fore, I say, keep up your military strength, but use it only under great provocation. I say this, not without a pang. An European army of forty or fifty thousand men, not sustained by the excitement of active service, must needs be a mighty evil. Physically and morally it must deteriorate. But great as is the evil, in such a state of things it is a hundred times better than the alternative, which is simply that fifty thousand Europeans should be kept in India, like cheetahs in a cage, to hunt down the frightened children of the soil. I know that there are Englishmen boasting of their true English spirit, who would rub their hands with delight at such a spectacle, and exclaim exultingly, "See how the black beggars run!" But I cannot too often repeat, that the encouragement of such a spirit as this would do more to sacrifice our dominion in India than anything that could possibly be

named.

Now, after your English hatred, John, I must talk to you of your English greed. This is of two kinds -national and personal. I grieve to say, that of late years, under my rule, there has sprung up a class of Anglo-Indian politicians, hot for the annexation, the absorption of the native states, who believe that the security of England in India lies in the continual extension of her frontier. Unhappily, John, many of the members of this school are very able men, and some, too, are very good ones. But, believe me, it is a bad school. Its theories must be exploded, its practice must be reversed, if you would long retain your empire in the East. If the wishes of this school had been fulfilled-if its advice had been followed-no human power would have enabled you_successfully to resist the mutiny of the Bengal army. Humanly speaking, John, you have been saved by your alliances with the few remaining native states. Let the few which now

remain, remain for ever. Do not seek to weaken, but to strengthen them. Let them feel that the main source of their stability is the permanence of your rule. Respect their rights; tolerate their failures; and, above all, do not test them with the gauge

of your own exclusive theories. Do not think that whatever you do is best, because you understand it best. There are different roads towards the same goal; and it does not follow that the only safe one is that which you are accustomed to travel. Shoes and stockings are doubtless commendable institutions; but there may be conditions of society in which they are only intolerable bores.

Stifle that cry of "India for the English." Do not suffer the doctrine which it expresses to make way, any more in its personal than in its national acceptation. Do not think that the country was given to us only as an outlet for English enterprise and a field for English industry. These things, in due moderation, may be advantageous to India; but your first care should ever be, John, the employment of the people. I see that your present notion, however paradoxical, is, that whilst depriving the upper and middle classes of India of all lucrative employments, you should extend by every possible means the market in India for your own wares; in other words, that you should find purchasers among the very people whom you are depriving of the means of purchasing. If you want to open out new markets in India for your manufactured goods, you must elevate, not depress, the upper and middle classes. But what is now the cry, John? More Englishmen. Everywhere, more Englishmen in the public service; more Englishmen in the law-courts; more Englishmen to develop the commercial resources of the country, and even to become possessors of the soil. But do you think, John, that the people of India are more likely to reconcile themselves to your rule, when they find that the recent crisis has only given an increased impulse to the usurpations of the white man; that the subsiding of the waters of rebellion will be followed by a flooding in of hungry Englishmen? At any period this would be viewed with anxiety and alarm by the people of the country; but at the present time, when the animosity between the two races is at its height, it cannot but be regarded as a menace, and in all human probability will practi

cally be much more than a menace. Be sure, John, that this animosity must be allayed before any new influx of Europeans into India can be otherwise than perilous in the extreme. Send out more of your children if you will, John; but be sure that they go forth in a spirit of peace and good will towards men, whatsoever their colour, and whatsoever their creed. Teach them that their true interest lies in the elevation, not in the depression of the people, and that they can rule them better by love than by fear. Send them forth as friends and coadjutors, not as enemies and usurpers; and if they cherish in their hearts the lessons which you have taught them, you may find that there is room enough for all. But I fear that the national mind, John, is not yet in a fit state for such an experiment. I fear that some years must elapse before any influx of independent Europeans into India can be anything but a new source of difficulty and danger.

