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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19308-h.zip b/19308-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dae5f8d --- /dev/null +++ b/19308-h.zip diff --git a/19308-h/19308-h.htm b/19308-h/19308-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..08a98ec --- /dev/null +++ b/19308-h/19308-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14275 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Pioneers and Founders</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Pioneers and Founders, by Charlotte Mary Yonge</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pioneers and Founders, by Charlotte Mary Yonge + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Pioneers and Founders + or, Recent Workers in the Mission field + + +Author: Charlotte Mary Yonge + + + +Release Date: September 17, 2006 [eBook #19308] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS AND FOUNDERS*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 184 Macmillan & Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>PIONEERS AND FOUNDERS,<br /> +or<br /> +Recent Workers in the Mission field.</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">BY C. M. YONGE,</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Author of</i> “<i>The Heir +of Radclyffe</i>.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0b.jpg"> +<img alt="Portrait of Reginald Heber" src="images/p0s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">London:<br /> +MACMILLAN & CO<br /> +1874.</p> +<h2><!-- page v--><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>INTRODUCTION.</h2> +<p>It has been my endeavour in the ensuing narratives to bring +together such of the more distinguished Missionaries of the +English and American nations as might best illustrate the +character and growth of Mission work in the last two +centuries. It is impossible to make it a real history of +the Missions of modern times. If I could, I would have +followed in the track of Mr. Maclear’s admirable volume, +but the field is too wide, the material at once too numerous and +too scattered, and the account of the spread of the Gospel in the +distant parts of the earth has yet to be written in volumes far +exceeding the bulk of those allotted to the “Sunday +Library.”</p> +<p>Two large classes of admirable Missions have been purposely +avoided,—namely, those of the Jesuits in Japan, China, and +North and South America, and those of the Moravians in Greenland, +the United States, and Africa. These are noble works, but +they are subjects apart, and our narratives deal with men +exclusively of British blood, with the exception of Schwartz, +whose toils were so entirely accepted and adopted by the Church +of England, that he cannot but be reckoned among her +ambassadors. The object, then, has been to throw together +such biographies as are most complete, most illustrative, and +have been found most inciting to stir up +others—representative lives, as far as possible—from +the time when <!-- page vi--><a name="pagevi"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. vi</span>the destitution of the Red Indians +first stirred the heart of John Eliot, till the misery of the +hunted negro brought Charles Mackenzie to the banks of the +fever-haunted Zambesi.</p> +<p>We think it will be found that, so far from being the talking, +exaggerating, unpractical men that the critical and popular mind +is apt to suppose, these labourers were in general eminently +practical and hard-working. They seem to us to range +themselves into three classes: one, stirred up by the sight of +the destitution before their eyes, and quietly trying to supply +those needs; one, inspired by fervid zeal to devote themselves; +and one, selected by others, taking that selection as a call, and +toiling as a duty, as they would have toiled at any other duty +set before them. Each and all have their place, and fulfil +the work. The hindrances and drawbacks are generally not in +the men themselves, nor in the objects of their labour, but first +and foremost in the almost uniform hostility of the colonists +around, who are used to consider the dark races as subjects for +servitude, and either despise or resent any attempt at raising +them in the scale; and next, in the extreme difficulty of +obtaining means. This it is that has more than anything +tended to bring Mission work into disrepute. Many people +have no regular system nor principle of giving—the +much-needed supplies can only be charmed out of their pockets by +sensational accounts, such as the most really hard-working and +devoted men cannot prevail on themselves to pour forth; and the +work of collection is left to any of the rank and file who have +the power of speech, backed by articles where immediate results +may be dwelt upon to satisfy those who will not sow in faith and +wait patiently.</p> +<p>And the Societies that do their best to regulate and collect +the funds raised by those who give, whether on impulse or +principle, are necessarily managed by home committees, who ought +to unite the qualities of men of business with an intimate <!-- +page vii--><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>knowledge of the needs and governments of numerous +young churches, among varied peoples, nations, and languages, +each in an entirely abnormal state; and, moreover, to deal with +those great men who now and then rise to fulfil great tasks, and +cannot be judged by common rules. Thus it is that home +Societies are often to be reckoned among the trials of +Missionaries.</p> +<p>But we will not dwell on such shortcomings, and will rather +pass on to what we had designed as the purpose of our present +introduction; namely, to supplement the information which the +biographical form of our work has necessitated us to leave +imperfect, respecting the Missions as well as the men.</p> +<p>Of the Red Indians who first stirred the compassion of John +Eliot, there is little that is good to tell, or rather there is +little good to tell of the White man’s treatment of +them. Self-government by the stronger people always falls +hard on the weaker, and Mission after Mission has been +extinguished by the enmity of the surrounding Whites and the +corruption and decay of the Indians. A Moravian Mission has +been actually persecuted. Every here and there some good +man has arisen and done a good work on those immediately around +him, and at the present time there are some Indians living upon +the reserves in the western part of the continent, fairly +civilized, settled, and Christianized, and only diminishing from +that law of their physical nature that forbids them to flourish +without a wilderness in which to roam.</p> +<p>But between the long-settled States of America and those upon +the shores of the Pacific, lies a territory where the Indian is +still a wild and savage man, and where hatred and slaughter +prevail. The Government at Washington would fain act a +humane part, and set apart reserves of land and supplies, but the +agents through which the transactions are carried on have too +often proved unfaithful, and palmed off inferior goods <!-- page +viii--><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +viii</span>on the Indians, or brought up old debts against them; +and in the meantime mutual injuries work up the settlers and the +Red men to such a pitch of exasperation, that horrid cruelties +are perpetrated on the one side, and on the other the wild men +are shot down as pitilessly as beasts of prey, while the +travellers and soldiers who live in daily watch and ward against +the “wily savage” learn to stigmatize all pity for +him as a sort of sentimentalism sprung from Cooper’s +novels.</p> +<p>Still, where there is peace, good men make their way, and with +blessed effect. We wish we had room for the records of the +Bishopric of Minnesota, and the details of the work among the +Indians; more especially how, when a rising was contemplated to +massacre the White settlers all along the border, a Christian +Indian travelled all night to give warning; and how, on another +occasion, no less than four hundred White women and children were +saved by the interposition of four Christian Indian chiefs. +Perhaps the Church has never made so systematic an effort upon +the Indians as in Minnesota, and it is to be hoped that there may +be some success.</p> +<p>For the need of system seems to me one of the great morals to +be deduced from the lives I have here collected. I confess +that I began them with the unwilling belief that greater works +had been effected by persons outside the pale of the Church than +by those within; but as I have gone on, the conviction has grown +on me that even though the individuals were often great men, +their works lacked that permanency and grasp that Church work, as +such, has had.</p> +<p>The equality of rank in the ministry of other bodies has +prevented the original great founders from being invested with +the power that is really needed in training and disciplining +inferior and more inexperienced assistants, and produces a want +of compactness and authority which has disastrous effects in +movements of emergency. Moreover, the lack of forms causes +<!-- page ix--><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +ix</span>a deficiency of framework for religion to attach itself +to, and this is almost fatal to dealing with unintellectual +minds.</p> +<p>On the whole, the East Indian Missions have prospered +best. Schwartz was the very type of a founder, with his +quiet, plodding earnestness, and power of being generally +valuable; and the impression he made had not had time to die away +before the Episcopate brought authority to deal with the +difficulties he had left. Martyn was, like Brainerd before +him, one of the beacons of the cause, and did more by his example +than by actual teaching; and the foundation of the See of +Calcutta gave stability to the former efforts. Except +Heber, the Bishops of the Indian See were not remarkable men, but +their history has been put together as a whole for the sake of +the completion of the subject, as a sample of the difficulties of +the position, and likewise because of the steady progress of the +labours there recorded.</p> +<p>The Serampore brethren are too notable to be passed over, if +only for the memorable fact that Carey the cobbler lighted the +missionary fire throughout England and America at a time when the +embers had become so extinct that our Society for the Propagation +of the Gospel had to borrow workers from Denmark and +Germany. Indeed, Martyn’s zeal was partly lighted by +Carey, though the early termination of his labours has forced me +to place his biography before that of the longer-lived Baptist +friends—both men of curious and wonderful powers, but whose +history shows the disadvantages of the Society government, and +whose achievements were the less permanent in consequence. +The Burmese branch of their work is chiefly noticeable for the +characters and adventures of Dr. Judson and his three wives, and +for the interesting display of Buddhism in contact with +Christianity. According to the statistics in an American +Missionary Dictionary, the work they founded has not fallen to +the ground either at Moulmein or Rangoon; while there has also +sprung <!-- page x--><a name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +x</span>up a hopeful English Church Mission in the same +quarter. The last thing I saw about it was a mention of the +neatness and dexterity of Burmese girls as needlewomen.</p> +<p>Samuel Marsden may be called the patriarch of Australasian +Christianity. There is something grand in the bravery of +the bullet-headed Yorkshireman, now contending with the brutality +of the convicts and their masters, now sleeping among the +cannibals of New Zealand. His foundations, too, have +received a superstructure on which we cannot dwell; because, +happily, the first Bishop of New Zealand is not yet a subject for +biography, and the Melanesian Mission, which has sprung out of +it, has not yet seen its first generation.</p> +<p>The Polynesian work, of which John Williams was the martyr and +the representative man, has chiefly been carried on by the London +Mission. It has always been a principle with the +Missionaries of the Anglican Church, whose centre has been first +New Zealand, then Norfolk Island, never to enter upon any islands +pre-occupied by Christian teachers of any denomination, since +there is no lack of wholly unoccupied ground, without perplexing +the spirit of the natives with the spectacle of “our +unhappy divisions;” and thus while Melanesia is for the +most part left to the Church, Polynesia is in the hands of the +London Mission. Much good has been effected. The +difficulty is that, for want of supervision, individual +Missionaries are too much left to themselves, and are in danger +of becoming too despotic in their islands. At least such is +the impression they sometimes give to officers of the navy. +French aggression has much disturbed them both in Tahiti and in +the Loyalty Islands, and the introduction of Roman Catholic +priests into their territory is bitterly resented. On the +whole, observers tolerably impartial think that the civilization +which these married teachers bring with them has a happier effect +as an example and stimulus to the natives than the solitary +ascetic priest,—a true, self-devoted saint indeed but +unable to <!-- page xi--><a name="pagexi"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xi</span>win the attention of the people in +their present condition. In India, where asceticism is the +test of sanctity even among the heathen, the most self-denying +preacher has the best chance of being respected; but in those +luxurious islets, poverty and plainness of living, without the +power of showing the arts of life, get despised. If the +priests could bring their pomp of worship, and large bands of +brethren or sisters to reclaim the waste, they might tell upon +the minds of the people, but at present they go forth few and +poor, and are little heeded in their isolation. +Unfortunately, too, the antagonism between them and the London +Mission is desperate. The latter hold the tenets perhaps +the most widely removed from Catholicism of any Protestant sect, +and are mostly not educated enough to understand the opposite +point of view, so that each party would almost as soon see the +natives unconverted as joining the hostile camp: and precious +time is wasted in warrings the one against the other.</p> +<p>The most real enemies to Christianity in these seas are, +however, the lawless traders, the English and American whalers +and sandal-wood dealers, who bring uncontrolled vice and violence +where they put in for water; while they, on the one hand, corrupt +the natives, on the other they provoke them into reprisals on the +next White men who fall in their way. That the Polynesians +are good sailors and not bad workmen, has proved another +misfortune, for they are often kidnapped by unscrupulous captains +to supply the deficiency of labour in some of the Australasian +settlements. Everywhere it seems to be the unhappy fact +that Christian men are the most fatal hinderers of God’s +word among the heathen.</p> +<p>Yet most of the more accessible of the isles have a resident +missionary, and keep up schools and chapels. Their chiefs +have accepted a Christian code, and the horrid atrocities of +cannibalism have been entirely given up, though there is still +much evil prevalent, especially in those which have convenient +<!-- page xii--><a name="pagexii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xii</span>harbours, and are in the pathway of ships. The +Samoan islanders have a college, managed by an English minister +and his wife, where teachers are educated not only to much good +discipline, but to much real refinement, and go forth as +admirable and self-devoted heralds of the Gospel into other +isles. They have furnished willing martyrs, and many have +been far beyond praise. One lack, however, seems to be of +that definite formularies, a deficiency which leaves the teaching +to depend over much on the individual impressions of the +teacher.</p> +<p>The chief remnants of cannibalism are to be found in the New +Hebrides. The leader of the attack on John Williams is +still alive at Erromango, and the savage defiant nature of this +people has never been subdued. They belong more to the +Melanesian than the Polynesian races. The first are more +like the Negro, the second more like the Malay. The +Melanesian Missions are in the charge of the Missionary Bishop, +John Coleridge Patteson, who went out as a priest with the Bishop +of New Zealand in 1855.</p> +<p>The New Zealand story, as I have said, cannot be told in the +lifetime of the chief actor in it. It is a story of +startling success, and then of disappointment through colonial +impracticability. In some points it has been John +Eliot’s experience upon a larger scale; but in this case +the political quarrel led to the rise of a savage and murderous +sect among the Maories, a sort of endeavour to combine some +features of Christianity and even Judaism with the old forgotten +Paganism, and yet promoting even cannibalism. It is +memorable, however, that not one Maori who had received Holy +Orders has ever swerved from the faith, though the +“Hau-Haus” have led away many hundreds of +Christians. Still, a good number remain loyal and faithful, +and hold to the English in the miserable war which is still +raging, provoked by disputes over the sale of land.</p> +<p>The Melanesian Mission was begun from New Zealand; but whereas +the isles are too hot for English constitutions, they <!-- page +xiii--><a name="pagexiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xiii</span>can only be visited from the sea, and lads are brought +away to be educated for teachers. New Zealand proved too +cold for these natives of a tropical climate, and the college has +been transplanted to Norfolk Island, where Bishop Patteson has +fixed his head-quarters. One of his converts from +Banks’s Island has received Holy Orders, and this latter +group seems in good train to afford a supply of native ministers +to islands where few Englishmen could take up a permanent +abode.</p> +<p>The African Missions would afford much detail, but want of +space has prevented me from mentioning the Rev. George Leacock, +the West Indian clergyman, who gave up everything when already an +old man to pave the way of the Gospel in the Pongas. And +the Cape still retains its first Bishop, so that it is only on +the side of Natal and Zululand, where the workers have passed +away, that the narrative can be complete. But the African +Church is extending its stakes in Graham’s Town, Orange +River, Zululand, and Zanzibar; and while the cry from East, West, +and South is still “Come over and help us,” we cannot +but feel that, in spite of many a failure, many a disappointment, +many a fatal error, still the Gospel trumpet is being blown, and +not blown in vain, even in the few spots whose history, for the +sake of their representative men, I have here tried to +record. Of the Canadian and Columbian Indian Missions, of +the Sandwich Isles, and of many more, I have here been able to +say nothing; but I hope that the pictures of these labourers in +the cause may tend to some understanding, not only of their +toils, but of their joys, and may show that they were men not +easily deceived, and thoroughly to be trusted in their own +reports of their progress.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Charlotte M. +Yonge</span>.</p> +<p><i>March</i> 16<i>th</i>, 1871.</p> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>CHAPTER I. JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE OF THE RED +INDIANS.</h2> +<p>Since the great efforts that Britain had made between the +years 500 and 1000 to bring the knowledge of the truth into the +still heathen portions of the Continent,—since the days of +Columban and Gal, of Boniface and Willibrord,—there had +been a cessation of missionary enterprise. The known +portions of the world were either Christian, or were in the hands +of the Mahommedans; and no doubt much of the adventurous spirit +which, united with religious enthusiasm, forms the missionary, +found vent in the Crusades, and training in the military +orders. The temper of the age, and the hopelessness of +converting a Mahommedan, made the good men of the third 500 years +use their swords rather than their tongues against the infidel; +and it was only in the case of men possessing such rare natures +as those of Francis of Assisi, or Raymond Lull, that the +possibility of trying to bring over a single Saracen to the faith +was imagined.</p> +<p>It was in the revival from the Paganism with which classical +tastes had infected the Church, that the spirit of missions again +awoke, stimulated, of course, by the wide discoveries of fresh +lands that were dawning upon the earth. If from 1000 to +1500 the progress of the Gospel was confined to the borders <!-- +page 2--><a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>of +the Slavonic nation, the space of time from 1500 onwards has been +one of constant and unwearied effort to raise the standard of the +Cross in the new worlds beyond the Atlantic.</p> +<p>Spain, Portugal, France, as nations, and the great company of +the Jesuits as one mighty brotherhood, were the foremost in the +great undertaking; but their doings form a history of their own, +and our business is with the efforts of our own Church and +country in the same great cause.</p> +<p>Our work was not taken up so soon as theirs, partly because +the spirit of colonization did not begin amongst us so early as +in Spain and Portugal, and partly because the foundations of most +of our colonies were laid by private enterprise, rather than by +public adventure, and moreover some of the earlier ones in +unsettled times.</p> +<p>It may be reckoned as one peculiarity of Englishmen, that +their greatest works are usually not the outcome of enthusiastic +design, but rather grow upon them by degrees, as they are led in +paths that they have not known, and merely undertake the duty +that stands immediately before them, step by step.</p> +<p>The young schoolmaster at Little Baddow, near Chelmsford, who +decided on following in the track of the Pilgrim Fathers to New +England, went simply to enjoy liberty of conscience, and to be +free to minister according to his own views, and never intended +to become the Apostle of the Red Indians.</p> +<p>Nothing is more remarkable than the recoil from neglected +truths. When, even in the earliest ages of the Church, the +Second Commandment was supposed to be a mere enhancing of the +first, and therefore curtailed and omitted, there was little +perception that this would lead to popular, though not +theoretical, idolatry, still less that this law, when again +brought forward, would be pushed by scrupulous minds to the most +strange and unexpected consequences, to the over-powering of all +authority of ancient custom, and to the repudiation of everything +symbolical.</p> +<p>This resolution against acknowledging any obligation to use +either symbol or ceremony, together with the opposition of the +hierarchy, led to the rejection of the traditional usages of the +Church and the previously universal interpretation of Scripture +in favour of three orders in the ministry. The elders, or +presbytery, were deemed sufficient; and when, after having for +many years been carried along, acquiescing, in the stream of the +<!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>Reformation, the English Episcopacy tried to make a +stand, the coercion was regarded as a return to bondage, and the +more ardent spirits sought a new soil on which to enjoy the +immunities that they regarded as Christian freedom.</p> +<p>The <i>Mayflower</i> led the way in 1620, and the news of the +success of the first Pilgrim Fathers impelled many others to +follow in their track. Among these was John Eliot. He +had been born in 1604 at Nasing in Essex, and had been bred up by +careful parents, full of that strong craving for theological +studies that characterized the middle classes in the reign of +James I.</p> +<p>Nothing more is known of his youth except that he received a +university education, and, like others who have been foremost in +missionary labours, had a gift for the comparison of languages +and study of grammar. He studied the Holy Scriptures in the +original tongues with the zeal that was infused into all scholars +by the knowledge that the Authorized Version was in hand, and by +the stimulus that was afforded by the promise of a copy of the +first edition to him who should detect and correct an error in +the type.</p> +<p>The usual fate of a scholar was to be either schoolmaster or +clergyman, if not both, and young Eliot commenced his career as +an assistant to Mr. John Hooker, at the Grammar School at Little +Baddow. He considered this period to have been that in +which the strongest religious impressions were made upon +him. John Hooker was a thorough-going Puritan of great +piety and rigid scruples, and instructed his household diligently +in godliness, both theoretical and practical. Eliot became +anxious to enter the ministry, but the reaction of Church +principles, which had set in with James I., was an obstacle in +his way; and imagining all ceremonial not observed by the foreign +Protestants to be oppressions on Christian liberty, it became the +strongest resolution of the whole party to accept nothing of all +these rites, and thus ordination became impossible to them, while +the laws were stringent against any preaching or praying publicly +by any unordained person. The instruction of youth was +likewise only permitted to those who were licensed by the bishop +of the diocese; and Mr. Hooker, failing to fulfil the required +tests, was silenced, and, although forty-seven clergy petitioned +on his behalf, was obliged to flee to Holland.</p> +<p>This decided Eliot, then twenty-seven years of age, on <!-- +page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +4</span>leaving England, and seeking a freer sphere of action in +the newly-founded colonies of New England, which held a charter +from Government. He took leave of his betrothed, of whom we +only know that her Christian name was Anne (gracious), and that +her nature answered to her name, and sailed on the 3rd of +November, 1631, in the ship <i>Lyon</i>, with a company of sixty +persons, among whom were the family of Governor Winthrop.</p> +<p>They landed at Boston, then newly rising into a city over its +harbour, and there he found his services immediately required to +conduct the worship in the congregation during the absence of the +pastor, who had gone to England finally to arrange his +affairs.</p> +<p>On his return, Mr. Eliot was found to be in such favour, that +the Bostonites strove to retain him as an assistant minister; but +this he refused, knowing that many friends in England wished to +found a separate settlement of their own; and in less than a year +this arrangement was actually carried out, a steep hill in the +forest-land was selected, and a staunch band of East Saxons, +bringing with them the gracious Anne, came forth. John +Eliot was married, elected pastor, ordained, after Presbyterian +custom, by the laying on of the hands of the ministers in solemn +assembly, and then took possession of the abode prepared for him +and of the building on the top of the hill, where his +ministrations were to be conducted.</p> +<p>These old fathers of the United States had found a soil, fair +and well watered; and though less rich than the wondrous alluvial +lands to the west, yet with capacities to yield them plentiful +provision, when cleared from the vast forest that covered +it. Nor had they come for the sake of wealth or luxury; the +earnestness of newly-awakened, and in some degree persecuted, +religion was upon them, and they regarded a sufficiency of food +and clothing as all that they had a right to seek. Indeed, +the spirit of ascetiscism was one of their foremost +characteristics. Eliot was a man who lived in constant +self-restraint as to both sleep and diet, and, on all occasions +of special prayer, prefaced them by a rigorous fast—and he +seems to have been in a continual atmosphere of devotion.</p> +<p>One of his friends objected (oddly enough as it seems to us) +to his stooping to pick up a weed in his garden. +“Sir, you tell us we must be heavenly-minded.”</p> +<p><!-- page 5--><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>“It is true,” he said, “and this is no +impediment unto that; for, were I sure to go to heaven to-morrow, +I would do what I do to-day.”</p> +<p>And, like many a good Christian, his outward life was to him +full of allegory. Going up the steep hill to his church, he +said, “This is very like the way to heaven. +’Tis up hill! The Lord in His grace fetch us +up;” and spying a bush near him, he added, “And truly +there are thorns and briars in the way, too.”</p> +<p>He had great command of his flock at Roxbury, and was a most +diligent preacher and catechiser, declaring, in reference to the +charge to St. Peter, that “the care of the lambs is +one-third part of the charge to the Church of God.” +An excellent free school was founded at Roxbury, which was held +in great repute in the time of Cotton Mather, to whom we owe most +of our knowledge of this good man. The biography is put +together in the peculiar fashion of that day, not +chronologically, but under heads illustrating his various +virtues, so that it is not easy to pick out the course of his +undertakings. Before passing on to that which especially +distinguished him, we must give an anecdote or two from the +“article” denominated “His exquisite +charity.” His wife had become exceedingly skilful in +medicine and in dealing with wounds, no small benefit in a recent +colony scant of doctors, and she gave her aid freely to all who +stood in need of help. A person who had taken offence at +something in one of his sermons, and had abused him passionately, +both in speech and in writing, chanced to wound himself severely, +whereupon he at once sent his wife to act as surgeon; and when +the man, having recovered, came to return thanks and presents, he +would accept nothing, but detained him to a friendly meal, +“and,” says Mather, “by this carriage he +mollified and conquered the stomach of his reviler.”</p> +<p>“He was also a great enemy to all contention, and would +ring a loud <i>Courfew Bell</i> wherever he saw the fires of +animosity.” When he heard any ministers complain that +such and such in their flocks were too difficult for them, the +strain of his answer was still: “Brother, compass +them;” and, “Brother, learn the meaning of those +three little words, ‘bear, forbear, +forgive.’”</p> +<p>Once, when at an assembly of ministers a bundle of papers +containing matters of difference and contention between two +parties—who, he thought, should rather unite—was laid +on the table, Eliot rose up and put the whole upon the fire, +saying, <!-- page 6--><a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>“Brethren, wonder not at that +which I have done: I did it on my knees this morning before I +came among you.”</p> +<p>But that “exquisite charity” seems a little +one-sided in another anecdote recorded of him, when “a +godly gentleman of Charlestown, one Mr. Foster, with his son, was +taken captive by his Turkish enemies.” <a +name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6" +class="citation">[6]</a> Public prayers were offered for +his release: but when tidings were received that the +“Bloody Prince” who had enslaved him had resolved +that no captive should be liberated in his own lifetime, and the +distressed friends concluded, “Our hope is lost;” Mr. +Eliot, “in some of his prayers before a very solemn +congregation, very broadly begged, ‘Heavenly Father, work +for the redemption of Thy poor servant Foster, and if the prince +which detains him will not, as they say, release him so long as +himself lives, Lord, we pray Thee kill that cruel prince, kill +him, and glorify Thyself upon him.’ And now behold +the answer. The poor captiv’d gentleman quickly +returns to us that had been mourning for him as a lost man, and +brings us news that the prince, which had hitherto held him, was +come to an untimely death, by which means he was now set at +liberty.”</p> +<p>“And to turn their hearts” was a form that did not +occur to the earnest suppliant for his friend. But the +“cruel prince” was far away out of sight, and there +was no lack of charity in John Eliot’s heart for the +heathen who came into immediate contact with him. Indeed, +he was the first to make any real effort for their +conversion.</p> +<p>The colonists were as yet only a scanty sprinkling in easy +reach of the coast, and had done little at present to destroy the +hunting-grounds of the Red man who had hitherto held possession +of the woods and plains.</p> +<p>The country was inhabited by the Pequot Indians, a tall, +well-proportioned, and active tribe, belonging to the great +Iroquois nation. They set up their wigwams of bark, around +which their squaws cultivated the rapidly growing crop of <!-- +page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +7</span>maize while the men hunted the buffalo and deer, and +returning with their spoil, required every imaginable service +from their heavily-oppressed women, while they themselves deemed +the slightest exertion, except in war and hunting, beneath their +dignity. Their nature had much that was high and noble; and +in those days had not yet been ruined either by the White +man’s vices or his cruelty. They were neither the +outcast savages nor the abject inferiors that two hundred years +have rendered their descendants, but far better realized the +description in Longfellow’s “Hiawatha,” of the +magnificently grave, imperturbably patient savage, the slave of +his word, and hospitable to the most scrupulous extent. It +was in mercy and tenderness that the character was the most +deficient. The whole European instinct of forbearance and +respect to woman was utterly wanting,—the squaws were the +most degraded of slaves; and to the captive the most barbarous +cruelty was shown. Experience has shown that there is +something in the nature of the Red Indian which makes him very +slow of being able to endure civilization, renders wandering +almost a necessity to his constitution, and generally makes him, +when under restraint, even under the most favourable conditions, +dwindle away, lose all his fine natural endowments, and become an +abject and often a vicious being. The misfortune has been +that, with a few honourable exceptions, it has not been within +the power of the better and more thoughtful portion of man to +change the Red Indian’s vague belief in his “Great +Spirit” to a more systematic and stringent acceptance of +other eternal verities and their consequent obligations, and at +the same time leave him free to lead the roving life of the +patriarchs of old; since, as Scripture itself shows us, it takes +many generations to train the wandering hunter to a tiller of the +soil, or a dweller in cities; and the shock to the wild man of a +sudden change is almost always fatal both to mental and bodily +health. This conclusion, however, has been a matter of slow +and sad experience, often confused by the wretched effects of the +vice, barbarity, and avarice of the settler and seaman, which in +many cases have counteracted the effects of the missionary, and +accelerated the extinction of the native.</p> +<p>In John Eliot’s time, there was all to hope; and the +community of Englishmen with whom he lived, though stern, fierce, +intolerant, and at times cruel in their intolerance, did not <!-- +page 8--><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +8</span>embarrass his work nor corrupt the Indians by the grosser +and coarser vices, when, in his biographer’s words, +“our Eliot was on such ill terms with the devil as to alarm +him with sounding the silver trumpets of Heaven in his +territories, and make some noble and zealous endeavours towards +ousting him of his ancient possessions.” The Pilgrim +Fathers had obtained their land by fair purchase, <i>i.e.</i> if +purchase could be fair where there was no real mutual +understanding; and a good deal of interest had been felt in +England in the religious state of the Red men. The charter +to the colony had enforced their conversion on the settlers, and +Dr. Lake, Bishop of Bath and Wells, declared that but for his old +age and infirmities he would have headed a mission to America for +the purpose. Had he done so, perhaps something systematic +might have been attempted. As it was the new colonists had +too severe a struggle with their own difficulties to attend to +their heathen surroundings, even though the seal of their colony +of Massachusetts represented an Indian with the label in his +mouth, “Come over and help us.” A few +conversions had taken place, but rather owing to the interest in +the White men’s worship taken by individual Indians, than +to any efforts on the part of the settlers.</p> +<p>Sixteen years, however, passed without overt aggression, +though already was beginning the sad story that is repeated +wherever civilized man extends his frontiers. The savage +finds his hunting-ground broken up, the White man’s farm is +ruined by the game or the chase, the luxuries of civilization +excite the natives’ desires, mistrust leads to injury, +retaliation follows, and then war.</p> +<p>In 1634, only two years after Eliot’s arrival, two +gentlemen, with their boat’s crew, were killed on the +Connecticut river, and some of the barbarities took place that we +shall too often have to notice—attacks by the natives on +solitary dwellings or lonely travellers, and increasing anger on +the part of the colonists, until they ceased to regard their +enemies as fellow-creatures.</p> +<p>However, the Pequots were likewise at war with the Dutch and +with the Narragansets, or river Indians, and they sent a +deputation to endeavour to make peace with the English, and +secure their assistance against these enemies. They were +appointed to return for their answer in a month’s time; and +<!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>after consultation with the clergy, Mr. Dudley and Mr. +Ludlow, the Governor and Deputy-Governor, decided on making a +treaty with them, on condition of their delivering up the +murderers of the Englishmen, and paying down forty beaver and +thirty otter skins, besides 400 fathoms of wampum, <i>i.e.</i> +strings of the small whelks and Venus-shells that served as +current coin, a fathom being worth about five shillings.</p> +<p>It surprises us that Eliot’s name first appears in +connection with the Indians as an objector to this treaty, and in +a sermon too, at Roxbury; not on any grounds of injustice to the +Indians, but because it had been conducted by the magistrates +without reference to the people, which was an offence to his +views of the republican rights to be exercised in the +colony. So serious was his objection deemed, that a +deputation was appointed to explain the principles on which +Government had acted, and thus convince Mr. Eliot, which they did +so effectually that he retracted his censure in his next +sermon.</p> +<p>Probably this was what first awakened John Eliot’s +interest in the Red-skins; but for the next few years, in spite +of the treaty, there was a good deal of disturbance on the +frontier, and some commission of cruelties, until the colonists +became gradually roused into fury. Some tribes were +friendly with them; and, uniting with these the Mohicans and +river Indians, under the conduct of Uncas, the Mohican chief, +seventy-seven Englishmen made a raid into the Pequot country and +drove them from it. Then, in 1637, a battle, called +“the Great Swamp Fight,” took place between the +English, Dutch, and friendly Indians on the one hand, and the +Pequots on the other. It ended in the slaughter of seven +hundred of the Pequots and thirteen of their Sachems. The +wife of one of the Sachems was taken, and as she had protected +two captive English girls she was treated with great +consideration, and was much admired for her good sense and +modesty; but the other prisoners were dispersed among the +settlers to serve as slaves, and a great number of the poor +creatures were shipped off to the West India Islands to work on +the sugar plantations.</p> +<p>Those who had escaped the battle were hunted down by the +Mohicans and Narragansets, who continually brought their scalps +in to the English towns, and at last they were reduced to sue for +peace when only 200 braves were still living. These, with +their families, were amalgamated with the Mohicans and <!-- page +10--><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +10</span>Narragansets, and expelled from their former territory, +on which the English settled. An annual tribute of a length +of wampum, for every male in the tribe, varying according to age +and rank, was paid to the English, and their supremacy was so +entirely established that nearly forty years of peace +succeeded.</p> +<p>Eliot’s missionary enterprise, Mather allows, was first +inspired by the “remarkable zeal of the Romish +missionaries,” by whom he probably means the French +Jesuits, who were working with much effect in the settlements in +Louisiana, first occupied in the time of Henri IV. Another +stimulus came from the expressions in the Royal Charter which had +granted licence for the establishment of the colony, namely, +“To win and incite the natives of that country to the +knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of +mankind and the Christian faith, in our Royal intention and the +Adventurers’ free profession, is the principal end of the +Plantation.”</p> +<p>That the devil himself was the Red men’s master, and +came to their assistance when summoned by the incantations of +their medicine men, was the universal belief of the colonists, in +corroboration of which the following story is +given:—“The Indians in their wars with us, finding a +sore inconvenience by our dogs, which would make a sad yelling if +in the night they scented the approaches of them, they sacrificed +a dog to the devil, after which no English dog would bark at an +Indian for divers months ensuing.”</p> +<p>In the intended contest Mr. Eliot began by preaching and +making collections from the English settlers, and likewise +“he hires a native to teach him this exotick language, and, +with a laborious care and skill, reduces it into a grammar, which +afterwards he published. There is a letter or two of our +alphabet which the Indians never had in theirs; though there were +enough of the dog in their temper, there can scarce be found an R +in their language, . . . but, if their alphabet be short, I am +sure the words composed of it are long enough to tire the +patience of any scholar in the world; they are <i>Sesquipedalia +verba</i>, of which their linguo is composed. For instance, +if I were to translate our Loves, it must be nothing shorter than +<i>Noowomantamoonkanunonush</i>. Or to give my reader a +longer word, <i>Kremmogkodonattootummootiteaonganunnnash</i> is, +in English, our <i>question</i>.”</p> +<p><!-- page 11--><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>The worthy Mr. Mather adds, with a sort of apology, +that, having once found that the demons in a possessed young +woman understood Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he himself tried them +with this Indian tongue, and “the demons did seem as if +they understood it.” Indeed, he thinks the words must +have been growing ever since the confusion of Babel! The +fact appears to be, that these are what are now called +agglutinate languages, and, like those of all savage tribes, in a +continual course of alteration—also often using a long +periphrastic description to convey an idea or form a name. +A few familiar instances will occur, such as <i>Niagara</i>, +“thunder of water.”</p> +<p>This formidable language Mr. Eliot—the anagram of whose +name, Mather appropriately observes, was +<i>Toils</i>—mastered with the assistance of a +“pregnant-witted Indian,” who had been a servant in +an English family. By the help of his natural turn for +philology, he was able to subdue this instrument to his great and +holy end,—with what difficulty may be estimated from the +sentence with which he concluded his grammar: “Prayer and +pains through faith in <span class="smcap">Christ Jesus</span> +will do anything.”</p> +<p>It was in the year 1646, while Cromwell was gradually +obtaining a preponderating influence in England, and King Charles +had gone to seek protection in the Scottish army, that John +Eliot, then in his forty-second year, having thus prepared +himself, commenced his campaign.</p> +<p>He had had a good deal of conversation with individual Indians +who came about the settlement at Roxbury, and who perceived the +advantages of some of the English customs. They said they +believed that in forty years the Red and White men would be all +one, and were really anxious for this consummation. When +Eliot declared that the superiority of the White race came from +their better knowledge of God, and offered to come and instruct +them, they were full of joy and gratitude; and on the 28th of +October, 1646, among the glowing autumn woods, a meeting of +Indians was convoked, to which Mr. Eliot came with three +companions. They were met by a chief named Waban, or the +Wind, who had a son at an English school, and was already well +disposed towards them, and who led them to his wigwam, where the +principal men of the tribe awaited them.</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 12</span>“All the old men of the +village,<br /> +All the warriors of the nation,<br /> +All the Jossakeeds, the prophets,<br /> +The magicians, the Wabenos,<br /> +And the medicine men, the medas,<br /> +Came to bid the strangers welcome.<br /> +‘It is well,’ they said, ‘O brothers,<br /> +That you came so far to see us.’<br /> +In a circle round the doorway,<br /> +With their pipes they sat in silence,<br /> +Waiting to behold the strangers,<br /> +Waiting to receive their message,<br /> +Till the Black Robe chief, the pale face,<br /> +From the wigwam came to greet them,<br /> +Stammering in his speech a little,<br /> +Speaking words yet unfamiliar.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mr. Eliot prayed in English, and then preached on the 9th and +10th verses of the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, where the prophet is +bid to call the Breath of God from the four winds of heaven to +give life to the dry bones around. It so happened that the +Indian word for breath or wind was <i>Waban</i>, and this made a +great impression, and was afterwards viewed as an omen.</p> +<p>The preacher worked up from the natural religion, of which +this fine race already had an idea, to the leading Christian +truths.</p> +<blockquote><p>Then the Black Robe chief, the prophet,<br /> +Told his message to the people,<br /> +Told the purport of his mission,<br /> +Told them of the Virgin Mary,<br /> +And her blessed Son, the Saviour:<br /> +How in distant lands and ages<br /> +He had lived on earth as we do;<br /> +How He fasted, prayed, and laboured;<br /> +How the Jews, the tribe accursed,<br /> +Mocked Him, scourged Him, crucified Him;<br /> +How He rose from where they laid Him,<br /> +Walked again with His disciples,<br /> +And ascended into heaven.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The sermon lasted an hour and a quarter, but the Indians are a +dignified and patient people, prone to long discourses +themselves, and apt to listen to them from others. When he +finally asked if they had understood, many voices replied that +they had; and, on his encouraging them to ask questions, many +intelligent inquiries were made. The whole conference +lasted <!-- page 13--><a name="page13"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 13</span>three hours, and Mr. Eliot was +invited to come again, which he did at intervals of about a +fortnight, and again with good promise.</p> +<p>In one of these meetings they asked, very reasonably, why the +English called them Indians, a question it could not have been +easy to answer. The Powaws, or priests, began to make some +opposition, but Waban was continually going about among the +people, repeating portions of the instructions he had received, +and teaching his friends to pray—for some had at first +supposed that the English God might not be addressed in the +native tongue, but only in English.</p> +<p>After some little time, he thought the Indians ripe for being +taught to live a settled life, and obtained for his +congregation—“the praying Indians,” as they +were commonly called—a grant of the site of his first +instructions. The place was named +“Rejoicing,”—in Indian, a word that soon got +corrupted into Nonantum; and, under Mr. Eliot’s directions, +they divided their grounds with trenches and stone walls, for +which he gave them tools to the best of his ability. They +built wigwams of a superior construction, and the women learnt to +spin; there was a continual manufacture of brushes, eel-pots, and +baskets, which were sold in the English towns, together with +turkeys, fish, venison, and fruits, according to the +season. At hay and harvest times they would hire themselves +out to work for their English neighbours, but were thought unable +or unwilling to do what sturdy Englishmen regarded as a fair +day’s work.</p> +<p>A second settlement of praying Indians followed at Neponset, +around the wigwam of a Sachem named Cutshamakin, a man of rank +much superior to Waban. He had already been in treaty with +the English, and had promised to observe the Ten Commandments, +but had unhappily learnt also from the English that love of drink +which was the bane of the Indian; and while Mr. Eliot was +formally instructing the family, one of the sons, a boy of +fifteen, when learning the fifth commandment, persisted in saying +only “honour thy mother,” and, when admonished, +declared that his father had given him fire-water, which had +intoxicated him, and had besides been passionate and violent with +him. The boy had always been a rude, contumacious fellow, +and at the next lecture day Mr. Eliot turned to the Sachem, and +lamented over these faults, but added that the first step to +reforming <!-- page 14--><a name="page14"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 14</span>him would be for his father to set +the example by a confession of his own sins, which were neither +few nor light.</p> +<p>The Sachem’s pride was subdued. He stood up and +openly declared his offences, lamenting over them with deep +sincerity. The boy was so touched that he made humble +confession in his turn, and entreated forgiveness. His +parents were so much moved that they wept aloud, and the board on +which Cutshamakin stood was wet with his tears. He was +softened then, but, poor man, he said: “My heart is but +very little better than it was, and I am afraid it will be as bad +again as it was before. I sometimes wish I might die before +I be so bad again!”</p> +<p>Poor Cutshamakin! he estimated himself truly. The +Puritan discipline, which aimed at acting on the conduct rather +through the conscience and feelings than by means of grace, never +entirely subdued him, and he remained a fitfully fierce, and yet +repentant, savage to the end of his life. His squaw must +have been a clever woman; for, being publicly reprimanded by the +Indian preacher Nabanton, for fetching water on a Sunday, she +told him after the meeting that he had done more harm by raising +the discussion than she had done by fetching the water.</p> +<p>Sunday was impressed upon the natives with all the strictness +peculiar to the British Calvinists in their reaction from the +ale-feasts, juggleries, and merry-makings of the almost pagan +fifteenth century. It is never hard to make savage converts +observe a day of rest; they are generally used to keep certain +seasons already, and, as Mr. Eliot’s Indians honestly said, +they do so little work at any time that a weekly abstinence from +it comes very easily. At Nonantum, indeed, they seem to +have emulated the Pharisees themselves in their strictness. +Waban got into trouble for having a racoon killed to entertain +two unexpected guests; and a case was brought up at public +lecture of a man who, finding his fire nearly gone out, had +violated the Sabbath by splitting one piece of dry wood with his +axe.</p> +<p>But the “weightier matters of the law” were not by +any means forgotten, and there was a continual struggle to cure +the converts of their new vice of drunkenness, and their old +habit of despising and maltreating their squaws, who in the +Christian villages were raised to a state far less degraded; for +any cruelty <!-- page 15--><a name="page15"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 15</span>or tyranny towards them was made +matter of public censure and confession in the assembly.</p> +<p>Several more distant journeys were taken by Mr. Eliot, some of +them to the Merrimac River to see a powerful old Sachem of a +great age, named Passaconaway, who his people believed to be able +to make green leaves grow in winter, trees dance, and water +burn.</p> +<p>He was so much afraid of the Missionary that he fled away the +first time he heard he was coming, probably thinking him a great +sorcerer; but the next time he remained, listened eagerly, +expressed his intention of praying, and tried to induce Mr. Eliot +to settle in his district. He lived to a great age, and +left a charge with his children never to contend with the +English, having convinced himself that the struggle was +hopeless. Several other Sachems gave a sort of attention: +and it appeared that the way had been in some degree prepared by +a French priest, who had been wrecked on Cape Cod, had been +passed from one tribe to another, and had died among them, but +not without having left a tradition of teaching which was by some +identified with Eliot’s.</p> +<p>Of one Sachem, Mather tells a story: “While Mr. Eliot +was preaching of Christ unto the other Indians, a demon appeared +unto a Prince of the Eastern Indians in a shape that had some +resemblance of Mr. Eliot or of an English minister, pretending to +be the Englishman’s God. The spectre commanded him +‘to forbear the drinking of rum and to observe the +Sabbath-day, and to deal justly with his neighbours;’ all +which things had been inculcated in Mr. Eliot’s ministry, +promising therewithal unto him that, if he did so, at his death +his soul should ascend into a happy place, otherwise descend unto +miseries; but the apparition all the while never said one word +about Christ, which was the main subject of Mr. Eliot’s +ministry. The Sachem received such an impression from the +apparition that he dealt justly with all men except in the bloody +tragedies and cruelties he afterwards committed on the English in +our wars. He kept the Sabbath-day like a fast, frequently +attending in our congregations; he would not meddle with any rum, +though usually his countrymen had rather die than undergo such a +piece of self-denial. That liquor has merely enchanted +them. At last, and not long since, this demon appeared +again unto this pagan, requiring him to kill himself, and +assuring him <!-- page 16--><a name="page16"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 16</span>that he should revive in a day or +two, never to die any more. He thereupon divers times +attempted it, but his friends very carefully prevented it; +however, at length he found a <i>fair</i> opportunity for this +<i>foul</i> business, and hanged himself,—you may be sure +without his expected resurrection.”</p> +<p>This story, grotesque as it sounds in the solemn simplicity of +the worthy Puritan, is really only an instance of what takes +place wherever the light of the Gospel is held up to men capable +of appreciating its standard of morality, but too proud to bend +the spirit to accept the doctrine of the Cross. The Sachem +was but a red-skinned “seeker after God,” an +“ape of Christianity,” like Marcus Aurelius, and like +the many others we shall meet with who loved darkness rather than +light, not so much because their deeds were evil as because their +hearts were proud.</p> +<p>Like all practical men, Eliot found it absolutely necessary to +do what he called “carrying on civility with +religion,” <i>i.e.</i> instructing the converts in such of +the arts of life as would afford them wholesome industry; but +want of means was his great difficulty, and in the middle of a +civil war England was not very likely to supply him.</p> +<p>Still he made his Indians at Nonantum hedge and ditch, plant +trees, sow cornfields, and saw planks; and some good man in +England, whose name he never knew, sent him in 1648 ten pounds +for schools among the natives, half of which he gave to a +mistress at Cambridge, and half to a master at Dorchester, under +whom the Indian children made good progress, and he catechized +them himself most diligently by way of teaching both them and the +parents who looked on.</p> +<p>He had by this time translated the Bible, but it remained in +manuscript for want of the means of printing it; and his +favourite scheme of creating an Indian city, with a scriptural +government, well out of the way of temptation from and +interference by the English, was also at a standstill, from his +poverty.</p> +<p>He likewise sustained a great loss in his friend Mr. Shepard, +who had worked with him with equal devotion and enthusiasm, but +this loss really led to the fulfilment of his wishes, for Mr. +Shepard’s papers were sent home, and aroused such an +interest in Calamy and others of the devout ministers in London, +that the needs of the Indians of New England were brought before +Parliament, and an ordinance was passed on <!-- page 17--><a +name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>the 27th of +July, 1649, for the advancement of civilization and Christianity +among them. Then a corporation was instituted, entitled the +Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, of +which Judge Street was the first president, and Mr. Henry Ashurst +the first treasurer, with powers to receive the collections that +the ministers in every parish were exhorted to make by authority +of Parliament, backed up by letters from the two +Universities.</p> +<p>There was a good deal of opposition; people fancied it a new +plan of getting money for Government, and were not at all +interested about the Indians, but money enough was collected to +purchase lands worth about 500<i>l.</i> or 600<i>l.</i> a year, +by way of foundation, at a time when the property of Cavaliers +was going cheap, and the Society was able to undertake the cost +of printing Eliot’s Bible, as well as of building him an +Indian college, of paying his teachers, and of supplying the +greatly needed tools and other necessaries for his much-desired +station.</p> +<p>Still there was a great deal of difficulty and opposition, +from the English dislike and contempt for the Indians, who were +judged <i>en masse</i> by the degraded ones who loitered about +the settlements, begging and drinking; as well as from the Powaws +or medicine men who found their dupes escaping, and tried to +terrify them by every means by which it was possible to work upon +their superstition. The Sachems, likewise, were finding out +that Christians were less under their tyranny since they had had +a higher standard, and many opposed Eliot violently, trying to +drive him from their villages with threats and menacing gestures, +but he calmly answered, “I am engaged in the work of God, +and God is with me. I fear not all the Sachems in the +country. I shall go on with my work. Touch me if you +dare;” nor did he ever fail to keep the most angry in check +while he was present, though they hated him greatly. Uncas, +the chief of the Mohicans, made a regular complaint to Government +that Eliot and his colleagues prayed by name for the conversion +of the Mohicans and Narragansets. Even Cutshamakin, when he +heard of the project of an Indian town, broke out against it with +such fury, that all the men in favour of it cowered and slunk +away from his furious howls and gesticulations. Mr. Eliot +was left alone to confront him, and looking steadily at him told +him that, as this was God’s work, no fear of him should +hinder it. The savage quailed <!-- page 18--><a +name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>before him, +but afterwards came to him and stated that his objection was that +the praying Indians did not pay him their tribute. Eliot +kindly answered that this had been complained of before, and that +he had preached a sermon enforcing this duty upon the tribe.</p> +<p>The words were good, said Cutshamakin, but the Indians would +not obey them. So Mr. Eliot, after consultation with the +ministers and elders in Boston, invited the Indians who +understood English to hear a sermon there, and in it the duty of +rendering to all their due was fully enforced. Afterwards, +however, the Indians came forward declaring themselves much +surprised and mortified at being accused of not paying their just +duty to their chief; and they specified the service and gifts: +each had rendered twenty bushels of corn, six bushels of rye, +fifteen deer, days spent in hunting, the building of a wigwam, +reclaiming two acres of land; and the amount when added up amazed +Mr. Eliot. At his next lecture, then, he took for his text +the rejection by the Saviour of all the kingdoms of the world, +and personally applied it to Cutshamakin, reproaching him with +lust of power and worldly ambition, and warning him that Satan +was tempting him to give up the faith for the sake of recovering +his arbitrary power. The discourse and the conversation +that followed again melted the Sachem, and he repented and +retracted, although he continued an unsafe and unstable man.</p> +<p>At length, in 1651, Mr. Eliot was able to convene his praying +Indians and with them lay the foundation of a town on the banks +of Charles River, about eighteen miles to the south-west of +Boston. The spot, as he believed, had been indicated to him +in answer to prayer, and they named it Natick, or the place of +hills. The inhabitants of Nonantum removed thither, and the +work was put in hand. A bridge, eighty feet long and nine +feet wide, had already been laid across the river, entirely by +Indian workmen, under Mr. Eliot’s superintendence; and the +town was laid out in three streets, two on one side of the river +and one on the other; the grounds were measured and divided, +apple-trees planted, and sowing begun. The cellars of some +of the houses, it is said, remain to the present day. In +the midst was a circular fort, palisaded with trees, and a large +house built in the English style, though with only a day or two +of help from an English carpenter, the lower part of which was +<!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +19</span>to serve as a place of worship on Sunday, and for a +school on other days, the upper part as a wardrobe and storehouse +for valuables, and with a room partitioned off, and known as +“the prophet’s chamber,” for the use of Mr. +Eliot on his visits to the settlement. Outside were +canopies, formed by mats stretched on poles, one for Mr. Eliot +and his attendants, another for the men, and a third for the +women. These were apparently to shelter a sort of forum, +and likewise to supplement the school-chapel in warm +weather. A few English-built houses were raised; but the +Indians found them expensive and troublesome, and preferred the +bark wigwams on improved principles.</p> +<p>The spot was secured to the Indians by the Council of +Government, acting under the Commonwealth at home; but the right +of local self-government was vested in each township; and Eliot, +as the guide of his new settlers, could lead them to what he +believed to be a truly scriptural code, such as he longed to see +prevail in his native land. “Oh!” he exclaimed, +“the blessed day in England, when the Word of God shall be +their Magna Carta and chief law book, and all lawyers must be +divines to study the Scripture.”</p> +<p>His commencement in carrying out this system was to preach +Jethro’s advice to Moses, and thence deduce that the +Indians should divide themselves into hundreds and into tens, and +elect rulers for each division, each tithing man being +responsible for the ten under him, each chief of a hundred for +the ten tithings. This was done on the 6th of August, 1651; +and Eliot declared that it seemed to him as if he beheld the +scattered bones he had spoken of in his first sermon to the +Indians, come bone to bone, and a civil political life +begin. His hundreds and tithings were as much suggested by +the traditional arrangements of King Alfred as by those of Moses +in the wilderness; and his next step was, in like manner, partly +founded on Scripture, partly on English history,—namely, +the binding his Indians by a solemn covenant to serve the Lord, +and ratifying it on a fast-day. His converts had often +asked him why he held none of the great fast-days with them that +they saw the English hold, and he had always replied that there +was not a sufficient occasion, but he regarded this as truly +important enough. Moreover, a ship containing some +supplies, sent by the Society in England, had been wrecked, and +the goods, though saved, were damaged. This he regarded as +a frown of Providence and a <!-- page 20--><a +name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>fruit of +sin. Poor Cutshamakin also was in trouble again, having +been drawn into a great revel, where much spirits had been drunk; +and his warm though unstable temper always made him ready to +serve as a public example of confession and humiliation. So +when, on the 24th of September, 1651, Mr. Eliot had conducted the +fast-day service, it began with Cutshamakin’s confession; +then three Indians preached and prayed in turn, and Mr. Eliot +finally preached on Ezra’s great fast. There was a +pause for rest; then the assembly came together again, and before +them Mr. Eliot solemnly recited the terms of the Covenant, by +which all were to bind themselves to the service of the Lord, and +which included all their principal laws. He asked them +whether they stood to the Covenant. All the chiefs first +bound themselves, then the remainder of the people; a collection +was made for the poor; and so ended that “blessed +day,” as the happy apostle of the Indians called it.</p> +<p>When Governor Endicot shortly after visited the place, he was +greatly struck with the orderliness and civilization he found +there. “I account this one of the best journeys I +have made for many years,” he says. Many little +manufactures were carried on, in particular one of drums, which +were used for lack of bells in some of the American settlements, +as a summons to come to church.</p> +<p>There was a native schoolmaster, named Monequassum, who could +write, read, and spell English correctly, and under whom the +children were making good progress. Promising lads were +trained by Mr. Eliot himself, in hopes of making them act as +missionaries among their brethren. All this time his +praying Indians were not baptized, nor what he called +“gathered into a Church estate.” He seems to +have been determined to have full proof of their stability before +he so accepted them; for it was from no inclination to Baptist +views that he so long delayed receiving them. However, on +the 13th of October, 1652, he convened his brother-ministers to +hear his Indians make public confession of their faith. +What the converts said was perfectly satisfactory; but they were +a long-winded race, accustomed to flowing periods; and as each +man spoke for himself, and his confession had to be copied down +in writing, Mr. Eliot himself owns that their “enlargement +of spirit” did make “the work longsome.” +So longsome it was, that while the schoolmaster was speaking +every one got restless, <!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>and there was a confusion; and the +ministers, who had a long dark ride through the woods before +them, went away, and were hard to bring back again, so that he +had to finish hearing the declarations of faith alone.</p> +<p>Still, he cut off the baptism and organization of a church +till he had sent all these confessions to be considered by the +Society in England, printed and published under the title of +“Tears of Repentance,” with a dedication to Oliver +Cromwell. Then came other delays; some from the jealousy +and distrust of the English, who feared that the Indians were +going to ally themselves to the Dutch; some from the difficulty +of getting pastors to join in the tedious task of listening to +the wordy confessions; and some from the distressing scandal of +drunkenness breaking out among the Indians, in spite of the +strict discipline that always punished it. It was not till +1660 that Mr. Eliot baptized any Indians, and the next day +admitted them to the Lord’s Supper, nine years after he had +begun to preach. The numbers we do not know, but there is +no doubt that he received no adults except well proved and tried +persons coming up to the Puritan standard of sincerity and +devotion.</p> +<p>At this time the Society at home was in great danger; for, on +the Restoration, the charter had become void, and, moreover, the +principal estate that formed the endowment had been the property +of a Roman Catholic,—Colonel Bedingfield,—who resumed +possession, and refused to refund the purchase money, as +considering the Society at an end. It would probably have +been entirely lost, but for the excellent Robert Boyle, so +notable at once for his science, piety, and beneficence. He +placed the matter in its true light before Lord Clarendon, and +obtained by his means a fresh charter from Charles II. The +judgment in the Court of Chancery was given in favour of the +Society, and Boyle himself likewise endowed it with a third part +of a grant of the forfeited impropriations in Ireland which he +had received from the king. But all the time there was a +great disbelief in the efficacy of the work among the Indians +both at home and in New England. It was the fashion to call +all the stories of Indian conversions mere devices for getting +money, and the unhappy, proud hostility that almost always +actuated the ordinary English colonist in dealing with natives, +was setting in in full force. However, at Massachusetts, +the general court appointed an <!-- page 22--><a +name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>English +magistrate to hold a court of judicature in conjunction with the +chiefs of the Christian Indians, and to be in fact a sort of +special member of government on their behalf. The first so +appointed was Daniel Gookin, a man of great piety, wisdom, and +excellence, and a warm friend of Mr. Eliot, with whom he worked +most heartily, not only in dealing with the Indians of Natick, +but with all those who came under English jurisdiction, providing +schools, and procuring the observance of the Sunday among +them. It was also provided that the Christian Indians +should set apart a tenth of all their produce for the support of +their teachers—a practice that Mr. Gookin defended from the +charge of Judaism. It seems as if these good men, who went +direct to the Old Testament for their politics, must have been +hard set between their desire of scriptural authority and their +dread of Judaizing.</p> +<p>It was well for Eliot that he had friends, for in the first +flush of the tidings of the successes of the Puritans in England, +he had written a set of papers upon Government, entitled the +“Christian Commonwealth,” which had been sent to +England, and there lay dormant for nine or ten years, until in +the midst of all the excitement on the Restoration, this +speculative work, the theory of a scholar upon Christian +democracy, was actually printed and launched upon the world at +home, whether by an enemy or by an ill-advised friend does not +appear, and without the author’s consent. Complaints +of this as a seditious book came out to New England, and John +Eliot was forced to appear before the court, when he owned the +authorship, but disowned the publication, and retracted whatever +might have declared the Government of England, by King, Lords, +and Commons, to be anti-Christian, avowing it to be “not +only a lawful but eminent form of government, and professing +himself ready to conform to any polity that could be deduced from +Scripture as being of Divine authority.” The court +was satisfied, and suppressed the book, while publishing Mr. +Eliot’s retractation. Some have sneered at his +conduct on this occasion as an act of moral cowardice; but it +would be very hard if every man were bound to stand to all the +political views expressed in an essay never meant for the general +eye, ten years old, and written in the enthusiasm of the +commencement of an experiment, which to the Presbyterian mind had +proved a grievous disappointment.</p> +<p><!-- page 23--><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>He had a much more important work in hand than the +defence of old dreams of the reign of the saints—for the +Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England had just +finished printing his translation of the New Testament, <i>Wusku +Wuttestermentum</i> as it was called, and in two years more the +Old Testament was finished. A copy was presented to Charles +II., to the Chancellor Clarendon, and to the two Universities in +England, as well as to Harvard College. It was in the +Mohican dialect, which was sufficiently like that of the +neighbouring tribes to serve for them, and had all the +correctness that the scholarship and philology of the time could +furnish. There is a story that Eliot wrote the whole with a +single pen. It went through a good many editions, but is +now very rare, and with Eliot’s Catechism, and translations +of Baxter’s chief works, and a metrical version of the +Psalms, remains the only vestige of the language of the +Mohicans.</p> +<p>There were now several Indian congregations, one in especial +at the island called Martha’s Vineyard, under the charge of +an Indian pastor, John Hiacoomes, who is said to have been the +first red-skinned convert, and who had made proof of much true +Christian courage. Once in the act of prayer he received a +severe blow from a Sachem, and would have been killed if some +English had not been present; but all his answer was, “I +have two hands. I had one hand for injuries, and the other +for God. While I did receive wrong with the one, the other +laid the greater hold on God.”</p> +<p>When some of the Powaws, or medicine men, were boasting that +they could, if they would, destroy all the praying Indians at +once, Hiacoomes made reply: “Let all the Powaws in the +island come together, I’ll venture myself in the midst +among them all. Let them use all their witchcrafts. +With the help of God, I’ll tread upon them all!”</p> +<p>By which defiance he wonderfully “heartened” his +flock, who, Christians as they were, had still been beset by the +dread of the magic arts, in which, as we have seen, even their +White teachers did not wholly disbelieve.</p> +<p>Such a man as this was well worthy of promotion, and Mr. Eliot +hoped to educate his more promising scholars, so as to supply a +succession of learned and trained native pastors. Two young +men, named Joel and Caleb, were sent to Harvard College, +Cambridge, where they both were gaining distinguished <!-- page +24--><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>success, and were about to take their degree, when Joel, +who had gone home on a visit, was wrecked on the Island of +Nantucket, and, with the rest of the ship’s company, was +either drowned or murdered by the Indians. The name of +Caleb, Chee-shah-teau-muck, Indus, is still to be seen in the +registers of those who took their degree, and there are two Latin +and Greek elegies remaining, which he composed on the death of an +eminent minister, bearing his signature, with the addition, +Senior Sophister. How curiously do the Hebrew, Greek, and +Latin proclaim themselves the universal languages, thus blending +with the uncouth Mohican word! Caleb’s constitution +proved unable to endure College discipline and learning, and he +died of decline soon after taking his degree. Consumption +was very frequent among the Indians, as it so often is among +savages suddenly brought to habits of civilization, and it seems +to have mown down especially the more intellectual of the +Indians; Monequassum, the first schoolmaster at Natick, among +them. An Indian College, which had been established at +Cambridge, failed from the deaths of some scholars and the +discouragement of others, and had to be turned into a printing +house, and the energetic and indefatigable Eliot did the best he +could by giving courses of lectures in logic and theology to +candidates for the ministry at Natick, and even printed an +“Indian logick primer.” It was a wonderful +feat, considering the loose unwieldy words of the language.</p> +<p>From 1660 to 1675 were Eliot’s years of chief +success. His own vigour was unabated, and he had Major +Gookin’s hearty co-operation. There had been time for +a race of his own pupils to grow up; and there had not been time +for the first love of his converts to wax cool. There had +been a long interval of average peace and goodwill between +English and natives, and there seemed good reason to suppose that +Christianity and civilization would keep them friends, if not +fuse them together. There were eleven hundred Christian +Indians, according to Eliot and Gookin’s computation, with +six regularly constituted “churches” after the +fashion of Natick, and fourteen towns, of which seven were called +old and seven new, where praying Indians lived, for the most +part, in a well-conducted, peaceable manner, though now and then +disorderly conduct would take place, chiefly from +drunkenness. Several Sachems had likewise been converted, +in especial Wanalanset, the eldest son <!-- page 25--><a +name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>of the famous +old chief Passaconnaway. After four years of hesitation +whether he should, as he said, quit his old canoe and embark in a +new one, he came to the conclusion that the old canoe was +floating down the stream of destruction, and manfully embraced +the faith, although at the cost of losing many of his tribe, who +deserted him on his profession of Christianity.</p> +<p>But there is always a period of check and disappointment in +every great and holy work. The tide of evil may be driven +into ebb for a time, but it always rallies and flows back upon +the servant of God, and usually when the prime of his strength is +past, and he is less able to withstand. Most good and great +men have closed their eyes upon apparent failure and +disappointment in what is especially their own task, and, like +the first great Leader and Lawgiver, have had to cry, “Show +Thy servants Thy work, and their children Thy glory.” +Often the next generation does see the success, and gather the +fruits; but the strong, wise, scholarly, statesman-like Apostle +of the Indians was destined to see his work swept away like snow +before the rage and fury of man, and to leave behind him little +save a great witness and example. At least he had the +comfort of knowing that the evil did not arise among his own +children in the faith, but came from causes entirely external, +and as much to be preferred as persecution is better than +corruption.</p> +<p>The Sachem nearest to Plymouth had been at the first arrival +of the Pilgrim Fathers, Massasoiet, chief of the Wampanongs, who +had kept the peace out of fear. His son Alexander had +followed his example, but it was current among the English that +he had died of “choler,” on being detected in a plot +against them, and his successor, Philip, was a man of more than +common pride, fierceness, cunning, and ability. These were +only names given them by the English; none of them were +Christians. Mr. Eliot had made some attempts upon Philip, +but had been treated with scorn. The Sachem, twisting a +button upon the minister’s coat, told him he cared not +<i>that</i> for his Gospel; but Major Gookin had some hopes of +having touched his heart.</p> +<p>However, there were indications that he was endeavouring to +unite all the surrounding tribes in an alliance against the +colony. A murder of an Englishman had taken place, and the +Government at Plymouth required all natives to surrender the +fire-arms they had obtained from the English. Even Philip +<!-- page 26--><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +26</span>consented to deliver them up until the English should +see no further cause for detaining them. Upon this, in June +1671, Eliot wrote a remarkable letter to Mr. Prince, the Governor +of Plymouth, requiring him not to detain the arms, especially of +Philip. “My reasons are,” he says, +“first, lest we render ourselves more afraid of them and +their guns than indeed we are or have cause to be. Alas! it +is not the gun, but the man; nor, indeed, is it the man, but our +sin that we have cause to be afraid of. Secondly, your so +doing will open an effectual door to the entertainment of the +Gospel.” Probably Mr. Eliot was right, and the +keeping the arms only irritated the high-spirited chief, who said +to the messenger of the Governor of Massachusetts, “Your +governor is but a subject. I will not treat but with my +brother, King Charles of England.”</p> +<p>For four years enmity smouldered on. The rights of the +dispute will never be known. The settlers laid all upon +Philip’s machinations, except those who lived near his +wigwams and knew him best; and they said that so far from +entering into a conspiracy, he always deplored the war, but was +forced on by the rage and fury of the young braves, over whom the +Sachems had no real power, and who wanted to signalize their +valour, and could not fail to have their pride insulted by the +demeanour of the ordinary English. One instance of +brutality on the river Saco is said to have been the immediate +cause of the war in that district. Some English sailors, +seeing a canoe with an Indian woman and her infant, and having +heard that a papoose could swim like a duck, actually upset the +canoe to make the experiment. The poor baby sank, and the +mother dived and brought it up alive, but it died so soon after, +that the loss was laid to the charge of the cruel men by the +father, who was a Sachem named Squando, of considerable dignity +and influence, a great medicine man.</p> +<p>On Philip’s border to the southward, a plantation called +Swawny was attacked and burnt by the Indians in the June of +1675. He is said to have shed tears (impassible Indian as +he was) at the tidings, foreseeing the utter ruin of his people; +and, twenty days after, Squando’s influence led to another +attack 200 miles off, and this was viewed as a sign of complicity +with Philip.</p> +<p>There was deadly terror among the English. The Indians +swarmed down at night on lonely villages and farmhouses, <!-- +page 27--><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>slew, scalped, burnt, and now and then carried off +prisoners to be tortured to death, and children to tell by and by +strange tales of life in the wigwams. The militia were +called out, but left their houses unprotected. At +Newich-wannock, the farmhouse of a man named Tozer was attacked +by the Indians when only tenanted by fifteen women and +children. A girl of eighteen, who was the first to see the +approach, bravely shut the door and set her back against it; thus +giving time for the others to escape by another door to a better +secured building. The Indians chopped the door to pieces +with their hatchets, knocked the girl down, left her for dead, +and hurried on in pursuit of the others, but only came up with +two poor little children, who had not been able to get over the +fence. The rest were saved, and the brave girl recovered +from her wounds; but other attacks ended far more fatally for the +sufferers, and the rage and alarm of the New Englanders were +great. A few of the recently taught and unbaptized Indians +from what were called the “new praying towns” had +joined their countrymen; and though the great body of the +converts were true and faithful, the English confounded them all +in one common hatred to the Red-skin. The magistrates and +Government were not infected by this blind passion, and did all +they could to restrain it, showing trust in the Christian natives +by employing them in the war, when they rendered good and +faithful service; but the commonalty, who were in the habit of +viewing the whole people as Hivites and Jebusites, treated these +allies with such distrust and contumely as was quite enough to +alienate them.</p> +<p>In July 1675, three Christian Indians were sent as guides and +interpreters to an expedition to treat with the Indians in the +Nipmuck country. One was made prisoner, but the two +officers in command gave the fullest testimony to the good +conduct of the other two; nevertheless they were so misused on +their return that Mr. Gookin declared that they had been, by +ill-treatment, “in a manner constrained to fall off to the +enemy.” One was killed by a scouting party of praying +Indians; the other was taken, sold as a slave, and sent to +Jamaica; and though Mr. Eliot prevailed to have him brought back, +and redeemed his wife and children, he was still kept in +captivity.</p> +<p>The next month, August, a number of the Christian Indians were +arrested and sent up to Boston to be tried for some <!-- page +28--><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +28</span>murders that had been committed at Lancaster. +Eliot and Gookin succeeded in proving their perfect innocence, +but the magistrates had great difficulty in saving their lives +from the fury of the mob, who thirsted for Indian blood, and both +minister and major were insulted and reviled, so that Gookin said +on the bench that it was not safe for him to walk in the streets; +and when Eliot met with a dangerous boat accident, wishes were +expressed that he had been drowned.</p> +<p>Natick was looked upon with so much distrust and aversion that +Government, fearing occasions of bloodshed, decided that the +inhabitants must be removed to Deer Island. On the 7th of +October a great fast-day, with prayer and preaching, had been +held, and fierce and bitter entreaties had been uttered against +the Indian Sachems, especially Philip. One wonders whether +Eliot—now seventy-one years old—felt it come home to +him that he knew not what spirit he had been of when he had +prayed for the death of the Moorish prince. It must have +been a heart-breaking time for the aged man, to see the spot +founded in so much hope and prayer, the fruit of so much care and +meditation, thus broken up and ruined, and when he was too old to +do the like work over again. At the end of that month of +October, Captain Thomas Prentiss, with a party of horse and five +or six carts, arrived at Natick, and made known the commands of +the Government. Sadly but patiently the Indians +submitted. Two hundred men, women, and children were made +to get together all they could carry, and marched from their +homes to the banks of the Charles River. Here, at a spot +called the Pines, Mr. Eliot met them, and they gathered round him +to hear his words of comfort, as he exhorted them to meek +patience, resignation, and steadiness to the faith. The +scene was exceedingly affecting, as the white-haired pastor stood +by the river-side beneath the tall pines, with his dark-skinned, +newly reclaimed children about him, clinging to him for +consolation, but neither murmuring nor struggling, only praying +and encouraging one another. Captain Prentiss and his +soldiers were deeply touched; but at midnight, when the tide was +high enough, three large boats bore the Indians over to Deer +Island. Here they were, transplanted from their comfortable +homes in the beginning of a long and very severe winter; but, +well divided by the river from all suspicion of doing violence, +they fared better than the praying Indians of the <!-- page +29--><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>new +town of Wamesit. A barn full of hay and corn had been +burnt, and fourteen men of Chelmsford, the next settlement, +concluding it had been done by the Wamesit Red-skins, went +thither, called them out of their wigwams, and then fired at +them, killing a lad and five women and children. After all, +the fire had been caused by some skulking heathen Indians; but +though the Government obtained the arrest of the murderers, the +jury would not find them guilty. The Wamesit Indians fled +into the forest, and sent a piteous letter:—“We are +not sorry for what we leave behind, but we are sorry that the +English have driven us from our praying to God and from our +teacher. We did begin to understand praying to God a +<i>little</i>.” They were invited back, but were +afraid to come till cold and hunger drove them to their old +abode, and then the indefatigable Eliot and Gookin visited them, +and did all in their power to bring about a better feeling +towards them in Chelmsford.</p> +<p>This whole autumn and winter—a terribly severe +one—seems to have been spent by these good men in trying to +heal the strifes between the English and the Indians. +Wanalanset had fled, true to his father’s policy of never +resisting, and they were sent to invite him back again; but when +he returned, he found that the maize grounds of his settlement +had been ploughed up by the English and sown with rye, so that +his tribe had most scanty subsistence.</p> +<p>Several settlements of Christians were deported to Deer +Island. One large party had been made prisoners by their +heathen countrymen and had managed to escape, but when met with +wandering in the woods by a party of English soldiers, were +plundered of the little the heathens had left them, in especial +of a pewter cup, their communion plate, which Mr. Eliot had given +them, and which was much treasured by their native pastor. +The General interfered in their behalf, but could not protect +them from much ill-usage. The teacher was sent with his old +father and young children to Boston, where Mr. Eliot saw and +cheered him before he was conveyed to Deer Island. There, +in December, Eliot, with Gookin and other friends, frequently +visited the Indians, now five hundred in number, and found them +undergoing many privations, but patient, resigned, and +unmurmuring. The snow was four feet deep in the woods by +the 10th of December that year, and the exertion and exposure of +travelling, either on snow-shoes or <!-- page 30--><a +name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>sledges, must +have been tremendous to a man of Mr. Eliot’s age; but he +never seems to have intermitted his labours in carrying spiritual +and temporal succour to his people, and in endeavouring to keep +the peace between them and the English.</p> +<p>The hard winter had had a great effect in breaking the +strength of the enemy, and they were much more feeble on the +renewal of the war in the spring. The good conduct of the +praying Indians had overcome the popular prejudice so much that +it was decided to employ them to assist the scanty forces of the +English in hunting down the hostile tribes, and Gookin boasts of +their having taken and slain more than 400 foes in the course of +the summer of 1676, which one would scarcely think was very good +for their recent Christianity. In the mean time, the +absence of all the able-bodied men and hunters reduced their +families to such distress that serious illness broke out among +them, and Major Gookin caused them to be brought to the +neighbourhood of Cambridge, where there was good fishing, and +where he could attend to them, and provide them with food, +clothing, and medicine.</p> +<p>In August Philip was killed, the English believing themselves +to “have prayed the bullet straight into his heart;” +and his head was carried about on a pole, in a manner we should +have called worthy of the Indians themselves, did we not +recollect that there were a good many city gates at home with +much the same kind of trophy, while his wife and +children—miserable fate!—were, like many others of +the captives, sold into slavery to the sugar planters in +Jamaica.</p> +<p>After this the war did not entirely cease, but the Christian +Indians were allowed to creep back to their old settlements at +Nonantum, and even at Natick, where Mr. Eliot continued +periodically to visit and instruct them; but after this unhappy +war there were only four instead of fourteen towns of Christian +Indians in Massachusetts, and a blow had been given to his +mission that it never recovered.</p> +<p>Still there was a splendid energy and resolution about this +undaunted old man, now writing a narrative of the Gospel History +in his seventy-fourth year, now sending Robert Boyle new physical +facts, now protesting hard against the cruel policy of selling +captive Indians into slavery. What must not the slavery of +the West Indian isles, which had already killed off their native +Caribbeans, have been to these free hunters of the <!-- page +31--><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>North +American forest, too proud to work for themselves, and bred in a +climate of cold, dry, bracing air? And even in the West +Indies, a shipload of these miserable creatures was refused in +the over-stocked market, and the horrors of the slave-ship were +prolonged across the Atlantic, till at last Mr. Eliot traced the +unhappy freight to Tangier. He at once wrote to conjure the +excellent Mr. Boyle to endeavour to have them redeemed and sent +home,—with what success, or if any were left alive, does +not appear.</p> +<p>He had the pleasure of seeing a son of good Major Gookin +become the minister of a district including Natick, and likewise +of the ordination at Natick of an Indian named Daniel +Takawombgrait. Of his own six children only one son and one +daughter survived him. Benjamin, the youngest son, was his +coadjutor at Roxbury, and was left in charge there while he +circulated amongst his Indians, and would have succeeded +him. The loss of this son must have fallen very heavily on +him; but “the good old man would sometimes comfortably say, +‘I have had six children, and I bless God for His free +grace; they are all either <i>with</i> Christ or <i>in</i> +Christ, and my mind is now at rest concerning +them.’”</p> +<p>When asked how he could bear the death of such excellent +children, his answer was, “My desire was that they should +have served God on earth, but if God will choose to have them +rather serve Him in heaven, I have nothing to object against it, +but His will be done.”</p> +<p>His last letter to Mr. Boyle was written in his eighty-fourth +year, and was a farewell but a cheerful one, and he had good +hopes then of a renewal of the spirit of missions among his +people. But though his Christians did not bely their name +in his own generation, alcohol did its work on some, consumption +on others; and, in 1836, when Jabez Sparks wrote his biography, +there was one wigwam at Natick inhabited by a few persons of +mingled Indian and Negro blood, the sole living remnants of the +foundation he had loved so well. Nevertheless, +Eliot’s work was not wasted. The spark he lit has +never gone out wholly in men’s minds.</p> +<p>His wife died in 1684, at a great age, and her elegy over her +coffin were these words from himself: “Here lies my dear +faithful, pious, prudent, prayerful wife. I shall go to +her, but she shall not return to me.”</p> +<p><!-- page 32--><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +32</span>He had become very feeble, and was wont to say, when +asked how he did, “Alas! I have lost everything: my +understanding leaves me, my memory fails me, my utterance fails +me, but, I thank God, my charity holds out still; I find that +rather grows than fails.”</p> +<p>He was forced to give up the duties of his office to a new +pastor, and though often entreated to preach again, he would +hardly ever do so, by reason, he said, that it would be wronging +the souls of his people, when they had an able minister; and when +he preached for the last time on a fast day, on the 63rd Psalm, +it was with an apology for what he called the poorness, and +meanness, and brokenness of his meditations.</p> +<p>“I wonder,” he used to say, “for what the +Lord lets me live. He knows that now I can do nothing for +Him.”</p> +<p>Yet he was working for Him to the utmost of his power. A +little boy in the neighbourhood had fallen into the fire, and +lost his eyesight in consequence. The old minister took him +into his house to instruct, and first taught him to repeat many +chapters in the Bible, and to know it so thoroughly that when +listening to readers he could correct them if they missed a word; +after which he taught him Latin, so that an “ordinary +piece” had become easy to him.</p> +<p>The importation of negro slaves had already begun, and Mr. +Eliot “lamented with a bleeding and a burning passion that +the English used their negroes but as their horses or oxen, and +that so little care was taken about their immortal souls. +He look’d upon it as a prodigy, that any bearing the name +of Christians should so much have the heart of devils in them, as +to prevent and hinder the instruction of the poor Blackamores, +and confine the souls of their miserable slaves to a destroying +ignorance, merely through fear of using the benefit of their +vassalage.” So, old as he was, he induced the +settlers around to send him their negroes on certain days of the +week for instruction; but he had not made much progress in the +work before he became too feeble to carry it on. He fell +into languishments attended with fever, and this he viewed as his +summons. His successor, Mr. Nehemiah Walters, came to live +with him, and held a good deal of conversation with him.</p> +<p>“There is a cloud,” he said, “a dark cloud +upon the work of the Gospel among the poor Indians. The +Lord renew and prosper that work, and grant it may live when I am +dead. It <!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>is a work which I have been doing +much and long about. But what was the word I spoke +last? I recall that word. <i>My doings</i>. +Alas! they have been poor and small, and lean doings, and +I’ll be the man that shall throw the first stone at them +all.”</p> +<p>Mather relates that he spake other words “little short +of oracles,” and laments that they were not correctly +recorded; but it appears that he gradually sank, and died in his +eighty-seventh year of age, at Roxbury, in the year 1690. +His last words were, “Welcome joy.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II. DAVID BRAINERD, THE ENTHUSIAST.</h2> +<p>The Indian pastor of Natick, who had been trained by Mr. +Eliot, died in 1716, and two years later was born one of the men +who did all in his power, through his brief life, to hold up the +light of truth to the unfortunate natives of America, as they +were driven further and further to the west before the advancing +tide from Europe.</p> +<p>The fourth son among nine children, who lost both parents at a +very early age, David Brainerd, though born above the reach of +want, had many disadvantages to contend with. Both his +parents had, however, been religious people, the children of +ministers who had come out to America in the days of the Pilgrim +Fathers, and settling at Haddam in Connecticut, trained up their +families in the stern, earnest, and rigid rules and doctrines of +Calvinism, which certainly, where they are accepted by an earnest +and thoughtful mind, have a great tendency to stimulate the +intellect, and force forward, as it were, the religious +perceptions in early youth. David was, moreover, a delicate +child, with the seeds of (probably) hereditary decline incipient, +and at seven or eight years old he drew apart from play, thinking +much of death, and trying to prepare by prayer and +meditation. His parents’ death increased these +feelings, and while living at East Haddam, under the charge of +his brothers, and employed <!-- page 34--><a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>in farm work, +the boy was continually struggling with himself in silence, +disliking all youthful mirth and amusement, fasting, watching and +praying, and groaning over the state of his soul. At +nineteen, the wish to become a minister came upon him, and he +began to study hard at all spare moments; and in another year, at +twenty, he went to reside with Mr. Fiske, the minister of Haddam, +and in him found, for the first time, a friend to whom he could +open his heart, who could understand the anxieties and longings +within him, and who gave him advice to withdraw himself from the +young companions whose gay spirits were uncongenial to him, and +spend more time with the graver and more religious.</p> +<p>Whether this were good advice we do not know, but a period of +terrible agony had to be struggled through. It seems plain, +from comparison of different lives, that in the forms of religion +which make everything depend upon the individual person’s +own consciousness of the state of his heart and feelings, instead +of supporting this by any outward tokens for faith to rest upon, +the more humble and scrupulous spirits often undergo fearful +misery before they can attain to such security of their own faith +as they believe essential. Indeed, this state of +wretchedness is almost deemed a necessary stage in the Christian +life, like the Slough of Despond in the Pilgrim’s Progress; +and with such a temperament as David Brainerd’s, the +horrors of the struggle for hope were dreadful and lasted for +months, before an almost physical perception of light, glory, and +grace shone out upon him, although, even to the end of his life, +hope and fear, spiritual joy and depression alternated, no doubt, +greatly in consequence of his constant ill-health.</p> +<p>In 1739, in his twenty-first year, he became a student at +Yale, and, between hard work and his mental self-reproach for the +worldly ambition of distinction, his health broke down, +hæmorrhage from the lungs set in, and he was sent home, it +was supposed, only to die. He was then in a very happy +frame of mind, and was almost sorry to find himself well enough +to return to what he felt to be a scene of temptation. That +same year, his head was entirely turned by the excitement of +George Whitfield’s preaching; he was carried away by +religious enthusiasm, and was in a state of indiscreet zeal, of +which his better judgment afterwards repented, so that he <!-- +page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>destroyed all the portion of his journal that related to +that year. Indeed, his vehemence cost him dear, for, in the +heat of a discussion, he had the misfortune to say, “Mr. +Whittlesey, he has no more grace than this chair I am leaning +upon.” Mr. Whittlesey was one of the college tutors, +and a gossiping freshman who overheard the words thought proper +to report this to a meddling woman, who immediately walked off to +the Rector of the college with the awful intelligence that young +Brainerd said that Mr. Whittlesey had no more grace than a +chair!</p> +<p>The Rector had not the sense to silence the silly slander; he +sent for the freshman, took his evidence, and that of the young +men with whom Brainerd had been conversing, and then required him +to make public confession and amends to Mr. Whittlesey before the +whole assembled college,—a humiliation never previously +required, except in cases of gross moral misconduct. The +fact was, that the old-fashioned hereditary Presbyterianism, +which had had time to slacken in the hundred years since the +foundation of the colony, was dismayed at the new and vivid life +imported by Whitfield from the Wesleyan revival in the English +Church. It was what always happens. A mixture of +genuine sober-minded dread of extravagance, or new doctrine, and +a sluggish distaste to the more searching religion, combine to +lead to a spirit of persecution. This was the true reason +that the lad’s youthful rashness of speech was treated as +so grave an offence. Brainerd’s spirit was up. +Probably he saw no cause to alter his opinion as to Mr. +Whittlesey’s amount of grace, and he stoutly refused to +retract his words, whereupon he was found guilty of +insubordination, and actually expelled from Yale. A council +of ministers who assembled at Hartford petitioned for his +restoration, but were refused, the authorities deeming themselves +well rid of a dangerous fanatic.</p> +<p>Still, as a youth of blameless life and ardent piety, he was +encouraged by his friends to continue his preparation for the +ministry, and he persisted in reading hard, and going out between +whiles to meditate in the depths of the glorious woods. It +is curious that while his homely and rigid system precluded any +conscious admiration of the beauties of nature, it is always +evident from his journal that the lightenings of hope and joy +which relieved his too frequent depression and melancholy, <!-- +page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +36</span>were connected with the scenery and the glories of day +and night. Sunrise and the aurora borealis seem to have +filled him with spiritual bliss, and he never was so happy as +when deep in the woods, out of the sight of men; but his morbid, +sensitive, excitable nature never seems to have been understood +by himself or by others.</p> +<p>Just as John Eliot’s missionary zeal was the outcome of +the earnestness that carried the Puritans to New England, so the +fresh infusion of religious life, brought by Whitfield, produced +an ardent desire on the part of David Brainerd to devote himself +to the remainder of the Indians; and in the year 1742, at +twenty-five years old, he was examined by an assembly of +ministers at Danbury, and licensed to preach the Gospel, when he +began at once with a little settlement of Indians at Kent, with +such a sinking of heart at his own unworthiness that he says he +seemed to himself worse than any devil, and almost expected to +have been stoned rather than listened to. Indeed, something +of this diffidence and sadness seems always to have weighed him +down when he began to preach, though the fervour of his subject +and the responding faces of his audience always exhilarated him +and bore him up through his sermon. To learn the Indian +language had not occurred to him as part of his preparation, but +probably these Kent Red men had been enough among the English to +understand him, for they seem to have been much impressed.</p> +<p>A Scottish Society for propagating Christian Knowledge had +arisen, and the delegates hearing of the zeal of David Brainerd, +desired to engage him at a salary. The sense of his own +unworthiness, and fear of keeping out a better man, brought his +spirits down to the lowest ebb; nevertheless, he went to meet the +representatives of the Society at New York, and there, though +between the hubbub of the town and his own perpetual +self-condemnation he was continually wretched, they were so well +satisfied with him as to give him the appointment, on condition +that he studied the language, intending to send him to the Red +men between the Susquehanna and the Delaware; but there was a +dispute between these and the Government, and it was decided to +send him to a settlement called Kanaumeek, between Stockbridge +and Albany.</p> +<p>Before going, David Brainerd, having no thought beyond +devotion to the Indians, and thinking his allowance enough <!-- +page 37--><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>for his wants, gave up the whole of his inheritance to +support a scholar at the University, and set forth, undaunted by +such weakness of health as in ordinary eyes would have fitted him +for nothing but to be carefully nursed; for even then he was +continually suffering from pain and dizziness, and weakness so +great that he could often hardly stand.</p> +<p>In this state he arrived at Kanaumeek, with a young Indian to +act as his interpreter, and there spent the first night sleeping +on a heap of straw. It was a lonely, melancholy spot, where +the Indians were herded together, watched with jealous eyes by +adventurers who were always endeavouring to seize their lands, +and sadly degenerated from the free, grave, high-spirited men to +whom Eliot had preached. His first lodging was in the log +house of a poor Scotchman who lived among the Indians—a +single chamber, without so much as a floor, and where he shared +the family meals upon porridge, boiled corn, and +girdle-cakes. The family spoke Gaelic, only the master of +the house knowing any English, and that not so good as the Indian +interpreter’s; and, moreover, the spot was a mile and a +half from the Indian wigwams, no small consideration to so weakly +a man, thus poorly fed. However, the Indians were pleased +with his addresses, and seemed touched by them; but the evil +habits of the White men were the terrible stumbling-block. +Parties of them would come into the town, and vex the +missionary’s ears with their foul tongues, making a +scandalous contrast to the grave, calm manners of the +Indians. More than ever did he love solitude, and when with +his own hands he had built himself a log hut, where he could be +alone when he pleased, his relief was great.</p> +<p>He was not the highly educated scholar and practical theorist +that his predecessor had been: he seems to have had no plans or +systems, and merely to have tried to fulfil immediate needs; but +he soon found that he could not hope to benefit his Red flock +without a school, so he made a journey to New Jersey to entreat +for means to set one up, and this was done, with his interpreter +as master. His journey was made on horseback, and was no +small undertaking, for even between Stockbridge and Kanaumeek he +had once lost his way, and had to sleep a night in the woods.</p> +<p>He had by this time thoroughly repented of the +uncharitableness and hastiness of his speech about Mr. +Whittlesey, and <!-- page 38--><a name="page38"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 38</span>he took a journey to New Haven to +send in a thoroughly humble and Christian-like apology, +requesting to be permitted to take his degree. Twice he was +refused, and the third time was told that the only condition on +which the degree would be granted would be the making up his term +of residence at Yale, which was, of course, not possible to a +licensed minister in full employment, and in fact was an +insulting proposal to a man of his standing and character.</p> +<p>His journey cost him dear, for as he was riding home he was +attacked with violent pain in the face and shiverings, which +forced him to halt at the first shelter he could find, happily +with kind friends, who nursed him for a fortnight before he could +return home. He believed that had his illness seized him in +his log house at home, he must certainly have died for want of +care and attendance, although he was much beloved by his poor +Indians.</p> +<p>His life was indeed a frightfully hard one, and would have +been so for a healthy man; for he had to work with his own hands +to store provisions for his horse in the winter, and that when +weak and suffering the more for want of proper food. He +could get no bread but by riding ten or fifteen miles to procure +it, and if he brought home too much it became mouldy and sour, +while, if he brought home a small quantity, he could not go for +more if he failed to catch his horse, which was turned out to +graze in the woods; so that he was reduced to making little cakes +of Indian meal, which he fried in the ashes. “And +then,” he says, “I blessed God as if I had been a +king.” “I have a house and many of the comforts +of life to support me,” he says with great satisfaction; +and the solitude of that house was so precious to him that, +however weary he was, he would ride back twenty miles to it at +night rather than spend an evening among ungodly men. By +this terrible stinting of what we should deem the necessaries of +life, he was actually able, in fifteen months, to devote a +hundred pounds to charitable purposes, besides keeping the young +man at the University.</p> +<p>So much, however, did he love his solitude, that he counted it +as no relief, but an affliction, to have to ride to Stockbridge +from time to time to learn the Indian language from Mr. Sergeant, +the missionary there stationed. Something of this must have +been morbid feeling, something from the want of energy consequent +on the condition of his frame. For a man <!-- page 39--><a +name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>in confirmed +decline such an entry in a journal as this is no +trifle:—“December 20.—Rode to +Stockbridge. Was very much fatigued with my journey, +wherein I underwent great hardship; was much exposed, and very +wet by falling into a river.” Mr. Sergeant could +hardly have been profane company, but Brainerd never enjoyed +these visits, thinking that intercourse with the world made him +less familiar with heaven.</p> +<p>Another inconvenience was the proximity of Kanaumeek to the +frontier, and these were the days of that horrid war between +England and France in America, when the native allies of each +nation made savage descents on the outlying settlements, +inflicting all the flagrant outrages of their wild warfare. +A message came one evening to Kanaumeek from Colonel Stoddart, +warning all in exposed situations to secure themselves as well as +possible, since an attack might come at any moment; and this +Brainerd quietly records as a salutary warning not to attach +himself too much to the <i>comforts of life</i> he enjoyed.</p> +<p>The attack was never made, but he came to the conclusion that +his small congregation of Indians would be much better with their +fellows at Stockbridge under the care of Mr. Sergeant, and that +this would leave him free to go to more wild and untaught +tribes. It was carried out, and the Indians removed. +There was much mutual love between them and their pastor, and the +parting was very affectionate, though even after two years he was +still unable to speak the language, and never seems to have +troubled himself about this trifling obstacle. Several +English congregations entreated him to become their minister, but +he refused them all, and went to meet the Commissioners of the +Scottish Society at New Jersey. They arranged with him for +a mission to the Delaware Indians, in spite of his being laid up +for some days at the time; and when he went back to Kanaumeek to +dispose of his books and other “comforts,” the +effects of being drenched with rain showed themselves in +continued bleeding from the lungs. He knew that he was +often in an almost dying state, and only wished to continue in +his Master’s service to the end he longed for. He +owns that his heart did sometimes sink at the thought of going +alone into the wilderness; but he thought of Abraham, and took +courage, riding alone through the depths of the forest, so +desolate and lonely day after day, that it struck terror even +into his soul. There were scanty settlements of Dutch and +Irish, where he sometimes <!-- page 40--><a +name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>spent a +night, but the Sunday he passed among some Irish was so entirely +unmarked by them, that he felt like a “creature banished +from the sight of God.”</p> +<p>At last he reached his destination on the fork of the river +Delaware, and being within moderate distance of Newark, there +received ordination as a minister on the 11th of June, +1744. Severe illness followed the exertion of preaching and +praying before the convened ministers; but as soon as he could +walk, he set forth on his return, though he was so weak that he +could hardly open his numbed hand, but his heart and hopes had +begun to revive, and the little settlement of Whites with whom he +lived were willing to listen to him.</p> +<p>The Indians were in the midst of preparing for an idolatrous +feast and dance. Brainerd spent a day in the woods in an +anguish of prayer, and then went to the place of meeting, where, +stranger as he was, he prevailed on them to cease their revels +and attend to him.</p> +<p>His biographer, President Jonathan Edwards, provokingly leaves +out his method of teaching, “for the sake of +brevity,” and from his own diary little is to be gathered +but accounts of his state of feeling through endless journeyings +and terrible prostrations of strength. He was always +travelling about—now to the Susquehanna, now back to New +England—apparently at times with the restlessness of +disease, for this roving about must have prevented him from ever +deepening the impression made by his preaching, which after all +was only through an interpreter, for he never gave himself time +to learn the language.</p> +<p>Yet after some months he did find a settlement of Indians, +about eighty miles from the fork of Delaware, at a place called +Crossweeksung, who were far more disposed to attend to him. +They listened so eagerly, that day after day they would travel +after him from village to village, hardly taking any heed to +secure provisions for themselves. The description of their +conduct is like that of those touched by Wesleyan +preaching. They threw themselves on the ground, wept +bitterly, and prayed aloud, with the general enthusiasm of +excitement, though, he expressly says, without fainting or +convulsions, and even the White men around, who came to scoff, +were deeply impressed.</p> +<p>David Brainerd had at last his hour of bliss! He was +delivered from his melancholy by the joy of such results, and in +trembling <!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 41</span>happiness baptized his converts in +the river beside their wigwams before leaving them to proceed to +a village on the Susquehanna, where he hoped for an interview +with the chief Sachem of the Delawares.</p> +<p>The place, however, was in the wildest confusion and uproar, +it being the period of a great festival, when every one was too +tipsy to attend to him. At an island called Juneauta, he +met a very remarkable personage, a Powaw, who bore the reputation +of a reformer, anxious to restore the ancient religion of the Red +man, which had become corrupted by intercourse with the White and +his vices.</p> +<p>His aspect was the most dreadful thing Brainerd had ever +seen. He wore a shaggy bearskin coat, hood, and stockings, +and a hideous, painted mask, so that no part of his person was +visible, not even the hand in which he held an instrument made of +the shell of a tortoise, with dry corn within, and he came up +rattling this, and dancing with all his might, and with such +gesticulations that, though assured that he intended no injury, +it was impossible not to shrink back as this savage creature came +close.</p> +<p>Yet he was a thoughtful man, such as would have been a +philosopher in ancient Greece or Rome. He took the +missionary into his hut, and conversed long and earnestly with +him. He had revolted in spirit from the degradation of his +countrymen, and had gone to live apart in the woods, where he had +worked out a system of natural religion for himself, which he +believed the Great Spirit had taught him, and which had at last +led him to return to his people and endeavour to restore them to +that purity which of course he believed to have once +existed. He believed there were good men somewhere, and he +meant to wander till he found them; meantime, he was kindly to +all who came near him, and constantly uplifted his testimony +against their vices, especially when the love of strong drink was +brought among them. When all was in vain, he would go +weeping away into the woods, and hide himself there till the +hateful fire-water was all consumed and the madness over. +Brainerd was greatly touched by this red-skinned Epictetus, who, +he said, had more honesty, sincerity, and conscientiousness than +he had ever met with in an Indian, and more of the temper of true +religion; and he expounded to him the Christian doctrine with +great carefulness and double earnestness. The <!-- page +42--><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>self-taught philosopher broke in now and then with +“Now that I like,”—“So the Great Spirit +has taught me;” but when the missionary came to the regions +where faith surpasses the power of the intellect and the moral +sense, the Indian would not follow him, and rejected his +teaching. It was curious that he particularly denied the +idea of a devil, declaring that there was no such being, +according to the ancient Indians. Now, the incantations of +the Powaws were generally supposed to be addressed to evil +spirits, and probably the perception of the falsehood of these +pretended rites led to his disclaiming the Christian +doctrine.</p> +<p>Whether time and further teaching would have overpowered his +belief in his own inspiration does not appear, for Brainerd found +the Indians too vicious and hardened to pay the least heed either +to him or to their own reformer; and he went back to +Crossweeksung, where his flock was still increasing, and in a +most satisfactory condition, renouncing their heathen customs and +their acquired vice of drunkenness, and practising some amount of +industry. A school was set up, old and young learnt +English, the children in three or four months could read the +Bible in English, and Brainerd’s sermons and prayers were +understood without an interpreter.</p> +<p>This improved condition of the Indians destroyed the shameful +profits of the nearest settlement of Whites, whose practice it +had hitherto been to entice them to drink, and then run up a +heavy score against them for liquor. Finding that all +endeavours to seduce them into drunkenness were now vain, these +wretches first tried to raise the country against Brainerd, by +reporting that he was a Roman Catholic in disguise; and when this +failed, they laid claim to the lands of Crossweeksung, in +discharge of debts that they declared to have been previously +contracted. Fortunately, Brainerd had it in his power to +advance 82<i>l.</i> from his private means, so as to save his +people from this extortion; but he afterwards thought it best to +remove them from these dangerous neighbours to a new settlement, +fifteen miles off, called Cranberry. He remained himself in +his little hut at Crossweeksung, after they had proceeded to +raise wigwams and prepare the ground for maize; but, whenever he +rode over to visit them, his approach was notified by the sound +of a conch shell, and they all gathered round for his prayers and +instruction.</p> +<p><!