhortations of that Pastoral Letter of the Bishops of India, which is 
 dated in March of last year. At the close of 1874, in conformity 
 with the recommendations of the Archbishops in England, we kept 
 St Andrew's Day as a Day of Intercession. In future, however, it 
 may be best to restrict ourselves to the seasons of Epiphany and 
 Whitsuntide, as being those which are recommended in the letter, 
 and I shall be glad of your advice at our Conference to-morrow as to 
 the course which should be followed, in order to give full effect to the 
 recommendations. The prayer which is needed above all others is 
 that which our Lord Himself prescribed that the Church should make 
 to the Lord of the harvest. At the present time it is almost impossible 
 to lind men in England who will devote themselves to this labour. 
 It seems, indeed, as though we had not as yet the grace which is 
 needed for the stupendous undertaking which is before us, and there- 
 fore there is little else that we can now do but to cast ourselves in the 
 profoundest humility before the footstool of the Eternal, and ask Him, 
 by His Almighty power, and out of His boundless generosity, to 
 create in us the will and the powers which can perform this work. 
 
 Co-operation with Persons of other Communions. 
 
 Next, it may be well that we should consider, and perhaps confer 
 together, as indeed one of you has intimated that he will ask us to do, 
 on the question of co-operation with persons of other communions in 
 the work of evangelisation. "We find ourselves here thrown among 
 many fellow-Christians who organically are divided from us, and as 
 they have in view the conversion of those whom we, too, desire to 
 bring to Christ, what is to be our relation towards them ? Are 
 we to sink all dift'erences and work together as if we were wholly one? 
 Now there can be no doubt that we should do all that is in our 
 power to minimise differences, and that we should not only recognise 
 but heartily thank God for the zeal and other graces which they 
 possess, and for whatever is the manifest work of His Spirit in them, 
 and that we should love them as followers of the same Lord, and 
 show all kindness towards them, and that under some circumstances 
 we may meet them and confer with them. Among them, doubtless, 
 there are those whom we cannot but highly honour for their work's 
 sake, as, for instance, Dr John Wilson. What we cannot rightly do.
 
 20 
 
 as it appears to me, is to treat (juest ions of organism and corporate life 
 as matters of indifference. I'o me, indeed, such a policy seems to be 
 little less than fatal. To them, on such subjects, indifference is natural, 
 and can be shown without violence to conscience. Their indifference 
 is not inconsistent with the religious position which they have taken 
 up, and on which they stand : because to them the Catholic Church 
 is an invisible entity, and the bonds of Christianity are mainly or 
 wholly of an inorganic and non-external kind. Our position, on the 
 other hand, and especially the position of us who are clergy, is of quite 
 another sort. Avowedly, we belong to an " order," and we are 
 admitted to that order on the basis of the Apostolic succession, which 
 we thus profess to be essential to the full validity of a Christian ministry, 
 and to be the ground of our own. Rubrics, prayers, the imposition 
 of episcopal hands, and the words of ordination bear to this an unim- 
 peachable witness, and pledge us to it. This, too, combined as it is 
 with the constant profession of the Christian creeds in our daily office 
 and in our approach to the Holy Communion, commits us to the 
 acceptance of faith in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church — in 
 the outward and historic sense of those words, and in distinction from 
 the pseudo-spiritual interpretation — as fundamental and necessary to 
 salvation ; while in accordance with this, our services repudiate the 
 possibility of treating the Sacraments of the Gospel as only figures of 
 divine gifts, and make us, in them, as the real representatives of the 
 one Mediator, actual channels of His grace. Now, either this position 
 is as sound as it is high, or it is baseless. If it is sound, as we must 
 believe, or we should not have sought to place ourselves on it, can 
 we safely act in contradiction to it ? Can we behave as if our orders 
 were an unreality, and as if those who are otherwise ordained were 
 as much ministers of Christ as ourselves, without some betrayal of our 
 trust ? Or can we reject the visibility of the Church without verging 
 on practical heresy ? Or can we fully co-operate with those to whom 
 the Sacraments are only figures, without denying that grace and truth 
 came by Jesus Christ ? I put these questions, not as judging those 
 who out of real charity may have gone lengths of comprehension 
 which cool reflection can hardly justify, but simply as desiring to invite 
 a thorough investigation of the subject. Disunion among Christians 
 is one of those sins which in the present age most calls for humiliation 
 and repentance, and every effort should be made to recover external 
 unity. But there can be no real union which is not union in Christ 
 and in truth. AH other unions, specious though they may sometimes
 
