was all but repulsed from office to office as a troublesome meddler; and went back disappointed, and almost broken-hearted. We might add many such facts; but the matter is too notorious to require it. While we are writing, the indefatigable Mr. Poynder is renewing his oft repeated supplication to the administrators of India -not entreating them to spend one rupee or one thought for the spiritual welfare of her Majesty's subjects subjected to their sway, but only just to refrain from making merchandise of the souls of men by continuing partners in the polluted and sacrilegious gains of heathen obscenity and idolatry; not asking them to build Christian churches, but merely not to go on adding a pittance to their dividends from the detestable wicked ness of pagodas. Yet even this modest request he has been pressing for many a weary year with little but fair words-and not always those in exchange for weighty arguments; and unless to-day's success is much more solid than that of former flattering occasions, it will only minister to hope deferred which makes the heart sick.* And sick at heart

Our foreboding has been realized; Mr. Poynder's motion was rejected. It seems to us that the court of Directors have very decidedly made up their minds to" advance backwards" in the matter. They resisted as long as they could; but being at length forced by strongly expressed public remonstrance, as well as by the opinion and wishes of Lord Glenelg at the Board of Controul, and their own Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck in India, they sent out their celebrated make-believe dispatch, which they have spent seven years in countenancing their own agents in secretly undermining; till now, Lord William being dead, and Lord Glenelg buried, and the enormity being an old tale which they hope the public has forgotten, they are resolved to adhere to the repudiated practice, if they find they can decently and without too much peril hush up the matter. It is a very mournful business. We

may any Christian be, who sees how reckless are too many of our public men of the best temporal interests, because reckless of the religious welfare, of those committed to their charge; for both are united by Him who has given to godliness the promise of the world that now is, as well as of that which is to come.

We ought to add, as we have no wish to render to worldlymindedness any excuse for the neglect of duty, that we are not asking the mother-land for pecuniary sacrifices to promote the spiritual welfare of her colonies. Worldly-minded men walk so daintily where money is concerned, that we would not willingly throw a straw in their way to stumble over; we would not without necessity ask them for a single dollar, if its weight would turn the balance of their inclinations against their duty. Nor do we believe that any sacrifice is requisite. All that is wanting is the will, and a way will be found. What prevents, in a new country, reserving a due portion of the lands, while they are of no assignable value, as a provision for the clergy when the increase of population shall have made them available? The mother-land is not bound to maintain her colonial children, either in body or soul; nor is it necessary. She has but to originate wise plans, and to set them in operation; if she has occasion to advance immediate aid for colonial objects, she may justly do so on the credit of colonial expectancies; and she has a good right to say, that religious instruction is for the benefit of the settlers, and that they must them

are wrong however in saying that the question does not touch the rupees. It does not in the way of payment; but it does in the way of revenue; and here after all is the hitch: it is a question of £. s. d. and the more paltry the gain the more clear the moral apathy.

selves provide for its reasonable

cost.

Thus far we have spoken of Christian colonies, shewing that, we ought to extend to them a national church establishment; and the second branch of the question is akin to it, for the duty of endeavouring to raise up and employ native agency in the case of missionary labours among the heathen, rests upon the duty of territorially localising churches. The very first convert ought to be regarded as the germ of a future national communion. Whether the work will prosper till such a communion is eventually formed; whether the single convert shall swell into a church, and one church be added to another till the whole land is, nominally at least, Christian-a nation of baptized persons,-is in the disposal of Infinite Wisdom; but we may lawfully, in faith and hope, look forward to that issue; and begin from the very first to provide for it. And here we are justly reminded of the invaluable labours and counsels of Dr. Duff, than whom no man has more zealously urged the promotion of native agency. His other favourite project, on which we are not now called to pass a judgment, of making the English tongue as much as possible the medium of instruction to the natives of India, is not meant to be inconsistent with the principle in question, though we are not sure that it does not in some measure interfere with it. The rude speech of savages, and even the more polished dialects of Asia, it is true, are not in their present state adequate vehicles of elevated Christian communication. They are too scanty as an intellectual vehicle, and too debased by vile associations even where not scanty, to admit of the transmission by their means of all the ideas which a European missionary wishes to convey; nor is it easy,

or perhaps practicable, in some of them, to give the Sacred Scriptures in a perfectly correct and intelligible form. We admit the difficulty; and we go with Dr. Duff to the full extent of his wish to see as many as convenient of the natives of India—and, by a parity of circumstances, those of other heathen lands-instructed in European literature. But to expect eventually to supersede the indigenous dialects, would be to indulge a vain anticipation; and this being the case, the native agency must operate through the native tongues; nor are we very desponding as to the alleged incapability of the Indian languages to convey religious truth. It must not be forgotten that the Bible itself is an Eastern book; that the older portion of it is written in a language not more copious, or fitter in itself for intellectual communication, than many other oriental dialects; and that the principles of Christianity do not necessarily require an elaborate vocabulary, though they furnish ample matter to exercise it. Our notion of the importance of teaching as many as practicable of the natives of India to speak and think in English, is not in order to render their own tongues obsolete, but to enable them to enlarge and improve them, as our own was enlarged and improved by conquest and international intercourse. The curse of Babel is not intended soon to cease, and all we can do is to mitigate its direful results.