-- page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +43</span>His success with them seems to have greatly cured his +depression of spirits, but his mind was balancing between the +expedience of remaining among them as their permanent pastor, +protector, and guide, and that of striving to extend the kingdom +of faith. Sometimes he liked the prospect of a settled home +and repose, study and meditation; but, at the thought of gaining +souls to Christ, all these considerations melted before him, and +he believed that he was marked out for the life of a pilgrim and +hermit by his carelessness about hardships.</p> +<p>He had not, however, taken leave of his flock when he set +forth on another expedition to the obdurate Indians of the +Susquehanna, in the September of 1746. It was without +result; he could obtain no attention, and the hardships of the +journey, the night exposure, and the frequent drenchings +completed the wreck of his health. He came back with night +perspirations, bleeding from the lungs, and suffering greatly, +feverish and coughing, and often in pain; yet, whenever he could +mount his horse, riding the fifteen miles to attend to the +Indians at Cranberry, or sitting in a chair before his hut, when +they assembled round him.</p> +<p>On Sunday he persisted in preaching, till generally at the end +of half an hour he fainted, and was carried to his bed; and at +the administration of the Lord’s Supper he was carried to +the place where he had forty Indian communicants, and likewise +some Whites, who had learnt to reverence him, and who supported +him back to his bed. He was quite happy now, for he felt he +had done all he could to the utmost of his strength; but, soon +becoming totally unable to speak at all, he felt that he must do +what he called “consuming some time in diversions,” +and try to spend the winter in a civilized place.</p> +<p>After riding his first short stage, however, his illness +increased so much, that he was quite incapable of proceeding or +returning, and remained in a friend’s house at +Elizabethtown, suffering from cough, asthma, and fever the whole +winter. In March 1747 he had rallied enough to ride to +Cranberry, where he went from hut to hut, giving advice to and +praying with each family, and parting with them with great +tenderness. Tears were shed everywhere; for, though he +still hoped to return, all felt that they should see his face no +more! But, to his great comfort and joy, his poor people +were not to be abandoned to <!-- page 44--><a +name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>themselves +and their tempters. His younger +brother—John—relieved his mind by offering to assume +the care of them, and under his pastorship he could thankfully +leave them.</p> +<p>In April he set out again on his journey, at the rate of about +ten miles a day, riding all the way, and on the 28th of May +arrived at Northampton, where Jonathan Edwards, afterwards +President of the College of New Jersey, was then minister. +They were like-minded men, both disciples of Whitfield, and the +self-devoted piety of the young missionary was already so well +known to Mr. Edwards by report, that it was most gladly that he +received him into his house and family. There the +impression Brainerd made was of a singularly social, entertaining +person, meek and unpretending, but manly and independent. +Probably rest and brightness had come when the terrible struggle +of his early years had ceased, and morbid despondency had given +way to Christian hope, for he became at once a bright and +pleasant member of any society where he formed a part, and to the +Edwards family he was like a son or brother. When he was +able, Mr. Edwards wished him to lead the family devotions, and +was always greatly impressed by the manner and matter of his +prayers, but one petition never failed, <i>i.e.</i> “that +we might not outlive our usefulness.” Even in saying +grace there was always something about him that struck the +attention.</p> +<p>His purpose in coming to Northampton had been to consult Dr. +Mather, whose verdict was that he was far gone in decline, and +who gave him no advice but to ride as much as possible. So +little difference did this sentence make to him that he never +noted it in his diary, though he spoke of it cheerily in the +Edwards family—a large household of young +people—where he was so much beloved, that when he decided +to go to Boston, Jerusha, the second daughter, entreated to be +allowed to accompany him, to nurse him as his sister would have +done.</p> +<p>The pure, severe simplicity of those early American manners +was such, that no one seems to have been surprised at a girl of +eighteen becoming the attendant of a man of twenty-nine. +Jerusha had the full consent and approbation of her parents, and +she was a great comfort and delight to him. He told her +father that she was more spiritual, self denying, and earnest to +do good, than any young person he had ever known; and on <!-- +page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +45</span>doubt their communings were far above earth, hovering, +as he was well known to be, upon the very borders of the +grave.</p> +<p>They took four days to reach Boston, and there he was received +with the greatest respect by all the ministers; but, a week after +his arrival, so severe an attack of his illness came on that he +became delirious, and was thought to be at the point of +death. Again, however, he came back enough to life to sit +up in bed and write ardent letters of counsel to the brother who +had succeeded him among his Indians, and likewise to give his +friends the assurance of his perfect peace and joy. He said +that he had carefully examined himself, and though he had found +much pride, selfishness, and corruption, he was still certain +that he had felt it his greatest happiness to glorify and praise +God; and this certainty, together with his faith in the Redeemer, +had calmed all the anguish he had suffered for years.</p> +<p>Whenever he was able to converse he had numerous visitors, +especially from the deputies of the Society in London which had +assisted Eliot. A legacy for the support of two +missionaries had newly been received, and his counsel on the mode +of employing it was asked. He was able to strive to imbue +others with the same zeal as himself, and to do much on behalf of +his own mission, although he often lay so utterly exhausted that +he said of himself that he could not understand how life could be +retained. One of his brothers, a student at Yale, came to +see him, and to tell him of the death of his favourite sister, of +whose illness he had not even heard, but it was no shock to him, +for he felt far more sure of meeting her again than if she had +been left on earth.</p> +<p>The summer weather, to the surprise of all, brought back a +slight revival of strength, and some of his friends began to hope +he might yet recover, but he knew his own state too well, and +told them he was as assuredly a dead man as if he had been shot +through the heart; still he was resolved to profit by this +partial restoration to return to Northampton, chiefly because the +rumour had reached him that the Bostonians had intended to give +him such a funeral as should testify their great esteem; and +being disappointed in this, they intended to assemble and escort +him publicly, while still alive, out of their city, but the bare +idea naturally made him so unhappy that they were forced to give +it up.</p> +<p><!-- page 46--><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +46</span>Five days were spent in the journey, and again the +Edwardses reverentially opened their doors to a guest so near +heaven. For some time he rode out two or three miles daily, +and sat with the family, writing or conversing cheerfully when +not engaged in prayer. His brother John came from +Crossweeksung and cheered him with a good account of his Indians; +and hearing of the great need of another school, he wrote to the +friends who had shown themselves so warmly interested in him at +Boston, and was gratified by their reply, with a subscription of +200<i>l.</i> for the purpose, and of 75<i>l.</i> for the mission +to the Six Nations. His answers were written with his own +hand; but he had become so much weaker that he felt this his last +task. He had been one who, in his short life, had sown in +tears to reap in joy.</p> +<p>He was sinking fast as the autumn cold came on, often talking +tenderly to the little ones of the house, but suffering terribly +at times, and sighing, “Why is His chariot so long +coming?” then blaming himself for over-haste to be +released.</p> +<p>He had a smile for Jerusha as she came into his room on Sunday +morning. “Are you willing to part with me? I am +willing to part with you, though if I thought I could not see you +and be happy with you in another world, I could not bear to +part. I am willing to leave all my friends. I am +willing to leave my brother, though I love him better than any +creature living. I have committed him and all my friends to +God, and can leave them with God!”</p> +<p>Presently, looking at the Bible in her hands, he said, +“Oh that dear Book! the mysteries in it and in God’s +providence will soon be unfolded.”</p> +<p>He lingered in great agony at times till the 9th of October, +1747, when came a cessation of pain, and during this lull he +breathed his last, then wanting six months of his thirtieth +birthday. He had told Jerusha that they should soon meet +above, and, in effect, she only lived until the next +February. She told her father on her death-bed, that for +years past she had not seen the time when she had any wish to +live a moment longer, save for the sake of doing good and filling +up the measure of her duty.</p> +<p>David Brainerd’s career ended at an age when John +Eliot’s had not begun. It was a very wonderful +struggle between the frail suffering body and the devoted, +resolute spirit, both <!-- page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 47</span>weighed down by the natural morbid +temper, further depressed by the peculiar tenets of the form of +doctrine in which he had been bred. The prudent, +well-weighed measures of the ripe scholar, studious theologian, +and conscientious politician, formed by forty-two years’ +experience of an old and a new country, could not be looked for +in the sickly, self-educated, enthusiastic youth who had been +debarred from the due amount of study, and started with little +system but that of “proclaiming the +Gospel”—even though ignorant of the language of those +to whom he preached. And yet that heart-whole piety and +patience was blessed with a full measure of present success, and +David Brainerd’s story, though that of a short life, +over-clouded by mental distress, hardship, and sickness, fills us +with the joyful sense that there is One that giveth the +victory.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III. CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH SCHWARTZ, THE +COUNCILLOR OF TANJORE.</h2> +<p>We must turn from America to the warmer regions of the East, +from the patriarchal savage to complicated forms of society, and +from the Red-skin to the Hindoo—a man of far nearer +affinity to ourselves, being, like us, of the great Indo-European +race, speaking a language like our own, an altered, corrupted, +and intermingled dialect of the same original tongue, and his +ancestors originally professing a religion in which the same +primary ideas may be traced as those which were held by our +ancient northern forefathers, and which are familiar to us in the +graceful dress imposed on them by the Greeks. The sacred +writings of the Hindoos form the earliest storehouse of the words +of our common language, and the thoughts therein found, though +recorded after the branches had parted from the common stock, are +nearer the universal germ than those to be found anywhere else, +and more nearly represent the primary notion of religion held by +the race of Japheth, after that of Shem, to which God revealed +Himself more distinctly, had parted from it. These oldest +writings <!-- page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 48</span>are quaint, pure, and simple, but on +them the fancies of a race enervated by climate engrafted much +that was hideous, monstrous, and loathsome, leading to gross +idolatry, and much vice perpetrated in the name of +religion. Mythology always degenerates with the popular +character, and then, so far as the character is formed by the +religious faith, the mythology helps to debase it further, until +the undying moral sense of conscience awakens again in some man, +or band of men, and a new morality arises; sometimes grafted upon +philosophic reasoning, sometimes upon a newly-invented or freshly +introduced religion.</p> +<p>Thus, when Hindooism had become corrupt, the deeply meditative +system of Buddha was introduced into many parts of India, and +certainly brought a much higher theory and purer code than that +founded on the garbled nature-worship of ancient India; but both +religions co-existed, and, indeed, Buddhism was in one aspect an +offshoot of the Hindoo faith.</p> +<p>Christianity—planted, as is believed, by St. Thomas, on +the Malabar coast—never became wholly extinct, although +tinged with Nestorianism, but it was never adopted by the natives +at large, and the learning and philosophy of the Brahmins would +have required the utmost powers of the most learned fathers of +the Church to cope with them, before they could have been +convinced.</p> +<p>The rigid distinctions of caste have made it more difficult +for the Church which “preaches the Gospel to the +poor,” to be accepted in India than anywhere else. +Accounting himself sprung from the head of Brahma, the Brahmin +deems himself, and is deemed by others, as lifted to an elevation +which has no connection either with moral goodness, with wealth, +or with power; and which is as much the due of the most +poverty-stricken and wicked member of the caste as of the most +magnificent priest. The Sudras, the governing and warlike +class, are next in order, having sprung from the god’s +breast, and beneath these come infinite grades of caste, their +subdivisions each including every man of each trade or calling +which he pursues hereditarily and cannot desert or change, save +under the horrible penalty of losing caste, and becoming forsaken +and despised of every creature, even the nearest kindred. +The mere eating from a vessel used to contain food for a person +of a different caste is enough to produce contamination; <!-- +page 49--><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>the separation is complete, and the whole constitution +of body and mind have become so inured to the distinction, that +the cost of becoming a convert is infinitely severer in India +than ever it could have been even in Greece or Rome, where, +though the Christian might be persecuted even to the death, he +was not thrust out of the pale of humanity like a Hindoo convert +who transgresses caste.</p> +<p>The Christians of Malabar are a people living to themselves, +and the great Bengalee nations never appear to have had the +Gospel carried to them. The Mahometan conquest filled India +with professors of the faith of the Koran; but these were a +dominant race, proud and separate from the mass of people, whom +they did not win to their faith, and thus the Hindoo idolatry had +prevailed untouched for almost the whole duration of the world, +when the wealth of India in the early days of naval enterprise +first began to tempt small mercantile companies of Europeans to +form factories on the coast merely for purposes of traffic, +without at first any idea that these would lead to possession or +conquest, and, in general, without any sense of the +responsibility of coming as Christians into a heathen world.</p> +<p>The Portuguese did indeed strive earnestly to Christianize +their territory at Goa; and they promoted by all means in their +power the labours of Francisco Xavier and his Jesuit companions, +so effectually that the fruits of their teaching have remained to +the present day.</p> +<p>Neither were the Dutch, who then held Ceylon, entirely +careless of the duty of instructing their subjects; and the +Danes, who had obtained the town of Tranquebar on the Coromandel +coast, in 1746, sent out a mission which was vigorously +conducted, and met with good success. Hitherto, however, +the English at Madras and Calcutta had been almost wholly +indifferent, and it must be remembered that theirs was not a +Government undertaking. The East India Company was still +only a struggling corporation of merchants and traders, who only +wanted to secure the warehouses and dwellings of those who +conducted their traffic, and had as yet no thought of anything +but the security of their trade; often, indeed, considering +themselves pledged to no interference with the religion of the +people around, and too often forgetting their own. However, +the Danish mission received grants of <!-- page 50--><a +name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>money and +books from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and the +first Indian missionary of any note, a German by birth, was +equally connected with both England and Denmark.</p> +<p>Sonnenburg in Brandenburg, still an electorate at the time, +was the native home of Christian Friedrich Schwartz, of whose +parents it is only known that they appear to have been in easy +circumstances, and that his mother, who died before he could +remember, told her husband and her pastor on her death-bed, that +she had dedicated her infant to the service of God, imploring +them to cherish and forward any inclination towards the +ministerial office that might be visible in him. It was, of +course, the Lutheran form in which the child of this pious woman +was bred up, and in 1734 he was sent to the grammar school of +Sonnenburg, where his piety was first excited by a religious +master, then cooled by an indifferent one; and he was then taken +by his father, walking on foot the whole way, to pursue his +studies at Custrin. There he became beset by the +temptations that surrounded young students, and after giving way +to them for a time, was saved from further evil by the influence +of the daughter of one of the Syndics. It does not appear +to have been a matter of sentiment, but of honest friendship and +good counsel, aiding the young man to follow his better instead +of his worse impulses; and thus giving a labourer to the +vineyard.</p> +<p>Before residing at Custrin, this lady had lived for a time at +Halle, and what she told the young Schwartz of the professors at +that university, inspired him with the desire of completing his +course under them, especially August Hermann Francke, who had +established an admirable orphan house, with an excellent grammar +school.</p> +<p>In his twentieth year, Schwartz entered at Halle, but lodged +at the orphan house, where he became teacher to the Latin +classes, and was put in charge of the evening devotions of the +household. At Halle, he met a retired Danish missionary, +named Schultz, who had come thither to superintend the printing +of a version of the Bible in Tamul, the language of Ceylon and of +the Coromandel coast; and this it was that first turned his mind +to the thought of offering himself as a worker in the great field +of India.</p> +<p>He was the eldest of the family, and his friends all declared +<!-- page 51--><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +51</span>that it was impossible that his father should consent to +part with him; but when he went home, and earnestly stated his +desire, the elder Schwartz, instead of at once refusing as all +expected, desired to take three days to consider; and when they +were passed, he came gravely down from his chamber, called his +son Christian, gave him his blessing, and told him to depart in +God’s name, charging him to forget his own country and his +father’s house, and to win many souls to Christ.</p> +<p>And certainly that good old German’s blessing went forth +with his son. Christian Schwartz next resigned his share in +the family property to his brothers and sisters; and after +completing his studies at Halle, went to Copenhagen, since it was +by the Danish government that he was to be authorized. Two +other young Germans, named Poltzenheigen and Hutteman, went with +him. The Danes, though Lutherans in profession, have an +Episcopal hierarchy, and the three students were ordained by the +Danish Bishop Horreboa on the 6th of September, 1749; Christian +Schwartz being then within a month of twenty-three.</p> +<p>Their first stage was to England, where they had to learn the +language, and were entertained at the cost of the Society for +Promoting Christian Knowledge. Mr. Ziegenhagen, German +chaplain to George II., was very kind to his countrymen, helped +them in all their difficulties, and gave them directions for +which they were very grateful. He made them preach in the +Chapel Royal on Christmas Day. No doubt the language was +German, which must have been acceptable to the Hanoverian +ears.</p> +<p>Their English studies were not greatly prolonged, for they +arrived on the 8th of December, 1749, and sailed on the 29th of +January, 1750, in an East India Company’s ship, where they +were allowed a free passage, and were treated with respect and +friendliness. The voyage lasted long enough to improve them +in English, for they did not cast anchor at Tranquebar till the +8th of October.</p> +<p>At this considerable Danish factory, they were received into +the mission-house of the Danes, and there remained while studying +the language, in which Schwartz made so much progress that he +preached his first Tamul sermon only four months after his +arrival, and by the spring was able to catechize the children who +attended the school. This station at Tranquebar <!-- page +52--><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>formed the home of seven or eight missionaries, who +lived together, attended to the services and schools, prepared +candidates for baptism, and made excursions by ones and twos into +the villages that stood thickly on the coast, where they talked +and argued with the natives, hoping to incite them to inquire +further. The two greatest obstacles they met with here were +the evil example of Europeans and the difficulty of maintenance +for a convert. One poor dancing girl said, on hearing that +no unholy person could enter into the kingdom of heaven, +“Ah! sir, then no European will;” but, on the whole, +they must have met with good success, for in 1752 there were +three large classes of catechumens prepared and baptized at the +station. In the district around there were several +villages, where congregations of Christians existed, and, of all +those south of the river Caveri, Schwartz was after two more +years made the superintendent.</p> +<p>The simple habits of these German and Danish clergy eminently +fitted them for such journeys; they set out in pairs on foot, +after a farewell of united prayer from their brethren, carrying +with them their Hebrew Bibles, and attended by a few Christian +servants and coolies; they proceeded from village to village, +sometimes sleeping in the house of a Hindoo merchant, sometimes +at that of one the brother ministers they had come to see, and at +every halt conversing and arguing with Hindoo or Mahometan, or +sometimes with the remnants of the Christians converted by the +Portuguese, who had been so long neglected that they had little +knowledge of any faith.</p> +<p>The character of Christian Schwartz was one to influence all +around him. He seems to have had all the quiet German +patience and endurance of hardship, without much excitability, +and with a steadiness of judgment and intense honesty and +integrity, that disposed every one to lean on him and rely on him +for their temporal as well as their spiritual matters—great +charity and warmth of heart, and a shrewdness of perception that +made him excellent in argument. He had also that true +missionary gift, a great facility of languages, both in grammar +and pronunciation, and his utter absence of all regard for his +own comfort or selfish dignity, yet his due respect to times and +places made him able to penetrate everywhere, from the hut to the +palace.</p> +<p>The Carnatic war was at this time an impediment, by keeping +<!-- page 53--><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +53</span>the minds of all the natives in a state of excitement +and anxiety, from dread of Mahratta incursions; but Schwartz +never intermitted his rounds, and was well supported by the +Danish Governor, a good man, who often showed himself his +friend. Some of the missionaries were actually made +prisoners when the French took Cuddalore, but Count Lally +Tollendal was very kind to them, and sent them with all their +property and converts safely away to Tranquebar.</p> +<p>The Dutch missionaries in Ceylon had been in correspondence +with those of Tranquebar, and had obtained from them copies of +their Tamul Bible, and in 1760 Schwartz was sent on a visit to +them. He was very well received by both clergy and laity; +and though he was laid up by a severe illness at Colombo, yet he +was exceedingly well contented with his journey and his +conferences with his brethren.</p> +<p>Christian Schwartz had been more than sixteen years in India, +and was forty years of age, before his really distinctive and +independent work began, after his long training in the central +station at Tranquebar.</p> +<p>The neighbouring district of Tanjore had at different times +been visited, and the ministers of the Rajah had shown themselves +willing to bestow some reflection on what they heard from the +missionaries. Visits to this place and to Trichinopoly +became frequent with him, and in 1766 the Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge having decided on planting a mission station +in the latter place, he was appointed to take the charge of +it.</p> +<p>About this time he seems to have accommodated his name to +English pronunciation, and to have always written it +Swartz. It was now that he became acquainted with William +Chambers, Esq., brother to the Chief Justice of Bengal,—not +a Company’s servant, but a merchant, and an excellent man, +who took great interest in missionary labours, and himself +translated a great part of St. Matthew’s Gospel into +Persian, the court language of India. From a letter of this +gentleman, we obtain the only description we possess of +Swartz’s appearance and manners. He says that, from +the descriptions he had heard, he had expected to see a very +austere and strict person, but “the first sight of him made +a complete revolution on this point. His garb, indeed, +which was pretty well worn, seemed foreign and old-fashioned, but +in every other respect his appearance <!-- page 54--><a +name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>was the +reverse of all that could be called forbidding or morose. +Figure to yourself a stout well-made man, somewhat above the +middle size, erect in his carriage and address, with a complexion +rather dark though healthy, black curled hair, and a manly +engaging countenance, expressive of unaffected candour, +ingenuousness, and benevolence, and you will have an idea of what +Mr. Swartz appeared to be at first sight.” Mr. +Chambers adds that Swartz’s whole allowance at Trichinopoly +was ten pagodas a year, that is, about 48<i>l.</i> (as Mr. +Chambers estimates it). The commanding officer of the +English garrison was ordered to supply him with quarters, and +gave him a room in an old native building, where “there was +just room for his bed and himself, and in which few men could +stand upright.” With this lodging he was +content. His food was rice and vegetables dressed native +fashion, and his clothes were made of black dimity. The +little brass lamp which he had used for his studies at the +University went with him to India, and served him all his life, +often late at night, for he never preached even to the natives +without much study.</p> +<p>He found the English without church or chaplain, and had very +little knowledge of their language, having lived almost entirely +among Germans, Danes, and natives; but he quickly picked it up +among the soldiers, to whom his kindly simple manners commended +him; and, as soon as he could speak it to any degree, he began to +read the Church Service every Sunday to the garrison, with a +printed sermon from an English divine, until he had obtained +sufficient fluency to preach extempore. At first, the place +of meeting was a large room in an old building, but he afterwards +persuaded them to build themselves a church capable of holding +from 1,500 to 2,000. His facility in learning languages +must have been great, for the English of his letters is +excellent, unless his biographer, Dean Pearson, has altered +it. It is not at all like that of a German. His +influence with the soldiers was considered as something +wonderful, in those times of neglect and immorality, and the +commandant and his wife—Colonel and Mrs. Wood—were +his warmest friends; and when the Government at Madras heard of +his voluntary services as chaplain, they granted him, +unsolicited, a salary of 100<i>l.</i> a year, of which he devoted +half to the service of his congregation. He was thus able +to build a mission-house, and an English and a Tamul school, +labour and materials being alike <!-- page 55--><a +name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>cheap. +But, in spite of all his care of the English soldiery, the +natives were his chief thought; and he was continually among +them, reading and arguing home with the most thorough knowledge +and experience of their difficulties. He made expeditions +from Trichinopoly to Tanjore, then under the government of a +Rajah, under the protection of the British Government. The +principal worship of the place was directed to an enormous black +bull, said to be hewn out of a single block of granite, and so +large that the temple had been built round it.</p> +<p>The Brahmins conversed with him a good deal, and often were +all <i>but</i> converted. One plainly said that love of +money and pleasure alone kept them from accepting +Christianity. In 1769 he had a personal interview with the +Rajah Tuljajee, a man of the dignity, grace, and courtesy usual +in Hindoo princes, but very indolent, not even rising in the +morning if he was told that it was not an auspicious day, though +he was more cultivated than most men of his rank and period.</p> +<p>Swartz found him seated on a couch suspended from pillars, and +was placed opposite to him, on a seat. The interpreter +addressed him in Persian, and Swartz replied in the same; but, +perceiving that the man omitted part of his speech, he asked +leave to speak Tamul.</p> +<p>The Rajah asked questions, which led to an exposition of the +Christian doctrine, and he listened with interest; and he +likewise was struck when Swartz uttered a thanksgiving before +partaking of the sweets that were carried round on trays. +He showed himself so much disappointed when he learnt that the +Padre had left Tanjore, that it was resolved that Swartz should +return thither again; and for some days there were out-of-door +preachings on the glacis of the fort, where, in spite of clouds +of dust brought by the land wind, the people collected in crowds +to hear him, and expressed ardent wishes that the Rajah would +become a Christian, when they all could do the same. The +Prince himself was much drawn towards the missionary; but it was +the old story,—he was surrounded with ministers and +courtiers who feared any change, above all any plain-speaking +truth, and therefore did their best to keep the new light at a +distance. However, Tuljajee called Swartz “<i>his +padre</i>,” and gave him free entrance to his fort at +Tanjore, where his arguments made a wide impression, and still +more his example. <!-- page 56--><a name="page56"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 56</span>“Padre,” said a young +Nabob, “we always regarded you Europeans as ungodly men, +who knew not the use of prayers, till you came among +us.”</p> +<p>He continued to go backwards and forwards between Trichinopoly +and Tanjore, in both which places he began to gather catechumens +round him. Unfortunately his Protestant principles brought +him into collision with the Roman Catholics at the former +place. A young Hindoo, of good birth, seems to have had one +of those remarkable natures that cannot rest without truth. +He had for seven years wandered to all the most famous pagodas +and most sacred rivers, seeking rest for his soul, but in +vain. Some Roman Catholics had given him a little brass +crucifix, which he used to set up before him as he prayed; but he +had learnt little more of them, and he was mournfully gazing at +“the pagodas of Sirengam” (in his own words), and +thinking, “What is all this? what can it avail?” when +some of Swartz’s catechists began to speak. +“Will this be better than what I have found?” he said +to himself. He listened, was asked to remain a fortnight at +the station, and soon had given his whole soul to the +faith. He was baptized by the name of Nyána +Prácasam, or Spiritual Light, and became a +catechist. His father and mother were likewise led to +Christianity by him, but the Roman Catholics, having begun his +conversion, considered that they had a right to him, and on one +occasion, when he was found reading to a sick relative, probably +a member of their Church, he was severely beaten, and was rescued +by the heathen neighbours when nearly killed.</p> +<p>Swartz seems to have regarded the Roman Catholics as in almost +as much need of reconversion as the Hindoos and Mahometans; and +as in those days their Church shared in that universal religious +torpor that had crept over the world, it is most likely that he +found them in a very debased condition.</p> +<p>With the Mahometans he had some success, though he found, like +all other missionaries, that their faith, being rather a heresy +than a paganism, had truth enough in it to be much harder to deal +with than the Hindoo polytheism. Besides, they accepted the +Persian proverb, “Every time a man argues, he loses a drop +of blood from his liver.” He was impeded also by the +want of a Persian translation of the <!-- page 57--><a +name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>entire Bible, +having no more than the Gospels to give the inquirers, and these +badly translated; and with Mahometans the want of the real +history of the Patriarchs was very serious. Some, however, +were convinced and baptized, though by far the greater number of +his converts were Hindoos.</p> +<p>In 1776, a coadjutor, either German or Danish-trained, named +Christian Pohlé, joined him at Trichinopoly, and thus he +became free to reside more constantly at Tanjore, where the Rajah +always protected him, though continually fluctuating in feeling +towards Christianity, according to the influences of his +ministers and the Brahmins who surrounded him, and the too +frequent offences given by the godless officers of the European +garrison which was stationed in the fort.</p> +<p>Mr. Swartz was anxiously soliciting for means to build a +church for the use of this garrison, when he was summoned to +Madras, to the governor, Sir Thomas Rumbold, who promised him a +grant for his church; but, at the same time, informed him that he +was to be sent on a mission to visit the formidable Hyder Ali in +Mysore, in order to judge how far his intentions towards the +English were pacific. He was selected for the purpose on +account of his perfect knowledge of Hindostanee, the simplicity +of his manner of travelling, and his perfect immunity from any of +the ordinary influences of interest or ambition; and he undertook +it, as he tells the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, +because he regarded it as conducing to peace, as opening fresh +doors to the Gospel, and as a token of gratitude to the +Honourable Company for kindness he had received; “but at +the same time,” he says, “I resolved to keep my hands +undefiled from any presents, by which determination the Lord +enabled me to abide, so that I have not accepted a single +farthing save my travelling expenses.”</p> +<p>On the 1st of July, 1779, he set out from Trichinopoly on this +journey, taking one of his catechists, named Sattianadem, with +him. He travelled in a palanquin, and took six days to +reach Caroor, on the Mysore frontier, forty miles off, where he +stayed a month with a young Ceylonese Dutchman in Hyder +Ali’s service, while sending to ask the Nabob’s +permission to proceed. All this time he and his catechist +preached and gave instruction in the streets. It is curious +to find him, on his journey, contrasting the excellent state of +Hyder Ali’s roads <!-- page 58--><a name="page58"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 58</span>and bridges with the careless +disorganization of the public works under the Company. An +epidemic fever was raging in Seringapatam, and Swartz pitched his +tent outside, where he could conveniently visit the many-pillared +palace of the sovereign. He was much struck with the close +personal supervision that Hyder Ali kept up over his officers, +and with the terrible severity of the punishments. Two +hundred men were kept armed with whips, and not a day passed +without many being scourged, no rank being exempt, the +Nabob’s two sons and sons-in-law being liable to be whipped +like the meanest groom. Swartz was the unwilling spectator +of the punishment of the collector of a district who was flogged +with whips armed with nails.</p> +<p>A few hundreds of Europeans, English, German, and French, were +in Hyder’s pay, encamped about the town, and a German +captain lent his tent for public worship. No molestation +was offered to any instructions that Swartz attempted to give, +and he was very courteously entreated by the Prince +himself. The conferences with him were generally held in a +hall of marble columns, open to a garden adorned with fruit +trees, rows of cypresses, and fountains. Hyder Ali sat on +rich carpets, covering the floor, and the Padre was placed next +to him. He spoke in general terms of his desire to keep the +peace, though the British had violated their engagements, +referring to an attempt that had newly been made to march troops +through his territory without his permission. To Swartz he +was gracious in speech, but the letter he entrusted to him was +full of threatening for this and other acts which he considered +aggressive; and the general impression brought back by the +missionary was that a war was to be expected.</p> +<p>Hyder Ali had presented him with a bag of three hundred rupees +for travelling expenses, which it would have been a great affront +to return. He, however, made it over to the Government at +Madras, and when they would not take it, asked leave to use it as +the foundation for a collection for an English orphan school at +Tanjore. This was granted, and proved a success. +Finding that there was an intention of voting a present to him, +he begged instead that a salary might be given to Mr. +Pohlé at Trichinopoly; and, in consequence, both were +enabled to maintain catechists and schoolmasters; for of making a +home for themselves, these devoted men never thought. <!-- +page 59--><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>Moreover, Swartz obtained bricks and lime for the +building of his English church within the fort; and he bought and +enlarged a house half a mile from it, for his Malabar Christians +to worship in. His own observations of Hyder Ali’s +warlike intentions led also to his purchasing 12,000 bags of rice +as a provision against the scarcity that too surely attends upon +Indian warfare.</p> +<p>In the summer of 1780, these apprehensions were +realized. Hyder crossed the Ghauts, and passed down into +the Carnatic with 100,000 men, directed by a staff of French +officers, and plundered up to the very gates of Madras. +Everything was in the greatest confusion; the English troops were +dispersed in garrisons, and could not easily be brought together; +and one small detachment under Colonel Baillie, who were made +prisoners at Conjiveram, suffered a frightful captivity. +Sir Eyre Coote did, indeed, keep the enemy in check, and defeat +him in several battles, but had not at first sufficient numbers +or stores effectually to drive him back; and the whole province +of Tanjore was horribly wasted. The irrigation of the +district had been broken up by the invaders; there was for three +years neither seed-time nor harvest, and the miserable peasants +crawled into the towns to perish there, often with their sons +carried off to form a regiment of youths whom Hyder Ali was +bringing up as a sort of Janissaries.</p> +<p>The unhappy creatures lay dying along the sides of the road, +and among them moved from one to another that homely figure in +the black dimity dress, and his catechists with him, feeding +those who could still swallow, and speaking words of comfort to +those who could hear. Some of the English sent a monthly +subscription, which enabled Swartz to keep up the supply, so that +a hundred and twenty a day were fed; but often in the morning he +found the dead lying in heaps, and in one of his letters he +mentions that his catechists are alive, as though he regarded it +as a wonder and a mercy. Indeed he seems to have been a +very Joseph to the Rajah, and even to the English garrison. +There was absolutely no magazine for provisions, either for the +Sepoys or the Rajah’s own troops, and twice he was +implored, both by Tuljajee and the Company, to purchase supplies +and get them brought in, since they were unable to do so, +“for a want of good understanding with the natives who +still possessed either rice or <!-- page 60--><a +name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>oxen to +transport it.” He was enabled to procure the supply, +and then there was no place to store it in but his own new +English church, so that he was obliged to hold three services on +a Sunday in the other: from eight till ten in English, from ten +till twelve in Tamul, and from four till five in +Portuguese! About a hundred converts were gained during the +famine; but he was forced to teach them very slowly, their mental +faculties were so weakened by their state of exhaustion. +The whole of the towns of Tanjore and Trichinopoly were, he says, +filled with living skeletons, there was hardly an able or +vigorous man to be found, and in this distress it was necessary +to relax the ordinarily wise rule of never giving any assistance +to a person under preparation for baptism, since to withhold +succour would have been barbarous cruelty.</p> +<p>When the whole country was overrun by the troops of Mysore, +the respect paid to the good Padre was such that he travelled +from end to end of it without hindrance, even through the midst +of the enemy’s camp, and on the only occasion when he was +detained, the sentinel politely put it that “he was waiting +for orders to let him proceed.” It was on one of +these journeys that a little lad, named Christian David, the son +of one of the converts, was attending him one evening, when, +halting at a native village, the supper was brought, of rice and +curry. The Padre made so long a grace out of the fulness of +his heart, that at last the boy broke in with a murmur that the +curry would be cold! He never forgot the reproof: +“What! shall our gracious God watch over us through the +heat and burden of the day, and shall we devour the food which He +provides for us at night, with hands which we have never raised +in prayer, and lips which have never praised Him?” +The missionaries were always safe throughout the war, and, when +Cuddalore capitulated to the French and Mysoreans, Mr. +Gerické, who was then at the head of the station, +concealed some English officers in his house, and likewise, by +his representations to the French general, saved the town from +being delivered up to be plundered by Hyder’s native +troops.</p> +<p>In the end of 1782, Hyder Ali died; his son, Tippoo Sahib, +assuming the title of Sultan, continued the war, with the same +fierceness, but without the assistance of the French, who were +withdrawn, in consequence of the peace that had been concluded at +home.</p> +<p><!-- page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>This, together with the numerous victories that had been +obtained by the English forces, led to hopes that Tippoo would +consent to terms of peace, and two Commissioners were appointed, +whom Swartz was requested to join as interpreter. He had no +taste for political missions, but he thought it a duty to do all +in his power for peace, and set off for the purpose, but the +Mysoreans complained that the English promises had not been kept, +and he was turned back again by the enemy’s troops. +Colonel Fullarton, who was in command of the army about to invade +Mysore, writes, “The knowledge and the integrity of this +irreproachable missionary have retrieved the character of +Europeans from <i>imputations of general +depravity</i>!” He went back to Tanjore, and there, +for the first time, experienced some failure in health. He +was requested again to join the Commissioners, but would not +again attempt it, partly from the state of his health, and partly +because Tippoo was far more averse to Christianity than Hyder had +been. All the 12,000 Tanjoreen captive +boys—originally Hindoos—were bred up Mahometans, and +he tolerated nothing else but Hindooism, persecuting the Roman +Catholics in his dominions till no one dared make an open +profession.</p> +<p>A treaty was, however, concluded in 1784, and there was for a +time a little rest, greatly needed by Swartz, who had been +suffering from much weakness and exhaustion; but a journey into +Tinnevelly, with his friend Mr. Sullivan, seems to have restored +him.</p> +<p>There were already some dawnings of Christianity in this +district. As long before as 1771, one of the Trichinopoly +converts, named Schavrimutta, who was living at Palamcotta, began +to instruct his neighbours from the Bible, and a young Hindoo +accountant, becoming interested, went to an English sergeant and +his wife, who had likewise been under Swartz’s influence, +and asked for further teaching. The sergeant taught him the +Catechism and then baptized him, rather to the displeasure of +Swartz, who always was strongly averse to hasty baptisms. +Afterwards, a Brahmin’s widow begged for baptism. +She, it appeared, was living with an English officer, and Swartz +was obliged to refuse her while this state of things continued, +but he found that the Englishman had promised to marry her, and +had begun to teach her his language and his faith. He died +without performing his promise, but Christianity had <!-- page +62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>become so dear to her, that she again entreated for +baptism, and was then admitted into the Church by the name of +Clarinda. She afterwards was the chief means of building a +church at Palamcotta, to which Sattianadem became the catechist; +and thus was first sown a seed which has never ceased growing, +for this district of Tinnevelly has always been the stronghold of +Christianity in India.</p> +<p>Meantime Swartz’s poor friend, the Rajah Tuljajee at +Tanjore, was in a deplorable state. He had suffered great +losses during Hyder Ali’s invasion of his country, and, +moreover, was afflicted with an incurable disease, and had lately +lost, by death, his only son, daughter, and grandson: He shut +himself up in the depths of his palace, and became harsh and +moody, heaping all the treasure together that he could collect, +and employing a dean or minister, named Baba, whose exactions on +the famished population were so intolerable that the people fled +the country, and settled in the neighbouring districts, so that +no less than 65,000 were said to have deserted the province.</p> +<p>Sir Archibald Campbell, Governor of Madras, remonstrated, but +the Rajah was affronted, and would not dismiss his minister, and +as the peasants refused to sow their land without some security +that the crops should not be reaped by Baba’s emissaries +before their very eyes, the Madras authorities decided on taking +the management of Tanjoreen affairs into their hands and +appointing a committee to watch over the government. Sir +Archibald wished to place Mr. Swartz on this committee as the +person best able to deal both with Rajah and people, and he +accepted a seat, only stipulating that he was not to share in any +violent or coercive measures.</p> +<p>When the “good Padre” assured the fugitives in the +Rajah’s name and his own that oppression was at an end, +7,000 at once returned; and when he reminded them that the season +for planting their corps was nearly past, they replied that in +return for his kindness they intended to work night and day.</p> +<p>In 1787, the childless Rajah decided on—after the +fashion of many Hindoo princes—adopting an heir, who might +perform the last duties which were incumbent on a son. His +choice fell upon the son of a near kinsman, a child ten years of +age, whom he named Serfojee. A day or two after he sent for +Mr. Swartz, and said, “This is not my son, but yours. +Into your hand I deliver him.” “May the child +become a child of <!-- page 63--><a name="page63"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 63</span>God,” was the answer of +Swartz. The Rajah was too ill to continue the interview, +but he sent for Swartz the next day, and said, “I appoint +you guardian to this child; I put his hands into +yours.”</p> +<p>Swartz, however, did not think it right to undertake the state +guardianship of the lad, and the administration of the +province. Indeed, he knew that to do so would be absolutely +to put the child’s life in danger, from the cabals and +jealousies which would be excited, and he induced Tuljajee to +confide the charge to his brother, Rama Swamey, afterwards called +Ameer Singh.</p> +<p>This was done, and the Rajah soon after died, in the year +1787, leaving the boy and Ameer Singh under the protection of the +Company. He had always listened to Swartz willingly, and +treated him affectionately, and the result of the influence of +the missionary extended so far that no Suttee took place at his +funeral, but he had never actually embraced Christianity, though +protecting it to the utmost of his power.</p> +<p>The brother, Ameer Singh, was not contented merely to act as +regent, but complained that injustice was done to him, and that +Tuljajee was too much enfeebled in mind to judge of his own +measures when he adopted the boy Serfojee. Sir Archibald +Campbell, acting for the Company, came to Tanjore, and, after an +examination into the circumstances, decided in favour of Ameer +Singh, and confirmed him in the Rajahship, binding him over to be +the faithful protector of poor little Serfojee, who, putting the +adoption apart, was still his near relation.</p> +<p>Ameer was not a better manager of his province than his +brother had been, and he was far from kind to Serfojee, whom +Swartz had not been allowed to see for months, when the widows of +the late Rajah made complaints that the boy was closely shut up +and cruelly treated. On this Swartz applied to Government, +and obtained an order to go with another gentleman to inquire +into his condition. The Rajah was much offended; but as he +reigned only by the protection of the English, he could not +refuse, and the Padre was conducted to a large but dark room, +where he found the poor child sitting by lamp-light. This +had been his condition for almost two years, ever since his +adopted father’s death, and on seeing the Padre, he asked +piteously if it were the way in Europe to prevent children from +seeing the sun and moon. Mr. Swartz comforted him, <!-- +page 64--><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>and asked him if he had any one to teach him. The +Rajah’s minister replied that he had a master, but was too +idle to learn; but Serfojee looked up and said, “I have +none to teach me, therefore I do not know a single +letter.” The Rajah was only offended at remonstrance, +and at last Government sent orders that could not be resisted, +and a Sepoy guard to take charge of the lad. Then, as a +great favour, the Rajah entreated that the guard would not enter +his palace, but that for the night before Serfojee could be +removed, the Padre would remain with him to satisfy them that he +was safe. To this Swartz consented, and the guard +disappeared, whereupon the Rajah told him “he might go +home.”</p> +<p>“What! and be guilty of a breach of faith?” was +his resolute answer. “Even my father should not be +permitted to make me such a proposal!”</p> +<p>They were ashamed, and left him to remain that night with +Serfojee, whom he probably thus saved from foul play, since the +jealous and vindictive passions of Ameer Singh had been +thoroughly excited. The captivity must have been very +wretched, for he observed that the poor boy walked lame, and +found that the cause was this:—“I have not been able +to sleep,” said poor Serfojee, “from the number of +insects in my room, but have had to sit clasping my knees about +with my arms. My sinews are a little contracted, but I hope +I shall soon recover.”</p> +<p>When taken out, the poor little fellow was delighted once more +to see the sun, and to ride out again. A Brahmin master +selected by Mr. Swartz was given to him, and he very rapidly +learnt both to read his own language and English. Swartz +also interfered on behalf of the late Rajah’s minister, +Baba, who had indeed been extortionate and severe, but scarcely +deserved such a punishment as being put into a hole six feet long +and four feet broad and high.</p> +<p>For two years Serfojee was unmolested; but, in 1792, the +husband of Ameer Singh’s only child died without children, +and this misfortune was attributed by the Rajah to witchcraft on +the part of the widows of Tuljajee. He imagined that they +were contriving against his own life, and included Serfojee in +his hatred. By way of revenge, he caused a pile of chilis +and other noxious plants to be burnt under Serfojee’s +windows, and thus nearly stifled him and his attendants. He +prevented the <!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 65</span>Prince’s teachers from having +access to him, shut up his servants, and denied permission to +merchants to bring their wares to him. Mr. Swartz was +absent at the time, and Serfojee wrote a letter to him, begging +that the English Government would again interfere. It was +found that any remonstrance put the Rajah into such a state of +fury that the lives of the youth and the ladies we’re +really unsafe while they remained within his reach, and it was +therefore decided that they should be transplanted to +Madras. It was a wonderful step for Hindoo princesses to +take, and was only accomplished by the influence of Mr. Swartz, +backed by a guard of soldiers, under whose escort all safely +arrived at Madras, where Serfojee’s education could at +length be properly carried on.</p> +<p>The youth was so entirely the child of Swartz and of the +Government, that it is disappointing to find that he did not +become a Christian. No stipulation to the contrary seems to +have been made by Tuljajee; but, probably, the missionary +refrained from a sense of honour towards the late Rajah, and +because to bring the boy up in the Church would have destroyed +all chance of his obtaining the provinces, and probably have +deprived him of the protection of the Company, who dreaded the +suspicion of proselytizing. Still it is very disappointing, +and requires all our trust in Swartz’s judgment and +excellence to be satisfied that he was right in leaving this +child, who had been confided to him, all his life a +heathen. Serfojee learnt the theory of Christianity, was +deeply attached to Mr. Swartz, and lived a life very superior to +that of most Hindoo princes of his time. His faith in his +hereditary paganism was probably only political, but he never +made the desperate, and no doubt perilous, plunge of giving up +all the world to save his own soul. Was it his fault, or +was it any shortcoming in the teaching that was laid before him, +and was that human honour a want of faith? It puzzles +us! Here was Swartz, from early youth to hoary hairs +unwavering in the work of the Gospel, gathering in multitudes to +the Church, often at great peril to himself, yet holding back +from bringing into the fold the child who had been committed to +him, and, as far as we can see, without any stipulation to the +contrary. Probably he thought it right to leave +Serfojee’s decision uninfluenced until his education should +be complete, and was disappointed that the force of old custom +and the danger <!-- page 66--><a name="page66"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 66</span>of change were then too strong for +him; and thus it was that Serfojee was only one of the many +half-reclaimed Indian princes who have lived out their dreary, +useless lives under English protection, without accepting the one +pearl of great price which could alone have made them +gainers.</p> +<p>It is just possible that there may have been too much of a +certain sort of acquiescence in Swartz’s mind, missionary +as he was. He did not attack the system of caste, with its +multitudinous separations and distinctions. Of course he +wished it to be abolished, but he accepted converts without +requiring its renunciation, allowed high-caste persons to sit +apart in the churches, and to communicate before Pariahs, and did +not interfere with their habits of touching no food that the very +finger of a person of a different caste had defiled. He no +doubt thought these things would wither away of themselves, but +his having permitted them, left a world of difficulty to his +successors.</p> +<p>He lived, however, the life of a saint, nearly that of an +ascetic. His almost unfurnished house was shared with some +younger missionary. Kohloff, who was one of these, related +in after years how plain their diet was. Some tea in a jug, +with boiling water poured over it and dry bread broken into it, +formed the breakfast, which lasted five minutes; dinner, at one, +was of broth or curry; and at eight at night they had some meal +or gruel. If wine were sent them, it was reserved for the +communions or for the sick. Swartz only began, very late in +life, to take a single glass in the middle of his Sunday +services.</p> +<p>Every morning he assembled his native catechists at early +prayer, and appointed them their day’s work. +“You go there.” “You do +this.” “You call on such and such +families.” “You visit such a +village.” About four o’clock they returned and +made their report, when their master took them all with him to +the churchyard or some public place, or to the front of the +Mission-house, according to the season of the year, and there sat +either expounding the Scriptures to those who would come and +listen, or conversing with inquirers and objectors among the +heathen. His manner was mild, sometimes humorous, but very +authoritative, and he would brook neither idleness nor +disobedience.</p> +<p>Over his Christian flock his authority was as complete as <!-- +page 67--><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>ever that of Samuel could have been as a judge. If +any of them did wrong, the alternative was—</p> +<p>“Will you go to the Rajah’s court, or be punished +by me?”</p> +<p>“O Padre, you punish me!” was always the +reply.</p> +<p>“Give him twenty strokes,” said the Padre, and it +was done.</p> +<p>The universal confidence in the Padre, felt alike by +Englishmen and Hindoos, was inestimable in procuring and carrying +out regulations for the temporal prosperity of the peasantry at +Tanjore, under the Board which had pretty well taken the +authority out of the hands of the inefficient and violent Ameer +Singh. Districts that, partly from misery, had become full +of thieves, were brought into order, and the thieves themselves +often became hopeful converts, and endured a good deal of +persecution from their heathen neighbours. His good +judgment in dealing with all classes, high and low, English or +native, does indeed seem to have been wonderful, and almost +always to have prevailed, probably through his perfect honesty, +simplicity, and disinterestedness.</p> +<p>The converts in Tinnevelly became more and more numerous, and +Sattianadem had been ordained to the ministry, Lutheran fashion, +by the assembly of the presbytery at Tranquebar, there being as +yet no Bishop in India; and thus many, the very best of his +catechists, served for many years, at Palamcotta, the first +Christian minister produced by modern India. On the whole, +Swartz could look back on the half-century of his mission with +great joy and thankfulness; he counted his spiritual children by +hundreds; and the influence he had exerted upon the whole +Government had saved multitudes of peasants from oppression and +starvation, and had raised the whole tone of the +administration. He was once or twice unkindly attacked by +Englishmen who hated or mistrusted the propagation of +Christianity. One gentleman even wrote a letter in a +newspaper calling a missionary a disgrace to any nation, and +raking up stories of the malpractices of heathens who had been +preached to without being converted, which were laid to the +charge of the actual Christians; but imputations like these did +not meet with faith from any one whose good opinion was of any +real consequence to Swartz.</p> +<p>His strong health and the suitability of his constitution to +the climate brought him to a good old age in full activity. +He had become the patriarch of the community of missionaries, +<!-- page 68--><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>and had survived all those with whom he had at first +laboured; but he was still able to circulate among the churches +he had founded, teaching, praying, preaching and counselling, or +laying any difficulty before the Government, whose attention he +had so well earned. His last care was establishing the +validity of the adoption of Serfojee, who had grown up a +thoughtful, gentle, and upright man, satisfactory on all points +except on the one which rendered him eligible to the throne of +Tanjore, his continued heathenism. The question was +referred to the Company at home, and before the answer could +arrive, by the slow communication of those days, when the long +voyage, and that by a sailing vessel, was the only mode of +conveyance, the venerable guardian of the young Rajah had sunk +into his last illness.</p> +<p>This was connected with a mortification in his left foot, +which had been more or less painful for several years, but had +probably been neglected. His Danish colleague, Mr. +Gerické, was with him most of the time, and it was one of +his subjects of thankfulness that he was permitted to depart out +of the world in the society of faithful brethren. He +suffered severely for about three months, but it was not till the +last week that his departure was thought to be near. He +liked to have the English children brought in to read to him +chapters of the Bible and sing Dr. Watts’s hymns to him; +and the beautiful old German hymns sung by Mr. Gerické and +Mr. Kohloff were his great delight. Indeed, when at the +very last, as he lay almost lifeless, with closed eyes, Mr. +Gerické began to sing the hymn,</p> +<blockquote><p>“Only to Thee, Lord <span +class="smcap">Jesus Christ</span>,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>he joined in with a clear melodious voice, and accompanied him +to the end. Two hours later, about four o’clock in +the afternoon of the 13th of February, 1798, Christian Friedrich +Swartz breathed his last, in the seventy-second year of his age, +and the forty-eighth of his mission service in India.</p> +<p>The cries and wailings of the poor resounded all night around +the house, and Serfojee Rajah came from a distance to be present +at his burial. It had been intended to sing a funeral hymn, +but the cries and lamentations of the poor so overcame the +clergy, that they could scarcely raise their voices. +Serfojee wept bitterly, laid a gold cloth over the bier, and +remained present while Mr. Gerické read the Funeral +Service,—a most <!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 69</span>unusual departure from Hindoo custom, +and a great testimony of affection and respect.</p> +<p>A few months later arrived the decision of the East India +Company, that the weak and rapacious Ameer Singh should be +deposed, and Serfojee placed on the throne. He conducted +himself excellently as a ruler, and greatly favoured Christians +in his territory, always assisting the various schools, and +giving liberal aid whenever the frequently-recurring famines of +India brought them into distress.</p> +<p>Three years later, in 1801, Serfojee wrote to the Society for +Promoting Christian Knowledge, to beg them to order a +“monument of marble” at his expense, to the memory of +the late Rev. Father Swartz, to be affixed to the pillar nearest +the pulpit. Accordingly, a bas-relief in white marble was +executed by Flaxman, representing the death of Swartz, +Gerické behind him, two native Christians and three +children standing by, and Serfojee clasping his hand and +receiving his blessing. It was not exactly fact, but it was +the monumental taste of the day; and it so much delighted the +Rajah, that he kept it in his palace, among the portraits of his +ancestors, for two years before he could resolve on parting with +it to the church. The Prince likewise composed the epitaph +which was carved on the stone which covers the grave of Swartz, +the first instance of English verse by a Hindoo:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Firm wast thou, humble and wise,<br /> +Honest, pure, free from disguise;<br /> +Father of orphans, the widow’s support,<br /> +Comfort in sorrow of every sort:<br /> +To the benighted dispenser of light,<br /> +Doing and pointing to that which is right.<br /> +Blessing to princes, to people, to me,<br /> +May I, my father, be worthy of thee,<br /> +Wisheth and prayeth thy Sarabojee.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Swartz had always been striving to be poor, and never +succeeding. Living and eating in the humblest manner, and +giving away all that came to him, still recognitions of services +from English and natives had flowed in on him; and, after all the +hosts of poor he had fed, and of churches and schools he had +founded, he was an instance of “there is that scattereth +and yet increaseth;” for the property he bequeathed to the +Mission was enough to assist materially in carrying it on after +<!-- page 70--><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>his death. Moreover, Serfojee maintained the +blind, lame, and decrepit members of his church, and founded an +asylum for the orphan children; so that the good men, +Gerické, Kohloff, Pohlé, and the rest, were not +absolutely dependent on Europe for assistance; and this was well, +since the Orphan-house at Halle and the Society at Copenhagen had +in this long course of years ceased to send out funds.</p> +<p>But Swartz’s work under their hands continued to +prosper. He had a sort of apotheosis among the heathen, +such as he would have been the last to covet; for statues were +raised to him, lights burnt before him, and crowns offered +up. But about Palamcotta and throughout Tinnevelly there +was one of those sudden movements towards Christianity that +sometimes takes place. The natives were asking instruction +from their friends, and going eagerly in search of the catechists +and of Sattianadem, and even burning their idols and building +chapels in preparation for the coming of more fully qualified +teachers. Mr. Gerické made a tour among them in +1803, and found their hearts so moved towards the Gospel, that he +baptized 1,300 in the course of his journey, and the work of +Sattianadem and the catechists raised the number of converts to +4,000. This was, however, this good man’s last +journey. On his return, he found that his only son, an +officer in the Company’s service, was dying, and, under the +weight of this and other troubles, his health gave way, and he +died in the thirty-eighth year of his mission. Others of +the original Danish and German missionaries likewise died, and +scarcely any came out in their stead. Their places were, +therefore, supplied by ordinations, by the assembly of ministers, +of four native catechists, of whom was Nyanapracasem, a favourite +pupil of Swartz. No Church can take root without a native +ministry. But the absence of any central Church government +was grievously felt, both as concerned the English and the +Hindoos. There were more than twenty English regiments in +India, and not a single chaplain among them all.</p> +<h2><!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>CHAPTER IV. HENRY MARTYN, THE +SCHOLAR-MISSIONARY.</h2> +<p>Again do we find the steady, plodding labourer of a lifetime +contrasted with the warm enthusiast, whose lot seems rather to +awaken others than to achieve victories in his own person. +St. Stephen falls beneath the stones, but his glowing discourse +is traced through many a deep argument of St. Paul. St. +James drains the cup in early manhood, but his brother holds +aloft his witness to extreme old age.</p> +<p>The ardent zeal of the Keltic character; the religious +atmosphere that John Wesley had spread over Cornwall, even among +those who did not enrol themselves among his followers; the +ability and sensitiveness hereditary in the Martyn family, +together with the strong influence of a university +tutor,—all combined to make such a bright and brief trail +of light of the career of Henry Martyn, the son of the head clerk +in a merchant’s office at Truro, born on the 18th of +February, 1781. This station sounds lowly enough, but when +we find that it was attained by a self-educated man, who had +begun life as a common miner, and taught himself in the intervals +of rest, it is plain that the elder Martyn must have possessed no +ordinary power. Out of a numerous family only four survived +their infancy, and only one reached middle age, and in Henry at +least great talent was united to an extreme susceptibility and +delicacy of frame, which made him as a child unusually tender and +gentle in manner when at his ease, but fretful and passionate +when annoyed.</p> +<p>Of course he fared as ill with his fellow-scholars at Truro +Grammar School as he did well with the masters; but an elder boy +took him under his protection, and not only lessened his +grievances at the time, but founded a lasting friendship.</p> +<p>In 1795, when only fourteen, Henry Martyn was sufficiently +advanced to be sent up as a candidate for a scholarship at Corpus +Christi College, Oxford, and passed a very creditable +examination, though he failed in obtaining the election. +Eight years later, we find him congratulating himself in his +journal on thus having <!-- page 72--><a name="page72"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 72</span>escaped the “scenes of +debauchery” to which his “profligate +acquaintances” might have introduced him. Was Corpus +very much changed, when, only eleven years after, John Keble +entered it at the same age? Was it that Martyn’s +Cornish schoolfellows were a bad set, or does this thanksgiving +proceed from the sort of pious complacency which religious +journalizing is apt to produce in the best of men?</p> +<p>The failure sent Henry back to work for two years longer at +the Truro Grammar School, and when at sixteen he was entered at +St. John’s, Cambridge (most peculiarly the college of +future missionaries), he immediately made proof of his remarkable +talent. Strange to say, although his father’s rise in +life had begun in his mathematical ability, Henry’s +training in this branch had been so deficient, and the study +appeared so repugnant to him, that his first endeavour at +Cambridge was to learn the proportions of Euclid by heart, +without trying to follow their reasoning. This story is +told of many persons, but perhaps of no one else who in four +years’ time, while still a month under twenty, was declared +Senior Wrangler.</p> +<p>This was in 1801, and the intervening time had been spent in +hard study and regular habits, but neither his sister at home, +nor a seriously-minded college friend, were satisfied with his +religious feelings during the first part of the time, and he +himself regarded it afterwards as a period of darkness. +Indeed, his temper was under so little control that in a passion +he threw a knife at a companion, but happily missed his aim, so +that it only pierced the wall. The shock of horror no doubt +was good for him. But the next step he recorded in his life +was his <i>surprise</i> at hearing it maintained that the glory +of God, not the praise of man, should be the chief motive of +study. After thinking it over his mind assented, and he +resolved to maintain this as a noble saying, but did not perceive +that it would affect his conduct.</p> +<p>However, the dearest, almost the only hallowed form of the +praise of man, was taken from him by the death of his father in +1799, immediately after the delight of hearing of his standing +first in the Christmas examination. The expense of a return +home was beyond his means, but he took to reading the Bible, as a +proper form to be complied with in the days of mourning; and +beginning with the Acts, as being the most entertaining part, he +felt the full weight of the doctrine of the Apostles borne <!-- +page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +73</span>in on him, and was roused to renew his long-neglected +prayers. When next he went to chapel, with his soul thus +awakened, he was struck by perceiving for the first time how joy +for the coming of our Lord rings through the +<i>Magnificat</i>.</p> +<p>The great religious influence of the day at Cambridge emanated +from the pulpit and the rooms of the Reverend Charles Simeon, who +did a truly remarkable work in stirring up young men to a sense +of the responsibilities of the ministry. Henry Martyn +regularly attended his sermons, and the newly lighted sparks were +also fanned by anxious letters from the good sister at home; but +until the strain, pressure, and excitement of preparing for the +final examination were over, he had little time or attention for +any other form of mental exertion.</p> +<p>When, however, he found himself in possession of the highest +honours his University could award, he was amazed to discover how +little they satisfied him, and that he felt as if he had grasped +a shadow instead of a substance.</p> +<p>This instinctive longing, the sure token of a mind of the +higher pitch, was finding rest as he became more and more imbued +with the spirit of religion, and ventured upon manifesting it +more openly. He had hitherto intended to apply himself to +the law, but the example and conversation of Charles Simeon +brought him to such a perception of the greatness of the office +of the ministry that he resolved to dedicate himself +thereto. During the term after this decision was made, +while he was acting as a tutor at his college, he heard Mr. +Simeon speak of William Carey and his self-devotion in India; he +read the Life of that kindred spirit, David Brainerd, and the +spark of missionary zeal was kindled in his ardent nature. +The commission “Go ye and teach all nations” was +borne in on his mind, and, with the promptness that was a part of +his nature, he at once offered himself to the “Society for +Missions to Africa and the East,” which had been +established, in the year 1800, by members of the English Church +who wished to act independently of the elder Society for the +Propagation of the Gospel. The name has since been altered +to the “Church Missionary Society.”</p> +<p>However, Martyn was only just twenty-one, and not of an age to +take Holy Orders, and he had therefore to wait, while studying +divinity, and acting as a tutor at Cambridge. All through +his life he kept copious journals of his sensations <!-- page +74--><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>and +resolutions, full of the deepest piety, always replete with +sternness towards himself and others, and tinged with that +melancholy which usually pervades the more earnest of that school +which requires conscious feeling as the test of spiritual +life.</p> +<p>In October 1803, he went to Ely for ordination as a deacon, +though still wanting five months of twenty-three. Those +were lax days, there was little examination, and a very low +standard of fitness was required. Henry Martyn was so much +scandalized by the lightness of demeanour of one of his fellow +candidates that he spoke to him in strong reproof—with what +effect we do not know, but he records that he never ventured to +speak in rebuke, “unless he at the same time experienced a +peculiar contrition of spirit.”</p> +<p>He became Mr. Simeon’s curate, and at the same time took +charge of the neighbouring parish of Lolworth. People then +had small expectations of clerical care, if a parish could be +entrusted to a young deacon, non-resident, acting as tutor and +examiner, and with an assistant curacy besides! His whole +mind was, however, intensely full of his duties, and so unworthy +did he consider all other occupations that he prayed and +struggled conscientiously against the pleasure he could not but +feel, in getting up Thucydides and Xenophon for the +examinations. Everything not actually devotional seemed to +him at these times under a ban, and it is painful to see how a +mind of great scope and power was cramped and contracted, and the +spirits lowered by incessant self-contemplation and distrust of +almost all enjoyment. When, at another time, he had to +examine on “Locke on the Human Understanding,” the +metaphysical study acting on his already introspective mind +produced a sense of misery and anguish that he could hardly +endure. It is pleasant, however, to find him in another +mood, writing, “Since I have known God in a saving manner, +painting, poetry, and music have had charms unknown to me before; +I have received what I suppose is a taste for them, for religion +has refined my mind, and made it susceptible of impressions from +the sublime and beautiful.”</p> +<p>This, no doubt, was true, but another influence had awakened +his heart, earthly perhaps in itself, but so noble and so holy +that it bears a heavenly light. He had become attached to a +young lady in Cornwall, named Lydia Grenfell, like-minded <!-- +page 75--><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +75</span>enough to return his affection. His intention of +volunteering for the Church Missionary Society was overthrown by +a disaster in Cornwall which deprived himself and his unmarried +sister of all the provision that their father had made for them, +thus throwing her upon him for maintenance, and making it +necessary that he should obtain a salary that would support +her. It was suggested by some of his friends that one of +the chaplaincies founded by the old East India Company, before +the jealousy of religious teaching had set in, would both give +him opportunities for missionary work and enable him to provide +for his sister at home. Application was accordingly made, +and a man of his talent and character could not fail of being +accepted; he was promised the next vacant post, and went down to +spend the long vacation in Cornwall, and bid farewell to all whom +he loved there, for the journey was long and expensive, and he +had resolved not to trust himself among them again.</p> +<p>He writes in his journal, “Parted with Lydia for ever in +this life with a sort of uncertain pain, which I knew would +increase to violence.” And so it was, he suffered +most acutely for many days, and, though calmness and comfort came +after a time, never were hopes and affections more thoroughly +sacrificed, or with more anguish, than by this most truly devoted +disciple of his Master.</p> +<p>He worked on at Cambridge till he received his appointment in +the January of 1805, and he then only waited to receive +Priests’ Orders before going to London to prepare for his +embarkation.</p> +<p>In those times of war, a voyage to India was a perilous and +lengthy undertaking. A whole fleet was collected, +containing merchant, convict, and transport vessels, all under +the convoy of the ships of war belonging to the Company; and, as +no straggler might be left behind, the progress of the whole was +dependent on the rate of sailing of the slowest, and all were +impeded by the disaster of one. The <i>Union</i>, in which +a passage was given to the chaplain, contained, besides the crew, +passengers, the 59th Regiment, some other soldiers, and young +cadets, all thrown closely together for many months. She +sailed from Portsmouth on the 17th of July; but in two +days’ time one of the many casualties attendant on at least +sixty vessels made the fleet put into Falmouth, where it remained +for three weeks. This opportunity of intercourse with his +<!-- page 76--><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +76</span>family might well seem an especial boon of Providence to +the young missionary, who had denied himself a last visit to +them, and he carried away much comfort from this meeting. +His sister was engaged to be suitably married, so that he was +relieved from care on her account, and some hope was entertained +that Lydia would be able to come out to him in India. A +correspondence likewise began, which has been in great part +preserved. Two days after weighing anchor, the <i>Union</i> +still lingered on the coast, and the well-known outline, with +Mount’s Bay, the spire of St. Hilary’s church, and +all the landmarks so dear and familiar to the young +Cornishman’s eye and heart, were watched from morning to +night with keen pain and grief, but with steadfast resolve and +constant inward prayer.</p> +<p>Then he addressed himself to the duties of the voyage. +Private study of Hebrew and of Hindostanee was of course a part; +but he hoped to be useful to his companions as a friend and as a +minister. He could only obtain permission to hold one +service every Sunday, but he hoped to do much by private +conversations and prayers, and he tried to gain over the cadets +by offering to assist them in their studies, especially +mathematics. Some of them had the sense to see that the +teaching of a senior wrangler was no small advantage, and these +read with him throughout the voyage; but in general they were but +raw lads, and followed the example of their superiors, who for +the most part were strongly set against Mr. Martyn. Those +were the times when sailors were utterly uncared for, and when +<i>mauvais sujets</i> at home were sent out to India to the +corruptions of a luxurious climate and a heathen +atmosphere. Men of this stamp would think it bad enough to +have a parson on board at all, and when they found that he was a +faithful priest, who held himself bound not to leave them +unchecked in their evil courses, they thought themselves +aggrieved. Nor was his manner likely to gain them. +Grave and earnest, he had never in his life known sportiveness, +and his distress and horror at the profanity and blasphemy that +rang in his ears made him doubly sad and stern. From the +first his Sunday service was by most treated as an infliction, +and the officers, both of the ship and of the military, had so +little sense of decency as to sit drinking, smoking, and talking +within earshot. The persons who professed to attend showed +no reverence of attitude; and when he endeavoured to make an +impression on the soldiers <!-- page 77--><a +name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>and their +wives between-decks, he was met with the same rude and careless +inattention.</p> +<p>With very little experience of mankind, he imagined that these +hardened beings could be brought to repent by terror, and his +discourses were full of denunciations of the wrath of God. +He was told that, if he threatened them thus, they would not come +to hear him, and his reply was an uncompromising sermon on the +text, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the +people that forget God.” The bravery of the thing, +and the spirit of truth and love that pervaded all he said on +this solemn verse, was not lost upon all: some of the cadets were +moved to tears, and an impression was made upon several +persons. Indeed, there was much that should have induced +serious thought, for, after having touched at Madeira and the +Azores, it was made known that the 59th was to be disembarked at +the Cape, to assist in the struggle then going on between the +English and Dutch. Moreover, there was much sickness on +board, and the captain himself, who had been always bitterly +opposed to Mr. Martyn, anxiously called for him to attend upon +his death-bed.</p> +<p>The 59th were landed in Table Bay just in time to take part in +Sir David Baird’s victory. Martyn went on shore the +next day to do his best for the wounded; but they were mostly in +hospital, and, being Dutch, he could do little for them. He +found congenial spirits among the Dutch clergy in Cape Town, and +spent a happy month there, but the latter part of his voyage was +not more satisfactory than the first. The educated portion +of the passengers continued to set their faces against him, +treating him with increased contempt, and even turning into +ridicule the farewell sermon, in which he took an affectionate +leave of all who had sailed with him.</p> +<p>It may be that his manner was ill-judged, but it is a fearful +thing to find that it was possible for so many Christian people +to have been in daily contact with as true a saint as ever lived, +and yet make him their mock! Perhaps some of his words, and +far more his example, may have borne fruit in after years, such +as he never knew of.</p> +<p>The whole voyage had lasted nearly ten months before entering +the Hooghly. While ascending the stream, the lassitude +produced by the climate was so great that Martyn’s spirits +sank under it: he thought he should “lead an idle, <!-- +page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>worthless life to no purpose. Exertion seemed like +death; indeed, absolutely impossible.” Yet at the +least he could write, “Even if I should never see a native +converted, God may design, by my patience and continuance, to +encourage future missionaries.”</p> +<p>This feeling of exhaustion was the prelude to a severe attack +of fever, which assailed him almost immediately after his +arrival; but happily not till he was safely lodged at Aldeen, in +the kindly house of the Rev. David Brown, where he was nursed +till his recovery. His friends wanted to keep him among the +English at Calcutta, but his heart was set on ministering to the +heathen, and the sights and sounds of idolatry that constantly +met him increased his eagerness. He once rushed out at the +sight of the flames of a Suttee, hoping to rescue the victim, but +she had perished before he reached the spot.</p> +<p>His arrival was when the alarm about the meeting at Vellore +was at its height, and when the colony at Serampore had been +forbidden to preach or distribute tracts in Calcutta. He by +no means agreed with all the Baptist doctrines, but he held in +great esteem and reverence such men as Carey and Marshman, was +glad to profit by their experience and instructions, and heartily +sympathised in all their difficulties. Mr. Carey might well +write, “A young clergyman, Mr. Martyn, is lately arrived, +who is possessed with a truly missionary spirit.” +Together the Serampore missionaries, with Mr. Martyn, Mr. Corrie, +and Mr. Brown, united in dedicating to the worship of God a +heathen pagoda, which the last-mentioned had succeeded in +purchasing from the natives. Altogether he was much cheered +and refreshed. During the time that he waited at Aldeen he +improved himself in Hindostanee, and began to study Sanscrit, and +learnt the most approved method of dealing with the +natives. Moreover, he found that his allowance as a +chaplain was so liberal as amply to justify him in writing to +urge Miss Grenfell to come out and join him; and, during the long +period of sixteen or eighteen months before her refusal to do so +reached him, he was full of the hope of receiving her.</p> +<p>His appointed station was Dinapore, where his primary duty was +to minister to the English troops there posted, and to the +families of the civilians; but he also hoped to establish native +<!-- page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +79</span>schools, to preach in their own language to the Hindoos, +and to scatter translations of portions of Scripture, such as the +Parables, among them.</p> +<p>He had to read prayers to the soldiers from the drum-head by +way of desk; there were no seats, and he was desired to omit the +sermon: but afterwards a room was provided, and then the families +of the officers and residents began to attend, though at first +they were much scandalized by his preaching extempore. In +fact there was a good deal in his whole tone that startled old +orthodoxy; and in the opposition with which he met at times, +there was some lawful and just distrust of the +<i>onesidedness</i> of his tenets, together with the ordinary +hatred and dislike of darkness to light. So scrupulous was +he in the Jewish force given by his party to the Fourth +Commandment, that, having one Sunday conceived the plan of +translating the Prayer-book into Hindostanee, he worked at it +till he had reached the end of the <i>Te Deum</i>; and there, +doubting whether it were a proper employment for the day, +desisted until the Monday, to give himself up to prayer, singing +hymns, Scripture-reading, and meditation. The immediate +value of this work was for the poor native wives of the English +soldiers, whom he found professing Christianity, but utterly +ignorant; and to them every Sunday, after the official English +service, he repeated the Liturgy in the vulgar tongue. In +this holy work he was the pioneer, since Swartz’s service +was in Tamul. While working at his translations with his +moonshee, or interpreter, a Mussulman, he had much opportunity +for conversation and for study of the Mahometan arguments, so as +to be very useful to himself; though he could not succeed in +convincing the impracticable moonshee, who had all that +self-satisfaction belonging to Mahometanism. “I told +him that he ought to pray that God would teach him what the truth +really is. He said he had no occasion to pray on this +subject, as the word of God is express.” With the +Hindoos at Dinapore, he found, to his surprise, that there was +apparently little disinclination to “become +Feringees,” as they called it, outwardly; but the +difficulty lay in his insistance on Christian faith and +obedience, instead of a mere external profession.</p> +<p>It was while he was at Dinapore that we first acquire anything +like a distinct idea of Henry Martyn; for there a short halt of +the 53rd Regiment brought him in contact with one <!-- page +80--><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>who +had an eye to observe, a heart to honour, and a pen to describe +him; namely, Mrs. Sherwood, the wife of the paymaster, a woman of +deeply religious sentiments and considerable powers as an +author. Mutual friends had already prepared Mr. Martyn to +expect to find like-minded companions in the Sherwoods, invited +to stay with him for the few days of their sojourn at +Dinapore. “Mr. Martyn’s quarters,” says +that lady, “were in the smaller square—a church-like +abode, with little furniture, the rooms wide and high, with many +vast doorways, having their green jalousied doors, and long +verandahs encompassing two sides of the quarters.” So +scanty, indeed, was the furniture, that, though he gave up his +own bedroom, Mrs. Sherwood could not find a pillow, not only +there, but in the whole house; and, with a severe pain in her +face, could get nothing to lay her head on “but a bolster +stuffed as hard as a pin-cushion.”</p> +<p>She thus describes the first sight of her +host:—“He was dressed in white, and looked very pale, +which, however, was nothing singular in India; his hair, a light +brown, was raised from his forehead, which was a remarkably fine +one. His features were not regular, but the expression was +so luminous, so intellectual, so affectionate, so beaming with +Divine charity, that no one could have looked at his features and +thought of their shape or form; the outbeaming of his soul would +absorb the attention of every observer. There was a very +decided air, too, of the gentleman about Mr. Martyn, and a +perfection of manners which, from his extreme attention to all +minute civilities, might seem almost inconsistent with the +general bent of his thoughts to the most serious subjects. +He was as remarkable for ease as for cheerfulness. He did +not appear like one who felt the necessity of contending with the +world and denying himself its delights, but, rather, as one who +was unconscious of the existence of any attractions in the world, +or of any delights which were worthy of his notice. When he +relaxed from his labours in the presence of his friends, it was +to play and laugh like an innocent child, more especially if +children were present to play and laugh with him.”</p> +<p>His labours were the incessant charge of the English, +travelling often great distances to baptize, marry, or bury, +together with constant teaching in the schools he had established +both for the English and natives, attendance on the <!-- page +81--><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>sick +in the hospitals, and likewise private arguments with Mahometans +and Hindoos. Public preachings in the streets and bazaars, +like those of Swartz, Carey, and Ward, he does not seem to have +attempted at this time; but his translations were his great and +serious employment, and one that gave him much delight. His +thorough classical education and scholarship fitted him for this +in an unusual degree, and besides the Hindostanee version of the +Prayer-book, the Persian—so much wanted in the Bombay +Presidency—was committed to him; and an assistant was sent +to him, whose history, disappointing as it is, cannot be omitted +from the account of Indian missions.</p> +<p>Sabat was an Arab of the tribe of Koreish, the same which gave +birth to Mahomet himself. He was born on the banks of the +Euphrates, and educated in such learning as still lingered about +the city of the Khalifs; but he left home early, and served in +the Turkish army against the French at Acre. Afterwards he +became a soldier in the Persian army, where he was several times +wounded, and in consequence retired, and, wandering into Cabul, +there rose to be a royal secretary.</p> +<p>He formed a close friendship with his colleague, Abdallah, +likewise a Koreishite Arab, and very able and poetical. +When the Wahabees, the straitest sect of the Mussulmans, seized +Mecca, their chief wrote a letter to the King of Cabul, which was +committed to Abdallah to translate into Persian. By way of +a graceful compliment, he put his translation into Persian verse, +and the reward he received was equally strange; namely, the gift +of as many pearls as could be stuffed into his mouth at +once. He was, however, observed to be unusually grave and +thoughtful, and to frequent the house of an Armenian—of +course a Christian: but as this person had a beautiful daughter, +she was supposed to be the attraction, and no suspicion was +excited by his request to retire into his own country.</p> +<p>Soon after Sabat was made prisoner by the Tartars of Bokhara, +and, by appealing to the king, as a descendant of the prophet, +obtained his release and promotion to high honour. While +visiting the city of Bokhara, he recognized his old friend, +Abdallah, and, perceiving that his beard was shaved off, examined +him on the cause so closely that he was driven to confess that +the Armenian had converted him to the Christian faith, and that +he did not wish to be known. Hereditary Christians are +tolerated by the Moslem, but converts are <!-- page 82--><a +name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>bitterly +persecuted; and Sabat flew into a great rage, argued, threatened, +and at last denounced his old friend to the Moollahs as a +recreant from Islam.</p> +<p>Abdallah was arrested, and showed himself a true and faithful +confessor and martyr. The Moollahs strove hard to make him +recant. They demanded of him: “In the Gospel of +Christ, is anything said of our Prophet?”—intending +to extort that promise of the Comforter which Mahomet +blasphemously applied to himself.</p> +<p>Abdallah’s answer was: “Yea—Beware of false +prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but +inwardly are ravening wolves.”</p> +<p>This brave reply was requited by blows on the mouth till the +blood flowed, and Sabat thought of the day he had seen that same +mouth filled with pearls. Abdallah was sent back to prison, +and four days were allowed him in which to recant; after which he +was brought out and set before an assembled multitude. +Pardon was offered him if he would deny his Lord, and, on his +refusal, his left hand was cut off. The look of deep sorrow +and pity he gave the former friend who had betrayed him sunk deep +into Sabat’s heart. Again his life was offered, again +he confessed himself a Christian, and finally his martyrdom was +completed by cutting off his head.</p> +<p>This history Sabat told with feeling and earnestness, that +convinced his hearers of its truth; and from this he did not +vary, though his account of his own subsequent adventures varied +so much that it was not possible at last to attach credence to +anything he said of himself before he became expounder of +Mohammedan Law in the Civil Court at Vizagapatam. At any +rate Abdallah’s look dwelt with him; he detected +discrepancies in the Koran, and became anxious to study the +Christian Scriptures. He obtained from Bombay a copy, first +of the New Testament, then of the Old, and, having become +convinced, he came to Madras, and demanded baptism from Dr. Ker, +the British chaplain. After some probation, which made +Sabat so impatient that he threatened that he should accuse the +minister before God if he delayed, he was baptized by the name of +Nathanael, and sent to Serampore as a person likely to be useful +in the translations always in hand there.</p> +<p>He was delighted with the habits there prevailing, dismissed +his attendants, dined at the common table, and altogether +conformed <!-- page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 83</span>himself to the spirit of the +place. When it was decided to send him to Dinapore to +assist Mr. Martyn in rendering the Bible into Persian, he took +leave of Serampore with tears in his eyes. He was gladly +welcomed by Mr. Martyn, and they worked together at the Gospel of +St. Matthew, Sabat showing a scholar-like anxiety both for +correctness and rhythm; but there was so much of the wild Arab +about him that he was a continual anxiety. The Serampore +missionaries thought him a grand, dignified figure. Mrs. +Sherwood paints him much less pleasantly, and says he was exactly +like the sign of the Saracen’s head, with intensely +flashing eyes, high nose, white teeth, and jet black eyebrows, +moustache, and beard. His voice was like rolling thunder, +his dress of gorgeous material and thoroughly Oriental, silk +skull-cap, jacket, jewelled girdle, loose trousers, and +embroidered shoes, and he had a free and haughty manner, +according with his signature, when writing to a gentleman who had +offended him—“Nathanael Sabat, an Arab, who never was +in bondage.”</p> +<p>In April 1809, Mr. Martyn was removed to the station at +Cawnpore, where the Sherwoods were then residing. The time +was one of the worst in the whole year for travelling across the +sandy plains, with a wind blowing that made the air like +“the mouth of an oven.” For two days and two +nights, between Allahabad and Cawnpore, Mr. Martyn travelled in +his palanquin without intermission, and, having expected to +arrive sooner, he had brought no provision for the last +day. “I lay in my palanquin, faint, with a headache, +neither awake nor asleep, between dead and alive, the wind +blowing flames.” When he arrived, Mr. Sherwood had +only just time to lead him into the bungalow before he fainted +away, and the hall being the least heated place, a couch was made +ready for him there, where for some days he lay very ill; and the +thermometer was never below 96°, though the punkah never +ceased.</p> +<p>As soon as he mended a little, he enjoyed talking over his +Hebrew and Greek studies and his ethnological researches with his +clever and eager hostess, who must have greatly refreshed his +spirit. He delighted in music: his voice and ear were both +excellent, and he taught her many hymns and their tunes. He +also took much pleasure in a little orphan girl whom she was +bringing up. At this time she herself was almost a +childless mother, all her Indian-born infants having been victims +to the <!-- page 84--><a name="page84"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 84</span>climate; but a few months later Mr. +Martyn christened her little daughter Lucy, a child of such +gentle, gracious temper that he was wont to call her +Serena. Mrs. Sherwood gives a pretty picture of this little +creature, when about eighteen months old, creeping up to Mr. +Martyn as he lay on a sofa with all his books about him, and +perching herself on his Hebrew Lexicon, which he needed every +moment, but would not touch so as to disturb her. The pale, +white-clad pastor, and the child with silky hair, bare white feet +and arms, and little muslin frock, looked equally innocent and +pure.</p> +<p>Mr. Martyn’s house at Cawnpore was at the end of an +avenue of palms and aloes: there were two bungalows connected by +a long passage, in one of which he himself lived, the other was +given up to Sabat and his wife. The garden was prettily +laid out with shrubs and tall trees, with a raised platform in +the centre; and on one side was a whole colony, consisting not +only of the usual number of servants allowed to a military +chaplain, but of a host of pundits, moonshees, schoolmasters, and +poor nominal Christians, who hung about him because there was no +one else to give them a handful of rice for their daily +maintenance.</p> +<p>Here Mrs. Sherwood describes a motley entertainment, at which +she was the only lady. Her husband, in his scarlet and gold +uniform, and Mr. Martyn, in his clerical black silk coat, were +the only other English. The other European present was +Padre Giulio Cesare, an Italian Franciscan, whom Mr. Martyn was +obliged to receive when he came to minister to the numerous Irish +Roman Catholics in the regiment. He wore a purple satin +cassock, a cord of twisted silk, a rosary of costly stones, and a +little skull-cap, and his languages were French with the +Sherwoods, and Italian and Latin with Mr. Martyn. Sabat was +there in his Arab dress; there was a thin, copper-coloured, +half-caste gentleman in white nankeen, speaking only Bengalee; +and a Hindoo in full costume, speaking only his native tongue: so +that no two of the party were in similar costume, seven languages +were employed, and moreover the three Orientals viewed it as good +breeding to shout at the very top of their voices.</p> +<p>Unluckily, too, Mr. Martyn in his politeness suddenly +recollected that Mrs. Sherwood had expressed a liking for certain +mutton patties, and ordered them to be brought, in a +bachelor’s <!-- page 85--><a name="page85"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 85</span>entire oblivion whether any mutton +was procurable otherwise than by killing a sheep: and the delay +forced the guests to continue to sit on the platform in the dark, +with the voices and languages making too great a Babel for the +night-enjoyment sometimes so valued, when Mr. Martyn would show +Mrs. Sherwood our own Pole Star just above the horizon, or watch +the new moon “looking like a ball of ebony in a silver +cup.” At last the patties were ready, and Mr. Martyn +handed Mrs. Sherwood to a seat by him at the top of the table, +while Sabat perched himself cross-legged upon a chair at the +bottom.</p> +<p>The good chaplain’s simplicity seems to have been a +great amusement to the Sherwoods. Late one evening he +quietly observed, “The coolie does not come with my money: +I was thinking this morning how rich I should be, and now I +should not wonder in the least if he has run off and taken my +treasure with him.” Thereupon it turned out that, not +having drawn his pay for some time, he had sent a note to the +collector at Cawnpore, asking that the amount should be forwarded +by the bearer, a common coolie. It was all paid in silver, +tied up in cotton bags, and no one expected that he would ever +see it; however, the coolie arrived safely with it a little +later. Another time, when each household had ordered a +pineapple cheese, it was observed that the fissures in the two +were marvellously similar; and at last it was discovered that the +servants, though paid for two cheeses, made one do duty for both, +appearing in turn at the two tables, which was the easier as Mr. +Martyn supped on limes and other fruits, and only produced his +cheese when the Sherwoods came to supper. He heeded little +but his immediate thoughts, and, when he drove out in his gig, +went on with his disquisitions on language and pronunciation, +utterly unheeding what his horse was about.</p> +<p>The hope of having Lydia with him to brighten his life and aid +his labours had by this time passed away. She had some +entanglement which prevented her from coming out to India, and +his disappointment was most acute. His letters urging her +to come out to him are so strong, and full of such anguish, that +it is hard to understand that the person who could withstand them +could have been the admirable woman Miss Grenfell is described to +have been in after-life—unless, indeed, Martyn did not +appreciate the claims at home to which she yielded. +“Why do things go so well with them and so hardly with +me?” <!-- page 86--><a name="page86"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 86</span>was a thought that would come into +his mind at the weddings where he officiated as priest. +Meantime he had established native schools, choosing a master, +usually a Mussulman, and giving him an anna a head for each boy +whom he obtained as a scholar in reading and writing. Mr. +Martyn supplied books, and these were translations of Scripture +history, of the Parables, and the like, through which he hoped to +lay a foundation for distinctive teaching. Here is Mrs. +Sherwood’s description of the Cawnpore school, then in a +long shed by the side of the cavalry lines:—</p> +<p>“The master sat at one end like a tailor on the dusty +floor, and along under the shed sat the scholars, a pack of +little urchins with no other clothes on than a skull-cap and a +piece of cloth round their loins. These little ones +squatted, like their master, in the sand: they had wooden +imitations of slates in their hands, on which, having first +written their lessons with chalk, they recited them <i>à +pleine gorge</i>, as the French would say, being sure to raise +their voices on the approach of any European or native of +note. Now Cawnpore is one of the most dusty places in the +world; the Sepoy lines are the most dusty part of Cawnpore; and +as the little urchins are always well greased either with +cocoa-nut oil, or, in failure thereof, with rancid mustard oil, +whenever there was the slightest breath of air they always looked +as if they had been powdered all over with brown powder. +Who that has ever heard it, can forget the sounds of the various +notes with which these little people intonated their +‘Aleph, Zubbin ah, Zair a, Paiche oh,’ as they moved +backwards and forwards in their recitations? Who can forget +the self-importance of the schoolmaster, who was generally a +grey-bearded, dry, old man, who had no other means of proving his +superiority to the scholars than by making more noise than even +they could?”</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p1b.jpg"> +<img alt="Henry Martyn’s first endeavour at native +preaching" src="images/p1s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>In the winter of 1809, Mr. Martyn made his first endeavour at +native preaching. The Yogis and Fakers, devotees and +vagrants, haunted the station, and every Sunday evening he opened +the gates of his garden, admitted all who were collected by the +assurance of the distribution of a pice a head; and standing on +his platform, read to them some simple verse of Scripture, and +then endeavoured to make them believe there is a pure Almighty +Universal Father. A frightful crowd: they were often five +hundred in number. “No dreams,” says Mrs. <!-- +page 87--><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>Sherwood, “in the delirium of a raging fever, +could surpass the realities” of their appearance; +“clothed with abominable rags, or nearly without clothes, +or plastered with mud and cow-dung, or with long matted locks +streaming down to their heels; every countenance foul and +frightful with evil passions; the lips black with tobacco, or +crimson with henna. One man, who came in a cart drawn by a +bullock, was so bloated as to look like an enormous frog; another +had kept an arm above his head with his hand clenched till the +nail had come out at the back of his hand; and one very tall man +had all his bones marked on his dark skin with white chalk, like +the figure of grim Death himself.” The assemblage, in +contrast with the pure, innocent, pale face and white dress of +the preacher who addressed them, must have been like some of +Gustave Doré’s illustrations.</p> +<p>These addresses were jealously watched by the British +authorities, and were often interrupted by the howls and +threatenings of his loathsome congregation; while, moreover, +pulmonary complaint, the enemy of his family, began to manifest +itself, so that the physicians insisted on his trying the effect +of cessation from work, a sea-voyage, and a visit to +England. On this plan he had at first fixed. He +enters in his journal a happy dream of a walk with Lydia, and, +waking, the recollection of the 16,000 miles between them; but in +the meantime he heard from the critics at Calcutta, that his +translation of the Gospels into Persian, done with the assistance +of Sabat, was too full of Arabic idioms, and in language not +simple enough for its purpose; and he therefore made up his mind +to spend his leave of absence in making his way through Persia +and part of Arabia, so as to improve himself in the languages, +and submit his translation to more trustworthy scholars. +Mr. Brown, on hearing of his plan, consented in these remarkable +terms: “Can I then bring myself to cut the string and let +you go? I confess I could not if your bodily frame were +strong, and promised to last for half a century. But as you +burn with the intenseness and rapid blaze of phosphorus, why +should we not make the most of you? Your flame may last as +long, and perhaps longer, in Arabia than in India. Where +should the phœnix build her odoriferous nest but in the +land prophetically called the ‘blessed’? And +where shall we ever expect but from that country the true +Comforter to come to the nations of the East?”</p> +<p><!-- page 88--><a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +88</span>In September, therefore, Henry Martyn made ready to set +forth, and to take leave of his congregation of beggars. He +had baptized one poor old Hindoo woman, and she seemed to him to +be the only fruit of his toils; but though the exhortation, at +the end of all his labours of the Sunday, cost him severe pain +and exhaustion, he had constantly persisted, often beginning in a +low feeble tone, but gradually rising in fervour to the full +power of his musical voice; then himself going among the +disgusting throng to distribute their petty bribe for attendance, +and often falling afterwards, faint and speechless, on a +sofa.</p> +<p>He knew not that one seed, cast on these turbid waters, had +found good soil, and was springing up. Sheik Salah was the +son of a pundit at Delhi, and was well-learned in Persian and +Arabic. When a youth he had become moonshee to two English +gentlemen then living at Lucknow, and while in their service +converted a Hindoo fellow-servant from his idolatry to +Islam. Elated with his success, he gave himself such airs +that his English masters reproved him; and he left them in +displeasure, vowing never to serve a Feringhee again. +However, being in the pay of a Mahratta chief, he was sent in +company with a Mahometan envoy who had undertaken to murder a +rival of his master, and having lulled his victim into security +by an oath on the Koran that no treachery was intended, decoyed +him into his tent, and there stabbed him.</p> +<p>Sheik Salah was a deeply conscientious man, and not only did +he leave the Mahratta service, lest some such horrible act should +be required of him, but he conceived a certain distrust of his +own faith, which, though it condemns such deeds, had not hindered +them. While in search of employment, he came to Cawnpore, +and there, one fine evening, he sat with some other young +Mussulmans, in a summer-house on the garden wall that bounded Mr. +Martyn’s garden, enjoying their hookahs and sherbet, and +amusing themselves with what they called the +“foolishness” of the Feringhee Padre, who was +discoursing to the throng of hateful looking beggars below. +By and by, anxious to hear more, they came down, entered the +garden, and stood in a row before the front of the bungalow; +their arms folded, their turbans placed jauntily on one side, and +their countenances expressive of the utmost contempt.</p> +<p>But the words that Sheik Salah caught were sinking deep. +They were of the intense purity and holiness of God and of <!-- +page 89--><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>His laws, and of the need of His power to attain to the +keeping of them, as well as of His Sacrifice to atone for +man’s sinfulness. Sheik Salah could not rest without +hearing more, and becoming determined to obtain employment at +Cawnpore, he undertook to copy Persian manuscripts for Sabat, and +was lodged by him in one of the numerous huts in Mr. +Martyn’s compound. He was a well-educated, graceful +man, exceedingly handsome, looking like a hero of the Old +Testament; and probably Sabat was afraid of a rival, for he never +mentioned to Mr. Martyn the stranger who, Sunday after Sunday, +listened to his preaching, and no doubt would have as thankfully +profited by his individual teaching as he would have joyfully +given it.</p> +<p>Sabat was at this time a great trial to Mr. Martyn, who in the +flush of enthusiasm had let him be put too forward at first, and +found the wild man of the desert far too strong for him. +Sometimes, when they differed about a word in the translation, +Sabat would contend so violently for a whole morning that poor +Mr. Martyn, when unable to bear it any longer, would order his +palanquin and be carried over to the Sherwoods to escape from the +intolerable brawling shout. What Sabat could be was plain +from the story of his wife Amina; his seventh, as he told his +friends. When he was trying to convert her, she asked his +views upon the future lot of those who remained Mahometans, and, +when he consigned them to the state of condemnation, she quietly +replied that she greatly preferred hell without Sabat’s +company to heaven with him. The poor man was no doubt in +great measure sincere, but his probation had been insufficient, +and his wild Ishmaelitish nature, so far from being overcome, +gained in pride and violence through the enthusiasm that was felt +for him as a convert. Once, in a fit of indignation, he +wrote a Persian letter, full of abuse of Mr. Martyn, to a friend +in the service of the English resident at Lucknow. By him +it was carried to his master, who, wishing to show Mr. Martyn the +real character of his favourite convert, sent him the +letter. Instead of looking into it, Mr. Martyn summoned +Sabat, and bade him read it aloud to him. For once the Arab +was overpowered; he cowered before his calm master and entreated +his pardon, and when Mr. Martyn put the letter into his hands, +assuring him that he had not read it, he was really touched, and +showed sorrow for his violence.</p> +<p>On the last Sunday of September 1810, Mr. Martyn took <!-- +page 90--><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +90</span>leave of Cawnpore. It was also the Sunday of the +installation as chaplain of his dearest friend, the Reverend +Daniel Corrie, and of the opening of a church which his exertions +had prevailed to raise, whereas all former services had been in +his own long verandah. The first sound of the bell most +deeply affected those who had scarcely heard one since they had +left their native country. That church has given place to +the beautiful building which commemorates the horrors of 1857; +but the name of Henry Martyn ought never to be forgotten at +Cawnpore, if only as the priest to whom it was granted first to +give thanks that, in his own words, “a temple of God was +erected and a door opened for the service of the Almighty in a +place where, from the foundation of the world, the tabernacle of +the true God had never stood.”</p> +<p>After returning from church he sank, nearly fainting, on a +sofa in the hall; but, as soon as he revived, begged his friends +to sing to him. The hymn was—</p> +<blockquote><p>“O God, our help in ages past,<br /> + Our hope in years to come,<br /> +Our shelter from the stormy blast,<br /> + And our eternal home.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>After the early dinner and afternoon rest, on a sickly, hazy, +burning evening, he preached for the last time to his beggars; +came away fainting, and as he lay on his sofa told his friends +that he did not believe that he had ever made the slightest +impression on <i>one</i> of his audience there.</p> +<p>He knew not that Sheik Salah’s heart had been touched, +and so deeply that he sought further instruction. As to +Sabat, his later career was piteous. He fell back into +Mahometanism, and, after some years of a wandering life, took +service with the Mussulman chief of Acheen in Sumatra, where, +having given some offence, he was barbarously hacked to pieces +and thrown into the sea. Such bitter disappointments occur +in missionary life; and how should we wonder, since the like +befel even St. Paul and St. John?</p> +<p>On the 1st of October, 1810, Mr. Martyn embarked on the +Ganges, and on the last day of the month arrived at Mr. +Brown’s house at Aldeen. He was then much the +stronger for the long rest to his voice and chest, but his +friends thought him greatly changed and enfeebled, and he could +not even hold a conversation <!-- page 91--><a +name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>without +bringing on painful symptoms. Nevertheless, he preached +every Sunday but one at Calcutta until the 7th of January, 1811, +when he took his last leave of his Anglo-Indian friends, and set +forth on his journey to lands almost entirely strange even to his +countrymen, in the hope of rendering the Scriptures available for +the study of the numerous Hindoos and Mahometans who understood +Persian better than any other literary language. He went +forth, in broken health, and not only without a companion, but +without even an attendant, and for his further history we have +only his own journals and letters to depend upon. He went +by sea to Bombay with a captain who had been a pupil of Swartz, +and whose narratives delighted him much, and afterwards obtained +a passage in an English ship which was to cruise in the Persian +Gulf against Arab pirates. Here he was allowed to have +public prayers every evening, and on the 22nd of May was landed +at Bushire, where he was lodged in the house of an English +merchant with an Armenian wife.</p> +<p>The time for a journey to Persia was so far favourable that +the Shah, Fath’ Ali, who had succeeded to the throne in +1794, owed England much gratitude for having interfered to check +the progress of Russian conquest upon his northern +frontier. After Persia had long been closed from foreign +intercourse by the jealous and cruel Shah, Aga Mohammed, +Fath’ Ali, a comparatively enlightened prince in the prime +of life, willingly entertained envoys and travellers from +European courts, and Sir Gore Ouseley was resident at Shiraz as +British Ambassador. Yet it was not considered safe for a +Frank to travel through Persia without an Oriental dress, and, +accordingly, Martyn had to provide himself with the tall conical +cap of black Tartar lambskin, baggy blue trousers, red boots, and +a chintz coat, allowing his beard and moustache to grow, and +eating rice by handfuls from the general dish. Meantime he +was hospitably entertained, the Armenian ladies came in a body to +kiss his hand, and the priest placed him beside the altar in +church, and incensed him four times over, for which he was not +grateful on being told “it was for the honour of our +order.”</p> +<p>An English officer joined company with him, and a muleteer +undertook their transport to Shiraz. It was a terrible +journey up the parching mountain paths of Persia, where +Alexander’s army had suffered so much, with the sun glaring +down upon <!-- page 92--><a name="page92"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 92</span>them, never, in that rainless belt +around the Persian Gulf, tempered by a cloud. They +travelled only by night, and encamped by day, sometimes without a +tree to spread their tents under. The only mode of existing +was to wrap the head in a wet cloth, and the body in all the +heavy clothing to be had, to prevent the waste of moisture; but +even thus Martyn says his state was “a fire within my head, +my skin like a cinder, the pulse violent.” The +thermometer rose to 126° in the middle of the day, and came +down to about 100° in the evening. When exhausted with +fever and sleeplessness, but unable to touch food, it was needful +to mount, and, in a half-dead state of sleepiness, be carried by +the sure-footed mountain pony up steep ascents, and along the +verge of giddy precipices, with a general dreamy sense that it +was magnificent scenery for any one who was in a bodily condition +to admire it.</p> +<p>Swift clear streams and emerald valleys began to refresh the +travellers as they rose into the higher land above the arid +region; and, after one twenty-four hours’ halt in a sort of +summer-house, where Henry Martyn was too ill to move till he had +had a few hours of sleep, they safely arrived at the +mountain-city of Shiraz, where he was kindly received by Jaffier +Ali Khan, a Persian gentleman to whom he had brought letters of +introduction.