The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-28 00:00:00

shores from those of North America remains yet to
be learnt—and when it is learnt it will have even
then to continue for a little while longer matter of
uncertainty whether the Presidency of the Board
of Trade, a seat in the Cabinet, and the right
honourable designation of one of her MAJESTY'S
Privy Councillors, will form sufficiently powerful
temptations to surrender thenceforth abruptly the
political fortunes of BRIGHT and COBDEN, hitherto
the economic and reforming Siamese leaders of the
Manchester school of statemanship. Yet before it
can be reasonably imagined when the vessel bear.
ing Mr. COBDEN homewards shall have been
actually telegraphed as within sight at Liverpool,
Lord PALMERSTON has undertaken to expound the
views of a Ministry that must remain until then a
Cabinet purely and simply supposititious. Let
Mr. GLADSTONE be precluded from assuming the
Chancellorship of the Exchequer by being sub-
jected to the disaster of a direct rejection by his
old University constituency—let Mr. COBDEN de-
cide upon continuing still to unite his fortunes
with those of his Alas Achates, the member for
Birmingham—and this vaunted strong Govern-
ment will collapse before it can well have passed
hrough the seeming ceremony of its inauguration.

The meeting on Friday at Willis's Rooms, and 1
the presentation of a memorial to Sir JOHN LAW-
RENCE, cannot be without its influence on our
Indian Secretary and Council ; and we must add
that the influence will be in the right direction.
The meeting was of a highly influential character
—such a one as no English statesman can ignore ;
for it comprised all the elements of great activity,
and that on a question of no small interest to an
energetic class. Be their zeal right or wrong,
wisely or unwisely directed, the large party to
whom missions and the circulation of the Bible in
India are an object of intense interest have too
often showed their power in Parliament and the
country to permit a Secretary of State for India to
disregard their views. The memorial to Sir JOHN
LAWRENCE was also signed by such a large number
of all classes—at least of the educated classes—that
it must be regarded as a truly honourable testi•
monial by Sir JOHN, and an emphatic declaration
to the Government that the intelligent English
public fully appreciates both his past achievements
and the policy which he now recommends.
It is not often that we have had to differ from
the opinions of Lord STANLEY, but we must con-
fess that his views of religious neutrality—probably
more correctly, the views of his Council of old
Indians—are not so much in accordance with those
of the country generally as are the views of Sir

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JOHN LAWRENCE. The point of difference seems

to be, practically, just now, whether, in the Govern
ment schools, the teachers, if competent and
willing, shall be permitted to use the Bible and to
explain its teachings. This, however, involves the
larger question, whether we are to take all feasible
measures to enlighten the people of India as to the
true nature of our national faith or not. The
technical term " neutrality," as interpreted by the
traditions of the Company, has not, it appears, the
meaning we assign to it in common discourse. We
should accept it as the indication of a rigid impar-
tiality, on the part of our Indian Administration,
between all religions—ldolatry, Mahomedanism,
and Christianity. It seems, however, that it rather
means the policy of treating Heathenism with
respect, almost with honour, and even, in certain
ways, doing it a kind of homage. That every care
is to be taken that we do not allow the natives to
suppose that we think our own religion better than
theirs ; much more that we hold it to be the
only true one. That we are not only to
bear with their most absurd superstitions and pre-
judices, but almost to dandle and foster them.
Sir JOHN LAWRENCE avows boldly the senti-
ments which such men as Sir CHARLES NAPIER
and the lamented JACOBS, of the Scinde Horse,
had so strongly asserted before him—that, while
we ought in no way to insult the superstitions of
the natives, or wantonly grieve them, we should
let them understand that, at least, we pitied them,
and believed onr own religion to be an infinitely
better one than theirs. Sir JOHN LAWRENCE is
strongly of this opinion. He affirms, indeed, that
any other course makes them either despise or sus-
pect us. They are sincere enough in their own
beliefs, and if theythink we are not, of course they
do not respect us ; if, on the othtr hand, which is
more common, they cannot believe that we are in-
different, they only suspect us of some deep-laid
plot to make them Christians by cunning or by
force. He points, reasonably enough to the late
mutiny, and asks whether the nonsense of the
greased cartridges could have been so extensively
believed if we had taken any pains to apprise them
of the real nature of Protestant Christianity ? If
they had been only as extensively acquainted with
the principles of the Bible as even educated Pro-
testants are with those of the Koran, it is impro-
bable that we should have had any mutiny at all.
It becomes, therefore, a question of high State
policy in India, not of religion simply, that we
should not only not be ashamed of our faith, but
that our public acts should show what we think of
it compared with these superstitions. Of course,
anything like proselytism by bribery or compulsion
is wholly out of the question ; they, indeed, would
know this if they were rightly taught and dealt
with ; but it is quite another thing that they
should be enabled to understand merely the reli-
gions principles of their masters ; that is but
ustice to ourselves.

The missionary aspects of the matter, then, we
leave to those whom it concerns ; but we confess it
does seem a very desirable, even an essential, thing
that the subject nations of India should fairly
principles and general views of
comprehend the
the nation which governs them. How, indeed, as
Sir JOHN argues/ can there ever be a fair under-
standing between them and us till they understand
the leading features of our religion ? It is but
the dictate of policy that they should know enough
of our sacred book to know that it is not hypo-
crisy or some underhand trick, if we avow that
Christianity knows not and• permits not conversion
by the sword, like Mahomedanisra, or by fraud,
after the fashion of Jesuits once in India itself, or
of the POPE and his Cardinals in the case of the
little MORTARA. Besides, the morality of the Bible
is the basis of English morality, of English
social thinking, and of much of the moral prin-
ciples which underlie our law. If it concerns an
Englishman to know the mythology of Greece and
Rome, much more a Hindoo to know the Bible
of the country which is shaping his own country's

destiny.
We should say that there are two books to which
the English people owo the greatest part of their
habitual thoughts and sentiments on religious,
moral, and social topics. We trust it will not be
thought profanity if we place together, though of
course at an immeasurable distance, the BIBLE and
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. The latter, indeed,
owes his morality and his religion to the Bible.
But for the latter all in SHAKESPEARE that guides
our higher moral sentiments would never have
been ; for Heathenism could not have produced a
SHAKESPEARE. If any foreigner would know all
that he could know of us through .our literature,
let him be drilled in our Bible and our SHAKES-