 21 
 
 seem, tend but to perpetuate and intensify separation. I must confess, 
 too, that I see no good which is likely to arise from conferences like 
 that at Allahabad in 1873, when men organically divided met to 
 recognise division as harmless and inditierent, and practically declared 
 that there can be real union of soul without organic and external 
 agreement, as if the " one body " was not the essential counterpart of 
 the "one Spirit." I shall be glad, however, if, by conferring together, 
 we can lay down principles of action, which may contribute, however 
 slightly at first, to a concord, true so far as it can go, in the love of 
 Christ. 
 
 Education as a Missionary Agency. 
 
 Further, I would invite your serious attention to the subject of 
 Education regarded as a missionary agency, and to the principles on 
 which it should be based as an instrument of conversion. I greatly 
 regret that more has not been done for those among our promising 
 converts, who might have been fitted to go forth in the strength of 
 high Christian intelligence and devotion to influence their unbelieving 
 countrymen. Work of this kind, done even among a small number 
 of converts, if done well, would have borne fruit a hundredfold, and 
 the policy which has aimed rather at the education of unbelievers is, 
 as I think, a great mistake. But, looking at the latter work in itself, 
 I would now discuss its principles. The common system may be thus 
 described. Unbelievers are invited to a school, and in addition to a 
 general education receive in it instruction in the Christian faith. The 
 Word of God is put into their hands. Not only its biographies and 
 history and morals are set before them, but some of the chief mysteries 
 of our religion are expounded to unbelieving minds. In our own 
 schools the result of this system has been confessedly almost nothing, 
 but we need not try it only by its results. I would rather test it by 
 its agreement with our Lord's own method, accordant as that is with 
 reason, and with the very nature of the work which we have to do. 
 Our Lord, especially in His parables, which are characteristic of His 
 system as a Prophet, taught men as they could bear it. To men 
 whose intelligence was clouded by sin He showed truth in a cloud, 
 veiling it, yet with a veil so slight that if there was but a will to lift 
 up the curtain they would see the truth itself. His object was to 
 reach the mind through the moral sense and through the heart. If 
 there was a desire to know the truth. He met that desire ; and as the 
 desire erew His revelation of Himself became clearer and clearer. If
 
 22 
 
 the desire was wanting, having tested it. He withdrew His revelations, 
 putting back into its sheath that sword of the Spirit which is a 
 discerner of men's hearts. There was in Him no attempt to force, no 
 bringing of souls which were unthirsty to the fountain, and compelling 
 them to drink of the waters of life ; but where there was a thirst, He 
 satisfied it, and as the thirst grew. He quenched it more and ever 
 more. Is this what we are doing ? It seems to me that we are not. 
 We seem rather to think that we can Inake men Christians without 
 their will, and that if we make them Christians in knowledge, we 
 shall make them also, at least in some cases. Christians in heart. 
 Labour of this sort has been, and, I fear, will continue to be labour in 
 vain. Yet, I do not say that no efforts should be made to leaven 
 India, now growing in intelligence, with such truth as may help in 
 due time to bring her people to our Lord's feet. I do but ask that we 
 should recognise the actual condition of the people, and that, content 
 with what is possible, we should (i) teach that natural religion which 
 they are able to receive ; and (2) give such veiled parabolic intimations 
 of the Christian mysteries as may both create a thirst for more 
 knowledge, and in part, where thirst arises, quench it. But there 
 should be no casting of pearls before those who cannot discern their 
 value. Mysteries are revealed only to the meek and childlike, and it 
 is neither wise nor right to throw them down before souls which are 
 still hard and sensualised, who will but learn to treat them with the 
 contempt that familiarity engenders, or even growing in hardness to 
 trample them in blind scorn beneath their feet. Certainly, the 
 question of missionary schools is one demanding our most serious 
 consideration, and as I know that many of our missionaries are 
 doubtful of their usefulness, so also I believe that a reform is 
 needed in the methods by which their end is sought. On this 
 subject I may add that when in England I called the attention of 
 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge to the need 
 which existed for an educational series suited to the unbelievers of 
 India who attend our Mission Schools, and that steps were taken 
 which should result in an issue of such a set of books. Bishop 
 Claughton, Dr Hessey, General Tremenheere, Mr Bullock, and 
 others, who assembled to discuss the matter, concurred in the prin- 
 ciples on which it should be constructed, and we shall be provided, 
 I hope, at no very distant period, through the Society, which is 
 anxious to assist us, with this important aid to the performance of 
 this branch of our missionary work.
 