</p> +<p>Persia, as is well known, has a peculiar intellectual +character of its own. Descended from the Indo-European +stock, and preserved from total enervation by their mountain air, +the inhabitants have, even under Islam, retained much of the +vivacity, fire, and poetry inherent in the Aryan nature. +Their taste for beauty, especially in form and colour, has always +been exquisite; their delight in gardens, in music, and poetry +has had a certain refinement, and with many terrible +faults—in especial falsehood and cruelty, the absence of +the Turkish stolidity, the Arab wildness, and the Hindoo pride +and indolence—has always made them an attractive +people. Their Mahommedanism, too, is of a different form +from that of the Arab and Turk. Theirs is the schismatical +sect of Ali, which is less rigid, and affords more scope for the +intellect and fancy, and it has thrown off a curious body called +the Soofees, a sort of philosophers in relation to Islam. +The name may be either really taken from the Greek <i>Sophos</i>, +wise, or else comes from the Persian <i>Soof</i>, purity. +The Soofees profess to be continually <!-- page 93--><a +name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>in search of +truth, and seem, for the most part, to rest upon a general belief +in an all-pervading Creator, with a spirit diffused through all +His works. Like their (apparent) namesakes of old, they +revel in argument, and delight to tell or to hear some new +thing.</p> +<p>Thus, Jaffier Ali Khan, who belonged to this sect, made the +English padre welcome; and his brother, Seid Ali, whose title of +Mirza shows him to have been a Scribe, undertook to assist in the +translation, while Moollahs and students delighted to come and +hold discussions with him; and very vain and unprofitable +logomachies he found them, whether with Soofee, Mahometan, or +Jew. But the life, on the whole, was interesting, since he +was fulfilling his most important object of providing a +trustworthy and classical version of the Scriptures, such as +might adequately express their meaning, and convey a sense of +their beauty of language and force of expression to the scholarly +and fastidious Oriental.</p> +<p>He made friends in the suite of the Ambassador, Sir Gore +Ouseley, whose house he ministered on Sunday, and he was +presented by him to the heir to the throne, Prince Abbas +Mirza. He had, by way of Court dress, to wear a pair of red +cloth stockings and high-heeled shoes, and was marched up through +the great court of the palace, where a hundred fountains began to +play the moment the Ambassador entered. The Prince sat on +the ground in his hall of audience, and all his visitors sat in a +line with their hats on, but he conversed with no one but the +Ambassador, looking so gentle and amiable that Mr. Martyn could +hardly believe that the tyrannical acts reported of him could be +true.</p> +<p>In the summer heat, Jaffier Ali pitched a tent for him in a +garden outside the walls of Shiraz, where he worked with much +enjoyment, “living among clusters of grapes, by the side of +a clear stream,” and sitting under the shade of an +orange-tree. From thence he made an expedition to see the +ruins of Persepolis, greatly to the perplexity of his escort, +who, after repeatedly telling him that the place was uninhabited, +concluded that he had come thither to drink brandy in secret!</p> +<p>On the New Year’s Day of 1812 Martyn wrote in his +journal: “The present year will probably be a perilous one, +but my life is of little consequence, whether I live to finish +the Persian New Testament, or do not. I look back with pity +and shame on <!-- page 94--><a name="page94"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 94</span>my former self, and on the importance +I then attached to my life and labours. The more I see of +my own works, the more I am ashamed of them. Coarseness and +clumsiness mar all the works of men. I am sick when I look +at man, and his wisdom, and his doings, and am relieved only by +reflecting that we have a city whose builder and maker is +God. The least of <i>His</i> works is refreshing to look +at. A dried leaf or a straw makes me feel myself in good +company. Complacency and admiration take the place of +disgust.”</p> +<p>On the 24th of February he finished his Persian New Testament, +and in six weeks more his translation of the Psalms. His +residence in Persia had lasted just a year, and, though direct +missionary work had not been possible to him there, he had +certainly inspired his coadjutor, Mirza Seid Ali, with a much +higher morality and with something very like faith. On one +of the last days before his leaving Shiraz, Seid Ali said +seriously, “Though a man had no other religious society, I +suppose he might, with the aid of the Bible, live alone with +God.” It was to this solitude that Martyn left him, +not attempting apparently to induce him to give up anything for +the sake of embracing Christianity. Death would probably +have been the consequence of joining the Armenian Church in +Persia, but why did Martyn’s teaching stop at inward faith +instead of insisting on outward confession, the test fixed by the +Saviour Himself?</p> +<p>On the 24th of May, Mr. Martyn and another English clergyman +set out to lay his translation before the Shah, who was in his +camp at Tebriz. There they were admitted to the presence of +the Vizier, before whom two Moollahs, the most ignorant and +discourteous whom he had met in Persia, were set to argue with +the English priest. The Vizier mingled in the discussion, +which ended thus: “You had better say God is God, and +Mahomet is His prophet.” “God is God,” +repeated Henry Martyn, “and <span +class="smcap">Jesus</span> is the Son of God.”</p> +<p>“He is neither born nor begets,” cried the +Moollahs; and one said, “What will you say when your tongue +is burnt out for blasphemy?”</p> +<p>He had offended against the Mohammedan doctrine most strictly +held; and, knowing this well, he had kept back the confession of +the core of the true faith till to withhold it longer would have +been a denial of his Lord. After all, he was not <!-- page +95--><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +95</span>allowed to see the Shah without the Ambassador to +present him, and descended again to Sultania—a painful +journey, from which he brought a severe ague and fever, through +which he was nursed by Sir Gore and Lady Ouseley.</p> +<p>As soon as he had recovered, he decided on making his way to +Constantinople, and thence to England, where he hoped to recruit +his health and, it might be, induce Lydia to accompany him back +to India. His last letter to her was written from Tebriz on +the 28th of August, dreading illness on the journey, but still +full of hope. In that letter, too, he alludes to Sabat as +the greatest tormentor he had known, but warns her against +mentioning to others that this “star of the East,” as +Claudius Buchanan had called him, had been a +disappointment. His diary is carried on as far as +Tocat. The last entry is on the 6th of October. It +closes thus: “Oh! when shall time give place to +eternity? When shall appear that new heaven and earth +wherein dwelleth righteousness? There, there shall in +nowise enter in anything that defileth; none of that wickedness +which has made men worse than wild beasts, none of those +corruptions which add still more to the miseries of mortality, +shall be seen or heard of any more.”</p> +<p>No more is known of Henry Martyn save that he died at Tocat on +the 16th of that same October of 1812, without a European +near. It is not even known whether his death were caused by +fever, or by the plague, which was raging at the place. He +died a pilgrim’s solitary death, and lies in an unknown +grave in a heathen land.</p> +<p>What fruit has his mission zeal left? It has left one of +the soul-stirring examples that have raised up other +labourers. It has left the Persian Bible for the blessing +of all to whom that language is familiar. It left, for the +time, a strong interest in Christianity in Shiraz. It left +in India many English quickened to a sense of religion; and it +assuredly left Sheik Salah a true convert. Baptized +afterwards by the name of Abdul Messeh, or Servant of the +Messiah, he became the teacher of no less than thirty-nine +Hindoos whom he brought to Holy Baptism. Such were the +reapings in Paradise that Henry Martyn has won from his +thirty-one years’ life and his seeming failure.</p> +<h2><!-- page 96--><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +96</span>CHAPTER V. WILLIAM CAREY AND JOSHUA MARSHMAN, THE +SERAMPORE MISSIONARIES.</h2> +<p>The English subjects and allies in India had hitherto owed +their scanty lessons in Christianity to Germans or Danes, and the +first of our own countrymen who attempted the work among them +was, to the shame of our Government be it spoken, a volunteer +from among the humblest classes, of no more education than falls +to the lot of the child of a village schoolmaster and parish +clerk.</p> +<p>In 1761, when Schwartz was just beginning to make his way in +Tanjore, William Carey was born in the village of Paulerspury, in +Northamptonshire. He showed himself a diligent scholar in +his father’s little school, and had even picked up some +Latin before, at fourteen years old, he was apprenticed to a +shoemaker at the neighbouring village of Hackleton. Still +he had an earnest taste for study; and, falling in with a +commentary on the New Testament full of Greek words, he copied +them all out, and carried them for explanation to a man living in +his native village, who had thrown away a classical education by +his dissipated habits.</p> +<p>The young shoemaker, thus struggling on to instruct himself, +fell under the notice of Thomas Scott, the author of the +Commentary on the Bible, and it was from him that Carey first +received any strong religious impressions. Scott was a +Baptist; and young Carey, who had grown up in the days of the +deadness of the Church, was naturally led to his teacher’s +sect, and began to preach at eighteen years of age. He +always looked back with humiliation to the inexperienced +performances of his untried zeal at that time of life; but he was +doing his best to study, working hard at grammar, and every +morning reading his portion of the Scripture for the day in +Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as English. Well might +Mr. Scott say, as he looked at the little cobbler’s shop, +“That was Mr. Carey’s college;” for all this +time he was working at his trade, and, on <!-- page 97--><a +name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>his +master’s death, took the business, and married the daughter +of the house before he was twenty.</p> +<p>It was an unlucky marriage, for she was a dull, ignorant +woman, with no feeling for her husband’s high aims or +superior powers, and the business was not a flourishing one; but +he never manifested anything but warm affection and tenderness +towards this very uncompanionable person, and perhaps, like most +men of low station and unusual intellect, had no idea that more +could be expected of a wife.</p> +<p>Perhaps, in spite of his kindness, Mrs. Carey had to endure +the disasters common to the wives of struggling great men: for +William Carey’s shoes were not equal to his sermons, and +his congregation were too poor even to raise means to clothe him +decently. His time was spent in long tramps to sell shoes +he had made and to obtain the mending of others, and, meantime, +he was constantly suffering from fever and ague.</p> +<p>In 1786, when in his twenty-fifth year, he obtained a little +Baptist chapel and the goodwill of a school at Moulton; but as a +minister he only received 16<i>l.</i> per annum, and at the same +time proved, as many have done before him, that aptness to learn +does not imply aptness to teach. He could not keep order, +and his boys first played tricks with him and then deserted, till +he came nearly to starvation, and had to return to his last and +his leather.</p> +<p>Yet it was the geography lessons of this poor little school +that first found the way to the true chord of Carey’s +soul. Those broad tracts of heathenism that struck his eye +in the map, and the summary of nations and numbers professing +false religions, were to a mind like his no mere items of +information to be driven into dull brains, but were terrible +realities representing souls perishing for lack of +knowledge. Cook’s Voyages fell into his hands and fed +the growing impulse. He hung up in his shop a large map, +composed of several sheets pasted together, and gazed at it when +at his work, writing against each country whatever information he +had been able to collect as to the number of the inhabitants, +their religion, government, or habits, also as to the climate and +natural history.</p> +<p>After he had for some time thus dwelt on the great longing of +his heart, he ventured on speaking it forth at a meeting of +ministers at Northampton, when there was a request that some +topic might be named for discussion. Carey then modestly +<!-- page 98--><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>rose and proposed “the duty of Christians to +attempt the spread of the Gospel among the heathen.” +The words were like a shock. The senior, who acted as +president, sprang up in displeasure, and shouted out, +“Young man, sit down! When God pleases to convert the +heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.” And +another, namely Mr. Fuller, who afterwards became the sheet +anchor of the Missions, describes himself as having thought of +the words of the noble at Jezreel, “If the Lord should make +windows in heaven, might such a thing be?”</p> +<p>Silenced by his brethren, Carey persevered, and proceeded to +write what he had not been allowed to speak. A Birmingham +tradesman of the name of Pott, an opulent man, was induced by his +earnestness to begin a subscription for the publication of +Carey’s pamphlet, which showed wonderful acquaintance with +the state of the countries it mentioned, and manifested talent of +a remarkable order. In truth, Carey had been endowed with +that peculiar missionary gift, facility for languages. A +friend gave him a large folio in Dutch, and was amazed by his +returning shortly after with a translation into English of one of +the sermons which the book contained.</p> +<p>He was becoming more known, and an invitation from a +congregation at Leicester, in 1789, placed him in somewhat more +comfortable circumstances, and brought him into contact with +persons better able to enter into his views; but it was three +years more before he could either publish his pamphlet or take +the very first steps towards the establishment of a Society for +Promoting the Conversion of the Heathen.</p> +<p>The first endeavour to collect a subscription resulted in +13<i>l.</i> 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> This was at Kettering, +and at the same time Carey offered to embark for any country the +Society might appoint. The committee, however, waited to +collect more means, but they found it almost impossible to awaken +people’s minds. At Birmingham, indeed, 70<i>l.</i> +was collected, but in London the dissenting pastors would have +nothing to do with the cause; and the only minister of any +denomination who showed any sympathy was the Rev. John Newton, +that giant of his day, who had in his youth been captain of a +slaver, and well knew what were the dark places of the +earth. The objections made at that time were perfectly +astounding. In the General Assembly of the Kirk of +Scotland, several Presbyterian <!-- page 99--><a +name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>ministers +pronounced it to be “highly preposterous” to attempt +to spread the Gospel among barbarous nations, extolled the +“simple virtues” of the untutored savage, and even +declared that the funds of Missionary Societies might be turned +against Government.</p> +<p>In India itself, the endeavours of the Danish settlement at +Tranquebar had little affected Bengal, but a few of the more +religious men at Calcutta had begun to be shocked at the utter +oblivion of all Christian faith and morality by their own +countrymen, and the absolute favour shown to the grossest +idolatry of the heathen. Charles Grant, a member of the +Board of Trade at Calcutta, was the foremost of these, and on his +return to England brought the subject under the notice of that +great champion of Christ, William Wilberforce. The charter +of the East India Company was renewed from time to time; and when +it was brought before Parliament, Wilberforce proposed the +insertion of clauses enforcing the maintenance of chaplains, +churches, and schools, so that a branch of the Church might take +root in Hindostan.</p> +<p>This scheme, however, excited violent and selfish alarm in the +directors, chiefly men who had made their fortunes in India, and +after living there for years under no restraint were come home to +enjoy their riches. They believed that the natives would +take umbrage at the least interference with their religion, and +that their own wealth and power, so highly prized, would be lost +if idolatry were not merely tolerated, but flattered and +supported. The souls of men and the honour of God were +nothing to them; they were furious with indignation, and procured +from the House of Commons the omission of the clauses. +There was another hope in the Lords; but though Archbishop Moore +and the Bishop of London spoke in favour of the articles, the +Bishop of St. David’s said one nation had no right to +impose its faith on another. None of the other Bishops +stirred, and the charter passed without one line towards keeping +Englishmen Christians, or making Hindoos such! The lethargy +of the Church of the eighteenth century was so heavy that not +only had such a son as Carey been allowed to turn from her pale +in search of earnest religion, but while she was forced to employ +foreigners, bred up in the Lutheran communion, as the chaplains +and missionaries of her Society for the Propagation of the +Gospel, he was going forth unaccredited <!-- page 100--><a +name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>as a +volunteer in the cause which her paralysed efforts could not +support!</p> +<p>For it was to India that the minds of the little Baptist +Society were turned by the return of one John Thomas, who seems +to have been the Gaultier <i>Sans Avoir</i> of this +crusade. He was Baptist by education, and having gone out +as a surgeon to Calcutta, had been so shocked at the state of +things as to begin to preach on his own account, but he was a hot +tempered, imprudent man, and quarrelled with everybody, so as to +make the cause still more unpopular with the East Indians. +Yet this strange, wild character had a wonderful power of +awakening enthusiasm. He had come home in the same ship +with one Wilson, whose history was a marvel in itself. He +had been made prisoner by the French during the Carnatic war, and +finding that the captives were to be delivered up to Hyder Ali, +he resolved to escape, leapt forty feet from his prison window, +and swam the river Coleroon, in happy ignorance that it was +infested with alligators; but then going up an eminence to judge +of his bearings, he was seen, secured, and stripped naked, and, +with his hands tied behind him, was driven before Hyder +Ali. His account of having crossed the Coleroon was treated +as a lie. “No mortal man,” said the natives, +“had ever swum the river; did he but dip a finger in, he +would be seized by the alligators,” but when evidence +proved the fact, the Nabob held up his hands and cried, +“This is the man of God.” Nevertheless Wilson +was chained to a soldier, and, like the well-known David Baird, +John Lindsay, and many others, was driven naked, barefoot, and +wounded, 500 miles to Seringapatam; where, loaded with irons of +thirty-two pounds weight, and chained in couples, they were +thrust into a “black hole,” and fed so scantily that +Wilson declared that at sight of food his jaws snapped together +of themselves. Many a time in the morning corpses were +unchained, and the survivors coupled up together again. +Wilson was one of the thirty-one who lived to be released after +twenty-two months, in a frightful state of exhaustion and +disease. Afterwards, when commanding a ship at Bencoolen, +every European under his command died, and he alone escaped, yet +all this time he was an absolute infidel; and, when having made a +fortune, he was returning home, he appeared so utterly hardened +against all the arguments that the zealous Thomas could bring in +favour <!-- page 101--><a name="page101"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 101</span>of Christianity, as to make him in +despair remark to the chief officer that he should have more hope +of converting the Lascar sailors than of Captain Wilson.</p> +<p>However, the words were penetrating the hitherto ignorant or +obdurate heart, and preparing it to attend to further +instruction. After some years of comfort at home, on +hearing of plans for a mission to the South Sea Islands, Wilson +resolved to offer himself as a free and spontaneous +fellow-worker, ready to sacrifice his whole self in the great +cause!</p> +<p>Meantime Thomas’s fervid account of the needs of India +had made the infant Society propose to send him out with one +colleague; and William Carey, now thirty-three years of age, +offered himself as a fellow-worker.</p> +<p>The notion was terrible to Mrs. Carey, who flatly refused to +go; but her husband decided on leaving her at home, and only +taking his eldest boy, then about ten or eleven years old. +An application was made to the Board of Directors for a licence +to the two missionaries to preach, and for a passage in one of +the Company’s vessels; but when Mr. Grant learnt that +Thomas was one of them, he refused to assist in promoting their +request, though he undertook to do what he could for Carey +alone. However, the Board were certain to refuse them a +passage; not because they were unordained or dissenters, but +simply because they wished to be Christian teachers. A +captain with whom Thomas had sailed as surgeon, offered to +smuggle them over without permission; but while his ship was +preparing, they had to wait in the Isle of Wight, and Thomas was +continually in danger of being arrested by his creditors, and was +constantly obliged to hide himself, till Carey became ashamed of +such an associate. At last, just as they were on board, +with 250<i>l.</i> paid for their passage, and the goods in which +the money for their support had been invested, the captain +received a letter warning him that an information was about to be +laid against him at the India House for taking out people without +permission. Not only missionaries, but Europeans of any +kind, not in the public service, were forbidden to set foot on +the Company’s territories without special licence, and the +danger was so great that the captain set them ashore at once; and +poor Carey beheld with tears the Indian fleet sailing from +Portsmouth without him.</p> +<p>However, by vigorous exertion, Thomas found that a Danish ship +would be lying in the Downs, on her way to the East <!-- page +102--><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +102</span>Indies, and that a passage in her would cost +100<i>l.</i> for a full-grown person and 50<i>l.</i> for a +child. Posting down to Northamptonshire, Carey made a +desperate effort to persuade his wife to come with him, and +succeeded at last, on condition that her sister, Miss Old, should +come too. There were now five children, and the +passage-money for the whole party amounted to 600<i>l.</i>, of +which their utmost efforts, including the sale of all the little +property the Careys possessed, could only raise half.</p> +<p>Thomas, who really had a generous spirit, then arranged that +the whole party should be squeezed into two cabins, and that Mr. +and Mrs. Carey alone should be treated as first-class +passengers. They were taken on these terms; but the +captain, an Englishman, naturalized in Denmark, gave Mr. Thomas +and Miss Old each a cabin, made them dine at his own table, and +treated them all most kindly.</p> +<p>Thus they safely arrived at Calcutta; but this was only the +beginning of troubles. The goods, the sale of which was +intended to maintain the mission, were entrusted to Thomas, and +realized next to nothing; and Carey was indebted to the goodwill +of a rich Hindoo for a miserable house in an unhealthy suburb of +Calcutta, where he lodged his unfortunate family. They had +a great deal of illness, and he was able to do little but study +the language and endeavour to translate the Bible into +Bengalee. Several moves made their state rather worse than +better, until, in 1795, a gentleman in the Civil Service, Mr. +George Udney, offered Carey the superintendence of an indigo +factory of his own at Mudnabutty, where he hoped both to obtain a +maintenance, and to have great opportunities of teaching the +natives in his employment.</p> +<p>Disaster as usual followed him: the spot was unhealthy, the +family had fevers, one of the children died, and the mother lost +her reason from grief, so that she had to be kept under restraint +for the rest of her life. Nor was Carey a better +indigo-planter than a shoe-maker; the profits of the factory +dwindled, and the buildings fell into ruin; the seasons were bad, +and in three years Mr. Udney found himself obliged to give up the +speculation; but in the meantime, though Carey had not been able +to produce much effect on the natives, he had completed the +preparation of the implement to which he most trusted for his +work, a translation of the New Testament; and, moreover, had been +presented by good Mr. Udney with a wooden printing-press <!-- +page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>with Bengalee type. The wonderful-looking thing +was set up in one of the side rooms at the factory, and was +supposed by the natives to be the idol of the Europeans!</p> +<p>In the meantime he opened a school, and preached to the +natives in all the villages round, but without making much, if +any, impression; indeed he was so disheartened, that he did not +even teach his own children. The chief benefit of his +residence in India was at present the example he set, and the +letters he sent home, which bore in on the minds of others the +necessities of their brethren in the East, and brought aid in +subscriptions and, what was still more needed, men.</p> +<p>In 1799, four members of the Baptist communion offered +themselves to go out as missionaries to India, and two of these +were men who left most important traces behind them: William +Ward, who had been a printer and editor of a newspaper at Derby, +and had seen Mr. Carey before his going out to India, and Joshua +Marshman. This latter was the person who, above all others, +gave the struggling mission the strength, consistency, and +prudence which it wanted. The descendant of an old Puritan +officer on the one side, and of Huguenot refugees on the other, +he was brought up in strict Baptist principles by his father, who +was one of the cloth weavers then inhabiting Wiltshire in great +numbers. As a child, he was passionately fond of reading, +and his huge appetite for books and great memory made him a +wonder in his village. A London bookseller, who was +visiting the place, heard of this clever lad, and took him into +his shop as an errand boy; but Joshua found that his concern was +more with the outside of books than the inside, and came home, at +the end of five months, to his father’s loom.</p> +<p>He was a steady lad, with no passions save for reading and +quiet heartfelt religion; but though he had never been guilty of +any serious fault, the Baptist body to which his family belonged +considered he had too much “head-knowledge” of +Christianity to have much “heart-knowledge” of its +truths; and for that reason only, and their distrust and contempt +of human learning, refused to admit him to baptism.</p> +<p>However, this was no obstacle either to his marrying the +daughter of a minister of his own persuasion, or taking the +mastership of a school at Bristol, where he found less +narrow-minded co-religionists, and was baptized by them in 1734, +when twenty-six years of age. He was a successful +schoolmaster, <!-- page 104--><a name="page104"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 104</span>and was likewise able to join the +classes at Bristol Academy, where he studied thoroughly Latin, +Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. His circumstances were +prosperous and rapidly improving when, after five years of great +comfort at Bristol, his mind became so imbued with the sense of +the need that some one should assist Carey, that he offered +himself, together with Ward and two other young men, one of whom +he had recently brought back to Christianity from Tom +Paine’s infidel doctrines. Again his “human +learning” stood in his way. The honest, ignorant men +who were working so earnestly, fancied it connected with +Pharisaism, and had little idea that the Brahmin philosophy was +as hard to deal with as the Greek. They accepted him, but +with hesitation, and a passage for the whole party, including +wives and children, was taken in an American vessel.</p> +<p>Mr. Charles Grant advised them not to attempt to land at +Calcutta, where they would probably be at once arrested and sent +home again, but to land at the Danish colony of Serampore, and +there wait for an opportunity of joining Carey at Mudnabutty.</p> +<p>Serampore is on the Hooghly, sixteen miles above Calcutta, and +here they found themselves on the 13th of October, 1799, in a +town pleasantly situated, beautiful to look at, and full of a +mixed population of Danes, Dutch, English, and natives of all +hues. They were preparing to set forth for Mudnabutty when, +on the fifth day after their arrival, they were informed that the +British Government demanded that they should be immediately +re-embarked and sent home again, whilst a local English paper, +having never heard of Baptists, concluded that the word was a +mistake for Papists, and announced the arrival of four Popish +priests, emissaries of Buonaparte. The Danish governor, +Colonel Bie, was resolved to stand his ground and not deliver +them up; but they were prevented from setting foot upon the +Company’s territory, and the unwholesome, damp, little +house that they were obliged to take while waiting at Serampore +proved fatal to one of their number, the young man whom Marshman +had rescued from infidelity, who died of chill and fever before +his inexperienced associates were aware of his danger.</p> +<p>Another difficulty in the way of joining Carey and assisting +in the printing of his translations, was that papers which were +<!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +105</span>thought dangerous to the British power had lately been +issued, and the Marquis Wellesley, who was then in the midst of +his great war with Tippoo Sahib, was resolved not to allow any +printing to be carried on except in Calcutta, where it could be +under the eye of his officials. However, he had no +objection to the establishment of mission, school, or press on +the Danish ground, and Colonel Bie was only desirous to keep them +there; so it was decided to send Ward alone, with a Danish +passport, to visit Carey at Mudnabutty, and confer with him upon +his removal to Serampore, and the establishment of a mission +settlement there.</p> +<p>All doubt was removed, while this consultation was in +progress, by finding that the jealous Anglo-Indians were prepared +to arrest any missionary whom they caught upon their ground; and +Carey’s five years’ covenant as an indigo planter +being now run out, his supposed idol was taken down and packed +up, and his four boys and poor insane wife removed to Serampore, +where all their present capital was laid out in the purchase of a +piece of ground and the construction of the habitations of the +little colony. The expenses were to be defrayed from a +common stock, each missionary in turn superintending the domestic +arrangements for a month, all the household dining together at +one table, and only a small allowance being made to each head of +a family for pocket money.</p> +<p>Six families were here united, and only 200<i>l.</i> was left +to support them for the six months until remittances could be +obtained from England; but all were used to cottage fare, and +were not so dependent on servants as most Europeans in +India. A piece of land attached to the house became, under +Mr. Carey’s care, a beautiful botanic garden. The +press was set up under the care of Ward, and on the 18th of +March, 1800, the first sheets of the Gospels in Bengalee were +struck off. Mr. and Mrs. Marshman opened two boarding +schools for European children for the maintenance of the mission, +and their great ability in tuition rendered these so profitable +as to become its main support. This was soon followed by +another school for the natives, to which they eagerly +thronged.</p> +<p>Meanwhile the missionaries went out, singly or in pairs, into +the streets or the neighbourhood of the heathen temples, and +attracted a crowd by singing hymns in Bengalee, and then <!-- +page 106--><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>preached to them, offering to receive any inquiries at +the mission-house. Carey’s time was almost entirely +taken up in hearing and answering these questions; but, as usual, +the ties of family, society, and custom almost always proved too +strong to be broken through even by the conviction of the truth +of Christianity. Ram-bosoo, Mr. Carey’s first Hindoo +friend, was like Serfojee, ready to do anything on behalf of +Christianity except to embrace it openly himself.</p> +<p>Mr. Thomas had meantime engaged himself as superintendent of a +sugar factory at Beerbhoom, whence he came to visit his brethren +at Serampore, bringing with him one of his workmen named Fukier, +whom he believed that he had converted. The man gave so +good an account of his faith that the missionaries deemed him fit +for baptism, and rejoiced in him as the first-fruits of seven +years’ labour; but he went home to take leave of his +friends, and either they prevailed on him to give up his +intention, or privately murdered him, for he never was heard of +again.</p> +<p>However, a carpenter of Serampore named Krishnu, who had been +brought into the mission-house with a dislocated arm for Mr. +Thomas to set, was so struck by what he heard there that he, with +his wife and daughter and his brother Goluk, were all willing to +give up their caste and be baptized.</p> +<p>There was much, however, to render the joy of this day far +from being unmixed. Poor John Thomas, after his seventeen +years of effort, fitful, indeed, but sincere, was so overjoyed at +this confession of faith that he became frantic, and in three +days was raving violently. Meanwhile, the native mob, +infuriated by hearing that Krishnu and Goluk had renounced their +caste, rose to the number of two thousand, and dragged them to +the magistrate, but found nothing to accuse them of. The +magistrate released them, but they were brought back immediately +after, on the plea that the person to whom Krishnu’s +daughter had been betrothed had a claim upon her. This, +however, the authorities disallowed, and they even gave the +missionaries a guard to secure them from any interruption during +the rite of Baptism, which, by the customs of their sect, was +necessarily in public, and by immersion; but there was serious +consultation whether it were fit to use the Ganges, so +superstitiously adored by the natives, for the purpose. +Some argued that the Hindoos might think that the sacredness of +Gunga was thus recognized, <!-- page 107--><a +name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>others that +they would consider that the Christians had defiled it, and it +was finally resolved to use it like any other stream. In +the meantime, Goluk and the two women had been so much terrified +that they would not come forward; and on the day of the baptism, +Sunday, the 26th of December, 1800, the only two candidates were +Krishnu and Felix Carey, the missionary’s own eldest +son. William Carey walked from the chapel to the ghat, or +steps leading to the river, with his son on one side and the +Hindoo on the other; but the court they had to pass resounded +with the frightful imprecations of poor Mr. Thomas in one room, +echoed by screams from Mrs. Carey in the other.</p> +<p>At the ghât the Danish governor himself, together with +several of his countrymen, some Englishmen, a large body of +Portuguese, and a throng of natives, Hindoo and Mahometan, were +waiting, and before all these the baptism was performed by Mr. +Carey. All were silent as if overawed, and Colonel Bie even +shed tears.</p> +<p>The next day there was not a scholar in the native school, but +the love of learning soon filled it again. Even down till +quite recently, when the bands of attachment to the old +heathenism have become much loosened, every open conversion +continued to empty the schools, though never for long at a +time.</p> +<p>The women soon recovered from their alarm and were baptized, +and the mission also gained over an influential Portuguese +gentleman named Fernandez, whom their tenets led them to view as +in as much need of conversion as the heathen. He proved an +active assistant, and for full thirty years laboured in their +cause.</p> +<p>In the meantime Lord Wellesley had been engaged in founding +the college at Fort William, Calcutta, for the training of young +Europeans for the civil service in the knowledge of the numerous +native tongues, laws, and customs with which they had to +deal—and which are as various as they are +important—not only practically, but philosophically. +The only person at that time in Bengal qualified to teach the +Bengalese language was the Northamptonshire cobbler, who had +acquired it for the love of God and the spread of Gospel +light!</p> +<p>His dissent was a disqualification for any of the higher +offices of the college, but the teachership was offered to him, +with a salary of 500 rupees a month—absolute affluence +compared with his original condition. Yet he would not +accept the post <!-- page 108--><a name="page108"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 108</span>unless he were allowed still to be +regarded as a missionary. No objection was made, and thus +by his talent and usefulness had Carey forced from the Government +which had forbidden him to set foot on their territories his +recognition in the character he had always claimed. Even +his private secular earnings he never regarded as his own: this +income, and that arising from Marshman’s school, these good +men viewed as rendering their mission from henceforth +independent, and setting free the Society at home to support +fresh ones. Already the accounts they sent home were +stirring up many more subscribers, and the commendations bestowed +on them in the periodical accounts pained their humility. +Ward wrote that it was like a public show: “Very fine +missionaries to be seen here! Walk in, brethren and +sisters, walk in!”</p> +<p>It was happy for the missionaries that their ground had thus +been won, for the war with Denmark occasioned Serampore to be +occupied by British troops early in 1801, and this would, earlier +in their career, infallibly have led to their expulsion: but, as +it was, they were allowed to proceed exactly as they had done +before.</p> +<p>Their most serious difficulties were at an end before poor +Thomas, though he had recovered from his brain fever, died of an +attack of fever and ague, after having done almost an equal +amount of good and harm to his cause by his excitable nature and +entire want of balance. Converts continued from time to +time to be gathered in: Goluk took courage after waiting about +two years, and a Brahmin named Krishnu-prisad trampled on his +brahminical cord or poita, and was baptized. He was allowed +to wear it as a mark of distinction, but he gave it up +voluntarily after three years. Moreover he broke through +Indian prejudice by marrying the daughter of Krishnu, the first +convert, though of a caste far inferior to his own. This +was the occasion of a happy little wedding feast, given under a +tree in front of the house of the bride’s father, when a +hymn composed by Krishnu was sung, and native dishes served up in +Eastern style, after which the entertainment concluded with +prayer. Only the next week, in contrast to the devotion +that blessed these family ties, three Hindoo widows were burnt on +a pile not far from the mission-house!</p> +<p>In still greater contrast was the first funeral among the +converts of the mission-house—that of a man named +Gokool. <!-- page 109--><a name="page109"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 109</span>The native custom is that the dead +are always carried to burial by persons of their own caste, and +it is intense defilement for one of another caste to touch the +body. Christians were always carried by the lowest class of +the Portuguese, who had fallen into so degraded a state that they +were usually known by their own word for poor, +“pobre,” and were despised by the whole +population. They were generally drunk and disorderly, and +their rudeness, irreverence, and quarrels were a scandal to the +solemn occasion. Mr. Marshman, who was in charge of the +mission at the time in Mr. Carey’s absence, had some +difficulty in persuading the Hindoo converts that it was no +shame, but a charitable work, to bear a brother’s body to +its last resting-place, even though they were seen doing the work +of the despised pobres. Accordingly he resolved to set the +example, and the corpse of the convert, within a coffin covered +with white muslin, was carried to the burial-ground by Marshman, +Felix Carey, a baptized Brahmin, and a baptized Hindoo, all the +procession singing a Bengalee Christian hymn.</p> +<p>The most remarkable events that befell the Serampore Mission +from this time were either domestic, or related to their +connection with the College at Fort William, and the sanction +they received from Government. Lord Wellesley went home in +1805, Colonel Bie died the same year, and these were most serious +losses to the cause of the Serampore mission. Lord +Wellesley had followed his own judgment, and carried things with +a high hand, often against the will of the East India Company, +and there was a strong desire to reverse his policy. His +successor, Lord Cornwallis, died two months after landing, and +Sir George Barlow, who carried on the government in the +interregnum, though a good man, had not force enough to withstand +the dislike of the Anglo-Indians to the mission. Mr. Ward +made an attempt at Calcutta to preach in Hindoo in a chapel, the +ground of which had been purchased by the missionaries, but as he +walked through the streets the people shouted, +“That’s the Hindoo padre; why dost thou destroy the +caste of the people?” And when, two Sundays later, a +preacher of Brahmin birth appeared, there were loud cries of +indignation. “O vagabond,” cried one man, +“why didst thou not come to my house? I would have +given thee a handful of rice rather than that thou shouldst have +become a Feringhee!” In spite of these cries, +however, the chapel was thronged, until, <!-- page 110--><a +name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>after the +third Sunday, when an order came forth from the magistrates, +forbidding the missionaries either to preach, allow their +converts to preach, distribute tracts, or even argue with the +natives—or in anyway “interfere with their +prejudices”—in Calcutta; and two new missionaries, +named Chater and Robinson, who had come out without a licence, +were prohibited from proceeding to Serampore.</p> +<p>Considering that these orders emanated only from a Provisional +Government during an interregnum, and that there was every hope +that they might be reversed by the next Governor-General, the +missionaries resolved to submit to them for the time, and to +abstain from working in Calcutta. Early in the year 1806, +however, the animosity of the English East Indians was increased +by a mutiny that broke out among the Sepoys at Vellore, in the +Madras Presidency, in consequence of some regulations as to their +dress, which they resented as being supposed to assimilate them +to Europeans. The English colonel and all his garrison were +massacred, and, though the mutineers were surrounded and +destroyed, great alarm prevailed. The discontent of the +Sepoys was attributed to their displeasure at the spread of +Christianity, and it was even averred that the lives of the +English in India could only be preserved by the recall of all the +missionaries!</p> +<p>At Calcutta, Sir George Barlow sent to forbid Mr. Carey and +his colleagues from making any further attempts at conversion, +and for a short time they were entirely restricted to the Danish +territory, while Chater and Robinson were ordered to embark for +England, and were only kept by their appeal to the flag of +Denmark.</p> +<p>Upon this Mr. Chater proceeded to Rangoon, an independent +province, but on the whole the current of opposition was +diminishing. Lord Wellesley and Mr. Pitt had prevailed upon +Government not to permit the College at Fort William to be broken +up, though it was reduced and remodelled. Mr. Carey was a +gainer by the change, for he was promoted to a professorship, +with an increase of salary, which he said was “very good +for the mission.” He soon after received the diploma +of a Doctor of Divinity from an American University.</p> +<p>The head-quarters of the establishment continued to be at +Serampore, where the missionaries and their families still lived +in common, supported upon the proceeds of Mr. Carey’s +professorship, <!-- page 111--><a name="page111"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 111</span>Mr. Marshman’s school, and +likewise the subscriptions received from England. Here were +their chapel, their schools, and their printing-press, from +whence emanated such books and tracts in Bengalee as could be +useful for their purpose, and likewise their great work, the +translation of the Scriptures, which Marshman and Carey were +continually revising and improving as their knowledge of the +language became more critical. Thence Mr. Carey went to +give instruction at Fort William, and thence the preachers, as +the opposition relaxed, went forth on expeditions into the +country to teach, argue, and persuade, without any very +wide-spread success, but still every year gaining a few +converts—sometimes as many as twenty—who, when they +had given sufficient evidence of faith, were always publicly +baptized by immersion, according to the custom of the sect, which +indeed acknowledged no other form as valid, and re-baptized such +members of other communions as joined them. Every +missionary to the East Indies, whether belonging to their own +society or not, was certain to visit and hold council with them, +as the veterans of the Christian army in India, and the men most +experienced in the character and language of the natives; they +were the prime leaders and authorities in all that concerned the +various vernacular translations of the Scriptures, and their +example was as a trumpet-call to others to follow them in their +labours; while all the time the simplicity, humility, +self-denial, and activity of the men themselves remained +unspoiled.</p> +<p>Wonderful, too, had been the effect produced by the stirring +of the sluggish waters of indifference. The Society that +had been with such difficulty established at home, was numbering +multitudes of subscribers both in England and America; it had +awakened a like spirit in other sects, and whereas no dissenting +minister in London had at first taken up Carey’s cause, it +had become a scandal for a minister not to subscribe to or +promote missions to the heathen. Missionary reports were +everywhere distributed, young men aspired to the work, and +American Universities did honour to the ability and scholarship +of the pioneers of Serampore.</p> +<p>Mrs. Carey died on the 7th of December, 1807, having spent +twelve years in a state of constant melancholy and often raving +insanity. Poor woman! she was from the first a victim to +her husband’s aspirations, which she never +understood. There is <!-- page 112--><a +name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>something +piteous in the cobbler’s daughter marrying the apprentice +to keep on the business, and finding him a genius and a hero on +her hands, starving, being laughed at, and at last carried off to +a strange land and fatal climate, all without the least +comprehension or sympathy for the cause, and her mind failing +before the material prosperity came, which she might have +regarded as compensation.</p> +<p>In 1807, when some progress had been made, the grant for the +translation of the Scriptures was withdrawn; but the +superintendents resolved to persevere on their own account, and +at the same time to collect all the information in their power +respecting the Christians in India, so as to be able to rouse the +cold hearts at home to the perception that a real work was in +progress. For this purpose, Dr. Claudius Buchanan, the +Provost of the College at Fort William, made an expedition of +inquiry among the various Christians, and his little book, +“Christian Researches,” brought much before the +public at home, of which they had hitherto been ignorant.</p> +<p>Before his time the enormities of the worship of Jaghernauth, +and the horrors of the car, beneath which human victims threw +themselves, had hardly been realized; and his very effective +style of writing brought into full prominence the atrocities of +the Suttee, or burning of widows on the funeral pile, a custom +with which it was supposed to be impossible to interfere, but +which has been proved to be entirely a corrupt practice, +unsanctioned by any ancient law, only encouraged by the Brahmins +out of avarice. Happily the present generation only knows +of these atrocities as almost proverbial expressions, but when +the century came in they were in full force.</p> +<p>It was Buchanan, too, who first revealed to the English the +existence of those Nestorian Christians of St. Thomas, on the +coast of Malabar, who had probably had no ecclesiastical +intercourse with this country since the embassy of King Alfred, +nine hundred years before. He also brought into public +notice the effect of Swartz’s labours, by describing a +visit that he made to Tanjore, where he had a most kind reception +from Serfojee, and greatly admired the numerous charitable +foundations of that beneficent Rajah. He also heard the +services held in three languages in Swartz’s church, and +was greatly struck, when the Tamul sermon began, by hearing a +universal scratching and grating all round him. This was +caused, he <!-- page 113--><a name="page113"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 113</span>found, by the iron pens upon the +palmyra leaves upon which most of the native congregation were +taking notes, writing nearly as fast as the minister spoke. +He also heard Sattianadem—now a white-haired old +man—preach on the “Marvellous Light,” and he +felt that a great man had verily left his impress on these +districts.</p> +<p>Carey’s second marriage was curiously different from his +first. It was to a lady named Charlotte Rumohr, of noble +extraction, belonging to a family of high rank, in the duchy of +Schleswig. She was small and slightly deformed, but of good +abilities; she had been highly educated, and being generally a +prisoner on a couch, she had read deeply in many languages. +She had come out to India in search of a warm climate, and +residing at Serampore, had fallen under the influence of the +missionaries, and had some years previously been admitted to +their congregation by immersion. For the first time, Dr. +Carey now enjoyed a really happy home, with a lady equal to +conversing with him after the labours of the day.</p> +<p>But this mission, though subsisting for some years longer, +hardly affords many more events. It was not without +troubles. At times came friendly support; at others, +opposition from the authorities—the committee at home were +sometimes ignorantly meddlesome, sometimes sordid in their fits +of economy; insufficiently tested fellow-labourers came out and +failed; promising converts fell away; the climate was one steady +unrelaxing foe, which took victims out of every family: but all +these things were as the dust of the highway, trials common to +man, and only incident to the very position that had been so +wondrously achieved, since the day when the poor Baptist cobbler +was so peremptorily silenced for but venturing to hint at the +duty of converting the heathen.</p> +<p>Lord Hastings’ government was far more friendly than any +previous one, and the few notable events that befell the +community are quickly numbered. In 1821, they were visited +by Swartz’s pupil, Serfojee, who was staying with the +Governor-General, Lord Hastings, on his way to Benares, whither, +strange and sad to say, he was on pilgrimage, though all the time +showing full intellectual understanding of, and warm external +affection for, the Christian faith. He talked English +easily, and showed much interest in all that was going on, but a +heathen he still remained.</p> +<p><!-- page 114--><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>This visit only preceded by a few weeks the death of +Mrs. Carey, after thirteen years’ marriage, the happiest of +Dr. Carey’s life; but in another year he married a widow of +forty-five, who was ready to nurse his now declining years. +That year 1822 was a year of much sorrow; the cholera, said to +have first appeared in 1817, became very virulent. The +Hindoos viewed it as a visitation from the goddess of +destruction, and held services to propitiate it, and when that +had passed away, a more than usually fatal form of fever set +in. Krishnu-pal, the first convert, who had for twenty +years been a consistent Christian, was one of the first to be +taken away. Dr. Carey himself, though exceedingly ill, +recovered his former state of health, and continued his arduous +labours, he being by this time the ablest philologist in India; +but the little band had come to the time of life when “the +clouds return after the rain,” and in 1823 Mr. Ward died of +cholera. For twenty-three years had the threefold cord +between Carey, Marshman, and Ward, been unbroken. They had +lived together like brothers, alike in aim and purposes, each +supplying what the other lacked; and the distress of the parting +was terrible, especially to Dr. Marshman, who at the time of his +friend’s illness was suffering from an attack of deafness, +temporary indeed, but for some days total, so that he could only +watch the final struggle without hearing a single word.</p> +<p>He wrote as if he longed to be with those whose toils and +sorrows were at an end, but he still had much more to do. +In 1826, he visited England, partly for the sake of pleading with +the Society at home, first begun on so small a scale by Carey, +but which now numbered many members and disposed of large +sums. The committee, however, were often hard to deal +with. There were among them many men of good intentions, +but without breadth of views, and used to small economies. +They listened to false reports, censured without sufficient +information, pinched their missions, and dictated the management, +so that to deal with them was but a vexation of spirit. +Indeed, such annoyances are inseparable from the very fact of the +supplies and the government being in the hands of a body at a +distance from the scene of action, and destitute of personal +experience of the needs.</p> +<p>After much argument, the matter ended in the Serampore mission +being separated from the General Society, as indeed it <!-- page +115--><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +115</span>had become nearly self-supporting through the numerous +schools which the talents of the members of it had been able to +establish. It was an unfortunate time, however, when the +two men whose abilities had earned their present position were so +far past the prime of life; and, in 1830, the failure of a great +banking company both deprived them of a large part of their +investments, and, by ruining numerous families, lessened the +attendance at Dr. Marshman’s school. Moreover, the +American subscribers sent a most vexatious and absurd +remonstrance against any part of their contributions for training +young men to the ministry, being employed in teaching +science. “As if,” said Dr. Marshman, +“youths in America could be educated for ministers without +learning science.”</p> +<p>Another disaster was that, on Lord William Bentinck’s +arrival in India in 1830, the finances of the Government were +found to be in so unsatisfactory a state, that salaries were +everywhere reduced, and that which Dr. Carey had derived from the +college at Fort William was thus cut down from 1,000 rupees per +month to 500. At this time, the missions and preachers +dependent on Serampore required 1,500<i>l.</i> a year for their +support, and only 900<i>l.</i> was to be had, and this when both +Marshman and Carey were seventy years of age, and still were +toiling as hard as ever.</p> +<p>There were other troubles, too, as to who was the owner of the +buildings, whether the Baptist Society, or the missionaries as +trustees, and as having paid a large portion of the price. +A great inundation of the Hooghly had nearly settled the question +by washing the whole away. As it was, it did much damage, +and destroyed the beautiful botanical garden that had for twenty +years been Dr. Carey’s delight. Finally the whole of +the right of Marshman and Carey to the buildings was sold to the +Society, for a much less amount than they had paid from their own +pockets; but they were to occupy them rent free for the rest of +their lives.</p> +<p>The trouble and anxiety consequent on this question, which had +been of many years’ standing, had greatly impaired Dr. +Marshman’s strength both of body and mind. Morbid +attacks of depression came on, during which he wandered about, +unable to apply himself so much as even to write a letter, though +in the intervals he was both cheerful and full of activity. +Dr. Carey’s health was likewise failing, and, with no +formed illness, <!-- page 116--><a name="page116"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 116</span>he gradually sank, and died on the +9th of June, 1834, in his seventy-third year.</p> +<p>To him belongs the honour of the awakening of the missionary +spirit in England. Yet, as an individual preacher and +teacher, he does not seem to have had much power. His +talent was for language and philology; his perfections were faith +and perseverance. In these he was a giant; in everything +else, whether as a cobbler, schoolmaster, indigo-planter, nay, +even as father of a family, he was a failure: but his steady, +faithful purpose enabled him so to use that one talent as to make +him the pioneer and the support as well as the example of numbers +better qualified for the actual work than himself.</p> +<p>His loss left Dr. Marshman alone, and suffering from +melancholy more and more, as well as much harassed by +difficulties as to the resources, and by captious complaints from +home. In 1836, a great shock was given to his nerves by the +danger of his daughter. She was the wife of Lieutenant +Henry Havelock, a young officer, who, deeply impressed by Dr. +Marshman’s piety, had joined his congregation, and who was +destined to become in after years one of the most heroic and able +of the defenders of the British cause in India. During his +absence, she and her three children had been left at Landour, +when their bungalow caught fire in the middle of the night, and +blazed up with a rapidity due to its light, dry materials. +She rushed out with her baby in her arms, but in crossing the +verandah tripped and fell, losing her hold of the child. +She was dragged away by a faithful native servant, who likewise +snatched out her two eldest boys, but the poor baby was lost in +the flames, and she herself was so much injured and overwhelmed +by the alarm and grief, that, when her husband arrived, her state +was almost hopeless, and he wrote a letter preparing her father +to hear of her death. From some untoward accident, no more +tidings reached Serampore for three days, and to spirits that had +already lost their balance the suspense was fatal. The aged +father wandered about the house in a purposeless manner, +sometimes standing gazing along the road through the Venetian +blinds, sometimes talking incoherently; and when at last the +intelligence arrived that Mrs. Havelock was out of danger, though +his joy and thankfulness were ecstatic, the effects of these +three days were irremediable; he was hardly ever seen to smile +again, could take no part in the renewed discussions <!-- page +117--><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +117</span>with the Baptist Society, although his mind and memory +were still clear. He died on the 5th of December, 1837, +just as the Serampore mission had been re-united to the General +Baptist mission.</p> +<p>“There had been but few men at Serampore, but they were +all giants,” was said of them by one of the dignitaries of +the Church and assuredly it was a wonderful triumph, that a +shoe-maker, a schoolmaster, and a printer should in thirty-eight +years not only have aroused the missionary spirit in England, but +have, by their resolution and talent, established thirty-three +stations for the preaching of Christianity in India; while at the +time of the death of the last survivor, forty-nine ministers were +in union with them, half of whom were natives of Hindostan, and +around each of the elder stations was a fair proportion of +converts. Still more amazingly, these self-educated men +had, by their accurate knowledge and deep study, become most +eminent authorities in matters of language and philology; and by +their usefulness had actually compelled a prejudiced Government +to depend on them for assistance, and thus to support the work +for which alone they cared. Never were the words more +completely fulfilled than in them, “Seek ye first the +kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall +be added unto you.”</p> +<p>The reverses that chequered their wonderful success were not +the more interesting difficulties of wild country, or persecuting +heathen, but troubles with an obstructive Government, and with +the Society at home, which endeavoured to rule them without +understanding them. These vexations are inseparable from +the conditions of Societies trying to govern from home instead of +letting the management be carried on by a head upon the spot.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI. THE JUDSON FAMILY.</h2> +<p>We must turn to an important offshoot from the Serampore +mission, which assumed extensive proportions and a character of +its own, chiefly in consequence of American zeal. Here, be +<!-- page 118--><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span>it observed, was the first ground attempted by modern +missions (not Roman Catholic) which belonged to an independent +sovereign.</p> +<p>The great Burmese Empire, roughly speaking, occupies the +Eastern India peninsula, being separated from that of Hindostan +by the Brahmapootra river. The mountainous formation of the +country, its indented coast, and numerous rivers render it +fertile, and the hills contain many valuable metals and beautiful +precious stones.</p> +<p>The inhabitants are of the Mongolian race, short, stout, +active, and brown, with a good deal of ingenuity in arts and +manufactures, but not equal to the Chinese, their +neighbours. Their language is monosyllabic, their religion +Buddhist, their government a despotic empire, and at the time the +mission was entered upon they had had little intercourse with +strangers, but their women were not secluded, were not wholly +uneducated, and were treated with consideration.</p> +<p>Buddha is regarded as a manifestation of Vishnu—the +Hindoos say, to delude his enemies; the Buddhists, to bring a new +revelation. Gautama was the almost deified being who spread +the knowledge of Buddhism, about 500 <span +class="smcap">b.c.</span> In different countries the +religion has assumed different forms, but it is nearly +co-extensive with the Mongolian race, and the general features +are the rejection of the Vedas and of most of the Hindoo myths, +faith in the divinity of Buddha, and hope that the individual +personality will be entirely absorbed in his essence, the human +being lost in the Deity. Five laws of virtue must be +observed, ten kinds of sin avoided; and the Buddhist expects that +transgressions will be punished by the transmigration of his soul +into some inferior creature, whence he will rise by successive +stages into another trial as a man, and gradually improving by +the help of contemplation, and of a sublime state of annihilation +of all self-consciousness, may become fit for his final +absorption into the Godhead. There is an extensive +priesthood, called Lamas, who live in a state of celibacy in +dwellings not at all unlike monasteries; and, in effect, so much +in their practices seems to parody the ceremonies of Christianity +that the Portuguese thought them invented by the devil for the +very purpose. However, there is no doubt that Buddhism +inculcates a much purer morality than the religion of Brahma, and +far higher aims. In Burmah, however, the idea of the <!-- +page 119--><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +119</span>eternity of the Deity had evidently been lost, and +Gautama had practically usurped the place that the higher +Buddhists gave to Brahma. Indeed, though the true Buddhist +system looks to the absorption in the Deity,—Nirvana, as it +is called,—the popular notion, as received in Burmah and +corrupted by less refined minds, made it into what was either +absolute nonentity or could not be distinguished from it, so that +the ordinary Burman’s best hope for the future was of +nothing but annihilation.</p> +<p>There was originally a Burman Empire, but it had become broken +up, and the territories of Ava, Pegu, and Siam were separated, +though Ava claimed them all, and owned a semi-barbarous +magnificent court, with many gradations of dignitaries, sending +out Viceroys to the different provinces and towns.</p> +<p>When in 1807 strong opposition was made by Sir George +Barlow’s government to the landing of the two Baptist +missionaries, Robinson and Chater, the former obtained +forbearance on account of his wife’s health, but the latter +was obliged to embark; and, rather than return to England, he +chose a vessel bound for Rangoon, a city at the mouth of the +river Irrawaddy, the nearest Burmese harbour. His was to be +a reconnoitring expedition to discover the condition of the +Burmese Empire, the progress that Roman Catholic missions were +making there, and the possibility of undertaking anything from +the centre of Serampore. Another missionary, named Mardon, +went with him. They were well received by the European +merchants resident at Rangoon, and returned with an encouraging +report. It was decided that the attempt should be made; and +as Mr. Mardon did not feel equal to the undertaking, fifteen days +were set apart as a time of private prayer for direction who +should be chosen in his stead.</p> +<p>It was Felix Carey, then nearly twenty-two, who volunteered to +go with Mr. Chater, of whom he was very fond. His father +was unwilling to send him, not only on account of his youth, but +because he was very valuable in the printers’ work, and had +an unusual amount of acquaintance with Sanskrit and Bengalee, so +that he could hardly be spared from the translations; but the +majority of the council at Serampore were in favour of his going, +and after a long delay, in consequence of the danger British +trading vessels were incurring from French privateers <!-- page +120--><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +120</span>from the Isle of France, they set sail and arrived at +Rangoon early in the year 1808.</p> +<p>There they built themselves a house, and obtained a good deal +of favour from the gentleness and amiability of Mr. Chater, and +from young Carey’s usefulness. He had regularly +studied medicine for some years in the hospital at Calcutta, and +his skill was soon in great request, especially for vaccination, +which he was the first to introduce. His real turn was, +however, for philology, and he was delighted to discover that the +Pali, the sacred and learned language of Burmah, was really a +variety of the Sanskrit, cut down into agreement with the +Mongolian monosyllabic speech. He began, with the +assistance of a pundit, to compile a grammar, and to make a rough +beginning of a translation of the Scripture, a work indeed in +which the Serampore people were apt to be almost too precipitate, +not waiting for those refinements of knowledge which are needful +in dealing with the shades of meaning of words of such intense +importance and delicate significancy. But on their +principles, they could do nothing without vernacular Bibles, and +they had not that intense reverence and trained scholarly +appreciation which made Martyn spend his life on the correctness +of a single version, rather than send it forth with a flaw to +give wrong impressions.</p> +<p>Neither does Felix Carey seem to have been a missionary in +anything but that bent which is given by training and family +impulse. He delighted in languages, but rather as an end +than a means; and though he did what the guiding fathers at +Serampore required of him, it was as a matter of course, not with +his whole heart. In the meantime, the fact of Mr. Chater +being a married man occasioned difficulties. Like their +kinsmen the Chinese, the Burmese much objected to the residence +of foreign females within their bounds; and when Mr. Chater +obtained leave to bring his wife, she was so forlorn that he was +obliged to seek for another station, and, receiving an invitation +to Ceylon, left Felix alone, except for his marriage with a young +woman of European extraction, but born in Burmah.</p> +<p>Soon after a dispute arose between the British and Burmese +governments, and two English ships of war appeared off +Rangoon. The native authorities wished the young missionary +to act as interpreter, and on his refusal he was accused of being +a spy, and was forced to take refuge on board one of the British +<!-- page 121--><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>ships where he remained for two months before the +differences were adjusted, and he was allowed to return on +condition that he should not refuse his services as interpreter +another time. In the October of 1812 he came home to +Serampore to print his Burmese grammar and Gospel of St. Matthew, +and not only did this, but carried a press back with him to +Rangoon. A youth who was sent from the congregation at +Calcutta to co-operate with him proved unfit for the work, and +was advised to return to secular business; but in the meantime, +the person who was, above all others, to be identified with the +Burmese mission, had heard the call and was on his way.</p> +<p>This was Adoniram Judson, a native of New England, the eldest +son of the minister of Malden, in Massachusetts, born in 1788, +and bred up first at a school near home, and afterwards at Brown +University. His acuteness and cleverness from infancy were +great, especially in arithmetic and mathematics. During his +studies, he met with a clever and brilliant friend who had +imbibed the deistical teaching of the French Revolution, and +infected him with it, and he came home at seventeen the winner of +all the honours and prizes that the College afforded, but +announcing himself to his parents as a decided infidel! The +pastor treated him with stern displeasure, and argued hotly with +him, but young Adoniram was the cleverer man, and felt his +advantage. His mother’s tears and entreaties were +less easy to answer, and the thought of them dwelt with him, do +what he would, when he set out on a sort of tour through the +surrounding States. On his journey, he stopped at a country +inn, and was told, with much apology, that there was no choice +but to give him a room next to that of a young man who was so ill +that he could scarcely live till morning. In fact, +Adoniram’s rest was broken by the groans of the dying man +and the footsteps of the nurses, and there—close to the +shadow of death—his infidelity, which had been but pride of +intellect and fashion, began to quail, as the thought of the +future haunted him. Morning came; all was still. He +asked after his fellow-lodger, and heard that he was dead. +He asked his name. It was no other than the very youth who +had staggered his faith.</p> +<p>The shock changed his whole tone. He could not bear to +continue his journey, but turned back to Plymouth, determined to +prove to himself what was indeed truth; and, while deeply <!-- +page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +122</span>studying the evidences of Christianity, he supported +himself by keeping a school and writing educational books on +grammar and arithmetic. His mind was soon thoroughly made +up, as, indeed, his aberrations had been only on the surface, and +he became very anxious to enter the Theological College at +Andover, Massachusetts. This belonged to the most earnest +of the Congregationalists, and evidence of personal conversion +and piety was required from the candidates; but, in his case, the +professors were satisfied, and he entered on his course of study, +which included Hebrew. In the last year of his studies +there he fell in with Claudius Buchanan’s “Star in +the East,” and the perusal directed his whole soul to the +desire of missionary labour. His mind was harassed night +and day with the thought of longing to do something for the +enlightenment of the millions in Asia; and, meeting with +Symes’ “Burmese Empire,” his thoughts turned +especially in that direction. It was a quiet steady +purpose, though he was slow of communicating it; until, one +evening at home, his father began throwing out hopes and hints of +some great preferment, and his mother and sister smiled +complacently, as if they were in the secret. Adoniram +begged for an explanation, since it was possible their plans +might not coincide, to which his father replied there was no +fear, and told him that the minister of the biggest church in +Boston wished for him as a colleague. “So near +home,” said the delighted mother. He could not bear +to answer her, but, when his sister chimed in, he turned to her, +saying, “No, sister, I shall never live in Boston; I have +much farther to go;” and then, steadily and calmly, but +fervidly, he set forth the call that he felt to be upon +him. How different a communication from that which he had +made two years before! No doubt his family so felt it, for, +though his mother and sister shed many tears, neither they nor +his father offered a word of opposition.</p> +<p>Thenceforth his fate was determined, and he began to prepare +himself. He was, in person, slightly made and +delicate-looking, with an aquiline face, dark eyes, and chesnut +hair; and though his constitution must have been immensely strong +to have borne what he underwent, at this time he was thought +delicate; and therefore, with his one purpose before him, he +carefully studied physiology, and made himself a code of rules +which he obeyed to the end of his life, in especial inhaling +large <!-- page 123--><a name="page123"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 123</span>quantities of air, sponging the +whole body with cold water, and taking daily exercise by +walking. He was a man of great vivacity and acuteness, with +the poetical spirit that accompanies strong enthusiasm, and with +a fastidious delicacy and refinement in all personal matters, +such as seemed rather to mark him as destined to be an +accomplished scholar than to lead the rude life of a missionary; +and Ann Hasseltine, the young lady on whom he had fixed his +affections, was a very beautiful girl, of great cultivation and +accomplishments, but they were alike in one other great +respect,—namely, in dauntless self-devotion. He began +to talk of his purpose to the like-minded among his college +mates, and gradually gathered a few into a very small missionary +association, into which none were admitted who had any duties +that could forbid their going out to minister among the +heathen.</p> +<p>At the same time, and partly through their means, a wider +association was formed, which had its centre at Bradford, and +which finally decided on sending Judson to England to endeavour +to effect a union with the London Missionary Society, which had +been formed in 1795, in imitation of Carey’s Baptist +Society, to work in other directions by Nonconformists of other +denominations.</p> +<p>The voyage in 1811, in the height of the continental war, was +a very perilous one. On the way the vessel was taken by the +French and carried into Bayonne, while the young American +passenger was summarily thrown into the hold with the common +sailors. He became very ill, but, when the French doctor +visited him, he could hold no communication for want of a common +language. Then it was that there came thoughts of home, and +of the “biggest church in Boston,” and a misgiving +swept over him, which he treated at once as a suggestion of the +enemy, and betook himself to prayer. Then, in the grey +twilight of the hold, he felt about for his Hebrew Bible; and to +keep his mind fully absorbed, began mentally rendering the Hebrew +into Latin. When the doctor came in, he took up the Bible, +perceived that he had a scholar to deal with, began to talk Latin +to him, and arranged his release from the hold.</p> +<p>But on landing at Bayonne, he was marched through the streets +as a prisoner with the English crew. He began declaiming in +his native language on the injustice of detaining an American, +and obtained his purpose by attracting the attention <!-- page +124--><a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>of +an American gentleman in the street, who promised to do what he +could for him, but advised him in the meantime to proceed +quietly. The whole party were thrown into a dismal +underground vault, and the stones covered with straw, which +seemed to Judson so foul that he could not bear to sit down on +it, and he walked up and down, though sick and giddy with the +chill, close, noisome atmosphere. Before his walking powers +were exhausted, his American friend was at the door, and saying, +“Let me see whether I know any of these poor +fellows,” took up the lamp, looked at them, said “No +friend of mine,” and as he put down the lamp threw his own +large cloak round Mr. Judson, and grasping his arm, led him out +under it in the dark; while a fee, put into the hand, first of +the turnkey and then of the porter, may have secured that the +four legs under the cloak should pass unobserved. +“Now run,” said the American, as soon as they were +outside, and he rushed off to the wharf, closely followed by his +young countryman, whom he placed on board a vessel from their own +country for the night. Afterwards, Judson’s papers +were laid before the authorities, and he was not only released, +but allowed to travel through France to the northern coast, and, +making friends with some of the Emperor’s suite on the way +home from Spain, travelled to Paris in an Imperial +carriage. Afterwards, he made his way to England, where he +received a warm welcome from the London Missionary Society, by +which he and the three friends he had left in +America—Samuel Newell, Samuel Nott, and Gordon +Hall—were accepted as missionaries; but on Judson’s +return to America, he found that the Congregationalist Mission +Board there was able to undertake their expenses, and accordingly +they went out, salaried by their own country. All four were +dedicated to the ministry at Salem on the 6th of February, 1812, +and immediately prepared to sail for the East Indies.</p> +<p>Judson, with his wife, the beautiful dark-eyed Ann Hasseltine, +and his friends Mr. and Mrs. Newell, also newly married, embarked +in the <i>Caravan</i>; Hall, Nott, and another college mate, +named Luther Rice, were in the <i>Harmony</i>. They were at +once received at Serampore, on their landing, in the June of +1812, but Dr. Carey’s expectations of them were not +high. Adoniram and Ann Judson were both delicate, slender, +refined-looking people. “I have little hope from the +Americans,” he wrote; “if they should stay in the +East, American habits <!-- page 125--><a name="page125"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 125</span>are too luxurious for a preparation +to live among savages.” He little knew what were the +capabilities of Ann Judson, the first woman who worked +effectively in the cause, the first who rose above the level of +being the comfort of her husband in his domestic moments, and was +an absolute and valuable influence.</p> +<p>The opposition to the arrival of missionaries was at its +height, and this large batch so dismayed the Calcutta authorities +that, declaring them British subjects come round by America, they +required their instant re-embarkation. It was decided to go +to the Isle of France, whence it was hoped to find a French ship +to take them to the aid of Felix Carey, but the first vessel +could only take the Newells, and the detention at Serampore drew +the Judsons and Rice into the full influence of Marshman’s +powerful and earnest mind. Aware that they would have to +work with the Baptist mission, they had studied the tenets on the +voyage, but found when they arrived, that the points of +difference were subjects that the trio at Serampore did not +choose to discuss, lest their work among the heathen should +suffer by attention to personal controversy. However, their +own thoughts and the influences of the place led them to desire +baptism by immersion; and this being done, they considered it due +to the Congregationalists, who had sent them out, to resign their +claim on them for support, though this left them destitute. +It was decided that Rice should go home and appeal for their +support to the American Baptists, and in this he thoroughly +succeeded, while the Judsons, after sailing for Mauritius, where +they found poor Mrs. Newell recently dead, made their way back to +Madras, and there found a vessel bound for Rangoon. It was +a crazy old craft, with a Malay crew, no one but the captain able +to speak a word of English. The voyage was full of +disaster. A good European nurse, who had been engaged to go +with Mrs. Judson, fell on the floor and died suddenly, even while +the ship was getting under weigh, too late to supply her +place. Mrs. Judson became dangerously ill, and the vessel +was driven into a perilous strait between the Great and Little +Andaman Islands, where the captain was not only out of his +bearings, but believed that, if he were driven ashore, the whole +ship’s company would be eaten by the cannibal +islanders. The alarm, however, acted as a tonic, and Mrs. +Judson began to recover.</p> +<p><!-- page 126--><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>They reached Rangoon in safety, but Judson writes: +“We had never before seen a place where European influence +had not contributed to smooth and soften the rough features of +uncultivated nature. The prospect of Rangoon, as we +approached, was quite disheartening. I went on shore, just +at night, to take a view of the place and the mission-house, but +so dark and cheerless and unpromising did all things appear, that +the evening of that day, after my return to the ship, we have +marked as the most gloomy and distressing that we ever +passed.” The mission-house was not quite empty, +though Felix Carey, who they had hoped would welcome them, was at +Ava. When Mrs. Judson, still too weak to walk, was carried +ashore, she was received by his wife, who could speak Burmese, +and managed the household, providing daily dinners of fowls +stewed with rice or with cucumber.</p> +<p>It was, however, a dismal place, near the spot where public +executions took place, and where the dead were burnt outside the +walls. And all around, among the beautiful vegetation and +lovely forests on the banks of the broad Irrawaddy, rose the +pagodas, graceful with the peculiar beauty of the far East, with +gilded lacquer-work, umbrella-shaped roofs spiring upwards; huge +idols with solemn contemplative faces within, and all around +swarms of yellow-robed, fat, lazy lamas.</p> +<p>The new comers meantime applied themselves to the study of the +language, after overcoming the disdain of their pundit at having +to instruct a woman. He could not speak English, and had +neither grammar nor dictionary, so that the difficulties were +great; but the eager spirit of the students overcame all, and +they ventured to remove into town and keep house themselves.</p> +<p>Mrs. Judson was taken to visit the wives of the Myowoon, or +Viceroy of Rangoon, by a French lady who had been admitted +before. On their first arrival the principal wife was not +up, and the ladies waited, while the inferior wives examined all +they wore, and tried on their gloves and bonnets; but when the +great lady appeared, they all crouched together at a +distance. She came in richly attired, and smoking a silver +pipe, and sat down on a mat by Mrs. Judson, whom she viewed with +much curiosity, asking if she were her husband’s first +wife. The Myowoon came in looking wild and savage, and +carrying a <!-- page 127--><a name="page127"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 127</span>huge spear in his hand; but he was +very polite to Mrs. Judson, though he took very little notice of +her husband.</p> +<p>In fact the government was violent and barbarous. There +were perpetual murders and robberies, and these were punished by +horrid executions, accompanied by torture; yet the Burmese +regarded themselves as superior to all other nations, and were +far from understanding how greatly they fell short even of the +requirements of Buddhism.</p> +<p>Felix Carey, meantime, had been requested by the king to +vaccinate the royal children; but he had to return to Calcutta to +procure matter for the purpose. He then visited Rangoon on +his way back, and prepared to carry up his family, property, and +printing-press to Ava, with the hope of forming a fresh station +there, under royal patronage; but after ten days’ voyage, +the vessel was capsized by a sudden storm, and all who could not +swim were drowned. Felix tried to rescue his little son of +three years old, but, finding himself sinking, he let the child +go, and saved himself alone.</p> +<p>Everything in the vessel was lost; but the king gave him +compensation for the property, and took him into high favour, +sending him shortly after, to conduct some negotiations with the +British Government. He appeared at Calcutta with the title +and gorgeous dress of a Burmese noble, and showed himself in the +streets with a train of fifty followers. Old Dr. Carey was +seriously grieved at his thus “sinking from a missionary to +an ambassador;” and he was by no means successful in this +new line; in fact his negotiations turned out so ill, that on his +return to Rangoon he was obliged to fly the country. The +excitement of his life had made missionary labour distasteful to +him, and, after strange wanderings in the wild lands eastward of +Bengal, he became prime minister and generalissimo to a barbarous +prince; and in that capacity led an army against his old friends, +the Burmese, sustained a defeat, and was forced to wander in the +jungle. After three years of this strange life, he fell in +by chance at Chittagong with Mr. Ward, and was by him persuaded +to return to the printing and philology, for which alone, like +his father, he really was well qualified. He lived at +Serampore till 1822, and then was carried off by the same sickly +season that had proved fatal to Krishnu-pal, who had been +baptized with him, and to Bishop Middleton.</p> +<p>Meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Judson were working steadily on, <!-- +page 128--><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +128</span>and were greatly cheered by the arrival of a much less +barbarous viceroy, named Mya-day-men. They were invited, +with all the Europeans, to a banquet at the new official’s +house, and Mrs. Judson was entertained by the wife, who +questioned her eagerly, and asked if she knew how to dance in the +English way; but was satisfied on hearing that the wives of +priests did not dance. As Buddhist priests are celibate, +Mrs. Judson must have been rather a puzzle to the good lady; and +all this time the real work of the mission had not commenced, for +the preliminary operation of acquiring the language had not been +completed, and Judson was warned not to attempt preaching till he +was familiar with it, by Dr. Carey having told him that after +some years in Bengal, when he imagined himself to be freely able +to use the language, he had found from the remark of a young man, +that he was really not in the least understood. Private +arguments with the teachers was all that could be attempted, and +in these there seems to have been some forgetfulness of St. +Paul’s words, “Who art thou that judgest +another? To his own master he standeth or falleth;” +since there was a very free threatening that the souls of the +pagans must be lost; to which the pundits replied with true +Eastern calmness, “Our religion is good for us, yours for +you.” During this time of perseverance and +preparation, Mrs. Judson’s health became so much affected +that she was forced to go to Madras. Heroine as she was, +she would not consent to let her husband break up his work to +accompany her; but the solitude of her absence fell on him most +severely. She says, “He had no individual Christian +with whom he could converse or unite in prayer during the six +months of her absence;” but he worked on heartily, and she +returned in perfect health.</p> +<p>In the spring of 1816, the death of their first-born child was +a great shock to the father’s health, which was already +disordered; and he continued in a declining state all through the +summer. The Myowoon’s wife, whom Mrs. Judson +conveniently calls the vice-reine, was very kind to them, and +took them on elephant-back to visit her country-house. The +way lay through the woods, between trees sometimes so thick that +the elephants broke them down, at the mahout’s word, to +make way. Thirty men in red caps, with spears and guns, +formed the guard; then came the vice-reine’s elephant, with +a gilded howdah, where the lady sat dressed in red <!-- page +129--><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +129</span>and white silk; then the Judsons’ animal, three +or four more behind with grandees, and 300 or 400 attendants +followed. At a beautiful garden, full of fruit trees, a +feast was spread under a noble banyan, the vice-reine causing the +cloth next to her to be allotted to her guests, whom she tended +affectionately, gathering and paring fruit, cutting flowers and +weaving them for them, and, unlike the Hindoos, freely eating +what they handed her. This hospitable and amiable lady had +just begun to ask Mrs. Judson the difference between the +Christians’ God and Gautama, when she was obliged to return +to Ava.</p> +<p>For several months Mr. Judson’s illness increased; but +exercise on horseback did much to relieve him, and the comfort +and encouragement of the arrival of a brother missionary, Mr. +Hough, with his family, did more. He weathered the attack +without leaving his post, and in 1817 made his first real +step. A press had come out with Mr. Hough, and with it two +little tracts, summarizing the chief truths of Christianity, were +printed and distributed at Rangoon.</p> +<p>Shortly after, a respectable-looking Burmese, attended by a +servant, walked into Mr. Judson’s house, and sat +down. Presently he inquired, “How long a time will it +take me to learn the religion of <span +class="smcap">Jesus</span>?”</p> +<p>Mr. Judson answered, that where God gave light and wisdom, it +was soon learnt; but without, a whole lifetime would not teach a +man. “But how,” he asked, “came the wish +for this knowledge?”</p> +<p>“I have seen two little books.”</p> +<p>“And who is <span class="smcap">Jesus</span>?” +said the missionary.</p> +<p>“He is the Son of <span class="smcap">God</span>, who, +pitying human creatures, came into this world and suffered death +in their stead.”</p> +<p>“Who is <span class="smcap">God</span>?” continued +Mr. Judson.</p> +<p>“He is a Being without beginning or end, who is not +subject to old age or death, but always is.”</p> +<p>Mr. Judson showed him the two little books, which he +recognized, but begged for more. He did not attend much to +what Judson tried to teach him by word of mouth, but begged for +book. The Gospel of St. Matthew was in hand, but could not +be finished for three months; and when he was told this +“Have you not a little of that book done, which you will +graciously give me now?” he asked. “And +I,” writes Judson, “beginning to think that +God’s time was better than man’s, <!-- page 130--><a +name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 130</span>folded and +gave him the two first half-sheets, which contain the first five +chapters of St. Matthew, on which he instantly rose, as if his +business was done, and took leave.”</p> +<p>It was long before they saw him again; though many other +persons began calling at the mission-house to inquire about what +they called the new religion; but all were so much afraid of one +another, that no one would ask any questions if a fellow-citizen +were present. Mrs. Judson was also getting together from +fifteen to twenty women every Sunday, whom she tried to +instruct. One of them, like the Norseman of old, preferred +casting in her lot with her forefathers to a heaven separated +from them; and when Mrs. Judson told her they would reproach her +with the rejection of the truth they had never known, and that +she would regret her folly when it was too late, she answered, +“If I do, I will cry out to you to be my +intercessor.” Another combined prayers to our Lord +and Gautama.</p> +<p>The vice-reine came back from Ava, and continued to be very +kind to Mrs. Judson, made her explain her doctrine, caused the +little catechism to be taught to her daughter, and accepted a +copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew, which was at length +completed. This being finished, Mr. Judson, after four +years’ study of the language, believed himself able to +undertake more public ministrations; but first went on a voyage +to Chittagong, where he hoped to find, among the Christian +converts of Burmese speech, one to assist him in communicating +with the people.</p> +<p>Mrs. Judson remained with the Houghs, and had the pleasure of +receiving the Burmese inquirer, whose long absence had been +occasioned by his being appointed governor of some villages in +Pegu. He said he was thinking and reading in order to +become a believer. “But I cannot yet destroy my old +mind, for, when I see a handsome patso, or a handsome gounboun, +<a name="citation130"></a><a href="#footnote130" +class="citation">[130]</a> I still desire it. Tell the +great teacher, when he returns, that I wish to see him, though I +am not a disciple of Christ.” She gave him the rest +of St. Matthew, and a tract to each of his attendants, and he +promised that, if the great teacher would come and see him, he +would collect his villagers to hear the new doctrine +preached. There was something very attractive, meek, and +unassuming about the man’s whole appearance, and of him +there was much hope; but, just about this <!-- page 131--><a +name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>time great +anxiety fell on the mission party. The kindly Myowoon and +his wife were removed, and immediately after a summons was sent +to Mr. Hough to appear at the court-house of the city, with the +intimation, “that, if he did not tell the whole truth they +would write it in his blood.” He was kept all Friday +and Saturday answering, through an interpreter, foolish +questions: who were his father and mother, how many suits of +clothes he had, and the like; all which was formally written +down. On the third day, Sunday, Mrs. Judson, resolving to +ascertain whether this were really done by the command of the +Myowoon, drew up a petition, which she carried herself. She +was graciously received, and it presently appeared that an order +had really been sent for the banishment of some Portuguese +priests, and that the petty officials of the Court had taken +advantage of it to harass Mr. Hough, in the hope of extracting a +reward for his liberation.</p> +<p>At this time there was a terrible visitation of cholera, which +the Burmese attributed to evil spirits, and accordingly attempted +to drive away by force of noise. It was supposed that the +evil spirits would take refuge in any house that was silent, and +for three whole nights cannon were fired from the court-house, +and every human creature used the utmost powers nature or art +afforded for producing a din. The mission party were +uninfected by the contagion, but it was a time of terrible +anxiety, for nothing had been heard of Mr. Judson or his ship for +months; there were reports of ill-feeling between the Burmese and +British Governments, no arrivals of English at Rangoon, and no +intelligence. Mrs. Judson’s female classes had fallen +off ever since Mr. Hough’s summons, and the state of things +was such, that the Houghs decided on removing to Bengal. +Mrs. Judson, with her little girl, most reluctantly decided to +accompany them, but, just as the vessel in which they sailed had +gone down the river, she was ascertained not to be seaworthy; +and, during this delay, Mrs. Judson’s fears of her +husband’s finding her gone, if he ever returned to Rangoon, +so increased, that she went back with her child to the house, +and, brave woman as she was, took up her abode there with the +native servants, trusting herself wholly to the protection of her +God. She was rewarded by her husband’s arrival, after +an absence of nine months, caused by the captain of his ship +having broken his engagement, and carried him on <!-- page +132--><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>to +Madras, where he had been detained all this time for want of a +vessel to return in. The Houghs also came back, and two +young men from America soon after came out, full of zeal and +activity, but both fell ill very shortly afterwards, and the +younger died, but his fellow, Mr. Colman, became a valuable +assistant.</p> +<p>This era, the spring of 1819, was the first great step in the +Burmese mission. Funds had been raised by the Baptist +Society in America, which were applied to the erection of a zayat +or public room, with walls of bamboo and a thatched roof. +It had two rooms, one for a school for the women, another for the +men, who gladly learnt to read and write from Mrs. Judson and a +Burmese teacher. Here, too, Mr. Judson openly held prayers +and preaching on Sunday, and these attracted many, some of whom +would come in the week for private discussion.</p> +<p>The first real convert was a man of thirty-five, named Moung +Nau, poor, but of excellent character, and so intelligent, that +he became a useful assistant after his baptism, on the 27th of +June, 1819. Others were inquiring, among whom the most +interesting was Moung Shwaygnong, a schoolmaster or tutor by +profession, at a village a little way from Rangoon, and already a +philosopher, “half deist, half sceptic, the first of the +sort I have seen among the Burmans” (our quotations are +from Mr. Judson’s journal), who, however, worshipped at the +pagodas, and conformed to national observances. The second +time he came the conversation seemed to have made “no +impression on his proud sceptical heart, yet he promised to pray +to the eternal God, through the Saviour.” It appeared +that, about eight years previously, it had come before him that +there is indeed One Eternal God, and that this thought had been +working in him ever since. A copy of Mr. Judson’s +tract which fell in his way chimed in with this primary belief, +and next came the question of the Scripture revelation, which he +argued over with much metaphysical power and acuteness, being a +very powerful reasoner, and well trained in the literature of his +own country. Meantime three simpler minds—Moung +Thaahlah, Moung Byaay, and Moung Ing—had been thoroughly +convinced, and, though aware that they would expose themselves to +considerable danger, resolved to become Christians.</p> +<p>The Viceroy had remarked the zayat, and notice was taken <!-- +page 133--><a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +133</span>that men were there led “to forsake the religion +of the country.” The alarm cleared the zayat of all +the audience, and emptied Mrs. Judson’s class of women, but +Thaahlah <a name="citation133"></a><a href="#footnote133" +class="citation">[133]</a> and Byaay sent in a letter, entreating +to be admitted to baptism, and Ing would have followed their +example, but that his trade as a fisherman carried him off to +sea. They begged not to be baptized openly, as Nau had +been, in a piece of water near the town and presided over by an +image of Gautama; and Mr. Judson yielded so far, that he +conducted the preliminary devotions in the zayat, and baptized +them in the same pool two hours after dark. Shwaygnong had +in the meantime taken alarm at being interrogated by the +Government, had apologized, and apparently fallen away; but he +could not keep aloof, and soon came back again. After a +good deal of fencing and putting forth metaphysical cavils, he +allowed that it was all for the sake of experiment, and declared +that he really believed both in God and in the Atonement.</p> +<p>“Said I,” writes Mr. Judson, “knowing his +deistical weakness, do you believe all that is contained in the +book of St. Matthew which I gave you? In particular, do you +believe that the Son of God died on a cross?”</p> +<p>“Ah!” he replied, “you have caught me +now. I believe that He suffered death, but I cannot admit +that He suffered the shameful death of the cross.”</p> +<p>“Therefore,” said I, “you are not a disciple +of Christ. A true disciple inquires not whether a fact is +agreeable to his own reason, but whether it is in the Book. +His pride has yielded to Divine testimony. Teacher, your +pride is unbroken. Break down your pride, and yield to the +Word of God.”</p> +<p>He stopped and thought. “As you utter these +words,” said he, “I see my error. I have been +trusting in my own reason, not in the Word of God.”</p> +<p>Some interruption now occurred. When we were again +alone, he said, “This day is different from all the days on +which I have visited you. I see my error in trusting to my +own reason, and I now believe the Crucifixion of Christ, because +it is contained in the Scripture.”</p> +<p>The profession of Christianity had become more perilous since +the Judsons’ arrival in Burmah. The old Emperor had +<!-- page 134--><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +134</span>died in 1819, and had been succeeded by his grandson, +who was far more zealous for Buddhism than he had been, and who +had appointed a viceroy at Rangoon, very minute in exacting +observances—so much so, as to put forth an edict forbidding +any person with hat, shoes, umbrella, or horse, to pass through +the grounds belonging to the great pagoda, Shwaay Dagon, which +extended half a mile from the building, and were crossed by all +the chief roads. At the same time, he was new gilding the +pagoda, a specially sacred one, as containing some bits of hair +of Gautama.</p> +<p>It was plain that the mission had little chance of succeeding, +unless some sanction could be obtained from royalty; and Mr. +Judson therefore determined to go to Ava and petition the Emperor +to grant him permission to teach at Rangoon. So he obtained +a pass from the Viceroy “to go up to the golden feet, and +lift up our eyes to the golden face,” and hired a boat to +take him and Mr. Colman, with ten oarsmen, a headman, a +steersman, a washerman, and two cooks, of whom Moung Nau was +one. They had invited Shwaygnong to accompany them, but he +refused, though he appeared waving his hand to them on the bank +as they pushed off from the land. They took with them, as +the most appropriate present, a Bible, bound in six volumes, in +gold leaf, intending to ask permission to translate it.</p> +<p>They arrived at Ava on the 28th of January, 1820, and beheld +the gilded roofs of the pagodas and palace. Two English +residents welcomed them, and Mya-day-men, the Viceroy who had +been their friend at Rangoon, undertook to present them to the +Emperor.</p> +<p>They were taken to the palace, and were explaining their +wishes to the Prime Minister, Moung Zah, when it was announced +that “the golden foot was about to advance,” and he +had to hasten to attend the Emperor. The dome whither the +missionaries followed him was dazzling with splendour, very +lofty, and supported on pillars entirely covered with gold, and +forming long avenues, through one of which the Emperor advanced +alone, with the proud gait and majesty of an Eastern monarch, +with a gold-sheathed sword in his hand. Every one +prostrated his forehead in the dust except the two Americans, who +merely knelt with folded hands. He paused before them, and +demanded who they were.</p> +<p>“The teachers, great king,” replied Mr. +Judson.</p> +<p><!-- page 135--><a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +135</span>“What? You speak Burmese—the priests +that I heard of last night? When did you arrive? Are +you like the Portuguese priests? Are you married?” +and so on, he asked; then placing himself on a high seat, with +his hand on the hilt of his sword, he listened to the petition +read aloud by Moung Zah. He then held out his hand for it; +Moung Zah crawled forward and gave it; the Emperor read it +through to himself, and held out his hand for the little tract +which was handed to him in like manner. The hearts of the +missionaries throbbed with hope and prayer; but, after reading +the two first sentences, the Emperor threw it from him, and when +the gift was presented would not notice it. The answer +communicated through Moung Zah was: “In regard to the +objects of your petition, his Majesty gives no order. In +regard to your sacred books, his Majesty has no use for them; +take them away.” Something was said of Colman’s +skill in medicine; upon which the Emperor desired that both +should be taken to the Portuguese priest, who acted as his +physician, to ascertain whether they could be useful in that +line, and then lay down on his cushions to listen to music.</p> +<p>They were taken two miles to the residence of the Portuguese, +who of course perceived that they brought no wonderful secret of +medicine, and then returned to their boat. They afterwards +saw Moung Zah in private, and heard that the Burmese laws +tolerated foreign religions, but that there was no security for +natives who embraced them, and that it was an unpardonable +offence even to propose it. The English collector went to +the Emperor, but could obtain nothing from him but permission for +them to return to Rangoon, where they might find some of their +countrymen to teach. There was no actual prohibition +against teaching Burmese subjects, but there was no security that +the converts would not be persecuted; and the collector told them +that fifteen years previously a Burmese teacher who had been +converted by the Portuguese, and had even visited Rome, was +denounced on his return by his nephew and commanded to +recant. On his refusal, he was tortured with the iron +mall—hammered, namely, from his feet upwards till he was +all one livid wound as far as his breast, pronouncing the name of +Christ at every blow. Some persons at last told the Emperor +that he was a mere madman, on which he was spared, and the +Portuguese contrived to send him away to <!-- page 136--><a +name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>Bengal, +where he died. The nephew was high in the favour of the +present Sovereign, who was besides far more attached than his +grandfather had ever been to the Buddhist doctrine. Only +four Portuguese clergy were in the country, and they confined +themselves to ministrations to the descendants of the converts of +the old Jesuit mission, instead of attempting to extend their +Church. Nothing was to be done but to return to Rangoon, +and for this a passport was necessary, the obtaining of which +cost thirty dollars in presents. Mr. Judson was advised +also to procure a royal order for personal protection, otherwise, +when it became known that the royal patronage had been refused, +he might be molested by ill-disposed persons; but finding that +this would be exceedingly costly, he preferred “trusting in +the Lord to keep us and our poor disciples.”</p> +<p>It was encouraging that at Pyece, a place on the banks of the +Irrawaddy, the missionaries met Shwaygnong, who had come thither +to visit a sick friend, and came on board eagerly to know the +result of their journey. They told him all, even of the +good confession beneath the iron mall, and he seemed less +affected and intimidated than they expected, though he had nearly +made up his mind to cast in his lot with them. “If I +die, I shall die in a good cause,” he said. “I +know it is the cause of truth.” And then he repeated +his actual faith: “I believe in the Eternal God, in His Son +Jesus Christ, in the Atonement which Christ has made, and in the +writings of the Apostles as the true and one Word of +God.” He also said he had never, since their last +conversation, lifted up his folded hands before a pagoda, though +on the day of worship, to avoid persecution, he would walk up one +side of the building and down the other. To this Mr. Judson +replied, “You may be a disciple of Christ in heart, but you +are not a full disciple. You have not faith and resolution +enough to keep all the commands of Christ, particularly that +which commands you to be baptized though in the face of +persecution and death. Consider the words of <span +class="smcap">Jesus</span>—‘He that believeth and is +baptized shall be saved.’”</p> +<p>He listened in profound silence, and with the manner with +which he always received what he considered deeply; but there was +still a long struggle to come, and many fluctuations, and the +simpler minds were the stay and comfort of the missionaries, when +on their return to Rangoon they considered <!-- page 137--><a +name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span>what steps +to take. Their first proposal was to move to a district +between Bengal and Arracan, where were several Christian natives +now destitute of a pastor, and where the language was very like +Burmese, though the place was beyond the power of the Emperor, +and to take their three baptized converts with them. Nau +and Thaahlah were ready to follow them everywhere, but Byaay was +married, and no Burmese woman was allowed to leave the +country. He, with several others who were on the point of +conversion, entreated the missionaries not to leave them, and +Thaahlah made a remarkable speech. “Be it +remembered,” he said, “that this work is not yours or +ours, but the work of God. If He give light, the religion +will spread.”</p> +<p>It was decided, according to the earnest wish of these poor +people, that they should not be deserted till there were enough +of them to form a congregation and have a teacher from among +themselves set over them, and this—as the sect to which the +Judsons belonged has no form of setting apart for the +ministry—was all that they regarded as requisite. The +Arracan converts were not, however, to be neglected, and Mr. +Colman therefore was to go to Chittagong, and there establish a +station, which might receive those from Rangoon in case it should +become needful to leave the place. He was doing well there, +when he died from an attack of fever.</p> +<p>The Judsons remained, and held their worship in the zayat on +Sunday with the doors closed and only the initiated present; but +it seemed as if the fear of losing their teachers quickened the +zeal of the Christian converts in bringing their friends to +inquire. Shwaygnong had long been unconsciously preparing +the way by his philosophical instructions, going so much deeper +than the popular Buddhism, and he brought several of his pupils, +both male and female, telling them that “he had found the +true wisdom;” but he still hung back. <a +name="citation137"></a><a href="#footnote137" +class="citation">[137]</a> Mr. Judson suspected him of +wanting a companion of his own rank to keep him in countenance, +and doubted whether it were fear of the world or pride of heart +that kept him back; but he seems to have had a genuine battle +with his own sceptical spirit, and the acceptance of such +ordinances as the Baptists required was a difficulty to +him. Four or five later converts were baptized before him, +and at last he kept away from the mission for so <!-- page +138--><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span>long that Mr. Judson thought they had lost him; but +when he reappeared it turned out that he had been ill with fever, +and had had much sickness in his family, and had meantime fought +out his mental conflict, and made up his mind to the full +acceptance of Christianity at all risks.</p> +<p>He came again with five disciples, one of them a woman of +fifty-one years old, named Mah-menlay, with her husband, all +formally requesting baptism; but Mr. Judson was not sufficiently +satisfied of the earnestness of any to receive them at once, +excepting Shwaygnong himself, whom Mr. Judson kept till evening; +and then, after reading the history of St. Philip’s baptism +of the Ethiopian, and praying, led him down to the water in the +woods and baptized him, like others, in the pool, by the light of +the stars in the tropical night. That same night Mah-menlay +came back, entreating so earnestly for baptism, that she, too, +was led down to the water and baptized. “Now,” +she said, “I have taken the oath of allegiance to <span +class="smcap">Jesus Christ</span>, and I have nothing to do but +to commit myself, soul and body, to the hands of my Lord, assured +that He will never suffer me to fall away.”</p> +<p>This was the last thing before the Judsons embarked for +Serampore, a journey necessitated by a severe attack of liver +complaint, from which Mrs. Judson had long been suffering and +their little girl had also died.</p> +<p>To these devoted people a visit to Calcutta was a change for +the sake of health! On their return, after half a +year’s absence, the first thing they heard was that their +kind friend Mya-day-men had come as Myowoon to Rangoon, and they +were met on the wharf by all their disciples, led by Shwaygnong, +in a state of rapture. They found that such as had lived in +the yard of the mission had been subjected to a petty official +persecution, which had made them fly to the woods; but that the +good Mya-day-men had refused to hear an accusation brought +against Moung Shwaygnong by the lamas and officials of the +village, who had him before the tribunal, accusing him of trying +“to turn the priest’s rice-pot bottom +upwards.”</p> +<p>“What matters it,” said the Myowoon; “let +the priests turn it back again.”</p> +<p>This was enough to ensure the safety of the Christians during +his viceroyalty, though at first he paid little attention to Mr. +Judson, being absorbed in grief for the death of his favourite +<!-- page 139--><a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +139</span>daughter, one of the wives of the Emperor. She +does not seem to have been the child of the amiable Vice-reine, +or, as her title had now become, Woon-gyee-gaadaw, who had been +promoted to the right of riding in a <i>wau</i>, a vehicle +carried by forty or fifty men, but who had not forgotten Mrs. +Judson, and received her affectionately.</p> +<p>There were now twenty-five disciples. Ing likewise +joined them having returned from his voyage, and was shortly +after baptized. Mah-menlay opened a school for little +girls, and Shwaygnong was regularly engaged by Mr. Judson to +revise his translation of the Epistle to the Ephesians and the +first part of the Book of Acts, before they were printed. +Another remarkable man came to study the subject, Moung Long, a +philosopher of the most metaphysical kind, whose domestic +conversations with his wife were reported to be of this +description.—The wife would tell him, “The rice is +ready.”</p> +<p>“Rice! what is rice? Is it matter or spirit? +Is it an idea or a nonentity?”</p> +<p>If she answered, “It is matter,” he would reply, +“And what is matter? Are you sure there is such a +thing in existence, or are you merely subject to a delusion of +the senses?”</p> +<p>Mr. Judson was struck with the expression of this man’s +one eye, which had “as great a quantity of being as +half-a-dozen common eyes.” After the first exposition +of the Christian doctrine, the philosopher began with extreme +suavity and politeness: “Your lordship says that in the +beginning God created one man and one woman. I do not +understand (I beg your lordship’s pardon) what a man is, +and why he is called a man.”</p> +<p>Mr. Judson does not record his own line of argument, only that +the Buddhist sceptic was foiled, and Shwaygnong, who had often +argued with him, was delighted to see his old adversary +posed. He came again and again, and so did his wife, the +ablest woman whom Mrs. Judson had met, asking questions on the +possibility of sin finding entrance to a pure mind, and they were +soon promising catechumens; but in the midst of all this +hopefulness, a season of cholera and fever set in, both the +Judsons were taken ill at the same time, and could not even help +one another, and the effect on Ann’s health was such that, +as the only means of saving her life, she was sent off at once to +England, while her husband remained at his post quite alone, for +Colman had died a martyr to the climate.</p> +<p><!-- page 140--><a name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +140</span>She was warmly welcomed by the Missionary Societies in +London and Edinburgh, and thence returned to America, where her +mother and sisters were still living to hail her return. +Her narratives, backed by her natural sweetness, eloquence and +beauty, had a great effect in stirring up the mission spirit +among both her countrymen and countrywomen, and there was no lack +of recruits willing to return with her and share her toil.</p> +<p>The account of Colman’s devotion and death had had an +especial effect upon a young girl named Sarah Hall, of Salem, +Massachusetts, one of those natures that seem peculiarly gifted +with poetic enthusiasm, yet able to stand the brunt of the +severest test of practice. She was the daughter of one of +those old-fashioned New England families, where a considerable +amount of prosperity and a good deal of mental culture is +compatible with much personal homely exertion. As the +eldest of thirteen, Sarah had to work hard, but all the time she +kept a prim little journal, recording, at an age when one is +surprised to see her able to write at all, that her mother is too +busy to let her go to school, and she must improve herself at +home; and this she really did, for her notes, as she grew older, +speak of studying Butler’s Analogy, Paley’s +Evidences, logic, geometry, and Latin. Her library of +poetry is said to have consisted only of Thomson’s Castle +of Indolence, and Macpherson’s Ossian; but hymns must have +filled her ear with the ring of rhyme, for she was continually +versifying, sometimes passages of Scripture, sometimes Ossian, +long before she was halfway through her teens. Very +foolish, sing-song, emotional specimens they are, but notable as +showing the bent of nature that forms itself into heroism. +Her family were Baptists, and she was sixteen when the sense of +religion came on her so strongly as to lead her to seek +baptism. Remarkably enough, the thought of the ignorance of +the heathen, and the desire to teach them, began to haunt her +from that time, and is recorded in the last page of her childish +journal, dated a month later than her baptism.</p> +<p>In fact, her zeal seems to have been pretty strong towards the +persons around her. While staying at a friend’s +house, she found a pack of cards left by a young man on the +table, and wrote on it the text beginning, “Remember now +thy Creator in the days of thy youth,” &c. +Hearing that the owner was <!-- page 141--><a +name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>very +curious to know the perpetrator, she wrote down this verse for +him:</p> +<blockquote><p>“And wouldst thou know what friend +sincere<br /> + Reminds thee of thy day of doom?<br /> +Repress the wish, yet thou mayst hear<br /> +She shed for thee a pitying tear,<br /> + For thine are paths of gloom.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>She also says that she had been for six weeks engaged, with +the assistance of a gentleman, in working out proofs of the +immortality of the soul, apart from those in Scripture. She +had prayer-meetings for her young friends in her own room, and +distributed tracts in the town, while still acting at home, as +her mother’s right hand, among her little brothers and +sisters.</p> +<p>But her vocation she felt to be for missionary life. At +one time she thought of joining a mission to the Red Indians, and +her verses were full of the subject. Her ode on +Colman’s death expressed the feeling of her soul in the +verse:</p> +<blockquote><p>“The spirit of love from on high<br /> + The hearts of the righteous hath fired;<br /> +Lo! they come, and with transport they cry,<br /> + ‘We will go where our brother expired,<br /> + And labour and +die.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The words fall sadly short of the feeling,—a very real +one, but the ode not only satisfied Sarah’s critics and +obtained circulation, but it fired the heart of George Dana +Boardman, a young student at Waterville College, intended for the +Baptist ministry; and he never rested till he had found out the +authoress, met her, and asked her to be his partner in +“labouring and dying,” as Colman had done before +them.</p> +<p>There was no illusion in her mind; she knew her task would be +full of toil and suffering; but her feeling was the desire to +devote her whole self to the work of the Redeemer, who had done +so much for her. Mr. and Mrs. Hall were at first reluctant, +but after a time heartily consented, and she was introduced to +Mrs. Judson as a future companion in her toils. With very +questionable taste, some of her friends insisted on her reading +her own elegy on Colman, aloud, before a whole circle of friends +that they might see Mrs. Judson listen to it. Blushes and +refusals were of no avail; she was dragged out, and the paper +thrust into her hand; she began, faltering, but as she proceeded +<!