The Press.
London, England, 1857-11-28 00:00:00

1154

The Bishop of LONDON drew a vivid picture of the
refined heathen and the refined Christian, as illus-
trated by the conduct of each in India, and expressed
his conviction that God intended by this revolt and
its great chastisement to teach us rightly to value
our Christianity, and to rouse " the slumbering
energies" of our young men to go forth and advance
their Master's cause in that distant country.
Mr. PULLER, M.P., said he did not seek to inter-
pret the purpose of God in bringing about the dis-
astrous events in India, but, inasmuch as for the
last hundred years we had neglected the duty which
as Christians we owed to our fellow-subjects in that
great empire, we might justly conclude that the
present calamity, which might be intended for a
thousand other wise purposes, might also have for
its object to draw our attention to the grievous
omission of which we had been guilty :
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had not
at the present moment more than fourteen clergymen em-
ployed as missionaries in the whole of Bengal. No duty
was more incumbent upon it than that of extending its
operations in that presidency, and one cf its first efforts
ought to be the revival of the mission at Delhi. What was
asked was not that revenge which was suggested in the
newspapers—the utter destruction of Delhi, so that not
one stone should rest upon another—but the more Chris-
tian revenge, which heaped coals of fire upon the heads of
the enemy. Was it too much to ask that the number of
the society's missions in India should be doubled ; that
this country, out of its overflowing mass of wealth, should
contribute another 30,0001. a year to extend that which
every one admitted to be the greatest of all blessings?
And if the pecuniary means were found—if every Christian
man, sincerely anxious for the spread of the Gospel, gave
in proportion to hie substance—he had little doubt that
men would be forthcoming in the Church to offer them-
selves as volunteers in the great and noble work of the
evangelisation of India.
The Bishop of OXFORD, in proposing the second
resolution, viz.—
That the proposal of the society to establish missions in
the presidential and other cities, with a view to bring the
truths of Christianity before the minds of the upper as well
as the lower classes of India, is deserving of the most
cordial approbation and encouragement; and that it is
desirable to promote by every available means the edu-
cation, training, and ordination of the more advanced
native candidates for the work of the ministry among their
own countrymen—

said he subscribed with an aching heart to the
charge brought by Mr. Puller against us as a na-
tion

I subscribe for myself to the charge brought against us.
I have no doubt that we did not intend to encourage
heathenism. God forbid that such an accursed thought
should be in the breast of any man, but I believe that we
were afraid and ashamed of the God of our Christianity ;
that we upheld our administration in India upon the
tolerance of heathendom rather than on the belief that as
God's Providence had given it to us, so God's Providence
would keep it for no. I think it is of the greatest
moment that we should understand what this really means.
Was not the greatest crime which this earth has ever
a( a I committed upon its face justified and brought about
by that same reasoning which has been used to justify our
policy with regard to Christianity in India? What was the
argument of those who betrayed the Lord of Life ? " If we
let him alone the Romans will come and take away both
our place and nation." The trust of God's ancient people
rested rather upon the sufferance of the heathen than upon
the might of God's everlasting power ; and has not this been
our reasoning with respect to the spread of Christianity in
the East:—" If we do this the Brahmins and the Musul-
mano will come and take away both our place an I nation."
Is not this contrary to the writing written in the Book of
Truth which we can hardly at this moment read without
trembling?—" Whoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of me
and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation,
of him also shall the Son of Mon be ashamed when He
eometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
If we are ashamed of this faith, and I will not weary you
with details of proof that we have been ashamed of it, is
not what we have seen the very aspect of the judgment
which Christians must have looked for? Is it not one of
those things by which God forces a Christian people
to contemplate the position which it has almost unawares
assumed.

Sir W. P. Woon, who seconded the motion, be-
lieved with the Bishop of Oxford that Christianity
had been keep in abeyance in India from a cowardly
fear of losing the commercial advantages which we
enjoyed in that country. He believed, also, that that
very suppression of Christian truth had brought upon
us the fearful calainity of the present mutinies :
Without exercising the smallest compulsion, the
Christians in India might, by the examples of their lives
and professions, have great effect in the evangelisation of
India, for none knew better than the Indian " By their
fruits ye shall know them." Much might be done, too, by
bringing the English and native minds as much as possible
in contact. This was comparatively easy, for the Govern-
ment might require that no native should take an office
unless he could speak the English tongue, and that no
Englishman in turn should be placed in a position of
authority unless he were well acquainted with the native
languages. Great good must undoubtedly arise from such
a regulation. He agreed with the member for Hertford
that we must not be discouraged by the magnitude of the
task. Thirty or forty missionaries might be a small num-
ber to send among so large a population as that of India,
but it was the duty of Christian men to do what they