your petitioners are, notwithstanding, compelled by a sense of duty to represent to Your Honourable House that the policy hitherto pursued by the Indian Government in relation to Christianity interposes a great obstacle to the advancement of the

people, tends to the counteraction of Missionary labour,* and thus coinpels your petitioners, in common with many of their fellow-Christians labouring for the same object, to carry on their operations at a great and needless disadvantage. By

* On the tendency of the proceedings to which this document refers to counteract and nullify Missionary labour, it is scarcely necessary to adduce evidence, since, unless we suppose the Hindus to be destitute of common sense, we must be assured that they will argue, from the practice of the Government, against the teaching of the Missionary. Both cannot be right; and as on the side of idolatry there is power, it is easy to foresee how the balance will turn. "Sir," said a Hindu Pundit to Mr. Goode, who related the anecdote when preaching in London some years since, "Christians cannot think any great harm of our idolatry: you, yourselves, give an offering of broadcloth to the idol." In the same manner, the late Mr. Weitbrecht relates that he once heard a native say, "There must be something wrong about your religion; for the Governor Sahib doos not believe it himself." The following passage, from a joint memorial from Missionaries of several denominations to the Court of Directors, (dated March 19th, 1850, and printed in Parliamentary Paper 296, session 1851,) relative to Juggernath, will apply, mutatis mutandis, to any one of the thousands of still-subsisting endowments :

"Your memorialists, with deep pain and sorrow, beg to direct the attention of your Honourable Court to the pernicious effect of the Government donation, in impeding, and too frequently rendering unavailing, their endeavours to rescue the people of these provinces from the curse of idolatry, and to bring them under the benign influence of the pure and holy religion of Christ. The great masses of unhappy men and women gathered from all parts of India round the shrine believe, not only that the British Government acknowledges the divinity of Juggernath, but that it is most anxious that the worship of that idol should be celebrated on a magnificent scale; and the Priests and Pandahs connected with the temple, who fatten on the misery and credulity of the pilgrims, do everything in their power to strengthen them in this conviction. They rebuke the Missionaries publicly, and represent them to the people as factious opponents to the Government; and they triumphantly appeal to its annual pecuniary donation as an unanswerable proof that it approves of their superstition, and desires that idolatry should be maintained as the religion of the land. Your memorialists, therefore, cannot but express their deep-felt regret that the Government of this country, by its support of the temple of Juggernath, should thus virtually throw the weight of its influence into the scale of idolatry, and thereby, without intending it, impede the progress of the Gospel of peace and love."

A more recent illustration is furnished by the speech of the Rev. James Smith, at the Meeting at Exeter-Hall, January 5th, 1858, of which the following is an extract :"I have told you that, in Agra, and in that district, there are hundreds of these temples, at the present moment, receiving monthly stipends from the British treasury. There is a second class of men at Agra who receive their monthly pay from the British treasury, called Jumnaputers; that is, sons of Jumna; and the duty of these men is to sit on the banks of the Jumna, and every morning to see that the bathers have the religious mark on their foreheads. There are eleven of these men every day on the banks of the river, all humble servants of the Honourable the East India Company. I have gone there to preach the Gospel, and have been at once surrounded by a crowd of people, who have listened attentively, and who have said, ' We have no doubt that Christianity is true, from what you have told us. But these men are your servants; these Jumnaputers are paid by your Government; they draw their stipend from your treasury at Agra.' What answer can we make to these statements? The fact is, that while the Christian public in India have done something towards the spread of the Gospel in India, the Government has been doing all in its power, morally speaking, to counteract the efforts of the Missionaries. Can it be surprising, then, that Christianity should have made comparatively slow progress, since, with all the difficulties connected with the propagation of the Gospel among such a people, a people possessing such a religion, we have had the Government opposed to us, and using their influence against us?

professing to be neutral* among the various religions of its Indian subjects, the Government has in effect denied the truth, and given a great moral advantage to those foolish, wicked, and degrading systems to which the great bulk of the people adhere. Nor has the advantage thus

given been merely moral. Idolatry has formerly been, and to some extent still is, publicly patronized and subsidized. Its immodest and cruel rites have been honoured with the attendance of Government officers, and paid for from funds under Government control. The system of

* Extract of a Dispatch, from the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company, dated February 20th, 1833:—

"Much caution and many gradations may be necessary, in acting on the conclusions at which we have arrived. Among other concomitant measures, such explanations should be given to the natives as shall satisfy them that, so far from abandoning the principles of a just toleration, the British Government is resolved to apply them with more scrupulous accuracy than ever; and that this proceeding is, in truth, no more than a recurrence to that state of REAL NEUTRALITY from which we ought never to have departed."