And now, for time presses, to another and a still graver matter. Our own blessed religion is very dear to us. Our hearts tell us that it is right, John-our heads tell us that it is right; but the false gods of the heathen are dear to them too. Their grotesque idols of wood or stone are not, in their eyes, monstrous abominations of folly or impiety. They reverence their ancestral faith after their kind. In the very cruelties and barbarities of their dreadful superstitions, they see the grandeur of the hero and the martyr above all the folly and the crime. It is very right that we should pity them for this; it is not right that we should loathe or condemn them. There is a sincerity in some falsehoods greater than in many truths; and this sincerity, at all events, we may respect. We know that the greatest service that we can render these people, individually and nationally, is to substitute a living saving faith for the falsehoods to which they so blindly cling. And what is thus said primarily of the Hindoos, as of the great bulk of the people, may be said with equal truth, mutatis mutandis, of the smaller body of Mohammedans. There is no question upon this point,

John. The question to which I desire to draw your attention is simply whether it is in accordance either with justice or with policy that the British Government in India should in any way use its authority for the conversion of the people, by direct or indirect means, to the religion of Christ.

You must not misunderstand me, John. Upon this greatest of all great questions, we know what we mean better, perhaps, than we are able to express it. Neutrality in matters of religion" is a common phrase in our state papers, and to this neutrality it has been said that the British Government in India is pledged. This neutrality is called my traditionary policy "the traditionary policy of the East India Company; but only so far as neutrality implies non-interference, can it be said that the British Government in India is neutral. The British Government in India supports a state church. From the revenues of India it pays a large number of Protestant and some Roman Catholic chaplains. It gives large salaries to bishops and archdeacons, and contributes to the building of Christian churches. So far as the assertion of its own Christianity goes, the Government is demonstrably a Christian government. Ever let it remain so, John. Never have a church less, or a chaplain less, than you have now. Worship your own God in your own way. The natives of India, whether Hindoo or Mohammedan, will not grudge you that privilege. They will neither respect you less, nor love you less, for demonstrating that you have a religion of your own, and are not ashamed to acknowledge it; but beyond this you cannot, as a Government, proceed with justice, and you cannot proceed with safety. every other respect than in the maintenance of a church for your own Christian people, you are bound to be wholly passive.

In

It is easy to enunciate propositions of this kind; but they require a large amount of explanation, if one would not be misunderstood. I concur in the opinion, which Lord Stanley meant to express, when he told a missionary deputation, a few weeks

ago, that there are certain universal and immutable principles older than any forms of existing belief. Taken literally, this may not be theologically correct; for Revelation assures us that "In the beginning was the Word." But the "primal duties shine aloft like stars," and the brightest of them are Justice and Truth. Now, assuredly it is not just to play the part of the iconoclast, literally or figuratively, in the domínions which we have acquired in India; and it would be egregiously false to do so after the declarations we have made. We have pledged ourselves, as a Government, to leave the people in the undisturbed exercise of their several religions. What can be more emphatic than the declaration in the preamble to one of the regulations of 1793, which says that The many valuable privileges and immunities which have been conferred upon the natives of these provinces, evince the solicitude of the British Government to promote their welfare, and must satisfy them that the regulations which may be adopted for the internal government of the country will be calculated to preserve to them the laws of the Shaster and the Koran in matters to which they have been invariably applied, to protect them in the free exercise of their religion, and to afford security to their persons and property." This has not been revoked, John, and the new Act under which you are about to govern India in the Queen's name, declares that "all acts and provisions now in force under charters or otherwise shall continue in force" until otherwise enacted. But it is not upon any especial enactment that I take my stand, John. The people of India have, in a variety of ways, directly and constructively, been told that they are to be left by the British Government in the free exercise of their several religions; and any sort of interference by the State, for the suppression of the popular faith and the substitution of its own, would be a revolution of a solemn engagement which nothing could justify.

