servant of the infamous Surajah Dowlah. When about forty years old his belief in Hinduism was shaken, and he gave 500 rupees to the erection of a new church in Calcutta. After recovering After recovering

from a serious illness he resolved, as a token of thankfulness, to found a school at Benares, and, by the advice of Archdeacon (afterwards Bishop) Corrie, made it over to the diocesan committee of the Church Missionary Society as its trustees and governors. The building, though of no architectural pretensions, yet, with its separate class-rooms opening into verandahs, is better adapted to its purpose than the Gothic aspirations of the Government college. The first class was decidedly inferior to the Government pupils in English literature, but acquitted themselves well in the plain parts of Scripture and English history. The school, or lower department, is under a native Christian head master, who seemed well suited for his work, and is highly spoken of by the missionaries and by the Government inspector, who examines Jay Narain's periodically. The map drawing and English writing were here remarkably good.

Another educational institution of importance is the school for native girls in the city, superintended by the wife of the senior missionary. She painfully but most laudably gathers them into her fold by paying women to go daily from house to house and bring them. The process is necessary, for while female education is perhaps the greatest want of India, there is no institution of the Feringhis which the Hindus regard with greater suspicion. Yet till some progress is made in it life is poisoned at its very source, and the mother is a mere spring of moral evil to her child. The average attendance at this school is about eighty. These two missionary schools are for all comers of all creeds, and are supported by Jay Narain's endowment, by subscriptions, by small fees from a portion of the pupils, and by a grant in aid from Government-the Bible being

1 See Note at the end of this article.

used as a class-book, compulsory on all the pupils; whereas the Government college is supported by larger fees, and by the funds of the state, and the Bible may only be taught to voluntary classes, either before or after the regular school hours. There are other schools for Christian children only, which with the missionaries' bungalows and native Christian cottages form a group of buildings clustering round the mission church. The staff of Church of England missionaries at Benares is large. They divide among themselves the work of education, of vernacular preaching in the bazaars and native villages, of conversation with inquirers, and of the pastoral superintendence of their converts; and to these labours their whole time, and sometimes more than their whole strength, are devoted in the true spirit of willing self-sacrifice. At their

head is one of the best Urdu and Hindi scholars in India, an author in both languages. His last work is a lively and fanciful sketch of a dream, in which an old inhabitant of Benares sees India converted to Christianity; hears a sermon by the Bishop of Gházipúr, who is on a visit to his brother of Benares; admires the various institutions which have arisen since the city became Christian-the cathedral, the university, the blind asylum, the museum; and compares the evils of the old religion with the fresh life infused into India by the

new.

But, though this is a consummation for which all Christians must watch and pray, it seems at present but a dream. The converts of Benares form a fair congregation, chiefly from the peasantry, but are as a drop to the ocean when compared with the followers of Shiva and of Mohammed. Doubtless there is among these poor native Christians much ignorance and much sin, just as there is in an English country village. Yet it is a great thing that the true rule of life, and the true ground of hope, is placed before them and their children. And there are among them some for whose life and conversation any Christian Church might be thankful. One

64

especially, a Mahratta Brahman, who was known to some persons in England when he visited it as the Pandit of the Maharaja Dhulíp Singh, and now works under the Benares missionaries as a catechist, unites the most earnest conscientiousness and simple-minded humility to varied and thoughtful learning. Truly such men are in Hindostan the salt of the earth and the light of the world; and though as yet perhaps their influence is little felt, yet to increase their number must be the earnest effort of our missionaries, or rather of all true Christians, for to them we must look as the instruments through whom the English nation may hope to accomplish the noblest and holiest work which God has given us to do the conversion of India to the faith of Christ.

G. E. L. C.

66

"of the Christian religion. In respect "of my complaint, he recommended "some simple medicines, but advised, "above all, that I should apply myself "to God in prayer, to lead my mind "into the truth, and to grant me bodily "healing. I complied with his advice, I then "and obtained a perfect cure.