Extract of a Dispatch, dated October 18th, 1857 :

"We fully concur in the opinion expressed by Mr. Ironside, to the effect that, if religious Societies and religious publications recommend the adoption of measures, and that if, as it were in consequence of them, the Government immediately carries those recommendations into effect, our native subjects may conceive that we, as rulers of the country, now identify ourselves with Missionary labours. Nothing could be more dangerous than the prevalence of such an impression; for, as was long since observed by Mr. Thackery, Our success in India is, in a great measure, owing to our RELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY; the failure of other European nations, especially of the Portuguese, in maintaining their power, to their injudicious attempts to convert the natives to their own religion. As we could not have established, so we cannot maintain, our empire without continuing THIS NEUTRALITY.'"

Extract of a Dispatch, dated July 19th, 1854 :—

"The grammar of these languages, and their application to the improvement of the spoken languages of the country, are the points to which the attention of these professors should be mainly directed; and there will be an ample field for their labours unconnected with any instruction in the tenets of the Hindu or Mohammedan religions. We should refuse to sanction any such teaching, as directly opposed to the principle of RELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY to which we have always adhered."

+It is difficult to set forth with sufficient detail in a small space the proofs which the history of India presents of the truth of this statement. But the following may serve as specimens :

Lord Clive personally attended a Heathen festival at Conjeveram, and presented an ornament to the idol worth 1,050 pagodas, or £370. Other persons in the service of the Company (for example, Mr. Place and Mr. Garrow) are also named as having made valuable presents to the same idol, not from their own resources, but from the allowance granted by the Company. (See a pamphlet entitled, "The Connexion of the East India Company's Government with the Superstitions and Idolatrous Rites of the Natives of India stated and explained. With a large Appendix of Documents. By a late Resident in India." London, 1838, pp. 84, 85.)

The Marquis Wellesley wrote to the British Resident at Lucknow :-" In considering the measures to be adopted, it will occur to you, that no proceeding can be more calculated to conciliate all descriptions and classes of people than a liberal attention to the religious establishments and charitable foundations of the country. I accordingly authorize you to take the necessary steps for affording the people of Oude the most ample satisfaction on this subject; and I desire you will furnish me with a statement of such public endowments of both the Hindu and Mohaminedan religions as you may propose to confirm or extend." (Quoted in Duff's “ India and its Evangelization," 1850.)

Lord Auckland's presents at idol-shrines in 1839 are specified in the "Calcutta Review," vol. xvii., p. 129. At Muttra he gave 1,500 rupees; to two other places, 500 rupees each; and was highly praised in a native newspaper for his piety.

Lord Ellenborough in 1842 restored to a Heathen temple at Somnath the gates which had been taken away by a Mohammedan conqueror more than eight hundred

caste, which, in every part of it, contradicts and counteracts the Christian religion, has been recognised in Government arrangements for the administration of justice, as

well as in the organization of the army; and selfish inhumanity, and contempt of their fellow-men and fellow-subjects, have thus received the highest official sanction.* The

years before he ordered them to be carried to their place with military honours, and published a proclamation announcing the impiety, addressed to "all the Princes, Chiefs, and people of India."

Lord Dalhousie is said to have paid reverence to an idol by changing his dress on entering a temple, and to have made an offering of 5,000 rupees (£500 sterling) at Umritsur.

The history of Juggernath, during the last half century, forms one of the most disgraceful pages in our Indian annals. From 1806 (if not, indeed, from 1804) to 1833, it appears to have been fully recognised as a Government establishment, and the revenues arising from the temple-lands and the tax on pilgrims were dealt with by the Revenue Department, and yielded profit. In 1833 orders were given for the abolition of the pilgrim-tax and the severance of Government connexion with the temple; but obedience appears to have been delayed as long as possible. The pilgrim-tax has, however, ceased since 1839. Down to 1845 large sums were annually paid from the public treasury for the support of this idol; in 1845 the annual sum payable was reduced to about £2,300; and this appears to have been regularly paid till a year or two since. According to recent reports, one of the last acts of Lord Dalhousie was to commute the annual payment into a gift of land sufficient in extent and value to produce a similar sum; thus providing, as far as he could, for the perpetual support of this idol.