It being the problem, to raise up, by the blessing of God, a native ministry, it is very important to consider how that end may be best attained; and Dr. Duff has done much good in impressing the necessity of high training, and not being content with spreading widely a film of superficial education. We honour his zeal in this matter; even though in urg

ing his favourite plan he may seem to have too much disparaged village schools; but we cannot allow that he was the originator of the system, or admit the accuracy of his statement that "the experiment of making Christianity an essential part of superior English education had been as yet unattempted." It had not indeed been attempted in the government scheme for native collegiate training; and it was generally deemed chimerical by those who called themselves prac. tical men; for though the ordinary mission schools had abundantly shewn that the lower castes and poorer classes would consent to read the Bible or listen to Christian exhortations for the sake of procuring for their children a smattering of English which might better their fortunes; yet the high castes, and the rich, it was asserted, would never thus degrade themselves. Indeed so far was the notion carried of the necessity of not offending the feelings of the aristocratic part of the natives, by bringing before the pupils anything connected with Christianity, that Sanskrit, not English, was made the vehicle of instruction in the higher branches of literature. Now Dr. Duff deserves much gratitude for avowedly and resolutely mak ing the use of the English language, and direct Christian instruction also, essential features of his collegiate plan; and great was the success of the experiment. But without derogating from his services, we cannot admit that the scheme was original. We need go no farther in proof of our remark, than to Bishop's College, Calcutta, a primary design of which was to train well-instructed native Christian teachers; and so far from its not being ascertained, till the Scottish mission was set on foot, that the higher classes of natives would be willing to receive literature in connexion with Christianity, we well remember that the Principal of

Bishop's College, Dr. Mill, stated as long back as 1821: "From the very limited experience I have myself acquired in this country, I can speak with confidence to the fact that the Scriptures and other Christian books, even in places the most contradictory to the whole system of idolatry, may be read in heathen schools, where Bramin pundits are the hearers and teachers, without exciting any alarm or offence whatsoever." Bishop's College was intended to embrace the education of natives as well as Europeans; and one of its primary regulations was that "the discipline, and studies established in our English universities with so much benefit to the cause of true religion and sound learning, shall be the basis of its constitution." There was nothing which Dr. Duff instituted or proposed in this respect that was not essentially embraced in the foundation of Bishop's college.

Still we admit-and we have ourselves already stated—that the various missionary societies, in establishing schools, and in their general system of operations, had not perhaps kept in view so prominently as was desirable, the necessity of forthwith planting native churches under native pastors. They of course did not lose sight of this important object; they looked forward with glowing anticipation to its ultimate accomplishment; they rejoiced when a native appeared fitted by suitable talents, character, and piety, for the ministerial office; and the ordination of an Abdool Messeeh was hailed as a first-fruit of an abundant harvest. But notwithstanding these right impressions, the general machinery might not be sufficiently adapted to the great design; and it strikes us as having been an error in judgment, that when a native was approved of, and ordained, instead of being localized as the pastor of a stationary flock,

he was frequently attached to the European mission as an itinerant preacher among his brethren; so that golden opportunities were lost of establishing such native churches as grew up in the apostolic times, and which might have furnished both models and incentives. There might be exceptions, but we speak of the habit. We admit also the difficulties arising from the inexperience of the teachers, the paucity of converts in any particular place, their unsteadiness, and other causes; and we impute no blame to any one; but we think there was not sufficient concentration of effort towards this important point of beginning as early as possible to found local flocks under native teachers. When a catechist was well-tried, we would even have risked something to make him a settled minister, instead of keep. ing him as an appendage to a European mission. The error was analagous to that which frequently occurred in our own church, when in some overgrown parish, for which it was proposed to have additional pastoral aid, the added clergyman was made a sort of missionary for fifty thousand souls, instead of assigning him a manageable portion of the district as his own parish, and which he might rendera model for the surrounding wild. We have a great advantage under episcopal government, in following out the plan of early localizing native presbyters; that they are not emancipated from control, but are subject to the Scriptural anthority of a father in the church; so that if their life or doctrine became exceptionable there would be a salutary check and power of removal. Subject then to this wholesome discipline, we could wish to see the experiment of trusting native teachers with flocks-not as helpers to Europeans, but as settled responsible pastors-carried farther than

it is; or at least used to be. No doubt inconveniences would arise; some might err, or go back, or fall; and the mournful experience of missions shews that confidence must indeed be a plant of slow growth; nevertheless, as the relation of pastor and flock is Scriptural, we may lawfully, in faith, hope for the marked blessing of God in seeking to promote it.