 23 
 
 Reverence should be promoted. 
 
 T pass now to subjects connected with our worship, and I charge 
 you to do all that is in your power to promote a high reverence 
 among those committed to your charge, because reverence is really 
 the body which has true faith for its soul. In particular, as it is the 
 centre from which all else which is living radiates, cultivate in them 
 reverence in the worship offered by them in Holy Communion. 
 This, too, is a lesson, which our missionary congregations, though not 
 these exclusively, need to learn ; because among the Christians of this 
 land the opinion is too common that this most holy ordinance is a 
 commemoration of our Lord's sacrifice manwards only, and not also 
 before God in the highest heavens. Even if it were but a sign of the 
 atoning act, how solemnly should we approach it, handle it, receive 
 it, for we reverence the pictures of those whom we love, and 
 especially of the departed ; but if in it we really, though spiritually, 
 stand before the Sacrifice itself, and feast upon the Victim of Calvary, 
 with what awe, loving indeed and thankful and joyful yet solemn, 
 should we draw near, feeling that the very place in which we stand 
 is holy ground. And you will teach this best by your own example. 
 True reverence, shown by your care of buildings devoted to worship, 
 of the Holy Table with its appointments, and of the sacred vessels, 
 shown, too, by your whole demeanour, as of one who feels and is 
 conscious that his Lord is mysteriously beside him, will pass from you 
 to them, and will spread by its influence into a sobriety and sanctity 
 of their daily conduct, as they learn that their whole life circles day 
 by day around their Lord's Cross. As a part, too, of this reverence, 
 plead our Lord's Death on every Lord's Day, looking on it as that 
 from which all other worship derives its power. If our work is to 
 have real vitality, it must be through that Name which is above every 
 name, and how can we in full power speak that Name before the 
 Throne except when we perform that act in which His obedience 
 reached its consummation, and say, through Him the slain Lamb, to 
 the Father, Bless us, for His Name's and for His Atonement's sake ? 
 Be careful, too, in obeying the directions of the Church, particularly 
 in the more important rubrics. In a few places the elements are not 
 placed on the Holy Table at the time prescribed for their oblation, 
 and that in some cases because Credence tables are not provided. In 
 this, as in all besides, show your scrupulous care.
 
 24 
 
 Administration of Holy Communion. 
 
 It is on a matter not so much of reverence as of obedience that I 
 would next speak to you. In the administration of the Sacrament 
 the rubric prescribes the repetition of the words severally to each com- 
 municant, and thus administration by railful at a time is rubrically 
 forbidden. Yet when a single priest must administer to perhaps a 
 hundred persons, separate administration is almost an impossibility — 
 certainly in the hot season, and when a service prolonged until the 
 sun is high creates a very serious difficulty. I can claim for us no 
 right or power to alter rubrics, but in a case amounting almost to a 
 necessity I would bring to your notice a suggestion lately made in 
 England, with a ditferent object, by a lover of peace. The suggestion 
 is, that the administrator beginning with a general recitation of the 
 whole form of administration should afterwards individually say only 
 the former or the latter portion. The matter seems at least worthy 
 of our consideration, as a practical remedy for what amounts in this 
 land to almost a physical difficulty, and as free from those serious and 
 even doctrinal objections to which railful administration is open. In 
 our conference I may ask your opinion upon this subject. 
 
 Evening Communions. 
 
 And now, bear with me, my dear brethren, if I proceed to ask 
 those few among you who celebrate Holy Communion in the evening, 
 to abstain from a practice which has no sanction in past history, and 
 which has no precedent even among those who do not conform to 
 the Church. In Apostolic times gross irreverence prompted the 
 transference of time to those early hours in which souls could give 
 to Christ the first-fruits of their refreshed powers ; and here in this 
 land where early rising is the custom, why should men bring their 
 jaded bodies to their chief service, and offer to their Risen Saviour 
 the refuse of His own day ? I can respect the kindly motives which 
 may have influenced you to an act which the Church has not for- 
 bidden only because it never conceived of it as possible j but I must 
 not hesitate to say that the whole spirit of our Liturgy condemns it, 
 and to remind you that there is a danger lest evils analogous to those 
 which occurred at Corinth may spring up, and lest men fail to discern 
 the Lord's Body, and so bring on themselves the judgments which 
 such profanity induces.
 