Of the danger, at any time, of a departure, on the part of Government, from the system of neutrality,

not a doubt can be entertained. But a hundredfold greater the danger in such a conjuncture as this. I am almost ashamed, John, of enunciating such a commonplace. Yet the conduct of a large number of most respectable people at the present time, demands that this most palpable fact should be iterated and reiterated in the most unmistakable manner. There is a loud cry from Exeter Hall for a more demonstrative assertion of Christianity in India on the part of the State. I do not know very precisely what it is that these good people require. Perhaps they do not know themselves. But I do know that not only have designing persons in India-the fosterers and agents of the great rebellion-assiduously endeavoured, by means of proclamations and circulars, widely distributed among the people, to influence their passions by declaring that the British are intent on the destruction of their ancestral faith, but that the belief thus encouraged has taken deep root, and that one of our most solemn duties, at the present time, is to extirpate it. That those who have already disseminated false reports of the intentions of the British Government, and have watched the terrible success of such dissemination, will take advantage of the transfer of the government from my hands to those of the Crown, to spread alarming reports of the intentions of the new Sircar to convert the people to Christianity, is a conjecture that may be safely entertained. Beware then, John, lest you do anything to countenance the lies which your enemies are spreading. The change of government is to be proclaimed to the people with all convenient despatch. If that proclamation does not contain a distinct and emphatic declaration that the people are to be left as heretofore to the free and undisturbed exercise of their several religions, I tremble for your future, John.

Your own good sense tells you this. Do not be turned away from your purpose by the exhortations even of those whom you properly respect. I do not sneer at the people who tell you otherwise; I in no wise condemn them. Doubtless they are

sincere. Doubtless they are moved by the best and purest intentions. I should be ashamed of myself, John, if I questioned or doubted it for a moment. But many excellent and pious men, whose devotion to the Christian cause has been seldom or never equalled, have held that it is the duty of the British Government in India to abstain from interference in matters connected with the conversion of the people. This was the opinion of the late venerable Bishop Wilson, a man of a truly apostolic nature. "I would not have you," he wrote to Sir Charles Metcalfe, with reference to that statesman's address on the freedom of the press"I would not have you, as a Government, say a word more than your reply does on Christianity, involved as it is inseparably in the European knowledge, civilisation, and improvement, which you so justly extol and put forward. Christianity is the affair of the ministers of religion, under the general eye of the civil Government." He knew that Government would only defeat its own object-the object of every Christian Government and of every Christian man-by making any display of its desire to see the people converted to Christianity. In the eyes of a people so habituated to despotism, the expressed wishes of a government are nothing less than their avowed intentions. They cannot, in such matters, associate an idea of forbearance with the declared will of a powerful government. In the sic volo they hear the sic jubeo. You must, therefore, John, not only be careful in what you do, but in what you say. Do not deny your religion-honour it by all possible means; but proclaim to the people everywhere, and let your servants proclaim it wherever they go, that the British Government in India adheres to its ancient principles, and that the people of India are to be allowed to remain in the free exercise of their religions, without an attempt being made by the State to convert them, either by open or insidious attacks upon their faith.

Do not sneer, John, at my "traditionary policy." If I had observed any other policy, far less would have been done in the way of conversion

to the Christian faith. The neutrality of Government is the best safeground of private missionary enterprise. Every wise missionary, John, will desire the Government to be perfectly quiescent. I have always felt this in my heart of hearts. When people were reproaching me for throwing impediments in the way of the conversion of the heathen, I always consoled myself with the reflection that no other course would do so much as that which I had marked out for myself, to promote the eventual success of missionary operations. With the same hope, nay, in the same belief, I have adhered to my original policy; and I solemnly exhort you, John, to adhere to it, as that which of all others will tend most surely to the eventual spread of the kingdom of Christ. I look upon those who offer you different advice, Johnwhatever may be their intentions, and I repeat that I do not question their purity-as the real enemies of Christianity. I have nothing to say against private missionary enterprise, wisely conducted. If no indiscreet, over-zealous efforts irritate the minds of the people, so as to bring about a dangerous state of public feeling, I have nothing to say against their operations. On the other hand, I shall ever rejoice in the success of their laudable endeavours. But unless the Almighty works a miracle in our behalf, and inclines the hearts of the people to receive the truth meekly and gladly, we must trust to gradual advances, and look for slow successes, and be content for a while with such harvests as have hitherto blessed our efforts. You must remember, John, that caution, at all times desirable, has been rendered a hundredfold more desirable by recent events. there are many who appear to think that this is the time for throwing aside all caution. It would seem, from some recent demonstrations, that as soon as ever the great mutiny is quelled, a vast flood of Christian missionaries is to be poured over the land. At any other time I might not have regarded this with much anxiety; but I am afraid that such a movement, John, will be identified in men's minds with the

