when the Hindus with their many-coloured costumes crowd the various flights of steps down to the water's edge he would have beheld one of the most enlivening and characteristic spectacles to be seen on earth. When wandering through the ruins of old Delhi, he saw nothing save melancholy confusion; but to historians and poets the place speaks volumes. He would have have been roused from his depression could he have known that under his son James, in the next generation, these very Provinces would be smiling in prosperity, with the first beams of enlightenment breaking through the darkness of centuries.

Returning to Calcutta he resumes charge of the pastoral duties, to the joy of his European parishioners there and of his native flock. But besides the immediate cure of souls, he occupies himself intensely and effectively with several institutions for the good of India, the orphan asylum for European girls, the Hindu College for the higher education of the natives, the School Book Society, the Church Missionary Society. He prosecutes also his Oriental labours for the translation of the Scriptures into Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani or Urdu: and begins in addition to learn Bengali. By all this he followed the footsteps of Henry Martyn, into whose holy labours he entered. In all his parochial ministrations, and in respect to several of the institutions of a more general character, he was much aided by his wife, who indeed displayed a model of Christian womanhood before the

Q

women of India 1. This combination of employment on his part was indeed extraordinary. Reverend Missionaries have done as much as he did for Oriental study and for Native education, but then they had not the care of European congregations. Reverend Chaplains have done as much as he did for these congregations, but then they had not also the affairs of missions nor the Oriental studies to engross them. Take him all in all, he was one of the best clergymen that the Church of England produced during the early part of this century, he was a power for good in the strange land where he pitched his tent, and a beacon for his generation in India.

1 See the account of her by J. W. Sherer, a very competent authority, in Annie Child, 1892. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. See also Sarjent's Life of Thomas Thomason; passim.

CHAPTER III

EDUCATION

FROM the parental abode at Calcutta James Thomason was sent to England at the age of ten. It was unfortunate that he was kept in India so long, for this doubtless caused him to shoot up like a tropical plant to a height beyond his strength. Arrived in England he was consigned to the care of Simeon in loco parentis. He brought with him, as a present from his parents to Simeon, a miniature of Abdúl-Masíh, the first Muhammadan convert; which picture is still to be seen at Cambridge with Simeon's Simeon's inscription. He was received by Simeon and Mrs. Dornford with all the tenderness that could be imagined for such an occasion. Indeed, the genuine heartiness of Simeon's emotions, on receiving his god-son, is quite refreshing. He addresses the youth as 'Your loving father in man's stead, your anxious father in God's stead.'

By this time Simeon, now fifty-four years old, had attained that important position in the Church which he held to the end of his life1. His long-protracted

1 See Carus' Life of Simeon (1847), chapter xvi.

trouble with his parishioners in the Holy Trinity parish had subsided, and was nearing a happy end. He had outlived prejudices and opposition in Cambridge at least. He had been the means not only of obtaining many pastors for English parishes, but also of sending out to India clergymen who would act as chaplains and would also support the cause of missions. He had been helpful in the formation of several religious societies, and had taken a leading part in the establishment of the Church Missionary Society. He had more than once been chosen as select preacher before the University in Great St. Mary's. His vast work Horae Homileticae,' a complete repertory of pulpit subjects and their treatment, is approaching completion. He has begun to occupy his rooms in the upper story of the Fellows' Building in King's College, immediately over the lofty arch, and underneath. the leads of the roof where he used to walk for meditation 1. In these rooms he is destined to hold many meetings year after year, open to all devout comers and especially to undergraduates, for the sake of mutual encouragement, and instruction in religion.

The Cambridge which then presented itself to young Thomason's eyes, differed in aspect from the Cambridge of to-day. The open space in front of King's College and Chapel, the University Library, the Senate House and Great St. Mary's, which now delights visitors, and is one of the finest urban scenes in the kingdomhardly existed at that time. Houses and other struc

1 See Moule's Memoir of Simeon (1892), chapter xiv.

tures blocked up the Collegiate buildings and rendered the main street continuously narrow. But if the town was much less beautiful than it is now, the green space extending from the Colleges to the Cam with the avenues and groups of trees, must have had the same varieties of sylvan splendour as those which now astonish the spectator every spring and every autumn. The avenue of trees stretching from the Fellows' Building of King's College to the river,—down which Simeon looked from his windows-no longer exists. The Holy Trinity Church, in which James Thomason attended his first service at Cambridge, must have been then much as it is now; except that the interior is better cared for, and the old-fashioned pews have been altered. But the fine old oaken pulpit, from which Simeon preached many potent discourses, has been removed.

While Simeon was pressing upon all around him the awful importance of earnest and sincere religion, and by passionate efforts striving to make men feel the truth as well as accept it, he assuredly did not fail to inculcate the same principles upon James Thomason, for whose guidance he had made himself responsible. He was the greatest educator of that time. He was a devoted member of the Church of England. He had already preached his sermons before the University on the excellence of the Liturgy. These must have been in the hands of the young James. In his preface to the 'Horae Homileticae' he declares his anxiety to 'give to every portion of the Word of