-- page 142--><a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +142</span>the strong purpose of her soul inspired her, and she +ended with firmness and enthusiasm—but was so overpowered +that, without daring to look up and see that Mrs. Judson’s +eyes were overflowing, she crept away to hide in a corner the +burning tears on her own cheeks. Twenty years after she +spoke of it as one of the most painful moments of her life.</p> +<p>At first it had been proposed that Mr. Boardman and Sarah +should accompany Mrs. Judson on her return, but it was thought +better that he should spend a little more time on his studies, +and Ann Judson therefore sailed in 1823, with Mr. and Mrs. Wade +as her companions.</p> +<p>In the meantime Judson himself had been going on with his work +at Rangoon, among many troubles.</p> +<p>Another accusation was drawn up by the lamas against +Shwaygnong, and the Viceroy, on reading it, pronounced him worthy +of death; but before he could be arrested, he took boat, came +down to the mission-house with his family, obtained a supply of +tracts and portions of Scripture, and then secretly fled up the +river to a town named Shway-doung, where he began to argue and +distribute the tracts. So little regular communication was +there between different places in Burmah, that this could be done +with comparative safety; but the accusation and his flight +created so much alarm at Rangoon, that Mr. Judson had to shut up +the zayat, and only assemble his converts in the +mission-house. They suffered another loss in Moung +Thaahlah, their second convert, who died of cholera, after +nineteen hours’ illness. He had seven months before +married a young Christian woman, this being the first Burmese +Christian wedding; and as he was a youth of much promise and good +education, he was a serious loss to the mission. All this +time Mr. Judson was alone, until the arrival of Jonathan Price, +who had wisely qualified himself to act as a physician, and no +sooner did a report of his skill reach Ava, than the King sent +for him; and as he had no time to learn the language, Judson went +with him as interpreter. Dr. Price says, “The King is +a man of small stature, very straight, steps with a natural air +of superiority, but has not the least appearance of it in +conversation. He wears a red, finely-striped silk cloth +from his waist to his knees, and a blue-and-white handkerchief on +his head. He has apparently the good of his people as well +as the glory of his kingdom at heart, and is encouraging foreign +merchants, and especially <!-- page 143--><a +name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 143</span>artisans to +settle in his capital. A watchmaker at this moment could +obtain any favour he should please to ask.”</p> +<p>As soon as the missionaries arrived, he sent for them and +received them in an open court, where they were seated on a +bamboo floor about ten feet from his chair. He took no +notice of Judson, except as an interpreter, but interrogated +Price as to his skill in surgery, sent for his medicines, looked +at them and at his instrument, and was greatly amused with his +galvanic battery; he then dismissed them with orders to choose a +spot on which a house should be built for them, and to look up +the diseased to try Price’s skill upon.</p> +<p>Moung Zah, the former minister, recognized Judson kindly, and +after a time the King took notice of him: “You in black, +what are you, a medical man too?”</p> +<p>“Not a medical man, but a teacher of religion, your +Majesty.”</p> +<p>After a few questions about his religion the King proceeded to +ask whether any Burmese had embraced it.</p> +<p>“Not here,” diplomatically said Judson.</p> +<p>“Are there any in Rangoon?”</p> +<p>“There are a few.”</p> +<p>“Are they foreigners?”</p> +<p>Mr. Judson says he trembled for the consequences of an answer, +but the truth must be spoken at all risks, and he replied, +“Some foreigners and some Burmese.”</p> +<p>The King showed no displeasure, but asked questions on +religion, geography, and astronomy, as though his temper was +quite changed. His brother, a fine young man of +twenty-eight, who suffered from paralysis, became a patient of +Dr. Price, and had much conversation with Judson, showing great +eagerness for instruction. He assured the missionaries that +under the present reign there was no danger to the native +Christians, and after a successful operation for cataract, +performed by Dr. Price, the missionaries were so much in favour +that while Price remained at Ava and there married a native lady, +Judson was desired only to go back to Rangoon to meet his wife on +her return, and bring her to reside at Ava.</p> +<p>Their good and tolerant friend, the Viceroy, was dead, and his +successor was a severe and unjust man, so that the people had +fled in numbers from the place, and few Christians remained +except at Moung Shwaygnong’s village. There was thus +the less <!-- page 144--><a name="page144"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 144</span>to leave, when in December 1823 Mrs. +Judson safely arrived, and two fresh missionaries with her, to +whom the flock at Rangoon could be left. There is a most +happy letter written on the voyage up the Irrawaddy to Ava, when +it seemed as though all the troubles and difficulties of four +years had been smoothed away. The mission had been kindly +welcomed at Ava, and established in the promised house, when the +first of the English wars with Burmah broke out, on grounds on +which it is needless to enter. It is enough to say that +after many mutual offences, Sir Archibald Campbell, with a fleet +and army, entered Rangoon, and occupied it without resistance, +the Viceroy being absent at the time.</p> +<p>The Court of Ava were exceedingly amazed at the insolence of +the foreigners. An army supposed to be irresistible was +sent off, dancing and singing, in boats down the river, and all +the fear was lest the alarm should drive away the white strangers +with the “cock-feather chief” before there was time +to catch any for slaves. A lady sent a commission for four +to manage the affairs of her household, as she heard they were +trustworthy; a courtier, for six to row his boat.</p> +<p>The capture of Rangoon was supposed by national pride to be +wholly owing to the treachery of spies, and three English +merchants were fixed upon as those spies and put under +arrest. The King was advised likewise to secure the persons +of the missionaries, but he answered, “They are quiet men; +let them alone.” Unfortunately, however, a receipt +for some money paid to Adoniram Judson was found among the papers +of one of the merchants, and this to the Burmese mind was proof +of his complicity in the plot. Suddenly, an official, +accompanied by a dozen men, one of whom had his face marked with +spots, to denote his being an executioner, made his appearance +demanding Mr. Judson. “You are called by the +King,” said the official, and at the same moment the +executioner produced a cord, threw Mr. Judson on the floor, and +tied his arms behind his back. His wife vainly offered +money to have his arms unbound, and he was led away, the faithful +Ing following at a distance to see what was done with him, while +Mrs. Judson retired to her room and poured out her soul “to +Him who for our sakes was bound and led away to execution,” +and great was her comfort even in that moment. She was +immediately after summoned to be examined by a magistrate in the +verandah, and <!-- page 145--><a name="page145"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 145</span>after hastily destroying all +journals and papers, went out to meet him. He took down her +name and age, those of four little Burmese girls she had charge +of, and of two Bengal servants; pronounced them all slaves to the +King, and set a guard over them. Mrs. Judson fastened +herself and her children into the inner room, while the guards +threatened her savagely if she would not show herself, and even +put her servants’ feet in the stocks till she had obtained +their release by promises of money.</p> +<p>Moung Ing had ascertained that his master was in prison; and +when, after the most dreadful night she had ever spent, she sent +him again in the morning, with a piece of silver to obtain +admittance, he brought word that both Judson and Price, with the +three English merchants, were in the death-prison, each wearing +three pairs of iron fetters and fastened to a long pole. +Mrs. Judson immediately sent to the governor of the city with an +entreaty to be allowed to visit him with a present. This +procured her a favourable reception, and he promised to make the +condition of the prisoners more comfortable, but told her that +she must consult his head writer as to the means. This man, +a brutal-looking fellow, extorted from her a huge bribe, and then +promised to release the two teachers from the pole, and to put +them into another building where she might send them food daily, +and pillows and mats to sleep on. She obtained an order for +an interview with her husband, whose looks were so wretched and +ghastly that she lost no time in fulfilling these exorbitant +demands.</p> +<p>Her hope was in a petition to the Queen, but being under +arrest herself, she could not go to the Queen in person, and had +to approach her through her sister-in-law—a proud, haughty +dame, who received her in the most cold, discouraging manner, but +who undertook to present the petition. She then went to the +prison again, but the head writer would not allow her to enter; +and on her return home she found that all the property in the +mission-house was to undergo a scrutiny; but this was humanely +done, and was only inventoried, not seized—<i>i.e.</i> the +King did not seize it, but the officials helped themselves to +whatever took their fancy. The next day the Queen’s +answer was obtained—“He is not to be executed; let +him remain where he is.”</p> +<p>The poor lady’s heart fainted within her, but she +thought of <!-- page 146--><a name="page146"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 146</span>the widow and the unjust judge, and +persevered day after day in applying to every member of the royal +family or of Government to entreat for her husband’s +liberation. The King’s mother, sisters, and brother +were all interested in his favour, but none of them ventured to +apply direct to the King lest they should offend the favourite +Queen. All failed, but the hopes that from time to time +were excited, kept up the spirits of the sufferers. During +the long weary months while the missionaries continued in +fetters, <i>i.e.</i> chained by the feet to a bar of bamboo, Mrs. +Judson was often not allowed to visit them for ten days at a +time, and then only by walking to the prison after dark, two +miles, unattended. She could, however, communicate with her +husband by means of the provisions she sent him daily. At +first she used to write on the dough of a flat cake, which she +afterwards baked and concealed in a bowl of rice, while he +answered by writing on a tile, where the inscription disappeared +when dry but was visible when wet; but latterly they found it +most convenient to write on a roll of paper hidden in the long +nose of a coffee-pot, in which tea was sent to the prisoners.</p> +<p>Mrs. Judson delighted to send him little surprises, once a +mince-pie, which Moung Ing carried with the utmost pride to his +imprisoned master. Mrs. Judson found herself obliged to +wear the native dress, though she was so much taller than the +Burmese women that she could be hardly taken for one of +them. It was a becoming dress; her hair was drawn into a +knot on the forehead, with a cocoa-blossom, like a white plume, +drooping from it; a saffron vest open in front to show a crimson +tunic below; and a tight skirt of rich silk, sloping down behind, +made her look to advantage, so that her husband liked to remember +her as she stood at his prison door. She never was allowed +to come further.</p> +<p>For twenty days she was absent, and then she came with a tiny, +pale, wailing, blue-eyed baby on her breast. Poor Judson, +clanking up to the door in his chains to welcome his little +daughter, commemorated his feelings in some touching verses +ending:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“And when in future years<br /> +Thou know’st thy father’s tongue,<br /> +These lines will show thee how he felt,<br /> +How o’er his babe he sung.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Every defeat by the European forces added to the perils of +<!-- page 147--><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +147</span>captives. A favourite old general named Bundoolah +had promised, when sent to command the army against Rangoon, that +he would release all the white prisoners on his return as a +conqueror; and when he was totally defeated, the wrath of the +Burmese was so great that at this time the King himself seems to +have scarcely acted at all. He was gentle, indolent and +indifferent, more intelligent than those around him, scarcely a +Buddhist in belief, and very kind-hearted: indeed Judson believed +that it was his interposition alone that prevented the lives of +the captives from being taken at once; but he was demoralized by +self-indulgence, and allowed himself to be governed by his queen, +the daughter of a superintendent of gaols; and through her, by +her brother, who was cruel, rapacious and violent, and the chief +author of all the sufferings inflicted on the prisoners. +Among these were seven or eight British officers, and the King +had commanded that a daily allowance of rice should be served to +these, but scarcely half of it ever reached them; Mrs. Judson did +her best to supply them as well as her husband, but their health +gave way under their sufferings, and all died but one.</p> +<p>At the end of seven months, it was reported that the English +army was advancing into the interior; and in the passionate alarm +thus excited, the English captives were all loaded with five +pairs of fetters and thrown into the common prison among Burman +thieves and robbers,—a hundred in a room without a window, +and that in the hottest season of the year. Mrs. Judson +again besought the governor to relieve them from this horrible +condition, by at least allowing them to sit outside the door, and +he actually shed tears at her distress, but he told her that he +had been commanded to put them all to death privately, and that +he was doing his best for them by massing them with the +rest. The Queen’s brother had really given this +order, but the governor delayed the execution in case they should +be required of him by the King, and they continued in this +frightful state for a whole month, until Mr. Judson sickened with +violent fever, and the governor permitted him to be removed into +a little bamboo room, six feet long and four wide, where his wife +was allowed to visit him and bring him food and medicine, she +meantime living in a bamboo house in the governor’s +compound, where the thermometer rose daily to 106°, but where +she thought herself happy as she saw her husband begin to +recover.</p> +<p><!-- page 148--><a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +148</span>One day, however, when the governor had sent for her +and was kindly conversing with her, a servant came in and +whispered to him that the white strangers had suddenly been taken +away, no one knew whither. The governor pretended to be +taken by surprise, but there could be no doubt that he had +occupied Mrs. Judson to hinder her from witnessing the removal; +and it was not till the evening that she learnt that the +prisoners had been taken to Umerapoonah, whither she proceeded +with her three months old baby and one servant. There she +found that the prisoners had been sent on two hours before to a +sort of penal settlement called Oung-pen-lay, whither she +followed, to find her husband in a lamentable state. He had +been dragged out of his little room, allowed no clothing but his +shirt and trowsers, a rope had been tied round his waist, and he +had been literally driven ten miles in the hottest part of the +day. His feet were so lacerated that he was absolutely +falling, when a servant of one of the merchants tore a piece from +his turban, and this wrapped round his feet enabled him to +proceed, but he could not stand for six weeks after; indeed the +scars remained for life. In this state he lay chained to +Dr. Price. The intention was to sacrifice them both, in +order to obtain success for an intended expedition; but before +this could be done, a different woongye, or prime minister, came +in, and their condition was somewhat improved, for they only wore +one bamboo, through two slits in which their feet were forced, +and they were allowed to crawl into the enclosure. +Meantime, a poor lion, once a great favourite, which was thought +to be connected with the lions on the English colours, was placed +in a bamboo cage in sight of the prisoners, and there starved to +death, in hopes of thus abating the force of the enemy. +When its carcase was removed, Mr. Judson, at his own earnest +entreaty, was allowed the reversion of its cage, and there, to +his great joy, Moung Ing brought him his MS. translation of part +of the Burmese Bible, which he had kept in his pillow at Ava till +it was torn away by the jailors on his removal. The +faithful Ing, thinking only to secure a relic of his master, had +picked up the pillow and secured the treasure.</p> +<p>Solitude was the greatest boon to Judson, whose fastidious +delicacy suffered greatly in the thronged prison, but his +faithful Ann was suffering terribly. One of the little +Burmese girls who lived with her had caught the small-pox, and +was very ill: Mrs. Judson inoculated the other child and her own +little <!-- page 149--><a name="page149"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 149</span>Maria, but Maria’s inoculation +did not take effect, and she caught the disease, and had it very +severely. Then Mrs. Judson herself fell ill of a fever, and +remained for two months unable to visit her husband, both of them +owing all their food to the exertions of their good Bengalee +cook. Poor little Maria was nearly starved, no milk was to +be had, and the only food she obtained was when the jailers were +bribed to let her father carry her round the village to beg a +little nourishment from the nursing mothers. Her moans at +night rent the heart of her sick mother, and it is scarcely +possible to imagine how either survived. By this time, the +English troops were so far advancing that the King was reduced to +negotiate, and, being in need of an interpreter, he sent an order +for Mr. Judson’s release; but as his wife was not named in +it, she had great difficulty in effecting her departure, and +half-way through the journey a guard came down and carried him +off to Ava without her. Arriving next day, she found him in +prison, but under orders to embark in a little boat and go at +once to the camp at Maloun. She hastened to prepare all +that was needful for his comfort, but all was stolen except a +mattress, pillow, and one blanket. The boat had no awning, +and was so crowded that there was no room to lie down for the +three days and three nights of alternate scorching heat and heavy +dew; there was no food but a bag of refuse-rice, and the banks on +either side of the Irrawaddy were bordered with glittering white +sand, which in sunlight emitted a metallic glare intolerable to +the eyes, and heat like a burning furnace. The fever +returned upon Judson, and, when he reached Maloun, he was almost +helpless; but he found himself lodged in a small bamboo hut in +the middle of the white sand, where he could not admit air by +rolling up the matting without letting in the distressing glare, +and where the heat reflected from the sand was like a +furnace. He could not stir when the officers came to summon +him to the presence of the Burmese general, and they thought it +stubbornness, and threatened him; then they brought him papers +and commanded him to translate them, while he writhed in torture +and only longed that the fever in his brain would deprive him of +his senses. This it must have done, for he had only a +confused impression of feet around him, and of fancying that he +was going to be burnt alive, until he found himself on a bed in a +somewhat cooler room. As he lay there, papers were <!-- +page 150--><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +150</span>continually brought him to explain and translate, and +he found that the greatest difficulty was in making the Burmese +understand that a State paper could mean what it said, or that +truth and honesty were possible. Sometimes, as he tried to +explain the commonest principle: of good faith and fair dealing +among Christian nations, his auditors would exclaim, “That +is noble,” “That is as it should be;” but then +they would shake their heads and say, “The teacher dreams; +he has a heavenly spirit, and so he thinks himself in the land of +the dwellers in heaven.”</p> +<p>He remained here six weeks, suffering much at night from cold, +for his only covering was a small rug and his well-worn +blanket. Then, on the advance of the English, he was sent +back to Ava, but was marched straight to the court-house without +being suffered to halt for a moment at his own abode, to discover +whether his wife was there. He was placed in a shed, +guarded all day, and left without food, till Moung Ing found him +out in the evening, and replied to his questions, that the Mamma +Judson and the child were well; yet there was something about his +manner that was unsatisfactory, and Judson, thinking it over, +became terribly uneasy, and in the morning, being sent for by the +governor of the jail, obtained permission to go to his own +house.</p> +<p>At the door he saw a fat, half-naked Burmese woman with a +child in her arms, so dark with dirt that it never occurred to +him that it could be his own; and entering, he found, lying +across the foot of the bed, his wife, ghastly white and +emaciated, her hair all cut away, and her whole appearance that +of a corpse. She woke as he knelt down by her in +despair! She had been ill all this time with a horrible +spotted fever. The day she had fallen ill, the Burmese +woman had offered to take charge of little Maria, and the +Bengalee cook had attended on her. Dr. Price was released +from prison and had cut off her hair, bled, and blistered her, +but she could hardly move when the tidings came of her husband +being in the town, and she had sent Moung Ing to him. The +husband and wife were at last together again, and Dr. Price was +sent to conduct the treaty at the English camp.</p> +<p>As soon as Sir Archibald Campbell heard of the sufferings of +the Judsons, he demanded them as well as the English subjects; +but the King was aware that they were not English, <!-- page +151--><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +151</span>and would not let them go. This attempt at a +treaty failed; but its failure, and the alarm consequent upon a +report of the advance of the English, led to Mr. Judson’s +being sent off, almost by force, with two officials, to promise a +ransom if Ava were spared. Sir Archibald Campbell undertook +that the city should not be attacked, provided his terms were +complied with before he reached it; and among these was the +stipulation that not only English subjects, but all foreigners +should have free choice whether to go or to stay. Some of +the officials tried to persuade Mr. Judson to stay, declaring +that he would become a great man, but he could not refuse the +freedom offered him after such cruel sufferings, and he was wont +to declare that the joy of finding himself floating down the +Irrawaddy in a boat with his wife and baby, made up for their +twenty-one months of peril and misery.</p> +<p>They were received with courtesy, and indeed with gratitude, +respect, and veneration at the English camp. The Englishmen +who had been in captivity bore witness to the kindness with which +Mrs. Judson had relieved their wants, as well as those of her +husband: how she had brought them food, mended their clothes, +obtained new ones, and, as they believed, by her arguments and +appeals to the ignorant and barbarous Government, had not only +saved their lives, but convinced the authorities of the necessity +of accepting the British terms of peace.</p> +<p>These terms included the cession of a large portion of the +Burmese territory; and this it was that decided the missionaries +to leave Ava; for the state of exasperation and intolerance into +which this brought the Court, made it vain to think of continuing +to give instruction where they would be regarded with enmity and +suspicion. Meantime, the officers in the English camp, who +had not seen a lady for nearly two years, could not make enough +of the graceful, gentle woman, so pale and fragile, yet such a +dauntless heroine, and always ready to exert herself beyond her +strength for every sufferer who came in her way.</p> +<p>There was a curious scene at a dinner given to the Burmese +commissioners, in a magnificent tent, with all the military pomp +the camp could furnish. When Sir Archibald appeared with +Mrs. Judson on his arm, and seated her by his side, there was +such a look of discomfiture on the faces of the guests, that he +asked her if they were not old acquaintance who had treated her +ill. “That fellow with the pointed beard,” he +said, <!-- page 152--><a name="page152"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 152</span>“seems taken with an ague +fit.” Then Mrs. Judson told how, when her husband lay +in a burning fever with the five pairs of fetters, she had walked +several miles with a petition to this man, had been kept waiting +till the noontide sun was at its height, and not only was she +refused, but as she departed her silk umbrella was torn out of +her hand by his greediness; and when she begged at least to let +her have a paper one to go home with, the officer only laughed at +her, and told her that she was too thin to be in danger of a +sunstroke! The English gentlemen could not restrain their +countenances at least from expressing their indignation; and the +Burmese, who thought she was asking for their heads, or to have +them laid out in the sun with weights upon their chests, were +yellow with fright, and trembled visibly. Mrs. Judson +kindly turned to them with a smile, assuring them that they had +nothing to fear, and, on repeating her words to Sir Archibald +Campbell, he confirmed them to the frightened barbarians.</p> +<p>That visit to the English camp was one of the few spaces of +comfort or repose in those busy lives. It concluded by the +husband and wife being forwarded to their old home at +Rangoon.</p> +<p>It was in the height of the war, when anxieties for the fate +of Mr. and Mrs. Judson were at the utmost, that, on the 4th of +July, 1825, George Boardman and Sarah Hall were married, and +sailed for Calcutta, thinking it possible that they might find +their predecessors martyred, and that they were coming “to +step where their comrades stood.”</p> +<p>At Calcutta they found Mr. and Mrs. Wade, who had with great +difficulty escaped, and soon after they heard of the rescue of +the Judsons, and welcomed Dr. Price. Rangoon, in the +meantime, had been occupied by the English, and then besieged by +the Peguans; the mission-house was ruined, and the people +dispersed, and Moung Shwaygnong had died of cholera, faithful to +the last. The city was to be restored to the Burmese, and +the King, though willing to employ Judson politically, refused +toleration to his subjects; so that, as the provinces on the +Martaban river were to be ceded to the English, it seemed wise to +take advantage of the reputation which the Judsons had +established to found a mission-station under their protection in +the new town of Amherst, which Sir Archibald Campbell proposed to +build on the banks of the Martaban river.</p> +<p><!-- page 153--><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +153</span>Hither was transported the old zayat of Rangoon; and +Mount Ing, Moung Shwaba, and a few other of the flock accompanied +their teachers, to form the nucleus of the mission. Sir +Archibald Campbell had made a great point of Mr. Judson’s +accompanying the English embassy that was to conclude the treaty +at Ava; and he, hoping to obtain something for the Christian +cause, complied, leaving that most brave and patient woman, his +wife, with her little delicate girl, in a temporary house in +Amherst, which, as yet, consisted only of barracks, +officers’ houses, and fifty native huts by the riverside in +the space of freshly-cleared jungle. There she set to work +with energy that enfeebled health could not daunt, to prepare the +way for the Wades and the Boardmans, to superintend a little +school, of which Moung Ing was master, and to have a house built +for her husband.</p> +<p>She had just moved into it, when she was attacked with +remittent fever, and, though attended by an English army surgeon +and nursed by a soldier’s wife, she sank under it, and died +on the 24th of October, 1826. She was buried under a +<i>hopia</i>, or, as her friends loved to call it, a hope tree; +and the Wades, coming shortly after, took charge of poor little +Maria, who lived to be embraced by her father, on his arrival +after three months’ absence; but she continued to pine +away, and only survived her mother six months.</p> +<p>Judson endured patiently, thought of his wife’s +sufferings as gems in her crown, wrote cheerful letters, and +toiled indefatigably, without breaking down, but he was never the +same man again. Amherst was probably unhealthy, for several +of the Rangoon converts died there, among them one of the little +Burmese girls who had been with Mrs. Judson throughout her +troubles. Those who died almost always spoke with joy of +their hope of seeing Mamma Judson in heaven. “But +first,” said one woman, “I shall fall down before the +Saviour’s feet, and thank Him for sending us our +teachers.”</p> +<p>It was shortly before little Maria’s death that Mr. and +Mrs. Boardman arrived, bringing with them a daughter born at +Calcutta. Moulmein, the town near at hand, was decided on +as their station, and they removed to a mission-house on the +border of the jungle, about a mile from the cantonments, with a +beautiful range of hills behind them, and the river in +front. Opposite lay the Burman province of Martaban, which +had <!-- page 154--><a name="page154"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 154</span>been desolated during the war, and +was now the haunt of terrible Malay pirates, who came and robbed +in the town, and then fled securely to the opposite bank, where +they could not be pursued. The English officers had +entreated the Boardmans to reside within the cantonments, but +they wished to be among the people, so as to learn the language +more readily and become acquainted with them.</p> +<p>One night, Mrs. Boardman awoke and found the lamp gone +out. She rose and re-lighted it. Every box and drawer +lay overthrown and rifled, nothing left but what the thieves +deemed not worth taking. She turned round to the mosquito +curtain which concealed her husband; it was cut by two long +gashes, the one close to his head, the other to his feet. +There the robber-sentry must have kept watch, ready to destroy +the sleepers if they had wakened for a moment! Nearly every +valuable had been carried away, and not a trace of any was ever +found. After this, Sir Archibald Campbell gave them a Sepoy +guard; and, as population increased, the danger diminished. +Indeed, Amherst proved an unsuccessful attempt, and was gradually +abandoned in favour of Moulmein, which became the head-quarters +both of Government and of the Mission.</p> +<p>The Boardmans were specially devoted to that, because of the +work which regarded the Karens. These were a wandering race +who occupied a strip of jungle, a hilly country to the south of +Burmah, living chiefly by hunting and fishing, making canoes, and +clothed in cotton cloth. They had very scanty ideas either +of religion or civilization, but were not idolaters, and had a +good many of what Judson calls the gentler virtues of savages, +though their habits were lazy and dirty. They had been a +good deal misused by the Burmese, but occasionally wandered into +the cities; and there Judson had asked questions about them which +had roused the interest of his Burman converts. During the +war, one of these Burmese found a poor Karen, named Ko-Thah-byoo, +in bondage for debt, paid the amount, made him his own servant, +and, on the removal to Moulmein, brought him thither. He +proved susceptible of instruction, and full of energy and zeal; +and not only embraced Christianity heartily himself, but +introduced it to his tribe, and assisted the missionaries in +acquiring the language.</p> +<p>To be nearer to these people, the Boardmans removed to <!-- +page 155--><a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +155</span>Tavoy, where they had a Burmese congregation; and Mr. +Boardman made an expedition among the Karens, who were, for the +most part, by no means unwilling to listen, and with little +tradition to pre-occupy their minds, as well as intelligence +enough to receive new ideas. At one place, the people were +found devoted to an object that was thought to have magic power, +and which they kept with great veneration, wrapt up in many +coverings. It proved to be an English Common Prayer Book, +printed at Oxford, which had been left behind by a Mahometan +traveller. On the whole, this has been a flourishing +mission; the Karens were delighted to have their language reduced +to writing, and the influence of their teachers began to raise +them in the scale; but all was done under the terrible drawback +of climate. Mrs. Boardman never was well from the time she +landed at Moulmein, and her beautiful flower-covered house at +Tavoy was the constant haunt of sickness, under which her elder +child, Sarah, died, after showing all that precocity that white +children often do in these fatal regions. A little boy +named George had by this time been born, and shared with his +mother the dangers of the Tavoy rebellion, an insurrection +stirred up by a prince of the Burmese royal blood, in hopes of +wresting the province from the English.</p> +<p>One night, a Burmese lad belonging to the school close to the +Boardmans’ house, was awakened by steps; and, peeping +through the braided bamboo walls of his hut, saw parties of men +talking in an undertone about lost buffaloes. Some went +into the town, others gathered about the gate, and, when their +numbers began to thicken, a cloud of smoke was seen in the +morning dawn, and yells from a thousand voices proclaimed, +“Tavoy has risen!”</p> +<p>Boardman awoke and rushed out to the door, but a friendly +voice told him that no harm was intended him. The revolt +was against the English, and never was a movement more +perilous. The commandant, Colonel Burney, was absent at +Moulmein, the English officer next in command was ill of a fatal +disease, the gunner was ill, and the whole defence of a long, +straggling city was in the hands of a hundred Sepoys, commanded +by a very young surgeon, assisted by Mrs. Burney, who had a babe +of three weeks old. The chief of the fight was at the +powder magazine, not very far from the Boardmans’ +abode. It was attacked by two hundred men with clubs, +knives, spears, <!-- page 156--><a name="page156"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 156</span>but happily with very few muskets, +and defended by only six Sepoys, who showed great readiness and +faithfulness. Just as their bullets seemed to be likely to +endanger the frightened little family, a savage-looking troop of +natives were seen consulting, with threatening gestures aimed at +the mission-house, and Mr. Boardman, fully expecting to be +massacred, made his wife and her baby hide in a little shed, +crouching to escape the bullets; but this alarm passed off, and, +at the end of an hour, the whole of the gates had been regained +by the Sepoys, and the attack on the magazine repulsed. Mr. +Boardman took this opportunity of carrying his family to the +Government house, where they were warmly welcomed by Mrs. Burney; +but it was impossible to continue the defence of so large an +extent as the town occupied, and therefore the tiny garrison +decided on retiring to a large wooden building on the wharf, +whither the Sepoys conveyed three cannon and as much powder as +they expected to want, throwing the rest down wells. This +was not done without constant skirmishing, and was not completed +till three o’clock, when the refugees were +collected,—namely, a hundred Sepoys, with their wives and +children, stripped of all their ornaments, which they had buried; +some Hindoo and Burmese servants; a few Portuguese traders; a +wily old Mussulman; Mrs. Boardman and Mrs. Burney, each with her +baby; and seven Englishmen besides Mr. Boardman. Among them +rode the ghastly figure of the sick officer, who had been taken +from his bed, but who hoped to encourage his men by appearing on +horseback; but his almost orange skin, wasted form, sunken eyes, +and perfect helplessness, were to Mrs. Boardman even more +terrible than the yells of the insurgents around and the shots of +their scanty escort.</p> +<p>Three hundred persons were crowded together in the wooden +shed, roofed over, and supported on posts above the water, with +no partitions. The situation was miserable enough, but they +trusted that the enemy, being only armed with spears, could not +reach them. By and by, however, the report of a cannon +dismayed them. The jingals, or small field-pieces, were +brought up, but not till evening; and the inexperienced rebels +took such bad aim that all the balls passed over the wharf into +the sea, and the dense darkness put a stop to the attempt; but +all night the trembling inmates were awakened by savage yells; +and a Sepoy, detecting a spark of light through the chinks of the +<!-- page 157--><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span>floor, fired, and killed an enemy who had come beneath +in a boat to set fire to the frail shelter!</p> +<p>In the morning the firing from the walls was renewed, but at +long intervals, for there was a great scarcity of powder, though +the unhappy besieged apprehended every moment that the right +direction would be hit upon, and then that the balls would be +among them. They could send nowhere for help, though there +was a Chinese junk within their reach, for it could not put to +sea under the fire of the rebels; and two more days, and two +still more terrible nights, passed in what must have been almost +a black hole. The fifth night was the worst of all, for the +town was set on fire around, and by the light of the flames the +enemy made a furious attack; but just in time to prevent the fire +from attaining the frail wooden structure, a providential storm +quenched it, and the muskets of the Sepoys again repulsed the +enemy. By this time the provisions were all but exhausted, +and there were few among even the defenders who were not +seriously ill from the alternate burning sun and drenching +rain. Death seemed hovering over the devoted wharf from +every quarter; when at last, soon after sunrise on the fifth day, +the young doctor quietly beckoned the Colonel’s wife to the +door that opened upon the sea, and pointed to the horizon, where +a little cloudy thread of smoke was rising.</p> +<p>It was the steamer bringing Colonel Burney back, in perfect +ignorance of the peril of Tavoy and of his wife! But he +understood all at a glance. The women and children were +instantly transferred to the steamer, and she was sent back to +Moulmein, but Colonel Burney and the few men who came with him +landed, and restored courage and spirit to the besieged. +Not only was a breastwork thrown up to protect the wharf, but the +Colonel led a trusty little band of Sepoys to the wall where the +cannon stood, recaptured them, and had absolutely regained Tavoy +before the tidings of the insurrection had reached +Moulmein. Mrs. Burney’s babe died soon after the +steamer had brought the two mothers and their infants to their +refuge; but little George Boardman did not suffer any ill effects +from these dreadful days and nights, and was, in fact, the only +child of his patents who outlived infancy. Another son, +born a few months afterwards, soon ended a feeble existence, and +Mrs. Boardman was ill for many months. Her husband, +delicate from the first, never entirely recovered the sufferings +at the wharf; yet in spite <!-- page 158--><a +name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 158</span>of an +affection of the lungs, he would often walk twenty miles a day +through the Karen villages, teaching and preaching, and at night +have no food but rice, and sleep on a mat on the floor of an open +zayat.</p> +<p>The Moulmein station was a comparative rest, and the husband +and wife removed thither to supply the place of Judson and of the +Wades, who were making another attempt upon Burmah Proper; the +Wades taking up their residence at Rangoon, and Judson going on +to Prome, the ancient capital, where he preached in the zayats, +distributed tracts, and argued with the teachers in his old +fashion; but the Ava Government had become far more suspicious, +and interfered as soon as he began to make anything like +progress, requesting the English officer now in residence at the +Court to remonstrate with him, and desire him not to proceed +further than Rangoon. He was obliged to yield, and again to +float down the river in his little boat, baffled, but patient and +hopeful.</p> +<p>A great change had come upon the bright, enthusiastic, lively +young man who had set out, with his beautiful Ann, to explore the +unknown Eastern world. Suffering of body had not altered +him so much as bereavement, and bereavement without rest in which +to face and recover the shock. A strong ascetic spirit was +growing on him. Already on his first return to Moulmein, +after joining in the embassy, he had thought it right to cut +short the ordinary intercourse of society, to which his residence +in the camp had given rise, and had announced his intention in a +letter to Sir Archibald Campbell. He was much regretted, +for he was a particularly agreeable man; and it is evident, both +from all testimony and from the lively tone of his letters, that +he was full of good-natured sympathy, and, however sad at heart, +was a cheerful and even merry companion.</p> +<p>But through these years, throughout constant care and +unrelaxed activity of mind and body, his heart was aching for the +wife he had no time to mourn; and the agony thus suppressed led +to an utter loathing for all that he thought held him back from +perfect likeness to the glorified Saint whom he loved. He +took delight in the most spiritual mystical writings he could +find,—à Kempis, Madame Guyon, Fénélon, +and the like,—and endeavoured to fulfil the Gospel measure +of holiness. He gave up his whole patrimony to the American +Baptist Mission Board (now separate from England and Serampore), +mortified to the very <!-- page 159--><a name="page159"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 159</span>utmost his fastidious delicacy by +ministering to the most loathsome diseases; and to crush his love +of honour, he burnt a letter of thanks for his services from the +Governor-General of India, and other documents of the same +kind. He fasted severely, and having by nature a peculiar +horror of the decay and mouldering of death, he deemed it pride +and self-love, and dug a grave beside which he would sit +meditating on the appearance of the body after death. He +had a bamboo hermitage on the borders of the jungle, where he +would live on rice for weeks together—only holding converse +with those who came to him for religious instruction; and once, +when worn out with his work of translation, he went far into the +depths of the wildest jungle, near a deserted pagoda, and there +sat down to read, pray, and meditate. The next day, on +returning to the spot, he found a seat of bamboo, and the +branches woven together for a shelter. Judson never learnt +whose work this was, but it was done by a loving disciple, who +had overcome the fear of tigers to provide by night for his +comfort, though the place was thought so dangerous that his +safety, during the forty days that he haunted it, was viewed by +the natives as a miracle. He spent several months in +retirement. It was indeed four years after his bereavement, +but it is plain that he was taking the needful rest and calm that +his whole nature required after the shock that he had undergone, +but which he had in a manner deferred until the numbers of +workers were so increased that his constant labour could be +dispensed with. He came forth from his retirement renovated +in spirit, for the second period of his toils.</p> +<p>Meantime, the Boardmans had returned to Tavoy, where they were +eagerly welcomed by their Karen flock, and found many candidates +for baptism. Weak as he was, Mr. Boardman examined +them. He was sometimes able to sit up in his chair and +speak for himself, but oftener so weak that his wife sat on his +couch and interpreted his feeble whispers; but he was so happy +that tears of joy often filled his eyes. The actual +baptism, performed by going down into the water like Philip with +the Ethiopian, could hardly have been carried out by a man in his +state; but Moung Ing, who had been admitted to the pastorate, +touched at Moulmein, on a mission to Mergui, and undertook the +baptisms. The Karens carried Mr. Boardman to the water in +his cot, along a street filled with lamaseries, whence the +yellow-clothed priests looked down in scorn, and the common <!-- +page 160--><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +160</span>people hooted and reviled: “See! see your +teacher, a living man borne as if he were already dead!” +with still worse unfeeling taunts. The Christians, about +fifty in number, reached the spot, a beautiful lake, nearly a +mile in circumference, and bordered by green grass overshadowed +by trees. There they all knelt down and prayed, and then +Moung Ing baptized the nineteen new disciples, while the pastor +lay pale and happy, and his wife watched him with her heart full +of the last baptism, when it had been he who poured the water and +spoke the words.</p> +<p>Mr. Boardman lived on into the year 1831, and welcomed a new +arrival from America, Francis Mason and his wife, on the 23rd of +January, and a week later set out to introduce the former to the +Karens, a band of whom had come down to convey the party. +Mr. Boardman was carried on his bed, his wife in a chair, and on +the third day they reached a spot where the Karens, of their own +accord, had erected a bamboo chapel beside a beautiful stream +beneath a range of mountains. Nearly a hundred had +assembled there, of whom half were candidates for baptism. +They cooked, ate, and slept in the open air, but they had made a +small shed for Mr. Mason, and another for the Boardmans, too +small to stand upright in, and so ill-enclosed as to be exposed +to sun by day and cold air by night.</p> +<p>The sufferer rapidly became worse, but he had an ardent desire +to see this last baptism, and all the thirty-four women, who were +sufficiently prepared, were baptized in his sight, though he was +so spent as scarcely to be able to breathe without the fan and +smelling-bottle. In the evening he contrived to speak a few +words of exhortation to the disciples, and to give them each a +tract or a portion of Scripture. The next morning the party +set out on their return, but in the afternoon were overtaken by a +great storm of thunder and lightning, with rain that drenched his +mattress and pillows; and when they reached a house, they found +it belonged to heathens, who would scarcely let the strange +teacher lie in the verandah.</p> +<p>His cot was so wet that he was forced to lie on the bamboo +floor, and the rain continued all night. A boat was +expected at twelve the next day, and it was resolved to wait for +this, while the Tavoyans looked grimly on, and refused even to +sell a chicken to make broth for the sick man. By nine +o’clock he was evidently dying, and the Karens rubbed his +hands and feet as they grew cold. Almost immediately after +being conveyed <!-- page 161--><a name="page161"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 161</span>to the boat, the last struggles came +on, and in a few minutes he had passed away. He was buried +at Tavoy, beside his little Sarah; all the Europeans in the town +attending, as well as a grateful multitude of Burmese and +Karens.</p> +<blockquote><p>“The tree to which the frail creeper +clung<br /> + Still lifts its stately head,<br /> +But he, on whom my spirit hung,<br /> + Is sleeping with the dead,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>wrote Sarah Boardman; and her first thought was of course to +go home with her child, but the Masons had not learnt the +languages, and had no experience, and, without her, there would +be no schools, no possibility of instruction for the converts of +either people until they could speak freely, and she therefore +resolved not to desert her work. She was keeping school, +attending to all comers, and interpreting from sunrise till ten +o’clock at night, besides having the care of her little +boy, and her schools were so good that, when the British +Government established some, orders were given for conducting +them on the same system.</p> +<p>She tried to learn Karen, but never had time, and it was the +less needful that a little Burmese was known to some Karens, and +thus she could always have an interpreter. She sometimes +made mission tours to keep up the spirit of the Karens till Mr. +Mason should be qualified to come among them. Her little +George was carried by her attendants, and there is a note to Mrs. +Mason, sent back from one of the stages of her journey, which +shows what her travels must have been: “Perhaps you had +better send the chair, as it is convenient to be carried over the +streams when they are deep. You will laugh when I tell you +that I have forded all the smaller ones.” But there +is scarcely any record of these journeys of hers, she was too +modest and shy to dwell on what only related to herself; and +though she several times, with the help of her Burmese +interpreter, led the devotions of two or three hundred Karens, it +was always with a sense of reluctance, and only under +necessity.</p> +<p>She had been a widow four years, when Adoniram Judson, who had +returned from Rangoon, and was about to take charge of the +station at Moulmein, made her his second wife, on the 10th of +April, 1834. At the same time, an opportunity offered of +sending little George back to America for education; but year +after year filled the house at Moulmein with other little <!-- +page 162--><a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +162</span>ones,—careful comforts, in that fatal climate, +which had begun to tell on the health of both the parents. +Pain and sorrow went for little with this devoted pair. To +be as holy as the Apostles though without their power, was the +endeavour which Judson set before himself, and the work of such a +man was one of spirit that drew all to hear and follow him. +The Burmese converts were numbered by hundreds, and one of the +missionaries in the Karen country could write: “I no longer +date from a heathen land. Heathenism has fled from these +banks; I eat the rice and fruits cultivated by Christian hands, +look on the fields of Christians, see no dwellings but those of +Christian families. I am seated in the midst of a Christian +village, surrounded by a people that live as Christians, converse +as Christians, act as Christians, and, to my eyes, look like +Christians.”</p> +<p>All this, like every other popular conversion, involved many +individual disappointments from persons not keeping up to the +Christian standard, and from coolness setting in when the +excitement of the change was over; and great attention had to be +paid to rules, discipline, &c., as well as to providing books +and schools. Judson himself had to work hard at the +completion and correction of the Burmese Bible, to which he +devoted himself, the more entirely because an affection of the +throat and cough came on, and for some time prevented him from +preaching. In 1839, he tried to alleviate it by a voyage to +Calcutta, where he was received by both Bishop Wilson and by the +Marshman family at Serampore; but, as he observes, “the +glory of Serampore had departed,” and his stay there must +have been full of sad associations. His work upon the +Scriptures was finished in 1840, and he then began a complete +Burmese dictionary, while his wife was translating the +Pilgrim’s Progress; but both were completely shattered in +health, and their children, four in number, had all been brought +low by the hooping cough, and then by other complaints. A +voyage to Calcutta was imperatively enjoined on all; but it was +stormy and full of suffering, and soon after they arrived at +Serampore their youngest child, little Henry, died. A still +further voyage was thought advisable, and the whole family went +as far as the Isle of France, where they recovered some measure +of health, and their toil at Moulmein was resumed. Four +more years passed, three more children were born, and then the +strength <!-- page 163--><a name="page163"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 163</span>that had been for nineteen years so +severely tried, gave way, and the doctors pronounced that Sarah +Judson’s life could only be saved by a voyage to +America. The three elder children were to go with her, but +the three little ones were to remain, since their father only +intended to go as far as the Isle of France, and then return to +his labour. The last words she ever wrote were pencilled on +a slip of paper, intended to be given to him to comfort him at +their farewell:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“We part on this green islet, love:<br /> + Thou for the Eastern main,<br /> +I for the setting sun, love;<br /> + Oh! when to meet again?</p> +<p>My heart is sad for thee, love,<br /> + For lone thy way will be;<br /> +And oft thy tears will fall, love,<br /> + For thy children and for me.</p> +<p>The music of thy daughter’s voice<br /> + Thou’lt miss for many a year,<br /> +And the merry shout of thine elder boys<br /> + Thou’lt list in vain to hear.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Yet my spirit clings to thine, love,<br /> + Thy soul remains with me,<br /> +And oft we’ll hold communion sweet<br /> + O’er the dark and distant sea.</p> +<p>And who can paint our mutual joy<br /> + When, all our wanderings o’er,<br /> +We both shall clasp our infants three<br /> + At home on Burmah’s shore?</p> +<p>But higher shall our raptures glow<br /> + On yon celestial plain,<br /> +When the loved and parted here below<br /> + Meet, ne’er to part again.</p> +<p>Then gird thine armour on, love,<br /> + Nor faint thou by the way<br /> +Till Boodh shall fall, and Burmah’s sons<br /> + Shall own Messiah’s sway.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>What a trumpet-note for a soldier to leave after nineteen +years service “through peril, toil, and pain,” +undaunted to the last! For by the time the ship left the +Isle of France, she was fading so rapidly that her husband could +not quit her, and sailed on with her to St. Helena. She was +fast dying, but so composed about her children, that some one +observed that she seemed to <!-- page 164--><a +name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 164</span>have +forgotten the three babes. “Can a mother +forget?” was all her answer. She died on board the +ship, at anchor in the bay of St. Helena, and was carried to the +burial-ground, where all the colonial clergy in the island +attended, and she was laid beside Mrs. Chater, the wife of that +Serampore missionary whose expulsion had led to the first +pioneering at Rangoon, and who had since worked in Ceylon. +She was just forty-two, and died September 1st, 1845.</p> +<p>Her husband found her beautiful farewell; and, as he copied it +out, he wrote after the last verse, “Gird thine armour +on,” “And so, God willing, I will yet endeavour to +do; and while her prostrate form finds repose on the rock of the +ocean, and her sanctified spirit enjoys sweeter repose on the +bosom of <span class="smcap">Jesus</span>, let me continue to +toil on all my appointed time, until my change too shall +come.”</p> +<p>On the evening of the day of her burial, he sailed with the +three children, and arrived at Boston on the 15th of October, +1845. He remained in his native country only nine months, +and, if a universal welcome could have delighted him, he received +it to the utmost. So little did he know of his own fame, +that, returning after thirty years, he had been in pain to know +where to procure a night’s lodging at Boston, whereas he +found half the city ready to compete for the honour of receiving +him, and every one wanted to meet him. Places of worship +where he was to preach were thronged, and every public meeting +where he was expected to speak was fully attended; but all this +fervour of welcome was a distress to him, his affection of the +throat made oratory painful and often impossible, and the mere +going silently to an evening assembly so excited his nerves that +he could not sleep for the whole night after. Any sort of +display was misery to him; he could not bear to sit still and +hear the usual laudation of his achievements; and, when +distinguished and excellent men were introduced to him, he +received them with chilling shyness and coldness, too humble to +believe that it was for his goodness and greatness that they +sought to know him, but fancying it was out of mere +curiosity.</p> +<p>His whole desire was to get back to his work and escape from +American notoriety, and, disregarding all representations that +longer residence in the north might confirm his health, he +intended to seize the first opportunity of returning to +Moulmein. But a wife was almost a necessity both to himself +and his <!-- page 165--><a name="page165"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 165</span>mission, and even now, at his mature +age and broken health, he was able to win a woman of qualities +almost if not quite equal to those of the Ann and Sarah who had +gone before her.</p> +<p>Emily Chubbuck, born in 1817, was the daughter of parents of +the Baptist persuasion, living in the State of New York. +She was the fifth child of a large family in such poor +circumstances that, when she was only eleven years old, she was +sent to work at a woollen factory, where her recollections were +only of “noise and filth, bleeding hands and aching feet, +and a very sad heart;” but happily for her, the frost +stopped the works during the winter months, and she was able to +go to school; and, after two years, the family removed to a +country farm. They were all very delicate, and her elder +sisters were one after the other slowly dying of decline. +This, with their “conversions” and baptisms, deepened +Emily’s longing to give the tokens required by her sect for +Christian membership, but they came slowly and tardily with her, +and she quaintly told how one day she was addressed by one of the +congregation whose prayers had been asked for her, “What! +this little girl not converted yet? How do you suppose we +can waste any more time in praying for you?” Her +intelligence was very great, and in 1832, when her mother wanted +her to become a milliner, she entreated to be allowed to engage +herself as a school teacher. “I stood as tall as I +could,” she says, when she went to offer herself, and she +was accepted, although only fifteen. The system was that of +“boarding round”—<i>i.e.</i> the young mistress +had to live a week alternately at each house, and went from +thence to her school, but she found this so uncomfortable that +she ended by sleeping at home every night. She struggled +on, teaching in various schools, doing needlework in after-hours, +trying to improve herself, and always contending with great +delicacy of health, which must have made it most trying to cope +with what she calls in one of her letters “a little +regiment of wild cats” for about seven years, when some of +the friends she had made obtained of two sisters who kept a +boarding school at Utica that she should be admitted there to +pursue the higher branches of study for a year or two, and then +to repay them by her services as a teacher.</p> +<p>The two ladies, Miss Urania and Miss Cynthia Sheldon, and +their widowed sister, Mrs. Anable, proved Emily’s kindest +friends, and made a thoroughly happy home for her. She was +<!-- page 166--><a name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +166</span>very frail and nervous, but of great power of +influence, and even while still only a pupil had this gift. +Here she spent the rest of her maiden days, and here she supplied +the failure of her labours in needlework by contributions to +magazines, generally under the <i>nom de plume</i> of Fanny +Forester. They were chiefly poems and short tales, and were +popular enough to bring in a sum that was very important to the +Chubbuck family. The day’s employment was very full, +and she stole the time required from her rest. Late one +night, Miss Sheldon seeing a light in the room looked in, and +found her trembling in nervous agitation, holding her head with +her hands and her manuscript before her; and when gently rebuked, +and entreated to lie down at once, she exclaimed with a burst of +tears, “Oh! Miss Urania, I must write; I must help my +poor parents.”</p> +<p>Her brave and dutiful endeavours prospered so much that she +was actually able to buy a house for them. It was during +her stay at Utica that she was baptized, and several of her +writings were expressly for the Baptist Sunday School Union; and +though others were of a more secular cast, all were such as could +only be composed by a religious woman. A little book of +hers fell into the hands of Dr. Judson, and struck him so much +that he said, “I should be glad to know her. A lady +who writes so well ought to write better.” She was +then at Philadelphia, and at the moment of his introduction to +her was undergoing the process of vaccination. As soon as +it was over he entered into conversation with her with some +abruptness, demanding of her how she could employ her talents in +writings so trifling and so little spiritual as those he had +read.</p> +<p>Emily met the rebuke without offence, but defended herself by +describing the necessity of her case, with her indigent parents +depending upon her; so that her work must almost of necessity be +popular and profitable, though, as a duty, she avoided all that +could be of doubtful tendency.</p> +<p>The missionary was thoroughly softened, and not only acquitted +her, but begged her to undertake the biography of his wife Sarah: +and this threw them much together. He was fifty-seven, she +twenty-eight, when he offered himself to her in the following +letter, sent with a watch:—</p> +<p>“I hand you, dearest, a charmed watch. It always +comes back to me, and brings its wearer with it. I gave it +to Ann when a hemisphere divided us, and it brought her safely +and <!-- page 167--><a name="page167"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 167</span>surely to my arms. I gave it +to Sarah during her husband’s lifetime (not then aware of +the secret), and the charm, though slow in its operation, was +true at last.”</p> +<p>The charm worked. Emily Chubbuck was ready to follow Dr. +Judson to the deadly climate of Burmah, to share his labours, and +become a mother to the babies he had left there.</p> +<p>They were married on the 2nd of June, 1846, and five weeks +later sailed for Burmah, leaving the three children at +school.</p> +<p>Emily seems to have differed from Ann and Sarah, in that she +had less actual missionary zeal than they. Sarah at least +was a missionary in heart, and, as such, became a wife; but Emily +was more the wife, working as her husband worked. She had +much more literary power than either; her letters to her friends +were full of vivid description, playful accounts of their +adventures, and lively colouring even of misfortunes, pain, and +sickness. She arrived at Moulmein in November. One +little boy had died during Dr. Judson’s absence, but the +other two were tenderly cared for by the new Mrs. Judson, who +threw herself into all the work and interests of the mission with +great animation. It proved, however, that both the Burman +and Karen missions were well supplied with teachers; and Dr. +Judson thought he should be more useful at Rangoon, where there +had, since one attempt on the part of the Wades, been no resident +missionary. He heard accounts of the Court which made him +hope to recover a footing at Ava, and decided on again living at +Rangoon; but he soon heard that there was less hope than ever at +Ava. The king whom he had known was dead, and had been +succeeded by a devoted Buddhist, whose brother and heir, +“having been prevented from being a lama,” writes Dr. +Judson, “poor man! does all that he can. He descends +from his prince-regal seat, pounds and winnows the rice with his +own hands, washes and boils it in his own cook-house, and then, +on bended knees, presents it to the priests. This strong +pulsation at the heart has thrown fresh blood through the once +shrivelled system of the national superstition, and now every one +vies with his neighbour in building pagodas and making offerings +to the priests. What can one poor missionary effect, +accompanied by his yet speechless wife, and followed by three men +and one woman from Moulmein, and summoning to his aid the aged +pastor of Rangoon and eight or ten surviving members of the +church?”</p> +<p><!-- page 168--><a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +168</span>The Vice-governor, or Raywoon, was a violent and cruel +savage, whose house and court-yard rang with shrieks from the +tortured, and the old remnant of Christians were sadly +scattered. When they were collected to worship on Sunday, +they durst not either come in or go out in company, and used to +arrive with their garments tucked up to look like Coolies, or +carrying fruit or parcels, while the Karens crept down from the +hills in small parties. The Governor was friendly, but a +weak man, whose authority the Raywoon openly set at defiance; and +all sorts of petty annoyances were set in action against the +teachers, while the probability that the converts would suffer +actual persecution daily increased. Dr. Judson used to call +the present difficulties the Splugen Pass, and illness, of +course, added to their troubles.</p> +<p>The great Buddhist fast of the year had never before been +imposed on strangers, but now the markets contained nothing but +boiled rice, fruit, or decaying fish, and terrible illness was +the consequence both with themselves and the children, until some +boxes of biscuit arrived from Moulmein, and a Mahometan was +bribed to supply fowls.</p> +<p>But the finances of the Society at home were at a low ebb, and +it was thought needful to diminish the number of stations. +The intolerance of the Burmese Government led to the decision +that there was less benefit in maintaining that at Rangoon than +those in the British provinces; and, as Dr. Judson had no private +means, he was obliged to obey and return to Moulmein. Here +he had a curious correspondence with the Prince of Siam, whose +letter began in his own English: “Venerable sir, having +received very often your far-famed qualities, honesty, +faithfulness, righteousness, gracefulness, and very kindness to +poor nation, &c., from reading the book of your ancient +wife’s memoir and journal.” . . . The object of this +letter was to ask for some of his Burmese translations, and, in +return for them, his Royal Highness sent “a few artificial +flowers, two passion flowers, one mognayet or surnamed flower, +and three roses manufactured by most celebrated princess the +daughter of the late second king or sub-king.”</p> +<p>The Dictionary continued to be Judson’s chief +occupation, for his affection of the voice rendered him unable to +take charge of a congregation. He continued to work at it +till the November of 1849, when he caught a severe cold, which +<!-- page 169--><a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +169</span>brought on an attack of fever, and from that time he +never entirely rallied.</p> +<p>One of the last pleasures of his life deserves to be +mentioned. He had always had a strong feeling for the Jews, +and had longed to work for their conversion, praying that he +might at least do something towards it. After his last +illness had begun, a letter was read to him by his wife, giving +an account of a German Jew who had been led, by reading the +history of his toils in Burmah in the Gospel cause, to study +Christianity and believe. “Love,” he said +presently, his eyes full of tears, “this frightens +me. I do not know what to make of it.” +“What?” “What you have just been +reading. I never was deeply interested in any object; I +never prayed sincerely and fervently for anything, but it came at +some time—no matter how distant a day—somehow, in +some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it +came. And yet I have always had so little faith.”</p> +<p>After spending a month at Amherst in the vain hope of +improvement, a sea-voyage was recommended; but his reluctance was +great, for his wife was expecting a second child, and could not +go with him. There are some lines of hers describing her +night-watches, so exquisite and descriptive, that we must +transcribe them:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Sleep, love, sleep!<br /> +The dusty day is done.<br /> +Lo! from afar the freshening breezes sweep<br /> +Wide over groves of balm,<br /> +Down from the towering palm,<br /> +In at the open casement cooling run;<br /> +And round thy lowly bed,<br /> +Thy bed of pain,<br /> +Bathing thy patient head,<br /> +Like grateful showers of rain<br /> +They come;<br /> +While the white curtains, waving to and fro,<br /> +Fan the sick air;<br /> +And pityingly the shadows come and go,<br /> +With gentle human care,<br /> +Compassionate and dumb.<br /> +The dusty day is done,<br /> +The night begun;<br /> +While prayerful watch I keep,<br /> +Sleep, love, sleep!<br /> +Is there no magic in the touch<br /> +Of fingers thou dost love so much?<br /> +Fain would they scatter poppies o’er thee now;<br /> +<!-- page 170--><a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +170</span>Or, with its mute caress,<br /> +The tremulous lip some soft nepenthe press<br /> +Upon thy weary lid and aching brow;<br /> +While prayerful watch I keep,<br /> +Sleep, love, sleep!</p> +<p>On the pagoda spire<br /> +The bells are swinging,<br /> +Their little golden circlet in a flutter<br /> +With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter,<br /> +Till all are ringing,<br /> +As if a choir<br /> +Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing;<br /> +And with a lulling sound<br /> +The music floats around,<br /> +And drops like balm into the drowsy ear;<br /> +Commingling with the hum<br /> +Of the Sepoy’s distant drum,<br /> +And lazy beetle ever droning near.<br /> +Sounds these of deepest silence born,<br /> +Like night made visible by morn;<br /> +So silent that I sometimes start<br /> +To hear the throbbings of my heart,<br /> +And watch, with shivering sense of pain,<br /> +To see thy pale lids lift again.</p> +<p>The lizard, with his mouse-like eyes,<br /> +Peeps from the mortise in surprise<br /> +At such strange quiet after day’s hard din;<br /> +Then boldly ventures out,<br /> +And looks around,<br /> +And with his hollow feet<br /> +Treads his small evening beat,<br /> +Darting upon his prey<br /> +In such a tricksy, winsome sort of way,<br /> +His delicate marauding seems no sin.<br /> +And still the curtains swing,<br /> +But noiselessly;<br /> +The bells a melancholy murmur ring,<br /> +As tears were in the sky:<br /> +More heavily the shadows fall,<br /> +Like the black foldings of a pall,<br /> +Where juts the rough beam from the wall;<br /> +The candles flare<br /> +With fresher gusts of air;<br /> +The beetle’s drone<br /> +Turns to a dirge-like, solitary moan;<br /> +Night deepens, and I sit, in cheerless doubt, alone.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In spite of all this tender care, Dr. Judson became so much +worse that, as a last resource, a passage was taken for him and +<!-- page 171--><a name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +171</span>another missionary, named Ramney, on board a French +vessel bound for the Isle of Bourbon. The outset of the +voyage was very rough, and this produced such an increase of +illness, that his life closed on the 12th of April, 1850, only a +fortnight after parting from his wife, though it was not for four +months that she could be informed of his loss. During this +time she had given birth to a dead babe, and had suffered +fearfully from sorrow and suspense.</p> +<p>She had become valuable enough to the mission for there to be +much anxiety to retain her, and at first she thought of +remaining; but her health was too much broken, and in a few +months she carried home her little girl and her two +step-sons. She collected the family together, and spent her +time in the care of them, and in contributing materials for the +Life of her husband; but the hereditary disease of her family had +already laid its grasp on her, and she died on the 1st of June, +1854, the last of a truly devoted group of workers, as remarkable +for their cheerfulness as for their heroism.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII. THE BISHOPRIC OF CALCUTTA: THOMAS +MIDDLETON, REGINALD HEBER, DANIEL WILSON.</h2> +<p>Perhaps dying in a cause is the surest way of leading to its +success. Henry Martyn was sinking on his homeward journey, +while in England the renewal of the Charter of the East India +Company was leading to the renewal of those discussions on the +promotion of religion in Hindostan which had been so entirely +quashed twenty years before, in 1793. Claudius Buchanan had +published his “Christian Researches,” the Life of +Schwartz had become known, the labours of Marshman and Carey were +reported, and the Legislature at length attended to the +representations, made through Archbishop Manners Sutton, by the +Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and consented to +sanction the establishment of a branch of the Church, with a +Bishop to govern it at Calcutta, and an Archdeacon there <!-- +page 172--><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>and also at Madras and Bombay; the Bishop to have +5,000<i>l.</i> a year but no house, and each Archdeacon +2,000<i>l.</i> Such was all that the efforts of Wilberforce +could wring from the East India Company for a diocese, in length +twenty degrees, in breadth ten, and where the inconvenience of +distances was infinitely increased by the difficulties and +dangers of travelling.</p> +<p>One excuse for the insufficiency of this provision had more +weight with the supporters of the Church than we can +understand. England had for more than a thousand years been +accustomed to connect temporal grandeur with the Episcopacy; a +Bishop not in the House of Lords seemed an anomaly, and it was +imagined that to create chief pastors without a considerable +endowment would serve to bring them into contempt; whereas to +many minds, that very wealth and station was an absolute +stumbling-block. However, a beginning was made, and a year +after Henry Martyn’s death, in 1814, the first of the +Colonial Bishops of England was appointed, namely, Thomas Fanshaw +Middleton, the son of a Derbyshire clergyman, who had been +educated at Christ’s Hospital, and Pembroke College, +Cambridge, and had since been known as an excellent Greek +scholar, and an active clergyman in the diocese of Lincoln. +Thence he removed to the rectory of St. Pancras, London, where he +strove hard to accomplish the building of a new church, but could +not succeed, such was the dead indifference of the period. +He was also Archdeacon of Huntingdon, and one of a firmly +compacted body of friends who were doing much in a resolute +though quiet way for the awakening of the nation from its apathy +towards religion. Joshua Watson, a merchant, might be +regarded as the lay-manager and leader, as having more leisure, +and more habit of business than the clergy, with and for whom he +worked. This is no place for detailing their home labours, +but it may be well to mention that to their exertions we owe the +National Society for the education of the poor, and likewise that +edition of the Holy Scriptures, with notes, which is commonly +known as Mant’s Bible. They were the chief managers +at that time of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; +and when, in 1813, a Danish missionary was sent out by that +Society to take charge of the congregations left by Schwartz and +his colleagues, it was Archdeacon Middleton who was selected to +deliver a charge to him. It was a very powerful and +impressive speech, and perhaps <!-- page 173--><a +name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>occasioned +Dr. Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, to recommend the speaker to the +Earl of Buckinghamshire for the bishopric created the next +year.</p> +<p>The office would be, humanly speaking, most trying, laborious +and perplexing, and neither Archdeacon Middleton’s age +(forty-five) nor his habits inclined to enthusiasm. He +shrank from it at first, then “suspected,” as he +says, “that I had yielded to some unmanly +considerations,” and decided that it was his duty to accept +the charge as a call from his Master. He was consecrated in +the chapel at Lambeth, by Archbishop Manners Sutton, with the +Bishops of London, Lincoln, and Salisbury assisting. The +sermon was preached by Dr. Rennell, Dean of Winchester, but was +withheld from publication for the strange reason that there was +so strong an aversion to the establishment of episcopacy in +India, that it was thought better not to attract attention to the +fact that had just been accomplished.</p> +<p>Bishop Middleton, his wife, and two of his Archdeacons (the +third was already in India) sailed on the 8th of June, 1814, and +they landed at Calcutta on the 28th of November. There was +no public reception, for fear of alarming the natives, though, on +the other hand, they were found to entertain a better opinion of +the English on finding they respected their own religion. +The difficulties of the Bishop’s arrival were increased by +the absence of Lord Moira, the Governor-General, who was engaged +in the Nepaulese war; and as no house had been provided for the +Bishop, he had to be the guest of Mr. Seton, a member of the +Council, till a house could be procured, at a high rent.</p> +<p>One of the first visitors was a Hindoo gentleman, who told +him, “Sir William Jones was a great man and understood our +books, but he attended only to our law. Your lordship will +study our religion; your people mistake our religion; it is not +in our books. The Brahminee religion and your +lordship’s are the same; we mean the same thing.”</p> +<p>The man seems to have been one of those of whom there are now +only too many in India, who have thrown off their old +superstitions only to believe in nothing, save the existence of a +Supreme Being, and who fancy that all other religions can be +simplified into the like. This is the class that has, for +the seventy years during which Christianity has been preached in +earnest, been the alternate hope and anxiety of the missionary; +intellectually renouncing their own paganism, but withheld by +<!-- page 174--><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +174</span>the prejudices of their families from giving up the +heathenish customs of caste; admiring divine morality, but not +perceiving the inability of man to attain the standard; and +refusing to accept the mysteries in the supernatural portion of +Revelation. Such was probably Serfojee; such was the +celebrated Brahmin Ram Mohun Roy, with whom Bishop Middleton had +much discussion, and of whom he had at one time many hopes, a man +of very remarkable powers of mind and clear practical +intelligence. Roy’s endeavour at first was to purify +the native forms of religion, and, recurring to the Vedas, to +find a high philosophy in them; but he and the friends he +gathered round him soon became convinced that these contained no +system of reasonable theology, still less of morality, and they +then constructed for themselves a theory culled from +Christianity, but rejecting whatever did not approve itself to +their intellect, in especial the holy mysteries regarding the +nature of the Godhead and the Incarnation of our Lord. This +teaching, called Brahmoism, from Brahma, the purest and highest +of Hindoo divinities, is, under another form, the Neo-Platonism +of the Greeks, or the Soofeeism of the Persians. There was +even the germ of it in the grotesque medicine-man encountered by +David Brainerd. It is the form of opposition which the +spirit of evil always stirs up, wherever the natural character is +elevated enough to appreciate the beauty of Christian +morality. It only prevails where there are refined and +cultivated men, afraid of all belief in the supernatural, as a +humbling of their intellect to superstition; and just at present +a form of it is very prevalent in India, owing to the amount of +education which the natives receive, which uproots the old +belief, but does not always implant the new. Whether it +will become a stepping-stone to Christianity, or whether it has +substance to become a separate sect, remains to be proved.</p> +<p>To return to Bishop Middleton. He knew when he left home +that his work would be heavy, and that to set in order the things +that were wanting must be his first undertaking; but no words +could have conveyed the dead weight of care and toil that lay on +him. The huge diocese was shamefully deficient in all that +was needful for the keeping up of religious ordinances; the +Company’s chaplains, few in number, were stationed at +immense distances apart, and for the most part had no attempt at +a proper church for their congregations. Verandahs or <!-- +page 175--><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +175</span>dining-rooms were used on Sundays; and at Meerut, an +edifice was actually built for the purpose of a riding-school in +the week, and a place of worship on Sunday. Moreover, these +chaplains were accustomed to look to the Governor-General as +their only superior, and, living so far apart, each followed his +own independent line of action, as if entirely +unaccountable. Some, such as Mr. Corrie at Cawnpore, were +admirable and earnest men; but Henry Martyn’s successor at +Dinapore had let the place sink into a lamentable state, and +there were several chaplains who greatly resented the being +brought under authority. The brunt of the battle fell of +course upon the first Bishop, and being a man as sensitive as he +was firm, it tried him severely. His entreaty was +constantly for more men; and in order to obtain a ministry beyond +that which the East India Company would provide for, he occupied +himself in procuring the foundation of Bishop’s College, +close to Calcutta, a seminary where young men, both European and +native, could receive a good theological and classical education, +and be prepared for Holy Orders. The Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge granted 5,000<i>l.</i> for the purpose, and +private subscriptions came in, until on the 15th of December, +1820, the Bishop was enabled to lay the foundation-stone of an +institution that has, now for half a century, admirably answered +its purpose.</p> +<p>It has long been found that Christianity cannot take root +without a native ministry, and Bishop Middleton was most anxious +to ordain such catechists of Schwartz’s training as were +ready; but he found great technical difficulties in the way, +since the ordination form in the Prayer Book left no opening for +persons who, not being British subjects, could not be expected to +take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; and, moreover, it was +not certain what language ought to be used with men not speaking +English. The arrangement of these difficulties hindered him +from ordaining Christian David, the godson and pupil of Schwartz, +and a subject of Tanjore, on his visitation to the +Presidency. This good man met him, together with the +minister of Palamcotta, bringing a deputation about thirty in +number. The minister was an exceedingly dark man, with a +very interesting countenance. Addresses, interpreted by +Christian, were made on either side, and the thirty sang a psalm +of thanksgiving in Tamul. They were only a small +deputation, for there were several Christian villages in +Tinnevelly, <!-- page 176--><a name="page176"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 176</span>with churches built of unburnt +brick, and roofed with palmyra leaves, where the English Liturgy +was used, having been translated into Tamul by David.</p> +<p>At Tanjore, the Bishop was received in the most friendly +manner by Serfojee, who came down from his throne to welcome him, +and caused Mrs. Middleton to be conducted to visit the ladies of +his zenana. He conducted the Bishop into his library, which +contained books in various European languages; also on medicine +and anatomy, this being his favourite study, to assist him in +which he had an ivory skeleton. He returned the visit in +great state, with six elephants, two of enormous size, going +before him, and accompanied by his troops, with a wild, horrid +dissonance of cannon and native music. Two thousand persons +escorted the Rajah to the Bishop’s tent, where he conversed +very sensibly on various subjects, especially English history, or +as he called it, “the Generations of English +Kings.” He was keeping up the good works he had +established, under the encouragement of the British resident, +Colonel Blackburne, and in this district the native Christians +numbered about 500, who were under the direction of +Schwartz’s companion, Pohlé.</p> +<p>On the Malabar coast Bishop Middleton had much intercourse +with the Christians of St. Thomas, visited their churches, and +held much conversation with their Bishop, convincing himself that +the distinctive tenets of Nestorianism had died out among them, +and arranging for their receiving assistance in books and +teachers.</p> +<p>His visit to Ceylon followed, and was always regarded by him +as a time of much gratification; the good Governor, Sir Robert +Brownrigg, had done so much for the improvement of the people, +and the missions were flourishing so well. Here Christian +David became a catechist, and on the Bishop’s second +visitation, in 1821, he ordained as deacon a man named Armour, +whose history one longs to know more fully. He had come out +to Ceylon originally as a private soldier, and finding a number +of natives, probably the remnant of the Dutch Mission, whose +profession of Christianity was only nominal, he had taken upon +himself “almost the work of an evangelist,” never +varying from the teaching and services of the English +Church. He had taught himself to speak and preach fluently +in Cingalese, and could use the Dutch and Portuguese languages +freely. He had <!-- page 177--><a name="page177"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 177</span>even some knowledge of Latin and +Greek, and was so staunch Churchman that he had resisted all +invitations from the Baptists to join them. He had gone +through frightful difficulties and dangers in the swamp and the +jungle, and travelled thousands of miles; and when he came to the +Bishop it was with deep humility, and the hope that he had not +been presumptuous in taking on himself the charge of souls +without sanction. It was his great desire to obtain this +commission, and the Bishop, finding how sound in faith, pious, +and excellent he was, admitted him to deacon’s orders +before leaving Colombo.</p> +<p>Ceylon was erected into an archdeaconry and attached to the +Bishopric of Calcutta, and shortly after the same arrangement was +made respecting Australia—an archdeaconry a great deal +larger than the continent of Europe! Thence Bishop +Middleton received and attended to the petition of the Rev. +Samuel Marsden, a devoted worker in the vineyard, of whom our +next chapter will speak.</p> +<p>Distinct missionary labour was scarcely possible to a man +overtasked like Bishop Middleton. The district that kept +St. Paul in continual “journeyings often” would have +been but a quarter of that which depended on him for “the +care of all the churches,” and the long journeys by sea and +land were by far the least harassing part of his life; for he had +to fight the battles, sometimes of his Church, sometimes of the +whole Christian cause, with unfair and prejudiced officials, and +a malignant newspaper press, by which the bitterest attacks were +circulated against him and his doings. And, “besides +those things that were without,” there were the troubles of +dealing with men used to do “that which was right in their +own eyes,” and determined to oppose or neglect one whose +powers could only thoroughly be defined by actual practice. +To go into these conflicts would be wearisome and vain. +They have lost their interest now; but it must be remembered that +it is by manfully and firmly enduring vexations such as these, +that systems are established which form the framework and +foundation of more visible labours, which gain more praise for +those who are allowed to carry them out.</p> +<p>The constant wearing effort, the daily vexation, the inability +to gain support, the binding of his hands from free action by the +machinery of State regulations only applicable to home <!-- page +178--><a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +178</span>ecclesiastics, the continual making beginnings that +never were allowed to progress—or, as he himself called it, +the continual rolling of the stone of Sisyphus—could not +but exhaust his powers, above all in such a climate; and that +same sickly summer of 1822 which proved fatal to Felix Carey was +his last. In July, one of his clergy, on whom he had been +obliged to pass censure, instituted proceedings against him in +the Supreme Court—a most improper and disloyal act, which +much grieved and agitated him. He had to spend eight hours +in writing in preparation for this painful matter, and afterwards +went out in the carriage with his wife, but too early in the +evening, for the slanting rays of the sun, not yet down, fell +full on him, and their force is always especially dreaded at that +damp and sickly season. He immediately said that the sun +had struck him, and returned home; a most distressing fever, +chiefly on the nerves, and accompanied by grievous restlessness +and afterwards delirium, set in, and he died on the 8th of July, +1822, in his fifty-fourth year, absolutely worn out by toil and +worry. But his career had established both the needfulness +and the position of a Bishop, and his successor was appointed +without the same opposition, still to a path perhaps only less +thorny because briefer.</p> +<p>Of a Yorkshire family, where the eldest son was always bred up +as the country gentleman, the younger ones usually prepared to +hold the family livings, Reginald Heber was born on the 21st of +April, 1783, at Malpas, in Cheshire, a rectory held by his +father, who was the clerical second son, but soon after became +head of the house by the death of his squire-brother. He +was twice married, and had a son by his first wife, so that +Reginald was born, as it were, to the prospect of taking Holy +Orders; and this fact seems to have in a certain degree coloured +his whole boyhood, and acted as a consecration, not saddening, +but brightening his life.</p> +<p>A happy, eager, docile childhood seems to have been his; so +obedient, that when an attack on the lungs necessitated the use +of very painful remedies, the physician said that the chances of +his recovery turned upon his being the most tractable of +children; and with such a love and knowledge of the Bible that, +when only five years old, his father could consult him like a +little Concordance, and withal full of boyish mirth and +daring. When sent to school at Neasdon, he was so excited +by the story <!-- page 179--><a name="page179"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 179</span>of an African traveller overawing a +wild bull by the calm defiance of the eye, as to attempt the like +process upon one that he found grazing in a field, but without +the like success; for he provoked so furious a charge that he was +forced to escape ignominiously over a high paling, whence he +descended into a muddy pond.</p> +<p>Neasdon was the place of education of his whole boyhood, among +twelve other pupils. Mr. John Thornton, the schoolfellow +friend and correspondent of his life, describes him as having +been much beloved there. He had no scruple as to fighting +rather than submitting to tyranny from a bigger boy, but his +unfailing good nature and unselfishness generally prevented such +collisions; he was full of fun, and excellent at games of all +sorts; and though at one time evil talk was prevalent among the +boys, his perfect purity of mind and power of creating innocent +amusement destroyed the habit, without estranging the other lads +from him. He took many of his stories from books not read +by them, for he was an omnivorous reader, taking special delight +in poetry, loving nothing better than a solitary walk with +Spenser’s “Faërie Queen” in his hand, and +often himself composing verses above the average for so young a +boy.</p> +<p>He was always thoughtful, and there is a letter of his to his +friend Thornton, written when only seventeen, which shows that he +had begun to think over Church questions, was deeply sensible of +the sacredness of the apostolical commission to the ministry, and +of the evils of State interference. That same year, 1800, +began his University education, at Brasenose College, +Oxford. His course there was alike blameless in life and +brilliant in scholarship; his talents and industry could not fail +to secure him honours in the schools.</p> +<p>Another young man was at the very same time at Oxford, whose +course had been steered thither with more difficulties than +Reginald Heber’s. Daniel Wilson’s father was a +wealthy silk manufacturer, at Spitalfields, where he was born in +the year 1778. He was educated at a private school at +Hackney, kept by a clergyman named Eyre, who must have had a good +deal of discernment of character, for he said, “There is no +milk and water in that boy. He will be either something +very bad or very good.” One day, when he was in an +obstinate and impracticable state of idleness, Mr. Eyre said, +“Daniel, you are <!-- page 180--><a +name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>not worth +flogging, or I would flog you,” which so stung him that he +never fell into similar disgrace again; nay, one morning when he +had failed in his appointed task, he refused food saying, +“No! If my head will not work, my body shall not +eat.” He had considerable powers, and when his own +theme on a given subject was finished, would find +“sense” for all the dull boys—varying the +matter but keeping to the point in all: but his education ceased +at fourteen, when he was bound apprentice to his uncle, who +followed the same trade as his father, and lived in +Cheapside. He was a widower with seven children, one of +whom in after years became Daniel’s wife. It was a +strictly religious household, and whereas Daniel’s parents +had been wont to attend church or meeting as suited them best, +his uncle was a regular churchman, and took his whole family +constantly with him, as decidedly as he kept up discipline in his +warehouse, where the young men had so little liberty, that for +weeks together they never had occasion to put on their hats +except on Sunday.</p> +<p>Daniel was a thoughtless, irreverent lad, full of schoolboy +restlessness when first he came; but though he was at first +remarkable for his ill-behaviour in church, his attendance +insensibly took effect upon him, as it brought his mind under the +influence of the two chief powers for good then in London, John +Newton and Richard Cecil. The vehement struggle for +conversion and sense of individual salvation that their teaching +deemed the beginning of grace took place, and he turned for aid +to them and to his old schoolmaster, Mr. Eyre. It was from +his hands in 1797, at the age of nineteen, that he received his +first Communion, with so much emotion and such trembling, that he +writes to his mother, “I have no doubt I appeared very +foolish to those about me,” but he adds in another letter +to a friend that it had been the happiest day of his life. +“And to you I confess it,” he says, “(though it +ought perhaps to be a cause for shame,) that I have felt great +desire to go or do anything for the love of <span +class="smcap">Jesus</span>, and that I have even wished, if it +were the Lord’s will, to go as a missionary to foreign +lands.”</p> +<p>It is very remarkable that this thought should have occurred +at such a moment to one who only became a missionary thirty-five +years later, at a summons from without, not from within. +The distinct mission impulse passed away, but a strong desire +<!-- page 181--><a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +181</span>remained to devote himself to the ministry of the +Church. He tried to stifle it at first, lest it should be a +form of conceit or pride; but it only grew upon him, and at last +he spoke to Mr. Eyre, who promised to broach the subject to his +parents.</p> +<p>His father was strongly averse to it, as an overthrow to all +his plans, and Mr. Eyre, after hearing both sides, said that he +should give no opinion for a year; it would not hurt Daniel to +remain another year in the warehouse, to fulfil the term of his +apprenticeship, and it would then be proper time to decide +whether to press his father to change his mind. It was a +very sore trial to the young man, who had many reasons for +deeming this sheer waste of time, though he owned he had not lost +much of his school learning, having always loved it so much as to +read as much Latin as he could in his leisure hours. He +submitted at first, but was uneasy under his submission, and +asked counsel from all the clergymen he revered, who seem all to +have advised <i>him</i> to be patient, but to have urged his +father to yield, which he finally did before the year was out; so +that Daniel Wilson was entered at St. Edmund’s Hall, +Oxford, on the 1st of May, 1798. He struggled with the +eagerness of one whose desire had grown by meeting with +obstacles. In order to acquire a good Latin style, he +translated all Cicero’s letters into English, and then back +into Latin; and when he went up for his degree, he took, besides +his Latin and Greek books, the whole Hebrew Bible, but was only +examined in the Psalms. He gained a triumphant first-class, +and the next year, 1803, he carried off the English prose essay +prize. The theme was “Common Sense.” He +had not in the least expected to gain the prize, and had not even +mentioned the competition to his friends, so that their delight +and surprise were equal. That same year, Reginald Heber was +happy in the subject for Sir Roger Newdegate’s prize for +English verse, namely, “Palestine,” which in this +case had fallen to a poet too real to be crushed by the greatness +of his subject.</p> +<p>Reginald Heber was used to society of high talent and +cultivation. His elder brother, Richard, was an elegant +scholar and antiquary, and was intimate with Mr. Marriott, of +Rokeby; with Mr. Surtees, the beauty of whose forged ballads +almost makes us forgive him for having palmed them off as +genuine; and with Walter Scott, then chiefly known as “the +compiler of the ‘Border Minstrelsy,’” but who a +few years later immortalized his <!-- page 182--><a +name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 182</span>friendship +for Richard Heber by the sixth of his introductions to +“Marmion,”—the best known, as it contains the +description of the Christmas of the olden time. It +concludes with the wish—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Adieu, dear Heber, life and health!<br /> +And store of literary wealth.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Just as Reginald was finishing his prize poem, Scott was on a +tour through England, and breakfasted at Richard Heber’s +rooms at Oxford, when on the way to lionize Blenheim. The +young brother’s poem was brought forward and read aloud, +and Scott’s opinion was anxiously looked for. It was +thoroughly favourable, “but,” said Scott, “you +have missed one striking circumstance in your account of the +building of the Temple, that no tools were used in its +erection.”</p> +<p>Before the party broke up the lines had been added:</p> +<blockquote><p>“No workman’s steel, no ponderous axes +rung;<br /> +Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung;<br /> +Majestic silence—”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The prose essay on “Common Sense” was first +recited from the rostrum in the Sheldonian theatre, and Wilson +always remembered the hearty applause of the young man who sat +waiting his turn. But the effect of the recitation of +“Palestine” was entirely unrivalled on that as on any +other occasion. Reginald Heber,—a graceful, +fine-looking, rather pale young man of twenty,—with his +younger brother Thomas beside him as prompter, stood in the +rostrum, and commenced in a clear, beautiful, melancholy voice, +with perfect declamation, which overcame all the stir and +tumultuous restlessness of the audience by the power and +sweetness of words and action:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn,<br +/> +Mourn, widow’d queen; forgotten Zion, mourn.<br /> +Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne,<br /> +Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone;<br /> +While suns unblest their angry lustre fling,<br /> +And wayworn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>On flowed the harmonious lines, looking back to the call of +the Chosen, the victory of Joshua, the glory of Solomon, the +hidden glory of the Greater than Solomon, the crime of crimes, +the destruction, the renewal by the Empress Helena, the Crusades, +and after a tribute (excusable at the time of excitement) to Sir +<!-- page 183--><a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +183</span>Sidney Smith’s defence of Acre, gradually rising +to a magnificent description of the heavenly Jerusalem.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Ten thousand harps attune the mystic +throng,<br /> +Ten thousand thousand saints the strain prolong.<br /> +‘Worthy the Lamb, omnipotent to save!<br /> +Who died, Who lives triumphant o’er the grave.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The enthusiasm, the hush, the feeling, the acclamations have +ever since been remembered at Oxford as unequalled. +Heber’s parents were both present, and his mother, +repairing at once in her joy to his rooms, found him kneeling by +his bedside, laying the burthen of honour and success upon his +God. His father, recently recovered from illness, was so +overcome and shaken by the pressure of the throng and the thunder +of applause as never entirely to recover the fatigue, and he died +eight months later, early in 1804.</p> +<p>The two youths who were in juxtaposition at the rostrum were +not to meet again. Daniel Wilson was ordained to the curacy +of Chobham, under Mr. Cecil, an excellent master for impressing +hard study on his curates. He writes: “What should a +young minister do? His office says, ‘Go to your +books, go to retirement, go to prayer.’ +‘No,’ says the enthusiast, ‘go to preach, go +and be a witness.’”</p> +<p>“‘A witness of what?’</p> +<p>“‘He don’t know!’”</p> +<p>While Wilson worked under Cecil, Heber, who was still too +young for the family living of Hodnet, in Shropshire, after +taking his bachelor’s degree, obtaining a fellowship at All +Souls College, and gaining the prize for the prose essay, +accompanied John Thornton on a tour through northern and eastern +Europe, the only portions then accessible to the traveller; and, +returning in 1806, was welcomed at home by his brother’s +tenants with a banquet, for which three sheep were slaughtered, +and at which he appeared in the red coat of the volunteer +regiment in which he had taken an eager share during former +years.</p> +<p>It was his last appearance in a military character, for in +1807 he was ordained, and entered on his duties as Rector of +Hodnet. Two years later he married Amelia Shipley, the +daughter of the Dean of St. Asaph. Floating thus easily +into preferment, without a shoal or rock in his course, fairly +wealthy, and belonging to a well-esteemed county family, +connected through his brother with the very <i>élite</i> +of literary society, it seemed as <!-- page 184--><a +name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 184</span>though, in +the laxity of the early part of the century, Reginald Heber could +hardly have helped falling into the indolence of learned ease, +the peril of the well-beneficed clergy of his day, especially +among those who had not accepted the peculiarities of the +awakening school of the period.</p> +<p>But such was not the case. He was at once an earnest +parish priest, working hard to win his people, not only to attend +at church, but to become regular communicants, and to give up +their prevalent evil courses. We find him in one letter +mentioning the writing of an article on Pindar in the +<i>Quarterly Review</i>, planning for a village-school on the +Lancastrian principle, and endeavouring to improve the +psalmody. “At least,” he says, “I have a +better reason to plead for silence than the Cambridge man who, on +being asked in what pursuit he was then engaged, replied that he +was diligently employed in suffering his hair to grow.”</p> +<p>These “endeavours to improve the psalmody” were a +forestalling of the victory over the version of Tate and +Brady. The Olney Hymns, produced by Cowper, under the +guidance of John Newton, had been introduced by Heber on his +first arrival in the parish, but he felt the lack of something +more thoroughly in accordance with the course of the Christian +year, less personal and meditative, and more +congregational. Therefore he produced by degrees a series +of hymns, which he described as designed to be sung between the +Nicene Creed and the Sermon, and to be connected in some degree +with the Collects and Gospels for the day. Thus he was the +real originator in England of the great system of appropriate +hymnology, which has become almost universal, and many of his own +are among the most beautiful voices of praise our Church +possesses. We would instance Nos. 135 and 263 in +“Hymns Ancient and Modern,”—that for the 21st +Sunday after Trinity, a magnificent Christian battle-song; and +that for Innocents’ Day, an imitation of the old Latin hymn +“<i>Salvete flores Martyrum</i>.” They were put +together, with others by Dean Milman and a few more, into a +little volume, which Heber requested Dr. Howley, then Bishop of +London, to lay before the Archbishop, that it might be +recommended for use in churches, but the timidity of the time +prevented this from being carried into effect.</p> +<p>A deep student of church history, his letters show him trying +every practical question by the tests of ancient authority as +well as instructive piety, and, on these principles, already +deploring <!-- page 185--><a name="page185"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 185</span>the undue elevation of the pulpit +and debasement of the Altar to which exclusive preference of +preaching had led. Missions had, since the days of +Carey’s first opening of the subject become so predominant +a thought with the Nonconformist bodies, and were often conducted +so irregularly, that there was certain dread and distrust of them +among the sober-minded and orthodox; but Heber was one of the +first English churchmen who perceived that to enlarge her borders +and strengthen her stakes was the bounden duty of the living +Church. He was a fervent admirer of Henry Martyn, whose +biography was published soon after the news of his death reached +England, and his feeling found vent in that hymn so familiar to +us all—“From Greenland’s icy +mountains.”</p> +<p>He was meantime rising in influence and station,—Canon +of St. Asaph, Preacher at Lincoln’s Inn, Select Preacher +before the University. He was beloved by all ranks: by the +poor for his boundless charity and sympathy; and by his equals, +not only for these qualities, but for his sunny temper, bright +wit, and playfulness, which showed in his conversation, his +letters, and in many a droll, elegant, and scholarly <i>jeu +d’esprit</i>, thrown off by a mind that could do nothing +without gracefulness. All this prosperity was alloyed only +by such domestic sorrow as might be fitly termed gentle +chastening. The death of his next brother, Thomas, who had +acted as his curate, was a severe loss to him; and in the desire +to make every affliction a stepping-stone in Christian progress, +he began, from that date, a custom of composing a short +collect-like prayer, veiled in Latin, on every marked occurrence +in his life. The next occasion was, after several years of +marriage, the birth of a little daughter, whom (in his own words) +“he had the pleasure of seeing and caressing for six +months,” ere she faded away, and died just before the +Christmas of 1817. He never could speak of her without +tears, and (his wife tells us) ever after added to his private +prayers a petition to be worthy to rejoin his “sinless +child.” His grief and his faith further found voice +in the hymn, each verse of which begins with “Thou art gone +to the grave, but we will not deplore thee,” and which +finishes—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not +deplore thee,<br /> + Whose God was thy ransom, thy Guardian and Guide.<br +/> +He gave thee, He took thee, and He will restore thee,<br /> + And death has no sting, for the Saviour has +died.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 186--><a name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +186</span>Such had been the training of Reginald Heber, through +the pleasant paths of successful scholarship and literature, and +of well-beneficed country pastorship; a life perilous to +spirituality and earnestness, but which he kept full of the salt +of piety, charity and unwearied activity as parish priest, and as +one of the voices of the Church. Such had been his life up +to 1822, when, on the tidings of the death of Dr. Middleton, +Bishop of Calcutta, his friend Charles Williams Wynn, President +of the Board of Commissioners for the affairs of India, offered +him the appointment.</p> +<p>To a man of his present position, talents, and prospects at +home, the preferment was not advantageous: the income, with the +heavy attendant expenses, would very little increase his means; +the promotion threw him out of the chances of the like at home; +and the labour and toil of the half-constituted and enormous +diocese, the needful struggles with English irreligion and native +heathenism, and the perils of climate, offered a trying exchange +for all that had made life delightful at Hodnet Rectory. A +second little daughter too, whom he could not of course look to +educating in India, rendered the decision more trying. But +in his own peculiarly calm and simple way, he wrote: “I +really should not think myself justified in declining a situation +of so great usefulness, and for which, without vanity, I think +myself not ill adapted, either from a love for the society and +friendship of England, or from a hope, which may never be +realized, of being some time or other in a situation of more +importance at home.” At first, however, the fear for +the child’s health induced him to decline, but only if +anyone else equally suitable could be found; and finally he +accepted it, with apparent coolness, veiling the deep spirit of +zeal and enthusiasm that glowed within. It was not the +ardent vehemence that enables some to follow their inward call, +overcoming all obstacles, but it was calm obedience to a call +from without. “After all,” he wrote, “I +hope I am not enthusiastic in thinking that a clergyman is, like +a soldier or a sailor, bound to go on any service, however remote +or undesirable, where the course of his duty leads him, and my +destiny (though there are some circumstances attending it which +make my heart ache) has many, very many, advantages in an +extended sphere of professional activity, in the indulgence of +literary curiosity, and, what to me has many charms, the +opportunity of seeing nature in some of its wildest and most +majestic features.”</p> +<p><!-- page 187--><a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +187</span>In the spring of 1823, he took leave of Hodnet, amid +the tears of his parishioners; and on the 18th of May preached +his last sermon in Lincoln’s Inn chapel, on the +Atonement. On coming out, one of the most leading men among +the Wesleyan Methodists could only express his feelings by +exclaiming, “Thank God for that man! Thank God for +that man!”</p> +<p>It is striking to find him in the full pressure of business, +while preparing in London for his consecration and his voyage, +making time for a letter to one of the Hodnet farmers, to warn +him against habits of drunkenness, hoping that it would dwell +with him “as a voice from the dead.” On the 1st +of June, 1823, Reginald Heber was consecrated at Lambeth, and on +the 10th sailed for India! He made several sketches along +the southern coast, under one of which he wrote:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“And we must have danger, and fever, and +pain,<br /> +Ere we look on the white rocks of Albion again.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A few days later, when passing the western coast of France on +a Sunday, the sound of the bells suggested the following +meditative verses:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Bounding along the obedient surges,<br /> + Cheerly on her onward way,<br /> +Her course the gallant vessel urges<br /> + Across thy stormy gulf, Biscay.<br /> +In the sun the bright waves glisten;<br /> + Rising slow with solemn swell,<br /> +Hark, hark, what sound unwonted? Listen—<br /> + Listen—’tis the Sabbath bell.</p> +<p>It tells of ties which duties sever,<br /> + Of hearts so fondly knit to thee,<br /> +Kind hands, kind looks, which, wanderer, never<br /> + Thy hand shall grasp, thine eye shall see.<br /> +It tells of home and all its pleasures,<br /> + Of scenes where memory loves to dwell,<br /> +And bids thee count thy heart’s best treasures<br /> + Far, far away, that Sabbath bell.</p> +<p>Listen again! Thy wounded spirit<br /> + Shall soar from earth and seek above<br /> +That kingdom which the blest inherit,<br /> + The mansions of eternal love.<br /> +Earth and her lowly cares forsaking,<br /> + Bemoaned too keenly, loved too well,<br /> +To faith and hope thy soul awaking,<br /> + Thou hear’st with joy that Sabbath +bell.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 188--><a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +188</span>By the 28th of September, the vessel was in sight of +the Temple of Jaghernauth, and on the 3rd of October was anchored +close to the island of Saugor.</p> +<p>All through his voyage and residence in India, the Bishop kept +a journal of the doings and scenes of each day, full of +interesting sketches, both in pen and pencil. The beauty of +the villages on the Hooghly, “the greenhouse-like smell and +temperature of the atmosphere,” and the gentle countenances +and manners of the natives, struck him greatly, as he says, +“with a very solemn and earnest wish that I might in some +degree, however small, be enabled to conduce to the spiritual +advantage of creatures so goodly, so gentle, and now so misled +and blinded. ‘<i>Angili forent si essent +Christiani</i>.’”</p> +<p>On the 10th of October the Heber family entered their +temporary abode in the Fort at Calcutta, and were received by two +Sepoy sentries and a long train of servants in cotton dresses and +turbans, one of them with a long silver stick, another with a +mace. There, too, were assembled the neighbouring +clergy—alas! far too few—and the next day the Bishop +was installed in his cathedral.</p> +<p>Then began a life of very severe labour, for not only had the +arrears of episcopal business after the interregnum to be made +up, but the deficiency of clergy rendered the Sunday duties very +heavy; and the Bishop took as full a share of them as any working +parish priest; and even though he authorized the Church +Missionary Society’s teachers to read prayers and to +preach, the lack of sufficient ministrations was great. +Bishop’s College had, however, been completed, and what +Middleton had founded was opened by Heber, with the happiest +effect, which has lasted to the present time.</p> +<p>The difficulties as to the form of ordination of such as were +not British subjects had also been overcome, and Christian David +was to be sent up from Ceylon in company with Mr. Armour, who was +to receive Priest’s orders. The latter excellent man +died just before he was to set off, and this delayed David until +the next spring, when he came to Calcutta, was lodged in +Bishop’s College, passed an excellent examination, and was +ordained deacon on Holy Thursday, 1824, and priest on the ensuing +Trinity Sunday. He is memorable as the first man of the +dark-skinned races admitted by the Church of England to her +ministry. An excellent and well-expressed letter <!-- page +189--><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +189</span>from him, on the difficulties respecting the +distinctions of caste, is given in Bishop Heber’s +Life. This, indeed, was one of the greatest troubles in +dealing with converts. The Serampore missionaries had +striven to destroy it, but Ziegenbalg, Schwartz, and their elder +companions, regarded it as a distinction of society—not +religious—and, though discouraging it, had not so opposed +it as to insist on high and low castes mingling indiscriminately +in church or at meals. The younger men who had since come +out had been scandalized, and tried to make a change, which had +led to much heartburning.</p> +<p>Next to his hymns, Bishop Heber is best known by the journal +he kept of his visitation tour, not intended for publication but +containing so much of vivid description of scenery and manners, +that it forms a valuable picture of the condition of Hindostan as +it then was.</p> +<p>His first stage, in barges along the Ganges, brought him to +Dacca, where he was delayed by the illness and death of his much +esteemed and beloved chaplain. He then went on to +Bhaugulpore, where he was much interested in a wild tribe called +the Puharries, who inhabit the Rajmahal hills, remnants of the +aborigines of India. They carried bows and arrows, lived by +the chase, and were viewed as great marauders; but they had a +primitive faith, free from idolatry, hated falsehood, and, having +no observance of caste and a great respect for Europeans, seemed +promising objects for a mission; but unfortunately the climate of +their mountains was so injurious to European life, that the +clergyman, Mr. Thomas Christian, a scholar of Bishop’s +College, whom the Bishop appointed to this mission, was only able +to spend three months in the hills in the course of the year, +while for the other nine he took the children under his +instruction back with him to Bhaugulpore.</p> +<p>At Bankipore, the Bishop met Padre Giulio Cesare, still a +remarkably handsome and intelligent-looking little man, and +speaking warmly of Henry Martyn. Dinapore, that first +station of Martyn’s, had since his time fallen into a very +unsatisfactory state, owing to the carelessness of his successor, +though it was newly come into better hands.</p> +<p>On the contrary, at Buxar, the Fort-adjutant, Captain Field, +had so influenced all around, though without a chaplain, that, +though the Bishop could not give the place a Sunday, his Saturday +evening service in the verandah was thronged, the English <!-- +page 190--><a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +190</span>soldiers coming with Prayer-books and making the +responses, besides numerous Hindoos, many of them the Christian +wives and children of the soldiers. There was a boys’ +school kept by a converted Mahometan, and one for girls by +“Mrs. Simpson,” a native of Agra, converted by Mr. +Corrie, and the widow of a sergeant. She, however, got no +scholars but the half-caste daughters of the soldiers. A +little boy of four years old, son to an English sergeant with a +native wife, was baptized, and the Bishop was delighted with the +reverent devotion of the spectators. Cureem Musseh, once a +Sepoy havildar, had his sword and sash hung over the desk, where, +in a clean white cotton dress and turban, he presided over his +scholars, whom he had taught to read Hindostanee, and to say the +Creed, Lord’s Prayer, and Commandments, with a short +exposition of each. The school served them likewise to hold +prayer-meetings in, and, on rare occasions, a clergyman visited +them.</p> +<p>The Bishop’s entrance into the sacred city of Benares he +describes to his wife thus: “I will endeavour to give you +an account of the concert, vocal and instrumental, which saluted +us as we entered the town:—</p> +<p>“<i>First beggar</i>.—Agha Sahib! Judge +Sahib, Burra Sahib, give me some pice; I am a fakir; I am a +priest; I am dying of hunger!</p> +<p>“<i>Bearers trotting under the tonjon</i>.—Ugh! +ugh!—Ugh! ugh!</p> +<p>“<i>Musicians</i>.—Tingle, tangle; tingle, tangle; +bray, bray, bray.</p> +<p>“<i>Chuprassee</i>, <i>clearing the way with his +sheathed sabre</i>.—Silence! Room for the Lord Judge, +the Lord Priest. Get out of the way! Quick! +(<i>Then gently patting and stroking the broad back of a Brahmin +bull</i>.) Oh, good man, move.</p> +<p>“<i>Bull</i>, <i>scarcely moving</i>.—Bu-u-uh.</p> +<p>“<i>Second beggar</i>, <i>counting his beads</i>, +<i>rolling his eyes</i>, <i>and moving his body backwards and +forwards</i>.—Ram, ram; ram, ram!”</p> +<p>Benares, said to be founded on the point of Siva’s +trident, as the most sacred city of all Hindostan, swarmed with +beggars, fakirs, sacred animals, and idols of every description; +but close beside it was a church for consecration and thirty +candidates for confirmation, of whom fourteen were natives. +The next day the Bishop was taken to see a school founded by a +rich Bengalee baboo, whom Mr. Corrie had almost persuaded to be +<!