MISSIONARY LABOURS OF CHAPLAINS IN NORTHERN INDIA. 299

ART. III-1. Sketches of Christianity in North India.-By the Rev. M. Wilkinson, Missionary. Seeley, Burnside, and Seeley, London, 1844.

2. Protestant Missions in Bengal.-By J. J. Weitbrecht, Church Missionary. John F. Shaw, London, 1844.

THE first work prefixed to this article is on many accounts entitled to attention. It does not contain the misty speculations of a philosophic mind prone to startle either by the amplitude of its views, or by the glare of paradox; on the contrary it brings before us the suggestions of an experienced observer,-one who is a tried servant of the Society, of whose proceedings in Northern India he professes to furnish an epitome, and who for nearly a quarter of a century has labored with unabated ardour in the extensive field of Missionary exertion.

It is truly refreshing to read a book like that of Mr. Wilkinson, speaking as a Christian, not as a mere Churchman, of the Missionary efforts of the Church of England, and sustaining a kindly bearing towards all other denominations of Christians. This is as it should be; for no canons of the Church, we may be well assured, will plead more effectively for the cause of Christianity, and in this sense too for the Church of England, than the observance of that new commandment of love of which the common Lord and Master of all left as a parting legacy to the world. It is refreshing too to read such a work, coming, so to speak, as a genial shower upon parched ground, amidst the strife and contention which have recently been so rife at home and abroad, and which we, in all sincerity hope, may not, in our times at least, be long permitted to disturb the harmony of the Christian Church.

Mr. Weitbrecht's book is also on many accounts entitled to attention. It gives shortly but very clearly an account of the social and moral character of the people of the country, and of the rites, ceremonies, and practices enjoined by the religion of the Hindus, with the debasing effects which follow. A general account is also given of the progress of Missionary work and of Christian education; and much interesting information of a miscellaneous nature is afforded in its pages. Mr. Weitbrecht, like Mr. Wilkinson, is to be commended for the kind feeling evinced by him towards all sections of the Christian Church engaged in the Missionary work; and it is indeed a happy circumstance, that the Church Missionary Society, to whose service Mr. Weitbrecht is attached, have agents like those whose books are under notice.

M

The Church Missionary Society is one of the most efficient in the body of the Church of England, in the promotion of Christian truth; and is without doubt actuated by the most catholic principles of any in carrying on the Missionary work; for, by one of the rules of the Society, it is prescribed that "a friendly intercourse shall be maintained with other Protestant 'Societies engaged in the same benevolent design of propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Such a course of conduct is so decidedly in accordance with the spirit of that religion, which it is professedly the object of all Missionary Societies to promulgate, that it needs, we are persuaded, no commendation in its favor; and we feel that much harm must, and that no good can, result to our common Christianity from any line of conduct which may not have in view such a spirit,—the tendency of which must be to exalt human politics above Christian truth and Christian principles.

The Church Missionary Society was established in the year 1800, upon the Protestant and Evangelical principles of the Reformation; and it has ever since maintained its stand upon those principles,-commanding at the present moment "wider field of action, and a more princely revenue, than any Protestant Association of the same character."* Its operations have been extended to every quarter of the globe, and at this period it maintains no less a number than 1263 Missionaries and teachers, who are busily engaged in the advancement of the cause of true religion in the dark corners of the Earth. To India have the labors of the Church Missionary Society been extended. In Southern India, her missions have extensively flourished; and in Northern India, a blessing has attended her labors. At the present moment the Society has the following stations; viz.

and maintains 66 Agents, including Missionaries, Catechists, and School-masters. It would be superfluous to enter into any details in regard to its operations in this part of India,since the periodical Reports of the Society statedly bring to public notice every needful information on the subject. Nor, for

* See Edinburgh Review, No. 161, p. 281.

this very reason, does it appear necessary to enter into any detailed examination of either of these works in regard to the interesting accounts of the Missionary stations, and of the progress of Missionary work. The truth, too, is that we have in view, two or three subjects suggested by the works under notice, which we consider to be of sufficient importance to warrant some special observations.

The agents, who, under divine providence, are made the instruments of good to their fellow-creatures, ought not to be forgotten. It is long, we trust, ere the deeds of such men as a Wilberforce, a Sharpe, or a Clarkson in achieving, after years of toil, labor and anxiety, the manumission of the slave; or of a Swartz, a Carey, or a Marshman, as Missionaries to the Heathen, or of a Bentinck in accomplishing the abolition of the Sati, will cease to be remembered. To the benefactors of their race, the acknowledgement for services rendered should be most heartily made; and their memories, when they are numbered amongst the departed dead, should awaken a constant recollection of the good they in their life-time achieved for suffering humanity. Into this train of thought, we have been naturally led by having brought before us, in Mr. Wilkinson's work, the services rendered to Christianity by those honored Servants of God, who were among the first laborers in the cause of true religion in India,-John Frederic Kiernander, David Brown, Claudius Buchanan, Henry Martyn, Daniel Corrie, and Thomas Thomason.