 \ 
 
 25 
 
 Observance of the Lord's Day. 
 
 Distinct from this, yet not wholly unconnected with it, I must ask 
 you all to promote by every influence in your power that attendance 
 at church in the morning, which is the exception in this part of India, 
 but in Calcutta itself is, as I am informed, the rule. A Lord's Day 
 unsanctified is, I fear, too commonly the result of this deferred devo- 
 tion, and though, in the case of some persons, weakness may render 
 it inevitable, such excuse is very far from universal, and in Bombay, 
 I fear, that the Lord's Day is even desecrated by exciting amusement 
 — as, for example, by the meeting of the hounds — and is treated as a 
 common holiday rather than a most holy day. Such evils as this last 
 are best met by open denunciation, and, when occasion requires, 
 you will, I am sure, not scruple to condemn them, as you will also 
 do your utmost to promote the religious observance of the Lord's own 
 day. 
 
 Externality in Religion. 
 
 But I return to Holy Communion, and as I have counselled rever- 
 ence, so 1 feel bound not to withhold my own judgment on contro- 
 verted questions of ritual which are related to it. Such questions at 
 present do not, except remotely, concern us, and I might perhaps 
 excuse myself from reference to them ; but as those who are called 
 Ritualists are now everywhere spoken against, and as their unpopu- 
 larity is in many respects unreasonable and undeserved, I think it my 
 duty, as a Bishop, to state as my opinion that the Church owes to 
 them a great deal, and that they have done much to create and foster 
 reverence in worship. Also, though forms and ceremonies must bear 
 relations to the feelings of the people who use them, and though 
 obsolete usages, however significant, cannot rightly be introduced to 
 unwilling congregations, and though among ourselves generally ad- 
 vance to a higher ritual does not seem desirable — in itself I consider 
 that a special vestment for the Holy Communion is a fitting recogni- 
 tion of its dignity, and is suited, when it can be wisely introduced, to 
 promote reverence. I consider, also, that in general we of the English 
 Church err on the side of defect in ceremony, rather than of excess, 
 and that greater ceremoniousness and externality in all worship might 
 with advantage be introduced, particularly in missionary congregations ; 
 as, for example, in bowing reverently to acknowledge God's presence 
 in His Sanctuary, and at the Holy Name of Jesus. Religion is
 
 26 
 
 treated among us too much as if it was only mental and internal ; 
 whereas, to use the memorable words of Bishop Butler, " Your chief 
 business is to endeavour to beget a practical sense of religion upon 
 men's hearts, as what they acknowledge their belief of, and profess 
 they ought to conform themselves to. And this is to be done by 
 keeping up, as we are able, the form and face of religion with decency 
 and reverence, and in such a degree as to bring the thoughts of reli- 
 gion often to their minds ; and then endeavouring to make this form 
 more and more subservient to promote the reality and power of it. 
 The form of religion may indeed be where there is little of the thing 
 itself, but the thing itself cannot be preserved amongst mankind without 
 the form. And this form frequently occurring in some instance or 
 other of it will be a frequent admonition to bad men to repent, and 
 to good men to grow better ; and also be the means of their doing 
 so." — Charge to Clergy of Durham, p. 272. Yet I deprecate that 
 excessive minuteness, and if I may say so, fussiness of ceremonial 
 which, violating simplicity, detracts from the severe dignity of holy 
 worship, and I still more deprecate imitations of Latin and Continental 
 usages. To be Catholic we need not be Roman, and we have no 
 need to be ashamed of our own English branch of the Apostolic 
 Church. The English Church in its first origin was independent of 
 Rome, and having once freed itself from the yoke of the Papacy, 
 will never submit to it again. 
 
 I believe, too, that the " Eastward position," like the use of a special 
 vestment, is at once in accordance with the rubric, and the most suit- 
 able expression of the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, the priest who 
 thus stands representing the relations which he holds as the leader and 
 representative of the people ; going on as if in front of them into 
 God's Presence, and carrying them, in union with Christ, the sole 
 High Priest, up to the very Throne of God. And as for the common 
 objection, involved in the phrase, "turning his back upon the people," 
 it is enough to remind objectors, that Colonels at the head of their 
 regiments cast no insult on their soldiers when they go before them, 
 nor those who head a charge, when they show the way to those who 
 follow after. 
 