"asked him what I should do for the 66 name of Jesus Christ. He advised "that as I had felt the benefit of the "advice which he had given, I ought to "consult the benefit of my countrymen, "and with this view found a school for "education in English, Bengali, Per"sian, and Hindi. In compliance with "Mr. Wheatly's advice, I set about "establishing such a school, and with "the help of my friends raised a fund "to supply 200 rupees a month for the "endowment of it. Afterwards, Mr. "Wheatly, failing in business, became "himself the first schoolmaster. His

plan was first to instruct my family "in Christianity, and pray with them; "and then to teach the English lan

guage to the scholars who attended. "He continually taught me that from 'joining in prayer and reading the "scriptures no loss of caste was in"volved, but piety would be increased. "After a short time Mr. Wheatly "died. . . . I had heard through him "of the Rev. Mr. Corrie, and through "him had sent a small donation with a "letter to the British and Foreign Bible "Society. I often prayed that he might "come to Benares; and at length he

66

...

came to reside at this place. From "the information communicated by him "respecting the Church Missionary Society... I determined upon making "the Calcutta committee of that society "the trustees of my school, . . . and 'legal measures are in progress for "transferring the school endowment permanently into their hands. In the "meantime, my house in Bengali Tolah, "which cost me 48,000 rupees in build"ing, has been appropriated for the "school-house, and Mr. Adlington has begun to give instruction in the

1 He afterwards increased it to nearly double this amount.

But I long

English tongue. greatly that the most effectual means may be used for enlightening the "minds of my countrymen. I am, "therefore, anxious to have also a printing-press established at Benares, "by which school-books might be speedily multiplied, and treatises on "different subjects printed and dis"persed throughout the country. With"out this the progress of knowledge "must be very slow, and the Hindus

long remain in their very fallen state, "which is a very painful consideration "to a benevolent mind. I therefore

In the last number of this Magazine I ventured to make some comments on a passage in Mr. Froude's "History." They touched upon a very grave question of public morality. They were intended to vindicate what I conceive was the spirit of Mr. Froude's note-at all events, what I am sure is the spirit of the writer-from a misconstruction to which his words seemed to me to be liable. My first complaint of them was, that, by drawing too sharp a distinction between the ethical maxims of the sixteenth century and of the nineteenth, they threatened to deprive us of some of the valuable lessons from the history of the former which no one had more successfully drawn out than Mr. Froude. My second was, that, by too hastily adopting a prevalent confusion between the claims of conscience and the claims of private judgment, the writer had suggested the thought that the duties of a citizen, and especially of a soldier, must be tried by a different law from that which we apply to the highest questions of all.

Since the article appeared, I have had proofs that I should have been most unjust as well as most uncharitable, if I had pronounced judgment upon Mr. Froude for what appeared to me an inaccuracy in his method of stating his No. 13.-vbL. III.

case. My own remarks have made me suspected by very kind and just critics of holding opinions which would be at least as dangerous as any that I could have attributed to him. I am particularly thankful that my observations should be brought to the test which I myself demanded for them, that of their application to our own times. If they will not bear that test they must be wrong, and I hope that I shall be most ready to confess that they are

wrong.

If I were merely continuing an old topic, still more if I were merely justifying myself, I should feel that I had no business to occupy more space in the columns of a magazine which is bound to seek for variety, and the readers of which cannot be interested in the opinions of a particular man. But the criticisms to which I have alluded introduce new and stirring questionsquestions that are of the profoundest interest to us all at the present moment. The tone in which they have been expressed can cause nothing but gratitude in the person who is the object of them, and the principle which they involve is so serious that it deserves all the reflection that can be bestowed upon itall the light that can be brought from

F

any

"wise saws or modern instances" to bear upon it.

The first objection to which I refer is contained in a very intelligent and friendly notice of Mr. Froude's work in the Examiner of October 6th. The writer agrees with me, both in my high estimate of the "History," and in my heitation respecting the apology for Cecil's conduct which was contained in the note. But he thinks that my doctrine respecting the duty of a soldier to fulfil his task as a defender of his country, without debating the question in his mind whether any specific war upon which she has entered ought to have been commenced, might oblige a Neapolitan soldier to follow the fortunes of Francis II. rather than to pledge himself. to the cause of Garibaldi. I thought of alluding to this topic myself in the course of my article; I believe it was an omission not to do so. I am glad that the writer in the Examiner gives me an opportunity of rectifying the mistake.

3

Before I refer to the special case of Naples, I must take leave to remark that the terms of my proposition clearly presume the existence of a settled government, under which the soldier is serving and which he has no doubt whatever is the government of his country. A civil war of necessity raises this doubt. When it has begun, the soldier must decide what is the service of his country. How agonising that question became in the case of our own Civil War, every one knows. The Parliament invoked the name of the King against the King. It became at last an idle, insincere formula; but in the beginning of the war it expressed faithfully the conflict in men's minds, the question where the legitimate authority dwelt. And that question was not settled by private judgments. A conscience of law, of its unutterable sacredness, of the obligation which it imposes-a conscience rising out of that of an actual, personal Lawgiver and King to whom all rulers must bow gives that period its unspeakable interest for all generations of Englishmen. When that conscience gave place,

after the deposition of Richard, to an anarchy of private judgments, the interest ceases; we are sure that on some terms that anarchy must end. So that, I believe, a civil war, while it makes that simple obedience which I demanded of the soldier in a state of peace and order impossible, yet illustrates very strikingly the distinction upon which I rested the demand.