-- page 191--><a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +191</span>a Christian, but who had settled down into a sort of +general admiration for the beauty of the Gospel, and a wish to +improve his countrymen. He had made over the house where +the school was kept to the Church Missionary Society, and the +staff consisted of an English schoolmaster, a Persian moonshee, +and two Hindostanee writing masters, the whole presided over by +an English catechist, a candidate for Holy Orders. There +were several class rooms, and a large, lofty hall, supported by +pillars, where the Bishop examined the 140, who read Persian and +English, answered questions in Hindostanee and English, and +showed great proficiency in writing, arithmetic, and +geography. No objection was made to their reading the New +Testament.</p> +<p>Afterwards, when the Bishop looked into a little pagoda, +richly carved, and containing an image of Siva, crowned with +scarlet flowers, with lamps burning before him, and a painted +bull in front, a little boy, one of the brightest scholars in the +school, came forward, and showing his Brahminical string, told, +in tolerable English, the histories of the deities with which the +walls were painted. “This,” says the Bishop, +“opened my eyes more fully to a danger which had before +struck me as possible, that some of the boys brought up in our +schools might grow up accomplished hypocrites, playing the part +of Christian with us, and with their own people of zealous +followers of Brahma, or else that they would settle down in a +sort of compromise between the two creeds, allowing that +Christianity was the best for us, but that idolatry was necessary +and commendable in persons of their own nation.” This +in fact seems to have been ever since the state of a large +proportion of the educated Hindoos. May it be only a +transition state!</p> +<p>The street preaching employed by the Serampore community had +not been resorted to by the Church Missionary Society, and Bishop +Heber decided that in the fanatic population, amid the crowds of +bulls, beggars, and sacred apes, it was far wiser not to attempt +it; but the missionaries were often sent for to private houses to +converse with natives of rank, on their doctrine. One +notable Hindoo, Amrut Row, who had at one time been Peishwa of +the Mahrattas, who had retired to Benares, used on the feast of +his patron god to give a portion of rice and a rupee to every +Brahmin and blind or lame person who applied between sunrise and +sunset. He had a large garden with four gates, three of +which were set open for the three classes of <!-- page 192--><a +name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 192</span>applicants; +the fourth served himself and his servants. As each person +received his dole, he was shown into the garden, and detained +there to prevent his applying twice, but there he enjoyed plenty +of shade, water, company, and idols! This day’s +distribution often amounted to above 50,000 rupees, and his +charities altogether were three times as great in the course of +every year. He was a good kind man, religious to the best +of his knowledge; and just before the Bishop’s visit, he +had sent a message to Mr. Morris, the clergyman at Sealcote, to +call on him in the middle of the next week as he wished to +inquire further into Christianity. Alas! before the +appointed day Amrut Row was dead, and his ashes were still +smoking when the Bishop quitted Benares.</p> +<p>What had become of Henry Martyn’s church does not +appear, for at Cawnpore he found none, but service was +alternately performed in a bungalow and in the +riding-school. He went as far north as Oude, and found at +Chinear a much larger native congregation than he expected, +though the women still retained so much of Eastern customs that +they would not even raise their veils when receiving the Holy +Communion. Almost all were the converts of the excellent +Mr. Corrie, Henry Martyn’s friend.</p> +<p>Arriving at Surat, after a journey of ten months, he there +embarked for Bombay, where his wife and eldest child came from +Calcutta, by sea, to meet him, and thence, after a stay in Ceylon +for some weeks, returned to Calcutta, where, in December, he +ordained Abdul Messeh, the man who had been won by Henry +Martyn’s garden preachings. It was a very remarkable +ordination, for Father Abraham, the Armenian Suffragan from the +Patriarch of Jerusalem, was present, in the black robes of his +convent, and laid his hand on the heads of the candidates, and +the service was in Hindostanee, whenever Abdul Messeh was +individually concerned. Abdul Messeh was a most valuable +worker among his countrymen, but he only survived about eighteen +months.</p> +<p>In his last letter to the Society for the Propagation of the +Gospel, the Bishop records the reception into Bishop’s +College of Mesrop David, the kinsman of the Armenian Bishop and +already a deacon; also of two native youths from Ceylon, one +Tamul and one Cingalese. This college, though a work which +had none of the romance of adventure about it, afforded the <!-- +page 193--><a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +193</span>surest and most important means of thoroughly +implanting the Gospel, and forming a native priesthood fit for +the varying needs of the various people. Nor could such a +task be committed to any but superior men. Only such as +have abilities that would win them distinction in England, are +fit to cope with the difficulties of dealing with intellects +quite as argumentative as, and even more subtle than, those of +the ordinary level of Englishmen.</p> +<p>Soon after writing this letter, Bishop Heber set forth on what +was to prove his last visitation. On the voyage to Madras, +he spent much time upon some invalid soldiers who were being sent +home, and confirmed one of them on board. Also he devoted +himself to comforting a poor lady whose baby died on the voyage, +not only when with her in her cabin, but Archdeacon Robinson, his +chaplain, could hear him weeping and praying for her when alone +in his own.</p> +<p>At Madras, he was lodged in the house of Sir Thomas Munro, the +governor, who had done much by the help of his excellent wife to +promote all that was good. At Vepery, close at hand, the +Bishop found, nearly finished, the first church built in the +Gothic style in India. He was greatly delighted with it, +and especially that the desk and pulpit had not been allowed to +obstruct the view of the altar, which had more dignity than was +usual in the churches of 1826. A monstrous pulpit in +another little church at Poonamalee, a depôt for recruits, +and an asylum for pensioners and soldiers’ children, he +caused to be removed. He had a confirmation at this place, +or rather two, for some unexpected candidates presented +themselves, and he desired Archdeacon Robinson to examine them, +so that they might be confirmed later in the day. Among +them was an old pensioner, and a sickly-looking young woman with +a little boy, whom the Archdeacon thought too young, and +recommended her to keep back for another opportunity. She +wept much, and the Bishop said, “Bring them both to me; who +knows whether they may live to wish for it again?” +The native Christians, poor people employed on the beach, +remnants of the old Portuguese Missions, had built a church at +their own expense, and, being unable to obtain regular +ministrations from their own clergy, begged the Bishop to +consecrate their building, and give them a clergyman, and this he +hoped to do on his return.</p> +<p>Meantime, he went in his robes to present Lady Munro with <!-- +page 194--><a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +194</span>a vote of thanks from the Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge, for the good works in the schools of her +husband’s government. “I have seldom witnessed +a more interesting or affecting picture,” writes Archdeacon +Robinson: “the beauty and gracefulness of Lady Munro, the +grave and commanding figure of the Governor, the youthful +appearance and simple dignity of the dear Bishop, the beloved of +all beholders, presented a scene such as few can ever hope to +witness.” “My lord,” said Sir Thomas, +with the tears rolling down his cheeks, “it will be vain +for me after this to preach humility to Lady Munro; she will be +proud of this day to the latest hour she lives.”</p> +<p>“God bless you, Sir Thomas!” was all the Bishop +could utter.</p> +<p>“And God bless <i>you</i>, my lord!” was the +fervent answer.</p> +<p>Before eighteen months had passed the two good men who +exchanged this blessing, had met in Paradise!</p> +<p>The Bishop went on from Madras, travelling by dâk, and +encamping during the heat of the day. He soon came into the +field of labour of the Danish Missions, and was disappointed to +find how poor and forlorn the Christian converts about Cuddalore +were, and the great want of employment for them. Things +were better in the Tanjore territory, where the Bishop was much +interested by a visit from the native pastor of one of the +villages, a fine, venerable old man. When about to take +leave, he lingered, and the Bishop was told that the Tamul +Christians never quitted a minister without receiving his +blessing. He was greatly touched. “I will bless +them all, the good people,” he said, after blessing the +pastor.</p> +<p>Arriving at Tanjore, the Bishop thus describes +Serfojee:—“I have been passing the last four days in +the society of a Hindoo Prince, the Rajah of Tanjore, who quotes +Fourcroy, Lavoilier, Linnæus, and Buffon fluently; has +formed a more accurate judgment of the poetical merits of +Shakespeare than that so felicitously expressed by Lord Byron; +and has actually emitted English poetry, very superior indeed to +Rousseau’s epitaph on Shenstone; at the same time that he +is much respected by the English officers in his neighbourhood, +as a real good judge of a horse, and a cool, bold, and deadly +shot at a tiger. The truth is, that he is an extraordinary +man, who, having in early youth received such an education as old +Schwartz, the celebrated <!-- page 195--><a +name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 195</span>missionary, +could give him, has ever since continued, in the midst of many +disadvantages, to preserve his taste for, and extend his +knowledge of, European literature: while he has never neglected +the active exercises and frank, soldierly bearing which become +the descendant of the old Mahratta conquerors; and by which only, +in the present state of things, he has it in his power to gratify +the prejudices of his people, and prolong his popularity among +them. Had he lived in the days of Hyder, he would have been +a formidable ally or enemy; for he is, by the testimony of all in +his neighbourhood, frugal, bold, popular, and insinuating. +At present, with less power than an English nobleman, he holds +his head high, and appears contented; and the print of +Buonaparte, which hangs in his library, is so neutralized by that +of Lord Hastings in full costume, that it can do no harm to +anybody. . . . To finish the portrait of Maha Raja Sarbojee, I +should tell you that he is a strong-built and very handsome +middle-aged man, with eyes and nose like a fine hawk, and very +bushy grey mustachios, generally splendidly dressed, but with no +effeminacy of ornament, and looking and talking more like a +favourable specimen of a French general officer than any other +object of comparison which occurs to me. His son, Raja +Seroojee (so named after their great ancestor), is a pale, +sickly-looking lad of seventeen, who also speaks English, but +imperfectly, and on whose account his father lamented, with much +apparent concern, the impossibility which he found of obtaining +any tolerable instruction in Tanjore. I was moved at this, +and offered to take him on my tour, and afterwards to Calcutta, +where he might have apartments in my house, and be introduced +into good English society; at the same time that I would +superintend his studies, and procure for him the best masters +which India affords. The father and son, in different +ways,—the one catching at the idea with great eagerness, +the other as if he were afraid to say all he wished,—seemed +both well pleased with the proposal. Both, however, on +consulting together, expressed a doubt of the mother’s +concurrence; and, accordingly, next day I had a very civil +message, through the Resident, that the Rannee had already lost +two sons; that this survivor was a sickly boy; that she was sure +he would not come back alive, and it would kill her to part with +him; but that all the family joined in gratitude, &c. +So poor Seroojee must chew betel and sit in the zenana, and +pursue the other <!-- page 196--><a name="page196"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 196</span>amusements of the common race of +Hindoo princes, till he is gathered to those heroic forms who, +girded with long swords with hawks on their wrists, and garments +like those of the king of spades (whose portrait-painter, as I +guess, has been retained by this family), adorn the principal +room in the palace.”</p> +<p>To the Bishop’s great indignation, he found that whereas +while the Rajah had retained his dominions, Christians had been +eligible to all the different offices of State, there was now an +order from the Company’s Government against their admission +to any employment. “Surely,” he says, “we +are, in matters of religion, the most lukewarm and cowardly +people on the face of the earth. I mean to make this and +some other things I have seen a matter of formal representation +to all the three Governments of India, and to the Board of +Control.”</p> +<p>It is highly probable that this systematic dread of +encouraging God’s service on the part of the Company +assisted in keeping Serfojee a heathen, in spite of the many +prayers offered up for him. Almost the last in +Heber’s book of private devotions was for the Rajah; and he +drew up one, to be translated into Tamul, for use in all the +churches in his territory; this last not directly for his +conversion, but for his temporal and spiritual welfare.</p> +<p>It is pleasant to know that the last Easter of Heber’s +life was made joyful by ministering to Schwartz’s spiritual +children. He preached in that church which Schwartz had +raised, and where his monument stood. His text was, +“I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive +for evermore.” Many English-speaking natives went +there, and others besides; and at the Holy Eucharist that +followed there were thirty English and fifty-seven native +communicants. The delight and admiration of the Bishop were +speedily apparent. In the evening he attended a Tamul +service, where the prayers were said by a Hindoo, the sermon +preached by a Dane, and the blessing delivered by the Bishop in +Tamul, to the surprise and pleasure of the congregation, which +numbered no less than 1,300, all reverent, all making the +responses, joining in the Easter hymn, and in the 100th +Psalm. Never had the Bishop been happier! As he was +taking off his robes, he exclaimed, “Gladly would I +exchange years of common life for <i>one</i> such day as +this!” Even at night he could not help coming back to +Archdeacon Robinson’s room to rejoice, discuss, and finally +pray over this blessed fruit of the toils of a holy man, who had +been at rest <!-- page 197--><a name="page197"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 197</span>thirty-eight years, yet whose work +still increased. The next day he confirmed a large number; +and Kohloff, a contemporary missionary of Schwartz, preached in +Tamul.</p> +<p>After this happy Easter, the Bishop continued his route to +Trichinopoly, where he preached and confirmed on the Sunday, but +complained of a slight headache, and allowed himself to be +persuaded not to go to the native service in the evening, though +he spent a good deal of time conversing with Mr. Robinson, who +was unwell enough to be lying in bed.</p> +<p>On Monday, the 3rd of April, he went at daybreak to hold a +Tamul confirmation at the poor little neglected native church; +then looked at the schools, but found that the want of +ventilation rendered them too oppressive for him to remain; and +afterwards received and graciously answered an address from the +poor Christians, praying him to send them a pastor, for they had +been without one for two years. He came back, still in his +robes, to Mr. Robinson’s bedroom, and, with great +eagerness, talked over what he had seen and heard; speaking of +the destitution of this poor church, and of the needfulness that +a Bishop should receive regular reports of every station; also +mentioning a Danish missionary whom he intended to appoint. +He then went to his own room, and, according to Indian habit +after exertion, went out in order to bathe. The bath was in +a separate building. It was fifteen feet long, eight broad, +and with stone steps descending into it to a depth of seven feet, +and it was perfectly full of water. The servant sitting +outside wondered at the length of time and unbroken silence, and +at last looked in; but Reginald Heber had, by that time, long +been lifeless in the cold bath!</p> +<p>He was only in his forty-fourth year; but medical opinion +declared that there had been, unsuspected, the seeds of fatal +disease, accelerated by climate, exertion, and excitement, and +such as would probably have caused long helplessness and +inaction, unless thus suddenly developed.</p> +<p>He was buried the next day at Trichinopoly church, where the +mural tablet, with most touching and appropriate simplicity, +bears no inscription in laudation, but merely the holy words, +“Be ye also ready.”</p> +<p>Thus ended a life of inward and outward brightness, which +comes like a stream of sunshine among the shadows through which +most of the labourers had to struggle, either for want of <!-- +page 198--><a name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +198</span>means of education, or from poverty or melancholy, and +yet as true and as exhilarating a course as was ever one of +theirs. May we not read his description in the +verse:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“And there are souls that seem to dwell<br +/> +Above this earth—so rich a spell<br /> +Floats round their steps where’er they move,<br /> +Of hopes fulfilled, and mutual love:<br /> +Such, if on high their hopes are set,<br /> +Nor in the stream the source forget;<br /> +If, prompt to quit the bliss they know,<br /> +Following the Lamb where’er He go,<br /> +By purest pleasures unbeguiled<br /> +To idolize or wife or child,<br /> +Such wedded souls our God shall own<br /> +For faultless virgins round His throne.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mrs. Heber published soon after her return her husband’s +journals, and these, bearing the impress of his graceful, +scholarly hand, attracted many readers who care merely for +information and amusement; and thus, by their mere mundane +qualities, his writings did much to spread knowledge of, and +therefore interest in, the field of labour in which he +died. Large subscriptions came into the societies, and in a +few years a church and three schools for the natives, with the +pastor he had indicated, served as the best monument of that Low +Sunday at Trichinopoly.</p> +<p>His successor was John Thomas James: the most memorable event +in whose life was a halt at the Cape of Good Hope. This was +the first time that colony had ever been visited by a Bishop, and +there was no church, though a piece of land had been newly +granted for one, which he consecrated before proceeding on his +voyage. He arrived in 1828, but the climate of Calcutta +struck him for death almost immediately. He was only able +to perform one ordination, one confirmation, and one charge to +the Calcutta clergy, then was forced to embark, and died at sea +within a few months of his arrival.</p> +<p>During this time Daniel Wilson had been working under Mr. +Cecil at Chobham, where he remained for three years, when a +tutorship at St. Edmund’s Hall was offered to him, which +enabled him to marry his cousin Ann, combining the small living +of Warton with his tutorship. On the death of the Rev. +Richard Cecil he took, by his especial wish, his proprietary +chapel in Bloomsbury, and there continued till 1824 as one of +<!-- page 199--><a name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +199</span>the most marked London clergy, keeping up the +earnestness that Newton and Cecil had been noted for, with quite +as much energy; and though without the same originality, there +was a <i>telling</i> force about his sermons which made a young +man exclaim the first time he heard him, “I will never hear +Daniel Wilson again,” but something led him happily to +infringe the resolution, and then it became, “I will +always, if possible, hear Daniel Wilson.” Sentences +of his were very memorable; for instance, +“Nineteen-twentieths of sanctification consist in holy +tempers,” and, besides exhibiting a pithy force of +language, his sermons were prepared with infinite care and +labour. When at St. John’s, where he had no parochial +charge, he selected his text on Monday and carried it about with +him, so to speak, all the week, chewing the cud of it as it were, +looking it up in every authority, ancient or modern, within his +reach, and conversing on the subject with any one whom he thought +likely to give him a hint. The sermons were written in a +large legible shorthand, only on one side of the paper, and on +the opposite page were copied out extracts of translations from +illustrative authors, often as many as eight to a single sermon, +so that he had in fact a huge secretion of stores, which he could +adapt according to the needs of his congregation, and he made +notes of what he found fall flat and incomprehensible, or what he +felt was stirring the souls of his audience; and this time was +most profitably spent, not only for his immediate congregation, +but in laying up a provision for the busier days of after-life, +when the same amount of study was out of his power. And the +benefit of such painstaking may be estimated by the words of a +gentleman when introduced to a relative of his in after-years, +“I am only one of very many who do not know and never spoke +to Mr. Wilson, but to whom he has been a father in <span +class="smcap">Christ</span>. He never will know, and he +never ought to know, the good that he has been the means of +doing, for no man could bear it.”</p> +<p>Proprietary chapels have now nearly become extinct. They +were an effect of the neglect of the heathenish eighteenth +century, and one of the means of providing church room by private +speculation; and thus they almost necessarily were liable to the +abuses of popularity-hunting and of lack of care for individuals, +especially the poor: but a man in thorough earnestness is sure to +draw good even out of a defective system; and Daniel Wilson, +sitting in his study which was connected with the chapel, <!-- +page 200--><a name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +200</span>became the counsellor of hundreds who sought spiritual +advice and assistance, chiefly of the upper and well-to-do +classes, but he took care to avoid wasting time over these +conferences, and when it came to mere talk would put +people’s hats and umbrellas into their hands. There +were also large Sunday-schools connected with his chapel, and +taught by the members of his congregation, and these led to the +first organization of a district visitors’ society, one of +the earliest attempts of the slowly reviving English Church to +show her laity how to minister to the poor under pastoral +direction.</p> +<p>His father-in-law, Mr. William Wilson, had purchased the +advowson of the living of Islington, and, when it became vacant +in 1824, presented it to him, when he carried thither all his +vigour and thoroughness. Church building was his first +necessity, and he absolutely prevailed on his parish to rate +themselves for the purpose, so that three churches were begun +almost at once, and by the time his Life was written in 1860 the +great suburb had multiplied its single church in thirty-six years +into fifteen. At Islington the chief sorrows of his life +befel him. He had had six children, of whom one died an +infant and two more in early childhood. The second son, +John, after a boyhood of great promise, fell into temptation at +the University and led a wild and degrading course; ending by his +retirement to the Continent, where he died in 1833, after a very +painful illness, in which he had evinced great agony of mind, +which softened at length into repentance and hope. The +eldest son, Daniel, who attended him on his death-bed, had taken +holy orders and succeeded to his father’s former living of +Warton; and one daughter, Eliza, born in 1814, survived to cheer +his home when his wife, after some years of invalidism, died in +1827. Zealous, resolute, and hardworking, he never allowed +sorrow to interfere with his work, and was soon in the midst of +his confirmation classes, and of a scheme for educating young +tradespeople on a more thorough and religious system.</p> +<p>In the meantime he had always loved and urged the missionary +cause, and had consulted with Bishop Turner before he went +out. When the news of his decease was received (the fourth +Bishop to die at his post within nine years), the appointment +began to be looked on as a sentence of death, and it was declined +in succession by several eminent clergymen. Daniel Wilson +had anxiously watched for the answer in each case, and <!-- page +201--><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +201</span>was suggesting several persons to Mr. Charles Grant, +when the thought struck him, “Here I am, send +me.” A widower of fifty-four years old, of much +strength, and with no young children, seemed to him the fit +person to volunteer to fill the breach; and he wrote stating, +that if no one else could be found for the post, he was willing +to offer himself. The appointment was accordingly given to +him, after an interval of nine months since the see had become +vacant, and an infinity of toil and arrangements crowded on +him. Islington was resigned to his son Daniel, and he was +consecrated by Archbishop Howley on the 29th of April, 1832, +“the day of my espousals to <span +class="smcap">Christ</span> my Saviour,” as he wrote in his +journal; and on the ensuing 18th of June he sailed with his +daughter for Calcutta. The ship touched at the Cape, which +under the government of Sir Lowry Cole was by no means in the +same hopeless state of neglect as when Martyn had visited +it. Bishop Wilson there held an ordination and a +confirmation, the first for himself as well as for South Africa, +whose Episcopate was not founded till twenty-three years +later.</p> +<p>He landed at Calcutta on the 5th of November, 1832, and took +possession of the large unfurnished house that had at last been +wrung out of Government. He found only just enough chairs +and tables, placed there by the Archdeacon, to suffice for +immediate use; and was answered, when he asked why his orders +that the place should be completely fitted up had not been +attended to, “I thought this would be enough to last for +six months,”—this being the term for which a Bishop +of Calcutta was thought likely to need earthly furniture. +But Bishop Wilson was resolved to take reasonable precaution, and +not to be daunted, or to act as if he were afraid. He +furnished the place, and rented a pleasant country-house, called +the Hive, at Tittaghur, where he spent a few days of every week; +and, having been told that much danger was incurred by the +exertion of visitation tours before the constitution had become +accustomed to the climate, he resolved to wait for two years +before making any long journey; and, in the meantime, he was able +to collect a great amount of information, as well as attending to +the regulation of matters at head-quarters. He kept up more +formality and state than Bishop Heber had done; and, of course, +as the one had been censured for his simplicity, so the other was +found fault with for pomp and stiffness. But these <!-- +page 202--><a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +202</span>were minor points, chiefly belonging to the character +of the two men, whose whole natures were in curious accordance +with their prize performances at Oxford,—the one with all +the warmth, fire, and animation of the poet of Palestine, +sensitive to every impression, and making all serve to light his +altar-flame; the other all common-sense, sincere, deep, and +laborious, but with a narrower range of sympathies, and afraid of +all that might distract attention from the one great +subject. General literature had no charms for Wilson. +He is believed never to have read one of Scott’s poems or +novels; and the playful mirth that enlivened all Heber’s +paths was not with him, though he had the equable cheerfulness of +a faithful servant doing his Lord’s work. His +daughter, soon after his arrival, married her cousin, Josiah +Bateman, his chaplain (and biographer), and thus continued to be +the mistress of her father’s house.</p> +<p>On the Whitsunday of 1833 the Bishop baptized one of those +Hindoo gentlemen who are among the most satisfactory of Christian +converts; they are free from the suspicion of interested motives +which has always attached to the pariahs and low-caste people who +hung about Serampore and its dependent stations, and, justly or +unjustly, were accused of turning Christians when they had +exhausted other resources of idleness and knavery. A +curious instance of a thorough conversion happened the same +year. A lad, educated like most other well-to-do Hindoos in +the schools of the Church Missionary at Mirzampore, when about +fifteen, became persuaded of the saving grace of Christianity, +and determined to be baptized and openly forsake his idols. +His parents persecuted him, and he fled to a friend, a Hindoo +convert; but he was seized by his relations, and the case was +referred to the Supreme Court, who decided that the +father’s power over the son must not be interfered with; +and the poor boy was dragged away, clinging to the +barrister’s table, amid the shouts of the heathen and the +tears of the Christians. The boy remained staunch, and +three years later came again and received baptism; but his +sufferings had injured his health, both of mind and body, and his +promise of superior intelligence was blighted.</p> +<p>In 1834, the Bishop set off on his first long journey, which +included Penang and Moulmein, where the Judsons had taken refuge +after the Burmese war, and where he found, in the midst of +half-cleared jungle and Buddhist temples full of <!-- page +203--><a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +203</span>enormous idols, a school kept by an American master, so +full of notions of equality, that, at the examination, he +expected the Bishop to go to each class, not the class to the +Bishop.</p> +<p>The Commissioner had built a church, the walls of teak slabs, +and the pillars each a single teak-tree, and it was ready for +consecration. After this and a confirmation, the Bishop +went on his way to Ceylon, and then to the Madras Presidency, +where he had already had a long correspondence with the pastors +of the Christian congregations on the question of caste. +Things had not prospered of late; and, to the dismay of the +Bishop, he found that, in the course of the last year, 168 +Christians had fallen back to heathenism, where, not having +broken their caste, they could still be received and find a +place. The truth was that, though caste might appear only a +distinction of mere social rank, it was derived from a pagan +superstition, and was a stronghold of heathenism. Schwartz +was all his life trying to make it wear and die out, lest the +violent renunciation should be too much for his converts’ +faith. But his successors had allowed the feeling to +retrograde; and Bishop Wilson found separate services, sides of +the church allotted to the high and low castes, and the most +unchristian distinctions made between them. He decided that +toleration of the prejudice was only doing harm, and issued +orders that henceforth catechumens preparing for baptism, +confirmation, or communion, should be called on to renounce caste +as a condition of admittance; and that, though the adult +communicants should be gently dealt with, there should be no +recognition of the distinction in the places in church, in the +order of administering the Holy Communion, in marriages or +processions, and that differences of food or dress, or marks on +the forehead, should be discontinued. The clergy were in +consternation, and made an appeal before they published the +Bishop’s letter to their flocks; but they found his mind +made up, and yielded. The lesser stations complied without +much difficulty; but at Trichinopoly, Vepery, and Tanjore, there +were many Soodras, the soldier-caste, professing to have come +from Brahma’s shoulders, and second only to the +Brahmins. They were desperately offended. At +Trichinopoly, only seven Soodra families continued to attend the +services, although the seceders behaved quietly, and offered no +insults either to the clergy or the pariahs. At Vepery, on +the <!-- page 204--><a name="page204"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 204</span>reading of the Bishop’s +letter, the whole Soodra population walked out <i>en masse</i>, +except one catechist, who joined them afterwards. They then +drew up a paper, declaring that they would not yield, and would +neither come to church nor send their children to school, unless +they continued to be distinguished; and they set up a service of +their own in a chapel lent them by a missionary belonging to the +London Society. He was, however, reprimanded for this by +the committee which employed him at Madras, and the chapel was +withdrawn; upon which the Soodras remained without any public +worship whatever for five months, when the catechists and +schoolmasters came forward and acknowledged their pride and +contumacy, the children dropped into the schools, and the +grown-up people, one by one, returned to church, but in their own +way.</p> +<p>At Tanjore, the contest was a much harder one. Serfojee +had died in 1834, and the son whom Bishop Heber had vainly tried +to obtain for education was one of the ordinary specimens of +indolent, useless rajahs, enjoying ease and display under British +protection; but the Mission had gone on thriving as to numbers, +though scarcely as to earnestness or energy; and the Christians +numbered 7,000, with 107 catechists and four native clergy, under +the management of Mr. Kohloff, almost the last of +Schwartz’s fellow-workers. The Bishop’s letter +was read aloud by him, after the sermon, on the 10th of November, +1833. There was an immediate clamour of all the Soodras, +who would not be hushed by being reminded that they were in +church, and, while Mr. Kohloff was being assisted from the +pulpit, gathered round his wife and insulted her.</p> +<p>Letters passed between the Soodras and the missionaries. +There was no denial that the Bishop’s command was right in +itself; but an immense variety of excuses were offered for not +complying with it, and only one of the four priests +consented,—Nyanapracasem, an old man of eighty, who may be +remembered as one of Schwartz’s earliest converts, and of +the four priests ordained by the Lutherans,—with three +catechists, and ten of the general body; all the others remained +in a state of secession. When the first death took place +among them, Nyanapracasem, the one conforming priest, was +appointed to read the funeral service; but he fell sick, and the +only substitute available on the spot was a low-caste catechist, +a very respectable man, but <!-- page 205--><a +name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 205</span>whom the +Soodras silenced with threats, employing one of their own people +in his stead. Next time, they borrowed the Roman Catholic +burial-ground, and services were carried on, on Sunday, by one of +the dissentient priests, but marriages were celebrated in the +heathen fashion, and there was evidently a strong disposition to +form a schism, which the reckless, easy, self-willed conduct of +the Soodras showed would be Christianity only in name. +There had even been an appeal to the Governor-General, and the +Bishop felt the whole tone of Christianity in India to be at +stake.</p> +<p>It was in the height of this crisis that his journey to Madras +was made in the track of Bishop Heber. Twice he preached at +Vepery, and the Soodras attended; but he asked no questions, and +let them place themselves as they chose, and take precedence, +intending to fight out the question at Tanjore.</p> +<p>There, at seven o’clock in the morning of January 10, +1835, on the bank of the Cavery River, he was received by all the +faithful Christians and school-children, headed by Kohloff and +Nyanapracasem, These were the two remaining fellow-workers of +Schwartz. Kohloff, now becoming aged, had his hair long and +loose round his florid German face; he was still a true German, +full of simple kindness, and his English had a good deal of +accent. His Hindoo companion was a beautiful old man, with +long snowy hair flowing over his long white robes, who took the +Bishop’s hand between both of his, and blessed God for his +coming, hoping that as Elijah brought back the stiff-necked +Israelites, so the Bishop might turn the hearts of the +Soodras.</p> +<p>Late that afternoon, a great party of these assembled to lay +their complaints before the Bishop, bringing their two +dissentient priests. One was of doubtful character, and was +unnoticed; but to the other, John Pillay, the Bishop addressed +himself, telling him to assure the other Christians that his +heart was full of love, and that he would hear their grievances, +and answer them another time, when less weary with his +journey.</p> +<p>Several spoke, and the Bishop listened to their individual +cases. They were anxious to come and hear his sermon, but +would only do so if allowed to sit apart; and to this, as one +great object was to obtain their attention, the Bishop consented, +with a reservation that it was only for that once. The +church was thronged, and after a Tamul service, the <!-- page +206--><a name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +206</span>Bishop preached, pausing after every sentence that a +catechist might render his words into Tamul. The text was, +“Walk in love, as Christ also loved us,” and the +latter part of his discourse was on the lesson from the Good +Samaritan, as to “who is my neighbour.” There +was at the end a long pause of breathless silence, and then he +called on everyone present to offer up the following prayer: +“Lord, give me a broken heart to receive the love of +Christ, and obey His commands.” The whole +congregation repeated the words aloud in Tamul, and then he gave +the blessing and dismissed them.</p> +<p>After this there were a great number of private +conferences. People came and owned that they had been very +unhappy; religion had died in their hearts, and they had had no +peace; but their wives were the great objectors—they feared +whether they should marry their daughters, &c. &c. +The two priests especially saw the badness of their +standing-ground, but they should lose respect, they said. +No Pariah seems to have been in holy orders, but if a Pariah +catechist visited a sick person, he was not allowed to come under +the roof, and the patient was carried out into the +verandah. And then came a rather stormy conference with +about 150 Soodras, which occupied two days, since every sentence +had to pass through an interpreter. The objections were +various, but as a body the resistance continued, and it was only +individuals that came over; some of these, however, did, and it +was so clear from all that had passed that to permit the +distinctions was but a truckling to heathenism, that the Bishop +was more than ever resolved on firmness. Two of the priests +had conformed, and the Christianity of those who would not do so +was plainly not worth having.</p> +<p>There was some polite intercourse with Serfojee’s son, +whose taste was visible in the alteration of a fine statue of his +father by Flaxman, from which the white marble turban had been +removed to substitute a coloured one, with black feathers and +tassels. In him the family has become extinct, since he +only left a daughter, and the adoption of a son, after the old +Hindoo fashion, has not been permitted by Government.</p> +<p>Thence, Bishop Wilson proceeded towards Trichinopoly. He +encamped, by the way, at a place called Muttooputty, a large +station on the Coleroon river, where the way had been so prepared +for him that there was a grand throng of native Christians, +untroubled about caste, and he was obliged literally to lengthen +<!-- page 207--><a name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +207</span>the cords and strengthen the stakes of the large tent +used as a chapel. It was one of the memorable days of joy +that come now and then to support the laborious spirit of the +faithful servant. “One such day as we have just +passed is worth years of common service.”</p> +<p>At Trichinopoly, with the deepest sense of reverence, he +visited the scene of Heber’s death, ministered at the same +altar, and preached from the same pulpit, after an interval of +nine years.</p> +<p>Here, his mode of dealing with the caste-question was thus: +When he came robed into the church, he saw groups of natives +standing about, instead of placing themselves like the others of +the congregation. He went up to two, led them to seats, and +his chaplain following, did the same; the rest were seated in +like manner without resistance.</p> +<p>When the Celebration took place, the Bishop had given +directions as to the order of things. First, a Soodra +catechist communicated, then two Pariah catechists, then an +English gentleman, next a Pariah, then two Eurasians; and thus +without distinction, 147 communicated. The barrier was +broken down, and the nucleus of a church without caste was +formed.</p> +<p>This presidency of Madras was immediately after formed into a +separate see, and given to Daniel Corrie, the friend of Martyn, +while Dr. Thomas Carr became Bishop of Bombay.</p> +<p>On Wilson’s return to Tanjore he found an increasing +though still small number had conformed, and before he left the +place there were hopes of larger numbers. On his way back +to Calcutta, he visited the horrible pagoda of Juggernaut +(properly Jaghanatha, Lord of the World), which was still the +centre of worship and pilgrimage; and though the self-immolation +of the pilgrims beneath the car had been prohibited, yet the +Company’s Government still fancied themselves justified in +receiving a toll from the visitors to this shrine of cruelty and +all uncleanness, up to 1839, when the disgrace was done away by +Lord Auckland.</p> +<p>In the year 1836 another journey was made, first to Bombay and +then further into the interior, to many places, never visited by +a bishop before, and with no chaplain or anything to keep up the +sense of religion. At Aurungabad, the utter ignorance of +the English officers was appalling. The old +Colonel-commandant had not heard a sermon for twenty years, <!-- +page 208--><a name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +208</span>and thought every sentence on the text, “Walk in +love,” was a personal attack on himself. He refused +to attend another service, or to bid the Bishop farewell! +And when the Holy Communion was celebrated, nobody knew what the +offertory meant, and scarcely any one was prepared to +respond.</p> +<p>Yet in contrast to these English, a small band of Hindoos, +four men, six women, and five children, presented themselves, +asking permission to join in the service, and to have their +children baptized. They had been once Roman Catholics, but +an old Dutchwoman from Ceylon had taught them most of what they +knew; and they had a Hindostanee prayer-book, whence they held a +service every Sunday, but leaving out the Absolution and +Benediction, which they rightly perceived to be priestly +functions. Two of them were servants to an English officer, +and they were all nearly related. They were perfectly +respectable and trustworthy, and looked well dressed and +intelligent. The Bishop tried to bring about an application +from the Company to the Nizam, to defray the expenses of an +occasional visit from a chaplain to the Christian officers and +residents in his employ, but he was answered that “it would +form a dangerous precedent.”</p> +<p>The next step was into the Bengal presidency, always with the +same kind of adventures; quaint civilities of the presentation of +flowery garlands bedecking the neck and arms, given by the native +princes, with a sprinkling of rose-water, and sometimes an +anointing with oil; and then an endeavour to stir into Christian +life the neglected English military and civil officers stationed +in their dominions.</p> +<p>One of these, a gentleman of good birth and repute, actually +went on smoking and gurgling his hookah when the Bishop was +beginning family prayers, apparently with no more perception that +it was anything that concerned him than if he had seen a +Mahometan turning to Mecca, or a Parsee saluting the rising +sun. Indeed many of these Company’s servants had been +sent out when fourteen or fifteen years old; and, if in a remote +station, had been left without anything external whatever to +remind them of Christianity.</p> +<p>This journey extended to the Himalayas, where the Bishop had +four months’ repose at Simlah, then in its infancy as a +resort for wearied East Indians; and on his descent from thence, +his first halting-place was Kurnaul, where he found the <!-- page +209--><a name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +209</span>church in a state of efficiency, owing, in great part, +to an officer whose conversion to a religious life had been very +remarkable. Once, when in a large party, where gambling was +going on to a reckless extent, he saw one of the players take out +a hideous little black figure, supposed to represent the devil, +to which he addressed himself with a mixture of entreaties and +threats, involving such blasphemy that this officer, utterly +horrified, withdrew from the company, spent the night in tears +and prayers, and from that time became a religious man. +There was also an active chaplain, a large church, and a +bungalow, built by the soldiers of an English regiment, the +centre part arranged for service, and the surrounding verandah +partitioned into little cells, where the soldiers could retire +for private prayer or reading. It was called St. +John’s Chapel, and was in the hands of the chaplain. +Here the Bishop remained for two Sundays, and ordained Anund +Musseeh, who had been fifteen years a Christian, and had been +known to Bishop Heber. The difficulty in his case was the +rule not to ordain a person who had a heathen family, since he +had not been able to convert his wife. His excellence +outweighed the objection, and he was the first Brahmin who +received holy orders from an English bishop; but in after-times +the heathen influence at home told upon him; and this failure +perhaps rendered Bishop Daniel Wilson somewhat over-cautious and +backward in ordaining a native ministry.</p> +<p>The next stage was Delhi, where a very interesting interview +awaited him. An officer of Anglo-Indian birth, James +Skinner by name, who had raised and commanded a capital body of +light horse, had twenty years before entered Delhi with a +conquering army, and, gazing on the countless domes and minarets, +vowed that if ever he should be able, he would build an English +church to raise its cross among them. He had persevered, +though the cost far exceeded the estimate, and though the failure +of houses of business had greatly lessened his means; and now he +came, a tall, stout, dark man of fifty-six, in a uniform of blue, +silver, and steel, a helmet on his head and a red ribbon on his +breast, to beg for consecration for his church. His sons +were Christians, but his wife was a Mahometan, though, he said +with tears, that “for thirty years a better wife no man +ever had.”</p> +<p>The church was of Greek architecture, shaped as a Greek <!-- +page 210--><a name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +210</span>cross, with porticoes with flights of steps at each +extremity except the east, which formed the chancel, and at the +intersection was a dome and cupola. It was paved with +marble, and the whole effect was beautiful. After the +consecration a confirmation followed, and the first to receive +the apostolic rite were the noble old Colonel himself and his +three sons. Twenty years later this fine building was +filled with dying men, and shared in the horrors of the siege of +Delhi; but it has now returned to its rightful use, and as a +church of martyrs.</p> +<p>Indeed, all the places that the Bishop visited in this +excursion have since been associated with the Mutiny. +Cawnpore was not much more satisfactory than when Heber had +visited it; an irreligious commandant and a dissipated regiment +had done much harm; and an imprudent letter of one of the +chaplains had led to a quarrel, in which the clergyman +unfortunately put himself in the wrong. Happily, a new +commanding officer and better conducted regiment had replaced the +first, and the ill-feeling was so entirely removed that the +Bishop wrote, “Never did I enter a station with such +despondency, nor leave one with so much joy.” And +thus he prepared Cawnpore for that which was in store for it!</p> +<p>His visit to Allahabad was chiefly memorable for his horror at +the large resort of pilgrims to bathe in the Ganges, and at the +tax by which a Christian government profited by their pagan +superstition, with all its grossness and cruelty. He +brought home a little ticket, with the number 76902 stamped on +it, such as was issued to the pilgrims, and made a strong appeal +to the Governor-General, as well as to persons in England. +The next year both this tax and that on the pilgrims to +Jaghernauth were suppressed. Here he heard of the death of +Bishop Corrie, after having held the see of Madras only a year +and a quarter, but having spent many years in India, and worked +there for a whole lifetime, in which he had seen the very dawn of +missionary efforts, and had watched the English Church spread +from a few scattered chaplains to three bishoprics.</p> +<p>Lord Auckland and his sisters were more sincere friends of +Christian efforts than any Governor-General had yet been, but +these were trying times. Mr. Bateman, his daughter’s +husband, fell ill, and his wife was obliged to return to England +with him; the Bishop’s other chaplain died, and also some +of his best friends. On going, a few years later, to +consecrate <!-- page 211--><a name="page211"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 211</span>a church at Singapore, he visited +Moulmein, and was introduced to Dr. Judson, with whom he was very +much struck.</p> +<p>The great work connected with Daniel Wilson’s name, as +that of Bishop’s College is with Middleton’s, is the +building of the Cathedral of Calcutta. “What do you +say, my four children,” he writes, “to your +father’s attempting to build a cathedral to the name of the +Lord his God in this heathen land?” It had been the +desire of Bishop Middleton, but there had been too much to do +during his nine years, and it was only now that at last the times +were ripe. Subscriptions were opened, and the Bishop +devoted a large amount of his income to the fund; plans were +drawn up, land granted freely, and on the 9th of October, 1839, +the first stone of St. Paul’s Cathedral was laid by the +Bishop.</p> +<p>Just at this time there was a most remarkable move made +towards Christianity. Krishnaghur, 130 miles from Calcutta, +was the great centre of the worship of Krishna, one of the +manifestations of Vishnu. Here two missionaries of the +Church Missionary Society had been at work; and when the Bishop +was there in 1837, he described them as having made “a +little beginning,” by keeping schools and holding +conferences with the people, but they had then no adult +convert. A year after a message was brought by a native, +entreating for further help. There were 1,200 seriously +inquiring into the doctrine, with many candidates for baptism, +and at many places around it was the same. In the year +1840, the Bishop set forth to visit the spot and the adjacent +districts, where almost all the villages seemed to be actuated by +the same impulse. The missionaries did their utmost to +distinguish between mere fashion and hope of gain and a true +faith; but after all their siftings, large numbers were ready for +baptism, and the hope was so great that the Bishop was full of +thankful ecstasy, and could hardly sleep from agitation, joy, and +anxiety. One hundred and fifty converts were baptized at +once, at a place called Anunda Bass. The examination was +thus, the Bishop standing in the midst:—</p> +<p>“Are you sinners?”</p> +<p>“Yes, we are.”</p> +<p>“How do you hope to obtain forgiveness?”</p> +<p>“By the sacrifice of Christ.”</p> +<p>“What was that sacrifice?”</p> +<p><!-- page 212--><a name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +212</span>“We were sinners, and Christ died in our +stead.”</p> +<p>“How is your heart to be changed?”</p> +<p>“By the Holy Ghost.”</p> +<p>“Will you renounce all idolatry, feasts, poojahs, and +caste?”</p> +<p>“Yes, we renounce them all.”</p> +<p>“Will you renounce the world, the flesh, and the +devil?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Will you suffer for Christ’s sake?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Will you forgive injuries?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>These converts had been under preparation for more than a +year, and seemed thoroughly convinced and fairly +instructed. Therefore the baptismal service was read by Mr. +Deerr; and when the vows were reached, the Bishop turned to the +Christians around and asked if they would be witnesses and +godparents to these candidates; and, with one voice, they shouted +that they would. Each candidate was singly baptized, and +then came up to the Bishop, by whom the words receiving him into +the Ark of Christ’s Church were spoken. At Ranobunda +there was another baptism of 250, and, in the whole district, +full a thousand were admitted. It was not in over-confident +joy. “Time will show,” said the Bishop, +“who are wheat and who are tares.” It was +impossible among so many that all should be perfect Christians, +but it was a real foundation; the flame then lighted burns on +steadily, and the Christian faith has a firm and strong hold in +the district of Krishnaghur.</p> +<p>Anxieties of course crossed his work. The Church +Missionary Society, after being used to control its clergy, was +not properly ready to allow their canonical obedience to a +Bishop; and the troubles that thus arose made him once speak of +Heber as happy in being shielded by his early death from the +class of vexations connected with societies. To his great +grief, too, a lady who had worked for years at the education of +girls and orphans at Calcutta seceded to the Plymouth Brethren, +and was necessarily obliged to give up the charge. It was +to him “as if a standard-bearer fainteth.” The +Oxford controversy also vexed him a good deal. The school +of Newton and Cecil, in which he had been brought up, was at the +most distant point that the Church permitted from the <!-- page +213--><a name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +213</span>doctrines of the Tracts for the Times; and few men are +able or willing candidly to judge or appreciate opinions that +have grown up since their own budget was completed, especially +after they have been for some time in the exercise of +authority. Thus he set his mind very strongly against all +the clergy holding those views who came to work in the diocese; +and thereby impeded a good deal that might have worked heartily +with him if he had only been able to believe it, and to +understand that the maintenance of the voice of the Church is +truly the maintenance of the voice of Christ.</p> +<p>In November 1844, when on a visitation at Umballah, he had his +first serious illness, a fever, he being then in his sixty-sixth +year and in the thirteenth of his residence in India. For +about a week he was in great danger, but rallied, and was able to +be removed by slow stages, though not without an attack of +inflammation on the lungs before reaching Calcutta; and his +constitution was altogether so much shaken that he was ordered +home, without loss of time, to recruit his health.</p> +<p>He returned to England by the Overland route, and after a +short respite recovered much of his strength, so as to be able to +preach in many churches and appear at numerous meetings; and in a +year’s time the vigorous old man was on his way back to his +diocese, where he arrived in time to keep the Christmas of 1846, +just two years after he had been stricken down by fever. In +the October of the next year he consecrated his cathedral, +towards which 20,000<i>l.</i> had been his own donation, half +towards the building, half towards the endowment. His +strength was not quite what it had been before, but he still had +abundant energy, and new branches of the Church were springing up +around him; not only the three dioceses that had branched from +his own in India, but Ceylon had a Bishop of its own, Australia +had five, and the Cape and New Zealand and the Isle of Hong Kong +had each received a Bishop. The principle had come to be +recognized that to send out isolated workers without a head to +organize was a plan that could hardly be reasonably expected to +succeed; and in the long run prosperity has certainly attended +the contrary arrangement. Not to speak of the Divine +authority, the action of a body under a recognized head and +superior on the spot must be far readier of adaptation to +circumstances than that of a number of equals, accountable only +to some necessarily half-informed Society at home.</p> +<p><!-- page 214--><a name="page214"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +214</span>In his 73rd year, just after a visitation tour, it +somewhat dismayed Bishop Wilson to find a letter from the Bishop +of London sending him to consecrate the new church erected by Sir +James Brooke, at Sarawak. Few careers have been more +remarkable than that of the truly great man who subdued Malay +piracy, and gained the confidence of the natives of Borneo; and +when the effort of the fourteen weeks’ voyage had been +made, the Bishop returned full of joy and hope, and not long +after, together with the Bishops of Madras and Victoria, joined +in consecrating the missionary Bishop of Labuan to the new field +of work there opening. On the last journey of his life he +also visited Rangoon, and there consecrated the church, finding +the clergy hard at work and numerous converts.</p> +<p>During the year 1856 he had many attacks of illness, more or +less severe; and in December, in going across the room in haste, +he struck himself against a wooden screen, and was thrown +down. His thigh was broken, and his age was such that great +fears for his life were entertained, but he recovered, and was +able to pray with, cheer, and comfort the many anxious hearts at +Calcutta during the dreadful days of the Indian mutiny of 1857, +when the churches he had consecrated were stained with the blood +of the worshippers.</p> +<p>But there was no cause for despondency in the attitude of the +converts. The districts where Christianity had been so +widely diffused remained tranquil, and the Christians in the +cities where the mutineers were raging did not apostatize; but, +unless they could conceal themselves, suffered with the +whites. There was a great day of fasting and humiliation +appointed by him for the 24th of July, 1857.</p> +<p>That day Bishop Wilson preached his last sermon. The +text was from Habakkuk i. 12. “Art Thou not from +everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not +die. O Lord, Thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O +mighty God, Thou hast established them for +correction.” Calcutta was then trembling under the +tidings of the horrors of Cawnpore, the death of Sir Henry +Lawrence, and the siege of Lucknow; and no one knew what peril +might be the next. Slaughter seemed at the very gates, when +the old man stood forth to console and encourage, but yet to give +warning strong and clear that these frightful catastrophes were +in great measure the effect of our sins, our fostering of +heathenism, our recognition of caste, and <!-- page 215--><a +name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 215</span>were +especially a judgment on the viciousness and irreligion that had +been the curse of English life in India. It was in open +Christianity alone that he beheld hope.</p> +<p>The day was observed by all the clergy, but the +Governor-General for some reason declined to make it official, +and, only when the worst of the danger was over, appointed the +4th of October as a fast-day. The Bishop arranged the +services, but was too unwell to attend them. This was the +beginning of his last illness; and though he held an ordination +some weeks later, these latter weeks were all sinking, and +increasing feebleness. A sea-voyage was twice attempted, +but without success; and on the 1st of January, 1858, his +trembling hand wrote, “All going on well, but I am dead +almost.—D. C. Firm in hope.”</p> +<p>Daniel Calcutta, whom these initials indicated, wrote these +words at half-past seven at night. By the same hour in the +morning he had peacefully passed to his rest.</p> +<p>One more Bishop of Calcutta we have since mourned; though the +shortness of his career was owing to accident, not disease or +climate. But with Daniel Wilson the see of Calcutta became +established as a metropolitan bishopric, and ceased to possess +that character of gradual extension which rendered its first +holders necessarily missionaries. True, it needs many +subdivisions. Four Bishops are a scanty allowance for our +vast Indian Empire, and the see of Calcutta has a boundary scarce +limited to the north; but these are better days than when it +included the Cape, Australia, and New Zealand. The Bishop +has now more to do with the development of old missions than with +the working of new ones; and there can be no doubt that though +there has been much of disappointment, and the progress is very +slow, yet progress there is. The older converts form more +and more of a nucleus, and although there is a large class who +hang about missions from interested motives, there are also +multitudes of quiet and contented villagers whose simplicity and +remoteness shield them from the notice of the travellers who +sneer at Christianity and call mission reports <i>couleur de +rose</i>, because they have been taken in by some cunning scamp +against whom any missionary would have warned them.</p> +<p>The towns and the neighbourhood of troops are not favourable +places for observing the effects of Christianity. The work +of the schools in the great cities tells but very slowly. +At present, <!-- page 216--><a name="page216"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 216</span>out of a hundred boys who go thither +and receive the facts of Christianity intellectually, only the +minority are practically affected by it; and of these, some lose +all faith in their own system, but retain it outwardly in +deference to their families, while others try to take Christian +morality without Christian doctrine; and only one or two perhaps +may be sincere and open believers. But even if only one is +gained, is not that an exceeding gain? It took three +hundred years of apostolic teaching to make the Roman Empire +Christian. Why should we “faint, and say ’tis +vain,” after one hundred in India?</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII. SAMUEL MARSDEN, THE AUSTRALIAN CHAPLAIN +AND FRIEND OF THE MAORI.</h2> +<p>It has been mentioned that the island of Australia was +considered as an archdeaconry of the see of Calcutta. This +enormous island, first discovered in 1607 by Luis de Torres, and +inhabited only by the very lowest race of savages, appeared to +the Government of George III. a convenient spot for forming a +penal settlement; and in 1787 the first convict ships carried out +an instalment from the English jails to New South Wales, where +the city of Sydney was founded by Governor Phillip.</p> +<p>As usual in those days, the provision made for the moral or +religious training of this felon population was lamentably and +even absurdly deficient; for it seemed to be considered, that so +long as the criminals were safe out of England, it did not +greatly matter to her what became of them. But the power of +grace is sure to work sooner or later wherever the Christian name +has been carried, and a holy man rose up, not only to fight hard +with the mass of corruption in Australia, but to carry on the +light to the more distant shores of the Southern Ocean.</p> +<p>This good man, Samuel Marsden, was the son of a small farmer +at Farsley, near Calverley, in Yorkshire, and was educated at the +free Grammar School at Hull by Dr. Joseph Milner, whose Church +History used to be a standard book in the early part of this +century. He began his career as a <!-- page 217--><a +name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 217</span>tradesman +at Leeds, but his school influences had given him higher +aspirations; and a body termed the Elland Society, whose object +was to educate young men of small means and suitable character +for the ministry, and whose chief supporters were Wilberforce, +Simeon, and Thornton, selected him as one of their scholars, and +placed him at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He had +not even taken his degree when, to his surprise, he was offered a +chaplaincy in New South Wales! The post was no doubt a +difficult one to fill,—for who would willingly undertake to +be one of two clergymen sent to labour among an untamed multitude +of criminals?—and Mr. Wilberforce was, no doubt, glad to +suggest a young man so blameless and full of zeal, and of whom, +from personal observation at Cambridge, Mr. Simeon had so high an +opinion.</p> +<p>Samuel Marsden wished to decline it at first; but finding that +no one else would come forward to undertake the charge, he +accepted it; and in the spring of 1793 he was ordained, and +married, being then nearly twenty-nine years of age. His +wife, Elizabeth Tristan, was thoroughly worthy of him, and ruled +his house admirably, never calling him back from any duty, but so +managing that his open-handed charity never brought him into +difficulties. They were obliged to take their passage in a +convict ship, which was to sail from Hull. Marsden was +engaged to preach in a church near the harbour, and was just +about to enter the pulpit when the signal-gun was fired to summon +the passengers on board. He took off his gown, gave his arm +to his bride at her pew door, and walked to the beach, the whole +congregation streaming out after them down to the boat, where the +young clergyman stood for a few moments ere pushing off, to give +his parting benedictions.</p> +<p>The ship went round to Portsmouth to receive her load of +convicts; and while she was lying there, Marsden visited the Isle +of Wight, and one Sunday preached in Brading Church. The +effect of his sermon in touching the heart of one young woman was +long remembered, in consequence of a memoir of her, entitled +“The Dairyman’s Daughter,” which was drawn up +after her death by the clergyman of her parish, the Rev. Legh +Richmond.</p> +<p>It was as trying a voyage as Henry Martyn’s, except that +even less was to be expected from his shipmates. The +captain was unwilling to allow prayers to be read even on Sunday, +saying he <!-- page 218--><a name="page218"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 218</span>had never known a religious sailor; +and though, after a time, Mr. Marsden prevailed, he never felt +himself making much impression for good. One of his books +on the voyage was the Life of David Brainerd, that torch of +missionaries, and who proved the example which served to stir Mr. +Marsden to look beyond his own immediate field of labour, severe +though that was, and unflinching as was his toil.</p> +<p>His arrival at Paramatta, his new home, was in the March of +1794, when the convict system had prevailed about seven years, +and had been sufficient to form a population disgraceful to human +nature. None of those endeavours to reclaim the prisoner +which now prevail had then been attempted, and jails were schools +and hotbeds of crime, whence the transported were sent forth to +corrupt each other more and more on board ship; and then, though +employed on Government works or assigned to free settlers as +servants, so soon as they had worked out their time of servitude +they were let loose to live after their own will.</p> +<p>Such as had any capacity for steady industry soon made their +fortunes on the parcels of land allotted to them by Government, +to which they added by purchase; and these persons, by the +influence of wealth and property, rose into colonial rank and +authority, though without any such real training in the sense of +uprightness or morality as could fit them for the posts they +occupied. The least tainted by crime were the Irish, who +had been deported by wholesale after the rebellion, some without +even a form of trial, but these were idle and prone to violence; +while of the regular convicts there was a large proportion +addicted to every brutality that vice could conceive, and their +numbers were continually being recruited by fresh shiploads after +the assizes at home. The only attempt at securing order and +tolerable safety was by visiting every offence, even the +slightest, of which a convict was accused in a court of justice, +with the most unrelenting severity; and this, of course, had the +effect of further brutalizing these felon people, making them +reckless of the deeds they committed, and often driving them to +become bush-rangers—outlawed wild men of the woods—a +terror to the colony. A powerful military force was kept up +to repress these wretched beings by physical force, but of moral +training there was only what was afforded by the openings for +industry in a new country, and religious teaching <!-- page +219--><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +219</span>was represented by—two chaplains, for convicts, +soldiers, settlers, and all! No wonder that the senior soon +broke down under the hopeless toil of such a position, and left +the junior to struggle with it alone. And nobly he did +struggle! Wilberforce had made a wise choice of a man in +the prime of youth, whose bullet-headed portrait speaks of the +most dogged determination, with nerves, health, and weight enough +to contend for a whole lifetime with the horrible depravity +around him—the only clergyman, and with three settlements +far apart dependent on his ministry. And in the outset he +was severely tried by domestic sorrows; for his eldest son, at +two years old, was thrown out of his mother’s arms by a +jolt to the carriage over the rough road, and killed on the spot; +and a younger child, who was shortly after left at home from +dread of a similar accident, was allowed by its attendant to +stray into the kitchen, where it fell backwards into a pan of +boiling water and was fatally scalded.</p> +<p>The father bore these calamities as one who had steadfast +faith and resignation—“one who felt much and said +little.” The demands on his time, indeed, left him no +leisure for giving way to grief. Spiritual matters were not +all that came upon him. In the utter lack of conscientious +men to perform the functions of the magistracy, he was at once +appointed to the bench; nor, indeed, was there the same feeling +in England then as now against the combination of the clergyman +and justice of the peace. The most exemplary parish priests +viewed it as a duty to administer justice in their villages; and +the first, and till quite recently the sole manual of prayers to +be used with prisoners, was the production of one of these +clerical magistrates. A Yorkshire farmer’s son could +not be expected to know much about law, but good sense, +uprightness, perception of justice, and intense determination, he +had, as well as Christian humanity; and in these he was superior +to any of his colleagues on the Paramatta bench, whom he was +continually striving to raise to some comprehension of the +commonest rules of justice, mercy, and decency; and in this, +after a long course of years, he in some measure succeeded; but +not till after his strong hand, impartial justice, and hatred of +vice, had made him enemies among all parties; and it is only too +probable that his secular authority, though always nobly wielded, +impeded rather than otherwise his pastoral influence.</p> +<p><!-- page 220--><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +220</span>His farming education served him well when he received +a grant of land, and of thirteen convicts to bring it into +order. It was part of his payment, almost indispensable for +procuring to his family the necessaries of life, and it gave him, +besides, the means of imparting instruction in honest +labour. His property became the model farm of New South +Wales, and the profits afforded him the means of establishing the +schools, benevolent institutions, and missions, for which there +were few, if any purses to draw upon. He won himself +respect on all sides, especially from the Governor of the colony, +Captain King, a hasty, violent, but good-hearted man, with whom +more than once he had misunderstandings, but such as were made up +again. On one of these occasions, the chaplain’s +advice was asked by the Governor, and promised on condition that +he might speak as to a private individual. So, when they +met, Mr. Marsden locked the door, and, in plain and forcible +terms, gave <i>Captain</i> King a thoroughgoing remonstrance on +the faults of <i>Governor</i> King, which was taken in perfect +good part.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, the whole construction of Society was so +atrocious, that nothing could effect any improvement but +interference from higher authority. The Court of Judicature +in New South Wales was the most shamelessly corrupt and abandoned +in existence, and a rebellious spirit broke out which imperilled +the military authority of the Governor. Mr. Marsden saw no +hope, except in laying a full statement in person before the home +Government; and therefore, at the end of fourteen years, when +Governor King was about to return home, he resolved to go +himself, and make a strong personal representation to +Government. The two families sailed in the same ship, the +<i>Buffalo</i>, which proved to be leaky; and, when a heavy gale +was expected, it was proposed that the passengers should quit +her, and take refuge in a stronger vessel; but Mrs. King was too +unwell to be moved, and Mrs. Marsden would not leave her, so that +the proposal was abandoned, and most providentially, for the ship +that had been thought secure was lost in the night and never seen +more!</p> +<p>The voyage was a slow one; and the first thing Mr. Marsden +heard on arriving was, that the insurrection he had expected had +actually broken out. This rendered Lord Castlereagh, then +Colonial Secretary, the more anxious to obtain the advice of a +sensible, clear-headed man like Samuel Marsden, and he was <!-- +page 221--><a name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +221</span>encouraged to explain his views. First, he was +anxious for whatever would tend to reform the convicts; and +having observed that the most respectable of these were such as +had married, or whose wives had come out to them, he begged that, +for the future, the families of the married men might be sent out +with them. This was refused; but his representation that +the convicts ought to be instructed in trades was attended to, +when he showed that, by this means, the whole expense of their +clothing might be saved. He had discerned the wonderful +capacities of Australia for sheep farming, and having brought +home some wool, and found it much approved by the manufacturers, +he thereupon ventured to petition the King for a couple of merino +<a name="citation221"></a><a href="#footnote221" +class="citation">[221]</a> sheep from the royal farm at Windsor, +to improve the breed. The request was after “Farmer +George’s” own heart; he gave five, and thus Mr. +Marsden did the work of agricultural improvement of the +Benedictines of old. He also obtained that three more +clergymen and three schoolmasters should be sent out; and he +strove hard for other institutions, chiefly for the reformation +of the female convicts, which he could not at the time get +carried out. He likewise conducted an immense +correspondence on behalf of persons who had not found any other +means of communicating with their homes; and, at the same time, +he became personally acquainted with Wilberforce, and many others +of the supporters of the cause of religion.</p> +<p>Above all, it was in this visit to England that Mr. Marsden +laid the foundations of the missions to New Zealand, and prepared +to become the apostle of the Maori race. These great +islands of New Zealand had been discovered and named by Tasman in +1642, and first visited by Captain Cook in 1769. He found +them inhabited by a brave, high-spirited, and quick-witted set of +natives, with as large a proportion of the fine qualities +sometimes found in a wild race as ever savages possessed, but +their tribes continually at war, and the custom of cannibalism +prevailing: he had been on friendly terms with them, and +presented them with pigs, fowls, and potatoes—no small boon +in a land where there was no quadruped bigger than a rat, and +very few esculent vegetables. From this time, whalers <!-- +page 222--><a name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +222</span>occasionally stopped to take in water, &c., and +kept up a sort of intercourse with the Maori, sometimes amiable, +and resulting in the natives taking voyages on board the vessels, +but sometimes quarrelsome, and characterized by mutual outrages, +when, if a white man were made prisoner, he was sure to be killed +and eaten, to serve as a sort of triumphal and sacrificial +banquet.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, it was plain that these Maories were of a much +higher type of humanity than the Australian natives, whom Mr. +Marsden had found so far entirely unteachable and untameable, but +for whom he was trying to establish some plan of training and +protection. Such a spirit of curiosity and enterprise +possessed some of the New Zealand chieftains, that they would +come on visits to Australia, and on these occasions Mr. Marsden +always gave them a welcome at his parsonage at Paramatta. +At one time there were thirty staying there, over whom he had +great influence. Once, when he was absent from home, the +nephew of one of the chiefs died, and his uncle immediately +prepared to sacrifice a slave; nor could Mrs. Marsden prevent it, +otherwise than by hiding the intended victim till her husband +came home, who made the chief understand that it was not to be +done, though the man continued to lament that his nephew was +deprived of his proper attendant in the other world, and seemed +afraid to return home, lest the father of the youth should +reproach him with the omission.</p> +<p>Mr. Marsden made known all that he had been able to gather of +the promising nature of the field of labour in New Zealand, and +sought aid from the Church Missionary Society, since the Society +for the Propagation of the Gospel was then unable to reach beyond +the colonies. The almost universal indifference of the +upper classes to missionary labour was terribly crippling in the +matter of means; and perhaps the fact was that the underbred +class of agents of the Societies stirred up by the example of +Marshman and Carey, together with the vulgarly-sensational +appeals against which Ward’s good taste so strongly +protested, greatly tended to make them incredulous. It was +not till the statements of scholars and gentlemen, like Henry +Martyn and Bishop Heber, became generally known, that the work +was looked on without sarcasm, provoked by vulgarity, even where +there was great devotion.</p> +<p>No clergyman could be found to undertake the mission to New +Zealand; but William Hall and John King, two laymen, <!-- page +223--><a name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +223</span>undertook to act as pioneers, with instructions to +establish family worship, converse on religion with the natives, +and instruct their children; trying, at the same time, to show +the benefits of civilization, but to take care it was not +confounded with Christianity.</p> +<p>These two good men, who were presently followed by Thomas +Kendall, sailed in the same ship with Mr. Marsden, when, in +August 1809, he paid his last farewell to his native land, and +sailed in the <i>Ann</i> for New South Wales. Strange to +say, this very ship contained a Maori, on his return home! +He was a young chief named Duaterra, who had, in a spirit of +adventure, embarked on board a whaler named the <i>Argo</i>, and +worked as a sailor for six months, till the captain, having no +further occasion for his services, put him ashore at Port +Jackson, without payment or friends. However, he embarked +in another whaler, and worked his way home, but soon was on board +of a third English ship, the <i>Santa Anna</i>, in search of +seal-skins, and having conceived a great desire to see the +country whence these vessels came forth, and to know its chief, +he engaged to come to England in it, the captain and sailors not +scrupling to promise him an introduction to King George. +When the <i>Santa Anna</i> reached England, the crew had grown +tired of him, used him roughly and harshly, and tried to put him +off his pertinacious recollection of the promise of seeing the +king, by telling him that King George’s house could not be +found; while he was worked beyond his strength, and scarcely ever +suffered to go on shore. When, in fifteen days, the cargo +was all discharged, the captain put him on board the <i>Ann</i>, +to be taken back to Australia, and when he asked for his wages, +to provide some clothing, told him that the owner of the ship +would give him two muskets when he should reach Port Jackson.</p> +<p>The poor fellow was little likely to reach it, for lung +disease, the great foe of the Maori, had set in; and he was in a +pitiable condition when Mr. Marsden, by chance, remarked his +brown face on the forecastle, and inquired into his history, +which was confirmed by the master of the <i>Ann</i>, and was +really only a specimen of a sailor’s vague promises, and +incapacity to understand that a dark skin ought to be treated +with the same justice as a white one. Duaterra was a man of +much intelligence, and even under these most unfavourable +circumstances had been greatly impressed with the civilization of +England, and was so desirous of improvement that, on arriving at +Port Jackson, Mr. <!-- page 224--><a name="page224"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 224</span>Marsden took him to his farm, where +he applied eagerly to the learning of husbandry.</p> +<p>Duaterra was not the only Maori ill-treated by British +sailors. Another chief having been used in like manner, or +worse, on board the <i>Boyd</i>, bided his time till the ship was +in the Bay of Islands, and then brought his tribe, armed with +clubs and hatchets, to revenge his sufferings. They +overpowered the crew, slaughtered and feasted upon them, burning +the ship, and only retaining as captives two women and a +boy. Nevertheless, Hall and King were ready to take the +missionaries to this dangerous spot, but Mr. Marsden thought it +best to give time for the passions thus excited to cool down.</p> +<p>Meantime Governor Macquarie had come out to take charge of New +South Wales. He was a man of great determination and +despotic will, and carried out many regulations that were of +exceeding benefit to the colony, but he did not know the limits +of his authority, dealt with the chaplains as with subordinate +officials, and sometimes met with staunch opposition from the +sturdy Yorkshireman, his senior chaplain, so that they were in a +state of almost constant feud throughout his government, although +at the end of his career he bore the strongest testimony to the +merits of the only man who durst resist him. The old game +of Ambrose and Theodosius, Hildebrand and Henry, Becket and +Plantagenet, has to be played over and over again, wherever the +State refuses to understand that spiritual matters lie beyond its +grasp; and when Governor Macquarie prescribed the doctrines to be +preached and the hymns to be used in the churches, and commanded +the most unsuitable secular notices to be promulgated by the +clergy, if Mr. Marsden had not resisted the Church would have +been absolutely degraded. When convicts of wealth and +station, but still leading most vicious lives, were raised to the +magistrates’ bench, Mr. Marsden could not but refuse to +associate or act with them, and even tendered his resignation of +the magistracy, but Macquarie would not accept it. How +uncompromising these sermons were is evidenced by an anecdote of +a man, who, being stung to the quick, fancied that the words had +been individually aimed at him, and determined to be +revenged. Accordingly, as soon as he saw the chaplain +riding near a piece of water he jumped in, and when Mr. Marsden +at once sprung after him, did his utmost to drown his intended +deliverer; but after a violent struggle the Yorkshire <!-- page +225--><a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +225</span>muscles prevailed, and the man was dragged out, so +startled by the shock that he confessed his intention, and, under +the counsel he had so fiercely spurned at first, became truly +penitent, and warmly attached to Mr. Marsden, whose service he +ultimately entered.</p> +<p>The square short face and sturdy form of Samuel Marsden show +the force, vigour, and determination of his nature, which told on +beast as well as man. On the road between Sydney and +Paramatta, he used to let the reins lie loose on the splash-board +of his gig and read, saying that “the horse that could not +keep itself up was not worth driving,” and though one of +the pair he usually drove was unmanageable in other hands, +nothing ever went amiss with it when it went out with its +master. Such a spirit of determination produced an impress +even on those who opposed him most, and many works were carried +out in the teeth of the difficulties thrown in their way; such as +the erection of schools, of a factory for the reception of the +female convicts, and of a sort of model farm, where it was +intended to collect, tame, and civilize the aborigines. +This was at first planned between the governor and chaplain, but +when it was ready Marsden was under Colonel Macquarie’s +displeasure, and was therefore excluded from all share in the +management, though the site was actually in his own parish of +Paramatta. The experiment was a failure, probably not on +this account, but from the restless character of the blacks, +whose intellect was too small, and their wants too few, to feel +any comfort a compensation for their freedom and wandering +life. Mr. Marsden and the other chaplains repeatedly tried +bringing up children,—some too young to retain any memory +of their native habits, but they always relapsed into savage life +on the first opportunity, and though here and there individuals +may have better come up to the hopes of their devoted friends, +yet as a race they seem too little above the animal to be +susceptible of being raised.</p> +<p>Governor Macquarie was an iron-handed man, who could not brook +opposition, or endure any scheme that did not originate with +himself. So when Mr. Marsden laid before him a project for +diminishing the appalling misery and vice in which the utter +neglect of Government left the female convicts, he acknowledged +the letter, but did not act upon it. After waiting eighteen +months for him to take some measure, the chaplain sent a +statement of the condition of these poor creatures to <!-- page +226--><a name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +226</span>the Colonial Office; it was laid before Parliament, and +Lord Bathurst, the Colonial Secretary, sent a letter of inquiry +to the Governor. Macquarie’s fury was intense on +finding that the chaplain had dared to look above and beyond him; +and he gave a willing encouragement to whatever resisted the +attempts of Marsden at establishing some sense of religion and +morality. After refusing to accept his resignation of his +post as a magistrate, he dismissed him ignominiously, and all the +underlings of Government knew that any attack from them would be +regarded with favour. A vile and slanderous letter, full of +infamous libels, not only against Samuel Marsden, as a man and a +Christian priest, but against the missionaries, and signed +“Philo-free,” appeared in the <i>Sydney Herald</i>, +the Government paper, and was traced to Macquarie’s own +secretary! The libel was such that Mr. Marsden felt it due +to his cause to bring an action against the publisher, and in +spite of the prejudice against him, after a trial of three days, +he gained a complete victory and damages of £200; but the +newspaper published such a false and scandalous report of the +trial that he was obliged a second time to prosecute, and again +obtained a verdict in his favour.</p> +<p>The officers of the 46th Regiment, on leaving the colony, +presented him with a testimonial, and an address most gratifying, +amid the general obloquy, and showing a feeling most honourable +to themselves. Every one who cared for the cause of virtue +at home, especially Wilberforce, Simeon, and Mrs. Fry, wrote +encouraging letters to him; and Lord Bathurst, on receiving a +despatch from Macquarie, full of charges against the chaplain as +man, magistrate, and minister, sent out a commission of inquiry, +which, coming with fresh eyes from England, was horrified at the +abuses to which the Australian world was accustomed, found every +word of Mr. Marsden’s perfectly justified, and at last +extracted the following confession from Colonel Macquarie: +“The Governor admits that Mr. Marsden’s manner to him +has been constantly civil and accommodating, and that nothing in +his manner could provoke the Governor’s warmth. The +Governor admits his qualifications, his activity, and his +unremitting vigilance as a magistrate, and in society his +cheerful disposition and readiness to please.” The +report of this commission resulted, among other more important +consequences, in the unsolicited grant of £400 a year +additional stipend to Mr. <!-- page 227--><a +name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 227</span>Marsden, +“in consideration of his long, laborious, and praiseworthy +exertions in behalf of religion and morality.” This +was only fitting compensation on the part of Government, for the +accusation of avarice had brought to light how many schools and +asylums, the proper work of the Government, had been built, and +were being maintained, out of the proceeds of the farm which had +prospered so excellently.</p> +<p>As long as Macquarie continued in office, Mr. Marsden was out +of favour, but Sir Thomas Brisbane, who came out in 1821, was +friendly with him, and knew his value, insisting on his returning +to the bench of magistrates. He did all he could to avoid +it, till the judges and almost every one in the colony so urged +him to accept that he yielded; but in 1824 a case occurred in +which a rich and insolent culprit was severely punished by the +Paramatta bench, and contrived to raise such an outrageous storm +that Sir Thomas Brisbane, who, if better disposed, was more timid +than his predecessor, dismissed the whole five magistrates. +The offender’s wish had been merely to overthrow Mr. +Marsden, but this was found impossible. The whole fury of +the colony again rose against this fearless man, and accusations +absolutely absurd were trumped up. One was that he allowed +his windmill to work on Sunday! The fact turned out to be, +when investigated, that somebody had once seen the sails turning +on a Sunday, some time before Mr. Marsden had purchased the land +on which the mill stood. A real act of persecution affected +him more seriously, as it was the ruin of another person in whom +he was interested. There was an old regulation forbidding +the hiring out of convicts who were assigned to residents as +domestic servants, but this had been virtually repealed by +another under Macquarie, permitting such hiring out on the owners +complying with certain rules. These had been duly attended +to by Mr. Marsden in the case of one James Ring, a plumber and +glazier, who, as a reward for good conduct, was allowed to go out +to work in Paramatta for his own profit. Being ill-used and +beaten by another servant, he summoned the man before the bench +of magistrates, but these, who had been put in when Mr. Marsden +and his colleagues were dismissed, immediately committed Ring to +jail for being at large. His master went to demand his +release, showing that the rules had been observed, but the +magistrates replied by levying a fine of two-and-sixpence for +every day that Ring had been at work, <!-- page 228--><a +name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 228</span>and as +Marsden did not offer to pay, they sent a convict constable to +his house to seize property to that amount, while poor Ring +himself was sent to work in irons with the penal gang; though at +that very moment one of the magistrates had a servant, a tailor, +at work in Mr. Marsden’s house; and another person had two +hired convicts of another of these justices employed at his +home. In fact, it was the only sentence of the kind ever +inflicted, yet Sir Thomas Brisbane was afraid to interfere; +whereupon Mr. Marsden caused his case to be tried before the +Supreme Court, and so completely proved it, that restitution of +the illegal fine was commanded, though the spirit of persecution +was still shown in the absurdly small sum of damages allotted to +him. What was worse was that he could not procure the +release of Ring, for while he was sending an appeal to England +the unhappy man lost patience, ran away from the gang where he +was working in irons on the roads, and escaped to New Zealand, +but was never heard of more. Had he but borne with his +misery a little longer he would have been restored to his kind +master, for a commission came out which a second time resulted in +the complete triumph of Mr. Marsden, and the entire discomfiture +of his persecutors.</p> +<p>We have gone through the history of his home troubles before +entering on the part that concerned his missionary labours. +It is a painful picture, but the staunch firmness that never +failed to “boldly rebuke vice,” is too essential a +part of the picture to be passed over. The Apostle of New +Zealand was the Baptist of the Herods of Australia. We +return to the year 1816, when, after some months’ training +in agriculture at Mr. Marsden’s farm, Duaterra had sailed +for his home, but only again to suffer from the perfidy of the +master of the ship. The ordinary English mind seemed +incapable of perceiving that any faith need be kept with a +dark-coloured man, and Duaterra was defrauded of his share of the +oil procured from the whales he had helped to catch, carried past +his own shores, only two miles from the <i>pah</i> where the +master had engaged to land him, and turned adrift in the then +uninhabited Norfolk Island, where a whaler picked him up almost +starved, and brought him back to Australia. However, Mr. +Marsden found another ship, which did fulfil its engagements, and +Duaterra was at last set ashore in the Bay of Islands, close to +the northern point of New Zealand, with a supply of wheat which +Mr. Marsden had given him.</p> +<p><!-- page 229--><a name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +229</span>Two years had passed, and Mr. Marsden had been trying +to procure from the Society at home a mission ship to carry +teachers to the islands, visit them, and supply their wants +there, but he had not as yet succeeded, and he therefore decided +on purchasing a small one from Australia at his own +expense. This was the <i>Active</i>, the first of the +mission vessels that now bear the Cross in several quarters of +the globe. In her Hall and King sailed, and Mr. Marsden +would have accompanied them but for the express prohibition of +Governor Macquarie, who, little as he loved his senior chaplain, +did not choose to lose him on what he regarded as a scheme of +almost fanatic folly. The two teachers were not to settle +on shore, nor even to sleep there, but they were to visit +Duaterra, reconnoitre the ground, and see whether it would be +possible to settle there as they had at first proposed.</p> +<p>To their delight, Duaterra came eagerly to meet them, very +anxious for their assistance with his corn. He had shown it +to his tribe, telling them that hence came the bread and biscuit +they had eaten in English ships, and great had been their +disappointment when neither the ear nor the root of the wheat +proved at all like these articles. However, he had been +successful in his farmer operations, but was entirely puzzled by +those of the miller, only knowing that the grain ought to be +ground, and unable to contrive it, though he had borrowed a +coffee-mill from a trading vessel. When the new comers +produced a hand-mill he was delighted. His kindred, to whom +he had been a laughing-stock for averring that biscuit had any +connection with his new grass, crowded round incredulously to +watch the mill, showed unbounded amazement as the white flour +streamed forth, and when a cake was hastily made and baked in a +frying-pan they leapt about shouting and dancing for joy. +Duaterra, his uncle Hunghi, a very powerful chief, and five more, +accepted an invitation to come and confer with Mr. Marsden, and +the <i>Active</i> brought them back to New South Wales. +They were very anxious for the benefits which they hoped to +derive from intercourse with the whites, and readily undertook to +secure Hall and King from all danger. Even Governor +Macquarie was so far satisfied that he consented to let Mr. +Marsden go out and arrange the new settlement, to which he +presented two cows and a bull. These, with three horses, +and some sheep and poultry, were embarked on board the +<i>Active</i>, with a motley <!-- page 230--><a +name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 230</span>collection +of passengers, the eight Maories, the three missionaries with +their wives and children, a sawyer, a smith, Mr. Marsden, and +another gentleman named John Lydiard Nicholas, the master of the +vessel, his wife, son, and crew, which included two Tahitians, +and lastly a runaway convict who had secreted himself on +board. Their arrival might have been rendered dangerous by +the conduct of a whaling crew at Wangaroa, in the northern island +of New Zealand, who, by way of retaliation for the massacre of +the <i>Boyd’s</i> ship-company, had murdered a chief named +Tippahee with all his family, without waiting to find out whether +he had been concerned in the slaughter. Nevertheless, these +brave men were ready to dare to the utmost, and the fame of Mr. +Marsden, “the friend of the Maori,” had preceded him, +and the <i>Active</i> was welcomed with presents of fish and +visits from the natives.</p> +<p>They found that Tippahee’s people at Wangaroa had +accused the tribe of the Bay of Islands of leading the English to +murder their chief, that there was in consequence a deadly feud, +and that several desperate battles had been fought. Marsden +knew that if he came as the friend of Duaterra and his tribe +alone, party spirit would entirely alienate the rest of the +islanders, and he therefore determined at once to prove that he +came not as the ally of one party, but as the friend of +both. He therefore determined to prove to the Wangaroans +his confidence in them by not only landing among them unarmed, +but actually spending the night among them. His friend Mr. +Nicholas accompanied him in this, one of the most intrepid +actions ever performed, when it is remembered that this tribe +consisted of the cannibals who had eaten his own countrymen, and +had of late been freshly provoked. The two gentlemen supped +in Hunghi’s hut on potatoes and fish, and then quietly +walked over to the hostile camp, where they met with a friendly +welcome. One of the natives who had sailed in an English +vessel was able to interpret, and with his assistance Mr. Marsden +explained the purpose of the missionaries, and the desirableness +of peace. Maories appreciate being spoken to at length and +with due respect, and they listened politely, making speeches in +their own fashion in return, until towards eleven, when most had +gone to rest. The two Englishmen wrapped themselves in +their great coats and lay down, the interpreter bidding them lie +near him. It was a clear night, countless stars shining +above, the sea in front smooth, all around a forest of spears +stuck upright in the <!-- page 231--><a name="page231"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 231</span>earth, and on the ground the +multitude of human beings in their scanty loose garb of tapa +cloth lying fast asleep, while the man who had come as an apostle +to them spent the night in thought and prayer. Such a scene +can never be forgotten!</p> +<p>In the morning the ship’s boat came to fetch him off, +and he took the chiefs back with him to the ship to receive +presents and be introduced to those who were to live among +them. There was also a formal reconciliation with Duaterra +and his tribe, and the wondering Maories took their travelled +brother into high estimation when they really beheld the animals +they had imagined to be mere creations of his fancy, and were +specially amazed at the sight of Mr. Marsden mounted on +horseback.</p> +<p>Duaterra, meantime, of his own accord, was making preparations +for the first Sunday service held in New Zealand. It was +likewise the Christmas Day of 1815, and Mr. Marsden felt it a +most appropriate moment for his first proclamation of the good +tidings of great joy among this most distant of the +nations. Duaterra’s ideas of a church consisted in +enclosing about half an acre of land with a fence, and erecting +in the midst a reading-desk three feet, and a pulpit six feet +high, both made out of canoes, covered with either black native +cloth or some canvas he had brought from Port Jackson, and +ranging near them some bottoms of old canoes, as seats for the +English part of the congregation, and on the hill above he +hoisted, of his own accord, the British flag.</p> +<p>On the Sunday morning Duaterra, his uncle, and Koro Koro, +another chief who had been in Australia, all appeared in +regimentals given them by Governor Macquarie, swords by their +sides, and switches in their hands, and all their men drawn up +behind them. When the English had entered, the chiefs +arranged their tribes, and Mr. Marsden began by singing the Old +Hundredth Psalm, the first note of praise to the Creator that +ever rung from the bays and rocks of New Zealand. Then he +went through the Christmas Day service, his twenty-two English +joining in it, and Koro Koro making signs with his switch to the +natives when to stand and when to sit. Mr. Marsden ended +with a sermon on the Angelic greeting, and when the natives +complained that they could not understand, Duaterra promised to +explain afterwards, and this he performed—it may be feared, +after a fashion of his own, for as yet he was very ignorant, +although very acute.</p> +<p><!-- page 232--><a name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +232</span>Mr. Marsden’s principle was not that of Eliot, to +begin with the faith, then come to civilization. He thought +that the benefits of civilization would lead to the acceptance of +the faith; and, besides, he had only laymen to act as teachers; +and, as his system was that of the Church, he could only employ +them in laying foundations, in preparing instead of admitting +converts, while his own duties only permitted of his making +flying visits. So he established his settlers to show the +benefits of peace, industry, and morality, and thus bring the +natives to look higher. Seed, tools, clothing, he assisted +them in procuring and using, but his smith was expressly +forbidden ever to make or repair any warlike weapon, or the +settlers ever to barter muskets or powder for any possession of +whatever value with the natives. He likewise strove, in his +conversations with the chiefs, to show the evils of their vices +in such a manner as their shrewd minds could enter into, trying +to make them see the disgrace and horror of cannibalism, and the +inconveniences of polygamy, thus hoping to raise their +standard.</p> +<p>In order that the mission settlement might have some security, +he purchased a plot of land in the name of the Church Missionary +Society, drawing up a regular deed of sale, to which his +signature was affixed, together with a likeness of the tattooed +pattern of the Maori chieftain’s face. Duaterra +walked about with him in delight, talking of the time when the +church should be built, and planning the spot; but the poor +fellow had probably never recovered the injury his constitution +had suffered, for he fell ill, and his state was soon +hopeless. It was a great grief to Mr. Marsden, who had +reckoned much on his assistance, and found it hard to acquiesce +in the will of Providence, more especially as the poor young man +was not yet so entirely a Christian as to warrant baptizing +him. He begged Mr. Marsden to pray with him, but he kept +his heathen priest at hand, and his mind was tossed to and fro +between the new truth and the old superstition. In this +state Mr. Marsden was forced to leave him, four days before his +death, when Kendall, who visited him to the last, was shocked at +the savage manner in which his relatives gashed themselves, to +show their grief, and far more when his favourite wife stole out +and hung herself, according to a frequent custom, regarded as +rather honourable than otherwise!</p> +<p>Soon after his death fresh wars broke out, and a hostile <!-- +page 233--><a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +233</span>tribe encamped near the mission settlement, loudly +threatening to kill and devour the inhabitants, who, for months +together, had to keep watch day and night, put their children to +bed in their clothes ready for instant flight, and had their boat +always afloat with oars and sails; but they remained steadfast, +and the danger passed over.</p> +<p>The <i>Active</i> plied backwards and forwards, supplying them +with the necessaries of life, and bringing guests to the farm at +Paramatta, where Mr. Marsden provided instruction for them. +Two, named Tooi and Teterree, were sent in charge of Mr. Nicholas +to visit England in a King’s ship, where they had learnt to +speak English tolerably, and to follow the customs of civilized +society. They were gentle and intelligent, and eager to +learn, but no one could reckon on what would interest or excite +them. They were taken to see St. Paul’s Cathedral, +which did not seem to strike them at all; but, as they were +walking along Fleet Street, they came to a sudden stand before a +hairdresser’s shop, screaming out, “Women, +women,” as they beheld the display of waxen busts, which +they thought did credit to the Pakeha, or English, style of +preserving dried human heads! Like Duaterra, their great +anxiety was to see King George; but, in 1817, the apology +recorded in Teterree’s English letter was only too +true,—“I never see the King of England, he very +poorly; and Queen Charlotte very poorly too.”</p> +<p>On their return to Paramatta, Mr. Marsden made a second visit +to New Zealand, taking them back, and also going to instal some +fresh missionaries and mechanics on a new settlement. There +was great competition among the chiefs; for the possession of a +Pakeha, or Englishman, was greatly coveted as a means of bringing +the material good things of life, and Mr. Marsden was eagerly +assured that there was no danger of the English being killed and +eaten, since the Maori flesh was much sweeter, because the whites +ate so much salt. There was as yet no convert, but Mr. +Marsden’s resolution by no means failed him; he +believed—and he was right—that kindness, truth, and +uprightness, in those who could confer temporal benefits, would, +in time, lead these intelligent men to appreciate the spiritual +blessings that were offered to them.</p> +<p>Presents of hoes, with which to plant the sweet potato, were +greatly appreciated. Hunghi’s head wife was working +away with a wooden spade, though perfectly blind, and was +delighted <!-- page 234--><a name="page234"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 234</span>with the new instrument. +Indeed, Hunghi was one of the most eager friends of the mission, +though the splendidly tattooed heads of his enemies decorated his +abode, and he defended cannibalism, on the ground that animals +preyed upon one another, and that the gods devoured each +other. His manners had all the high-bred courtesy that +marked the chief, and he was a noble-looking creature, full of +native majesty and gentleness. Every hope was entertained +of him, and he was sent, in 1820, to visit England, where he had +an interview with George IV., and received presents of weapons +from him. But the moral Hunghi brought home was, +“There is but one king in England. There shall be but +one in New Zealand.” And this consummation he +endeavoured to bring about by challenging a hostile chief whom he +met on his way back from Sydney to New Zealand. He gained +the battle, by arranging his men in the form of a wedge, and +likewise by the number of muskets with which he was able to arm +them. When the chief himself fell by his hand, he drank his +fresh blood, and devoured his eye, in the belief that it thus +became a star in the firmament, and conferred glory on himself; +and the whole battle-field was covered with the ovens in which +his followers cooked the flesh of the prisoners whom they did not +keep as slaves!</p> +<p>This horrible scene took place while Mr. Marsden was in +Australia, but he could hardly have prevented it. Probably +the chief’s ferocity, so long repressed, was in a state of +reaction; for, though the missionaries were not molested, their +efforts seemed lost. Hunghi declared that he wished his +children to learn to fight, not to read; and the Maoris insisted +on being paid for any service to the missionaries in fire-arms +and powder. When this was refused they became insolent and +mischievous, intruding into the houses, demanding food, breaking +down the fences, and stealing whatever they could seize; and +there was reason to fear that any excitement might lead to +absolute danger. In this crisis some of the missionaries +failed, sold ammunition, and otherwise were wanting in the +testimony they were intended to maintain. The tidings +determined Mr. Marsden on making a fourth visit to New Zealand: +and this time he was able to take with him a clergyman, the Rev. +Henry Williams, who lived to become Bishop of a Maori +district. It was nine years since the first landing there, +and, in spite of all <!-- page 235--><a name="page235"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 235</span>disappointments, he found many of +the natives much improved, and the friendly chiefs quite able to +understand his prohibition against the sale of powder, although +they were at first inclined to be angry at his having sent home a +missionary on that account. The other missionaries +expressed repentance for their errors, but he was not thoroughly +satisfied with them, though allowing much for their isolation +from Christian society and ordinances.</p> +<p>A Wesleyan mission had been established at Wangaroa, which he +visited and assisted, and finding Mr. Leigh, the chief minister, +very ill, offered him a passage to Sydney for advice, but this +ship had scarcely weighed anchor before a great storm came on; +the ship was lost, and the crew and passengers had to land in +boats, and return for two months longer before a ship could be +found to bring them home, and in this time he did all in his +power to bring the Maories to agree to some settled form of +government under a single chief; but though any chief, especially +Hunghi, was quite willing to be that one, nobody would be +anything secondary, and thus the project failed. He also +set the missionaries the task of endeavouring to collect a fixed +vocabulary and grammar, which might be available in future +translations. The great kindness shown him at his shipwreck +had greatly touched his heart, especially in contrast with the +usage he was meeting with in Australia, for this was in the +height of the persecution about Ring, which detained him at home +for more than two years. During this time Mr. Williams was +joined by his brother William, also a priest of the English +Church, but the wars of the Maories had become so desperate that +the peril of the missionaries had been much increased; indeed, +the Wesleyans had had the whole of their premises ravaged, so +that the minister came as a fugitive to find a refuge at +Paramatta, as a guest of Mr. Marsden.</p> +<p>That brave soldier of his Lord decided on going at once to the +scene of peril. Though sixty-three years old, he sailed as +soon as possible in H.M.S. <i>Rainbow</i>, but found peace +restored and the danger to his missions over. He therefore +came back, after remaining only five days at his labours in New +South Wales, to the superintendence of the translation of several +chapters of Holy Scripture, and to the instruction of the young +Maories at the sort of college he had tried from the first to +keep up at Paramatta, but which he was forced to abandon, since +the <!-- page 236--><a name="page236"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 236</span>delicate lungs of the Maories could +not endure the parching dryness of the Australian climate.</p> +<p>By the time he went again to New Zealand, in 1830, Hunghi had +been killed in battle, and the nation was fast dwindling between +war and a disease resembling the influenza. It was +estimated that in twenty years the numbers had diminished by +one-half, and in the meantime English settlers were entering on +the lands so numerously that it was evident that before long the +islands would be annexed to the British crown. Mr. Marsden +had hoped at first that this brave and intelligent people might +have been Christianized and civilized, so as to stand alone, but +finding that their deadly feuds and internecine savagery rendered +this impossible, he thought it best to prepare them to come +willingly under a curb that he trusted would be no more than +beneficial.</p> +<p>He found the missionaries much alarmed, for a horrible battle +had just been fought, caused by the misconduct and insulting +behaviour of the crew of an English ship. One tribe had +taken their part, another had risen to revenge the affront, and a +great mutual slaughter had taken place; victory had remained with +the avengers, and though the offending crew had sailed away, it +was apprehended that all the English might suffer in their +stead. There was not an hour to be lost. Mr. Marsden +and Mr. Williams crossed the bay and entered the camp of the +English allies, where they were affectionately greeted, and +allowed to carry proposals of peace to the victorious party, but +there they met with a less friendly reception, being told that +they were answerable for the lives of those who had fallen in the +battle, since it had been occasioned by the misconduct of their +countrymen. When Mr. Marsden promised to write to England +to prevent the return of the offenders, the savages desired he +would do no such thing, since they only desired vengeance. +However, they agreed to hold a meeting with the hostile tribe, +and endeavour to come to terms. Early the next morning +thirty-six canoes arrived opposite to the mission station, some +containing forty men; and notice was given that if the +commissioners appointed on either side did not come to terms, the +white men would be the sacrifice.</p> +<p>The day was spent in conferences, but at night the chief of +the hostile tribe clove a stick in two, in token that his anger +was broken, and the two parties joined in a hideous war-dance, +<!-- page 237--><a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +237</span>frequently firing their muskets; but peace was +ratified, and Mr. Marsden found that real progress had been made +among the natives around the stations. Many had become true +and sincere Christians, among them the widow and daughters of +Hunghi. A Maori Christian woman was married by Mr. Marsden +to an Englishman. She made all the responses in good +English, and appeared in decent English clothes of her own +sewing. He also married a young man, free, and of good +family, to a girl who had been a slave taken in war, who was +redeemed from her master for five blankets, an axe, and an iron +pot. A number of natives lived round the missions, +attending the services, and working with a good deal of industry +and intelligence, and an increasingly large proportion of these +were openly baptized Christians.</p> +<p>A seventh visit was paid by Mr. Marsden in 1837, when +seventy-two years of age. On his return an officer in the +ship observed: “I think, sir, you may look on this as your +last visit to New Zealand.” “No,” he +answered, “I intend to be off again in about six weeks; the +people in the colony are becoming too fine for me now. I am +too old to preach before them, but I can talk to the New +Zealanders.” He adhered to his purpose, and his +daughter, Martha, who had been with him on his last voyage, +accompanied him again in this. There had been some quarrels +with the crews of ships, but the natives always separated Mr. +Marsden from the misdeeds of his people, and the old chiefs were +delighted to see him. “Stay with us and learn our +language,” one of them said: “become our father and +our friend, and we will build you a house.” +“No,” replied another, “we cannot build a house +good enough, but we will hire Europeans to do it for +us.”</p> +<p>Wherever he went, he was hailed as the friend of the Maori, +and he made a progress through all the mission stations, which +were growing up numerously, and whence Christianity was fast +spreading by the agency of the Maories themselves. A chief +named Koromona, made captive in Hunghi’s great war, who had +become blind, had been converted by Mr. William Williams, and +soon learnt the whole Liturgy, with many chapters of the Bible, +and hymns, by heart, and was fit to be sent as a teacher among +the other tribes. Sunday was generally observed, +cannibalism and polygamy were retreating into the more remote and +heathenish regions, and there was every token that the noble <!-- +page 238--><a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +238</span>Apostle of New Zealand had verily conquered a country +and people for the Church of God. Terrible wars among the +tribes, provoking all the old ferocities, still were liable to +arise, and the whaling crews, among whom might be found some of +the most unscrupulous, licentious, and violent of mankind, +continued to take advantage of there being no regular +jurisdiction to commit outrages, which spread corruption or +provoked retaliation, and for this there was no remedy but +annexation to the British crown, which the influence of the +mission was leading the natives themselves to desire, though this +was not carried out till after Mr. Marsden’s death.</p> +<p>This last visit took place in 1837. By that time the +persecutions and troubles of Mr. Marsden’s colonial life +had been outlived,—though even as late as 1828, he writes +about a pamphlet which actually charged him with inflicting +torture to extract confession! But his character outweighed +all such absurd charges, and as a more respectable class of +settlers flowed into the colony he was better appreciated. +What the tone must have been may be guessed from the fact that +when, in 1825, Governor Darling began regularly to attend church +with his wife and family, it was regarded as an unexampled act in +the supreme magistrate!</p> +<p>Mr. Marsden lost his wife in 1835, but his daughter did her +best to minister to his happiness, and was his companion and +assistant in all he undertook. Once, when she was driving +with him, two of the most terrible of the bushrangers, who were +feared by the whole country, broke forth upon them, seized the +horse, and holding a loaded pistol to Mr. Marsden’s breast, +bade her empty his pockets into their hands, threatening to shoot +them both if either said a word. Nevertheless, the fearless +old man continued to remonstrate with them on their wicked life, +telling them that he should see them again upon the gallows, and +though they charged him with savage threats not to follow them +with his eyes, he turned round and continued to warn them of the +consequences of a life like theirs. In a few months’ +time they were captured, and it did actually fall to his lot to +attend them to the scaffold.</p> +<p>Yet, though of this fearless mould, he was one of the most +loveable of men; everyone on his farm, as well as all little +children, and the savages he conversed with, all loved him +passionately. Some young Maories, whom he brought back on +<!-- page 239--><a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +239</span>his last voyage, used to race after his gig to catch +his eye, and when they took hold of any book, used to point +upwards, as if whatever was associated with Matua, as they called +him, must lead to heaven. He was fond of playing with +children, and never was so happy as when he yearly collected the +schoolchildren of Paramatta on his lawn, for a feast and games +after it.</p> +<p>In 1834, the Rev. William Grant Broughton, one of the clergy +of Australia, took home an account of the spiritual destitution +of New South Wales, and the effect was that in 1836 a bishopric +was there created, and the first presentation given to him. +Some thought that this was a passing over of the chaplain who had +laboured so hard for so many years, but Mr. Marsden himself only +observed that it was better thus: he was too old a man, and it +was with sincere goodwill that he handed over the charge he had +held for more than forty years, so that only the parish of +Paramatta remained to him, and there he continued his ministry in +church, to the sick, and among the poor to the end.