 Looking, too, at the whole question, I am of opinion that a policy 
 of liberty, as distinguished from an impossible attempt to enforce a 
 rigid uniformity, is best suited to the condition of the Church of 
 England in the present day. Liberty carries in itself the correction of 
 such evils as may arise under it, and, within the limits imposed by the 
 Creeds and a Common Liturgy, we need not distrust it, more especially
 
 27 
 
 if we regard it in the Church as the necessary correlate of great 
 liberty in common life and in affairs of State. Moreover, the activity 
 of thought and the critical temper which everywhere prevail, demand- 
 ing from every institution a reason for its existence, and an account of 
 itself which will stand the most searching tests, necessarily disarrange 
 established settlements, and enforce adaptation to circumstances which 
 have changed greatly. The nineteenth century is not the sixteenth, 
 and the Church which reformed itself once is not bound by the 
 traditions of the Georgian age. In many things the Church must 
 thus change with the time ; and that the changes may be wise, 
 freedom must be allowed for various developments 5 which, diverse 
 and incongruous at lirst, will in time be harmonised, as what is really 
 good in each appears, and the worthless accompaniments are seen also. 
 Certainly, there have been grave defects in the Church of England, 
 which those who love her best may admit frankly, and a want of 
 elasticity which has hindered her in the performance of many of her 
 greatest duties ; and in the time of transition like the present, when 
 society is, as it were, re-arranging herself to meet altered circumstances, 
 I for my part, would trust, even when I tried to moderate her too 
 wilful and impetuous children, believing them to be not unloyal to 
 her interests, and even ready to be guided when the reins are firmly 
 grasped by strong unfearing and impartial hands. I have no faith in 
 law as a remedy for spiritual difficulties, because spirit is too free for 
 any hard law to govern it. The true remedy for our troubles is the 
 full development of that legitimate influence of the Church, which 
 alone is either able or entitled to cure them. Give to the Church free 
 action in her Synods and Convocations, and she will create sobriety 
 and peace, for the God of peace is in her. Meanwhile, let us all act in 
 the spirit of St Paul when he says, " Let every man be fully persuaded 
 in his own mind ; " forbearing towards others, strict and conscientious 
 towards ourselves ; loving truth, yet avoiding harsh judgments and 
 doing all things in charity. 
 
 Absolution. 
 
 There is but one other subject on which I must say something, but 
 that a grave one in the present temper of our countrymen — absolution. 
 Forgiveness of sin must always be the chief need of men, and a main 
 office of the Church. Accordingly, when you were admitted to the 
 order of priesthood, you received the Holy Ghost for your " office in 
 the Church of God," and, as part of your ordination gift, you received 
 the power of absolving from sin, or withholding absolution. That
 
 28 
 
 power, of course, is delegated and ministerial, and is not exercised by 
 you as separate from Him in Whom it inheres, but on His behalf, and 
 in His name. Who alone pardons and punishes. Yet it is a real 
 power, and our Lord Who commits it to you is as true and real in this 
 as in all His ordinances. What He said He literally meant, and in 
 this respect, as in all others, you are not a figurative Jewish priest, but 
 a real representative of the true Aaron. To penitent souls burdened 
 with an intolerable load of guilt, and crushed by a sense of sin, which 
 is the greatest of all agonies, you, though men, are entitled to say, in 
 the name of the Son of Man, who has power on earth to forgive sins, 
 " Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee ! " This you can 
 declare and pronounce, not as mere teachers and preachers, but as 
 intrusted with the power of the keys, representing Him Who opens 
 and shuts Heaven. You may err, indeed, you may exclude one 
 whom Christ will yet admit, or you may absolve one who is no true 
 penitent, because all the work which man can do, however high, must 
 partake of man's imperfections and infirmities ; and therefore, in order to 
 exercise your functions duly, you need to live very near to God, and 
 to walk with great care and circumspection, profoundly distrustful of 
 self, leaning only and always on our Lord's Strength and Wisdom. 
 Yet such is your office. And human souls need it, and will seek it, 
 despite of all prejudice, in time of need. The weary and heavy-laden 
 will in times of spiritual anguish seek this remedy, or seek some less 
 divine form of it, if this is withheld. The Wesleyans know this, and 
 in their class- m^eetings, and the confessions which they there make, 
 bear witness to its necessity, though they supply it but imperfectly, 
 and, I fear, also in a way which must conduce to unreality of heart. 
 If then your aid is sought, you are bound by your office to give it, and 
 to do what in you lies, by counsel as well as absolution, to " bind 
 up the broken-hearted," on your loving Lord's behalf. Yet at 
 the same time, as to private in distinction from public absolution, the 
 te'aching of our Church seems clearly to instruct us that we should 
 deal with men as free to seek our aid, or not to seek it, just as their 
 'souls require. Li this respect we are physicians, and as the art of a 
 physician has for its object to produce that soundness of body which 
 will make men in dependent of his care, so our Church would seem to 
 show us that a true guide of souls will teach men to be a law to them- 
 selves, having their delight in the Law of God 5 and thus, while they 
 seek His aid in soul-sickness, or spiritual perplexity, to seek it in order 
 that they may guide themselves. Thus while you should be ready to 
 give all aid, and while at times of conversion and recovery from great
 