But Juggernath is but a solitary idol in a land which is literally "full of idols." Persons are apt to suppose, that because the Court of Directors issued in 1833 a very able dispatch directing the dissolution of the Government connexion with idolatry, and that because, after a long and arduous struggle, they were compelled, in 1840, to carry out to some considerable extent the instructions which they had themselves given seven years before, therefore the whole evil of which the religious public of this country has so loudly complained has come to an end. But, if the following statement, abridged from the "Bombay Guardian" of November 21st, 1857, may be relied on, it would appear that, to this day, the Indian Government is largely implicated in the maintenance of idol-worship:

"In the Madras Presidency there are now 8,292 idols and temples, receiving from Government an annual payment of £87,678. In the Bombay Presidency there are 26,589 idols and temples under State patronage, receiving grants to the amount of £30,587. 10s.; to which must be added, the allowance for temple-lands, giving a total for the Bombay Presidency of £69,859. 6s. For the whole of the Company's territories there is annually expended in the support of idolatry, by the servants of the Company, the large sum of £171,558. 12s.' (See also "A Few Remarks on Indian Affairs, earnestly addressed to the Men of England." London, 1857.)

* Extract from a Lecture delivered at Bombay, August 14th, 1857, by John Wilson, D.D. :—

"Caste, which is thus a lie against nature, against humanity, against history, has proved the bane of India, and the greatest obstacle to its well-being. As declared by Bishop Heber, The system of caste tends more than anything else the devil has yet invented to destroy the feelings of general benevolence, and to make nine-tenths of mankind the hopeless slaves of the remainder.' Now, this system of caste has not only been physically tolerated by us, Britons resident in India,-and this much from its connexion with religion has been demanded of us, but it has been approved, and nourished, and supported, and encouraged by us, in many forms, both in private life and in the public service......... Caste early contrived to enter our public offices; and there, notwithstanding the vigilance of many of our officials, it still to a great extent monopolizes their chairs and desks, with certain compromises. It has entered some of our courts of justice; and the voice of the lowly there given in testimony has often been received from these parties from open courts, windows, doors, and verandahs; and all this from the repugnance of the 'great' to tread with them the same floor, carpets, or mats. It has entered our Government schools, where it might have been least expected, and virtually excluded from their benefits those who have

Government has discouraged the teaching of the Christian religion to certain classes of its subjects, and made the profession of it, in a sense, penal, by placing some, who have

turned from idols to serve the living and true God, under disabilities to which they were not, before their conversion, liable.* And, while allowing the Koran and the Shasters

been in most need of them, and might have made the best use of them, even sometimes visiting with exclusion the children of Christians, the followers of our own faith, in consequence of their humble descent. Caste, though not for countenance, yet for acquisition, has been a prideful denomination in some of our Mission-schools. Caste maintains its presumptuous bearings in some of the Lutheran churches of Southern India. And caste and this is what requires to be particularly noticed at present has been the principle of the embodiment and organization of the Bengal army, which has given employment and pay to certain classes of the natives, to the exclusion and depression of others; not so much for the efficiency of their services, as for their high pretensions and appearance on guard and parade. Nay, it has there received but for this we are not responsible-more than its own natural demands. The Brahmans of the Upper Provinces, forming the principal element of the Bengal army, have added to their hereditary diguities and immunities, civil and sacred, the pay and power of the warrior Kshatriyas, even in violation of the express institutes of their own faith. Suitable consociates have been sought, or found, for them from other high castes, such as the Rajputs, who are reputed Kshatriyas, and from Mussulmans fraternizing with them in their pretensions. Caste in the Bengal army, which many wise and faithful officers, as well as others, have from time to time deplored, has been one of the main causes of the ruin of the native troops of which it is formed. The Brahmans and Rajputs, forming its staple, had long been accustomed successfully to plead for immunities from particular duties because of their caste, and its enjoined or arbitrary ceremonials. They have found out that, to many intents and purposes, they had become their own masters; and that the state is more dependent on them than they on the state, they declining this work and that work, this service and that service, and this movement and that movement, according to their fancy, convenience, and pretensions. In the pride of their hearts, and forgetful of all their oaths and obligations, they have come to the conclusion, that India is at their own disposal; and they have risen up for the purpose of using it, as they have expected to be able to do, for their own aggrandizement and glorification." (See also " A Few Remarks," &c., pp. 25, 26.)

*The prohibition of preaching to the native army is notorious enough in India, though the precise legal ground upon which it rests cannot be pointed out. So Mr. Rhenius had tracts returned to him which he had distributed among the soldiers at Palamcottah, and was told by the Adjutant that it was "contrary to the regulations of the service" that they should be distributed. Colonel Wheler, writing from Barrackpore, September 9th, 1857, says: "I have seldom found anyone, even among the Lord's people, who would go so far as to think he ought to speak to the Sepoys who are placed under our direct influence. According to the wishes and orders of the Court of Directors and the Governor, we certainly ought not; that is, if there was no Scripture command to the contrary. But their orders, recollect, are in direct opposition to those of the Almighty, and therefore sinful." (See "Record," February 3d, 1858.)

