CHAP. VI. point of their fellow-men, and instead of recklessly

charging every false system with the selfsame errors, and running a tilt against them each and all with the selfsame weapons, to labour heartily to understand the truth, of which each false system is oftentimes only a hideous perversion and caricature. Avoiding all denunciation and contempt of error, let them imitate the conduct of the great Apostle when he encountered all the refinements of Paganism on Mars' Hill, and made the testimony to the insufficiency of Polytheism which the Athenians had themselves inscribed on the altar to the 'unknown God,' a common ground between himself and them,-taking his smooth stone out of their own brook, and strive, by the dissemination of a purer and nobler literature, to plant the truth which is to take the place of present error. Orientals themselves, let them encounter Oriental difficulties and subtilties in a spirit of wisdom and sympathy, and teach those whom they would lead up unto Christ reverently to handle their past-selves and their past-beliefs. For, as one1 has well said, 'There is no task needing greater wisdom and patience from above than to set men free from their superstitions, and yet, with this, not to lay waste in their hearts the very soil in which the truth shall strike its roots; to disentangle the tree from the ivy which was strangling it, without, in the process and together with the strangling ivy, destroying also the very life of the tree itself, which we designed to save.'

1 Trench's Hulsean Lectures, p. 144.

CHAPTER VII.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS AND INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCE.

'When, by the blessing of Providence, internal tranquillity shall be

restored, it is our earnest desire to stimulate the peaceful industry of India, to promote works of public utility and improvement, and to administer its government for the benefit of all our subjects resident therein. In their prosperity will be our strength, in their contentment our security, and in their gratitude our best reward.'— The Queen's Proclamation.

HITHERTO We have been treating of the more direct CHAP. VII. agencies employed in the promotion of Christianity, and have seen that much good has resulted and may be expected to result from them. To the establishment of the Indian Episcopate, the labours of the Chaplains of the East India Company, the exertions of Missionaries of various denominations, may be traced, as we have seen, a material and salutary change in Anglo-Indian Society, and, to a certain extent, among the Hindús themselves1. The Report of one of the most accurate and painstaking of Missionaries has told us how in many places temples are being allowed to fall into decay, how the idolfestivals are becoming less and less frequented, how old Hindú notions are gradually giving way before a more enlightened generation, how Christian efforts are regarded in a far more favourable light, how those who

1 Mullens' Statistics, p. 31.

CHAP. VII. have been longest in the Mission Field are the most sanguine and the most hopeful of ultimate success.

Indirect agencies in promoting Christianity.

Their import

ance.

Now while, undoubtedly, these agencies have been, each in their several degree, instrumental in producing these beneficial results, there are other agencies also in constant operation, and increasing in power from year to year, which must not be overlooked'. War and conquest, European science, and European literature, the telegraph and the railway, the book and the newspaper, the College and the School, the changing of laws hitherto hallowed by immemorial usage, the disregard of timehonoured prejudices, the very presence of Europeans in all parts of the country, all these various influences are gradually but surely undermining the foundations of Brahmánic usurpation, infusing little by little new and more healthy ideas, and arousing the native mind from its long apathy and torpor.

These agencies, so potent in themselves, and so constant in their operation, are likely, nay, are certain, if rightly directed, controlled, and regulated, to promote the spread of Christian civilization, to accustom the natives to European ideas, and so to prepare them gradually for the reception of a better and a purer faith. That 'Europeanizing' of the populations of India is going on, to which Sir James Mackintosh alluded in a conversation with Henry Martyn, as likely to prepare the way for the Gospel, just as caste was broken down in Egypt, and the Oriental world made Greek, by the successors

1 See Brown's History of Missions, Vol. III. p. 327. General Statements.'

of Alexander, in order to make way for the religion of CHAP. VII. Christ.

And while we are bound to set in motion all the direct agencies which have ever heralded the truths of Christianity, we must never forget that all great and organic changes are produced slowly and gradually, that they are the result of the combined operation of many and various influences, working from within to without, and silently permeating the general mass of Society.

6

legitimate sphere for

influence.

And here, in controlling these secondary influences, a Afford a Christian Government may truly find a most legitimate Government sphere for its energies, one to which the charge of 'proselytising' and exerting undue influence can never be imputed. You must look in India,' said Sir James Brooke, 'to the welfare, the material prosperity of the communities, to advance Christianity amongst them. You cannot, when their lives are in danger, when their property is seized, when their children are torn from them—you cannot propagate your religion, or any other amongst them. They become mere creatures, thinking of their daily bread, hunting from jungle to jungle, and caring neither for their own religion, nor for any other, nor for the God who made them.' Hence nothing calculated in any degree, however remote, to advance the happiness and welfare of the governed is out of the province or the duty of a Christian magistrate; by every means in his power he is bound to make the best provision for the security of life and property, and the maintenance of law and order, truth and justice.

It is most cheering, therefore, to observe how the

CHAP. VII. conviction of mutual obligations on the part of the rulers and the ruled has been gaining ground in India. And if any say that it is high time this conviction did gain ground, they would do well to remember that we our selves, here in England, have not so very long awoke to a due sense of our Governmental responsibilities, that we can well afford to throw stones at Indian administrators. Much has been done; and, as has been openly and avowedly declared in the Proclamation of the Queen of England to her Indian subjects, there is the determination to do much more. If we refer to the important Memorandum of Improvement in the Administration of India during the last Thirty Years', published by the East India Company, we shall find an increasing sense of higher obligations than the primary and rigorous duties of selfsecurity, and commercial aggrandizement.

Measures against

(1) Thuggee

tee,

2. Female Infanticide,

The enormities of' Thuggee' and' Dacoitee' have been and Daco suppressed. The piracies which in times past made the navigation of the Arabian seas unsafe for commerce have been effectually put down. Female infanticide, a positive custom in various parts of India among the higher castes, from motives not of religion, but of family pride, has been made the object of special measures. By great efforts of persuasion and address, by conferring honorary rewards and marks of distinction, the heads of caste and tribes have been prevailed on to agree to a limitation of the extravagant marriage expenses. Poor persons of the castes have been assisted with money-grants in aid of the marriage of their daughters, and these efforts have 1 See the East India Company's Memorandum, pp. 46–48.