 29 
 
 sin you should do the part of the good shepherd, and carry the lost 
 sheep upon your shoulders, till he has again found the fold, you should, 
 I think, encourage him to walk afterwards in real freedom, using con- 
 fession, or not using it, as God may lead him, and not teaching him 
 to lean too much upon your care. Thus, as it seems to me, you will 
 form that manliness, yet at the same time tenderness, of soul, whicli 
 is a characteristic of our genuine English religion, and avoid that ex- 
 cess of supervision, which, on the Continent, has helped to make re- 
 ligion feminine, and driven out into actual estrangement the stronger 
 sex. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 And now I must conclude, and in concluding let me urge you, as I 
 would also urge myself, to labour with all diligence in prayer and 
 every work of your office, that your ministry may be hearty and real, 
 and that you may do what you can, though it be but little, for that 
 Divine Lord, Whose you are and Whom you serve. If you consider 
 tlie work which should be done in this land of heathen darkness, and 
 recollect how few there are who are engaged upon it, your hearts may 
 be disposed to sink within you, and to feel that all which can be done 
 is nothing. But take courage. The kingdom of heaven in its begin- 
 nings seems small and insignificant, as a grain of mustard seed, but 
 that little seed has grown and will continue growing, until those birds 
 of the air, which are the nations of the earth, find rest and shelter in 
 its spreading branches. Cast then, my dear brother, I would say to 
 each one among you — " Cast thy bread uj^on the waters, for thou shalt 
 find it after many days." Let thy prayer be: " Show Thy servants 
 Thy Work," and if, when it is shown, thou doest it, the generations 
 which come after us shall see the idols fall before the Cross of Jesus, 
 and the knees, which now bend not to Him, bow before His Glori- 
 ous Name. Live for Him. For what else should we live on earth, 
 or what can earth give in comparison with Him ? " In the morning " 
 of thy life, if thou art young, " sow thy seed," and " in the evening," 
 if grey hairs are over thee, "withhold not thine hand." Work with 
 a single eye, and God will prosper thee. Follow truth whitherso- 
 ever it leads, and thou shalt find it more and more fully. Be at peace 
 with all men. Live by charity, and when the night of thy short day 
 Cometh, and thy work on earth ceases, thy loving Lord, Who all 
 along has been thy Guide, will meet thee on the borders of the 
 dark valley, and leading thee hereafler to the vision of His own all- 
 perfect Beauty, will make thee to lie down in one long, changeless, 
 blissful, satisfving rest.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 In the charge of Bishop Butler, dehvered a.d. 17^5 i, quoted under 
 the heading of " Externahty in Rehgion," there is so much which is 
 worthy of attention at the present time that I subjoin some further 
 extracts : — 
 
 " That which men have accounted rehgion in the several countries 
 of the world, generally speaking, has had a great and conspicuous 
 part in all public appearances, and the face of it been kept up with 
 great reverence throughout all ranks, from the highest to the lowest ; 
 not only upon occasional solemnities, but also in the daily course of 
 behaviour. In the heathen world, their superstition was the chief 
 subject of statuary, sculpture, painting, and poetry. It mixed itself 
 with business, civil forms, diversions, domestic entertainments, and 
 every part of common life. The Mahometans are obliged to short 
 devotions live times between morning and evening. In Roman 
 Catholic countries, people cannot pass a day without having religion 
 recalled to their thoughts, by some or other memorial of it ; by some 
 ceremony or public religious form occurring in their way : besides 
 their frequent holy days, the short prayers they are daily called to, and 
 the occasional devotion enjoined by Confessors. By these means their 
 superstition sinks deep into the minds of the people, and their religion 
 also into the minds of such among them as are serious and well- 
 disposed. Our reformers, considering that some of these observances 
 were in themselves wrong and superstitious, and others of them made 
 subservient to the purposes of superstition, abolished them, reduced 
 the form of religion to great simplicity, and enjoined no more parti- 
 cular rules, nor left anything more of what was external in religion, 
 than was in a manner necessary to preserve a sense of religion itself 
 upon the minds of the people. But a great part of this is neglected 
 by the generality amongst us : for instance, the service of the Church, 
 not only upon common days, but also upon Saints' days ; and several 
 other things might be mentioned. Thus they have no customary 
 admonition, no public call to recollect the thoughts of God and 
 religion from one Sunday to another.
 