But we must pass on to other topics which occur to us. We will not however lay down Dr. Duff's earnest and eloquent volume, without extracting a few passages; and we cannot do better than choose some which relate to the important subjects which we have been considering. We will only premise that though we agree with Dr. Duff as to the necessity of imparting a higher kind of instruction than that which the ordinary mission schools afford, in order to raise up, through divine grace, suitable native teachers, yet we think he has not done full justice to the popular scheme. The secular knowledge thereby imparted, we admit, may not be always of a very elevated character, measured by the standard of European attainment; but it is a high advance upon oriental literature; and both in its direct and its remote effects it saps the foundations of paganism, and prepares the way for the reception of a more enlightened as well as holier system-if we may use such diminutive words in speaking of the glorious gospel of the grace of God. And it must also be remembered, that though a wellqualified race of teachers cannot be "finished" in these schools, their education may be commenced; and that pupils thus far taught are better qualified, and probably more inclined, to proceed upon the loftier course, than natives whose first prejudices have not been surmounted. To all

which it must be added that scholars are wanted as well as teachers; flocks as well as pastors; and that the children trained in these elementary schools are far better prepared to appreciate and receive the lessons of their more highly-instructed countrymen, than those who are still grovelling in the grossest mire of heathen ignorance and superstition. In none of these points does Dr. Duff, we believe, differ from us in principle; nor have we said that he disapproves of the elementary scheme in itself; indeed we shall shew the contrary; all that we mean is, that taking his statements in their totality, an impression is left upon the mind of the reader more unfavourable than truth warrants, or than we believe he himself in

tends. With these preliminary remarks, we proceed to quote a few of his statements and reasonings.

"From the whole train of the preceding remarks, what conclusion ought to be drawn? Is it not this,-That in present circumstances, all efforts which may be confined to the direct method of diffusing mere elementary knowledge among the dense mass of the heathen youth of India must be very inadequate; and if extensively pursued, can entail little else than expense, failure, and disappointment."

"Hence the growing persuasion that since our design is to reach more speedily, efficiently, and permanently the great mass of the people, we ought openly to avow the chief means to be, so far as regards education, not the elementary instruction of the youth at large, but the raising up and qualifying a body of special agents, whose minds, from the length and variety of their studies, might be quickened, expanded, and enlightened. In every individual in whom we thus concentrate the rays of a higher knowledge, we provide a new source whence shall emanate and diverge the rays of quickening truth, to vivify and illumine all within the reach of its influence. And if all who are thus taught do not engage directly in the work of disseminating true knowledge among their countrymen, they cannot fail to teach extensively by their example, to imprint a new character on their own children,-and to en

courage and support the adoption of any measures that may have for their object the diffusion of sound and enlarged sentiments.

"Were the friends of missions, therefore, regularly to inquire how many young men are engaged in a course of study in the higher departments of knowledge?—instead of, How many children are receiving instructions in the elementary schools?-they would undoubtedly find in the answer to the former inquiry, and prospective advancement of the by much the surer test of the present Hindus. Indeed so strong is our conviction on this subject, that we do not hesitate to say, that it would augur

Do

more for the real welfare of India, were ten privileged to receive the higher instruction, rather than a thousand admitted to the elementary schools. we then disapprove of the organization of schools of the latter description? Quite the contrary. In the face of all opposition, we would again and again reiterate the statement, that, in the first instance, such schools must be instituted. But it is one thing to assert the necessity of preparatory measures, and quite another to rest in these as an ultimate end."

"In the present condition of the people of India, one central seminary, of a higher grade, with its attendant retinue of preparatory gymnasia, would do more towards impressing the intellect and heart of the people, and consequently towards furthering the great cause of national regeneration, than any number of elementary schools, however indefinitely multiplied!"

"Instead of any longer looking solely or chiefly to the British and other Christian churches, not only for the original but the continuous supply of labourers, we ought now to say, Look to these churches for the original supply of labourers to communicate the first impulse; but let these give that shape and direction to their operations which may most speedily cause the field itself to send forth the continuous supply."

"In missions, that one which is still dependant on home for labourers, has got no permanent footing, and is no better than a sickly exotic, which will droop, the moment it is left to itself and its own inherent powers. Left to itself in such a mission, Christianity might, in the course of a single generation, decline into the feebleness of old age; and in the next, from the corruption and interblendings of it with surrounding heathenism, new heresies might spring up-the foul but stable monument of its shortlived reign. It is not enough that in any mission there should be individuals