</p> +<p>On the last Sunday of his life he seemed in his usual health; +but for the first time he did not take part in the service, and +at the celebration he seemed to be so overcome by his feelings as +not to move from his place to communicate, when, after a pause, +his son-in-law went to him with the sacred elements. There +were many tears shed by those who foreboded that his hand would +never administer to them again. On the Tuesday he set out +for a short journey, but apparently he took a chill on the way to +the house of his friend, Mr. Styles, at Windsor, and arrived +unwell; erysipelas in the head came on, with a stupor of the +faculties, and he died on Saturday, the 12th of May, +1838,—a man much tried, but resolute, staunch, and gallant, +and, in the end, blessedly successful.</p> +<p>Two years later, New Zealand, by the wish of the Maories +themselves, was added to the British dominions, a bishopric was +erected there, and, did not our bounds forbid us to speak of +those who are still among us, we could tell much of the +development, under Bishop Selwyn, of Samuel Marsden’s work: +though, alas! there is a tale to tell that disgraces, not our +Government, but our people,—a story of lust of land and of +gain, and of pertinacious unfairness towards the Maori, which has +alienated a large number of that promising and noble people, led +to their <!-- page 240--><a name="page240"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 240</span>relapse into the horrors from which +they had been freed, overthrown their flourishing Church in +favour of a horrid, bloodthirsty superstition, and will probably +finish its work by the destruction of the gallant race that once +asked our protection.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX. JOHN WILLIAMS, THE MARTYR OF +ERROMANGO.</h2> +<p>Of Welsh extraction, and respectable though humble parentage, +the pioneer and martyr of Polynesia, John Williams, was born at +Tottenham High Court, London, in the year 1796. His parents +were Nonconformists, and he was educated at a +“commercial” school at Edmonton, where the teaching +did not aim at much beyond writing and accounts, all that was +supposed, at that time, to be needful for a young +tradesman. The chief point remembered of his childhood was +an aptitude and handiness which caused all little breakages to be +kept for John to repair,—a small quality, but one of no +small importance in the life of a missionary, who often finds +ready resource essential to safety and to influence.</p> +<p>His mother was a good and religious woman, whose one great +purpose in choosing a situation was to place him in a family +where he might be influenced for good; and she was fortunate in +finding a furnishing ironmonger whose care of his apprentices +exactly met her views. While serving his time, John +Williams was observed to delight in the hard practical work of +the forge far more than in the easier and more popular +employments of the shop, and he was always eager to be sent out +to execute repairs, a task that was rather despised by his +companions. He was not regarded as a religious youth till +he was about eighteen; he considered that a serious direction had +been given to his mind one Sunday evening, when his +master’s wife, finding him just about to enter a tea-garden +with some idle companions, persuaded him to come with her to +chapel, where he heard an impressive sermon that gave a colour to +his life.</p> +<p><!-- page 241--><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +241</span>After this, distinct habits of piety were formed, +Williams was admitted to full membership at the chapel called the +Tabernacle, and, together with others of the more earnest young +men of the congregation, formed a society called “The +Youths’ Class,” one of those associations which, +under whatever form, have, in all ages of Christianity, been +found a most powerful and salutary means of quickening, uniting, +and strengthening the young by the sense of fellowship. The +lads met every Monday evening for discussion, and every +eighteenth Monday was devoted to special prayer. The +minister of the chapel did not naturally preside, but would often +look in, say a few words on the subject in hand, and thus keep +watch that the debates were properly conducted.</p> +<p>It was through this pastor, Mr. Wilks, that John Williams +first imbibed his interest in the missionary cause,—an +interest that gradually grew upon him so much, that in his +twentieth year he decided upon devoting himself to the +task. Good Mr. Wilks freely gave the young ironmonger +assistance in supplying the deficiencies of his education, and in +July 1816 he was presented to the directors of the London +Missionary Society, and passed an examination, after which he was +accepted, before he was out of his apprenticeship. +According to rule, so young and so insufficiently instructed a +man would ordinarily have had some years of training before +actually undertaking to labour among the heathen, but there was +at the moment an urgent call for aid from various branches, and +it was decided, by a special vote of the committee, to send him +out as soon as possible to the South Sea Islands. His +master willingly released him from the seven months that remained +of his term; nor had his time of apprenticeship been by any means +wasted, for the mechanical skill he had acquired was of great +importance to his success as a civilizer. Marriage was +always recommended to the missionaries of the Baptist Societies, +and Williams’s fate was no sooner decided than he chose +Mary Channer, a constant attendant at the Tabernacle, and a woman +helpful, kind, and brave, as befitted a missionary’s +wife.</p> +<p>A great meeting was soon after held, as a sort of dedication +of the new labourers, nine in number, who were thence to go +forth,—five to South Africa, four to Polynesia. Among +the Africans was Robert Moffat, a name memorable, both on his own +account and as the father-in-law of Livingstone. An elderly +<!-- page 242--><a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +242</span>minister stood forth and questioned the young men in +the face of the congregation on their faith, their opinions, +their motives, and their intentions; and then a Bible was +solemnly presented to each by an elder minister, John Angell +James, of Birmingham, one of the most able and highly reputed +Nonconformists then living; and another minister, Dr. Waugh, +addressing himself to Williams, who was much the youngest of the +nine, said, “Go, my dear young brother, and if your tongue +cleave to the roof of your mouth, let it be with telling poor +sinners the love of <span class="smcap">Jesus Christ</span>; and +if your arms drop from their shoulders, let it be with knocking +at men’s hearts to gain admittance for Him +there.”</p> +<p>The impression never left John Williams, and the injunction +was fulfilled to the utmost of his power. He was a man of +strong and vigorous frame, well fitted to encounter the perils of +climate; and with much enterprise, hardihood, and +ingenuity. That his mind was in some degree narrowed by +want of education, perhaps mattered less in the peculiar field of +his labours, where he was seldom brought in contact with wide +questions. He had the excellent quality of ready sympathy +and adaptability to the persons around him, whether civilized or +savage, and was so good-natured and yielding in unimportant +matters, that the strength and firmness with which he would stand +up for whatever he viewed as a matter of conscience, always took +his opponents by surprise; but it was always long before this +point was reached, and he was perhaps too ready to give up when +it was judgment rather than right and wrong that came into +play. Williams’s face, as given in the portrait +attached to his “History of Missionary Enterprise in the +South Sea,” curiously agrees with his history. There +is much power about the brow, much enterprise in the strong, +somewhat aquiline nose, great softness and sweetness in the eyes, +but the thickness of the lips and chin betray the want of +cultivation; indeed, the curious manner in which the mouth is +pursed up, would seem to indicate that an eager temper naturally +kept it unclosed, and that the restraint of sitting for a picture +rendered the expression uncomfortably prim.</p> +<p>The Polynesian Mission on which John Williams was sent, had +been commenced in 1796 by the London Missionary Society, partly +in consequence of the death-bed entreaties of Selina, Countess of +Huntingdon, who had been exceedingly interested by the accounts +of the South Sea Islands in Captain <!-- page 243--><a +name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +243</span>Cook’s Voyages. The subscriptions amounted +to 10,000<i>l.</i>, and were sufficient to purchase a ship called +the <i>Duff</i>, which was commanded by that Captain Wilson whose +wonderful history has been noticed in the lives of the Serampore +body. Twenty-five missionaries were taken out, and received +at Tahiti with grotesque dances and caperings. The +dwelling, which had been erected when Captain Bligh was +collecting bread-fruit, was given to them, and several were +placed there, while the <i>Duff</i> carried others to the +Friendly and Marquesan Islands, and, after visiting them all a +second time, returned home for reinforcements.</p> +<p>On the next voyage, however, with a different captain, the +<i>Duff</i> was captured by a French privateer, the captain of +which, when he understood the purpose of the voyage, greatly +regretted what he had done, and declared that he would rather +have given 500<i>l.</i> than have interfered with it. He +landed the missionaries at Monte Video, and assisted them in +obtaining a passage home, in the course of which they were again +captured by a Portuguese, whose treatment of them was a wretched +contrast to that of the friendly Frenchman.</p> +<p>Meantime, many disasters had befallen the unassisted +missionaries, who suffered from the hostility of a section of the +natives, though the king, Pomare, always protected them. +One of their number insisted on marrying a native woman still +unconverted, separated from his brethren, and was soon after +murdered by the natives. Another was lost in a still sadder +way. He reasoned himself into doubts of the Divine power +and of the immortality of the soul, and finally left the island, +nor was he heard of again for many years, though prayer was +constantly made for him, and at length it became known that he +had wandered to Serampore, where the influence of Marshman and +Carey had prevailed to bring back his faith, but he had since +been lost at sea. What wonderful glimpses we get of strange +wild lives!</p> +<p>But the Tahitian Mission had not included any one leading +character, so that it may be enough to state that, after years of +patient effort and often of danger, the missionaries beheld King +Pomare II., the successor of him whom they had found on the +throne, solemnly burn his idols, and profess himself a +Christian.</p> +<p>From that time the island has been Christian. The +standard <!-- page 244--><a name="page244"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 244</span>of morality has been by no means as +high as it ought to be, and there is much disappointment in +dealing with any nation, with none more so than with an indolent +and voluptuous people, in a climate disposing them to inertness, +and in a part subject to the visits of lawless seamen of all +nations. However, the mission kept its hold of Tahiti, +until the French, in 1844, began a series of aggressions, which +ended in their establishing a protectorate over the islands, +introducing their Church, and doing all in their power to +discourage the London Mission, to which, however, many of the +natives still adhere.</p> +<p>This, however, is anticipating. When the five young men +sailed in 1817, and after a kindly welcome on their way from Mr. +Marsden at Sydney, things were in the full blush of +promise. Eight hundred people worshipped at the chapel of +Erineo, near the landing-place. It was a circular building, +a good deal like a haystack, with walls of stakes, a thatch of +large leaves, and a desk in the centre of the floor for the +preacher. This was his first station, and whilst there he +gave his assistance in building a ship, to enable King Pomare to +open a trade with New South Wales. He stayed in this place +till he had become familiar with the language, and his first +child was born there.</p> +<p>Not long after some allies of Pomare, from Huahime, struck +with the benefits produced among the Tahitians by the +missionaries, entreated that some might be sent to them likewise; +and Williams, his wife and child, with two other married pairs, +and an interpreter, were told off for the mission.</p> +<p>They were welcomed eagerly, had oval huts assigned to them, +and no lack of pork and yams, but Mr. Williams did not long +remain there, being called away by an invitation from +Raiatea. This is one of the loveliest of tropical islands, +the largest of the Society Islands. Huge mountain masses +rise from the centre of an isle, about fifty miles in +circumference, and give it the grandeur of the rock, the +precipice, and the waterfall; but all around and below, the sides +are clothed with the exquisite verdure of the southern clime, the +palm, the bread-fruit, the yam, and all that can delight the eye; +and both this and a little satellite islet are fenced in by an +encircling coral reef, within which is clear still deep water, +fit for navies to ride in, and approachable through numerous +inlets in its natural breakwater. It was a spot of much +distinction, containing the temple of the god Oro, who was +revered by all the <!-- page 245--><a name="page245"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 245</span>surrounding groups, as the god of +war, to whom children were dedicated to make them +courageous. There dreadful human sacrifices were offered, +concluded by cannibal feasts. Whenever such a sacrifice was +required, the priest and king despatched messengers to the chiefs +of the districts around to inquire whether they had a broken +calabash, or a rotten cocoa-nut. These terms indicated a +man whom they would be willing to give up. The victim was +then either knocked down with a blow of a small stone at the back +of his head, or else speared in his own house; and when one man +of a family had thus been sacrificed, all the rest had the same +horrid preference.</p> +<p>The last human victim of Tahiti was verily a martyr. He +was designated because he had begun to pray. The emissaries +came to his house and asked his wife where he was. Then, +borrowing from her the ironwood stick used for breaking open +cocoa-nuts, they went after him, and knocked him down with it, +binding him hand and foot, and placing him in a long basket made +of cocoa-nut leaves. His wife rushed forward, but was kept +away, as the touch or breath of a woman is considered to pollute +a sacrifice. The man, however, recovered the blow, and +spoke out boldly: “Friends, I know what you intend to do +with me. You are about to kill me, and offer me up as a +<i>tabæ</i> to your savage gods. I know it is vain +for me to beg for mercy, for you will not spare my life. +You may kill my body, but you cannot hurt my soul, for I have +begun to pray to <span class="smcap">Jesus</span>.”</p> +<p>On hearing this, his bearers set him on the ground, put one +stone under his head, and beat out his brains with another, and +thus died the last Tahitian sacrifice, truly baptized in his own +blood. The other gods besides Oro were numerous, and there +were also many animals supposed to be possessed with familiar +spirits. A chief was once in the cabin of a ship where +there was a talking cockatoo: the moment the bird spoke he rushed +away in the utmost terror, leapt overboard, and swam for his +life, convinced that he had heard the captain’s demon.</p> +<p>The chief of Raiatea was named Tamatoa, and was a man of +considerable power. Two years previously the Tahitian king, +Pomare, nineteen of his subjects, and a missionary named Wilson +had been driven thither in a canoe by stress of weather; and what +Tamatoa had heard from them had so impressed him that he had +persuaded his people to build a place of worship, <!-- page +246--><a name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +246</span>observe the Sunday, and meet to repeat together the +scant lessons they had been able to receive during the visit of +the Tahitians. This led to a resolve to entreat for the +presence of a missionary among them; and the chieftain himself +came to Huahime to make the request. Williams longed to go, +but, as the youngest minister, waited till all the rest had +decided to the contrary, and then gladly accepted his lot to go +with Tamatoa. There was a joyous welcome, and a feast was +brought, consisting of five pigs for Mr. Williams, five for his +wife, and five for their baby-boy; besides crates of yams, +bananas, and cocoa-nuts, which, however, they were not required +to eat themselves, only to see eaten in their house.</p> +<p>The islanders were ready to give up their idols and call +themselves Christians, to hear Mr. Williams preach, and to +observe the Sabbath; being, in fact, like the Red Indians of +Eliot’s experience, so idle that a day of no work made no +difference to them. Their indolence, the effect of their +enervating climate, was well-nigh invincible; they preferred +hunger to trouble, and withal their customs were abhorrent to +Christian morality. Most islets of the South Seas have much +the same experience. The people, taken on their best side, +show themselves gentle and intelligent, and their chiefs are +dignified gentlemen; but there is a horrible background of +ferocity and barbarism—often cannibalism. It +generally proves comparatively easy to obtain a recognition of +Christianity, and the cruelty and violence are usually laid +aside; but to bring purity and morality to bear upon these races +is a much more difficult thing, and the apparent failures have +been at once the grief and reproach of missionaries, while those +who assail them with scoffs forget the difficulty of dealing with +the inveterate customs of a whole people, in a luxurious climate, +and with little or no inducement to such industrial occupations +or refinements of mind, as are the best auxiliaries of religion +in raising the tone.</p> +<p>Lands where cold is unknown, and where fruit grows as freely +as in Paradise, offer no inducement to labour; and the +missionaries, striving in vain to lead the people to think +occupation a duty, were deserted as being troublesome when they +bade them to work. A school which the Williams’s set +up was more popular; the Polynesians had no lack of brains, and +reading and writing were pleasanter than digging and building, or +carrying logs.</p> +<p><!-- page 247--><a name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +247</span>Thinking that examples of the civilization that the +islanders had never seen would do more for their advance than +anything else, Mr. Williams, with such assistance as he could +obtain from the natives, built himself a house with eight rooms, +sash windows with Venetian blinds, a verandah, and a most +beautiful garden, and filled it with polished furniture, made by +his own clever mechanical hands. With the assistance of one +or two other missionaries who joined him, he succeeded in thus +exciting a certain emulation among the natives. The king +had a house built for him like that of the white men, others +followed, and thus a very important step was made out of the +degraded customs encouraged by the old oval huts. The +coral, made into lime, afforded excellent material for plaster, +and trades began to be fostered among the natives; they became +carpenters, blacksmiths, plasterers, boat-builders, and acquired +some ideas of agriculture. By the end of the second year, +the chapel and school stood in the midst of white cottages; the +population still wore clothing made of their own bark cloth, but +in imitation of that of their teachers, and the open savagery of +the island was gone. The congregation assembled three times +on Sunday, and there was family prayer in almost every +house. Cannibalism was ended, and so was infanticide, one +of the most terrible customs of the island, for there was +scarcely a woman above thirty who had not put to death several of +her infants. Much had been done, although the good man to +whom so much was owing did not feel satisfied that the profession +in many cases was thoroughly deep, and he still knew of many an +inveterate evil, that only time, discipline, and above all +heartfelt religion, could uproot.</p> +<p>A large chapel, built with all the taste and ornament that he +could achieve, was erected, the sides wattled, the roof supported +by pillars of tree-trunks, and the floors and pews, the pulpit +and desk, which were all to which the young ironmonger at the +Tabernacle attached the notion of a worthy place of worship, were +solid and well finished. He even fashioned some chandeliers +for evening service, and these so astonished the Raiateans, that +on first entering the chapel, they broke out into a cry of amaze, +“Oh, Britannia! Britannia!” and gave the name +to England of “the land whose customs were without +end.”</p> +<p>The opening of this chapel was one great step in Mr. +Williams’s <!-- page 248--><a name="page248"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 248</span>work; the next was the inducing +Tamatoa and the other chiefs to bind themselves to govern by a +code of Christian laws, not complex, but based on the Ten +Commandments, and agreeing with those newly established by Pomare +in Tahiti, but with this difference, that Williams ventured to +introduce trial by jury, in the hope that it would tend to +qualify the despotic power of the chiefs. Tamatoa’s +brother, Pahi, was appointed judge, and the community was +arranged on a Christian basis. The congregation was +likewise put under regular discipline after the example of the +Independents in England, with ruling pastors and elders appointed +from among the people; and an auxiliary Missionary Society was +formed for assisting in the conversion of the other isles.</p> +<p>Just as this was thoroughly arranged, in about the fourth year +of his mission, Williams suffered from a malady which seemed to +him and his companion, Mr. Threlkeld, to necessitate his return +home. The information was received by the islanders with +something like despair. Old King Tamatoa came to him and +said, “Viriamu, I have been thinking you are a strange +man. <span class="smcap">Jesus</span> did not take care of +His body. He did not even shrink from death, and now you +are afflicted you are going to leave us.”</p> +<p>Prayer was offered all over the island, and in the midst of +all the preparations for departure the disease began to +ameliorate, and Mr. Williams recovered for a time, though the +next year a recurrence of the attack made him resolve upon a +visit to Sydney, not only for the sake of advice, but in the hope +of establishing a market for the produce of the Society Isles, +which might give a motive to the industry he was so anxious to +promote, and likewise to obtain a vessel to be used for the +missions.</p> +<p>Two Raiatean teachers instructed by him were landed at the +island of Aitutake on the way, after the chiefs had pledged +themselves to support and protect them, and the voyage was +continued to Australia, where there was as usual a warm reception +from Mr. Marsden. It was a very important visit. +Parts of the Holy Scriptures, catechisms, and spelling-books, +were printed; the ship, with the assistance of the Society of +which Marsden was agent, was purchased, a schooner of ninety +tons, and named <i>Te Matama</i>, the Beginner; a person named +Scott secured, at 150<i>l.</i> per annum, to instruct the natives +in the cultivation of sugar <!-- page 249--><a +name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 249</span>and +tobacco, and stores laid in of presents for the natives, clothes +for the women, shoes, stockings, tea-kettles, tea-cups, saucers, +and tea. The natives had a great liking for tea, and as +they could not cherish cups and saucers without shelves to put +them on, all this was an indirect mode of introducing European +comforts and decencies. As to shoes, there can be no spade +husbandry with an unshod foot, and thus the system of +hoeing-women doing all the labour was attacked.</p> +<p>On the way back to Raiatea, Mr. Williams visited New Zealand, +but not at a favourable moment, for the chiefs were at war, and +he had to hurry away. The cargo was gladly welcomed at +Raiatea, and the desire to purchase European dress was found a +great incentive to industry.</p> +<p>In 1823, Mr. Williams began a series of missionary +voyages. The events of these have almost too much sameness +for description, though full of interest in detail. The +people, when taken on their right side, were almost always ready +to admit teachers, and adopt certain externals, though the true +essentials of Christianity were of much slower growth. Our +limits prevent us from giving much of detail of his intercourse +with these isles. Raiatea was his first home, Rarotonga his +second. There he placed his family, which long consisted of +his one boy, John, born in Tahiti, all Mrs. Williams’s +subsequent babes scarcely living to see the light, until, in the +sixteenth year of her Polynesian life, another son rejoiced +her. She became a centre and pattern of domestic life, and +instructed the women in feminine habits, and she patiently +encountered the anxieties and perils, chiefly from storm and +hurricane, that beset her life. The chief troubles that Mr. +Williams encountered at Raiatea, were the vices that civilization +brought. After old Tamatoa’s death, his son allowed a +distillery to be established, and drunkenness threatened to +overthrow the habits so diligently taught. May be, the +Puritanical form of religion and the acquired tastes of the +London tradesman did not allow brightness and beauty enough to +these children of the South, and tempted them by proscribing +things innocent, but there is no telling: nothing but strictness +seemed a sufficient protection from the foul rites of idolatry, +and all that his judgment or devotion could devise for these +people Williams and his fellows did.</p> +<p>The Samoan group of islands was one of those where the people +showed the most intelligence. They were already great <!-- +page 250--><a name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +250</span>cultivators of the toilette. A Samoan beau +glistened from the head to the hips with sweet-scented oil, and +was tastefully tattooed from the hips to the knees; he wore a +bandage of red leaves oiled and shining, a head-dress formed of a +pearly disk of nautilus-shell, and a string of small white shells +round each arm. His lady was not tattooed, but spotted all +over, and when in full attire, wore a beautiful white silky mat +at her waist, a wreath of sweet flowers round her head, rows of +large blue beads round her neck, and the upper part of her person +was tinged with turmeric rouge.</p> +<p>These Samoans, though they deified many animals, had no +temples, idols, priests, nor sacrifices, and thus were more than +usually amenable to Christian ideas; and on Mr. Williams’s +second visit to the island, he had a numerous congregation, but +so arranged that he could hardly keep his countenance. Some +had their long hair greased and stiffened into separate locks, +standing erect like quills upon the fretful porcupine; while +others wore it cultivated into one huge bush, stiffened with +coral line, diversified with turmeric. Indeed, there is no +rest for such heads as these—none of their wearers dares to +sleep without a little stool to support his neck, so as not to +crush his <i>chevelure</i> against the ground.</p> +<p>These fine gentlemen had a readiness and intelligence about +them that warmed to the first rays of light. They listened +eagerly, and their attachment to the missionary was expressed in +a song sung in what they called a “heavenly dance” of +the ladies in his honour, when he had remained with them long +enough to plant the good seed of a growing church.</p> +<blockquote><p> “Let us talk of +Viriamu,<br /> + Let cocoa-nuts glow in peace for months;<br /> +When strong the east winds blow, our hearts forget him not.<br /> +Let us greatly love the Christian land of the great white +chief.<br /> +All victors are we now, for we all have one God.<br /> +No food is sacred now. All kinds of fish we catch and +eat,<br /> + Even the sting-ray.</p> +<p> The birds are crying for Viriamu,<br /> + His ship has sailed another +way.<br /> + The birds are crying for Viriamu,<br /> + Long time is he in coming.<br /> + Will he ever +come again?<br /> + Will he ever +come again?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It was some time before he could come again; for, after <!-- +page 251--><a name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +251</span>eighteen years of unremitting labour in the isles of +Raiatea and Rarotonga, and of voyages touching on many other +isles, he had made up his mind to visit England.</p> +<p>He came home in 1834, and remained about four years, doing +much for his cause by his personal narratives and vivid accounts +of the people to whom he had devoted his life. Curiously +enough, his son, now a youth of twenty, was introduced to Earl +Fitzwilliam’s gardener, who proved to have been one of the +mission party who had been captured in the <i>Duff</i> on the +second voyage, and who was delighted to hear of the wonderful +progress of the cause from which he himself had been turned +back.</p> +<p>A subscription was raised for the purchase of a mission ship, +exceeding in size and suitability such craft as could be +purchased or hired in Australia; and the <i>Camden</i>, a vessel +admirably fitted for the purpose, was obtained and equipped at a +cost of 2,600<i>l.</i>, the command of her given to Captain +Morgan, who was well experienced in the navigation of the +Polynesian seas, and had, moreover, such a reputation for piety, +that the natives termed his vessel “the praying +ship.”</p> +<p>In this vessel a large reinforcement of missionaries was taken +out, including a married pair for Samoa, and likewise young John +Williams, who had found himself an English wife; but his little +brother was left at home for education. The intention of +Williams was to station the missionaries upon the friendly isles, +and himself circulate among them in the <i>Camden</i>, breaking +fresh ground in yet unvisited isles, and stationing first native +and then English teachers, as they were prepared for them.</p> +<p>Among the Samoans he remained a good while. He estimated +the population at 60,000, of whom nearly 50,000 were under +instruction. Several places of worship were opened with +feasts, at which huge hecatombs of swine were +consumed—1,370 at one festival. One young chief under +instruction became so good a preacher, that Williams called him +the Whitfield of Samoa; and these islands have, under the +training then set on foot, furnished many a missionary and even +martyr to the isles around, and are, to the present day, one of +the happiest specimens of the effects of missionary labour.</p> +<p>The want of extended views in good Mr. Williams was shown in +his manner of regarding the expected arrival of some Roman +Catholic priests in the Polynesian seas. He set to <!-- +page 252--><a name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +252</span>work to translate Foxe’s “Book of +Martyrs,” and begged that a present offered him for his +people might be expended in slides illustrating it for a +beautiful magic lantern which he already possessed, and whose +Scripture scenes drew tears from the natives. He had not +Church knowledge enough to rise above the ordinary popular view +of “Popery,” and did not understand its Christianity +enough to see the evils of sowing the bitterest seeds of the +Protestant controversy among scarcely reclaimed heathens.</p> +<p>On their side, the Roman Catholics would have done better to +enter on untrodden ground, of which there was such an infinity, +than to force themselves where, if they did not find their +Church, at least they found faith in the Saviour. But the +Society Isles were coveted, for political reasons, by the +existing French Government, and the struggle was there beginning, +of which Mr. Williams was not destined to see the unfortunate +conclusion.</p> +<p>Raiatea he found much improving; and at Rarotonga civilization +had made such progress, that the chiefs house was two storeys +high, with ten bedrooms, and good furniture made in imitation of +English, and any linen Mr. Williams left in his room was +immediately washed, ironed, and laid ready for use. Much of +the lurking heathenism was giving way, and fair progress being +made in religious feeling, when, after a stay in Samoa, where +Mrs. Williams now chiefly resided, John Williams set out on an +exploring voyage in the <i>Camden</i>.</p> +<p>Strangely enough, his last text in preaching to the Samoans +was, “Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, +that they should see his face no more;” and the people, who +always grieved whenever he left them, wept as bitterly at the +words as if they had known them to be an omen. He was bent +on an attempt on the heathen isle of Erromango, which his wife +viewed with a foreboding terror, that made her in vain try to +extract a promise from him not to land there.</p> +<p>But he viewed the New Hebrides as an important link, leading +perhaps to reaching the Papuan race in New Guinea. He hoped +to gain a footing there, and make the spot such a centre as +Tahiti, Raiatea, Rarotonga, and Samoa had successively been; and, +as the <i>Camden</i> glided along the shores of the island, he +talked of his schemes, and of a certain sense of fear that they +gave him, lest they were too vast to be accomplished <!-- page +253--><a name="page253"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 253</span>by +his means and in his lifetime, but with the sanguine buoyancy of +a man still in full vigour, and who had met with almost unmixed +success.</p> +<p>On the 20th of November, 1839, the vessel entered +Dillon’s Bay, and a canoe with three men paddled up to +her. A boat was lowered, in which Mr. Williams, two other +missionaries named Harris and Cunningham, Captain Morgan, and +four sailors seated themselves. They tried to converse with +the natives, but the language proved to be unlike any in use in +Polynesia (it is, in fact, one of the Melanesian dialects), and +not a word could be made out.</p> +<p>Pulling into a creek, some beads and a small looking-glass +were thrown to the natives, and water asked for by signs. +It was brought, and this gave more confidence. Harris then +waded ashore. At first the people ran away, but Mr. +Williams called to him to sit down, and, on his doing so, they +came nearer, and offered him some cocoa-nut milk. Mr. +Williams observed little boys at play, and thought it a good +sign. Captain Morgan wished they had been women, because +the natives always send their wives out of the way when they mean +violence. However, Williams landed, and divided some cloth +among those who stood nearest. Then Harris began to walk +forward into the bush, Williams following, and, with a crowd of +natives round him, was counting in Samoan, trying whether the +boys around would recognize the names of the figures. +Cunningham did not like the countenances of the natives, and +remarked it to him, but was not heard. Stooping to pick up +a shell, Cunningham was startled by a yell, and Harris came +rushing along, pursued by a native. Williams turned and +looked, a blast on a shell was heard, and he too fled. +Cunningham reached the boat in safety, but Harris fell in +crossing a small brook, and the natives were at once upon him +with their clubs. Williams had made for the sea, apparently +intending to swim off and let the boat pick him up, but the beach +was stony; he fell as he reached the water, and the natives with +their clubs and arrows had fallen upon him before Morgan could +turn his boat’s head to the spot, under a shower of arrows, +which forced him to put off.</p> +<p>He saw the body lying on the beach, and fired a gun, loaded +with powder, in hopes of driving away the natives and rescuing +it; but they dragged it away into the bush, and all that was left +<!-- page 254--><a name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +254</span>for him to do was to sail for Sydney, whence a +Queen’s ship, the <i>Favourite</i>, was despatched to +endeavour to recover the remains, and to convey the tidings to +Samoa.</p> +<p>By the 26th of February the vessel arrived. The +war-conch was heard, and the savages were seen flying in all +directions; but, as there was no intention of exacting a revenge, +means of communication were at last arranged, and it was +discovered that these two good men had furnished a cannibal +feast, but that their skulls and many of their bones had been +preserved, and these were recovered and carried on board +ship. The Erromangans have always been an exceptionally +treacherous and savage race, and, even to the present day, are +more hostile to white men, and more addicted to cannibalism, than +any of the other islanders.</p> +<p>The <i>Favourite</i> then proceeded to Samoa, where the +weeping and wailing of the tender-hearted race was +overwhelming. Mrs. Williams, in her silent English sorrow, +was made the centre of a multitude of frantic mourners. +“Aue kriamu, aue Viriamu, our father, our father! He +has turned his face from us! We shall never see him +more! He that brought us the good word of salvation is +gone! Oh, cruel heathen, they knew not what they did. +How great a man they have destroyed!”</p> +<p>Such laments went on round the widow in the wild poetic +language of the poor Samoans, till the other teachers, by their +prayers and sermons, had produced a somewhat calmer tone; and the +funeral took place beside the chapel, attended by the officers +and crew of the <i>Favourite</i>, and a great concourse of +natives.</p> +<p>“Alas, Viriamu!” was the cry in every Christian +Polynesian island for many a day; and well it might be, for, in +spite of the shortcomings of a poorly-educated ministry and a +tropical and feeble race, there are few who ever turned more men +from darkness to light, from cannibal fury to Christian love, +than the Martyr of Erromango,—John Williams,—one of +the happiest of missionaries, in that to him was given the +martyr’s crown, in the full tide of his success and +hope.</p> +<h2><!-- page 255--><a name="page255"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 255</span>CHAPTER X. ALLEN GARDINER, THE +SAILOR MARTYR.</h2> +<p>The biography we next have to turn to is not that of a +founder, scarcely that of a pioneer, but rather of a brave +guerilla, whose efforts were little availing because wanting in +combination, and undirected, but who, nevertheless, has left +behind him a heart-thrilling name won by unflinching +self-devotion even unto death.</p> +<p>Allen Francis Gardiner, the fifth son of a Berkshire squire, +was born in 1794. He was a born sailor, and became a +midshipman before the end of the great war of the French +revolution; but the only naval action in which he was engaged was +against the American vessel <i>Essex</i>, which was captured by +his ship, the <i>Phœbe</i>, off Valparaiso. Allen +Gardiner had been carefully brought up by a good mother, but her +death in his early youth cast him loose and left him without any +influence to keep up serious impressions. He drifted into +carelessness and godlessness, though at times some old +remembrance, roused by danger or by a comrade’s death, +would sting him sharply. Once, feeling ashamed of having +forgotten the very words of Scripture, he made up his mind to buy +a Bible, and then was so full of false shame that he waited about +in the street till the shop should be empty, and then only +thought how odd his demand must seem to the bookseller.</p> +<p>Most likely this was at Portsmouth, for he had there met a +lady who had been with his mother at her death, and had given him +a narrative of her last days, which his father had written, but +from some sense of want of sympathy had withheld from the +son. The friend judged him better. The copy in his +own handwriting bears the date, “Portsmouth, November 18, +1818,” and therewith was a little Bible with the same date +written in it. For two years, however, this produced no +effect; but in 1820, when at Penang, as a lieutenant in the +<i>Dauntless</i>, Allen received a letter of grave reproof from +his father, and one of warm kindness and expostulation from the +same lady, his mother’s friend, together with some +books. Nothing would have seemed <!-- page 256--><a +name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 256</span>more +hopeless than the chance that a letter from a religious old lady +would make an impression on a dashing young naval officer, and +yet Allen Gardiner always considered this as the turning-point of +his life, and connected it with his mother’s prayers.</p> +<p>It was when his thoughts were directed to religious subjects, +and his intelligence freshly excited, that he visited the coasts +of South America, the region above all others where the Roman +Catholic Church is seen to the most disadvantage. Two +things most especially struck him, the remnants of the +Inquisition at Lima, and the discovery that the poor were buried +without prayer or mass. Such scenes as these gave him an +extreme horror of Romanism and all that he supposed to be +connected therewith, and his next station at Tahiti, in all the +freshness of the newly established mission, full of devout +people, filled him with strong enthusiasm for the good men who +were carrying out the work. Shortly after he was invalided +home, and as soon as he was fit for employment he offered himself +to the London Missionary Society, begging them to send him to the +neglected Indians of South America; but this did not suit their +plans, and his ardour was slackened by the more common affairs of +life. He fell in love and married a young lady named Julia +Reade, and his only voyage was in his naval, not his missionary +capacity. But his wife’s health was exceedingly +frail, and after eleven years of marriage she died, leaving four +children, a fifth having preceded her to the grave. Beside +her death-bed Allen Gardiner made a solemn dedication of himself +to act as a pioneer in one or other of the most neglected parts +of the earth, not so much to establish missions himself as to +reconnoitre the ground and prepare the way for their +establishment.</p> +<p>Africa was the country to which his attention was first +called. His wife died in May 1834, and the 24th of August +was the last Sunday he spent in England, at Calbourne, the native +parish of Charles Simeon. He sailed at once for Cape +Colony, where the English, who had in the course of the +Revolutionary war obtained possession of the ground from the +original settlers, the Dutch, were making progress in every +direction, and coming into collision, not with the spiritless +Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope itself, but with that far +more spirited and intellectual race, the +Kaffirs—unbelievers, as the name meant—they being in +fact of Arab descent, though Africanized by <!-- page 257--><a +name="page257"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 257</span>their +transition through tropical latitudes, and not Mahometans. +Such traditional religion as they possessed seemed to be +vanishing, since only a few of the elders retained a curious +legend of a supreme Deity who sent another Divine being to +“publish the news,” and divide the sexes. A +message was sent to him from the Power in heaven to announce that +man should not die, but this was committed to that tardy reptile +the chameleon; then another message that man should die was given +to the lizard, who outran the chameleon, and thus brought death +into the world.</p> +<p>Sir Benjamin D’Urban had just been appointed Governor, +and it was apprehended that a war must take place, since the +settlers were continually liable to sudden attacks by these wild +Kaffirs, who burnt, slew, and robbed any homestead they fell +upon. Captain Gardiner thought, and justly, that it would +be better to begin by proclaiming the glad tidings of peace to +these wild and ignorant people rather than to meet them with the +strong hand of war. The colony was lamentably deficient in +clergy, and the missions that existed were chiefly to the +Hottentots and Bushmen. The Moravians, whose work we have +not mentioned because it is a history in itself, had some +excellent establishments, but no one had yet attempted to +penetrate into the home of the Kaffirs themselves, the Zulu +country, to endeavour to deal with their chieftains. This +was Allen Gardiner’s intention, and on his outward voyage +he met with a Polish refugee named Berken, who had intended to +settle in Australia, but was induced to become his companion in +his explorations in South Africa.</p> +<p>They rode together from Capetown to Grahamstown, where they +obtained an interpreter named George Cyrus, and began to travel +in the regular South African fashion, namely, with waggons fitted +for sleeping in, and drawn by huge teams of oxen, and taking +seven horses with them. Their first adventure during a halt +at the Buffalo river was the loss of all their oxen, who were +driven off by some natives. They applied to the chief of +the tribe, named Tzatzoe, who recovered the cattle for them, but +showed himself an insatiable beggar, even asking why, as Mr. +Berken had two shoes, he could not spare him one of them. +However, he was honest enough, when Mr. Berken chanced to leave +his umbrella behind him, to send after him to ask whether he knew +that he had left his <i>house</i>.</p> +<p><!-- page 258--><a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +258</span>The next anxiety was at a spot called the Yellow-wood +River, where the mid-day halt was disturbed by an assembly of +natives with a hostile appearance. Captain Gardiner sent +orders to collect the oxen, and in-span (<i>i.e.</i> harness) +them as soon as possible, but without appearance of alarm, and in +the meantime he tried to keep the natives occupied. To one +he lent his penknife, and after the man had vainly tried to cut +off his own beard with it, he offered to shave him, lathered him +well, and performed the operation like a true barber, then showed +him his face in a glass. His only disappointment was that +the moustache had not been removed, and as by this time the razor +was past work, Captain Gardiner had to pacify him by assuring him +that such was the appearance of many English warriors (for these +were the days when moustaches were confined to the +cavalry). The amusement this excited occupied them nearly +long enough, but hostile murmurs then began to be +heard—“One of our chiefs has been killed by the white +men, no more shall enter our country!” Fearing that +an angry word would be fatal, Captain Gardiner asked for a +war-song, promising some tobacco at the conclusion. +Accordingly they danced madly, and shouted at the top of their +voices,</p> +<blockquote><p>“No white man shall drink our milk,<br /> +No white man shall eat our children’s bread.<br /> +Ho-how! ho-how! ho-how!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But this couplet often repeated seemed to work off their rage; +they accepted the tobacco, and sullenly said the travellers might +pass, but they were the last who should. This was in the +Amakosa country, lying between the Grahamstown settlement and +Port Natal, and to the present day unannexed, though even then +there were traders’ stations at intervals, so filthy and +wretched as to be little above the huts of the natives. +These Amakosa tribes were such thieves that great vigilance was +needed to prevent property being stolen; but the next tribes, the +Amapondas, were scrupulously honest and friendly to the +English. Their chief was found by Gardiner and Berken +dressed in a leopard’s skin, sitting in state under a +canopy of shields, trying a rain-maker, who had failed to bring +showers in consequence of not having his dues of cattle delivered +to him! The chief advised them not to proceed, as he said +the Zulus were angry people who would kill them; but they pushed +on, <!-- page 259--><a name="page259"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 259</span>though finding that the journey +occupied much longer than they expected, so that provisions +became a difficulty.</p> +<p>A full month had passed since leaving Grahamstown, and +Gardiner decided on pressing on upon horseback, leaving Mr. +Berken to bring up the waggons, and taking with him the +interpreter and two natives. The distance was 180 miles, +and a terrible journey it was. A few waggon tracks had made +a sort of road, but this was not always to be distinguished from +hippopotamus paths, which led into horrible morasses, where the +horses almost entirely disappeared, and had to be scooped out as +it were by the hands; moreover, scarcely any food was to be +had. In crossing one river one of the horses was so +irretrievably stuck in a quicksand that humanity required it to +be shot, and at the next, the Umkamas, the stream was so swollen +that the Captain had to devise a canoe by sewing two cowskins +together with sinews and stretching it upon branches, in which, +as no one save himself had any notion of boating, he shoved off +alone. The stream was too strong for him, and he had to +return and obtain the help of the only good swimmer among his +party. With him he crossed, but with no food save a +canister of sugar! However, the native swam back and +fetched a loaf of bread, while Captain Gardiner waited among the +reeds, hearing the snorting and grunting of hippopotami all +round. The transit of the natives was secured by the +holding a sort of float made of a bundle of reeds, and in the +morning, as the river was too high for the rest of the party to +cross, he brought over a few necessaries, and a horse, with which +the Captain was able to proceed to Port Natal, where he found +English traders, and sent back supplies to those in the rear.</p> +<p>The Zulus, on whom his attention was fixed, inhabit a fine +country to the north of the Tugela, which is considered as the +boundary of the British territory. The nation is full of +intelligence and spirit, and by no means incapable of +improvement, and their princes have been for generations past men +of considerable natural ability, and of iron will, but often +savagely cruel. The first known to Englishmen was named +Charka, a great warrior, who kept his armies in a rude but +thorough discipline, and had made considerable conquests. +About the year 1829, Charka had been murdered by his brother +Dingarn, who had reigned ever since, and was the terror of the +English settlers, who were beginning to immigrate into the +fertile terraced <!-- page 260--><a name="page260"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 260</span>country of Natal. His forays +might at any time sweep away farms and homesteads; and his +subjects were continually fleeing from his violence across the +Tugela, and thus might bring him down as a pursuer.</p> +<p>Allen Gardiner’s plan was to go to the fountain head and +endeavour to deal with the chief himself, so as to make him a +Christian instead of an enemy. With this end he set out +absolutely unaccompanied, except by Cyrus the interpreter, and a +Zulu servant whom he had hired named Umpondombeni, and this with +the knowledge that an English officer had shortly before been +treacherously murdered, and that Dingarn was a blood-stained +savage.</p> +<p>The king had been informed of his coming, and had pronounced +that he was <i>his</i> white man, and should make haste to +Umkingoglove, his present abode. The first view of this +place, with a double circular fence around it, resembled a +race-course, the huts being ranged along the ring of the +enclosure so as to leave the centre free for the reviews and war +dances of the Kaffirs. Gardiner was very near entering by +the wrong gate, in which case all his escort would have been put +to death. A hut was assigned to him, a sort of beehive of +grass and mud, with a hole to enter by. His own lines, +strung together in his many unoccupied moments for his +children’s benefit, are so good a description of the Kaffir +huts that form a kraal or village, as to be worth +inserting:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I see them now, those four low props<br /> + That held the haystack o’er my head,<br /> +The dusky framework from their tops<br /> + Like a large mouse-trap round me spread.</p> +<p>To stand erect I never tried,<br /> + For reasons you may guess:<br /> +Full fourteen feet my hut was wide,<br /> + Its height was nine feet less.</p> +<p>My furniture, a scanty store,<br /> + On saddle-bags beside me laid,<br /> +A hurdle, used to close the door,<br /> + Raised upon stones, my table made.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There he received a bundle of the native sugar-cane, a bowl of +maize beer from Dingarn, and was invited to his palace.</p> +<p>This was surrounded by a fence, outside which the Captain was +desired to sit down. Presently a black head and very <!-- +page 261--><a name="page261"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +261</span>stout pair of shoulders appeared above it, and a keen +sable visage eyed the visitor fixedly for some time, in silence, +which was only broken by these words, while indicating an ox, +“There is the beast I give you to slaughter.” +His black majesty then vanished, but presently to reappear from +beneath the gateway dressed in a long blue cloak, with a white +collar, and devices at the back. After directing the +distribution of some heaps of freshly slain oxen that lay around, +he stood like a statue till a seat was brought him, and then +entered into conversation. Captain Gardiner made him +understand that trade was not the object of the visit; but the +real purpose was quite beyond him; he seemed to regard what was +proposed to him as an impossibility, and began to inquire after +the presents, which, unfortunately, were still on the road.</p> +<p>The delay exposed the Captain to some inconvenience and +danger, and two <i>indunas</i>, or chiefs, a sort of prime +ministers, who were offended with him for not having applied to +the king through them, treated him with increasing +insolence. At last he persuaded them that he had better +send a note to hasten the coming of the presents, and he also +managed to write a letter for England, on his last half-sheet of +paper, by the light of a lamp made of a rag wick floating in +native butter in a calabash. From time to time he was +called upon to witness the wonderful evolutions, manœuvres, +and mock fights in the camp. The men were solely soldiers; +the women did all the work, planting maize, weeding corn, and +herding cattle, and thus the more wives a man had the more slaves +he could employ. Every wife had a value, and could only be +obtained from her father for a certain price in cattle, varying +according to his rank. If the full rate were not paid, she +remained, as well as her children, the property of her father or +the head of her family. The king, having the power to help +himself, had an establishment of ninety women, who on gala-days, +or when his army was going to take the field, were drawn up in a +regiment, all wearing two long feathers on the top of their +heads, a veil of strings of coloured beads over their faces, bead +skirts, and brass rings over their throats and arms; these beads +being the current coin of the traders. They approached and +retreated in files, flourishing their arms like bell-ringers, +while they sang:—</p> +<blockquote><p> “Arise, +vulture,<br /> +Thou art the bird that eateth other birds.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 262--><a name="page262"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +262</span>These were, however, not wives, only female +slaves. Either from jealousy of possible sons growing up, +or from the desire not to be considered as in the ranks of the +<i>umpagati</i>—elders or married men—neither Charka +nor Dingarn would marry, and no man could take a wife without the +king’s permission. Dingarn wore his head closely +shaven, whereas the married trained their woolly hair to fasten +over a circle of reed, so as to look much as if they had an +inverted saucepan on their heads. Besides this they wore +nothing but a sort of apron of skin before and behind, except +when gaily arrayed in beads, or ornaments of leopard’s fur +and teeth, for dancing or for battle. Their wealth was +their cattle, and their mealie or maize grounds; their food, +beef, mealies, and curdled milk; their drink, beer, made of +maize; their great luxury, snuff, made of dried dacca and burnt +aloes, and taken from an ivory spoon. Though sometimes +acting with great cruelty, and wholly ignorant, they were by no +means a dull or indolent people; they were full of courage and +spirit, excellent walkers and runners, capable of learning and of +thinking, and with much readiness to receive new ideas.</p> +<p>The presents arrived, and the red cloak, made of the long +scarlet nap often used in linings, was presented, and gave +infinite satisfaction; the king tried it on first himself, then +judged of the effect upon the back of one of his servants, caused +it to be carried flowing through the air, and finally hung it up +outside his palace for the admiration of his subjects, then laid +it by for the great national festival at the feast of +first-fruits.</p> +<p>Captain Gardiner’s object was to obtain a house and +piece of land and protection for a Christian missionary, and with +this object he remained at the kraal, trying to make some +impression on Dingarn, and the two indunas, who assured him that +they were the king’s eyes and ears. Thus he became +witness to much horrible barbarity. One of the least +shocking of Dingarn’s acts was the exhibiting the powers of +a burning-glass that had been given him, by burning a hole in the +wrist of one of his servants; and his indifference to the pain +and death of others was frightful. His own brother, the +next in succession, was, with his two servants, put to death +through some jealousy; and, more horrible still, every living +creature in thirty villages belonging to him was massacred as a +matter of course.</p> +<p>Captain Gardiner, though often horrified and sickened by the +sights he was obliged to witness, remained for a month, and then, +<!-- page 263--><a name="page263"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +263</span>after accompanying the king on his march, and seeing +some astonishing reviews and dances of his wild warriors, made +another effort; but the king referred him to the two indunas, and +the indunas were positive that they did not wish to learn, either +they or their people. They would never hear nor understand +his book, but if he would instruct them in the use of the musket +he was welcome to stay. Dingarn pronounced, “I will +not overrule the decision of my indunas;” but, probably +looking on the white man as a mine of presents, he politely +invited Gardiner to return.</p> +<p>So ended his first attempt, and with no possessions remaining +except his clothes, his saddle, a spoon, and a Testament, he +proceeded to the Tugela, where he met his friend Berken, who had +made up his mind to settle in Natal, and he set out to return to +England for the purchase of stock and implements; but the vessel +in which he sailed was never heard of more.</p> +<p>Captain Gardiner remained at Port Natal, which in 1835 +consisted of a cluster of huts, all of them built Kaffir-fashion, +like so many hollow haycocks, except Mr. Collis’s, which +was regarded as English because it had upright sides, with a good +garden surrounded by reeds. About thirty English and a few +Hottentots clustered around, and some three thousand Zulus, +refugees from Dingarn’s cruelty, who showed themselves +ready and willing to work for hire, but who exposed their masters +to the danger of the king coming after them with fire and +assagai. Hitherto on such an alarm the whole settlement had +been wont to take to the woods, but their numbers were so +increasing that they were beginning to erect a stockade and think +of defence.</p> +<p>To this little germ of a colony, Allen Gardiner brought the +first recollection of Christian faith and duty. On Sunday +mornings he stood under a tree, as he had been wont to do on the +deck of his ship, and read the Church Service in English to such +as would come round him and be reminded of their homes; in the +afternoon, by the help of his interpreter, he prayed with and for +the Kaffirs, and expounded the truths of the Gospel; and in the +week, he kept school for such Kaffir children as he could +collect, dressing them decently in printed calico. He began +with very few, partly because many parents fancied he would steal +and make slaves of them, and partly because he wished to train a +few to be in advance and act as <!-- page 264--><a +name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 264</span>monitors to +the rest. The English were on very good terms with him, and +allotted a piece of land for a missionary settlement, which he +called Berea, and began to build upon it in the fashion of the +country.</p> +<p>Fresh threats from Dingarn led the settlers to try to come to +a treaty with him, by which he was to leave them unmolested with +all their Kaffirs, on their undertaking to harbour no more of his +deserters. There was something hard in this, considering +the horrid barbarities from which the deserters fled, and the +impossibility of carrying out the agreement, as no one could +undertake to watch the Tugela; but Captain Gardiner, always eager +and hasty, thinking that he should thus secure safety for the +colony and opportunities for the mission, undertook the embassy, +and set forth in a waggon with two Zulus and Cyrus, falling in on +the way with one of the grotesque parties of European hunters, +who were wont to go on expeditions after the elephant, +hippopotamus, and buffalo, with a hunting train of Hottentots and +Kaffirs in their company. On whose aspect he remarks +truly:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I’ve seen the savage in his wildest +mood,<br /> +And marked him reeked with human blood,<br /> + But never so repulsive made.<br /> +Something incongruous strikes the mind<br /> +Whene’er a barbarous race we find<br /> + With shreds of civil life displayed.</p> +<p>There’s more of symmetry, however bare,<br /> +In what a savage deigns to wear,<br /> + In keeping with the scene.<br /> +These, each deformed by what he wears,<br /> +Like apes that dance at country fairs,<br /> + Seemed but a link between.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Dingarn proved to be at Congella, another circular town or +kraal, on the top of a hill. He gave a ready welcome to the +Captain, and his presents—some looking-glasses, a pair of +epaulettes, and some coloured prints, especially full-lengths of +George IV. and William IV. The collection in a place such +as Natal then was must have been very hard to make, but it was +very successful, and still more so was the Captain’s +presenting himself in his uniform when he went to propose the +treaty. Dingarn said he must look at it before he could do +anything else, and fully appreciated the compliment when the +sailor said it was his war dress, in which he appeared before +King William. He agreed to <!-- page 265--><a +name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 265</span>the treaty, +but declared that the English would be the first to break +it. The Captain answered that a true Englishman never broke +a treaty, and that any white man who deceived was not the right +sort of Englishman; and the king responded that “now a +great chief was come, to whom he could speak his +heart.” Captain Gardiner tried to impress on him that +it was the fear of God that made himself an honourable man, and +to persuade him that the knowledge of the “Book” +would make him and his people still greater; and the next time of +meeting set forth an outline of the morality and promises of +Revelation. Dingarn was attentive, and said they were good +words, and that he would hear more of them, but in the meantime +Gardiner must go back to Natal and see that his people kept the +treaty. It was a good deal more than he could do. A +Kaffir inkosikase, or female chieftain, who, with two servants +and three children, was fleeing into Natal at the time of his +return, was sent back, with all her companions. The poor +creatures pleaded hard that the Captain would accompany them and +save them, and he returned with them, and interceded for them +with all his might, but soon found they were being starved to +death. “Their bonds must kill them,” said +Dingarn. A second great effort resulted in a little food +being sent, and a kind of promise that their lives should be +spared; but this was only made to get rid of him, and they all +perished after his departure.</p> +<p>Deserters, as Gardiner called the fugitives to reconcile the +surrender to his loyal English conscience, were hardly such as +these: they were the only ones ever sent back, and the loose wild +traders, who he ought to have known would never be bound by +treaties, were at that very time enticing Kaffirs, who could be +useful as herdsmen and labourers, across the frontier. This +led to great indignation from Dingarn, and he declared that no +Englishman save his favourite great chief should come near +him.</p> +<p>Meantime Gardiner was assisting an assembly of traders and +hunters who had decided on building a town—all shaggy, +unkempt, bearded men of the woods, who decided the spot, the +name, the arrangements, the spot for church and +magistrate’s house, by vote, on the 25th of June, 1835, the +birthday of the town of Durban, so called after Sir Benjamin +D’Urban, Governor of the Cape, while the Portuguese name of +Natal passed to the entire territory.</p> +<p><!-- page 266--><a name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +266</span>The dispute with Dingarn continuing, the Captain was +again sent to negotiate. This time he was received in the +royal mansion, a magnified beehive, where the king was lying on a +mat with his head on one of the little stools made to act as +pillows, with about fifty women ranged round. As to the +matter in question, Gardiner was able to declare that, in the +white settlement itself, no deserters had found a home since the +treaty, and that none should do so; Dingarn said he considered +him the chief of the whites there, and should look to him to keep +them in order. Gardiner explained that he had no +authority. “You must have power,” said +Dingarn. “I give you all the country of the white +people’s ford.” This was a piece of land +extending from the Tugela to the Nouzincoolu, from the Snowy +Mountains to the sea—in fact, the present whole colony of +Natal. A smaller portion, including the district about +Natal, was to be his own immediate property. Dingarn was +perfectly in earnest, and thus intended to make him responsible +for the conduct of every individual of the motley population of +Natal, declaring that he should receive no trader who did not +bring credentials from him. It was as curious a situation +as ever commander in the navy was placed in. All he could +do was to return to Durban, explain matters to Mr. Collis and the +other traders, and then set out for the Cape to consult Sir +Benjamin Durban.</p> +<p>His journey across the mountains was very perilous and +difficult, and took much longer than his sanguine nature had +reckoned; but he reached Grahamstown at last, and explained +matters to the Governor, who instantly sent off a British officer +to assume authority over the settlement at Natal, and try to keep +the peace with Dingarn, while Captain Gardiner embarked for +England to lay the state of things before Government and the +Church Missionary Society, at whose disposal he placed all his +own personal grant from Dingarn. When the prospects of the +mission were proclaimed, the Rev. Francis Owen volunteered for +it, and Captain Gardiner collected all that he thought needful +for the great work he hoped to carry out. He married Miss +Marsh, of Hampstead, and, with her and his three children, Mr. +Owen and his wife and sister, sailed on the 24th of December, +1836; but the arrival was a sorrowful one, for his eldest child, +a girl, of twelve years old, was slowly declining. She died +just as they <!-- page 267--><a name="page267"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 267</span>entered Durban Bay, and was buried +at Berea immediately on their arrival. As soon as the +Kaffirs heard of Captain Gardiner’s landing, they flocked +in to express their willingness to live under his +authority. He chose a pleasant spot for his home, and +having settled his family there, went up to see Dingarn. +The presents this time were indeed ecstatically received, and +especially a watch and seals, and a huge pair of gay worsted +slippers. “He took my measure before he went,” +cried Dingarn, who had tried a pair of boots before, but could +not get them on. The king was made to understand that his +gift of land must be not to the Captain, but to the King of +England, and with this he complied. He was also persuaded +to modify his demands; as to the fugitives, Gardiner undertook +not to encourage or employ them, but would not search them out or +return them. Mr. Owen was also favourably received, as the +<i>umfundisi</i> or teacher; a hut was allotted to him, and he +was allowed to preach. He took up his abode at +Umkingoglove, the first town where Captain Gardiner had seen the +king, held services and opened a school, often holding +conversations with the king. “Has God commanded kings +and indunas to learn His word?” demanded Dingarn; and he +actually did learn to read the words printed upon a card for the +children.</p> +<p>Meantime Captain Gardiner was forming his settlement at a +place which he had named in the Kaffir tongue, Hambanati, +“Go with us,” in allusion to Moses’ invitation +to Hobab: “Go with us, and we will do thee +good.” It was half-way between Durban Bay and the +Tugela, on a hill-side in the midst of the beautiful undulating +ground and rich wood characteristic of the country, and with a +river in front. There he had raised a thatched house for +himself, and around it Zulu huts were continually +multiplying. The English carpenter and labourers whom he +had brought out instructed the Kaffirs in various kinds of +labour, for which they were quite willing; and as they wore +decent garments, they were called the clothed tribe. School +was kept for the children in the week; for the grown-up people on +Sunday; and on every alternate morning some Scripture fact was +read and explained to them, the Captain still being obliged to +act as chaplain, until the arrival of Mr. Hewetson, whom the +Church Missionary Society were sending out.</p> +<p>Never had the generous toil of a devoted man seemed likely to +meet with better success, when a storm came from a most <!-- page +268--><a name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +268</span>unexpected quarter. The original colonists of the +Cape of Good Hope were Dutch, and the whole district was peopled +with boers or farmers of that nation, stolid, prosperous, and +entirely uncontrolled by public opinion. They had treated +the unfortunate Hottentots as slaves, with all the cruelty of +stupidity, and imported Malays and Negroes to work in the same +manner; and they had shown, even when under their native state, a +sort of grim turbulence that made them very hard to deal +with. When in 1834 the British Government emancipated their +slaves, and made cruelty penal and labour necessarily +remunerative, their discontent was immense, and a great number +sold their farms, and moved off into the interior to form an +independent settlement on the Orange River. A large number +of them, however, hearing of Dingarn’s liberality to +Captain Gardiner, were determined to extort a similar grant to +themselves by a display of power. First came a letter, +which Mr. Owen had to read and interpret to the chief, and not +long after a large deputation arrived, armed and mounted on +strong horses. Dingarn showed them a war-dance, and they in +return said they would show how the boers danced on horseback, +and exhibited a sham-fight, which did indeed alarm the savage, +but, so far from daunting him, only excited his treachery and +fierceness. He gave a sort of general answer, and the +messengers retired. But from that time his interest in Mr. +Owen’s teaching flagged; he wanted fire-arms instead of +religion, and preachings led to cavillings. Indications of +evil intentions likewise reached Captain Gardiner, who sent to +warn Mr. Owen, and to offer him a refuge at Hambanati in case of +need. Still Mr. Owen could gather nothing; he was called +from time to time to read the Dutchmen’s letters, but was +never told how they were to be dealt with. In fact, Dingarn +had replied by an offer of the very district he had given Captain +Gardiner, on condition that the new-comers would recover some +cattle which had been carried off by a hostile tribe. This +was done, and the detachment which had been employed on the +service arrived at Umkingoglove, where they were welcomed with +war-dances, and exhibited their own sham-fights; but in the midst +of the ensuing meal they were suddenly surrounded by a huge +circle of the Zulus, as if for another war-dance. The black +ring came nearer and nearer still, and finally rushed in upon the +unhappy boers, and slaughtered every man of them.</p> +<p>Mr. Owen had suspected nothing of what was passing, till <!-- +page 269--><a name="page269"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +269</span>he received a message from Dingarn that he need not +fear; the boers had been killed for plotting, but the umfundisi +should not be hurt. A time of terrible anxiety followed, +during which the Owen family saw large bodies of the Kaffir army +marching towards the Tugela, and in effect they fell upon the +Dutch camp, and upwards of a hundred and fifty white men, women, +and children were massacred. This horrible act, showing +that no reliance could be placed on Dingarn’s promise, made +the Owens decide on leaving Umkingoglove, and they arrived at +Hambanati, whence they proceeded to Durban. The Gardiner +family waited for another week; but, finding the whole of the +settlers infuriated, and bent on joining the Dutch in a war of +extermination against Dingarn, they were obliged to retreat to +the coast. First, however, Captain Gardiner assembled his +Kaffirs, and promised to do his utmost to find another tract, +where they might settle in peace, if they would abstain from all +share in the coming war. They promised; but in his absence +the promise was not easy to keep; they joined in the fight, many +were killed, and the settlement entirely broken up. The +cause seemed to Gardiner hopeless; and, after waiting for a short +time in Algoa Bay, he decided on leaving the scene of action, +where peaceful teaching could not prevail for some time to +come. Whether it would not have been better to have tarried +a little while, and then to have availed himself of the +confidence and affection he had inspired, so as to gather the +remnants of his mission again, we cannot say. At any rate, +he consoled himself for the disastrous failure at Natal by +setting forth on a fresh scheme of Christian knight-errantry on +behalf of the Indians of South America.</p> +<p>Long ago, in Brazil, the Jesuits had done their best to +Christianize and protect the Indians; but the Portuguese settlers +had, as usual, savagely resented any interference with their +cruel oppressions, broken up the Jesuit settlement, and sold +their unfortunate converts as slaves. After this, the +Jesuit Fathers had formed excellent establishments in the more +independent country of Paraguay, lying to the south, where they +had many churches, and peaceful, prosperous, happy communities of +Christian Indians around them. South American Indians are +essentially childish beings; and the Jesuits, when providing +labour enough to occupy them wholesomely, found themselves +obliged to undertake the disposal of the produce, thus not merely +rendering <!-- page 270--><a name="page270"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 270</span>their mission self-supporting, but +so increasing the wealth of the already powerful Order as to +render it a still greater object of jealousy to the European +potentates; and when, in the eighteenth century, the tide of +opposition set strongly against it, the unecclesiastical traffic +of the settlements in Paraguay was one of the accusations. +The result was, that the Jesuit Fathers were banished from South +America in 1767; and whether it was that they had neglected to +train the Indians in self-reliance, or whether it was impossible +to do so, their departure led to an immediate collapse into +barbarism; nor had anything since been done on behalf of the +neglected race. Indeed, the break-up of all Spanish +authority had been doubly fatal to the natives, by removing all +protection, and leaving them to the self-interested violence of +the petty republics, unrestrained by any loftier +consideration.</p> +<p>In the Republic of Buenos Ayres, under the dictatorship of +General Rosas, the lot of these poor creatures was specially +cruel. A war of extermination was carried on against them, +and eighty had at one time been shot together in the market-place +of the capital. Nothing could be done towards reclaiming +them while so savage a warfare lasted; but Gardiner hoped to push +on to the more northerly tribes, on the borders of Chili, and he +took a journey to reconnoitre across the Pampas, with many +strange hardships and adventures; but he found always the same +story,—the Indians regarded as wild beasts, and, acting +only too much as such, falling by night on solitary ranchos, or +on lonely travellers, and murdering them, and, on the other hand, +being shot down wherever they were found.</p> +<p>With great difficulty and perseverance he made his way to the +Biobio river, leaving his family at Concepçion, the +nearest comparatively civilized place. Here he meant to +make his way to a village of independent Indians, with whose +chief, Corbalan, he had hopes of entering into relations.</p> +<p>To cross the rapid stream of the Biobio, he had to use a +primitive raft, formed of four trunks of trees, about eighteen +feet long, lashed together by hide-thongs to two poles, one at +each end. A horse was fastened to it, by knotting his tail +to the tow-rope, and on his back was a boy, holding on by the +single lock of the mane that is allowed to remain on Chilian +horses, who guided him across with much entreating, urging, and +coaxing. On the other side appeared Corbalan, the Indian +<!-- page 271--><a name="page271"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +271</span>chief on horseback, and in a dark poncho, a sort of +round cloak, with a hole to admit the head, much worn all over +South America. He took Captain Gardiner to his house, an +oval, with wattled side-walls, about five feet high and +thirty-five long, neatly thatched with grass, with a fireplace in +the centre, where a sheep was cooked for supper. Corbalan +could speak Spanish, and seemed to be pleased with the visit, +making an agreement that he should teach Gardiner his Indian +tongue, and, in return, be instructed in the way of God and +heaven. He had convened forty-five of his people, among +whom were five chiefs, each of whom made the visitor the offering +of a boiled chicken, while he gave them some coloured cotton +handkerchiefs and some brass buttons. It was a beautiful +country, and reminded the guest so much of some parts of England, +that it needed a glance at the brown skin, flowing hair, and long +poncho of Corbalan to dispel the illusion that he was near +home. Things looked so favourable, that he had even +selected a site for the mission-house, when some change of +sentiment came over Corbalan, probably from the remonstrances of +his fellow-chiefs: he declared that a warlike tribe near at hand +would not suffer him to harbour a stranger, and that he must +therefore withdraw his invitation.</p> +<p>So ended this attempt; and the indefatigable Captain turned +his attention to the Indians to the southward, but he found that +these were on good terms with the Chilian Government, and that no +one could come among them without a pass from thence; and, as +there was a cautious attempt at Christianizing then going on, by +persuading the cacique to be baptized and to admit priests to +their villages, there was both the less need and the less opening +for him.</p> +<p>So, picking up his wife and children again at +Concepçion, he sailed with them for Valdivia, where, as +wandering Europeans were always supposed to be in search of +objects for museums, and perhaps from some confusion about his +name, he was called “El Botanico.” Again he +plunged among the Indians; but, wherever he came to a peaceable +tribe, they were under the influence of Spanish clergy, who were, +of course, determined to exclude him, while the warlike and +independent Indians could not understand the difference between +him and their Spanish enemies; and thus, after two years of +effort, he found that no opening existed for reaching these wild +people. A proposal was made to him to remain and act as an +agent for the <!-- page 272--><a name="page272"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 272</span>Bible and Tract Societies among the +South American Roman Catholics, but this he rejected. +“No,” he said; “I have devoted myself to God, +to seek for openings among the heathen, and I cannot go back or +modify my vow.”</p> +<p>The Malay Archipelago was his next goal. He sailed with +his wife and children from Valparaiso for Sydney on the 29th of +May, 1839, but the vessel got out of her course, and was forced +to put in at Tahiti, where he found things sadly changed by the +aggression of Louis Philippe’s Government, which had +claimed the protectorate. The troubles of Queen +Pomare’s reign were at their height, and the conflict +between French and English, Roman Catholic and Protestant, +prevented any efficient struggle against the corruption +introduced by the crews of all nations.</p> +<p>The great savage island of New Guinea seemed to Captain +Gardiner a field calling for labour, and, on his arrival in +Australia, he found that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Sydney was +trying to organize a mission. He left Australia, hoping to +obtain permission from the Dutch authorities at Timor to proceed +to Papua, to take steps for being beforehand with the Australian +expedition. He reached the place with great difficulty, and +he himself, and all his family, began to suffer severely from +fever. The Dutch governor told him that he might as well +try to teach the monkeys as the Papuans, and the Dutch clergy +gave him very little encouragement. He remained in these +strange and beautiful islands for several months, trying one +Dutch governor after another, and always finding them civil but +impenetrable; for, in fact, they could not believe that an +officer in her Britannic Majesty’s Navy could be purely +actuated by missionary zeal, but thought that it concealed some +political object. They were not more gracious even to +clergy of other nations. He found an American missionary at +Macassar, whom they had detained, and some Germans, who were +vainly entreating to be allowed to proceed to Borneo; and his +efforts met only with the most baffling, passive, but systematic +denial. It was reserved for the enterprise and prudence of +Sir James Brooke to open a way in this quarter.</p> +<p>The health of the Gardiner family had been much injured by +their residence in those lovely but unwholesome countries, but +the voyage to Capetown restored it; and immediately after they +sailed again for South America, where the Captain had <!-- page +273--><a name="page273"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +273</span>heard of an Indian tribe in the passes of the +Cordilleras, who seemed more possible of access. Here again +he was baffled in his dealings with the local government by the +suspicions of the priests, and never could obtain the means of +penetrating beyond the city of San Carlos, so that he decided at +last to repair to the Falkland Islands, and make an endeavour +thence to reach the people of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, +where no hostile Church should put stumbling-blocks in his +way.</p> +<p>A doleful region he found those Falkland Isles, covered only +with their peculiar grass and short heather, and without a +tree. A little wooden cottage, brought from Valparaiso, +sheltered the much-enduring Mrs. Gardiner and the two children, +while the Captain looked out for a vessel to take him to +Patagonia; but he found that no one ever went there, and the +whalers who made these dismal islands their station did not wish +to go out of their course. Captain Gardiner offered +200<i>l.</i>, the probable value of a whole whale, as the price +of his passage; but the skippers told him that, though they would +willingly take him anywhere for nothing, they could not go out of +their course.</p> +<p>To seek the most hopeless and uncultivated was always this +good man’s object. The Falkland Isles were dreary +enough, but they were a paradise compared to the desolate fag-end +of the American world,—a cluster of barren rocks, +intersected by arms of the sea, which divide them into numerous +islets, the larger ones bearing stunted forests of beech and +birch, on the skirts of hills covered with perpetual snow, and +sending down blue glaciers to the water’s edge. The +narrower channels are very shallow; the wider, rough and +storm-tossed; and scarcely anything edible grows on the +islands. The Fuegians are as degraded a people as any on +the face of the earth, with just intelligence enough to maintain +themselves by hunting and fishing, by the help of dogs, which, it +is said, they prize so much that they would rather, in time of +scarcity, eat up an old mother than a dog; and they are +churlishly inhospitable to strangers, although with an unusual +facility for imitating their language, nor had any one ever +attempted their conversion.</p> +<p>However, the master of the <i>Montgomery</i>, who had brought +the Gardiners out to the Falkland Islands, hearing of the offer, +undertook such a profitable expedition; but his schooner was +utterly frail, had to be caulked and to borrow a sail, and, as he +was losing no whales, Captain Gardiner refused to give more <!-- +page 274--><a name="page274"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +274</span>than 100<i>l.</i>, a sufficiently exorbitant sum, for +the passage of himself and a servant named Johnstone. While +the crazy vessel was refitting a Sunday intervened, during which +he offered to hold a service, but only two men attended it, the +rest were all absent or intoxicated.</p> +<p>The poor little ship put to sea, and struggled into the +Straits of Magelhaen, drifting near the Fuegian coast. +Landing, the Captain lighted a fire to attract the attention of +the natives, and some came down and shouted. The English +did not, however, think it safe to go further from the boat, and +presently the Fuegians likewise kindled their fire, whereupon +Gardiner heaped more fuel on his own, and continued his signals, +when two men advanced, descending to the beach. They were +clad in cloaks of the skin of the guanaco, a small kind of llama, +and were about five feet ten in height, with broad shoulders and +chests, but lean, disproportionate legs. Each carried a bow +and quiver of arrows; and they spoke loudly, making evident signs +that the strangers were unwelcome. Presents were offered +them; brass buttons, a clasp knife, and worsted comforter; and +they sat down, but apparently with a sullen resolution not to +relax their faces, nor utter another word. A small +looking-glass was handed to one of them, and he was grimly +putting it under his cloak when Captain Gardiner held it up to +him, and he laughed at the reflection of his own face; and his +friend then looked at the knife, as if expecting it to produce +the same effect, but, though they seemed to appreciate it, they +made no friendly sign, and appeared unmoved when spoken to either +in Spanish or in the few Patagonian phrases that Captain Gardiner +had managed to pick up; nor did anything seem to afford them any +satisfaction except demonstrations of departure.</p> +<p>Nothing seemed practicable with these uncouth, distrustful +beings, and the Captain therefore went on in search of a tribe of +Patagonians, among which, he was told, was a Creole Spaniard +named San Leon, who had acquired great influence by his reckless +courage and daring, and through whom it might be possible to have +some communication with them. The camp of these people on +the main continent, near Cape Gregory, was discovered newly +deserted, with hollow places in the ground where fires had been +made, and many marks of footsteps. This extreme point of +the continent was by no means so dreary as the Land of Fire; it +bore thorny bushes ten feet <!-- page 275--><a +name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 275</span>high, wild +celery and clover, and cranberry-bushes covered with red +berries. Indeed, the Patagonians—so called because +their big splay boots made Magelhaen conclude they walked on +<i>patas</i> (paws), like bears—are a superior race to the +Fuegians, larger in stature than most Europeans, great riders, +and clever in catching guanacos by means of bolas, <i>i.e.</i> +two round stones attached to a string. If the Fuegians are +Antarctic Esquimaux, the Patagonians are Antarctic Tartars, +leading a wandering life under tents made of skins of horses and +guanacos, and hating all settled habits, but not so utterly +inhospitable and impracticable as their neighbours beyond the +Strait. In truth, the division is not clearly marked, for +there are Fuegians on the continent and Patagonians in the +islands. Ascending a height, the Captain took a survey of +the country, and, seeing two wreaths of smoke near Oazy Harbour, +sailed in, cast anchor, and in the morning was visited by the +natives of their own accord, after which he returned with them to +their camp, consisting of horse-hide tents, semicircular in form, +and entirely open. They were full of men, women, and +children, and among them San Leon, to whom it was possible to +talk in Spanish, and indeed several natives, from intercourse +with ships, knew a few words of English. San Leon had been +with the tribe for twelve years, and said that American +missionaries had visited them, but that they had gone away +because the Fuegians who crossed the Strait were such thieves +that they ate up their provisions and cut up their books. +However, no objection was made to Gardiner’s remaining, so +he set up a tarred canvas tent, closed at each end with +bullock-hides, and slept on shore, a good deal disturbed by the +dogs, who gnawed at the bullock-hides, till a coat of tar laid +over them prevented them. Not so, however, with another +visitor, a huge Patagonian, who walked in with the words, +“I go sleep,” and leisurely coiled himself up for the +purpose, unheeding Johnstone’s discourse; but the Captain, +pointing with his finger, and emphatically saying +“Go,” produced the desired effect. Then +followed the erection of seventeen skin tents, all in a row, set +up by the women. These Patagonians behaved well and +quietly; but, in the meantime, the master of the schooner had +asked San Leon to obtain some guanaco meat for the crew, and the +natives who went in search of the animals insisted on being paid, +though they had caught nothing. These however were +Fuegians, and <!-- page 276--><a name="page276"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 276</span>the Patagonians were very angry with +them. Captain Gardiner even ventured to remain alone with +Johnstone among this people, while San Leon went on to Port +Famine in the <i>Montgomery</i>, which was in search of wood; +but, in the meantime, he could do nothing but hold a little +monosyllabic communication; and once, when he and his servant +both went out at the same time, they lost their dinner, which, +left to simmer over the fire, proved irresistible to the +Patagonians. They, however, differed from the Fuegians in +not ordinarily being thieves.</p> +<p>A chief named Wissale arrived with a body of his tribe with +whom he had been purchasing horses on the Rio Negro, and bringing +with him an American negro named Isaac, who had three years since +run away from a whaler, and who spoke enough English to be a +useful interpreter.</p> +<p>Wissale, with Isaac’s help, was made to perceive Captain +Gardiner’s intentions sufficiently to promise to make him +welcome if he should return, and to declare that he should be +glad to learn good things. There seemed so favourable an +opening that the Captain made up his mind to take up his abode +there with his family to prepare the way for a missionary in Holy +Orders, for whom he never deemed himself more than a pioneer.</p> +<p>After distributing presents to the friendly Patagonians, he +embarked, and making a weary passage, reached the Falkland +Islands, where he found the two ships <i>Erebus</i> and +<i>Terror</i> anchored, in the course of their voyage of +Antarctic discovery. The presence of the two captains and +their officers was a great pleasure and enlivenment to the +Gardiners, who received from them many comforts very needful in +that inclement climate to people lately come from some of the +hottest regions of the southern hemisphere.</p> +<p>Whalers continually put in, but not one, even though Captain +Gardiner’s offers rose to 300<i>l.</i>, would undertake to +go out of his course to Patagonia to convey him and his family, +and he would not trust his wife and children on board that +wretched craft the <i>Montgomery</i>, so he waited on at the +Falkland Islands, doing what good he could there, and expecting +the answer of a letter he had despatched to the Church Missionary +Society, begging for the appointment of a clergyman to this field +of labour. After six months’ delay, the letter came, +and proved to be unfavourable; there was a falling off in the +funds of the Society, and a new and doubtful mission was thought +undesirable. <!-- page 277--><a name="page277"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 277</span>The Captain believed that nothing +but personal representations could prevail, and therefore decided +on going home to plead the cause of his Patagonians. He +sailed with his family for Rio in a small vessel, and the voyage +could not have been one of the least of the dangers, for the +skipper was a Guacho who had been a shoemaker, and knew nothing +about seafaring, and there was not a spare rope in the +ship. From Rio Gardiner took a passage home, and safely +arrived, after six years of brave pioneering in three different +quarters of the globe.</p> +<p>He found, however, that the Church Missionary Society could +not undertake the Patagonian Mission, and neither could the +London nor Wesleyan Societies. He declared that every one +grew cold when they heard of South America, and viewed it as the +natural inheritance of Giants Pope and Pagan; and for this very +reason he was the more bent upon doing his utmost. Failing +in his attack on Pagan he made an assault on Pope, obtaining a +grant of Bibles, Testaments, and tracts from the Bible Society, +and in 1843 sailed for Rio to distribute them; this time, +however, going alone, as his children were of an age to require +an English education and an English home.</p> +<p>He undertook this mission, in fact, chiefly for the purpose of +continuing his attempts to reach the Indian tribes. His +journey was, as usual, wild and adventurous, and its principal +result was an acquaintance with the English chaplains and +congregations at several of the chief South American ports, from +whom he received a promise of 100<i>l.</i>, per annum for the +support of a mission to Patagonia.</p> +<p>With this beginning he returned home, and while residing at +Brighton, his earnestness so stirred people’s minds that a +Society was formed with an income of 500<i>l.</i>, and Mr. Robert +Hunt, giving up the mastership of an endowed school, offered +himself to the Church Missionary Society. A clergyman could +not immediately be found, and it was determined that these two +should go first and prepare the way. In 1844, then, they +landed in Oazy Harbour in Magelhaen’s Straits, and set up +three tents, one for stores, one for cooking, and one for +sleeping. One Fuegian hut was near, where the people were +inoffensive, and presently there arrived a Chilian deserter named +Mariano, who said that he had run away from the fort at Port +Famine with another man named Cruz, who had remained among the +Patagonians. He reported that Wissale had lost much of his +authority, and <!-- page 278--><a name="page278"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 278</span>that San Leon was now chief of the +tribe; also that there was a Padre Domingo at Port Famine, who +was teaching the Patagonians to become +“Catolicos.”</p> +<p>To learn the truth as soon as possible, the Captain and Mr. +Hunt locked up two of their huts, leaving the other for Mariano, +and set off in search of the Patagonians; and a severe journey it +was, as they had to carry the heavy clothing required to keep up +warmth at night, besides their food, gun, powder, and shot. +The fatigue was too much for Hunt, who was at one time obliged to +lie down exhausted while the Captain went in search of water; and +after four days they were obliged to return to their huts, where +shortly after Wissale arrived, but with a very scanty following, +only ten or twelve horses, and himself and family very hungry; +but though ready to eat whatever Captain Gardiner would give him, +his whole manner was changed by his disasters. He was surly +and quarrelsome, and evidently under the influence of the +deserter Cruz, who was resolved to set him against the +new-comers, and so worked upon him that he once threatened the +Captain with his dirk. Moreover, a Chilian vessel arrived, +bringing Padre Mariano himself, a Spanish South American, with a +real zeal for conversion, though he was very courteous to the +Englishmen. An English vessel arrived about the same time, +and Gardiner, thinking the cause for the present hopeless, +accepted a homeward passage, writing in his journal, “We +can never do wrong in casting the Gospel net on any side or in +any place. During many a dark and wearisome night we may +appear to have toiled in vain, but it will not be always +so. If we will but wait the appointed time, the promise, +though long delayed, will assuredly come to pass.”</p> +<p>But if he was not daunted his supporters were, and nothing but +his intense earnestness, and assurance that he should never +abandon South America, prevented the whole cause from being +dropped. His next attempt was to reach the Indians beyond +Bolivia, in the company of Federigo Gonzales, a Spaniard, who had +become a Protestant, and was to have gone on the Patagonian +Mission. Here fever became their enemy, but after much +suffering and opposition Gonzales was settled at Potosi, studying +the Quichuan language, and hoping to work upon the Indians, while +the unwearied Gardiner again returned to England to strain every +nerve for the Fuegian Mission, which lay nearest of all to his +heart.</p> +<p><!-- page 279--><a name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +279</span>He travelled all over England and Scotland, lecturing +and making collections, speaking with the same energy whether he +had few or many auditors. At one town, when asked what sort +of a meeting he had had, he answered, “Not very good, but +better than sometimes.”</p> +<p>“How many were present?”</p> +<p>“Not one; but no meeting is better than a bad +one.”</p> +<p>He could not obtain means enough for a well-appointed +expedition such as he wished for; but he urged that a small +experimental one might be sent out, consisting of himself, four +sailors, one carpenter, with three boats, two huts, and +provisions for half a year. He hoped to establish a station +on Staten Island, whence the Fuegians could be visited, and the +stores kept out of their reach.</p> +<p>Having found the men, he embarked on board the barque +<i>Clymene</i>, which was bound for Payta, in Peru, and was +landed on Picton Island; but before the vessel had departed the +Fuegians had beset the little party, and shown themselves so +obstinately and mischievously thievish, that it was plainly +impossible for so small a party to hold their ground among +them. Before there could be a possibility of convincing +them of even the temporal benefit of the white man’s +residence among them, they would have stripped and carried off +everything from persons who would refrain from hurting +them. So, once more, the Captain drew up the net which had +taken nothing, decided that the only mission which would suit the +Fuegians must be afloat, and went on to Payta in the +<i>Clymene</i>.</p> +<p>While in Peru, he met with a Spanish lady, who asked if he +knew a friend of hers who came from Genoa, and then proceeded to +inquire which was the largest city, Genoa or Italy, and if Europe +was not a little on this side of Spain, while a priest asked if +London was a part of France. After spending a little time +in distributing Bibles in Peru, he made his way home by the way +of Panama, and on his arrival made an attempt to interest the +Moravians in the cause so near his heart, thinking that what they +had done in Greenland proved their power of dealing with that +savage apathy that springs from inclemency of climate, but the +mission was by them pronounced impracticable.</p> +<p>In the meantime, his former ground, Port Natal, was in a more +hopeful state. Tremendous battles had been fought <!-- page +280--><a name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +280</span>between Dingarn and the boers; but, in 1839, Panda, +Dingarn’s brother, finding his life threatened, went over +to the enemy, carrying 4,000 men with him, and thus turned the +scale. Dingarn was routed, fled, and was murdered by the +tribe with whom he had taken refuge, and Panda became Zulu king, +while the boers occupied Natal, and founded the city of Pieter +Maritzburg as the capital of a Republic; but the disputes between +them and the Zulus led to the interference of the Governor of the +Cape, and finally Natal was made a British colony, with the +Tugela for a boundary; and, as Panda’s government was +exceedingly violent and bloody, his subjects were continually +flocking across the river to put themselves under British +protection, and were received on condition of paying a small +yearly rate for every hut in each kraal, and conforming +themselves to English law, so far as regarded the suppression of +violence and theft. One of the survivors of +Gardiner’s old pupils, meeting a gentleman who was going to +England, sent him the following message: “Tell Cappan Garna +he promise to come again if his hair was as white as his shirt, +and we are waiting for him;” and he added a little calabash +snuff-box as a token. But the Captain had made his promise +to return contingent upon the Kaffirs of his settlement taking no +part in the war, and they, poor things, had, with the single +exception of his own personal attendant, Umpondombeni, broken +this condition; so that he did not deem himself bound by +it. Moreover, means were being taken for providing a +mission for Natal, and Christian teachers were already there, +while he regarded his own personal exertions as the only hope for +the desolate natives of Cape Horn. So he only sent a letter +and a present to the man, urging him to attach himself to a +mission-station, and then turned again to his unwearied labour in +the Patagonian and Fuegian cause. His little Society found +it impossible to raise means for the purchase of a brigantine, +and he therefore limited his plans to the equipment of two +launches and two smaller boats. He would store in these +provisions for six months, and take a crew of Cornish fishermen, +used to the stormy Irish Sea. As to the funds, a lady at +Cheltenham gave 700<i>l.</i>, he himself 300<i>l.</i> The +boats were purchased, three Cornishmen, named Pearce, Badcock, +and Bryant, all of good character, volunteered from the same +village; Joseph Erwin, the carpenter, who had been with him +before, begged to go with him again, because, he said, +“being <!-- page 281--><a name="page281"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 281</span>with Captain Gardiner was like a +heaven upon earth; he was such a man of prayer.” One +catechist was Richard Williams, a surgeon; the other John +Maidment, who was pointed out by the secretary of the Young +Men’s Association in London; and these seven persons, with +their two launches, the <i>Pioneer</i> and the <i>Speedwell</i>, +were embarked on board the <i>Ocean Queen</i>, and sailed from +Liverpool on the 7th of September, 1850. They carried with +them six months’ provisions, and the committee were to send +the same quantity out in due time, but they failed to find a ship +that would undertake to go out of its course to Picton Island, +and therefore could only send the stores to the Falklands, to be +thence despatched by a ship that was reported to go monthly to +Tierra del Fuego for wood.</p> +<p>Meantime, the seven, with their boats and their provisions, +were landed on Picton Island, and the <i>Ocean Queen</i> pursued +her way. Time passed on, and no more was heard of +them. The Governor of the Falklands had twice made +arrangements for ships to touch at Picton Island, but the first +master was wrecked, the second disobeyed him; and in great +anxiety, on the discovery of this second failure, he sent, in +October 1851, a vessel on purpose to search for them. At +the same time, the <i>Dido</i>, Captain William Morshead, had +been commanded by the Admiralty to touch at the isles of Cape +Horn and carry relief to the missionaries.</p> +<p>On the 21st of October, in a lonely little bay called +Spaniards’ Harbour, in Picton Island, the Falkland Island +vessel found the <i>Speedwell</i> on the beach, and near it an +open grave. In the boat lay one body, near the grave +another. They returned with these tidings, and in the +meantime the <i>Dido</i> having come out, her boats explored the +coast, and a mile and a half beyond the first found the other +boat, beside which lay a skeleton, the dress of which showed it +to be the remains of Allen Gardiner. Near at hand was a +cavern, outside which were these words painted, beneath a +hand:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“My soul, wait thou still upon God, for my +hope is in Him.</p> +<p>“He truly is my strength and my salvation; He is my +defence, so that I shall not fall.</p> +<p>“In God is my strength and my glory; the rock of my +might, and in God is my trust.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Within the cave lay another body, that of Maidment. +Reverent hands collected the remains and dug a grave; the <!-- +page 282--><a name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +282</span>funeral service was read by one of the officers, the +ship’s colours were hung half-mast high, and three volleys +of musketry fired over the grave—“the only tribute of +respect,” says Captain Morshead, “I could pay to this +lofty-minded man and his devoted companions who have perished in +the cause of the Gospel.” There was no doubt of the +cause and manner of their death, for Captain Gardiner’s +diary was found written up to probably the last day of his +life.</p> +<p>It appeared that in their first voyage, on the 20th of +December, they had fallen in with a heavy sea, and a great drift +of seaweed, in which the anchor of the <i>Speedwell</i> and the +two lesser boats had been hopelessly entangled and lost. It +was found impossible for such small numbers to manage the +launches in the stormy channels while loaded, and it was +therefore resolved to lighten them by burying the stores at +Banner Cove, and, while this was being done, it was discovered +that all the ammunition, except one flask and a half of powder, +had been left behind in the <i>Ocean Queen</i>; so that there was +no means of obtaining either guanacos or birds. Attempts +were made at establishing friendly barter with the natives, but +no sooner did these perceive the smallness of the number of the +strangers, than they beset them with obstinate hostility. +Meantime, Gardiner’s object was to reach a certain Button +Island, where was a man called Jemmy Button, who had had much +intercourse with English sailors, and who, he hoped, might pave +the way for a better understanding with the natives.</p> +<p>But the <i>Pioneer</i> had been damaged from the first, and +could not go so far. At Banner Cove the natives were +hostile and troublesome, and Spaniards’ Harbour was the +only refuge, and even there a furious wind, on the 1st of +February, drove the <i>Pioneer</i> ashore against the jagged root +of a tree, so as to damage her past all her crew’s power of +mending, though they hauled her higher up on the beach, and, by +the help of a tent, made a lodging for the night of the wreck +close to the cave, which they called after her name.</p> +<p>The question then was, whether to place all the seven in the +<i>Speedwell</i> with some of the provisions and make for Button +Island, and this might probably have saved their lives; but they +had already experienced the exceeding difficulty of navigating +the launch in the heavy seas. Both their landing boats were +lost, and they therefore decided to remain where they were <!-- +page 283--><a name="page283"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +283</span>until the arrival of the vessel with supplies, which +they confidently expected either from home or from the +Falklands. Indeed, their power of moving away was soon +lost, for Williams, the surgeon, and Badcock, one of the +Cornishmen, both fell ill of the scurvy. The cold was +severe, and neither fresh meat nor green food was to be had, and +this in February—the southern August. However, the +patients improved enough to enable the party to make a last +expedition to Banner Cove to recover more of the provisions +buried there, and to paint notices upon the rocks to guide the +hoped-for relief to Spaniards’ Harbour; but this was not +effected without much molestation from the Fuegians. Then +passed six weary months of patient expectation and hope +deferred. There was no murmuring, no insubordination, while +these seven men waited—waited—waited in vain, through +the dismal Antarctic winter for the relief that came too +late. The journals of Williams and Gardiner breathe nothing +but hopeful, resigned trust, and comfort in the heavenly-minded +resolution of each of the devoted band, who may almost be said to +have been the Theban legion of the nineteenth century.</p> +<p>For a month they were able to procure fish, and were not put +on short allowance till April, when Williams and Badcock both +became worse, and Bryant began to fail, though he never took to +his bed. They, with Erwin, were lodged in the +<i>Speedwell</i> at Blomfield Harbour, a sheltered inlet, about a +mile and a half from the wreck of the <i>Pioneer</i>, where, to +leave the sick more room, Captain Gardiner lodged with Maidment +and Pearce.</p> +<p>With the months whose names spoke of English summer, storms +and terrible cold began to set in. The verses that Gardiner +wrote in his diary during this frightful period are inexpressibly +touching in the wondrous strength of their faith and +cheerfulness.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Let that sweet word our spirits cheer<br /> +Which quelled the tossed disciples’ fear:<br /> + ‘Be not afraid!’<br /> +He who could bid the tempest cease<br /> +Can keep our souls in perfect peace,<br /> + If on Him stayed.<br /> +And we shall own ’twas good to wait:<br /> +No blessing ever came too late.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This was written on the 4th of June; on the 8th their +fishing-net was torn to pieces by blocks of drifting ice. +On the 28th Badcock died, begging his comrades to sing a hymn to +him in <!-- page 284--><a name="page284"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 284</span>his last moments. In August, +Gardiner, hitherto the healthiest, was obliged to take to his bed +in the <i>Pioneer</i>, and there heard of the death of Erwin on +the 23rd of August, and of Bryant on the 27th. Maidment +buried them both, and came back to Captain Gardiner, who, as he +lay in bed, had continued his journal, and written his farewell +letters to his wife and children. Hitherto, the stores of +food had been eked out by mussels and wild celery, but there was +now no one to search for them. Gardiner, wishing to save +Maidment the journeys to and fro, determined to try to reach the +<i>Speedwell</i>, and Maidment cut two forked sticks to serve as +crutches, but the Captain found himself too weak for the walk, +and had to return. This was on the 30th of August. On +Sunday, the 31st, there is no record in the diary, but the +markers stand in his Prayer-book at the Psalms for the day and +the Collect for the Sunday. On the 3rd of September, +Maidment was so much exhausted that he could not leave his bed +till noon, and Gardiner never saw him again. He must have +died in the <i>Pioneer</i> cavern, being unable to return. +The diary continues five days longer. A little +peppermint-water had been left by the solitary sufferer’s +bed, and a little fresh water he also managed to scoop up from +the sides of the boat in an india-rubber shoe. This was all +the sustenance he had. On the 6th of September he +wrote—“Yet a little while, and through grace we may +join that blessed throng to sing the praises of Christ throughout +eternity. I neither hunger nor thirst, though five days +without food! Marvellous loving-kindness to me, a +sinner. Your affectionate brother in <span +class="smcap">Christ</span>,—<span class="smcap">Allen F. +Gardiner</span>.”</p> +<p>These last words were in a letter to Williams. He must +afterwards have left the boat, perhaps to catch more water, and +have been too weak to climb back into it, for his remains were on +the beach. Williams lost the power of writing sooner, and +no more is known of his end, though probably he died first, and +Pearce must have been trying to prepare his grave when he, too, +sank.</p> +<p>What words can befit this piteous history better than +“This is the patience of the saints”?</p> +<p>The memorial to Allen Gardiner has been a mission-ship bearing +his name, with her head-quarters at the Falkland Isles. We +believe that these isles are to become a Bishop’s +See. Assuredly a branch of the Church should spring up +where the seed of so patient and devoted a martyrdom has been +sown.</p> +<h2><!-- page 285--><a name="page285"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 285</span>CHAPTER XI. CHARLES FREDERICK +MACKENZIE, THE MARTYR OF THE ZAMBESI.</h2> +<p>That Zulu country where poor Allen Gardiner had made his first +attempt became doubly interesting to the English when the +adjoining district of Natal became a British colony. It +fell under the superintendence of Bishop Robert Gray, of +Capetown, who still lives and labours, and therefore cannot be +here spoken of; and mainly by his exertions it was formed into a +separate Episcopal See in the year 1853. Most of the actors +in the founding of the Church of Natal are still living, but +there are some of whom it can truly be said that—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Death hath moulded into calm +completeness<br /> +The statue of their life.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Charles Frederick Mackenzie was born in 1825 of an old +Scottish Tory family, members from the first of the Scottish +Church in the days of her persecution. His father, Colin +Mackenzie, was one of Walter Scott’s fellow-Clerks of +Session, and is commemorated by one of the Introductions to +“Marmion,” as—</p> +<blockquote><p>“He whose absence we deplore,<br /> +Who breathes the gales of Devon’s shore;<br /> +The longer missed, bewailed the more.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His mother was Elizabeth Forbes, and he was the youngest of so +unusually large a family that the elders had been launched into +the world before the younger ones were born, so that they never +were all together under one roof. The father’s +delicacy of health kept the mother much engrossed; the elder +girls were therefore appointed as little mothers to the younger +children, and it was to his eldest sister, Elizabeth (afterwards +Mrs. Dundas), that the young Charles always looked with the +tender reverence that is felt towards the earliest strong +influence for good.</p> +<p>From the first he had one of those pure and stainless natures +that seem to be good without effort, but his talents were only +considered remarkable for arithmetic. His elder brothers +used <!-- page 286--><a name="page286"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 286</span>to set him up on a table and try to +puzzle him with questions, which he could often answer mentally +before they had worked them out on their slates. His father +died in 1830, after so much invalidism and separation that his +five-year-old boy had no personal recollection of him. The +eldest son, Mr. Forbes Mackenzie, succeeded to the estate of +Portmore, and the rest of the family resided in Edinburgh for +education. Charles attended the Academy till he was +fifteen, when he was sent to the Grange School at Bishop’s +Wearmouth, all along showing a predominant taste for mathematics, +which he would study for his own amusement and assist his elder +brothers in. His perfect modesty prevented them from ever +feeling hurt by his superiority in this branch, and he held his +place well in classics, though they were not the same delight to +him, and were studied rather as a duty and as a step to the +ministry of the Church, the desire of his heart from the +first. At school, his companions respected him heartily, +and loved him for his unselfish kindness and sweetness, while a +few of the more graceless were inclined to brand him as soft or +slow, because he never consented to join in anything blameable, +and was not devoted to boyish sports, though at times he would +join in them with great vigour, and was always perfectly +fearless.</p> +<p>From the Grange he passed to Cambridge, and was entered at St. +John’s, but finding that his Scottish birth was a +disadvantage according to restrictions now removed, he +transferred himself to Caius College. He kept up a constant +correspondence with his eldest sister, Mrs. Dundas, and from it +may be gathered much of his inner life, while outwardly he was +working steadily on, as a very able and studious +undergraduate. With hopes of the ministry before his eyes, +he begged one of the parochial clergy to give him work that would +serve as training, and accordingly he was requested to read and +pray with a set of old people living in an asylum. The +effort cost his bashfulness much, but he persevered, with the +sense that if he did not go “no one else would,” and +that his attempts were “better than nothing.” +This was the key to all his life. At the same time he felt, +what biography shows many another to have done, the influence of +the more constant and complete worship then enjoined by college +rules. Daily service was new to him, and was accepted of +course as college discipline, but after a time it gathered force +and power over his mind, and as the <i>Magnificat</i> <!-- page +287--><a name="page287"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +287</span>had been a revelation to Henry Martyn, so Charles +Mackenzie’s affection first fixed upon the General +Thanksgiving, and on the commemoration of the departed in the +prayer for the Church Militant.</p> +<p>His fellow-collegians thought of him as a steady, +religious-minded man, but not peculiarly devout, and indeed the +just balance of his mind made him perceive that the prime duty of +an undergraduate was industry rather than attempts to exercise +his yet unformed and uncultivated powers. In 1848 he was +second wrangler. There were two prizes, called Dr. +Smith’s, for the two most distinguished mathematicians of +the year. The senior wrangler’s papers had the first +of these; for the second, Mackenzie was neck and neck with a +Trinity College man, and the question was only decided by the +fact that Dr. Smith had desired that his own college (Trinity) +should have the preference.</p> +<p>After this he became tutor and fellow of his college, taking +private pupils, and at the same time preparing for Holy Orders, +not only by study of books, but by work among the poor, with whom +his exceeding kindness and intense reality gave him especial +influence at all times.</p> +<p>He was ordained on the Trinity Sunday of 1851, and took an +assistant curacy at a short distance from Cambridge, his vigorous +powers of walking enabling him to give it full attention as well +as to his pupils and to the University offices he filled. +His great characteristic seems always to have been the tenderest +kindness and consideration; and in the year when he was public +examiner, this was especially felt by the young men undergoing an +ordeal so terrible to strained and excited intellect and nerves, +when a little hastiness or harshness often destroys the hopes of +a man’s youth.</p> +<p>With this combination of pastoral work and college life +Mackenzie was perfectly satisfied and happy, but in another year +the turning-point of his life was reached. A mission at +Delhi to the natives was in prospect, and the Rev. J. S. Jackson, +who belonged to the same college with him, came to Cambridge in +search of a fellow-labourer therein. During the +conversations and consultations as to who could be asked, the +thought came upon Mackenzie, why should he strive to send forth +others without going himself. He could not put it from his +mind. He read Henry Martyn’s life, and resolved on +praying for <!