faith and reverence, and, in a less degree, the injury to the work of Missions which their violation must entail, wholly occupy his mind. If the letters are written in controversy, it is controversy of that wholesome and lawful kind which consists in the calm and solemn appeal for an investigation, or a re-investigation, of the bearing which acknowledged principles of Christian faith have upon a particular branch of the Church's practical and administrative work. To my own mind the Bishop's argument commends itself as entirely conclusive. But if it were to be proved that he was mistaken, a discussion of such a character on a subject of such importance cannot fail to be a gain: it cannot fail to quicken in all who follow it, or take part in it on either side, that sense of the vital connection between the work before us and the faith in which it is to be done, which the most devoted worker, in the midst of the detail and routine of work, finds it hard to preserve.

I have said thus much in regard to the object with which these letters were written by the Bishop and are now published. I should like to add a word about the effect which the arguments here urged ought to have upon the estimate formed of the past history of Christian Missions. For they constitute a grave case undoubtedly against a large side of the work of those Missions. And therefore their publication touches us all. And it would be futile to hope that the blame, whatever it be, which has been incurred in any department of that work will not in great measure attach itself to the whole cause. No exact distinctions between the work of the Church and that of the Societies within her, or between one group of Christians and another, can prevent this from being so at least in the sight of men, but probably to some

extent in the sight of God also. The common Faith, the Church, all its members, these all will bear the reproach of the errors of Christian work by whomsoever committed, and their strength will be proportionately weakened. I should hold it foolish to take any part in such a publication as these letters, and not to regard oneself as taking thereby the attitude of confession at least as much as that of criticism. And therefore I am the more anxious, while confessing Christian mistakes, to point out the witness which these very mistakes bear indirectly to the greatness of Christian work. We may own that there have been faults-even grave faults--in the Church's work, yet there is something of nobility even in her faults. She has erred; but so to err is only given to what is noble. The large-mindedness which has confidently assumed that the spread of knowledge must ultimately minister to the witness of Christ the large-heartedness which has lavished this education on Christians and heathens without asking questions: the patience to work for the future without visible present result with which our missionaries have gone on year after year, maintaining these mixed schools with a merely nominal amount of encouragement in the shape of conversions among their scholars, and with which during all that time, diverting to these schools large sums which a narrow-minded" view of the Church's work would certainly have insisted on spending upon purely "religious " machinery, --surely these are qualities which, rightly guided, may accomplish great things; surely they are qualities which ought specially to conciliate the respect and sympathy of English

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men.

:

It must be our prayer that God would enable our Church to employ these qualities in the future for His glory with

maturer strength and wisdom, and with a fuller organisation, in which the various gifts of her many members, and of the differing schools within her pale, may be combined by the Lord the Spirit from whom they come into the wealth and power of a many-sided and harmonious work.

Is it not at least a lawful and pious hope that for such a result the prayers of him who, out of his zeal and care for the cause of his Master, wrote these words on earth, are continually offered in Paradise, and heard?

THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

OF UNBELIEVERS,

LETTER I.

The prevailing mode of teaching unbelievers is not in accordance with our Lord's example-Inquiry as to the principles which teachers should observe-Our Lord's practice-Truth is offensive to fallen man- Habits of obedience are generally necessary to its reception- Was only gradually and partially received by the Apostles-Even they were taught by parables-Much more was this so in the case of unbelievers-Truth was put in its simplest forms-In our missions it is administered to unbelievers irrespective of any inclination on their part to receive it-Injurious

consequences.

INTERESTED as we are in the conversion of the people of India and the foundation of our Lord's kingdom in this land, we confess to an opinion that there is a good deal in the method of bringing truth before unbelievers, as characterizing the practice of Indian missionaries, which seems to us not to be in accordance with our Lord's example, however sincere may be the desire, as we believe it to be, to tread in His steps. It will be our object, therefore, to lay down certain principles which, as it seems to us, should be present to the mind of the Christian teacher when he is endeavouring to introduce into the minds of unbelievers the light of that truth which has been given to the world by Jesus Christ. These principles we shall not deduce from any a priori considerations of the nature of

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truth, or of the mind which is to receive it, but from the words and conduct of the Truth Himself, when He appeared in the world as the revealer of the mind of God to man. He knew what truth is as no one else can know it, and what is in man as no one else can know man. His way, therefore, of bringing man and truth together must be the best of all ways-the way for men of all ages and of every clime and place.

First, then, it is to be recollected that truth is naturally unwelcome, or even offensive, to the mind of man as a fallen being. This is especially the case with moral and spiritual truth, but to a certain extent it is the case in the most general way. Men naturally judge by sense and mere appearance; by what seems, rather than by that which is; by habit, by wish, by inclination, rather than by reason and conscience, which are controlled by rule and law. Sin, which is a perversion of the moral nature, is accompanied by an aberration of the intellect; and aversion to that which is true is the consequence of departure from that which is right. Hence we may gauge a man's love of truth, knowledge of truth, capacity of imbibing truth, by the state of his will and conscience: for he can hold truth with his mind only in proportion to the goodness of his life. Every sin which is in him makes a leak in that vessel which is his intellect, through which truth runs out; and he can receive truth and retain it only by stopping up these leaks through the insertion of contrary habits of virtue, and by practical obedience to the will of God.

It follows from this that truth, when first it comes before men as a new thing, must wear an aspect of strangeness. Men alienated from God in life can only be aliens from God's truth, and truth must seem strange to them; not because there is anything in truth which should set their minds against it, for, on the contrary, their minds, if in a right state, fit to it and are fitted to hold it; but because they are familiar with its opposite and strange to itself. Truth is naturally strange to men because men are naturally estranged from truth; and it is only