I do not, however, for a single instant confound the struggle in which a Hampden might be found on one side, and a Falkland on the other, with the Italian struggle of our day. I try to believe that good men may be so attached to the symbols of order with which they have been familiar from their nurseries, as to think that they should cling to those symbols when they express only outrage upon order, the contempt of written and confessed law, the breach of all promises that bind gentlemen, the violation of all oaths by which creatures appeal to the judgment of their Creator. With these, as with all personal cruelties to brave, faithful, enduring citizens, which it is simple Atheism to suppose are not hateful in the sight of Almighty God, the name of Francis IL is associated. Let him shift his plea to what court he pleases; let it be one where the strict letter of the law is enforced; let it be one of equity or chivalry; the sentence must be the same. In the highest of all, the ratification must be the most complete. When the question is presented to the Neapolitan soldier, "Is the service of your country the service of the man who upholds this state of things, or the "service of a man who comes to protest in the name of justice, law, and God, "against this state of things?"-I can but see one answer. Even if there had not been granted to the Italian of the nineteenth century all the same signs of God-desertion which were granted to the Englishman of 1688-in what some have called our silken revolution-even if the sceptre, had not dropped from the hands of the Bourbon as it dropped from the hands of the Stuart, and at the rumour of a feebler, less-disciplined

แ

force than that which landed in Torbay

I should still deem the conscience of a people more hopelessly sunk than the Neapolitan conscience has proved itself to be if it could hesitate in making this decision.

But I adhere to the words. It is the conscience of the people and of each man that has decided in favour of Garibaldi, and against the King. All evidence appears to show that if the patriot leader forgets that fact,-if he suffers private judgment about forms of government to interfere with the verdict of that conscience,-if he is not prepared to sacrifice his own private judgment-the great cause for which he has fought and suffered so magnificently may be utterly marred. Modern revolutions, then, like those of other days, bear witness to the permanence of that distinction which we in our ease and carelessness are continually tempted to obliterate.

7

The other objection to my opinion was raised in a letter from a valued friend, whose opinion on all political and moral questions I should rate very highly. He asks me whether on my principle it would not be needful for a citizen of an American free State to enforce the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law I cannot, of course, dispose of that question in the same way as of that which was raised by the Examiner. The United States are a settled community; its Legislature has deliberately sanctioned the maxim, that a slave escaping from any of the States in which slavery is permitted into those wherein it does not exist, shall be treated as the property of his master, and delivered up to him. Why should the official, civil or military, of any free. State set up his private judgment, or what he would call his conscience, against this statute, if the English sailor or soldier may not set up his favourite judgment on what he would call his conscience, against the Chinese war? That, if I understand him, is my friend's question.

Now, I never doubted that it is the duty of a man in England, or in any other country, before he enters any profession, the military, the legal, or the

clerical, to consider what obligations that profession will impose upon him, and whether he can faithfully accept those obligations. The more distinctly those obligations are set forth to him, the more opportunity he has for arriving at a decision upon this point. There may be special obligations imposed, or likely to be imposed, upon a soldier, a lawyer, or a clergyman, which would deter a man from becoming any one of the three. A man, for instance, at the commencement of the American war might have determined that he would just then rather be something else than a soldier, because service against his own kinsmen, or against men whose cause he thought a reasonable one, would be a service to which he could not give his whole heart. There is this general obligation involved in the very act of a man becoming a soldier, that he shall do what he is set to do to the very utmost of his energy and ability. I hold this to be an honest, righteous obligationan obligation implied in the very idea of citizenship; an obligation which a man who accepts it should consider in the very highest degree laid upon his conscience. And, I maintain, there should be no arrière pensée when the time comes for fulfilling this obligation. The soldier ought not to say, "Oh! but this "particular war is not one I like; not 66 one to which, if I were a legislator, I "would have consented; therefore I shall "be doing a righteous act in not going "into it.' I contend that he would be doing an unrighteous act in not going into it; he would be sacrificing his conscience to his private judgment.

Apply these considerations to the Fugitive Slave Law. A man has, (1) either notice of the existence of that

law before he undertakes an office which might compel him to assist in the execution of it; or, (2) it has been passed while he is holding his office. I hold that his plain duty is, not to accept the office which would involve an act that he deems immoral, or, to resign his office if a new task which he did not contemplate at the time of accepting it is forced upon him. But I