But the most glaring instance of the denial of Christian instruction to a class of their subjects by the Indian Government is also the most recent. The Church Missionary Society had made an arrangement with the authorities of Bengal for establishing a system of Christian instruction among the Sonthals, (an uncivilized tribe, who had given their rulers much trouble,) and the Governor-General had given his sanction to the scheme, when, on the 22d of July, 1857, a dispatch was sent out, disallowing the entire proceeding, and directing that a new scheme should be "prepared for affording to the inhabitants of the Sonthal district the means of education through the agency of Government officers, who must be most strictly required to abstain from any attempt to introduce religious subjects in any form."

On the disabilities of Christian converts, see the recent memorandum of Mr. Montgomery, Political Commissioner in the Punjaub, published in the "Times," January 1st, 1858 :-"The native Christians, as a body, have, with some exceptions, been set aside. I know not one in the Punjaub (to our disgrace be it said) in any

to be freely used, it has forbidden the teaching of the holy Scriptures, or even the answering of spontaneous inquiries respecting their contents during school-hours, in the educational institutions which it supports.* In all these instances the Indian Government, though professing neutrality in matters of religion, has practically countenanced and favoured falsehood and wickedness of the most flagitious kind.

Your petitioners submit that there has been also an equally marked violation of the principle of neutrality in another direction. The Hindu religion enjoins and encourages so much that is unjust, cruel, and im

pure, that the Government has been compelled, at various times and by various methods, to interfere with the obedience of the people to its requirements; as, for instance, by prohibiting and preventing several kinds of murder, especially that of women and children, by legalizing the re-marriage of widows, and by altering the law of inheritance. Such interferences with the religion of their subjects on the part of the Indian Government, your petitioners judge to have been wise, just, and kind, and eminently conducive to the welfare of the Hindu people.

Your petitioners are not insensible to the difficulties of governing a

employment under Government. A proposition to employ them in the public service, six months ago, would assuredly have been received with coldness, and would not have been complied with."

The expulsion from the Bengal army of the solitary Sepoy who is known to have embraced Christianity, has been sufficiently published, so as to render further reference to it in this place unnecessary. Full particulars may be found in the "Church Missionary Intelligencer."

Mr. M. Wylie, writing from Calcutta, under date December 9th, 1857, says: "I know a case in which an order was lately issued that no Christian should be admitted into a school not far from Calcutta, which is supported by Government. And when the native Christians at Kishnagur wished to present an address, offering their services as coolies, or carriers, and the use of their bullocks, its presentation was declined." ("News of the Churches,” 1858, p. 48.)

The Rev. Arminius Burgess, writing from Madras, under date of November 29th, 1857, says: "This will be a great step in advance, to let the people of this land know, and feel too, that their rulers, while permitting no persecution, decidedly prefer their own religion, and would like to see all embrace it. But, alas! at present a high-caste Brahman has a much better chance of promotion and emolument than a native Christian, however intelligent he may be. We all feel that a Heathen cannot be trusted in responsible offices, the timid, cowardly policy that has hitherto prevailed has proved a dreadful and ruinous failure: for our very safety we must henceforth adopt a more honest one." ("Wesleyan Missionary Notices," February, 1858.)

"At Benares the native Christians were forming themselves into a company, but were ordered to disband. Mr. Leupolt, the Missionary, was told to tell them to mix with the Hindus and Mohammedans, and to be very quiet, else there would be danger of their being dismissed from the new police corps .They are much liked by their officers for their spirit, obedience, and good conduct. But they are in danger of being dismissed, even from the police corps, because they are Christians." ("Church Missionary Record," 1858, p. 5.)

*Extract of a Dispatch, dated July 19th, 1854 :—

"The Bible is, we understand, placed in the libraries of the colleges and schools, and the pupils are able freely to consult it. This is as it should be; and, moreover, we have no desire to prevent, or to discourage, any explanations which the pupils may, of their own free will, ask from their masters upon the subject of the Christian religion, provided that such information be given out of school-hours. Such instruction being entirely voluntary on both sides, it is necessary, in order to prevent the slightest suspicion of an intention on our part to make use of the influence of Government for the purpose of proselytism, that no notice shall be taken of it by the Inspectors in their periodical visits."