Kiernander was the first Protestant Missionary who erected the standard of the Cross in Calcutta,-having come hither under the patronage of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge in 1758, from Cudalore, where, during eight years previous, he had preached the Gospel to the Gentiles. From the accounts of his early labors, we learn that Kiernander was received with marked favor by Lord Clive. A house, rent free, was assigned to him, and a subscription was raised to enable him to open a School, where, in the year 1759, 175 children of Heathen, Muhammadan and Portuguese parents were instructed in the English language, writing, reading, arithmetic, and the principles of Christianity. Almost at his own cost, (having contributed upwards of sixty thousand rupees to the object), a Church was erected, which was opened on the 23d December, 1770, under the name of Beth Tephillah, or the house of prayer, which is now known by the name of the Old or Mission Church, and in which now for the last 74 years, the truths of the everlasting Gospel have been preached. Here it was, that, for nearly thirty years, Kiernander continued to labor for the

good of the Heathen and Christian population of Calcutta with considerable success, as the records of his Christian labors abundantly testify. Circumstances of an untoward character, however, occurred to check this first effort in the cause of missions, which had been so well begun and so prosperously continued; and it was left for the Christian men of another denomination (the Baptist) some years after to begin the work, as it were, anew, in accordance with the advice of their noble leader Dr. Carey," Attempt great things; expect great things."

The others, whose names we have associated with Kiernander, were Chaplains of the East India Company. Brown did not leave England in the service of the Company: he came out originally as Chaplain to the Military Orphan Institution; but on engaging in ministerial labors in the Old or Mission Church, the managers of that institution considered such an engagement to be incompatible with the office held by him at their establishment, and his connection with it ceased. The relinquishment of his connection with the Orphan Institution was attended with pecuniary loss. Let him speak of his own feelings in reference to a point, which to many we fear even amongst the sacerdotal ranks, would have led to a determination different from that to which Mr. Brown came. Writing to a friend, he says," I trust this event will turn to the furtherance of the Gospel, which will be a sufficient recompense for the tempo'ral loss I suffer by the change."-To such a spirit as Brown's that only was accounted loss, which tended to retard his exertions in the divine cause; all else was gain, whatever might be the cost as it respected his temporal interests. The Reverend David Brown may well be regarded as the parent of Missions in the Established Church in this part of India. During the period of his ministerial labors, a Missionary feeling was first raised in the bosom of the English Church. The monthly Missionary Prayer Meeting was commenced by him; and the Evangelical Fund, for keeping up primarily an Evangelical ministry in the Mission Church, and secondarily for making it subservient in extending the blessings of the Gospel, was projected. It was thus that an interest was being excited for the cause of missions; and the present generation are witnesses of the fruit of such labors. In the Old or Mission Church, in which for five and twenty years Brown labored, every project in connection with the Church of England for the advancement of Evangelical religion was commenced and matured. A cause closely connected with that of missions, the cause of the Bible Society was, commenced there under the auspices of David Brown, whose whole heart, so to speak, was given to this great

and blessed work. In this cause, his exertions were unremitted, and he may truly have been said to have fallen a sacrifice in the cause which he thought worthy of his attachment. To quote from his life. "He made it," says his biographer, "the dream of his night, and the thought of his day, to devise every kind of plan for prosecuting this important, and, as it proved, this closing purpose of his life."

These efforts of David Brown were ably seconded by the worthies who names we have associated with his. There was Claudius Buchanan, to some of whose services we have already in a previous article referred. With learning and piety, he combined a fearlessness in the cause of Christianity, which would admit of no compromise. In him was the spirit to do his master's work, irrespective of man's pleasure. Comprehensive schemes were afloat in his mind for the propagation of the Christian truth; and though they did not take effect at the precise moment he desired, they have since been developed and are going on developing, though not in the manner or the spirit in which, it is much to be feared, Buchanan would have wished. Dr. Buchanan was attached as ViceProvost to the College of Fort William, and he at one time entertained the hope of making the College instrumental in the translation of the Sacred Scriptures into the oriental languages. The important work had indeed been commenced, as the subjoined extract will shew:-" Our hope of success in this glorious undertaking depends chiefly on the patronage of the College of Fort William. To that institution we are 'much indebted for the progress we have already made. Oriental translation has been comparatively easy in consequence of our having the aid of those learned men from distant provinces in Asia, who have assembled during the period of the last six years at that great emporium of eastern letters. These intelligent strangers voluntarily engaged with us in translating the Scriptures into their respective languages, and they do not conceal their admiration of the sublime doctrine, pure precept, and divine eloquence of the word of God. The plan of these translations was sanctioned at an early period by the Most Noble the Marquis Wellesley, the great pattern of useful learning. To give the Christian Scriptures to the inhabitants of Asia is indeed a work which every man who believes these Scriptures to be from God will approve. In Hindustan alone there is a great variety of religions, and there are some tribes which have no certain cast or religion at all. To render the revealed religion accessible to men who desire it; to open its eternal