But

change of Government, and that the whole will be regarded as a vast design for the destruction of the national faiths. Let me entreat you, therefore, to endeavour to moderate for a time the missionary ardour of your children. If they yield to their impulses, however holy, rashly, and unreflectingly, they will assuredly overleap themselves, and fall on the other side into a sea of calamitous failure. And then, John, alas! for Christianity; alas! for India; alas! for England.

The subject is so important, John, that you must bear with me yet a little longer. You will have to consider, on taking charge of my old empire, not only whether, in the assertion of your Christianity, you shall go further than I have gone, but whether you shall go so far. I have all my life been exposed to charges of a very opposite kind. It has been said, on the one side, that I have brought on the great disaster in India by disregarding my Christian obligations; and it has been maintained, with equal force of diction on the other side, that I have precipitated the calamity by the indiscreet zeal with which I have attacked the religious and social institutions of the people. I have at the same time done too little and too much; but I am used to this two-handed abuse, and I can brave it as patiently as I bear all the rest. Now, on calmly thinking over the past, John, it appears to me that if I have erred on either side, it has been on the side of innovation. It is very probable that some of the things which I have done in the cause of humanity or the cause of truth or rather the aggregate of all that I have done-may have excited the alarm of some of the influential classes, and so, directly or indirectly, helped to evolve the late terrible crisis. But I do not counsel you to go back; I only counsel you to go forward, slowly and warily. The mighty trouble which has fallen upon us, John, must necessarily retard the progress which I had hoped, two years ago, would advance more rapidly than ever. But what has been done, John, do not think of undoing. Do not yield to any kind of clamour. Cling to your own

VOL. LXXXIV.-NO. DXV.

course of neutrality as a State, but do not be tolerant only of evil. I know the difficulty of your position. Whilst one party is tugging at your gown, eager, in effect, to persuade you that it is your duty to deprive all idolatrous institutions of the endowments which they enjoyed before we set foot in the country, others are vehemently exhorting you to deprive all the Christian servants of the State of liberty of conscience, by passing a bill of pains and penalties against all the officers of Government who outwardly connect themselves with missionary institutions. Do neither, John. Be just alike to heathen and to Christian men. Let the people enjoy undisturbed their temple property; let them perform their religious ceremonies without let or hindrance; let them know that the British Government allows them the amplest freedom of religious action; but let Christian men, whether servants of the State or not, so long as they do not in any way identify the State with their measures, or use the weight of their official authority, follow the guidance of their own consciences, and as private members of the great Christian commonwealth serve their God in their own way. Let your language be as that which the wondrous Atlantic Telegraph used in its first ever memorable message "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good-will towards men." You may glorify your God, John, and maintain peace and goodwill among men, if you will refuse to listen to the advice thrust upon you from either of these two extremes.

Then some wise people will tell you, John, that you must "abolish caste." They might as well tell you to abolish colour. Caste, I know well, is a gigantic evil; too gigantic to be put down by a stroke of the pen. What you have to do is to render it as harmless as possible. Now, this is to be done not by Force, but by Tact. They will tell you that you "must not recognise caste in the army." Some mean by this that you are to enlist no high-caste men; others, that you are to compel highcaste men to do things in violation of their caste. But this will never do, John. When you reorganise the