 31 
 
 " It was far otherwise under the law. 'These words' (Deut. vi. 
 6, 7), says Moses to the children of Israel, ' which I command thee, 
 shall be in thine heart : and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 
 children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and 
 when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when 
 thou risest up.' And as they were commanded this, so it is obvious 
 how much the constitution of that law was adapted to effect it, and 
 keep religion ever in view. And without something of this nature, 
 piety will grow languid even among the better sort of men ; and the 
 worst will go on quietly in an abandoned course, with fewer interrup- 
 tions from within than they would have, were religious reflections 
 forced oftener upon their minds, and consequently with less probability 
 of their amendment. Indeed, in most ages of the Church, the care 
 of reasonable men has been, as there has been for the most part occa- 
 sion, to draw the people off from laying too great weight upon ex- 
 ternal things ; upon formal acts of piety. But the state of matters is 
 quite changed now with us. These things are neglected to a degree, 
 which is, and cannot but be, attended with a decay of all that is good. 
 It is highly seasonable now to instruct the people in the importance of 
 external religion. . . . Secret prayer, as expressly as it is commanded 
 by our Saviour, and as evidently as it is implied in the notion of piety, 
 will yet, I fear, be grievously forgotten by the generality, till they can 
 be brought to fix for themselves certain times of the day for it ; since 
 this is not done to their hands, as it was in the Jewish Church by 
 custom or authority. . . . And truly, if, besides our more secret de- 
 votions, morning and evening, all of us would fix upon certain times 
 of the day, so that the return of the hour should remind us, to say short 
 prayers, or exercise our thoughts in a way equivalent to this ; perhaps 
 there are few persons in so high and habitual a state of piety as not 
 to find the benefit of it. If it took up no more than a minute or two, 
 or even less time than that, it would serve the end I am proposing j 
 it would be a recollection, that we are in the Divine presence, and 
 contribute to our ' being in the fear of the Lord all the day long.' 
 
 " A duty of the like kind, and serving to the same purpose, is the 
 particular acknowledgment of God when we are partaking of His 
 bounty at our meals. The neglect of this is said to have been scandal- 
 ous to a proverb in the heathen world, but it is without shame laid 
 aside at the tables of the highest and the lowest rank among us. 
 . . . All this indeed may be called form : as everything external in 
 religion may be merely so. And therefore whilst we endeavour, in 
 these and other like instances, to keep up the ' form of godliness' amongst 
 those who are our care, and over whom we have any influence, we must 
 endeavour also that this form be made more and more subservient to
 
 32 
 
 promote the ' power' of it. Admonish them to take heed that they mean 
 what they say in their prayers, that their thoughts and intentions go along 
 with their words, that they really in their hearts exert and exercise 
 before God the affections they express with their mouth. Teach 
 them, not that external religion is nothing, for this is not true in any 
 sense ; it being scarce possible, but that it will lay some sort of re- 
 straint upon a man's morals ; and it is moreover of good eff^ect with 
 respect to the world about him. But teach them that regard to one 
 duty will in no sort atone for the neglect of any other. Endeavour 
 to raise in their hearts such a sense of God as shall be an habitual, 
 ready principle of reverence, love, gratitude, hope, trust, resignation, 
 and obedience. Exhort them to make use of every circumstance 
 which brings the subject of religion at all before them, to turn their 
 hearts habitually to Him ; to recollect seriously the thoughts of His 
 presence ' in Whom they live and move and have their being,' and by 
 a short act of their mind devote themselves to His service. If, for 
 instance, persons would accustom themselves to be thus admonished 
 by the very sight of a church, could it be called superstition ? " . . .