-- page 288--><a name="page288"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 288</span>guidance as to his own duty. +In the words of his letter to Mrs. Dundas, “I thought +chiefly of the command, ‘Go ye and baptize all +nations,’ and how some one ought to go; and I thought how +in another world one would look back and rejoice at having seized +this opportunity of taking the good news of the Gospel to those +who had never heard of it; but for whom, as well as for us, +Christ died. I thought of the Saviour sitting in heaven, +and looking down upon this world, and seeing us, who have heard +the news, selfishly keeping it to ourselves, and only one or two, +or eight or ten, going out in the year to preach to His other +sheep, who must be brought, that there may be one fold and one +Shepherd; and I thought that if other men would go abroad, then I +might stay at home, but as no one, or so few, would go out, then +it was the duty of every one that could go to go. . . . And I +thought, what right have I to say to young men here, ‘You +had better go out to India,’ when I am hugging myself in my +comfortable place at home.” And afterwards, +“Now, dear Lizzie, I have always looked to you as my mother +and early teacher. To you I owe more than I can ever repay, +more than I can well tell. I do hope you will pray for me +and give me your advice.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Dundas’s reply to this letter was a most wise and +full expression of sympathy with the aspiration, given with the +deep consideration of a peculiarly calm and devotional spirit, +which perceived that it is far better for a man to work up to his +fullest perception of right, and highest aims, than to linger in +a sphere which does not occupy his fullest soul and highest self; +and she also recognized the influence that the fact of one of a +family being engaged in such work exercises on those connected +with them.</p> +<p>Others of the family, however, were startled, and some of his +Cambridge friends did not think him adapted to the Delhi Mission, +and this therefore was given up, but without altering the bent +that his mind had received; and indeed Mrs. Dundas, in one of her +beautiful letters, advised him to keep the aim once set before +him in view, and thus his interest became more and more turned +towards the support of missionary work at home.</p> +<p>In 1854, the first Primate of New Zealand, George Augustus +Selwyn, visited England, after twelve years of labour spent in +building up the Colonial and Maori Church, and of pioneering for +missions in the Melanesian Isles, over which his vast see <!-- +page 289--><a name="page289"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +289</span>then extended. He preached a course of four +sermons at Cambridge; Mackenzie was an eager listener, and those +forcible, heart-stirring discourses clenched his long growing +resolution to obey the first call to missionary labour that +should come to him, though, on the other hand, he desired so far +to follow the leadings of Providence that he would not choose nor +volunteer, but wait for the summons—whither he knew +not.</p> +<p>Ere long the invitation came. The erection of the colony +of Natal into a Bishop’s See had been decided upon a year +before, and it had been offered to John William Colenso, a +clergyman known as active in the support of the missionary cause, +and a member of the University of Cambridge. On his +appointment he had gone out in company with the Bishop of +Capetown to inspect his diocese and study its needs, as well as +to lay the foundations of future work. In the party who +then sailed for Natal was a lady who had recently been left a +widow, Henrietta Woodrow by name, ardent in zeal for the +conversion of the heathen, and hoping that the warm climate of +Africa would enable her to devote herself to good works more +entirely than her delicate health permitted at home.</p> +<p>Pieter Maritzburg had by this time risen into a capital, with +a strange mixture of Dutch and English buildings; but the English +population strongly predominated. Panda was king of the +Kaffirs, and fearfully bloody massacres had taken place in his +dominions, causing an immense number of refugees to take shelter +in the English territory. Young people who thus came were +bound apprentices to persons who would take charge of them for +the sake of their services, and thus the missions and those +connected with them gained considerable influence for a +time. A Kaffir, who must have been Captain Gardiner’s +faithful Umpondobeni, though he was now called by another name, +inquired for his former good master, and fell into an agony of +distress on hearing of his fate.</p> +<p>Mrs. Woodrow at once opened an orphanage for the destitute +English children that are sure to be found in a new colony, where +the parents, if unsuccessful, are soon tempted to drink, and then +fall victims to climate and accident. The Kaffir servant +whom she engaged had already been converted, and was baptized by +the name of Abraham, soon after he entered her service; but +“Boy,”—the name at first given to +him,—became a sort of surname to him and to his +family. While <!-- page 290--><a name="page290"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 290</span>watching over the little band of +children, Mrs. Woodrow was already—even though as yet only +learning the language—preparing the way for the coming +Church. She wrote of the Kaffirs: “They come to me of +all ages, men and women, some old men from the country, with +their rings upon their heads, and wrapped in their house +blankets. Then they sit down on the kitchen floor, our +‘Boy’ telling them, in his earnest way, about <span +class="smcap">Jesus Christ</span>. These I cannot speak to, +but I manage to let them know that I care for them, and +‘Boy’ says they go away with ‘tears in their +hearts.’”</p> +<p>About two years previously, a Scottish colonist at the Cape, +named Robert Robertson, had been touched by the need of +ministers; had been ordained by the Bishop of Capetown, and sent +to Natal as missionary clergyman to the Zulus. Early in +1855 these two devoted workers were married, and, taking up their +abode at Durban, continued together their care of the English +orphans, and of the Kaffir children whom they could collect.</p> +<p>In the meantime, Bishop Colenso, having taken his survey of +the colony, had returned to England to collect his staff of +fellow-workers; and one of his first requests was that Charles +Mackenzie would accompany him as Archdeacon of Pieter +Maritzburg. There was not such entire willingness in Mrs. +Dundas’s mind to part with him on this mission as on the +former proposal; not that she wished to hold him back from the +task to which he had in a manner dedicated himself, but she +preferred his going out without the title of a dignitary, and, +from the tone of the new Bishop’s letters, she foresaw that +doctrinal difficulties and differences might arise.</p> +<p>Her brother had, however, made up his mind that no great work +would ever be done, if those who co-operated were too minute in +seeking for perfect accordance of opinions; and that boundless +charity which was his great characteristic made him perhaps +underrate the importance of the fissure which his sister even +then perceived between the ways of thinking of himself and his +Bishop. His next sister, Anne, whose health was too +delicate for a northern climate, was to accompany him; and the +entire party who went out with Bishop Colenso numbered thirty or +forty persons, including several ladies, who were to devote +themselves to education, both of the white and black +inhabitants. They sailed in the barque <i>Jane Morice</i> +early in <!-- page 291--><a name="page291"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 291</span>the March of 1855, and, after a +pleasant and prosperous voyage, entered Durban Bay in the ensuing +May.</p> +<p>The first home of the brother and sister was at Durban, among +the English colonists. It somewhat disappointed the +Archdeacon, as those who come out for purely missionary aims +always are disappointed, when called to the equally needful but +less interesting field of labour among their own countrymen; put +as he says, he satisfied his mind by recollecting, “I came +out here simply because there was a scarcity of people that could +and would come. I did not come because I thought the work +more important than that I was leaving.” So he set +himself heartily to gather and confirm the congregation that had +had its first commencement when Allen Gardiner used to read +prayers to the first few settlers; and, at the same time, Kaffir +services were held for the some thousand persons in the town in +the employment of the whites.</p> +<p>The Archdeacon read prayers in Kaffir, and Mr. Robertson +preached on the Sunday evenings. The numbers of attendants +were not large, and the most work was done by the school that the +Robertsons collected round them. The indifference and +slackness of the English at Durban made it all the harder to work +upon the Kaffirs; and, in truth, Archdeacon Mackenzie’s +residence there was a troublous time. The endeavour, by the +wish of the Bishop, to establish a weekly offertory, was angrily +received by the colonists, who were furious at the sight of the +surplice in the pulpit, and, no doubt, disguised much real +enmity, both to holiness of life and to true discipline, under +their censure of what they called a badge of party. Their +treatment of the Archdeacon, when they found him resolute, +amounted to persecution; the most malignant rumours were set +afloat, and nothing but his strength and calmness, perfect +forgiveness, and yet unswerving determination, carried him +through what was probably the most trying period of his life.</p> +<p>Intercourse with the Robertsons was the great refreshment in +those anxious days. A grant from Government had been made +for a Church Mission station upon the coast, and upon the river +Umlazi, not many miles from Durban; and here Mr. and Mrs. +Robertson stationed themselves with their little company of +orphans, refugees, and Kaffirs; also a Hottentot family, whose +children they were bringing up.</p> +<p>Their own house had straight walls, coffee-coloured, a brown +<!-- page 292--><a name="page292"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +292</span>thatched roof, and a boarded floor, in consideration of +Mrs. Robertson’s exceeding delicacy of health; but such +boards! loose, and so springy that the furniture leapt and danced +when the floor was crossed. It was all on the ground-floor, +partitioned by screens; and the thatched roof continued a good +way out, supported on posts, so as to form a wide verandah; and +scattered all around were the beehive dwellings of the Kaffir +following, and huts raised for the nonce for European guests.</p> +<p>At six o’clock in the morning a large bell was +rung. At eight, Kaffir prayers were read by Mr. Robertson, +for his own servants, in the verandah, and for some who would +come in from the neighbouring kraals; then followed breakfast; +then English matins; and, by that time, Kaffir children were +creeping up to the verandah to be taught. They were first +washed, and then taught their letters, with some hymns translated +into their language, and a little religious instruction. +The children were generally particularly pleasant to deal with, +bright and intelligent, and with a natural amiability of +disposition that rendered quarrels and jealousies rare. +Good temper seems, indeed, to be quite a Zulu characteristic; the +large mixed families of the numerous wives live together +harmoniously, and the gift of a kraal to one member is +acknowledged by all the rest. Revenge, violence, and +passion are to be found among them, but not fretfulness and +quarrelsomeness.</p> +<p>After the work of instruction, there was generally a ride into +the neighbouring kraals, to converse with the people, and invite +the children to school. They had to be propitiated with +packets of sugar, and shown the happy faces of the home +flock. There was, at first, a good deal of inclination to +distrust; and the endeavour to bring the women and girls to wear +clothes had to be most cautiously managed, as a little over-haste +would make them take fright and desert altogether.</p> +<p>The Kaffir customs of marriage proved one of the most serious +impediments in the way of the missionaries. The female sex +had its value as furnishing servants and cultivators of the +ground, and every man wished to own as many wives as +possible. Not only did the question what was to be done in +the case of many-wived converts come under consideration, but the +fathers objected to their daughters acquiring the rudiments of +civilization, lest it should lessen their capabilities to act as +beasts of burden, and thus spoil their price in cattle, <!-- page +293--><a name="page293"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +293</span>(the true <i>pecunia</i> of the Zulu). +Practically, it was found, that no polygamist ever became more +than an inquirer; the way of life seemed to harden the heart or +blind the eyes against conviction; but the difficulty as regarded +the younger people was great, since as long as a girl remained +the lawful property of the head of her kraal, she was liable to +be sold to any polygamist of any age who might pay her value; and +thus it became a question whether it were safe to baptize +her. Even Christian Zulus marrying Christian women +according to the English rite could not be secure of them unless +the cows were duly paid over; and as these Kaffirs are a really +fine race, with more of the elements of true love in them than is +usual in savages, adventures fit for a novel would sometimes +occur, when maidens came flying to the mission station to avoid +some old husband who had made large offers to their father; and +the real lover would arrive entreating protection for the lady of +his heart until he could earn the requisite amount of cows to +satisfy her father.</p> +<p>Mr. Robertson was always called the umfundisi, or +teacher. He held his Sunday Kaffir service in a clearing in +the bush, and gained many hearts to himself, and some souls for +the Church, while toiling with his hands as well as setting forth +the truth with his lips. Mrs. Robertson at the same time +worked upon the women by her tenderness to their little ones, +offering them little frocks if they would wash them, caressing +them with all a woman’s true love for babies, and then +training their elder children and girls, teaching them +needlework, and whatever could lead to aspirations towards +modesty and the other graces of Christian womanhood. Often +extremely ill, always fragile, her energy never failed; and there +was a grace and dignity about her whole deportment and manner +which caused “the Lady” to be the emphatic title +always given to her by her husband and his friends. Of +these the Mackenzie family were among the warmest, and the +Archdeacon gladly gave valuable assistance to Mr. Robertson by +supplementing an education which had not been definitely +clerical, but rather of that order which seems to render an able +Scotsman fit to apply himself to almost anything.</p> +<p>In February 1857 another sister, named Alice, joined the +Mackenzie family, when they were on a visit to the Umlazi +station. Her quick powers and enthusiastic spirit fitted +her in a wonderful manner for missionary labour, and she was at +once <!-- page 294--><a name="page294"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 294</span>in such sympathy with the Kaffirs +that it was a playful arrangement among the home party that Anne +should be the white and Alice the black sister.</p> +<p>Just after her arrival, it was determined that the Archdeacon +should leave Durban, where, indeed, he had been only filling the +post of an absent clergyman, and take a district on the Umhlali +river, forty miles from Durban, containing a number of English +settlements, a camp, and a large amount of Kaffir kraals. +Every Sunday he had five services at different places, one of +them eighteen miles from the nearest, a space that had to be +ridden at speed in the mid-day sun. There was no house, but +a couple of rooms with perpendicular sides and a verandah, one +for chapel, the other for sitting-room, while Kaffir beehive huts +were the bedrooms of all. For a long time blankets and +plaids did the part of doors and shutters; and just as the +accommodations were improving, the whole grass and wattle +structure was burnt down, and it was many months before the tardy +labour of colonial workmen enabled the family to take possession +of the new house, in a better situation, which they named +Seaforth, after the title of the former head of the Mackenzie +clan.</p> +<p>All this time the whole party had been working. A school +was collected every morning of both boys and girls; not many in +number, but from a large area: children of white settlers, +varying in rank, gentlemen or farmers, but all alike running wild +for want of time and means to instruct them. They came +riding on horses or oxen, attended by their Kaffirs, and were +generally found exceedingly ignorant of all English learning, but +precocious and independent in practical matters: young boys able +to shoot, ride, and often entrusted with difficult commissions by +their fathers at an age when their cousins at home would scarcely +be at a public school, and little girls accustomed to superintend +the Kaffirs in all household business; both far excelling their +parents in familiarity with the language, but accustomed to +tyrannize over the black servants, and in danger of imbibing +unsuspected evil from their heathen converse. It was a task +of no small importance to endeavour to raise the tone, improve +the manners, and instruct the minds of these young colonists, and +it could only be attempted by teaching them as friends upon an +equality.</p> +<p>With the Kaffirs, at the same time, the treatment was <!-- +page 295--><a name="page295"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +295</span>moulded on that of Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, who at one +time paid the Umhlali a visit, bringing with them their whole +train of converts, servants, orphans, and adopted children, who +could be easily accommodated by putting up fresh grass huts, to +which even the Europeans of the party had become so accustomed, +that they viewed a chameleon tumbling down on the dinner-table +with rather more indifference than we do the intrusion of an +earwig, quite acquiesced in periodically remaking the clay floor +when the white ants were coming up through it, scorpions being +found in the Archdeacon’s whiskers, and green snakes, +instead of mice, being killed by the cat.</p> +<p>The sight of Christian Kaffirs was very beneficial to the +learners, to whom it was a great stumbling block to have no +fellows within their ken, but to be totally separated from all of +their own race and colour. At Seaforth, the wedding was +celebrated of two of Mr. Robertson’s converts, named +Benjamin and Louisa, the marriage Psalms being chanted in Kaffir, +and the Holy Communion celebrated, when there were seven Kaffir +communicants. The bride wore a white checked muslin and a +wreath of white natural flowers on her head. This was the +first Christian Zulu wedding, and it has been followed by many +more, and we believe that in no case has there been a relapse +into heathenism or polygamy.</p> +<p>The Mackenzies continued at Seaforth until the early part of +the year 1859. The work was peaceful and cheerful. +There were no such remarkable successes in conversion as the +Robertsons met with, probably because in the further and wilder +district the work was more pioneering, and the Robertsons had +never been without a nucleus of Christians, besides which the +gifts of both appear to have been surpassing in their power of +dealing with natives, and producing thorough conversions. +Moreover, they had no cure but of the Kaffirs, whereas Archdeacon +Mackenzie was the pastor of a widely scattered population, and +his time and strength on Sundays employed to their very +uttermost. Church affairs weighed heavily upon him; and +another heavy sorrow fell on him in the death of the guardian +elder sister, Mrs. Dundas. Her illness, typhus fever, left +time for the preparation of knowing of her danger, and a letter +written to her by her brother during the suspense breathes his +resigned hope:—“Dear Lizzie, you may now be among the +members of the Church in heaven, who <!-- page 296--><a +name="page296"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 296</span>have washed +their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. +If so, we shall never meet again on earth. But what a +meeting in heaven! Any two of us to meet so would be, more +than we can conceive, to be made perfect, and never more to +part.” And when writing to the bereaved husband after +the blow had fallen, he says: “Surely we ought not to think +it strange if the brightest gems are sometimes removed from the +workshop to the immediate presence of the Great King.”</p> +<p>But the grief, though borne in such a spirit, probably made +him susceptible to the only illness he experienced while in +Natal. The immediate cause was riding in the burning sun of +a southern February, and the drinking cold water, the result of +which was a fever, that kept him at home for about a month.</p> +<p>There was at this time a strong desire to send a mission into +independent Zululand, with a Bishop at its head. Bishop +Colenso was at first inclined to undertake the lead himself, +resigning Natal; and next a plan arose that Archdeacon Mackenzie +should become the missionary Bishop. The plan was to be +submitted to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and +for this purpose the Archdeacon was despatched to England, taking +Miss Mackenzie with him; but the younger sister, Alice, having so +recently arrived, and being so valuable as a worker among the +natives, remained to assist in the school of young chiefs who had +been gathered together by Bishop Colenso.</p> +<p>The time of the return of the brother and sister was just when +Dr. Livingstone’s account of the interior of Africa, and of +the character of the chiefs on the Zambesi, had excited an +immense enthusiasm throughout England. He had appealed to +the Universities to found a mission, and found it they would, on +a truly grand scale, commensurate with their wealth and +numbers. It was to have a Bishop at the head, and a strong +staff of clergy, vessels built on purpose to navigate the rivers, +and every requisite amply provided. Crowded meetings were +held at each University, and the enthusiasm produced by the +appeal of Dr. Livingstone, a Scottish Presbyterian, to the +English Universities, as the only bodies capable of such an +effort, produced unspeakable excitement. At a huge meeting +at Cambridge, attended by the most distinguished of English +Churchmen, Archdeacon Mackenzie was present. His quiet +remark to the friend beside him, was, “I am <i>afraid</i> +of this. Most great <!-- page 297--><a +name="page297"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 297</span>works have +been carried on by one or two men in a quieter way, and have had +a more humble beginning.” In fact, Bishop Gray, of +Capetown, had long been thinking of a Central African Mission; +but his plan, and that which Mackenzie would have preferred, was +to work gradually northwards from the places already Christian, +or partially so, instead of commencing an isolated station at so +great a distance, not only from all aid to the workers, but from +all example or mode of bringing civilized life to the +pupils. But Livingstone had so thoroughly won the +sympathies of the country that only the exact plan which he +advocated could obtain favour, and it was therefore felt that it +was better to accept and co-operate with his spirit than to give +any check, or divide the flow by contrary suggestions.</p> +<p>Thus Livingstone became almost as much the guide and referee +of the Zambesi expedition as ever a Cardinal Legate was of a +crusade. Nor could this be wondered at, for the ordinary +Englishman is generally almost ignorant of missions and their +history, and in this case an able and interesting book of travels +had stirred the mind of the nation; nor had experience then shown +how much more there was of the explorer than of the missionary in +the writer.</p> +<p>From the first, Archdeacon Mackenzie was designated as the +chief of the mission. He felt the appointment a call not to +be rejected. His sister Anne viewed it in the same spirit, +and was ready to cast in her lot with him, and letters were +written to the other sister in Natal proposing to her to +accompany them. Then came a year of constant travelling and +oratory in churches and on platforms, collecting means and +rousing interest in the mission—a year that would have been +a mere whirl to any one not possessed of the wonderful calmness +and simplicity that characterized Mackenzie, and made him just do +the work that came to hand in the best manner in his power, +without question or choice as to what that work might be.</p> +<p>By the October of 1860 all was ready, and the brother and +sister had taken leave of the remaining members of their family, +and embarked at Southampton, together with two clergymen, a lay +superintendent, a carpenter and a labourer, and likewise Miss +Fanny Woodrow, Mrs. Robertson’s niece, who was to join in +her work. Their first stage was Capetown, where it had been +arranged that the consecration should take place, since it is +best that a Missionary Bishop governing persons not <!-- page +298--><a name="page298"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +298</span>under English government should not be fettered by +regulations that concern her Prelates, not as belonging to the +Church, but to the Establishment. There was some delay in +collecting the bishops of South Africa, so that the +<i>Pioneer</i>, placed at Dr. Livingstone’s disposal, could +not wait; and the two clergy, Mr. Waller and Mr. Scudamore, +proceeded without their chief.</p> +<p>On the 1st of January, 1861, the rite took place, memorable as +the first English consecration of a Missionary Bishop, and an +example was set that has happily been since duly followed, as the +Church has more and more been roused to the fulfilment of the +parting command, “Go ye, and teach <i>all</i> +nations.”</p> +<p>And, on the 7th, the new Bishop sailed in H.M.S. <i>Lyra</i>, +Captain Oldfield, which had been appointed, in the course of its +East African cruise, to take him to the scene of his labours, on +the way setting down the Bishop of Natal at his diocese. +The first exploration and formation of a settlement had been +decided to be too arduous and perilous for women, especially for +such an invalid as Miss Mackenzie, and she was therefore left at +Capetown, to follow as soon as things should be made ready for +her. The so-called black sister, who then fully intended +also to be a member of the Central African Mission, came down to +meet her brother at Durban, and a few days of exceeding peace and +joy were here spent. The victory over his opponents at +Durban had been won by the recollection of his unfailing meekness +and love; they hailed him with ardent affection and joy, +expressed their regret for all that had been unfriendly, and +eagerly sought for all pastoral offices at his hand. He +consecrated a church, and held a confirmation at the Umlazi; but +the Robertsons were not there to welcome him. The +long-contemplated mission into independent Zululand had devolved +upon Mr. Robertson, and he and his wife, and the choicest and +most trustworthy of their converts, had removed across the Tugela +into the territories of old King Panda, the last of the terrible +brotherhood, and now himself greatly ruled by the ablest and most +successful of his sons, Ketchewayo by name. The work was +very near Bishop Mackenzie’s heart, and, both with +substantial aid, prayers, blessings, and encouragements, he +endeavoured to forward it.</p> +<p>His last day in Natal was spent in a service with a +confirmation at Claremont, and an evening service at +Durban. “As we were returning,” wrote his +sister Alice, “we saw a rocket <!-- page 299--><a +name="page299"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 299</span>from the +sea; a gun fired, the mail was in; and the captain, who was with +us, said he would let us know the first thing in the morning the +hour he would sail. Well, after this, there was little +peace or quiet. We were too tired to sit up that night, and +next morning there was much to arrange, and everybody was coming +and going, and we heard we were to go by the half-past two +train. A great many friends were with us, but on the shore +we slipped away, and, leaning together on a heap of bricks, had a +few sweet, quiet collects together, till we were warned we must +go to the boat. We went on board the tug, and stood +together high up on the captain’s place; we were washed +again and again by the great waves. When he went, and I had +his last kiss and blessing, his own bright, beautiful spirit +infected mine, and I could return his parting words without +flinching; I saw him go without even a tear dimming my eye: so +that I could watch him to the last, looking after our little boat +again crossing the bar, till we could distinguish each other no +more.</p> +<p>“In speaking one day of happiness, he said, ‘I +have given up looking for that altogether. Now, till death, +my post is one of unrest and care. To be the sharer of +everyone’s sorrow, the comforter of everyone’s grief, +the strengthener of everyone’s weakness: to do this as much +as in me lies is now my aim and object; for, you know, when the +members suffer, the pain must always fly to the +head.’ He said this with a smile, and oh! the peace +in his face; it seemed as if nothing <i>could</i> shake +it.”</p> +<p>The last photograph, taken during this visit to Durban, with +the high calm brow, and the quiet contemplative eye, bears out +this beautiful, sisterly description of that last look.</p> +<p>The <i>Lyra</i> next proceeded to the Kongone mouth of the +Zambesi, where the two parties who had gone forward, including +Dr. Livingstone himself, were met, and a consultation took +place. The Bishop was anxious to go forward, arrange his +settlement, and commence his work at once; but Dr. Livingstone +thought the season a bad one, and was anxious to explore the +River Rovuma, to see whether its banks afforded a better opening; +and it ended in the Bishop feeling obliged to give way to his +experience, although against his own judgment.</p> +<p>He therefore, with Mr. Rowley, who had joined him at Durban, +accompanied Livingstone in the <i>Pioneer</i>, leaving the others +at Johanna, a little island used as a depôt for coal.</p> +<p><!-- page 300--><a name="page300"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +300</span>The expedition was not successful; there was only water +enough in the channel to enable the <i>Pioneer</i> to go thirty +miles up in five days, and it failed more and more in the +descent. The steamer, too, though built for the purpose of +navigating the shallows of rivers, drew more water than had been +expected; the current when among shoals made the descent worse +than the ascent; there was a continual necessity for landing to +cut wood to feed the engine; and, in five days, the +<i>Pioneer</i> had not made ten miles. The Bishop worked as +hard as any of the crew, once narrowly escaped the jaws of a +crocodile, and had a slight touch of fever, so trifling that it +perhaps disposed him to think lightly of the danger; but he was +still weak when he came back to Johanna, and, by way of remedy, +set out before breakfast for a mountain walk, and came back +exhausted, and obliged to lie still, thoroughly depressed in mind +as well as body for two days. The expedition proved the +more unfortunate, that it delayed the start for the Zambesi from +February, when the stream was full, till May, when the water was +so low that a great quantity of the stores had to be left behind, +in order that the <i>Pioneer</i> might not draw too much +water. The chief assistants were the Malokolo, a portion of +a tribe who had attached themselves to Dr. Livingstone, and had +been awaiting his return on the banks of the river. The +Bishop would fain have gone without weapons of any sort, but Dr. +Livingstone decided that this was impracticable. He said, +by all means take guns, and use them, if needed, and they would +prove the best pacificators; and Mackenzie, as usual, yielded his +own judgment, and heartily accepted what was decided on for +him.</p> +<p>All those left at Johanna had suffered from fever, and were +relieved that the time of inaction was over when they embarked in +the <i>Pioneer</i> on the 1st of May, and in due time ascended +the Zambesi, and again the Shire, but very slowly, for much time +was consumed in cutting wood for the engines, every <i>stick</i> +in the mud costing three days’ labour, and in three weeks +going only six or seven miles, seeing numerous crocodiles and +hippopotami by the way.</p> +<p>It was not till the middle of July that they reached the +landing-place. As soon as the goods had been landed the +whole party set out on an exploration, intending to seek for a +place, high enough on the hills to be healthy, on which to form +their settlement.</p> +<p><!-- page 301--><a name="page301"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +301</span>Their goods were carried by negroes, and a good many by +themselves, the Bishop’s share being in one hand a loaded +gun, in the other a crozier, in front a can of oil, behind, a bag +of seeds. “I thought,” he writes, “of the +contrast between my weapon and my staff, the one like Jacob, the +other like Abraham, who armed all his trained servants to rescue +Lot. I thought also of the seed which we must sow in the +hearts of the people, and of the oil of the Spirit that must +strengthen us in all we do.”</p> +<p>The example of Abraham going forth to rescue Lot was brought +suddenly before the mission party. While halting at a negro +village, a sound was heard like the blowing of penny trumpets, +and six men, with muskets, came into the village, driving with +them eighty-four slaves, men, women, and children, whom they had +collected for Portuguese slave-dealers at Tette.</p> +<p>The Bishop and Mr. Scudamore had gone out of the village to +bathe just before they arrived; but Dr. Livingstone, recognizing +one of the drivers, whom he had seen at Tette, took him by the +wrist, saying, “What are you doing here, killing +people? I shall kill you to-day.”</p> +<p>The man answered: “I do not kill; I am not making +war. I bought these people.”</p> +<p>Then Livingstone turned to the slaves. Two men said, +“We were bought.” Six said, “We were +captured.” And several of the women, “Our +husbands and relatives were killed, and here we are.”</p> +<p>Whereupon Livingstone began to cut the bonds of cord that +fastened them together, while the slave-catchers ran away. +All this was over before the Bishop returned; and Livingstone was +explaining to the rescued negroes that they might either return +to their homes, go to Tette, or remain under English protection, +while they expressed their joy and gratitude by a slow clapping +of the hands. They told a terrible story, of women shot for +trying to escape, and of a babe whose brains were dashed out, +because its mother could not carry it and her brothers +together.</p> +<p>If asked by what authority he did these things, Livingstone +would have answered, by the right of a Christian man to protect +the weak from devilish cruelty. There was no doubt in his +mind that these slaves, even though purchased, were deprived of +their liberty so unjustly, that their deliverance was only a +sacred duty, and that their owners had no right of property in +them. If a British cruiser descended on a slave-ship, and +<!-- page 302--><a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +302</span>released her freight, should he not also deliver the +captive wherever he met him?</p> +<p>And, with this, another question was raised, namely, that of +the use of weapons. The party were in the country of the +Man-gnaja, a tribe of negroes who were continually harried by the +fiercer and more powerful neighbour-tribe of Ajawa, great +slave-catchers, who supplied the slave-hunters who came out from +Tette to collect their human droves. These were mostly +Arabs, with some Portuguese admixture; and the blacks, after +being disposed of in the market at Tette, were usually shipped +off to supply the demand in Arabia and Egypt, where, to tell the +truth, their lot was a far easier one than befell the slaves of +the West, the toilers among sugar and cotton.</p> +<p>A crusade against slave-catching could not be carried on +without, at least, a show of force; and, this granted, a further +difficulty presented itself, in the fact that, out of the scanty +number of white men, one was a bishop and two were priests of the +English Church, and one a Presbyterian minister. In all +former cases, the missionaries had freely ventured themselves, +using no means of self-defence, and marking the difference +between themselves and others by the absence of all +weapons. But, in those places, it was self-defence that was +given up; here the point was, whether to deliver the captive, or, +by silence, to acquiesce in the wrong done to him; and if his +rescue were attempted, it was in vain, unless the clergy +assisted; and thus it was that the mission party did not march so +much as men of peace as deliverers of the captive and breakers of +the yoke. The captives had no power of returning home, and +chose to remain with their deliverers; and the next day the party +reached a negro village, called Chibisa’s, after the chief +who had ruled it at the time of Dr. Livingstone’s first +visit. He was now dead, but his successor, Chigunda, begged +the white men to remain, to protect him from the Ajawa, who were +only five or ten miles off, and from whom an attack was +expected.</p> +<p>It was decided to forestall it by marching towards them. +On the way another great convoy of slaves was encountered, and +with the merest show of force, no bloodshed at all, more than +forty were liberated—the men from forked clogs to their +necks, consisting of a pole as thick as a man’s thigh, +branched at the top like the letter Y, so that the neck of the +prisoner could be inserted, and fastened with an iron pin.</p> +<p><!-- page 303--><a name="page303"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +303</span>The large number of these liberated captives made it +necessary to choose a home, but Chibisa’s was not the place +selected, but a spot some sixty miles further on, called +Magomero. It was on a plain 3,000 feet above the level of +the sea, or rather in a hole on the plain; for it was chosen +because the bend of a river encircled it on three sides, so that +a stockade on the fourth would serve for defence, in case of an +attack from the Ajawa; and this consideration made Livingstone +enforce the choice upon the Bishop, who again yielded to his +opinion. The higher ground around was not unhealthy; the +air was pure, the heat never excessive; but the river was too +near, and brought fever to a spot soon overcrowded. It was +occupied, however, with high hope and cheerfulness; huts, formed +of poles and roofed with piles of grass, were erected, a larger +one set apart for a church, and a system established of regular +training for the numerous troop of clients, now amounting to +above a hundred. To give them regular religious +instruction, without being secure of the language, was thought by +the Bishop inexpedient, and he therefore desired, at first, to +prepare the way by the effects of physical training and +discipline. This was a Magomero day:—English matins +at early morning; breakfast on fowls or goats’-flesh, yam, +beans, and porridge; then a visit to the sick; for, alas! already +the whole thirteen of the mission staff were never well at the +same time. After this, the negroes were collected, answered +to their names, and had breakfast served out to them; two women +being found to receive and apportion the shares of the lesser +children, and this they did carefully and kindly.</p> +<p>The tender sweetness of Mackenzie told greatly in dealing with +these poor creatures. He did not think it waste of time to +spend an hour a day trying to teach the little ones their +letters; and Mr. Rowley draws a beautiful picture of him feeding, +with a bottle, a black babe, whose mother had not nutriment +enough to sustain it,—the little naked thing nestling up to +his big beard, and going to sleep against his broad chest.</p> +<p>Work followed. One whith man drilled the boys, one +command being for them all to leap into the river at the same +moment to bathe; one bargained with the vendors of mealies, beer, +goats, fowls, yams, &c., who came in numbers from the +villages round, and received payment in beads, and a blue cotton +manufacture, called selampore, which is the current coin of +Central Africa. Others worked, and showed how to work, <!-- +page 304--><a name="page304"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +304</span>at the buildings till one o’clock, when the +dinner was served, only differing from breakfast in the drink +being native beer instead of coffee. Rest followed till +five, when there were two hours’ more work, nearly till +sunset, which, even on the longest day, was before half-past six; +then tea, evensong, and bed.</p> +<p>The great need was of some female element, to train and deal +with the women and girls; and there was an earnest desire for the +arrival of the sisters. But, in the meantime, the +occupation of Magomero proved far from peaceful. The Ajawa +were always coming down upon the Man-gnaja to burn their villages +and steal slaves, and the Man-gnaja called upon the whites as +invincible allies.</p> +<p>The Bishop and his clergy (Livingstone had now left them, and +gone on to Lake Nyassa) thought that to present a resolute front +to the Ajawa would drive them back for good and all; and that the +Man-gnaja could be bound over henceforth to give up +slave-dealing, and, on this condition, they did not refuse their +assistance. Subsequent events have led to the belief that +this warfare of the Ajawa was really the advance of one of those +great tides of nations that take place from time to time, and +that they were a much finer people than the cowardly and false +Man-gnaja; but, of course, a small company of strangers, almost +ignorant of the language, and communicating with the natives +through a released and educated negro, could not enter into the +state of things, and could only struggle against the immediate +acts of oppression that came before them.</p> +<p>There were thus about three expeditions to drive back the +Ajawa and deliver the rescued slaves—bloodless expeditions, +for the sight of the white men and their guns was quite enough to +produce a general flight, and a large colony of the rescued had +gathered at Magomero in the course of a few months. +Meantime another clergyman, the Rev. H. De Wint Burrup, with his +newly-married wife and three lay members of the mission, had +arrived at Capetown, and, leaving Mrs. Burrup there with Miss +Mackenzie, had come on to join the others. Mr. Burrup and +Mr. Dickinson (a surgeon) actually made their way in canoes and +river boats from Quillinane up to Chibisa’s, where the +<i>Pioneer</i> was lying, Dr. Livingstone having just returned +from his three months’ expedition.</p> +<p>It was an absolute exploit in travelling, but a very perilous +one, since these open boats, in the rain and on the low level of +<!-- page 305--><a name="page305"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +305</span>the river, exposed them to the greatest danger of +fever; and there can be no doubt that their constitutions were +injured, although, no serious symptoms appearing, the mission +party were still further induced to underrate the necessity of +precaution.</p> +<p>The Bishop coming down to visit Livingstone (seventy miles in +thirty hours on foot), gladly hailed the new-comers, and returned +rapidly with Mr. Burrup, both a good deal over-fatigued; and, +indeed, the Bishop never thoroughly recovered this reckless +expenditure of strength. He considered that things were now +forward enough for a summons to the ladies at Capetown. +Communication was very difficult, and the arrangements had +therefore to be made somewhat blindly; but his plan was, that his +sisters and Mrs. Burrup should try to obtain a passage to +Kongone, where the <i>Pioneer</i> should meet them, and bring +them up the rivers to the landing-place at Chibisa’s. +He did not know of his sister Alice’s marriage at Natal, +though he would have rejoiced at it if he had known. He +himself intended to come down to the spot where the rivers Shire +and Ruo meet, and there greet the sister and the wife on board +the <i>Pioneer</i>, and return with them to Magomero.</p> +<p>The way by the river and by Chibisa’s was a great +circuit, and it was thought that a more direct way might be found +by exploration. Mr. Procter and Mr. Scudamore, with the +black interpreter, Charles Thomas, and some of the negroes, +started to pioneer a way. After five days Charles appeared +at Magomero, exhausted, foot-sore, ragged, and famished, having +had no food for forty-eight hours, and just able to say +“the Man-gnaja attacked us; I am the only one who has +escaped.”</p> +<p>When he had had some soup, he told that the party had come to +a village where they had been taken for slave-dealers, and the +natives, on finding they were not, put on a hostile appearance, +and as they pushed on came out in great numbers with bows and +arrows, insisting on their return. After consulting they +thought it would be better to turn back and conciliate the chief, +rather than leave a nest of enemies in their rear, and they +therefore turned. Unfortunately the negroes had caught +sight of the 140 yards of selampore that they were taking with +them as cash for the journey, and though the chief, who had been +at Senna and Quillinane, was civil, there was much discontent at +their not expending more in purchases of provisions; and Charles +told them that their bearers had overheard plans <!-- page +306--><a name="page306"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +306</span>for burning their huts in the night, killing them and +taking their goods. They decided to escape; and occupying +the chief’s attention by a present of a bright scarf, they +bade their men get under weigh. A cry arose, “They +are running away.” There was a rush upon them, and +Charles managed to break through. He heard two shots fired, +and was pursued for some distance, but, as darkness came on, +effected his escape.</p> +<p>It seems to have been just one of the cases when a little +hesitation and uncertainty on the part of the civilized men did +all the mischief by emboldening the savages. Of course it +was necessary to rescue them, but as the Ajawa were but twenty +miles off, and Magomero must be guarded, there was no choice but +to have recourse to the Makololo, and thus let loose one set of +savages against another. Just, however, as a message was +being despatched to bring them, the two clergymen were seen +returning. They too had walked eighty-five miles in +forty-eight hours, and had had but one fowl between them. +They had in fact got out of the village almost immediately after +Charles, but closely beset with natives armed with bows and +poisoned arrows. Some tried to wrest Mr. Procter’s +gun from him, and even got him down, when he defended himself +with his heels, until Mr. Scudamore, who was a little in advance, +fired on his assailants, when they gave back; but an arrow aimed +at him penetrated the stock of his gun so deeply that the head +remained embedded in it. Firing both barrels, he produced a +panic, under cover of which they made their way into the bush, +and contrived with much difficulty to reach home.</p> +<p>Six of their eight bearers gradually straggled in, and the +last brought the following message from a chief in the next +village: “I am not in blame for this war; Manasomba has +tried to kill the English, has stolen their baggage and their +boy, and has kept two of your men. He says if the English +want the men, let them come and buy them out, or else fight for +them.”</p> +<p>It appeared that Manasomba was not a Man-gnaja, and that his +suspicions were excited by anything so inexplicable to the negro +mind as white men going about with so much cloth without buying +slaves nor much of anything else.</p> +<p>There were still two men to be rescued, and the question was, +whether to wait for Livingstone, who was armed with authority to +give a lesson to the negroes, or for the mission party to +undertake it themselves, especially in the haste which was <!-- +page 307--><a name="page307"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +307</span>needful in order to be in time for the meeting with the +<i>Pioneer</i>. They decided on the march, so as to release +the men, and thus were forced to break up the calm of the +Christmas feast. “If it is right to do it at all, it +is right to do it on a holy day,” was the Bishop’s +argument, and so the Christmas Day was spent, partly in walking, +partly at Chipoka’s village, where was held the Holy +Communion feast. “How wondrous,” wrote the +Bishop, “the feeling of actual instantaneous communion with +all you dear ones, though the distance and means of earthly +communication are so great and so difficult!” The +negroes of the neighbouring villages joined them, and they +proceeded. Near Manasomba’s village they met a large +body of men, with whom the Bishop attempted to hold a parley, but +they ran away, and only discharged a few arrows. The +village was deserted except by a few sheep, goats, and Muscovy +ducks, and these were driven out and the huts set on fire.</p> +<p>This punishment was as a “vindication of the English +name,” and as an act of self-defence, since any faltering +in resolution among such savages would have been fatal; but, +after all, the men were not recovered, and the expedition had +been so exhausting that none of the party were really fit to push +on for the place of meeting with the <i>Pioneer</i>, nor would +Chipoka give them guides or bearers in that direction, saying it +was all occupied by Manasomba’s friends.</p> +<p>They came back to Magomero grievously exhausted; Scudamore +fell down on a bed only just alive, and even the Bishop, though +he tried to act and speak with vigour, was evidently suffering +from illness and over-fatigue.</p> +<p>But there was the appointment to be kept with Livingstone and +the ladies at the Ruo, and, unfit as he was, he persevered, +setting off with Burrup, sadly enough, for Scudamore was lying in +a dangerous state; but no one guessed that they would never meet +again upon earth.</p> +<p>It was on the 4th of January, 1862, that they started with a +few Malokolo and the interpreter Charles, and it was six weeks +before the colony at Magomero heard any tidings. There the +stores were all but exhausted, and having hardly any goods left +for barter, there was little food to be obtained but green corn +and pumpkin, most unsuited to the Englishmen’s present +state of health.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, in constant rain and through swollen streams, <!-- +page 308--><a name="page308"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +308</span>Mackenzie and Burrup had made their way down to the +river, and there with much difficulty obtained a canoe. On +the first night of the voyage all the party, except the Bishop, +wished to go on, because the mosquitoes rendered rest +impossible. He thought moving on in the dark imprudent, but +gave up his own will, and even wrote jestingly afterwards on the +convenience of making the mosquitoes act as a spur. The +consequence was that they came suddenly upon a projecting bend; +the boat upset, and everything they had was in the water. +They spent more than an hour in recovering what could be brought +up; but their powder and their provisions were spoilt, and, what +was still worse, their medicines: including the quinine, almost +essential to life, and that when they were thoroughly drenched in +the middle of an African night.</p> +<p>Making sure, however, of speedily meeting Dr. Livingstone, +they pushed on; but when they came to Malo, the isle at the +confluence of the Ruo and Shire, they learnt from the natives +that the <i>Pioneer</i> had gone down the stream. The +negroes could give no clear account of how long ago it had +been. If they had known that it had been only five days, +they would probably have put forth their speed and have overtaken +her, but they thought that a much longer time was intended, and +that waiting for the return would be not only more prudent, but +might enable them to make friends with the chief, and prepare for +a station to be established on the island. A hut was given +them, and there was plenty of wholesome food on the island.</p> +<p>Inaction, is, however the most fatal curse in that land of +fever. There is a cheerful letter written by the Bishop to +his home friends, on the 14th and 15th of January; but his vigour +was flagging. He spoke with disappointment of the inability +of Dr. Livingstone to bring up stores to Chibisa’s, and +longed much for his sisters’ arrival, telling his companion +it would break his heart if they did not now come. He also +wrote a strong letter to the Secretary of the Universities’ +Mission, begging for a steam launch to keep up the supplies, +where the <i>Pioneer</i> had failed. Soon after this, both +became grievously ill; the Bishop’s fever grew violent, he +perceived his danger, and told the Malokolo that <span +class="smcap">Jesus</span> would come to take him, but he +presently became delirious and insensible, in which condition he +lay for five days, the Malokolo waiting on him as well as they +could under Burrup’s superintendence.</p> +<p><!-- page 309--><a name="page309"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +309</span>The negro tribes have an exceeding dread of death, and +a hut which has had a corpse in it is shut up for three +years. Probably for this reason the chief begged that the +dying man might be carried to another hut less needful to +himself, and as he had been kind and friendly throughout Mr. +Burrup thought it right to comply. Shortly after, on the +afternoon of the 31st of January, the pure, gentle, and noble +spirit passed away. The chief, from superstitious fear, +insisted that the body should be immediately interred, and not on +the island, and Mr. Burrup and the Malokolo therefore laid it in +their canoe, and paddled to the mainland, where a spot was +cleared in the bush, the grave dug, and as it was by this time +too dark to see to read, Mr. Burrup said all that he could +remember of the burial service, the four blacks standing +wondering and mournful by.</p> +<p>He saw that for himself the only hope was in a return to +Magomero. The canoe was tried, but the current was so +strong that such small numbers could not make head against +it. He therefore proceeded on foot, but fell down +repeatedly from weakness, and was only dragged on by his strong +will and the aid of the Malokolo. They behaved admirably, +and when he reached Chibisa’s, and could walk no longer, +they and the villagers contrived a palanquin of wood, and carried +him on in it. The chief, finding that his store of cloth +(<i>i.e.</i> coin) was expended, actually offered him a present +of some to carry him on.</p> +<p>On the 14th of February, one of the Malokolo appeared before +the anxious colonists at Magomero. His face was that of a +bearer of evil tidings, and when they asked for the Bishop, he +hid his face in his hands. When they pressed further, he +said, “<i>wafa</i>, <i>wafa</i>” (he is dead, he is +dead). And while they stood round stunned, he made them +understand that Burrup was at hand, so ill as to be carried on +men’s shoulders.</p> +<p>There was nothing to be done but to hurry out to meet him, +taking the last drop of wine remaining. He had become the +very shadow of himself, but even then he slightly rallied, and +could he have had nourishing food, wine or brandy, the strength +of his constitution would probably have carried him through; but +the stores were exhausted, there was nothing to recruit his +powers, and on the 23rd of February he likewise died.</p> +<p>Meantime, his young wife, with Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. +Livingstone, had sailed in December in a wretchedly uncomfortable +little craft, called the <i>Hetty Ellen</i>. On reaching +the <!-- page 310--><a name="page310"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 310</span>Kongone they saw no token of the +<i>Pioneer</i>, but after waiting in great discomfort, tossing at +the mouth of the river, the vessel made for Mozambique. +There they fell in with H.M.S. <i>Gorgon</i>. Captain +Wilson, resolved to render them every service in his power, took +the ladies on board, the vessel in tow, and carried them to +Quillinane, where they presently fell in with Dr. Livingstone and +the <i>Pioneer</i>.</p> +<p>His little lake steamer, the <i>Lady Nyassa</i>, had been +packed on board the <i>Hetty Ellen</i>, and had formed the only +shelter Miss Mackenzie had from the sun, and the transference of +this occupied some time. Then the unhappy <i>Pioneer</i> +began to proceed at her snail’s pace, one day on a +sand-bank, another with the machinery out of order, continually +halting for supplies of wood, and thinking a couple of miles a +good day’s work. Captain Wilson, shocked at the +notion of women spending weeks in labouring up that pestiferous +stream, beset with mosquitoes by night and tsetse flies by day, +offered to man his gig and take them up himself. So +desperate a journey was it for a frail invalid like Miss +Mackenzie, that one of the sailors took a spade to dig her grave +with; and in fact she was soon prostrated with fever. None +of the party knew who lay sleeping in his grave under the +trees. The natives on the island entirely denied having +seen or heard anything of the Bishop, and never gave Mr. +Burrup’s letter, fearing perhaps that some revenge might +fall on them. Baffled by not meeting him, Captain Wilson +still would not leave the ladies till he should have seen them +safe among their friends, and pushed on his boat with speed very +unlike that of the tardy <i>Pioneer</i>, and thus, in a day and a +half, arrived at Chibisa’s, where the Malokolo came down to +the boat, with tidings that, though their language was but +imperfectly understood, were only too certain. The brave +and tender-hearted leader of the mission was dead! Still +there was hope of Mr. Burrup; but Captain Wilson would not allow +the young wife to take the difficult journey only to find +desolation, but went on by land himself, leaving her with Miss +Mackenzie, under charge of his ship’s surgeon, Dr. +Ramsay. He came back after a few days, having become too +ill by the way to get further than Soche, where he had been met +by three of the mission party, who now returned with him to +Chibisa’s, with the tidings in all their sad fulness; and +the mournful party set forth upon their return. On coming +to the island, he demanded Mr. Burrup’s <!-- page 311--><a +name="page311"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 311</span>letter, and +the negroes looked at one another, saying, “It is all +known.” They gave him the letter, but it was with +very great difficulty that they could be persuaded to show him +the grave, over which he set up a cross of reeds, and then +continuing this sad voyage, placed the ladies on board his ship, +and carried them back to Capetown.</p> +<p>Bishop Mackenzie had executed a will not six weeks before his +death, bequeathing to the Additional Bishoprics Fund his +property, and to the mission his books, except those specially +connected with his personal devotions, which were to go to his +family, and which Captain Wilson brought down with him, the +Bible, Prayer-book, and “Christian Year,” bearing +tokens of that immersion in the water which, by the destruction +of the medicines, may be believed to have been the chief cause of +his death. Until the arrival of a new Bishop, or of +instructions from the Metropolitan of Capetown, the headship of +the mission was to remain with the senior clergyman, or failing +him, of the senior layman. Thus the little colony had their +instructions to wait and carry on the work: but further +difficulties soon arose. Stores were still wanting, fever +prevailed even among the negroes. All the class of little +children whom the Bishop used to teach had died under it, each +being baptized before its death, and the Ajawa began to threaten +again. The lessened force, without a head, decided that, +though their advance might drive the enemy back, it was better to +avoid further warfare, and relinquish the post at Magomero. +With the long train of helpless natives, then, the few white men +set forth, and after several days’ tedious and weary march +came to Chibisa’s, where they founded a new station on a +hill-side, above the native village, and tried to continue their +old system; but by Christmas Mr. Scudamore had become fatally +ill, and he died on the morning of New Year’s Day, 1863, +greatly lamented, not only by the remnant of his own party, but +by all the negroes; and on the 17th of March he was followed by +Dr. Dickinson.</p> +<p>We do not deal with those still living, therefore we will only +further mention that on the 26th of June following Bishop Tozer +arrived at Chibisa’s. He decided on removing to a +place called Morumbala, a station nearer Quillinane, which he +hoped might prove healthier, and out of the reach of the +Ajawa. The remaining clergy of the mission were greatly +concerned at this, <!-- page 312--><a name="page312"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 312</span>for they had hopes of influencing +the Ajawa, and besides, the negroes whom they had rescued, who +had been now more than a year under their care, could not for the +most part be taken to Morumbala; for, though grieving much at +losing their “English fathers,” they would be placed +at a distance from their own tribe, among strangers and possible +enemies.</p> +<p>The families who could provide for themselves were left at +Chibisa’s, Mr. Waller making the best terms in his power +for them. It was sad to leave them without having more +thoroughly Christianized them, but the frequent sicknesses of the +clergy, the loss of the chief pastor, and the want of some one to +take the lead, had prevented their instruction from being all +that could have been hoped. They had become warmly attached +to the English, and had in many respects much improved, and it is +hoped that they may keep alive the memory of the training they +have received, and prepare the way for better things.</p> +<p>There were about twenty orphan boys, for whom Bishop Tozer +undertook to provide; but there were also ten or twelve women and +girls, the former old and infirm, the latter orphans, and these +Mr. Waller could not bear to abandon, so he carried them with him +to Morumbala, and supported them at his own expense, until at the +end of five months it was decided to give up Morumbala, and fix +the head-quarters of the Central African Mission at +Zanzibar. Then, as it was not easy to convey the boys, or +provide for them there, Mr. Waller took the charge of them +likewise, and, with Dr. Livingstone’s assistance, conveyed +both them and the women and children to Capetown, where he +succeeded in procuring homes for them in different families and +mission schools or stations. All are now Christians, and +show themselves gentle, and susceptible of training and +education; nor have they much of that disposition so familiar to +us in the transplanted negroes of Western Africa. Four boys +were brought to England, but the climate would soon have been +fatal to them, and it is evident that Capetown or Natal and its +dependencies must be the meeting ground of the English and +African races, since there alone can both retain their vigour in +the same climate.</p> +<p>Thus ended the first venture of the University mission, in the +sacrifice of four lives, which may be well esteemed as freely +laid down in the cause of the Gospel. Such lives and such +<!-- page 313--><a name="page313"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +313</span>deaths are the seed of the Church. It is they +that speak the loudest in calling for the fresh labourers; and +though the Zanzibar Mission has drifted far away from the field +of Mackenzie’s labours, and has adopted a different system, +and though his toils in Natal never were allowed to continue long +enough in a single spot for him personally to reap their fruits +upon earth, not only has his name become a trumpet call, but out +of his grave has sprung, as it were, a mission in the very +quarter where, had he been permitted, he would have spent his +best efforts, namely, the free Zulu country, Panda’s +kingdom, to the north of the Tugela.</p> +<p>It has been already mentioned that Mr. and Mrs. Robertson had +removed thither, from their station upon the Umlazi, taking with +them a selection of their Christian Kaffirs, and settling, with +the king’s permission, at a place called Kwamagwaza. +At first they lived in a waggon and tents, for, delicate and +often ill as was Mrs. Robertson, she shrank from no hardship or +exertion. She writes, “My own health has been +wonderful, in spite of much real suffering from the closeness of +the waggon, and exposure to rain or hot sun, which is even more +trying. I often have to sleep with the waggon open, and a +damp foggy air flowing through to keep me from fainting, and I +have often told myself, ‘You might be worse off in the +cabin of a steamer,’ that I might not pity myself too +much.”</p> +<p>A hut was soon raised, and Mrs. Robertson here ruled in her +own peculiarly dignified and tender way as the mother of the +whole station, keeping guard there while her husband went on +expeditions to visit the king and his son Ketchewayo, the chief +executive authority. Another hut was raised to serve as a +church, and the days were arranged much as those on the Umlazi +had been. Children were born to the Christian couples, and +Mrs. Robertson spent much time and care in teaching the mothers +how to deal with them after a civilized and Christian +fashion. Other children were sometimes brought to her to be +adopted, and when entirely made over by their parents were +baptized and bred up as Christians. The general trust in +Mr. Robertson’s skill as a doctor brought many people under +his influence, and likewise gave some, though very slight +assistance, in combating the belief in witchcraft, the worst +enemy with which Christianity has to contend.</p> +<p><!-- page 314--><a name="page314"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +314</span>Whenever a person falls sick or meets with an accident, +a conjurer is sent for, who attributes the disaster to some other +person, on whom revenge must be taken. In the British +territory, no more can be done than to treat the supposed wizard +with contumely, such as to render his life a burthen to him, and +he can generally escape this by entering some white man’s +service, or attaching himself to a mission-station; but in +independent Zululand, any disaster to prince or great chief was +sure to be followed by a horrible massacre of the whole family of +the supposed offender, unless he had time to escape across the +border. Many a time did wounded women and children fly from +the slaughter to Kwamagwaza, and Mr. and Mrs. Robertson protect +them from the first fury of the pursuers, and then almost force +consent from Ketchewayo to their living under the protection of +the umfundisi.</p> +<p>Visits to Ketchewayo formed a very important part of the work, +since they gradually established his confidence in Mr. Robertson, +and obtained concessions that facilitated the Christianizing of +his people. One of his great objections was the fear of +losing their services as warriors. The regiments still +assemble at his camp as in the days of Dingarn, go through their +exercises and sing their war-songs, into some of which are +introduced lines in contempt of the Kaffirs who have passed the +Tugela to live under British law:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The Natal people have no king,<br /> + They eat salt;<br /> +To every tag-rag white man they say,<br /> + ‘Your +Excellency!’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mrs. Robertson’s niece, Miss Fanny Woodrow, who had come +out to join her, arrived at Durban, and was there met by Mrs. +Robertson herself, in her waggon, after the long and perilous +journey undertaken alone with the Kaffirs. Her residence at +Kwamagwaza was a time of much interest and prosperity; she threw +herself into the work, and much assisted in the training of the +women and children, and one or two visits she made to Ketchewayo +greatly delighted the prince. She came in June 1861, but +she had become engaged on her way out to the Rev. Lovell Procter, +and when the mission at Chibisa’s was given up, he was in +such a state of health as not to be able to continue with the +University Mission. Therefore <!-- page 315--><a +name="page315"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 315</span>he set out +on his return, and, coming to Natal by the way, arrived at +Kwamagwaza early in 1864. He was the first brother +clergyman Mr. Robertson had seen since coming into Zululand, and +the mingling of joy at the meeting, and of sorrow for Bishop +Mackenzie, were almost overwhelming. At Easter Mr. Procter +and Miss Woodrow were married, in the little mission church, +built of bricks made by Mr. Robertson’s own hands and those +of his pupils; and soon after Mr. and Mrs. Robertson set out in +their waggon to escort the newly-married pair to Durban, taking +with them several of their converts, and all their flock of +adopted children.</p> +<p>The stay in Durban, and Pieter Maritzburg, among old friends, +was full of comfort and pleasure; but the indefatigable +missionary and his wife were soon on their way home, their waggon +heavily loaded with boxes sent by friends in England, containing +much that they had longed for—among other things, iron-work +for fitting their church. On the 18th of June, when they +were three days’ journey across the Tugela, while Mr. +Robertson was walking in front of the waggon to secure a safe +track for it, the wheels, in coming down a descent, slid along on +some slippery grass, and there was a complete overturn, the +waggon falling on its side with the wheels in the air, and Mrs. +Robertson, and a little Kaffir boy of three years old, under the +whole of the front portion of the load.</p> +<p>Her husband and the Kaffirs cut away the side of the waggon +with axes, and tried to draw her out, but she was too fast wedged +in. She said in a calm voice, “Oh, remove the +boxes,” but before this could be done she had breathed her +last, apparently from suffocation, for her limbs were not +crushed, and her exceeding delicacy of frame and shortness of +breath probably made the weight and suffocation fatal to +her. The little boy suffered no injury.</p> +<p>The spot was near a Norwegian mission station, where the +kindest help was immediately offered to the husband. A +coffin was made of plank that had been bought at Durban to be +made into church doors, and when her husband had kept lonely +vigil all night over her remains, Henrietta Robertson was laid in +her grave, where the Norwegians hope to build their church, Mr. +Robertson himself reading the service over her.</p> +<p>But her work has not died with her. Mr. Robertson +returned to his lonely task, helped and tended by the converted +man <!-- page 316--><a name="page316"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 316</span>and his wife, Usajabula and +Christina, whom she had trained, and whose child had been with +her in the fatal overturn. A clergyman returning from the +Zanzibar Mission came to him and aided him for a while; other +helpers have come out from time to time, and meantime, Miss +Mackenzie exerted herself to the utmost, straining every nerve to +obtain funds for the establishment of a Missionary Bishopric in +Zululand, as the most fitting memorial to her brother, since it +was here that, had he chosen for himself, his work would have +lain. After several years of endeavour she has succeeded, +and, even as these last pages are written, we hold in our hands +the account of the arrival of the new Bishop at Kwamagwaza.</p> +<p>So it is that the work never perishes, but the very extinction +of one light seems to cause the lighting of many more; and thus +it is that the word is being gradually fulfilled that the Gospel +shall be preached to all nations, and that “the earth shall +be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the +waters cover the sea.”</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6" +class="footnote">[6]</a> At first sight this seems one of +the last misfortunes likely to have befallen a godly gentleman of +Charlestown; but throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries, the Algerine pirates swept the seas up to the very +coasts of England, as Sir John Eliot’s biography +testifies. Dr. James Yonge, of Plymouth, an ancestor only +four removes from the writer, was at one time in captivity to +them; and there was still probability enough of such a +catastrophe for Priscilla Wakefield to introduce it in her +“Juvenile Travellers,” written about 1780.</p> +<p><a name="footnote130"></a><a href="#citation130" +class="footnote">[130]</a> Articles of dress.</p> +<p><a name="footnote133"></a><a href="#citation133" +class="footnote">[133]</a> The Judsons always use the +universal prefix Moung, which we omit, as evidently is a general +title.</p> +<p><a name="footnote137"></a><a href="#citation137" +class="footnote">[137]</a> All along in these letters, +written journal fashion, it is to be observed how careful and +even distrustful Mr. Judson is.</p> +<p><a name="footnote221"></a><a href="#citation221" +class="footnote">[221]</a> Merino sheep, so called in Spain +because the breed came from beyond the sea (<i>Mer</i>), having +been introduced from England by Constance, daughter of John of +Gaunt, and wife of Juan II.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">london: r. +clay, sons, and taylor, printers, bread street hill</span>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS AND FOUNDERS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 19308-h.htm or 19308-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/3/0/19308 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Pioneers and Founders + or, Recent Workers in the Mission field + + +Author: Charlotte Mary Yonge + + + +Release Date: September 17, 2006 [eBook #19308] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS AND FOUNDERS*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 184 Macmillan & Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +PIONEERS AND FOUNDERS, +or +Recent Workers in the Mission field. + + +BY C. M. YONGE, + +_Author of_ "_The Heir of Radclyffe_." + +{i:Portrait of Reginald Heber: p0.jpg} + +London: +MACMILLAN & CO +1874. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +It has been my endeavour in the ensuing narratives to bring together such +of the more distinguished Missionaries of the English and American +nations as might best illustrate the character and growth of Mission work +in the last two centuries. It is impossible to make it a real history of +the Missions of modern times. If I could, I would have followed in the +track of Mr. Maclear's admirable volume, but the field is too wide, the +material at once too numerous and too scattered, and the account of the +spread of the Gospel in the distant parts of the earth has yet to be +written in volumes far exceeding the bulk of those allotted to the +"Sunday Library." + +Two large classes of admirable Missions have been purposely +avoided,--namely, those of the Jesuits in Japan, China, and North and +South America, and those of the Moravians in Greenland, the United +States, and Africa. These are noble works, but they are subjects apart, +and our narratives deal with men exclusively of British blood, with the +exception of Schwartz, whose toils were so entirely accepted and adopted +by the Church of England, that he cannot but be reckoned among her +ambassadors. The object, then, has been to throw together such +biographies as are most complete, most illustrative, and have been found +most inciting to stir up others--representative lives, as far as +possible--from the time when the destitution of the Red Indians first +stirred the heart of John Eliot, till the misery of the hunted negro +brought Charles Mackenzie to the banks of the fever-haunted Zambesi. + +We think it will be found that, so far from being the talking, +exaggerating, unpractical men that the critical and popular mind is apt +to suppose, these labourers were in general eminently practical and hard- +working. They seem to us to range themselves into three classes: one, +stirred up by the sight of the destitution before their eyes, and quietly +trying to supply those needs; one, inspired by fervid zeal to devote +themselves; and one, selected by others, taking that selection as a call, +and toiling as a duty, as they would have toiled at any other duty set +before them. Each and all have their place, and fulfil the work. The +hindrances and drawbacks are generally not in the men themselves, nor in +the objects of their labour, but first and foremost in the almost uniform +hostility of the colonists around, who are used to consider the dark +races as subjects for servitude, and either despise or resent any attempt +at raising them in the scale; and next, in the extreme difficulty of +obtaining means. This it is that has more than anything tended to bring +Mission work into disrepute. Many people have no regular system nor +principle of giving--the much-needed supplies can only be charmed out of +their pockets by sensational accounts, such as the most really +hard-working and devoted men cannot prevail on themselves to pour forth; +and the work of collection is left to any of the rank and file who have +the power of speech, backed by articles where immediate results may be +dwelt upon to satisfy those who will not sow in faith and wait patiently. + +And the Societies that do their best to regulate and collect the funds +raised by those who give, whether on impulse or principle, are +necessarily managed by home committees, who ought to unite the qualities +of men of business with an intimate knowledge of the needs and +governments of numerous young churches, among varied peoples, nations, +and languages, each in an entirely abnormal state; and, moreover, to deal +with those great men who now and then rise to fulfil great tasks, and +cannot be judged by common rules. Thus it is that home Societies are +often to be reckoned among the trials of Missionaries. + +But we will not dwell on such shortcomings, and will rather pass on to +what we had designed as the purpose of our present introduction; namely, +to supplement the information which the biographical form of our work has +necessitated us to leave imperfect, respecting the Missions as well as +the men. + +Of the Red Indians who first stirred the compassion of John Eliot, there +is little that is good to tell, or rather there is little good to tell of +the White man's treatment of them. Self-government by the stronger +people always falls hard on the weaker, and Mission after Mission has +been extinguished by the enmity of the surrounding Whites and the +corruption and decay of the Indians. A Moravian Mission has been +actually persecuted. Every here and there some good man has arisen and +done a good work on those immediately around him, and at the present time +there are some Indians living upon the reserves in the western part of +the continent, fairly civilized, settled, and Christianized, and only +diminishing from that law of their physical nature that forbids them to +flourish without a wilderness in which to roam. + +But between the long-settled States of America and those upon the shores +of the Pacific, lies a territory where the Indian is still a wild and +savage man, and where hatred and slaughter prevail. The Government at +Washington would fain act a humane part, and set apart reserves of land +and supplies, but the agents through which the transactions are carried +on have too often proved unfaithful, and palmed off inferior goods on the +Indians, or brought up old debts against them; and in the meantime mutual +injuries work up the settlers and the Red men to such a pitch of +exasperation, that horrid cruelties are perpetrated on the one side, and +on the other the wild men are shot down as pitilessly as beasts of prey, +while the travellers and soldiers who live in daily watch and ward +against the "wily savage" learn to stigmatize all pity for him as a sort +of sentimentalism sprung from Cooper's novels. + +Still, where there is peace, good men make their way, and with blessed +effect. We wish we had room for the records of the Bishopric of +Minnesota, and the details of the work among the Indians; more especially +how, when a rising was contemplated to massacre the White settlers all +along the border, a Christian Indian travelled all night to give warning; +and how, on another occasion, no less than four hundred White women and +children were saved by the interposition of four Christian Indian chiefs. +Perhaps the Church has never made so systematic an effort upon the +Indians as in Minnesota, and it is to be hoped that there may be some +success. + +For the need of system seems to me one of the great morals to be deduced +from the lives I have here collected. I confess that I began them with +the unwilling belief that greater works had been effected by persons +outside the pale of the Church than by those within; but as I have gone +on, the conviction has grown on me that even though the individuals were +often great men, their works lacked that permanency and grasp that Church +work, as such, has had. + +The equality of rank in the ministry of other bodies has prevented the +original great founders from being invested with the power that is really +needed in training and disciplining inferior and more inexperienced +assistants, and produces a want of compactness and authority which has +disastrous effects in movements of emergency. Moreover, the lack of +forms causes a deficiency of framework for religion to attach itself to, +and this is almost fatal to dealing with unintellectual minds. + +On the whole, the East Indian Missions have prospered best. Schwartz was +the very type of a founder, with his quiet, plodding earnestness, and +power of being generally valuable; and the impression he made had not had +time to die away before the Episcopate brought authority to deal with the +difficulties he had left. Martyn was, like Brainerd before him, one of +the beacons of the cause, and did more by his example than by actual +teaching; and the foundation of the See of Calcutta gave stability to the +former efforts. Except Heber, the Bishops of the Indian See were not +remarkable men, but their history has been put together as a whole for +the sake of the completion of the subject, as a sample of the +difficulties of the position, and likewise because of the steady progress +of the labours there recorded. + +The Serampore brethren are too notable to be passed over, if only for the +memorable fact that Carey the cobbler lighted the missionary fire +throughout England and America at a time when the embers had become so +extinct that our Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had to borrow +workers from Denmark and Germany. Indeed, Martyn's zeal was partly +lighted by Carey, though the early termination of his labours has forced +me to place his biography before that of the longer-lived Baptist +friends--both men of curious and wonderful powers, but whose history +shows the disadvantages of the Society government, and whose achievements +were the less permanent in consequence. The Burmese branch of their work +is chiefly noticeable for the characters and adventures of Dr. Judson and +his three wives, and for the interesting display of Buddhism in contact +with Christianity. According to the statistics in an American Missionary +Dictionary, the work they founded has not fallen to the ground either at +Moulmein or Rangoon; while there has also sprung up a hopeful English +Church Mission in the same quarter. The last thing I saw about it was a +mention of the neatness and dexterity of Burmese girls as needlewomen. + +Samuel Marsden may be called the patriarch of Australasian Christianity. +There is something grand in the bravery of the bullet-headed +Yorkshireman, now contending with the brutality of the convicts and their +masters, now sleeping among the cannibals of New Zealand. His +foundations, too, have received a superstructure on which we cannot +dwell; because, happily, the first Bishop of New Zealand is not yet a +subject for biography, and the Melanesian Mission, which has sprung out +of it, has not yet seen its first generation. + +The Polynesian work, of which John Williams was the martyr and the +representative man, has chiefly been carried on by the London Mission. It +has always been a principle with the Missionaries of the Anglican Church, +whose centre has been first New Zealand, then Norfolk Island, never to +enter upon any islands pre-occupied by Christian teachers of any +denomination, since there is no lack of wholly unoccupied ground, without +perplexing the spirit of the natives with the spectacle of "our unhappy +divisions;" and thus while Melanesia is for the most part left to the +Church, Polynesia is in the hands of the London Mission. Much good has +been effected. The difficulty is that, for want of supervision, +individual Missionaries are too much left to themselves, and are in +danger of becoming too despotic in their islands. At least such is the +impression they sometimes give to officers of the navy. French +aggression has much disturbed them both in Tahiti and in the Loyalty +Islands, and the introduction of Roman Catholic priests into their +territory is bitterly resented. On the whole, observers tolerably +impartial think that the civilization which these married teachers bring +with them has a happier effect as an example and stimulus to the natives +than the solitary ascetic priest,--a true, self-devoted saint indeed but +unable to win the attention of the people in their present condition. In +India, where asceticism is the test of sanctity even among the heathen, +the most self-denying preacher has the best chance of being respected; +but in those luxurious islets, poverty and plainness of living, without +the power of showing the arts of life, get despised. If the priests +could bring their pomp of worship, and large bands of brethren or sisters +to reclaim the waste, they might tell upon the minds of the people, but +at present they go forth few and poor, and are little heeded in their +isolation. Unfortunately, too, the antagonism between them and the +London Mission is desperate. The latter hold the tenets perhaps the most +widely removed from Catholicism of any Protestant sect, and are mostly +not educated enough to understand the opposite point of view, so that +each party would almost as soon see the natives unconverted as joining +the hostile camp: and precious time is wasted in warrings the one against +the other. + +The most real enemies to Christianity in these seas are, however, the +lawless traders, the English and American whalers and sandal-wood +dealers, who bring uncontrolled vice and violence where they put in for +water; while they, on the one hand, corrupt the natives, on the other +they provoke them into reprisals on the next White men who fall in their +way. That the Polynesians are good sailors and not bad workmen, has +proved another misfortune, for they are often kidnapped by unscrupulous +captains to supply the deficiency of labour in some of the Australasian +settlements. Everywhere it seems to be the unhappy fact that Christian +men are the most fatal hinderers of God's word among the heathen. + +Yet most of the more accessible of the isles have a resident missionary, +and keep up schools and chapels. Their chiefs have accepted a Christian +code, and the horrid atrocities of cannibalism have been entirely given +up, though there is still much evil prevalent, especially in those which +have convenient harbours, and are in the pathway of ships. The Samoan +islanders have a college, managed by an English minister and his wife, +where teachers are educated not only to much good discipline, but to much +real refinement, and go forth as admirable and self-devoted heralds of +the Gospel into other isles. They have furnished willing martyrs, and +many have been far beyond praise. One lack, however, seems to be of that +definite formularies, a deficiency which leaves the teaching to depend +over much on the individual impressions of the teacher. + +The chief remnants of cannibalism are to be found in the New Hebrides. +The leader of the attack on John Williams is still alive at Erromango, +and the savage defiant nature of this people has never been subdued. They +belong more to the Melanesian than the Polynesian races. The first are +more like the Negro, the second more like the Malay. The Melanesian +Missions are in the charge of the Missionary Bishop, John Coleridge +Patteson, who went out as a priest with the Bishop of New Zealand in +1855. + +The New Zealand story, as I have said, cannot be told in the lifetime of +the chief actor in it. It is a story of startling success, and then of +disappointment through colonial impracticability. In some points it has +been John Eliot's experience upon a larger scale; but in this case the +political quarrel led to the rise of a savage and murderous sect among +the Maories, a sort of endeavour to combine some features of Christianity +and even Judaism with the old forgotten Paganism, and yet promoting even +cannibalism. It is memorable, however, that not one Maori who had +received Holy Orders has ever swerved from the faith, though the "Hau- +Haus" have led away many hundreds of Christians. Still, a good number +remain loyal and faithful, and hold to the English in the miserable war +which is still raging, provoked by disputes over the sale of land. + +The Melanesian Mission was begun from New Zealand; but whereas the isles +are too hot for English constitutions, they can only be visited from the +sea, and lads are brought away to be educated for teachers. New Zealand +proved too cold for these natives of a tropical climate, and the college +has been transplanted to Norfolk Island, where Bishop Patteson has fixed +his head-quarters. One of his converts from Banks's Island has received +Holy Orders, and this latter group seems in good train to afford a supply +of native ministers to islands where few Englishmen could take up a +permanent abode. + +The African Missions would afford much detail, but want of space has +prevented me from mentioning the Rev. George Leacock, the West Indian +clergyman, who gave up everything when already an old man to pave the way +of the Gospel in the Pongas. And the Cape still retains its first +Bishop, so that it is only on the side of Natal and Zululand, where the +workers have passed away, that the narrative can be complete. But the +African Church is extending its stakes in Graham's Town, Orange River, +Zululand, and Zanzibar; and while the cry from East, West, and South is +still "Come over and help us," we cannot but feel that, in spite of many +a failure, many a disappointment, many a fatal error, still the Gospel +trumpet is being blown, and not blown in vain, even in the few spots +whose history, for the sake of their representative men, I have here +tried to record. Of the Canadian and Columbian Indian Missions, of the +Sandwich Isles, and of many more, I have here been able to say nothing; +but I hope that the pictures of these labourers in the cause may tend to +some understanding, not only of their toils, but of their joys, and may +show that they were men not easily deceived, and thoroughly to be trusted +in their own reports of their progress. + +CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. + +_March_ 16_th_, 1871. + + + + +CHAPTER I. JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE OF THE RED INDIANS. + + +Since the great efforts that Britain had made between the years 500 and +1000 to bring the knowledge of the truth into the still heathen portions +of the Continent,--since the days of Columban and Gal, of Boniface and +Willibrord,--there had been a cessation of missionary enterprise. The +known portions of the world were either Christian, or were in the hands +of the Mahommedans; and no doubt much of the adventurous spirit which, +united with religious enthusiasm, forms the missionary, found vent in the +Crusades, and training in the military orders. The temper of the age, +and the hopelessness of converting a Mahommedan, made the good men of the +third 500 years use their swords rather than their tongues against the +infidel; and it was only in the case of men possessing such rare natures +as those of Francis of Assisi, or Raymond Lull, that the possibility of +trying to bring over a single Saracen to the faith was imagined. + +It was in the revival from the Paganism with which classical tastes had +infected the Church, that the spirit of missions again awoke, stimulated, +of course, by the wide discoveries of fresh lands that were dawning upon +the earth. If from 1000 to 1500 the progress of the Gospel was confined +to the borders of the Slavonic nation, the space of time from 1500 +onwards has been one of constant and unwearied effort to raise the +standard of the Cross in the new worlds beyond the Atlantic. + +Spain, Portugal, France, as nations, and the great company of the Jesuits +as one mighty brotherhood, were the foremost in the great undertaking; +but their doings form a history of their own, and our business is with +the efforts of our own Church and country in the same great cause. + +Our work was not taken up so soon as theirs, partly because the spirit of +colonization did not begin amongst us so early as in Spain and Portugal, +and partly because the foundations of most of our colonies were laid by +private enterprise, rather than by public adventure, and moreover some of +the earlier ones in unsettled times. + +It may be reckoned as one peculiarity of Englishmen, that their greatest +works are usually not the outcome of enthusiastic design, but rather grow +upon them by degrees, as they are led in paths that they have not known, +and merely undertake the duty that stands immediately before them, step +by step. + +The young schoolmaster at Little Baddow, near Chelmsford, who decided on +following in the track of the Pilgrim Fathers to New England, went simply +to enjoy liberty of conscience, and to be free to minister according to +his own views, and never intended to become the Apostle of the Red +Indians. + +Nothing is more remarkable than the recoil from neglected truths. When, +even in the earliest ages of the Church, the Second Commandment was +supposed to be a mere enhancing of the first, and therefore curtailed and +omitted, there was little perception that this would lead to popular, +though not theoretical, idolatry, still less that this law, when again +brought forward, would be pushed by scrupulous minds to the most strange +and unexpected consequences, to the over-powering of all authority of +ancient custom, and to the repudiation of everything symbolical. + +This resolution against acknowledging any obligation to use either symbol +or ceremony, together with the opposition of the hierarchy, led to the +rejection of the traditional usages of the Church and the previously +universal interpretation of Scripture in favour of three orders in the +ministry. The elders, or presbytery, were deemed sufficient; and when, +after having for many years been carried along, acquiescing, in the +stream of the Reformation, the English Episcopacy tried to make a stand, +the coercion was regarded as a return to bondage, and the more ardent +spirits sought a new soil on which to enjoy the immunities that they +regarded as Christian freedom. + +The _Mayflower_ led the way in 1620, and the news of the success of the +first Pilgrim Fathers impelled many others to follow in their track. +Among these was John Eliot. He had been born in 1604 at Nasing in Essex, +and had been bred up by careful parents, full of that strong craving for +theological studies that characterized the middle classes in the reign of +James I. + +Nothing more is known of his youth except that he received a university +education, and, like others who have been foremost in missionary labours, +had a gift for the comparison of languages and study of grammar. He +studied the Holy Scriptures in the original tongues with the zeal that +was infused into all scholars by the knowledge that the Authorized +Version was in hand, and by the stimulus that was afforded by the promise +of a copy of the first edition to him who should detect and correct an +error in the type. + +The usual fate of a scholar was to be either schoolmaster or clergyman, +if not both, and young Eliot commenced his career as an assistant to Mr. +John Hooker, at the Grammar School at Little Baddow. He considered this +period to have been that in which the strongest religious impressions +were made upon him. John Hooker was a thorough-going Puritan of great +piety and rigid scruples, and instructed his household diligently in +godliness, both theoretical and practical. Eliot became anxious to enter +the ministry, but the reaction of Church principles, which had set in +with James I., was an obstacle in his way; and imagining all ceremonial +not observed by the foreign Protestants to be oppressions on Christian +liberty, it became the strongest resolution of the whole party to accept +nothing of all these rites, and thus ordination became impossible to +them, while the laws were stringent against any preaching or praying +publicly by any unordained person. The instruction of youth was likewise +only permitted to those who were licensed by the bishop of the diocese; +and Mr. Hooker, failing to fulfil the required tests, was silenced, and, +although forty-seven clergy petitioned on his behalf, was obliged to flee +to Holland. + +This decided Eliot, then twenty-seven years of age, on leaving England, +and seeking a freer sphere of action in the newly-founded colonies of New +England, which held a charter from Government. He took leave of his +betrothed, of whom we only know that her Christian name was Anne +(gracious), and that her nature answered to her name, and sailed on the +3rd of November, 1631, in the ship _Lyon_, with a company of sixty +persons, among whom were the family of Governor Winthrop. + +They landed at Boston, then newly rising into a city over its harbour, +and there he found his services immediately required to conduct the +worship in the congregation during the absence of the pastor, who had +gone to England finally to arrange his affairs. + +On his return, Mr. Eliot was found to be in such favour, that the +Bostonites strove to retain him as an assistant minister; but this he +refused, knowing that many friends in England wished to found a separate +settlement of their own; and in less than a year this arrangement was +actually carried out, a steep hill in the forest-land was selected, and a +staunch band of East Saxons, bringing with them the gracious Anne, came +forth. John Eliot was married, elected pastor, ordained, after +Presbyterian custom, by the laying on of the hands of the ministers in +solemn assembly, and then took possession of the abode prepared for him +and of the building on the top of the hill, where his ministrations were +to be conducted. + +These old fathers of the United States had found a soil, fair and well +watered; and though less rich than the wondrous alluvial lands to the +west, yet with capacities to yield them plentiful provision, when cleared +from the vast forest that covered it. Nor had they come for the sake of +wealth or luxury; the earnestness of newly-awakened, and in some degree +persecuted, religion was upon them, and they regarded a sufficiency of +food and clothing as all that they had a right to seek. Indeed, the +spirit of ascetiscism was one of their foremost characteristics. Eliot +was a man who lived in constant self-restraint as to both sleep and diet, +and, on all occasions of special prayer, prefaced them by a rigorous +fast--and he seems to have been in a continual atmosphere of devotion. + +One of his friends objected (oddly enough as it seems to us) to his +stooping to pick up a weed in his garden. "Sir, you tell us we must be +heavenly-minded." + +"It is true," he said, "and this is no impediment unto that; for, were I +sure to go to heaven to-morrow, I would do what I do to-day." + +And, like many a good Christian, his outward life was to him full of +allegory. Going up the steep hill to his church, he said, "This is very +like the way to heaven. 'Tis up hill! The Lord in His grace fetch us +up;" and spying a bush near him, he added, "And truly there are thorns +and briars in the way, too." + +He had great command of his flock at Roxbury, and was a most diligent +preacher and catechiser, declaring, in reference to the charge to St. +Peter, that "the care of the lambs is one-third part of the charge to the +Church of God." An excellent free school was founded at Roxbury, which +was held in great repute in the time of Cotton Mather, to whom we owe +most of our knowledge of this good man. The biography is put together in +the peculiar fashion of that day, not chronologically, but under heads +illustrating his various virtues, so that it is not easy to pick out the +course of his undertakings. Before passing on to that which especially +distinguished him, we must give an anecdote or two from the "article" +denominated "His exquisite charity." His wife had become exceedingly +skilful in medicine and in dealing with wounds, no small benefit in a +recent colony scant of doctors, and she gave her aid freely to all who +stood in need of help. A person who had taken offence at something in +one of his sermons, and had abused him passionately, both in speech and +in writing, chanced to wound himself severely, whereupon he at once sent +his wife to act as surgeon; and when the man, having recovered, came to +return thanks and presents, he would accept nothing, but detained him to +a friendly meal, "and," says Mather, "by this carriage he mollified and +conquered the stomach of his reviler." + +"He was also a great enemy to all contention, and would ring a loud +_Courfew Bell_ wherever he saw the fires of animosity." When he heard +any ministers complain that such and such in their flocks were too +difficult for them, the strain of his answer was still: "Brother, compass +them;" and, "Brother, learn the meaning of those three little words, +'bear, forbear, forgive.'" + +Once, when at an assembly of ministers a bundle of papers containing +matters of difference and contention between two parties--who, he +thought, should rather unite--was laid on the table, Eliot rose up and +put the whole upon the fire, saying, "Brethren, wonder not at that which +I have done: I did it on my knees this morning before I came among you." + +But that "exquisite charity" seems a little one-sided in another anecdote +recorded of him, when "a godly gentleman of Charlestown, one Mr. Foster, +with his son, was taken captive by his Turkish enemies." {f:6} Public +prayers were offered for his release: but when tidings were received that +the "Bloody Prince" who had enslaved him had resolved that no captive +should be liberated in his own lifetime, and the distressed friends +concluded, "Our hope is lost;" Mr. Eliot, "in some of his prayers before +a very solemn congregation, very broadly begged, 'Heavenly Father, work +for the redemption of Thy poor servant Foster, and if the prince which +detains him will not, as they say, release him so long as himself lives, +Lord, we pray Thee kill that cruel prince, kill him, and glorify Thyself +upon him.' And now behold the answer. The poor captiv'd gentleman +quickly returns to us that had been mourning for him as a lost man, and +brings us news that the prince, which had hitherto held him, was come to +an untimely death, by which means he was now set at liberty." + +"And to turn their hearts" was a form that did not occur to the earnest +suppliant for his friend. But the "cruel prince" was far away out of +sight, and there was no lack of charity in John Eliot's heart for the +heathen who came into immediate contact with him. Indeed, he was the +first to make any real effort for their conversion. + +The colonists were as yet only a scanty sprinkling in easy reach of the +coast, and had done little at present to destroy the hunting-grounds of +the Red man who had hitherto held possession of the woods and plains. + +The country was inhabited by the Pequot Indians, a tall, +well-proportioned, and active tribe, belonging to the great Iroquois +nation. They set up their wigwams of bark, around which their squaws +cultivated the rapidly growing crop of maize while the men hunted the +buffalo and deer, and returning with their spoil, required every +imaginable service from their heavily-oppressed women, while they +themselves deemed the slightest exertion, except in war and hunting, +beneath their dignity. Their nature had much that was high and noble; +and in those days had not yet been ruined either by the White man's vices +or his cruelty. They were neither the outcast savages nor the abject +inferiors that two hundred years have rendered their descendants, but far +better realized the description in Longfellow's "Hiawatha," of the +magnificently grave, imperturbably patient savage, the slave of his word, +and hospitable to the most scrupulous extent. It was in mercy and +tenderness that the character was the most deficient. The whole European +instinct of forbearance and respect to woman was utterly wanting,--the +squaws were the most degraded of slaves; and to the captive the most +barbarous cruelty was shown. Experience has shown that there is +something in the nature of the Red Indian which makes him very slow of +being able to endure civilization, renders wandering almost a necessity +to his constitution, and generally makes him, when under restraint, even +under the most favourable conditions, dwindle away, lose all his fine +natural endowments, and become an abject and often a vicious being. The +misfortune has been that, with a few honourable exceptions, it has not +been within the power of the better and more thoughtful portion of man to +change the Red Indian's vague belief in his "Great Spirit" to a more +systematic and stringent acceptance of other eternal verities and their +consequent obligations, and at the same time leave him free to lead the +roving life of the patriarchs of old; since, as Scripture itself shows +us, it takes many generations to train the wandering hunter to a tiller +of the soil, or a dweller in cities; and the shock to the wild man of a +sudden change is almost always fatal both to mental and bodily health. +This conclusion, however, has been a matter of slow and sad experience, +often confused by the wretched effects of the vice, barbarity, and +avarice of the settler and seaman, which in many cases have counteracted +the effects of the missionary, and accelerated the extinction of the +native. + +In John Eliot's time, there was all to hope; and the community of +Englishmen with whom he lived, though stern, fierce, intolerant, and at +times cruel in their intolerance, did not embarrass his work nor corrupt +the Indians by the grosser and coarser vices, when, in his biographer's +words, "our Eliot was on such ill terms with the devil as to alarm him +with sounding the silver trumpets of Heaven in his territories, and make +some noble and zealous endeavours towards ousting him of his ancient +possessions." The Pilgrim Fathers had obtained their land by fair +purchase, _i.e._ if purchase could be fair where there was no real mutual +understanding; and a good deal of interest had been felt in England in +the religious state of the Red men. The charter to the colony had +enforced their conversion on the settlers, and Dr. Lake, Bishop of Bath +and Wells, declared that but for his old age and infirmities he would +have headed a mission to America for the purpose. Had he done so, +perhaps something systematic might have been attempted. As it was the +new colonists had too severe a struggle with their own difficulties to +attend to their heathen surroundings, even though the seal of their +colony of Massachusetts represented an Indian with the label in his +mouth, "Come over and help us." A few conversions had taken place, but +rather owing to the interest in the White men's worship taken by +individual Indians, than to any efforts on the part of the settlers. + +Sixteen years, however, passed without overt aggression, though already +was beginning the sad story that is repeated wherever civilized man +extends his frontiers. The savage finds his hunting-ground broken up, +the White man's farm is ruined by the game or the chase, the luxuries of +civilization excite the natives' desires, mistrust leads to injury, +retaliation follows, and then war. + +In 1634, only two years after Eliot's arrival, two gentlemen, with their +boat's crew, were killed on the Connecticut river, and some of the +barbarities took place that we shall too often have to notice--attacks by +the natives on solitary dwellings or lonely travellers, and increasing +anger on the part of the colonists, until they ceased to regard their +enemies as fellow-creatures. + +However, the Pequots were likewise at war with the Dutch and with the +Narragansets, or river Indians, and they sent a deputation to endeavour +to make peace with the English, and secure their assistance against these +enemies. They were appointed to return for their answer in a month's +time; and after consultation with the clergy, Mr. Dudley and Mr. Ludlow, +the Governor and Deputy-Governor, decided on making a treaty with them, +on condition of their delivering up the murderers of the Englishmen, and +paying down forty beaver and thirty otter skins, besides 400 fathoms of +wampum, _i.e._ strings of the small whelks and Venus-shells that served +as current coin, a fathom being worth about five shillings. + +It surprises us that Eliot's name first appears in connection with the +Indians as an objector to this treaty, and in a sermon too, at Roxbury; +not on any grounds of injustice to the Indians, but because it had been +conducted by the magistrates without reference to the people, which was +an offence to his views of the republican rights to be exercised in the +colony. So serious was his objection deemed, that a deputation was +appointed to explain the principles on which Government had acted, and +thus convince Mr. Eliot, which they did so effectually that he retracted +his censure in his next sermon. + +Probably this was what first awakened John Eliot's interest in the Red- +skins; but for the next few years, in spite of the treaty, there was a +good deal of disturbance on the frontier, and some commission of +cruelties, until the colonists became gradually roused into fury. Some +tribes were friendly with them; and, uniting with these the Mohicans and +river Indians, under the conduct of Uncas, the Mohican chief, seventy- +seven Englishmen made a raid into the Pequot country and drove them from +it. Then, in 1637, a battle, called "the Great Swamp Fight," took place +between the English, Dutch, and friendly Indians on the one hand, and the +Pequots on the other. It ended in the slaughter of seven hundred of the +Pequots and thirteen of their Sachems. The wife of one of the Sachems +was taken, and as she had protected two captive English girls she was +treated with great consideration, and was much admired for her good sense +and modesty; but the other prisoners were dispersed among the settlers to +serve as slaves, and a great number of the poor creatures were shipped +off to the West India Islands to work on the sugar plantations. + +Those who had escaped the battle were hunted down by the Mohicans and +Narragansets, who continually brought their scalps in to the English +towns, and at last they were reduced to sue for peace when only 200 +braves were still living. These, with their families, were amalgamated +with the Mohicans and Narragansets, and expelled from their former +territory, on which the English settled. An annual tribute of a length +of wampum, for every male in the tribe, varying according to age and +rank, was paid to the English, and their supremacy was so entirely +established that nearly forty years of peace succeeded. + +Eliot's missionary enterprise, Mather allows, was first inspired by the +"remarkable zeal of the Romish missionaries," by whom he probably means +the French Jesuits, who were working with much effect in the settlements +in Louisiana, first occupied in the time of Henri IV. Another stimulus +came from the expressions in the Royal Charter which had granted licence +for the establishment of the colony, namely, "To win and incite the +natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true +God and Saviour of mankind and the Christian faith, in our Royal +intention and the Adventurers' free profession, is the principal end of +the Plantation." + +That the devil himself was the Red men's master, and came to their +assistance when summoned by the incantations of their medicine men, was +the universal belief of the colonists, in corroboration of which the +following story is given:--"The Indians in their wars with us, finding a +sore inconvenience by our dogs, which would make a sad yelling if in the +night they scented the approaches of them, they sacrificed a dog to the +devil, after which no English dog would bark at an Indian for divers +months ensuing." + +In the intended contest Mr. Eliot began by preaching and making +collections from the English settlers, and likewise "he hires a native to +teach him this exotick language, and, with a laborious care and skill, +reduces it into a grammar, which afterwards he published. There is a +letter or two of our alphabet which the Indians never had in theirs; +though there were enough of the dog in their temper, there can scarce be +found an R in their language, . . . but, if their alphabet be short, I am +sure the words composed of it are long enough to tire the patience of any +scholar in the world; they are _Sesquipedalia verba_, of which their +linguo is composed. For instance, if I were to translate our Loves, it +must be nothing shorter than _Noowomantamoonkanunonush_. Or to give my +reader a longer word, _Kremmogkodonattootummootiteaonganunnnash_ is, in +English, our _question_." + +The worthy Mr. Mather adds, with a sort of apology, that, having once +found that the demons in a possessed young woman understood Latin, Greek, +and Hebrew, he himself tried them with this Indian tongue, and "the +demons did seem as if they understood it." Indeed, he thinks the words +must have been growing ever since the confusion of Babel! The fact +appears to be, that these are what are now called agglutinate languages, +and, like those of all savage tribes, in a continual course of +alteration--also often using a long periphrastic description to convey an +idea or form a name. A few familiar instances will occur, such as +_Niagara_, "thunder of water." + +This formidable language Mr. Eliot--the anagram of whose name, Mather +appropriately observes, was _Toils_--mastered with the assistance of a +"pregnant-witted Indian," who had been a servant in an English family. By +the help of his natural turn for philology, he was able to subdue this +instrument to his great and holy end,--with what difficulty may be +estimated from the sentence with which he concluded his grammar: "Prayer +and pains through faith in CHRIST JESUS will do anything." + +It was in the year 1646, while Cromwell was gradually obtaining a +preponderating influence in England, and King Charles had gone to seek +protection in the Scottish army, that John Eliot, then in his +forty-second year, having thus prepared himself, commenced his campaign. + +He had had a good deal of conversation with individual Indians who came +about the settlement at Roxbury, and who perceived the advantages of some +of the English customs. They said they believed that in forty years the +Red and White men would be all one, and were really anxious for this +consummation. When Eliot declared that the superiority of the White race +came from their better knowledge of God, and offered to come and instruct +them, they were full of joy and gratitude; and on the 28th of October, +1646, among the glowing autumn woods, a meeting of Indians was convoked, +to which Mr. Eliot came with three companions. They were met by a chief +named Waban, or the Wind, who had a son at an English school, and was +already well disposed towards them, and who led them to his wigwam, where +the principal men of the tribe awaited them. + + "All the old men of the village, + All the warriors of the nation, + All the Jossakeeds, the prophets, + The magicians, the Wabenos, + And the medicine men, the medas, + Came to bid the strangers welcome. + 'It is well,' they said, 'O brothers, + That you came so far to see us.' + In a circle round the doorway, + With their pipes they sat in silence, + Waiting to behold the strangers, + Waiting to receive their message, + Till the Black Robe chief, the pale face, + From the wigwam came to greet them, + Stammering in his speech a little, + Speaking words yet unfamiliar." + +Mr. Eliot prayed in English, and then preached on the 9th and 10th verses +of the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, where the prophet is bid to call the +Breath of God from the four winds of heaven to give life to the dry bones +around. It so happened that the Indian word for breath or wind was +_Waban_, and this made a great impression, and was afterwards viewed as +an omen. + +The preacher worked up from the natural religion, of which this fine race +already had an idea, to the leading Christian truths. + + Then the Black Robe chief, the prophet, + Told his message to the people, + Told the purport of his mission, + Told them of the Virgin Mary, + And her blessed Son, the Saviour: + How in distant lands and ages + He had lived on earth as we do; + How He fasted, prayed, and laboured; + How the Jews, the tribe accursed, + Mocked Him, scourged Him, crucified Him; + How He rose from where they laid Him, + Walked again with His disciples, + And ascended into heaven." + +The sermon lasted an hour and a quarter, but the Indians are a dignified +and patient people, prone to long discourses themselves, and apt to +listen to them from others. When he finally asked if they had +understood, many voices replied that they had; and, on his encouraging +them to ask questions, many intelligent inquiries were made. The whole +conference lasted three hours, and Mr. Eliot was invited to come again, +which he did at intervals of about a fortnight, and again with good +promise. + +In one of these meetings they asked, very reasonably, why the English +called them Indians, a question it could not have been easy to answer. +The Powaws, or priests, began to make some opposition, but Waban was +continually going about among the people, repeating portions of the +instructions he had received, and teaching his friends to pray--for some +had at first supposed that the English God might not be addressed in the +native tongue, but only in English. + +After some little time, he thought the Indians ripe for being taught to +live a settled life, and obtained for his congregation--"the praying +Indians," as they were commonly called--a grant of the site of his first +instructions. The place was named "Rejoicing,"--in Indian, a word that +soon got corrupted into Nonantum; and, under Mr. Eliot's directions, they +divided their grounds with trenches and stone walls, for which he gave +them tools to the best of his ability. They built wigwams of a superior +construction, and the women learnt to spin; there was a continual +manufacture of brushes, eel-pots, and baskets, which were sold in the +English towns, together with turkeys, fish, venison, and fruits, +according to the season. At hay and harvest times they would hire +themselves out to work for their English neighbours, but were thought +unable or unwilling to do what sturdy Englishmen regarded as a fair day's +work. + +A second settlement of praying Indians followed at Neponset, around the +wigwam of a Sachem named Cutshamakin, a man of rank much superior to +Waban. He had already been in treaty with the English, and had promised +to observe the Ten Commandments, but had unhappily learnt also from the +English that love of drink which was the bane of the Indian; and while +Mr. Eliot was formally instructing the family, one of the sons, a boy of +fifteen, when learning the fifth commandment, persisted in saying only +"honour thy mother," and, when admonished, declared that his father had +given him fire-water, which had intoxicated him, and had besides been +passionate and violent with him. The boy had always been a rude, +contumacious fellow, and at the next lecture day Mr. Eliot turned to the +Sachem, and lamented over these faults, but added that the first step to +reforming him would be for his father to set the example by a confession +of his own sins, which were neither few nor light. + +The Sachem's pride was subdued. He stood up and openly declared his +offences, lamenting over them with deep sincerity. The boy was so +touched that he made humble confession in his turn, and entreated +forgiveness. His parents were so much moved that they wept aloud, and +the board on which Cutshamakin stood was wet with his tears. He was +softened then, but, poor man, he said: "My heart is but very little +better than it was, and I am afraid it will be as bad again as it was +before. I sometimes wish I might die before I be so bad again!" + +Poor Cutshamakin! he estimated himself truly. The Puritan discipline, +which aimed at acting on the conduct rather through the conscience and +feelings than by means of grace, never entirely subdued him, and he +remained a fitfully fierce, and yet repentant, savage to the end of his +life. His squaw must have been a clever woman; for, being publicly +reprimanded by the Indian preacher Nabanton, for fetching water on a +Sunday, she told him after the meeting that he had done more harm by +raising the discussion than she had done by fetching the water. + +Sunday was impressed upon the natives with all the strictness peculiar to +the British Calvinists in their reaction from the ale-feasts, juggleries, +and merry-makings of the almost pagan fifteenth century. It is never +hard to make savage converts observe a day of rest; they are generally +used to keep certain seasons already, and, as Mr. Eliot's Indians +honestly said, they do so little work at any time that a weekly +abstinence from it comes very easily. At Nonantum, indeed, they seem to +have emulated the Pharisees themselves in their strictness. Waban got +into trouble for having a racoon killed to entertain two unexpected +guests; and a case was brought up at public lecture of a man who, finding +his fire nearly gone out, had violated the Sabbath by splitting one piece +of dry wood with his axe. + +But the "weightier matters of the law" were not by any means forgotten, +and there was a continual struggle to cure the converts of their new vice +of drunkenness, and their old habit of despising and maltreating their +squaws, who in the Christian villages were raised to a state far less +degraded; for any cruelty or tyranny towards them was made matter of +public censure and confession in the assembly. + +Several more distant journeys were taken by Mr. Eliot, some of them to +the Merrimac River to see a powerful old Sachem of a great age, named +Passaconaway, who his people believed to be able to make green leaves +grow in winter, trees dance, and water burn. + +He was so much afraid of the Missionary that he fled away the first time +he heard he was coming, probably thinking him a great sorcerer; but the +next time he remained, listened eagerly, expressed his intention of +praying, and tried to induce Mr. Eliot to settle in his district. He +lived to a great age, and left a charge with his children never to +contend with the English, having convinced himself that the struggle was +hopeless. Several other Sachems gave a sort of attention: and it +appeared that the way had been in some degree prepared by a French +priest, who had been wrecked on Cape Cod, had been passed from one tribe +to another, and had died among them, but not without having left a +tradition of teaching which was by some identified with Eliot's. + +Of one Sachem, Mather tells a story: "While Mr. Eliot was preaching of +Christ unto the other Indians, a demon appeared unto a Prince of the +Eastern Indians in a shape that had some resemblance of Mr. Eliot or of +an English minister, pretending to be the Englishman's God. The spectre +commanded him 'to forbear the drinking of rum and to observe the Sabbath- +day, and to deal justly with his neighbours;' all which things had been +inculcated in Mr. Eliot's ministry, promising therewithal unto him that, +if he did so, at his death his soul should ascend into a happy place, +otherwise descend unto miseries; but the apparition all the while never +said one word about Christ, which was the main subject of Mr. Eliot's +ministry. The Sachem received such an impression from the apparition +that he dealt justly with all men except in the bloody tragedies and +cruelties he afterwards committed on the English in our wars. He kept +the Sabbath-day like a fast, frequently attending in our congregations; +he would not meddle with any rum, though usually his countrymen had +rather die than undergo such a piece of self-denial. That liquor has +merely enchanted them. At last, and not long since, this demon appeared +again unto this pagan, requiring him to kill himself, and assuring him +that he should revive in a day or two, never to die any more. He +thereupon divers times attempted it, but his friends very carefully +prevented it; however, at length he found a _fair_ opportunity for this +_foul_ business, and hanged himself,--you may be sure without his +expected resurrection." + +This story, grotesque as it sounds in the solemn simplicity of the worthy +Puritan, is really only an instance of what takes place wherever the +light of the Gospel is held up to men capable of appreciating its +standard of morality, but too proud to bend the spirit to accept the +doctrine of the Cross. The Sachem was but a red-skinned "seeker after +God," an "ape of Christianity," like Marcus Aurelius, and like the many +others we shall meet with who loved darkness rather than light, not so +much because their deeds were evil as because their hearts were proud. + +Like all practical men, Eliot found it absolutely necessary to do what he +called "carrying on civility with religion," _i.e._ instructing the +converts in such of the arts of life as would afford them wholesome +industry; but want of means was his great difficulty, and in the middle +of a civil war England was not very likely to supply him. + +Still he made his Indians at Nonantum hedge and ditch, plant trees, sow +cornfields, and saw planks; and some good man in England, whose name he +never knew, sent him in 1648 ten pounds for schools among the natives, +half of which he gave to a mistress at Cambridge, and half to a master at +Dorchester, under whom the Indian children made good progress, and he +catechized them himself most diligently by way of teaching both them and +the parents who looked on. + +He had by this time translated the Bible, but it remained in manuscript +for want of the means of printing it; and his favourite scheme of +creating an Indian city, with a scriptural government, well out of the +way of temptation from and interference by the English, was also at a +standstill, from his poverty. + +He likewise sustained a great loss in his friend Mr. Shepard, who had +worked with him with equal devotion and enthusiasm, but this loss really +led to the fulfilment of his wishes, for Mr. Shepard's papers were sent +home, and aroused such an interest in Calamy and others of the devout +ministers in London, that the needs of the Indians of New England were +brought before Parliament, and an ordinance was passed on the 27th of +July, 1649, for the advancement of civilization and Christianity among +them. Then a corporation was instituted, entitled the Society for the +Propagation of the Gospel in New England, of which Judge Street was the +first president, and Mr. Henry Ashurst the first treasurer, with powers +to receive the collections that the ministers in every parish were +exhorted to make by authority of Parliament, backed up by letters from +the two Universities. + +There was a good deal of opposition; people fancied it a new plan of +getting money for Government, and were not at all interested about the +Indians, but money enough was collected to purchase lands worth about +500_l._ or 600_l._ a year, by way of foundation, at a time when the +property of Cavaliers was going cheap, and the Society was able to +undertake the cost of printing Eliot's Bible, as well as of building him +an Indian college, of paying his teachers, and of supplying the greatly +needed tools and other necessaries for his much-desired station. + +Still there was a great deal of difficulty and opposition, from the +English dislike and contempt for the Indians, who were judged _en masse_ +by the degraded ones who loitered about the settlements, begging and +drinking; as well as from the Powaws or medicine men who found their +dupes escaping, and tried to terrify them by every means by which it was +possible to work upon their superstition. The Sachems, likewise, were +finding out that Christians were less under their tyranny since they had +had a higher standard, and many opposed Eliot violently, trying to drive +him from their villages with threats and menacing gestures, but he calmly +answered, "I am engaged in the work of God, and God is with me. I fear +not all the Sachems in the country. I shall go on with my work. Touch +me if you dare;" nor did he ever fail to keep the most angry in check +while he was present, though they hated him greatly. Uncas, the chief of +the Mohicans, made a regular complaint to Government that Eliot and his +colleagues prayed by name for the conversion of the Mohicans and +Narragansets. Even Cutshamakin, when he heard of the project of an +Indian town, broke out against it with such fury, that all the men in +favour of it cowered and slunk away from his furious howls and +gesticulations. Mr. Eliot was left alone to confront him, and looking +steadily at him told him that, as this was God's work, no fear of him +should hinder it. The savage quailed before him, but afterwards came to +him and stated that his objection was that the praying Indians did not +pay him their tribute. Eliot kindly answered that this had been +complained of before, and that he had preached a sermon enforcing this +duty upon the tribe. + +The words were good, said Cutshamakin, but the Indians would not obey +them. So Mr. Eliot, after consultation with the ministers and elders in +Boston, invited the Indians who understood English to hear a sermon +there, and in it the duty of rendering to all their due was fully +enforced. Afterwards, however, the Indians came forward declaring +themselves much surprised and mortified at being accused of not paying +their just duty to their chief; and they specified the service and gifts: +each had rendered twenty bushels of corn, six bushels of rye, fifteen +deer, days spent in hunting, the building of a wigwam, reclaiming two +acres of land; and the amount when added up amazed Mr. Eliot. At his +next lecture, then, he took for his text the rejection by the Saviour of +all the kingdoms of the world, and personally applied it to Cutshamakin, +reproaching him with lust of power and worldly ambition, and warning him +that Satan was tempting him to give up the faith for the sake of +recovering his arbitrary power. The discourse and the conversation that +followed again melted the Sachem, and he repented and retracted, although +he continued an unsafe and unstable man. + +At length, in 1651, Mr. Eliot was able to convene his praying Indians and +with them lay the foundation of a town on the banks of Charles River, +about eighteen miles to the south-west of Boston. The spot, as he +believed, had been indicated to him in answer to prayer, and they named +it Natick, or the place of hills. The inhabitants of Nonantum removed +thither, and the work was put in hand. A bridge, eighty feet long and +nine feet wide, had already been laid across the river, entirely by +Indian workmen, under Mr. Eliot's superintendence; and the town was laid +out in three streets, two on one side of the river and one on the other; +the grounds were measured and divided, apple-trees planted, and sowing +begun. The cellars of some of the houses, it is said, remain to the +present day. In the midst was a circular fort, palisaded with trees, and +a large house built in the English style, though with only a day or two +of help from an English carpenter, the lower part of which was to serve +as a place of worship on Sunday, and for a school on other days, the +upper part as a wardrobe and storehouse for valuables, and with a room +partitioned off, and known as "the prophet's chamber," for the use of Mr. +Eliot on his visits to the settlement. Outside were canopies, formed by +mats stretched on poles, one for Mr. Eliot and his attendants, another +for the men, and a third for the women. These were apparently to shelter +a sort of forum, and likewise to supplement the school-chapel in warm +weather. A few English-built houses were raised; but the Indians found +them expensive and troublesome, and preferred the bark wigwams on +improved principles. + +The spot was secured to the Indians by the Council of Government, acting +under the Commonwealth at home; but the right of local self-government +was vested in each township; and Eliot, as the guide of his new settlers, +could lead them to what he believed to be a truly scriptural code, such +as he longed to see prevail in his native land. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "the +blessed day in England, when the Word of God shall be their Magna Carta +and chief law book, and all lawyers must be divines to study the +Scripture." + +His commencement in carrying out this system was to preach Jethro's +advice to Moses, and thence deduce that the Indians should divide +themselves into hundreds and into tens, and elect rulers for each +division, each tithing man being responsible for the ten under him, each +chief of a hundred for the ten tithings. This was done on the 6th of +August, 1651; and Eliot declared that it seemed to him as if he beheld +the scattered bones he had spoken of in his first sermon to the Indians, +come bone to bone, and a civil political life begin. His hundreds and +tithings were as much suggested by the traditional arrangements of King +Alfred as by those of Moses in the wilderness; and his next step was, in +like manner, partly founded on Scripture, partly on English +history,--namely, the binding his Indians by a solemn covenant to serve +the Lord, and ratifying it on a fast-day. His converts had often asked +him why he held none of the great fast-days with them that they saw the +English hold, and he had always replied that there was not a sufficient +occasion, but he regarded this as truly important enough. Moreover, a +ship containing some supplies, sent by the Society in England, had been +wrecked, and the goods, though saved, were damaged. This he regarded as +a frown of Providence and a fruit of sin. Poor Cutshamakin also was in +trouble again, having been drawn into a great revel, where much spirits +had been drunk; and his warm though unstable temper always made him ready +to serve as a public example of confession and humiliation. So when, on +the 24th of September, 1651, Mr. Eliot had conducted the fast-day +service, it began with Cutshamakin's confession; then three Indians +preached and prayed in turn, and Mr. Eliot finally preached on Ezra's +great fast. There was a pause for rest; then the assembly came together +again, and before them Mr. Eliot solemnly recited the terms of the +Covenant, by which all were to bind themselves to the service of the +Lord, and which included all their principal laws. He asked them whether +they stood to the Covenant. All the chiefs first bound themselves, then +the remainder of the people; a collection was made for the poor; and so +ended that "blessed day," as the happy apostle of the Indians called it. + +When Governor Endicot shortly after visited the place, he was greatly +struck with the orderliness and civilization he found there. "I account +this one of the best journeys I have made for many years," he says. Many +little manufactures were carried on, in particular one of drums, which +were used for lack of bells in some of the American settlements, as a +summons to come to church. + +There was a native schoolmaster, named Monequassum, who could write, +read, and spell English correctly, and under whom the children were +making good progress. Promising lads were trained by Mr. Eliot himself, +in hopes of making them act as missionaries among their brethren. All +this time his praying Indians were not baptized, nor what he called +"gathered into a Church estate." He seems to have been determined to +have full proof of their stability before he so accepted them; for it was +from no inclination to Baptist views that he so long delayed receiving +them. However, on the 13th of October, 1652, he convened his brother- +ministers to hear his Indians make public confession of their faith. What +the converts said was perfectly satisfactory; but they were a long-winded +race, accustomed to flowing periods; and as each man spoke for himself, +and his confession had to be copied down in writing, Mr. Eliot himself +owns that their "enlargement of spirit" did make "the work longsome." So +longsome it was, that while the schoolmaster was speaking every one got +restless, and there was a confusion; and the ministers, who had a long +dark ride through the woods before them, went away, and were hard to +bring back again, so that he had to finish hearing the declarations of +faith alone. + +Still, he cut off the baptism and organization of a church till he had +sent all these confessions to be considered by the Society in England, +printed and published under the title of "Tears of Repentance," with a +dedication to Oliver Cromwell. Then came other delays; some from the +jealousy and distrust of the English, who feared that the Indians were +going to ally themselves to the Dutch; some from the difficulty of +getting pastors to join in the tedious task of listening to the wordy +confessions; and some from the distressing scandal of drunkenness +breaking out among the Indians, in spite of the strict discipline that +always punished it. It was not till 1660 that Mr. Eliot baptized any +Indians, and the next day admitted them to the Lord's Supper, nine years +after he had begun to preach. The numbers we do not know, but there is +no doubt that he received no adults except well proved and tried persons +coming up to the Puritan standard of sincerity and devotion. + +At this time the Society at home was in great danger; for, on the +Restoration, the charter had become void, and, moreover, the principal +estate that formed the endowment had been the property of a Roman +Catholic,--Colonel Bedingfield,--who resumed possession, and refused to +refund the purchase money, as considering the Society at an end. It +would probably have been entirely lost, but for the excellent Robert +Boyle, so notable at once for his science, piety, and beneficence. He +placed the matter in its true light before Lord Clarendon, and obtained +by his means a fresh charter from Charles II. The judgment in the Court +of Chancery was given in favour of the Society, and Boyle himself +likewise endowed it with a third part of a grant of the forfeited +impropriations in Ireland which he had received from the king. But all +the time there was a great disbelief in the efficacy of the work among +the Indians both at home and in New England. It was the fashion to call +all the stories of Indian conversions mere devices for getting money, and +the unhappy, proud hostility that almost always actuated the ordinary +English colonist in dealing with natives, was setting in in full force. +However, at Massachusetts, the general court appointed an English +magistrate to hold a court of judicature in conjunction with the chiefs +of the Christian Indians, and to be in fact a sort of special member of +government on their behalf. The first so appointed was Daniel Gookin, a +man of great piety, wisdom, and excellence, and a warm friend of Mr. +Eliot, with whom he worked most heartily, not only in dealing with the +Indians of Natick, but with all those who came under English +jurisdiction, providing schools, and procuring the observance of the +Sunday among them. It was also provided that the Christian Indians +should set apart a tenth of all their produce for the support of their +teachers--a practice that Mr. Gookin defended from the charge of Judaism. +It seems as if these good men, who went direct to the Old Testament for +their politics, must have been hard set between their desire of +scriptural authority and their dread of Judaizing. + +It was well for Eliot that he had friends, for in the first flush of the +tidings of the successes of the Puritans in England, he had written a set +of papers upon Government, entitled the "Christian Commonwealth," which +had been sent to England, and there lay dormant for nine or ten years, +until in the midst of all the excitement on the Restoration, this +speculative work, the theory of a scholar upon Christian democracy, was +actually printed and launched upon the world at home, whether by an enemy +or by an ill-advised friend does not appear, and without the author's +consent. Complaints of this as a seditious book came out to New England, +and John Eliot was forced to appear before the court, when he owned the +authorship, but disowned the publication, and retracted whatever might +have declared the Government of England, by King, Lords, and Commons, to +be anti-Christian, avowing it to be "not only a lawful but eminent form +of government, and professing himself ready to conform to any polity that +could be deduced from Scripture as being of Divine authority." The court +was satisfied, and suppressed the book, while publishing Mr. Eliot's +retractation. Some have sneered at his conduct on this occasion as an +act of moral cowardice; but it would be very hard if every man were bound +to stand to all the political views expressed in an essay never meant for +the general eye, ten years old, and written in the enthusiasm of the +commencement of an experiment, which to the Presbyterian mind had proved +a grievous disappointment. + +He had a much more important work in hand than the defence of old dreams +of the reign of the saints--for the Society for the Propagation of the +Gospel in New England had just finished printing his translation of the +New Testament, _Wusku Wuttestermentum_ as it was called, and in two years +more the Old Testament was finished. A copy was presented to Charles +II., to the Chancellor Clarendon, and to the two Universities in England, +as well as to Harvard College. It was in the Mohican dialect, which was +sufficiently like that of the neighbouring tribes to serve for them, and +had all the correctness that the scholarship and philology of the time +could furnish. There is a story that Eliot wrote the whole with a single +pen. It went through a good many editions, but is now very rare, and +with Eliot's Catechism, and translations of Baxter's chief works, and a +metrical version of the Psalms, remains the only vestige of the language +of the Mohicans. + +There were now several Indian congregations, one in especial at the +island called Martha's Vineyard, under the charge of an Indian pastor, +John Hiacoomes, who is said to have been the first red-skinned convert, +and who had made proof of much true Christian courage. Once in the act +of prayer he received a severe blow from a Sachem, and would have been +killed if some English had not been present; but all his answer was, "I +have two hands. I had one hand for injuries, and the other for God. +While I did receive wrong with the one, the other laid the greater hold +on God." + +When some of the Powaws, or medicine men, were boasting that they could, +if they would, destroy all the praying Indians at once, Hiacoomes made +reply: "Let all the Powaws in the island come together, I'll venture +myself in the midst among them all. Let them use all their witchcrafts. +With the help of God, I'll tread upon them all!" + +By which defiance he wonderfully "heartened" his flock, who, Christians +as they were, had still been beset by the dread of the magic arts, in +which, as we have seen, even their White teachers did not wholly +disbelieve. + +Such a man as this was well worthy of promotion, and Mr. Eliot hoped to +educate his more promising scholars, so as to supply a succession of +learned and trained native pastors. Two young men, named Joel and Caleb, +were sent to Harvard College, Cambridge, where they both were gaining +distinguished success, and were about to take their degree, when Joel, +who had gone home on a visit, was wrecked on the Island of Nantucket, +and, with the rest of the ship's company, was either drowned or murdered +by the Indians. The name of Caleb, Chee-shah-teau-muck, Indus, is still +to be seen in the registers of those who took their degree, and there are +two Latin and Greek elegies remaining, which he composed on the death of +an eminent minister, bearing his signature, with the addition, Senior +Sophister. How curiously do the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin proclaim +themselves the universal languages, thus blending with the uncouth +Mohican word! Caleb's constitution proved unable to endure College +discipline and learning, and he died of decline soon after taking his +degree. Consumption was very frequent among the Indians, as it so often +is among savages suddenly brought to habits of civilization, and it seems +to have mown down especially the more intellectual of the Indians; +Monequassum, the first schoolmaster at Natick, among them. An Indian +College, which had been established at Cambridge, failed from the deaths +of some scholars and the discouragement of others, and had to be turned +into a printing house, and the energetic and indefatigable Eliot did the +best he could by giving courses of lectures in logic and theology to +candidates for the ministry at Natick, and even printed an "Indian logick +primer." It was a wonderful feat, considering the loose unwieldy words +of the language. + +From 1660 to 1675 were Eliot's years of chief success. His own vigour +was unabated, and he had Major Gookin's hearty co-operation. There had +been time for a race of his own pupils to grow up; and there had not been +time for the first love of his converts to wax cool. There had been a +long interval of average peace and goodwill between English and natives, +and there seemed good reason to suppose that Christianity and +civilization would keep them friends, if not fuse them together. There +were eleven hundred Christian Indians, according to Eliot and Gookin's +computation, with six regularly constituted "churches" after the fashion +of Natick, and fourteen towns, of which seven were called old and seven +new, where praying Indians lived, for the most part, in a well-conducted, +peaceable manner, though now and then disorderly conduct would take +place, chiefly from drunkenness. Several Sachems had likewise been +converted, in especial Wanalanset, the eldest son of the famous old chief +Passaconnaway. After four years of hesitation whether he should, as he +said, quit his old canoe and embark in a new one, he came to the +conclusion that the old canoe was floating down the stream of +destruction, and manfully embraced the faith, although at the cost of +losing many of his tribe, who deserted him on his profession of +Christianity. + +But there is always a period of check and disappointment in every great +and holy work. The tide of evil may be driven into ebb for a time, but +it always rallies and flows back upon the servant of God, and usually +when the prime of his strength is past, and he is less able to withstand. +Most good and great men have closed their eyes upon apparent failure and +disappointment in what is especially their own task, and, like the first +great Leader and Lawgiver, have had to cry, "Show Thy servants Thy work, +and their children Thy glory." Often the next generation does see the +success, and gather the fruits; but the strong, wise, scholarly, +statesman-like Apostle of the Indians was destined to see his work swept +away like snow before the rage and fury of man, and to leave behind him +little save a great witness and example. At least he had the comfort of +knowing that the evil did not arise among his own children in the faith, +but came from causes entirely external, and as much to be preferred as +persecution is better than corruption. + +The Sachem nearest to Plymouth had been at the first arrival of the +Pilgrim Fathers, Massasoiet, chief of the Wampanongs, who had kept the +peace out of fear. His son Alexander had followed his example, but it +was current among the English that he had died of "choler," on being +detected in a plot against them, and his successor, Philip, was a man of +more than common pride, fierceness, cunning, and ability. These were +only names given them by the English; none of them were Christians. Mr. +Eliot had made some attempts upon Philip, but had been treated with +scorn. The Sachem, twisting a button upon the minister's coat, told him +he cared not _that_ for his Gospel; but Major Gookin had some hopes of +having touched his heart. + +However, there were indications that he was endeavouring to unite all the +surrounding tribes in an alliance against the colony. A murder of an +Englishman had taken place, and the Government at Plymouth required all +natives to surrender the fire-arms they had obtained from the English. +Even Philip consented to deliver them up until the English should see no +further cause for detaining them. Upon this, in June 1671, Eliot wrote a +remarkable letter to Mr. Prince, the Governor of Plymouth, requiring him +not to detain the arms, especially of Philip. "My reasons are," he says, +"first, lest we render ourselves more afraid of them and their guns than +indeed we are or have cause to be. Alas! it is not the gun, but the man; +nor, indeed, is it the man, but our sin that we have cause to be afraid +of. Secondly, your so doing will open an effectual door to the +entertainment of the Gospel." Probably Mr. Eliot was right, and the +keeping the arms only irritated the high-spirited chief, who said to the +messenger of the Governor of Massachusetts, "Your governor is but a +subject. I will not treat but with my brother, King Charles of England." + +For four years enmity smouldered on. The rights of the dispute will +never be known. The settlers laid all upon Philip's machinations, except +those who lived near his wigwams and knew him best; and they said that so +far from entering into a conspiracy, he always deplored the war, but was +forced on by the rage and fury of the young braves, over whom the Sachems +had no real power, and who wanted to signalize their valour, and could +not fail to have their pride insulted by the demeanour of the ordinary +English. One instance of brutality on the river Saco is said to have +been the immediate cause of the war in that district. Some English +sailors, seeing a canoe with an Indian woman and her infant, and having +heard that a papoose could swim like a duck, actually upset the canoe to +make the experiment. The poor baby sank, and the mother dived and +brought it up alive, but it died so soon after, that the loss was laid to +the charge of the cruel men by the father, who was a Sachem named +Squando, of considerable dignity and influence, a great medicine man. + +On Philip's border to the southward, a plantation called Swawny was +attacked and burnt by the Indians in the June of 1675. He is said to +have shed tears (impassible Indian as he was) at the tidings, foreseeing +the utter ruin of his people; and, twenty days after, Squando's influence +led to another attack 200 miles off, and this was viewed as a sign of +complicity with Philip. + +There was deadly terror among the English. The Indians swarmed down at +night on lonely villages and farmhouses, slew, scalped, burnt, and now +and then carried off prisoners to be tortured to death, and children to +tell by and by strange tales of life in the wigwams. The militia were +called out, but left their houses unprotected. At Newich-wannock, the +farmhouse of a man named Tozer was attacked by the Indians when only +tenanted by fifteen women and children. A girl of eighteen, who was the +first to see the approach, bravely shut the door and set her back against +it; thus giving time for the others to escape by another door to a better +secured building. The Indians chopped the door to pieces with their +hatchets, knocked the girl down, left her for dead, and hurried on in +pursuit of the others, but only came up with two poor little children, +who had not been able to get over the fence. The rest were saved, and +the brave girl recovered from her wounds; but other attacks ended far +more fatally for the sufferers, and the rage and alarm of the New +Englanders were great. A few of the recently taught and unbaptized +Indians from what were called the "new praying towns" had joined their +countrymen; and though the great body of the converts were true and +faithful, the English confounded them all in one common hatred to the Red- +skin. The magistrates and Government were not infected by this blind +passion, and did all they could to restrain it, showing trust in the +Christian natives by employing them in the war, when they rendered good +and faithful service; but the commonalty, who were in the habit of +viewing the whole people as Hivites and Jebusites, treated these allies +with such distrust and contumely as was quite enough to alienate them. + +In July 1675, three Christian Indians were sent as guides and +interpreters to an expedition to treat with the Indians in the Nipmuck +country. One was made prisoner, but the two officers in command gave the +fullest testimony to the good conduct of the other two; nevertheless they +were so misused on their return that Mr. Gookin declared that they had +been, by ill-treatment, "in a manner constrained to fall off to the +enemy." One was killed by a scouting party of praying Indians; the other +was taken, sold as a slave, and sent to Jamaica; and though Mr. Eliot +prevailed to have him brought back, and redeemed his wife and children, +he was still kept in captivity. + +The next month, August, a number of the Christian Indians were arrested +and sent up to Boston to be tried for some murders that had been +committed at Lancaster. Eliot and Gookin succeeded in proving their +perfect innocence, but the magistrates had great difficulty in saving +their lives from the fury of the mob, who thirsted for Indian blood, and +both minister and major were insulted and reviled, so that Gookin said on +the bench that it was not safe for him to walk in the streets; and when +Eliot met with a dangerous boat accident, wishes were expressed that he +had been drowned. + +Natick was looked upon with so much distrust and aversion that +Government, fearing occasions of bloodshed, decided that the inhabitants +must be removed to Deer Island. On the 7th of October a great fast-day, +with prayer and preaching, had been held, and fierce and bitter +entreaties had been uttered against the Indian Sachems, especially +Philip. One wonders whether Eliot--now seventy-one years old--felt it +come home to him that he knew not what spirit he had been of when he had +prayed for the death of the Moorish prince. It must have been a heart- +breaking time for the aged man, to see the spot founded in so much hope +and prayer, the fruit of so much care and meditation, thus broken up and +ruined, and when he was too old to do the like work over again. At the +end of that month of October, Captain Thomas Prentiss, with a party of +horse and five or six carts, arrived at Natick, and made known the +commands of the Government. Sadly but patiently the Indians submitted. +Two hundred men, women, and children were made to get together all they +could carry, and marched from their homes to the banks of the Charles +River. Here, at a spot called the Pines, Mr. Eliot met them, and they +gathered round him to hear his words of comfort, as he exhorted them to +meek patience, resignation, and steadiness to the faith. The scene was +exceedingly affecting, as the white-haired pastor stood by the river-side +beneath the tall pines, with his dark-skinned, newly reclaimed children +about him, clinging to him for consolation, but neither murmuring nor +struggling, only praying and encouraging one another. Captain Prentiss +and his soldiers were deeply touched; but at midnight, when the tide was +high enough, three large boats bore the Indians over to Deer Island. Here +they were, transplanted from their comfortable homes in the beginning of +a long and very severe winter; but, well divided by the river from all +suspicion of doing violence, they fared better than the praying Indians +of the new town of Wamesit. A barn full of hay and corn had been burnt, +and fourteen men of Chelmsford, the next settlement, concluding it had +been done by the Wamesit Red-skins, went thither, called them out of +their wigwams, and then fired at them, killing a lad and five women and +children. After all, the fire had been caused by some skulking heathen +Indians; but though the Government obtained the arrest of the murderers, +the jury would not find them guilty. The Wamesit Indians fled into the +forest, and sent a piteous letter:--"We are not sorry for what we leave +behind, but we are sorry that the English have driven us from our praying +to God and from our teacher. We did begin to understand praying to God a +_little_." They were invited back, but were afraid to come till cold and +hunger drove them to their old abode, and then the indefatigable Eliot +and Gookin visited them, and did all in their power to bring about a +better feeling towards them in Chelmsford. + +This whole autumn and winter--a terribly severe one--seems to have been +spent by these good men in trying to heal the strifes between the English +and the Indians. Wanalanset had fled, true to his father's policy of +never resisting, and they were sent to invite him back again; but when he +returned, he found that the maize grounds of his settlement had been +ploughed up by the English and sown with rye, so that his tribe had most +scanty subsistence. + +Several settlements of Christians were deported to Deer Island. One +large party had been made prisoners by their heathen countrymen and had +managed to escape, but when met with wandering in the woods by a party of +English soldiers, were plundered of the little the heathens had left +them, in especial of a pewter cup, their communion plate, which Mr. Eliot +had given them, and which was much treasured by their native pastor. The +General interfered in their behalf, but could not protect them from much +ill-usage. The teacher was sent with his old father and young children +to Boston, where Mr. Eliot saw and cheered him before he was conveyed to +Deer Island. There, in December, Eliot, with Gookin and other friends, +frequently visited the Indians, now five hundred in number, and found +them undergoing many privations, but patient, resigned, and unmurmuring. +The snow was four feet deep in the woods by the 10th of December that +year, and the exertion and exposure of travelling, either on snow-shoes +or sledges, must have been tremendous to a man of Mr. Eliot's age; but he +never seems to have intermitted his labours in carrying spiritual and +temporal succour to his people, and in endeavouring to keep the peace +between them and the English. + +The hard winter had had a great effect in breaking the strength of the +enemy, and they were much more feeble on the renewal of the war in the +spring. The good conduct of the praying Indians had overcome the popular +prejudice so much that it was decided to employ them to assist the scanty +forces of the English in hunting down the hostile tribes, and Gookin +boasts of their having taken and slain more than 400 foes in the course +of the summer of 1676, which one would scarcely think was very good for +their recent Christianity. In the mean time, the absence of all the able- +bodied men and hunters reduced their families to such distress that +serious illness broke out among them, and Major Gookin caused them to be +brought to the neighbourhood of Cambridge, where there was good fishing, +and where he could attend to them, and provide them with food, clothing, +and medicine. + +In August Philip was killed, the English believing themselves to "have +prayed the bullet straight into his heart;" and his head was carried +about on a pole, in a manner we should have called worthy of the Indians +themselves, did we not recollect that there were a good many city gates +at home with much the same kind of trophy, while his wife and +children--miserable fate!--were, like many others of the captives, sold +into slavery to the sugar planters in Jamaica. + +After this the war did not entirely cease, but the Christian Indians were +allowed to creep back to their old settlements at Nonantum, and even at +Natick, where Mr. Eliot continued periodically to visit and instruct +them; but after this unhappy war there were only four instead of fourteen +towns of Christian Indians in Massachusetts, and a blow had been given to +his mission that it never recovered. + +Still there was a splendid energy and resolution about this undaunted old +man, now writing a narrative of the Gospel History in his seventy-fourth +year, now sending Robert Boyle new physical facts, now protesting hard +against the cruel policy of selling captive Indians into slavery. What +must not the slavery of the West Indian isles, which had already killed +off their native Caribbeans, have been to these free hunters of the North +American forest, too proud to work for themselves, and bred in a climate +of cold, dry, bracing air? And even in the West Indies, a shipload of +these miserable creatures was refused in the over-stocked market, and the +horrors of the slave-ship were prolonged across the Atlantic, till at +last Mr. Eliot traced the unhappy freight to Tangier. He at once wrote +to conjure the excellent Mr. Boyle to endeavour to have them redeemed and +sent home,--with what success, or if any were left alive, does not +appear. + +He had the pleasure of seeing a son of good Major Gookin become the +minister of a district including Natick, and likewise of the ordination +at Natick of an Indian named Daniel Takawombgrait. Of his own six +children only one son and one daughter survived him. Benjamin, the +youngest son, was his coadjutor at Roxbury, and was left in charge there +while he circulated amongst his Indians, and would have succeeded him. +The loss of this son must have fallen very heavily on him; but "the good +old man would sometimes comfortably say, 'I have had six children, and I +bless God for His free grace; they are all either _with_ Christ or _in_ +Christ, and my mind is now at rest concerning them.'" + +When asked how he could bear the death of such excellent children, his +answer was, "My desire was that they should have served God on earth, but +if God will choose to have them rather serve Him in heaven, I have +nothing to object against it, but His will be done." + +His last letter to Mr. Boyle was written in his eighty-fourth year, and +was a farewell but a cheerful one, and he had good hopes then of a +renewal of the spirit of missions among his people. But though his +Christians did not bely their name in his own generation, alcohol did its +work on some, consumption on others; and, in 1836, when Jabez Sparks +wrote his biography, there was one wigwam at Natick inhabited by a few +persons of mingled Indian and Negro blood, the sole living remnants of +the foundation he had loved so well. Nevertheless, Eliot's work was not +wasted. The spark he lit has never gone out wholly in men's minds. + +His wife died in 1684, at a great age, and her elegy over her coffin were +these words from himself: "Here lies my dear faithful, pious, prudent, +prayerful wife. I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me." + +He had become very feeble, and was wont to say, when asked how he did, +"Alas! I have lost everything: my understanding leaves me, my memory +fails me, my utterance fails me, but, I thank God, my charity holds out +still; I find that rather grows than fails." + +He was forced to give up the duties of his office to a new pastor, and +though often entreated to preach again, he would hardly ever do so, by +reason, he said, that it would be wronging the souls of his people, when +they had an able minister; and when he preached for the last time on a +fast day, on the 63rd Psalm, it was with an apology for what he called +the poorness, and meanness, and brokenness of his meditations. + +"I wonder," he used to say, "for what the Lord lets me live. He knows +that now I can do nothing for Him." + +Yet he was working for Him to the utmost of his power. A little boy in +the neighbourhood had fallen into the fire, and lost his eyesight in +consequence. The old minister took him into his house to instruct, and +first taught him to repeat many chapters in the Bible, and to know it so +thoroughly that when listening to readers he could correct them if they +missed a word; after which he taught him Latin, so that an "ordinary +piece" had become easy to him. + +The importation of negro slaves had already begun, and Mr. Eliot +"lamented with a bleeding and a burning passion that the English used +their negroes but as their horses or oxen, and that so little care was +taken about their immortal souls. He look'd upon it as a prodigy, that +any bearing the name of Christians should so much have the heart of +devils in them, as to prevent and hinder the instruction of the poor +Blackamores, and confine the souls of their miserable slaves to a +destroying ignorance, merely through fear of using the benefit of their +vassalage." So, old as he was, he induced the settlers around to send +him their negroes on certain days of the week for instruction; but he had +not made much progress in the work before he became too feeble to carry +it on. He fell into languishments attended with fever, and this he +viewed as his summons. His successor, Mr. Nehemiah Walters, came to live +with him, and held a good deal of conversation with him. + +"There is a cloud," he said, "a dark cloud upon the work of the Gospel +among the poor Indians. The Lord renew and prosper that work, and grant +it may live when I am dead. It is a work which I have been doing much +and long about. But what was the word I spoke last? I recall that word. +_My doings_. Alas! they have been poor and small, and lean doings, and +I'll be the man that shall throw the first stone at them all." + +Mather relates that he spake other words "little short of oracles," and +laments that they were not correctly recorded; but it appears that he +gradually sank, and died in his eighty-seventh year of age, at Roxbury, +in the year 1690. His last words were, "Welcome joy." + + + + +CHAPTER II. DAVID BRAINERD, THE ENTHUSIAST. + + +The Indian pastor of Natick, who had been trained by Mr. Eliot, died in +1716, and two years later was born one of the men who did all in his +power, through his brief life, to hold up the light of truth to the +unfortunate natives of America, as they were driven further and further +to the west before the advancing tide from Europe. + +The fourth son among nine children, who lost both parents at a very early +age, David Brainerd, though born above the reach of want, had many +disadvantages to contend with. Both his parents had, however, been +religious people, the children of ministers who had come out to America +in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, and settling at Haddam in +Connecticut, trained up their families in the stern, earnest, and rigid +rules and doctrines of Calvinism, which certainly, where they are +accepted by an earnest and thoughtful mind, have a great tendency to +stimulate the intellect, and force forward, as it were, the religious +perceptions in early youth. David was, moreover, a delicate child, with +the seeds of (probably) hereditary decline incipient, and at seven or +eight years old he drew apart from play, thinking much of death, and +trying to prepare by prayer and meditation. His parents' death increased +these feelings, and while living at East Haddam, under the charge of his +brothers, and employed in farm work, the boy was continually struggling +with himself in silence, disliking all youthful mirth and amusement, +fasting, watching and praying, and groaning over the state of his soul. +At nineteen, the wish to become a minister came upon him, and he began to +study hard at all spare moments; and in another year, at twenty, he went +to reside with Mr. Fiske, the minister of Haddam, and in him found, for +the first time, a friend to whom he could open his heart, who could +understand the anxieties and longings within him, and who gave him advice +to withdraw himself from the young companions whose gay spirits were +uncongenial to him, and spend more time with the graver and more +religious. + +Whether this were good advice we do not know, but a period of terrible +agony had to be struggled through. It seems plain, from comparison of +different lives, that in the forms of religion which make everything +depend upon the individual person's own consciousness of the state of his +heart and feelings, instead of supporting this by any outward tokens for +faith to rest upon, the more humble and scrupulous spirits often undergo +fearful misery before they can attain to such security of their own faith +as they believe essential. Indeed, this state of wretchedness is almost +deemed a necessary stage in the Christian life, like the Slough of +Despond in the Pilgrim's Progress; and with such a temperament as David +Brainerd's, the horrors of the struggle for hope were dreadful and lasted +for months, before an almost physical perception of light, glory, and +grace shone out upon him, although, even to the end of his life, hope and +fear, spiritual joy and depression alternated, no doubt, greatly in +consequence of his constant ill-health. + +In 1739, in his twenty-first year, he became a student at Yale, and, +between hard work and his mental self-reproach for the worldly ambition +of distinction, his health broke down, haemorrhage from the lungs set in, +and he was sent home, it was supposed, only to die. He was then in a +very happy frame of mind, and was almost sorry to find himself well +enough to return to what he felt to be a scene of temptation. That same +year, his head was entirely turned by the excitement of George +Whitfield's preaching; he was carried away by religious enthusiasm, and +was in a state of indiscreet zeal, of which his better judgment +afterwards repented, so that he destroyed all the portion of his journal +that related to that year. Indeed, his vehemence cost him dear, for, in +the heat of a discussion, he had the misfortune to say, "Mr. Whittlesey, +he has no more grace than this chair I am leaning upon." Mr. Whittlesey +was one of the college tutors, and a gossiping freshman who overheard the +words thought proper to report this to a meddling woman, who immediately +walked off to the Rector of the college with the awful intelligence that +young Brainerd said that Mr. Whittlesey had no more grace than a chair! + +The Rector had not the sense to silence the silly slander; he sent for +the freshman, took his evidence, and that of the young men with whom +Brainerd had been conversing, and then required him to make public +confession and amends to Mr. Whittlesey before the whole assembled +college,--a humiliation never previously required, except in cases of +gross moral misconduct. The fact was, that the old-fashioned hereditary +Presbyterianism, which had had time to slacken in the hundred years since +the foundation of the colony, was dismayed at the new and vivid life +imported by Whitfield from the Wesleyan revival in the English Church. It +was what always happens. A mixture of genuine sober-minded dread of +extravagance, or new doctrine, and a sluggish distaste to the more +searching religion, combine to lead to a spirit of persecution. This was +the true reason that the lad's youthful rashness of speech was treated as +so grave an offence. Brainerd's spirit was up. Probably he saw no cause +to alter his opinion as to Mr. Whittlesey's amount of grace, and he +stoutly refused to retract his words, whereupon he was found guilty of +insubordination, and actually expelled from Yale. A council of ministers +who assembled at Hartford petitioned for his restoration, but were +refused, the authorities deeming themselves well rid of a dangerous +fanatic. + +Still, as a youth of blameless life and ardent piety, he was encouraged +by his friends to continue his preparation for the ministry, and he +persisted in reading hard, and going out between whiles to meditate in +the depths of the glorious woods. It is curious that while his homely +and rigid system precluded any conscious admiration of the beauties of +nature, it is always evident from his journal that the lightenings of +hope and joy which relieved his too frequent depression and melancholy, +were connected with the scenery and the glories of day and night. Sunrise +and the aurora borealis seem to have filled him with spiritual bliss, and +he never was so happy as when deep in the woods, out of the sight of men; +but his morbid, sensitive, excitable nature never seems to have been +understood by himself or by others. + +Just as John Eliot's missionary zeal was the outcome of the earnestness +that carried the Puritans to New England, so the fresh infusion of +religious life, brought by Whitfield, produced an ardent desire on the +part of David Brainerd to devote himself to the remainder of the Indians; +and in the year 1742, at twenty-five years old, he was examined by an +assembly of ministers at Danbury, and licensed to preach the Gospel, when +he began at once with a little settlement of Indians at Kent, with such a +sinking of heart at his own unworthiness that he says he seemed to +himself worse than any devil, and almost expected to have been stoned +rather than listened to. Indeed, something of this diffidence and +sadness seems always to have weighed him down when he began to preach, +though the fervour of his subject and the responding faces of his +audience always exhilarated him and bore him up through his sermon. To +learn the Indian language had not occurred to him as part of his +preparation, but probably these Kent Red men had been enough among the +English to understand him, for they seem to have been much impressed. + +A Scottish Society for propagating Christian Knowledge had arisen, and +the delegates hearing of the zeal of David Brainerd, desired to engage +him at a salary. The sense of his own unworthiness, and fear of keeping +out a better man, brought his spirits down to the lowest ebb; +nevertheless, he went to meet the representatives of the Society at New +York, and there, though between the hubbub of the town and his own +perpetual self-condemnation he was continually wretched, they were so +well satisfied with him as to give him the appointment, on condition that +he studied the language, intending to send him to the Red men between the +Susquehanna and the Delaware; but there was a dispute between these and +the Government, and it was decided to send him to a settlement called +Kanaumeek, between Stockbridge and Albany. + +Before going, David Brainerd, having no thought beyond devotion to the +Indians, and thinking his allowance enough for his wants, gave up the +whole of his inheritance to support a scholar at the University, and set +forth, undaunted by such weakness of health as in ordinary eyes would +have fitted him for nothing but to be carefully nursed; for even then he +was continually suffering from pain and dizziness, and weakness so great +that he could often hardly stand. + +In this state he arrived at Kanaumeek, with a young Indian to act as his +interpreter, and there spent the first night sleeping on a heap of straw. +It was a lonely, melancholy spot, where the Indians were herded together, +watched with jealous eyes by adventurers who were always endeavouring to +seize their lands, and sadly degenerated from the free, grave, +high-spirited men to whom Eliot had preached. His first lodging was in +the log house of a poor Scotchman who lived among the Indians--a single +chamber, without so much as a floor, and where he shared the family meals +upon porridge, boiled corn, and girdle-cakes. The family spoke Gaelic, +only the master of the house knowing any English, and that not so good as +the Indian interpreter's; and, moreover, the spot was a mile and a half +from the Indian wigwams, no small consideration to so weakly a man, thus +poorly fed. However, the Indians were pleased with his addresses, and +seemed touched by them; but the evil habits of the White men were the +terrible stumbling-block. Parties of them would come into the town, and +vex the missionary's ears with their foul tongues, making a scandalous +contrast to the grave, calm manners of the Indians. More than ever did +he love solitude, and when with his own hands he had built himself a log +hut, where he could be alone when he pleased, his relief was great. + +He was not the highly educated scholar and practical theorist that his +predecessor had been: he seems to have had no plans or systems, and +merely to have tried to fulfil immediate needs; but he soon found that he +could not hope to benefit his Red flock without a school, so he made a +journey to New Jersey to entreat for means to set one up, and this was +done, with his interpreter as master. His journey was made on horseback, +and was no small undertaking, for even between Stockbridge and Kanaumeek +he had once lost his way, and had to sleep a night in the woods. + +He had by this time thoroughly repented of the uncharitableness and +hastiness of his speech about Mr. Whittlesey, and he took a journey to +New Haven to send in a thoroughly humble and Christian-like apology, +requesting to be permitted to take his degree. Twice he was refused, and +the third time was told that the only condition on which the degree would +be granted would be the making up his term of residence at Yale, which +was, of course, not possible to a licensed minister in full employment, +and in fact was an insulting proposal to a man of his standing and +character. + +His journey cost him dear, for as he was riding home he was attacked with +violent pain in the face and shiverings, which forced him to halt at the +first shelter he could find, happily with kind friends, who nursed him +for a fortnight before he could return home. He believed that had his +illness seized him in his log house at home, he must certainly have died +for want of care and attendance, although he was much beloved by his poor +Indians. + +His life was indeed a frightfully hard one, and would have been so for a +healthy man; for he had to work with his own hands to store provisions +for his horse in the winter, and that when weak and suffering the more +for want of proper food. He could get no bread but by riding ten or +fifteen miles to procure it, and if he brought home too much it became +mouldy and sour, while, if he brought home a small quantity, he could not +go for more if he failed to catch his horse, which was turned out to +graze in the woods; so that he was reduced to making little cakes of +Indian meal, which he fried in the ashes. "And then," he says, "I +blessed God as if I had been a king." "I have a house and many of the +comforts of life to support me," he says with great satisfaction; and the +solitude of that house was so precious to him that, however weary he was, +he would ride back twenty miles to it at night rather than spend an +evening among ungodly men. By this terrible stinting of what we should +deem the necessaries of life, he was actually able, in fifteen months, to +devote a hundred pounds to charitable purposes, besides keeping the young +man at the University. + +So much, however, did he love his solitude, that he counted it as no +relief, but an affliction, to have to ride to Stockbridge from time to +time to learn the Indian language from Mr. Sergeant, the missionary there +stationed. Something of this must have been morbid feeling, something +from the want of energy consequent on the condition of his frame. For a +man in confirmed decline such an entry in a journal as this is no +trifle:--"December 20.--Rode to Stockbridge. Was very much fatigued with +my journey, wherein I underwent great hardship; was much exposed, and +very wet by falling into a river." Mr. Sergeant could hardly have been +profane company, but Brainerd never enjoyed these visits, thinking that +intercourse with the world made him less familiar with heaven. + +Another inconvenience was the proximity of Kanaumeek to the frontier, and +these were the days of that horrid war between England and France in +America, when the native allies of each nation made savage descents on +the outlying settlements, inflicting all the flagrant outrages of their +wild warfare. A message came one evening to Kanaumeek from Colonel +Stoddart, warning all in exposed situations to secure themselves as well +as possible, since an attack might come at any moment; and this Brainerd +quietly records as a salutary warning not to attach himself too much to +the _comforts of life_ he enjoyed. + +The attack was never made, but he came to the conclusion that his small +congregation of Indians would be much better with their fellows at +Stockbridge under the care of Mr. Sergeant, and that this would leave him +free to go to more wild and untaught tribes. It was carried out, and the +Indians removed. There was much mutual love between them and their +pastor, and the parting was very affectionate, though even after two +years he was still unable to speak the language, and never seems to have +troubled himself about this trifling obstacle. Several English +congregations entreated him to become their minister, but he refused them +all, and went to meet the Commissioners of the Scottish Society at New +Jersey. They arranged with him for a mission to the Delaware Indians, in +spite of his being laid up for some days at the time; and when he went +back to Kanaumeek to dispose of his books and other "comforts," the +effects of being drenched with rain showed themselves in continued +bleeding from the lungs. He knew that he was often in an almost dying +state, and only wished to continue in his Master's service to the end he +longed for. He owns that his heart did sometimes sink at the thought of +going alone into the wilderness; but he thought of Abraham, and took +courage, riding alone through the depths of the forest, so desolate and +lonely day after day, that it struck terror even into his soul. There +were scanty settlements of Dutch and Irish, where he sometimes spent a +night, but the Sunday he passed among some Irish was so entirely unmarked +by them, that he felt like a "creature banished from the sight of God." + +At last he reached his destination on the fork of the river Delaware, and +being within moderate distance of Newark, there received ordination as a +minister on the 11th of June, 1744. Severe illness followed the exertion +of preaching and praying before the convened ministers; but as soon as he +could walk, he set forth on his return, though he was so weak that he +could hardly open his numbed hand, but his heart and hopes had begun to +revive, and the little settlement of Whites with whom he lived were +willing to listen to him. + +The Indians were in the midst of preparing for an idolatrous feast and +dance. Brainerd spent a day in the woods in an anguish of prayer, and +then went to the place of meeting, where, stranger as he was, he +prevailed on them to cease their revels and attend to him. + +His biographer, President Jonathan Edwards, provokingly leaves out his +method of teaching, "for the sake of brevity," and from his own diary +little is to be gathered but accounts of his state of feeling through +endless journeyings and terrible prostrations of strength. He was always +travelling about--now to the Susquehanna, now back to New +England--apparently at times with the restlessness of disease, for this +roving about must have prevented him from ever deepening the impression +made by his preaching, which after all was only through an interpreter, +for he never gave himself time to learn the language. + +Yet after some months he did find a settlement of Indians, about eighty +miles from the fork of Delaware, at a place called Crossweeksung, who +were far more disposed to attend to him. They listened so eagerly, that +day after day they would travel after him from village to village, hardly +taking any heed to secure provisions for themselves. The description of +their conduct is like that of those touched by Wesleyan preaching. They +threw themselves on the ground, wept bitterly, and prayed aloud, with the +general enthusiasm of excitement, though, he expressly says, without +fainting or convulsions, and even the White men around, who came to +scoff, were deeply impressed. + +David Brainerd had at last his hour of bliss! He was delivered from his +melancholy by the joy of such results, and in trembling happiness +baptized his converts in the river beside their wigwams before leaving +them to proceed to a village on the Susquehanna, where he hoped for an +interview with the chief Sachem of the Delawares. + +The place, however, was in the wildest confusion and uproar, it being the +period of a great festival, when every one was too tipsy to attend to +him. At an island called Juneauta, he met a very remarkable personage, a +Powaw, who bore the reputation of a reformer, anxious to restore the +ancient religion of the Red man, which had become corrupted by +intercourse with the White and his vices. + +His aspect was the most dreadful thing Brainerd had ever seen. He wore a +shaggy bearskin coat, hood, and stockings, and a hideous, painted mask, +so that no part of his person was visible, not even the hand in which he +held an instrument made of the shell of a tortoise, with dry corn within, +and he came up rattling this, and dancing with all his might, and with +such gesticulations that, though assured that he intended no injury, it +was impossible not to shrink back as this savage creature came close. + +Yet he was a thoughtful man, such as would have been a philosopher in +ancient Greece or Rome. He took the missionary into his hut, and +conversed long and earnestly with him. He had revolted in spirit from +the degradation of his countrymen, and had gone to live apart in the +woods, where he had worked out a system of natural religion for himself, +which he believed the Great Spirit had taught him, and which had at last +led him to return to his people and endeavour to restore them to that +purity which of course he believed to have once existed. He believed +there were good men somewhere, and he meant to wander till he found them; +meantime, he was kindly to all who came near him, and constantly uplifted +his testimony against their vices, especially when the love of strong +drink was brought among them. When all was in vain, he would go weeping +away into the woods, and hide himself there till the hateful fire-water +was all consumed and the madness over. Brainerd was greatly touched by +this red-skinned Epictetus, who, he said, had more honesty, sincerity, +and conscientiousness than he had ever met with in an Indian, and more of +the temper of true religion; and he expounded to him the Christian +doctrine with great carefulness and double earnestness. The self-taught +philosopher broke in now and then with "Now that I like,"--"So the Great +Spirit has taught me;" but when the missionary came to the regions where +faith surpasses the power of the intellect and the moral sense, the +Indian would not follow him, and rejected his teaching. It was curious +that he particularly denied the idea of a devil, declaring that there was +no such being, according to the ancient Indians. Now, the incantations +of the Powaws were generally supposed to be addressed to evil spirits, +and probably the perception of the falsehood of these pretended rites led +to his disclaiming the Christian doctrine. + +Whether time and further teaching would have overpowered his belief in +his own inspiration does not appear, for Brainerd found the Indians too +vicious and hardened to pay the least heed either to him or to their own +reformer; and he went back to Crossweeksung, where his flock was still +increasing, and in a most satisfactory condition, renouncing their +heathen customs and their acquired vice of drunkenness, and practising +some amount of industry. A school was set up, old and young learnt +English, the children in three or four months could read the Bible in +English, and Brainerd's sermons and prayers were understood without an +interpreter. + +This improved condition of the Indians destroyed the shameful profits of +the nearest settlement of Whites, whose practice it had hitherto been to +entice them to drink, and then run up a heavy score against them for +liquor. Finding that all endeavours to seduce them into drunkenness were +now vain, these wretches first tried to raise the country against +Brainerd, by reporting that he was a Roman Catholic in disguise; and when +this failed, they laid claim to the lands of Crossweeksung, in discharge +of debts that they declared to have been previously contracted. +Fortunately, Brainerd had it in his power to advance 82_l._ from his +private means, so as to save his people from this extortion; but he +afterwards thought it best to remove them from these dangerous neighbours +to a new settlement, fifteen miles off, called Cranberry. He remained +himself in his little hut at Crossweeksung, after they had proceeded to +raise wigwams and prepare the ground for maize; but, whenever he rode +over to visit them, his approach was notified by the sound of a conch +shell, and they all gathered round for his prayers and instruction. + +His success with them seems to have greatly cured his depression of +spirits, but his mind was balancing between the expedience of remaining +among them as their permanent pastor, protector, and guide, and that of +striving to extend the kingdom of faith. Sometimes he liked the prospect +of a settled home and repose, study and meditation; but, at the thought +of gaining souls to Christ, all these considerations melted before him, +and he believed that he was marked out for the life of a pilgrim and +hermit by his carelessness about hardships. + +He had not, however, taken leave of his flock when he set forth on +another expedition to the obdurate Indians of the Susquehanna, in the +September of 1746. It was without result; he could obtain no attention, +and the hardships of the journey, the night exposure, and the frequent +drenchings completed the wreck of his health. He came back with night +perspirations, bleeding from the lungs, and suffering greatly, feverish +and coughing, and often in pain; yet, whenever he could mount his horse, +riding the fifteen miles to attend to the Indians at Cranberry, or +sitting in a chair before his hut, when they assembled round him. + +On Sunday he persisted in preaching, till generally at the end of half an +hour he fainted, and was carried to his bed; and at the administration of +the Lord's Supper he was carried to the place where he had forty Indian +communicants, and likewise some Whites, who had learnt to reverence him, +and who supported him back to his bed. He was quite happy now, for he +felt he had done all he could to the utmost of his strength; but, soon +becoming totally unable to speak at all, he felt that he must do what he +called "consuming some time in diversions," and try to spend the winter +in a civilized place. + +After riding his first short stage, however, his illness increased so +much, that he was quite incapable of proceeding or returning, and +remained in a friend's house at Elizabethtown, suffering from cough, +asthma, and fever the whole winter. In March 1747 he had rallied enough +to ride to Cranberry, where he went from hut to hut, giving advice to and +praying with each family, and parting with them with great tenderness. +Tears were shed everywhere; for, though he still hoped to return, all +felt that they should see his face no more! But, to his great comfort +and joy, his poor people were not to be abandoned to themselves and their +tempters. His younger brother--John--relieved his mind by offering to +assume the care of them, and under his pastorship he could thankfully +leave them. + +In April he set out again on his journey, at the rate of about ten miles +a day, riding all the way, and on the 28th of May arrived at Northampton, +where Jonathan Edwards, afterwards President of the College of New +Jersey, was then minister. They were like-minded men, both disciples of +Whitfield, and the self-devoted piety of the young missionary was already +so well known to Mr. Edwards by report, that it was most gladly that he +received him into his house and family. There the impression Brainerd +made was of a singularly social, entertaining person, meek and +unpretending, but manly and independent. Probably rest and brightness +had come when the terrible struggle of his early years had ceased, and +morbid despondency had given way to Christian hope, for he became at once +a bright and pleasant member of any society where he formed a part, and +to the Edwards family he was like a son or brother. When he was able, +Mr. Edwards wished him to lead the family devotions, and was always +greatly impressed by the manner and matter of his prayers, but one +petition never failed, _i.e._ "that we might not outlive our usefulness." +Even in saying grace there was always something about him that struck the +attention. + +His purpose in coming to Northampton had been to consult Dr. Mather, +whose verdict was that he was far gone in decline, and who gave him no +advice but to ride as much as possible. So little difference did this +sentence make to him that he never noted it in his diary, though he spoke +of it cheerily in the Edwards family--a large household of young +people--where he was so much beloved, that when he decided to go to +Boston, Jerusha, the second daughter, entreated to be allowed to +accompany him, to nurse him as his sister would have done. + +The pure, severe simplicity of those early American manners was such, +that no one seems to have been surprised at a girl of eighteen becoming +the attendant of a man of twenty-nine. Jerusha had the full consent and +approbation of her parents, and she was a great comfort and delight to +him. He told her father that she was more spiritual, self denying, and +earnest to do good, than any young person he had ever known; and on doubt +their communings were far above earth, hovering, as he was well known to +be, upon the very borders of the grave. + +They took four days to reach Boston, and there he was received with the +greatest respect by all the ministers; but, a week after his arrival, so +severe an attack of his illness came on that he became delirious, and was +thought to be at the point of death. Again, however, he came back enough +to life to sit up in bed and write ardent letters of counsel to the +brother who had succeeded him among his Indians, and likewise to give his +friends the assurance of his perfect peace and joy. He said that he had +carefully examined himself, and though he had found much pride, +selfishness, and corruption, he was still certain that he had felt it his +greatest happiness to glorify and praise God; and this certainty, +together with his faith in the Redeemer, had calmed all the anguish he +had suffered for years. + +Whenever he was able to converse he had numerous visitors, especially +from the deputies of the Society in London which had assisted Eliot. A +legacy for the support of two missionaries had newly been received, and +his counsel on the mode of employing it was asked. He was able to strive +to imbue others with the same zeal as himself, and to do much on behalf +of his own mission, although he often lay so utterly exhausted that he +said of himself that he could not understand how life could be retained. +One of his brothers, a student at Yale, came to see him, and to tell him +of the death of his favourite sister, of whose illness he had not even +heard, but it was no shock to him, for he felt far more sure of meeting +her again than if she had been left on earth. + +The summer weather, to the surprise of all, brought back a slight revival +of strength, and some of his friends began to hope he might yet recover, +but he knew his own state too well, and told them he was as assuredly a +dead man as if he had been shot through the heart; still he was resolved +to profit by this partial restoration to return to Northampton, chiefly +because the rumour had reached him that the Bostonians had intended to +give him such a funeral as should testify their great esteem; and being +disappointed in this, they intended to assemble and escort him publicly, +while still alive, out of their city, but the bare idea naturally made +him so unhappy that they were forced to give it up. + +Five days were spent in the journey, and again the Edwardses +reverentially opened their doors to a guest so near heaven. For some +time he rode out two or three miles daily, and sat with the family, +writing or conversing cheerfully when not engaged in prayer. His brother +John came from Crossweeksung and cheered him with a good account of his +Indians; and hearing of the great need of another school, he wrote to the +friends who had shown themselves so warmly interested in him at Boston, +and was gratified by their reply, with a subscription of 200_l._ for the +purpose, and of 75_l._ for the mission to the Six Nations. His answers +were written with his own hand; but he had become so much weaker that he +felt this his last task. He had been one who, in his short life, had +sown in tears to reap in joy. + +He was sinking fast as the autumn cold came on, often talking tenderly to +the little ones of the house, but suffering terribly at times, and +sighing, "Why is His chariot so long coming?" then blaming himself for +over-haste to be released. + +He had a smile for Jerusha as she came into his room on Sunday morning. +"Are you willing to part with me? I am willing to part with you, though +if I thought I could not see you and be happy with you in another world, +I could not bear to part. I am willing to leave all my friends. I am +willing to leave my brother, though I love him better than any creature +living. I have committed him and all my friends to God, and can leave +them with God!" + +Presently, looking at the Bible in her hands, he said, "Oh that dear +Book! the mysteries in it and in God's providence will soon be unfolded." + +He lingered in great agony at times till the 9th of October, 1747, when +came a cessation of pain, and during this lull he breathed his last, then +wanting six months of his thirtieth birthday. He had told Jerusha that +they should soon meet above, and, in effect, she only lived until the +next February. She told her father on her death-bed, that for years past +she had not seen the time when she had any wish to live a moment longer, +save for the sake of doing good and filling up the measure of her duty. + +David Brainerd's career ended at an age when John Eliot's had not begun. +It was a very wonderful struggle between the frail suffering body and the +devoted, resolute spirit, both weighed down by the natural morbid temper, +further depressed by the peculiar tenets of the form of doctrine in which +he had been bred. The prudent, well-weighed measures of the ripe +scholar, studious theologian, and conscientious politician, formed by +forty-two years' experience of an old and a new country, could not be +looked for in the sickly, self-educated, enthusiastic youth who had been +debarred from the due amount of study, and started with little system but +that of "proclaiming the Gospel"--even though ignorant of the language of +those to whom he preached. And yet that heart-whole piety and patience +was blessed with a full measure of present success, and David Brainerd's +story, though that of a short life, over-clouded by mental distress, +hardship, and sickness, fills us with the joyful sense that there is One +that giveth the victory. + + + + +CHAPTER III. CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH SCHWARTZ, THE COUNCILLOR OF TANJORE. + + +We must turn from America to the warmer regions of the East, from the +patriarchal savage to complicated forms of society, and from the Red-skin +to the Hindoo--a man of far nearer affinity to ourselves, being, like us, +of the great Indo-European race, speaking a language like our own, an +altered, corrupted, and intermingled dialect of the same original tongue, +and his ancestors originally professing a religion in which the same +primary ideas may be traced as those which were held by our ancient +northern forefathers, and which are familiar to us in the graceful dress +imposed on them by the Greeks. The sacred writings of the Hindoos form +the earliest storehouse of the words of our common language, and the +thoughts therein found, though recorded after the branches had parted +from the common stock, are nearer the universal germ than those to be +found anywhere else, and more nearly represent the primary notion of +religion held by the race of Japheth, after that of Shem, to which God +revealed Himself more distinctly, had parted from it. These oldest +writings are quaint, pure, and simple, but on them the fancies of a race +enervated by climate engrafted much that was hideous, monstrous, and +loathsome, leading to gross idolatry, and much vice perpetrated in the +name of religion. Mythology always degenerates with the popular +character, and then, so far as the character is formed by the religious +faith, the mythology helps to debase it further, until the undying moral +sense of conscience awakens again in some man, or band of men, and a new +morality arises; sometimes grafted upon philosophic reasoning, sometimes +upon a newly-invented or freshly introduced religion. + +Thus, when Hindooism had become corrupt, the deeply meditative system of +Buddha was introduced into many parts of India, and certainly brought a +much higher theory and purer code than that founded on the garbled nature- +worship of ancient India; but both religions co-existed, and, indeed, +Buddhism was in one aspect an offshoot of the Hindoo faith. + +Christianity--planted, as is believed, by St. Thomas, on the Malabar +coast--never became wholly extinct, although tinged with Nestorianism, +but it was never adopted by the natives at large, and the learning and +philosophy of the Brahmins would have required the utmost powers of the +most learned fathers of the Church to cope with them, before they could +have been convinced. + +The rigid distinctions of caste have made it more difficult for the +Church which "preaches the Gospel to the poor," to be accepted in India +than anywhere else. Accounting himself sprung from the head of Brahma, +the Brahmin deems himself, and is deemed by others, as lifted to an +elevation which has no connection either with moral goodness, with +wealth, or with power; and which is as much the due of the most poverty- +stricken and wicked member of the caste as of the most magnificent +priest. The Sudras, the governing and warlike class, are next in order, +having sprung from the god's breast, and beneath these come infinite +grades of caste, their subdivisions each including every man of each +trade or calling which he pursues hereditarily and cannot desert or +change, save under the horrible penalty of losing caste, and becoming +forsaken and despised of every creature, even the nearest kindred. The +mere eating from a vessel used to contain food for a person of a +different caste is enough to produce contamination; the separation is +complete, and the whole constitution of body and mind have become so +inured to the distinction, that the cost of becoming a convert is +infinitely severer in India than ever it could have been even in Greece +or Rome, where, though the Christian might be persecuted even to the +death, he was not thrust out of the pale of humanity like a Hindoo +convert who transgresses caste. + +The Christians of Malabar are a people living to themselves, and the +great Bengalee nations never appear to have had the Gospel carried to +them. The Mahometan conquest filled India with professors of the faith +of the Koran; but these were a dominant race, proud and separate from the +mass of people, whom they did not win to their faith, and thus the Hindoo +idolatry had prevailed untouched for almost the whole duration of the +world, when the wealth of India in the early days of naval enterprise +first began to tempt small mercantile companies of Europeans to form +factories on the coast merely for purposes of traffic, without at first +any idea that these would lead to possession or conquest, and, in +general, without any sense of the responsibility of coming as Christians +into a heathen world. + +The Portuguese did indeed strive earnestly to Christianize their +territory at Goa; and they promoted by all means in their power the +labours of Francisco Xavier and his Jesuit companions, so effectually +that the fruits of their teaching have remained to the present day. + +Neither were the Dutch, who then held Ceylon, entirely careless of the +duty of instructing their subjects; and the Danes, who had obtained the +town of Tranquebar on the Coromandel coast, in 1746, sent out a mission +which was vigorously conducted, and met with good success. Hitherto, +however, the English at Madras and Calcutta had been almost wholly +indifferent, and it must be remembered that theirs was not a Government +undertaking. The East India Company was still only a struggling +corporation of merchants and traders, who only wanted to secure the +warehouses and dwellings of those who conducted their traffic, and had as +yet no thought of anything but the security of their trade; often, +indeed, considering themselves pledged to no interference with the +religion of the people around, and too often forgetting their own. +However, the Danish mission received grants of money and books from the +Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and the first Indian +missionary of any note, a German by birth, was equally connected with +both England and Denmark. + +Sonnenburg in Brandenburg, still an electorate at the time, was the +native home of Christian Friedrich Schwartz, of whose parents it is only +known that they appear to have been in easy circumstances, and that his +mother, who died before he could remember, told her husband and her +pastor on her death-bed, that she had dedicated her infant to the service +of God, imploring them to cherish and forward any inclination towards the +ministerial office that might be visible in him. It was, of course, the +Lutheran form in which the child of this pious woman was bred up, and in +1734 he was sent to the grammar school of Sonnenburg, where his piety was +first excited by a religious master, then cooled by an indifferent one; +and he was then taken by his father, walking on foot the whole way, to +pursue his studies at Custrin. There he became beset by the temptations +that surrounded young students, and after giving way to them for a time, +was saved from further evil by the influence of the daughter of one of +the Syndics. It does not appear to have been a matter of sentiment, but +of honest friendship and good counsel, aiding the young man to follow his +better instead of his worse impulses; and thus giving a labourer to the +vineyard. + +Before residing at Custrin, this lady had lived for a time at Halle, and +what she told the young Schwartz of the professors at that university, +inspired him with the desire of completing his course under them, +especially August Hermann Francke, who had established an admirable +orphan house, with an excellent grammar school. + +In his twentieth year, Schwartz entered at Halle, but lodged at the +orphan house, where he became teacher to the Latin classes, and was put +in charge of the evening devotions of the household. At Halle, he met a +retired Danish missionary, named Schultz, who had come thither to +superintend the printing of a version of the Bible in Tamul, the language +of Ceylon and of the Coromandel coast; and this it was that first turned +his mind to the thought of offering himself as a worker in the great +field of India. + +He was the eldest of the family, and his friends all declared that it was +impossible that his father should consent to part with him; but when he +went home, and earnestly stated his desire, the elder Schwartz, instead +of at once refusing as all expected, desired to take three days to +consider; and when they were passed, he came gravely down from his +chamber, called his son Christian, gave him his blessing, and told him to +depart in God's name, charging him to forget his own country and his +father's house, and to win many souls to Christ. + +And certainly that good old German's blessing went forth with his son. +Christian Schwartz next resigned his share in the family property to his +brothers and sisters; and after completing his studies at Halle, went to +Copenhagen, since it was by the Danish government that he was to be +authorized. Two other young Germans, named Poltzenheigen and Hutteman, +went with him. The Danes, though Lutherans in profession, have an +Episcopal hierarchy, and the three students were ordained by the Danish +Bishop Horreboa on the 6th of September, 1749; Christian Schwartz being +then within a month of twenty-three. + +Their first stage was to England, where they had to learn the language, +and were entertained at the cost of the Society for Promoting Christian +Knowledge. Mr. Ziegenhagen, German chaplain to George II., was very kind +to his countrymen, helped them in all their difficulties, and gave them +directions for which they were very grateful. He made them preach in the +Chapel Royal on Christmas Day. No doubt the language was German, which +must have been acceptable to the Hanoverian ears. + +Their English studies were not greatly prolonged, for they arrived on the +8th of December, 1749, and sailed on the 29th of January, 1750, in an +East India Company's ship, where they were allowed a free passage, and +were treated with respect and friendliness. The voyage lasted long +enough to improve them in English, for they did not cast anchor at +Tranquebar till the 8th of October. + +At this considerable Danish factory, they were received into the mission- +house of the Danes, and there remained while studying the language, in +which Schwartz made so much progress that he preached his first Tamul +sermon only four months after his arrival, and by the spring was able to +catechize the children who attended the school. This station at +Tranquebar formed the home of seven or eight missionaries, who lived +together, attended to the services and schools, prepared candidates for +baptism, and made excursions by ones and twos into the villages that +stood thickly on the coast, where they talked and argued with the +natives, hoping to incite them to inquire further. The two greatest +obstacles they met with here were the evil example of Europeans and the +difficulty of maintenance for a convert. One poor dancing girl said, on +hearing that no unholy person could enter into the kingdom of heaven, +"Ah! sir, then no European will;" but, on the whole, they must have met +with good success, for in 1752 there were three large classes of +catechumens prepared and baptized at the station. In the district around +there were several villages, where congregations of Christians existed, +and, of all those south of the river Caveri, Schwartz was after two more +years made the superintendent. + +The simple habits of these German and Danish clergy eminently fitted them +for such journeys; they set out in pairs on foot, after a farewell of +united prayer from their brethren, carrying with them their Hebrew +Bibles, and attended by a few Christian servants and coolies; they +proceeded from village to village, sometimes sleeping in the house of a +Hindoo merchant, sometimes at that of one the brother ministers they had +come to see, and at every halt conversing and arguing with Hindoo or +Mahometan, or sometimes with the remnants of the Christians converted by +the Portuguese, who had been so long neglected that they had little +knowledge of any faith. + +The character of Christian Schwartz was one to influence all around him. +He seems to have had all the quiet German patience and endurance of +hardship, without much excitability, and with a steadiness of judgment +and intense honesty and integrity, that disposed every one to lean on him +and rely on him for their temporal as well as their spiritual +matters--great charity and warmth of heart, and a shrewdness of +perception that made him excellent in argument. He had also that true +missionary gift, a great facility of languages, both in grammar and +pronunciation, and his utter absence of all regard for his own comfort or +selfish dignity, yet his due respect to times and places made him able to +penetrate everywhere, from the hut to the palace. + +The Carnatic war was at this time an impediment, by keeping the minds of +all the natives in a state of excitement and anxiety, from dread of +Mahratta incursions; but Schwartz never intermitted his rounds, and was +well supported by the Danish Governor, a good man, who often showed +himself his friend. Some of the missionaries were actually made +prisoners when the French took Cuddalore, but Count Lally Tollendal was +very kind to them, and sent them with all their property and converts +safely away to Tranquebar. + +The Dutch missionaries in Ceylon had been in correspondence with those of +Tranquebar, and had obtained from them copies of their Tamul Bible, and +in 1760 Schwartz was sent on a visit to them. He was very well received +by both clergy and laity; and though he was laid up by a severe illness +at Colombo, yet he was exceedingly well contented with his journey and +his conferences with his brethren. + +Christian Schwartz had been more than sixteen years in India, and was +forty years of age, before his really distinctive and independent work +began, after his long training in the central station at Tranquebar. + +The neighbouring district of Tanjore had at different times been visited, +and the ministers of the Rajah had shown themselves willing to bestow +some reflection on what they heard from the missionaries. Visits to this +place and to Trichinopoly became frequent with him, and in 1766 the +Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge having decided on planting a +mission station in the latter place, he was appointed to take the charge +of it. + +About this time he seems to have accommodated his name to English +pronunciation, and to have always written it Swartz. It was now that he +became acquainted with William Chambers, Esq., brother to the Chief +Justice of Bengal,--not a Company's servant, but a merchant, and an +excellent man, who took great interest in missionary labours, and himself +translated a great part of St. Matthew's Gospel into Persian, the court +language of India. From a letter of this gentleman, we obtain the only +description we possess of Swartz's appearance and manners. He says that, +from the descriptions he had heard, he had expected to see a very austere +and strict person, but "the first sight of him made a complete revolution +on this point. His garb, indeed, which was pretty well worn, seemed +foreign and old-fashioned, but in every other respect his appearance was +the reverse of all that could be called forbidding or morose. Figure to +yourself a stout well-made man, somewhat above the middle size, erect in +his carriage and address, with a complexion rather dark though healthy, +black curled hair, and a manly engaging countenance, expressive of +unaffected candour, ingenuousness, and benevolence, and you will have an +idea of what Mr. Swartz appeared to be at first sight." Mr. Chambers +adds that Swartz's whole allowance at Trichinopoly was ten pagodas a +year, that is, about 48_l._ (as Mr. Chambers estimates it). The +commanding officer of the English garrison was ordered to supply him with +quarters, and gave him a room in an old native building, where "there was +just room for his bed and himself, and in which few men could stand +upright." With this lodging he was content. His food was rice and +vegetables dressed native fashion, and his clothes were made of black +dimity. The little brass lamp which he had used for his studies at the +University went with him to India, and served him all his life, often +late at night, for he never preached even to the natives without much +study. + +He found the English without church or chaplain, and had very little +knowledge of their language, having lived almost entirely among Germans, +Danes, and natives; but he quickly picked it up among the soldiers, to +whom his kindly simple manners commended him; and, as soon as he could +speak it to any degree, he began to read the Church Service every Sunday +to the garrison, with a printed sermon from an English divine, until he +had obtained sufficient fluency to preach extempore. At first, the place +of meeting was a large room in an old building, but he afterwards +persuaded them to build themselves a church capable of holding from 1,500 +to 2,000. His facility in learning languages must have been great, for +the English of his letters is excellent, unless his biographer, Dean +Pearson, has altered it. It is not at all like that of a German. His +influence with the soldiers was considered as something wonderful, in +those times of neglect and immorality, and the commandant and his +wife--Colonel and Mrs. Wood--were his warmest friends; and when the +Government at Madras heard of his voluntary services as chaplain, they +granted him, unsolicited, a salary of 100_l._ a year, of which he devoted +half to the service of his congregation. He was thus able to build a +mission-house, and an English and a Tamul school, labour and materials +being alike cheap. But, in spite of all his care of the English +soldiery, the natives were his chief thought; and he was continually +among them, reading and arguing home with the most thorough knowledge and +experience of their difficulties. He made expeditions from Trichinopoly +to Tanjore, then under the government of a Rajah, under the protection of +the British Government. The principal worship of the place was directed +to an enormous black bull, said to be hewn out of a single block of +granite, and so large that the temple had been built round it. + +The Brahmins conversed with him a good deal, and often were all _but_ +converted. One plainly said that love of money and pleasure alone kept +them from accepting Christianity. In 1769 he had a personal interview +with the Rajah Tuljajee, a man of the dignity, grace, and courtesy usual +in Hindoo princes, but very indolent, not even rising in the morning if +he was told that it was not an auspicious day, though he was more +cultivated than most men of his rank and period. + +Swartz found him seated on a couch suspended from pillars, and was placed +opposite to him, on a seat. The interpreter addressed him in Persian, +and Swartz replied in the same; but, perceiving that the man omitted part +of his speech, he asked leave to speak Tamul. + +The Rajah asked questions, which led to an exposition of the Christian +doctrine, and he listened with interest; and he likewise was struck when +Swartz uttered a thanksgiving before partaking of the sweets that were +carried round on trays. He showed himself so much disappointed when he +learnt that the Padre had left Tanjore, that it was resolved that Swartz +should return thither again; and for some days there were out-of-door +preachings on the glacis of the fort, where, in spite of clouds of dust +brought by the land wind, the people collected in crowds to hear him, and +expressed ardent wishes that the Rajah would become a Christian, when +they all could do the same. The Prince himself was much drawn towards +the missionary; but it was the old story,--he was surrounded with +ministers and courtiers who feared any change, above all any +plain-speaking truth, and therefore did their best to keep the new light +at a distance. However, Tuljajee called Swartz "_his padre_," and gave +him free entrance to his fort at Tanjore, where his arguments made a wide +impression, and still more his example. "Padre," said a young Nabob, "we +always regarded you Europeans as ungodly men, who knew not the use of +prayers, till you came among us." + +He continued to go backwards and forwards between Trichinopoly and +Tanjore, in both which places he began to gather catechumens round him. +Unfortunately his Protestant principles brought him into collision with +the Roman Catholics at the former place. A young Hindoo, of good birth, +seems to have had one of those remarkable natures that cannot rest +without truth. He had for seven years wandered to all the most famous +pagodas and most sacred rivers, seeking rest for his soul, but in vain. +Some Roman Catholics had given him a little brass crucifix, which he used +to set up before him as he prayed; but he had learnt little more of them, +and he was mournfully gazing at "the pagodas of Sirengam" (in his own +words), and thinking, "What is all this? what can it avail?" when some of +Swartz's catechists began to speak. "Will this be better than what I +have found?" he said to himself. He listened, was asked to remain a +fortnight at the station, and soon had given his whole soul to the faith. +He was baptized by the name of Nyana Pracasam, or Spiritual Light, and +became a catechist. His father and mother were likewise led to +Christianity by him, but the Roman Catholics, having begun his +conversion, considered that they had a right to him, and on one occasion, +when he was found reading to a sick relative, probably a member of their +Church, he was severely beaten, and was rescued by the heathen neighbours +when nearly killed. + +Swartz seems to have regarded the Roman Catholics as in almost as much +need of reconversion as the Hindoos and Mahometans; and as in those days +their Church shared in that universal religious torpor that had crept +over the world, it is most likely that he found them in a very debased +condition. + +With the Mahometans he had some success, though he found, like all other +missionaries, that their faith, being rather a heresy than a paganism, +had truth enough in it to be much harder to deal with than the Hindoo +polytheism. Besides, they accepted the Persian proverb, "Every time a +man argues, he loses a drop of blood from his liver." He was impeded +also by the want of a Persian translation of the entire Bible, having no +more than the Gospels to give the inquirers, and these badly translated; +and with Mahometans the want of the real history of the Patriarchs was +very serious. Some, however, were convinced and baptized, though by far +the greater number of his converts were Hindoos. + +In 1776, a coadjutor, either German or Danish-trained, named Christian +Pohle, joined him at Trichinopoly, and thus he became free to reside more +constantly at Tanjore, where the Rajah always protected him, though +continually fluctuating in feeling towards Christianity, according to the +influences of his ministers and the Brahmins who surrounded him, and the +too frequent offences given by the godless officers of the European +garrison which was stationed in the fort. + +Mr. Swartz was anxiously soliciting for means to build a church for the +use of this garrison, when he was summoned to Madras, to the governor, +Sir Thomas Rumbold, who promised him a grant for his church; but, at the +same time, informed him that he was to be sent on a mission to visit the +formidable Hyder Ali in Mysore, in order to judge how far his intentions +towards the English were pacific. He was selected for the purpose on +account of his perfect knowledge of Hindostanee, the simplicity of his +manner of travelling, and his perfect immunity from any of the ordinary +influences of interest or ambition; and he undertook it, as he tells the +Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, because he regarded it as +conducing to peace, as opening fresh doors to the Gospel, and as a token +of gratitude to the Honourable Company for kindness he had received; "but +at the same time," he says, "I resolved to keep my hands undefiled from +any presents, by which determination the Lord enabled me to abide, so +that I have not accepted a single farthing save my travelling expenses." + +On the 1st of July, 1779, he set out from Trichinopoly on this journey, +taking one of his catechists, named Sattianadem, with him. He travelled +in a palanquin, and took six days to reach Caroor, on the Mysore +frontier, forty miles off, where he stayed a month with a young Ceylonese +Dutchman in Hyder Ali's service, while sending to ask the Nabob's +permission to proceed. All this time he and his catechist preached and +gave instruction in the streets. It is curious to find him, on his +journey, contrasting the excellent state of Hyder Ali's roads and bridges +with the careless disorganization of the public works under the Company. +An epidemic fever was raging in Seringapatam, and Swartz pitched his tent +outside, where he could conveniently visit the many-pillared palace of +the sovereign. He was much struck with the close personal supervision +that Hyder Ali kept up over his officers, and with the terrible severity +of the punishments. Two hundred men were kept armed with whips, and not +a day passed without many being scourged, no rank being exempt, the +Nabob's two sons and sons-in-law being liable to be whipped like the +meanest groom. Swartz was the unwilling spectator of the punishment of +the collector of a district who was flogged with whips armed with nails. + +A few hundreds of Europeans, English, German, and French, were in Hyder's +pay, encamped about the town, and a German captain lent his tent for +public worship. No molestation was offered to any instructions that +Swartz attempted to give, and he was very courteously entreated by the +Prince himself. The conferences with him were generally held in a hall +of marble columns, open to a garden adorned with fruit trees, rows of +cypresses, and fountains. Hyder Ali sat on rich carpets, covering the +floor, and the Padre was placed next to him. He spoke in general terms +of his desire to keep the peace, though the British had violated their +engagements, referring to an attempt that had newly been made to march +troops through his territory without his permission. To Swartz he was +gracious in speech, but the letter he entrusted to him was full of +threatening for this and other acts which he considered aggressive; and +the general impression brought back by the missionary was that a war was +to be expected. + +Hyder Ali had presented him with a bag of three hundred rupees for +travelling expenses, which it would have been a great affront to return. +He, however, made it over to the Government at Madras, and when they +would not take it, asked leave to use it as the foundation for a +collection for an English orphan school at Tanjore. This was granted, +and proved a success. Finding that there was an intention of voting a +present to him, he begged instead that a salary might be given to Mr. +Pohle at Trichinopoly; and, in consequence, both were enabled to maintain +catechists and schoolmasters; for of making a home for themselves, these +devoted men never thought. Moreover, Swartz obtained bricks and lime for +the building of his English church within the fort; and he bought and +enlarged a house half a mile from it, for his Malabar Christians to +worship in. His own observations of Hyder Ali's warlike intentions led +also to his purchasing 12,000 bags of rice as a provision against the +scarcity that too surely attends upon Indian warfare. + +In the summer of 1780, these apprehensions were realized. Hyder crossed +the Ghauts, and passed down into the Carnatic with 100,000 men, directed +by a staff of French officers, and plundered up to the very gates of +Madras. Everything was in the greatest confusion; the English troops +were dispersed in garrisons, and could not easily be brought together; +and one small detachment under Colonel Baillie, who were made prisoners +at Conjiveram, suffered a frightful captivity. Sir Eyre Coote did, +indeed, keep the enemy in check, and defeat him in several battles, but +had not at first sufficient numbers or stores effectually to drive him +back; and the whole province of Tanjore was horribly wasted. The +irrigation of the district had been broken up by the invaders; there was +for three years neither seed-time nor harvest, and the miserable peasants +crawled into the towns to perish there, often with their sons carried off +to form a regiment of youths whom Hyder Ali was bringing up as a sort of +Janissaries. + +The unhappy creatures lay dying along the sides of the road, and among +them moved from one to another that homely figure in the black dimity +dress, and his catechists with him, feeding those who could still +swallow, and speaking words of comfort to those who could hear. Some of +the English sent a monthly subscription, which enabled Swartz to keep up +the supply, so that a hundred and twenty a day were fed; but often in the +morning he found the dead lying in heaps, and in one of his letters he +mentions that his catechists are alive, as though he regarded it as a +wonder and a mercy. Indeed he seems to have been a very Joseph to the +Rajah, and even to the English garrison. There was absolutely no +magazine for provisions, either for the Sepoys or the Rajah's own troops, +and twice he was implored, both by Tuljajee and the Company, to purchase +supplies and get them brought in, since they were unable to do so, "for a +want of good understanding with the natives who still possessed either +rice or oxen to transport it." He was enabled to procure the supply, and +then there was no place to store it in but his own new English church, so +that he was obliged to hold three services on a Sunday in the other: from +eight till ten in English, from ten till twelve in Tamul, and from four +till five in Portuguese! About a hundred converts were gained during the +famine; but he was forced to teach them very slowly, their mental +faculties were so weakened by their state of exhaustion. The whole of +the towns of Tanjore and Trichinopoly were, he says, filled with living +skeletons, there was hardly an able or vigorous man to be found, and in +this distress it was necessary to relax the ordinarily wise rule of never +giving any assistance to a person under preparation for baptism, since to +withhold succour would have been barbarous cruelty. + +When the whole country was overrun by the troops of Mysore, the respect +paid to the good Padre was such that he travelled from end to end of it +without hindrance, even through the midst of the enemy's camp, and on the +only occasion when he was detained, the sentinel politely put it that "he +was waiting for orders to let him proceed." It was on one of these +journeys that a little lad, named Christian David, the son of one of the +converts, was attending him one evening, when, halting at a native +village, the supper was brought, of rice and curry. The Padre made so +long a grace out of the fulness of his heart, that at last the boy broke +in with a murmur that the curry would be cold! He never forgot the +reproof: "What! shall our gracious God watch over us through the heat and +burden of the day, and shall we devour the food which He provides for us +at night, with hands which we have never raised in prayer, and lips which +have never praised Him?" The missionaries were always safe throughout +the war, and, when Cuddalore capitulated to the French and Mysoreans, Mr. +Gericke, who was then at the head of the station, concealed some English +officers in his house, and likewise, by his representations to the French +general, saved the town from being delivered up to be plundered by +Hyder's native troops. + +In the end of 1782, Hyder Ali died; his son, Tippoo Sahib, assuming the +title of Sultan, continued the war, with the same fierceness, but without +the assistance of the French, who were withdrawn, in consequence of the +peace that had been concluded at home. + +This, together with the numerous victories that had been obtained by the +English forces, led to hopes that Tippoo would consent to terms of peace, +and two Commissioners were appointed, whom Swartz was requested to join +as interpreter. He had no taste for political missions, but he thought +it a duty to do all in his power for peace, and set off for the purpose, +but the Mysoreans complained that the English promises had not been kept, +and he was turned back again by the enemy's troops. Colonel Fullarton, +who was in command of the army about to invade Mysore, writes, "The +knowledge and the integrity of this irreproachable missionary have +retrieved the character of Europeans from _imputations of general +depravity_!" He went back to Tanjore, and there, for the first time, +experienced some failure in health. He was requested again to join the +Commissioners, but would not again attempt it, partly from the state of +his health, and partly because Tippoo was far more averse to Christianity +than Hyder had been. All the 12,000 Tanjoreen captive boys--originally +Hindoos--were bred up Mahometans, and he tolerated nothing else but +Hindooism, persecuting the Roman Catholics in his dominions till no one +dared make an open profession. + +A treaty was, however, concluded in 1784, and there was for a time a +little rest, greatly needed by Swartz, who had been suffering from much +weakness and exhaustion; but a journey into Tinnevelly, with his friend +Mr. Sullivan, seems to have restored him. + +There were already some dawnings of Christianity in this district. As +long before as 1771, one of the Trichinopoly converts, named +Schavrimutta, who was living at Palamcotta, began to instruct his +neighbours from the Bible, and a young Hindoo accountant, becoming +interested, went to an English sergeant and his wife, who had likewise +been under Swartz's influence, and asked for further teaching. The +sergeant taught him the Catechism and then baptized him, rather to the +displeasure of Swartz, who always was strongly averse to hasty baptisms. +Afterwards, a Brahmin's widow begged for baptism. She, it appeared, was +living with an English officer, and Swartz was obliged to refuse her +while this state of things continued, but he found that the Englishman +had promised to marry her, and had begun to teach her his language and +his faith. He died without performing his promise, but Christianity had +become so dear to her, that she again entreated for baptism, and was then +admitted into the Church by the name of Clarinda. She afterwards was the +chief means of building a church at Palamcotta, to which Sattianadem +became the catechist; and thus was first sown a seed which has never +ceased growing, for this district of Tinnevelly has always been the +stronghold of Christianity in India. + +Meantime Swartz's poor friend, the Rajah Tuljajee at Tanjore, was in a +deplorable state. He had suffered great losses during Hyder Ali's +invasion of his country, and, moreover, was afflicted with an incurable +disease, and had lately lost, by death, his only son, daughter, and +grandson: He shut himself up in the depths of his palace, and became +harsh and moody, heaping all the treasure together that he could collect, +and employing a dean or minister, named Baba, whose exactions on the +famished population were so intolerable that the people fled the country, +and settled in the neighbouring districts, so that no less than 65,000 +were said to have deserted the province. + +Sir Archibald Campbell, Governor of Madras, remonstrated, but the Rajah +was affronted, and would not dismiss his minister, and as the peasants +refused to sow their land without some security that the crops should not +be reaped by Baba's emissaries before their very eyes, the Madras +authorities decided on taking the management of Tanjoreen affairs into +their hands and appointing a committee to watch over the government. Sir +Archibald wished to place Mr. Swartz on this committee as the person best +able to deal both with Rajah and people, and he accepted a seat, only +stipulating that he was not to share in any violent or coercive measures. + +When the "good Padre" assured the fugitives in the Rajah's name and his +own that oppression was at an end, 7,000 at once returned; and when he +reminded them that the season for planting their corps was nearly past, +they replied that in return for his kindness they intended to work night +and day. + +In 1787, the childless Rajah decided on--after the fashion of many Hindoo +princes--adopting an heir, who might perform the last duties which were +incumbent on a son. His choice fell upon the son of a near kinsman, a +child ten years of age, whom he named Serfojee. A day or two after he +sent for Mr. Swartz, and said, "This is not my son, but yours. Into your +hand I deliver him." "May the child become a child of God," was the +answer of Swartz. The Rajah was too ill to continue the interview, but +he sent for Swartz the next day, and said, "I appoint you guardian to +this child; I put his hands into yours." + +Swartz, however, did not think it right to undertake the state +guardianship of the lad, and the administration of the province. Indeed, +he knew that to do so would be absolutely to put the child's life in +danger, from the cabals and jealousies which would be excited, and he +induced Tuljajee to confide the charge to his brother, Rama Swamey, +afterwards called Ameer Singh. + +This was done, and the Rajah soon after died, in the year 1787, leaving +the boy and Ameer Singh under the protection of the Company. He had +always listened to Swartz willingly, and treated him affectionately, and +the result of the influence of the missionary extended so far that no +Suttee took place at his funeral, but he had never actually embraced +Christianity, though protecting it to the utmost of his power. + +The brother, Ameer Singh, was not contented merely to act as regent, but +complained that injustice was done to him, and that Tuljajee was too much +enfeebled in mind to judge of his own measures when he adopted the boy +Serfojee. Sir Archibald Campbell, acting for the Company, came to +Tanjore, and, after an examination into the circumstances, decided in +favour of Ameer Singh, and confirmed him in the Rajahship, binding him +over to be the faithful protector of poor little Serfojee, who, putting +the adoption apart, was still his near relation. + +Ameer was not a better manager of his province than his brother had been, +and he was far from kind to Serfojee, whom Swartz had not been allowed to +see for months, when the widows of the late Rajah made complaints that +the boy was closely shut up and cruelly treated. On this Swartz applied +to Government, and obtained an order to go with another gentleman to +inquire into his condition. The Rajah was much offended; but as he +reigned only by the protection of the English, he could not refuse, and +the Padre was conducted to a large but dark room, where he found the poor +child sitting by lamp-light. This had been his condition for almost two +years, ever since his adopted father's death, and on seeing the Padre, he +asked piteously if it were the way in Europe to prevent children from +seeing the sun and moon. Mr. Swartz comforted him, and asked him if he +had any one to teach him. The Rajah's minister replied that he had a +master, but was too idle to learn; but Serfojee looked up and said, "I +have none to teach me, therefore I do not know a single letter." The +Rajah was only offended at remonstrance, and at last Government sent +orders that could not be resisted, and a Sepoy guard to take charge of +the lad. Then, as a great favour, the Rajah entreated that the guard +would not enter his palace, but that for the night before Serfojee could +be removed, the Padre would remain with him to satisfy them that he was +safe. To this Swartz consented, and the guard disappeared, whereupon the +Rajah told him "he might go home." + +"What! and be guilty of a breach of faith?" was his resolute answer. +"Even my father should not be permitted to make me such a proposal!" + +They were ashamed, and left him to remain that night with Serfojee, whom +he probably thus saved from foul play, since the jealous and vindictive +passions of Ameer Singh had been thoroughly excited. The captivity must +have been very wretched, for he observed that the poor boy walked lame, +and found that the cause was this:--"I have not been able to sleep," said +poor Serfojee, "from the number of insects in my room, but have had to +sit clasping my knees about with my arms. My sinews are a little +contracted, but I hope I shall soon recover." + +When taken out, the poor little fellow was delighted once more to see the +sun, and to ride out again. A Brahmin master selected by Mr. Swartz was +given to him, and he very rapidly learnt both to read his own language +and English. Swartz also interfered on behalf of the late Rajah's +minister, Baba, who had indeed been extortionate and severe, but scarcely +deserved such a punishment as being put into a hole six feet long and +four feet broad and high. + +For two years Serfojee was unmolested; but, in 1792, the husband of Ameer +Singh's only child died without children, and this misfortune was +attributed by the Rajah to witchcraft on the part of the widows of +Tuljajee. He imagined that they were contriving against his own life, +and included Serfojee in his hatred. By way of revenge, he caused a pile +of chilis and other noxious plants to be burnt under Serfojee's windows, +and thus nearly stifled him and his attendants. He prevented the +Prince's teachers from having access to him, shut up his servants, and +denied permission to merchants to bring their wares to him. Mr. Swartz +was absent at the time, and Serfojee wrote a letter to him, begging that +the English Government would again interfere. It was found that any +remonstrance put the Rajah into such a state of fury that the lives of +the youth and the ladies we're really unsafe while they remained within +his reach, and it was therefore decided that they should be transplanted +to Madras. It was a wonderful step for Hindoo princesses to take, and +was only accomplished by the influence of Mr. Swartz, backed by a guard +of soldiers, under whose escort all safely arrived at Madras, where +Serfojee's education could at length be properly carried on. + +The youth was so entirely the child of Swartz and of the Government, that +it is disappointing to find that he did not become a Christian. No +stipulation to the contrary seems to have been made by Tuljajee; but, +probably, the missionary refrained from a sense of honour towards the +late Rajah, and because to bring the boy up in the Church would have +destroyed all chance of his obtaining the provinces, and probably have +deprived him of the protection of the Company, who dreaded the suspicion +of proselytizing. Still it is very disappointing, and requires all our +trust in Swartz's judgment and excellence to be satisfied that he was +right in leaving this child, who had been confided to him, all his life a +heathen. Serfojee learnt the theory of Christianity, was deeply attached +to Mr. Swartz, and lived a life very superior to that of most Hindoo +princes of his time. His faith in his hereditary paganism was probably +only political, but he never made the desperate, and no doubt perilous, +plunge of giving up all the world to save his own soul. Was it his +fault, or was it any shortcoming in the teaching that was laid before +him, and was that human honour a want of faith? It puzzles us! Here was +Swartz, from early youth to hoary hairs unwavering in the work of the +Gospel, gathering in multitudes to the Church, often at great peril to +himself, yet holding back from bringing into the fold the child who had +been committed to him, and, as far as we can see, without any stipulation +to the contrary. Probably he thought it right to leave Serfojee's +decision uninfluenced until his education should be complete, and was +disappointed that the force of old custom and the danger of change were +then too strong for him; and thus it was that Serfojee was only one of +the many half-reclaimed Indian princes who have lived out their dreary, +useless lives under English protection, without accepting the one pearl +of great price which could alone have made them gainers. + +It is just possible that there may have been too much of a certain sort +of acquiescence in Swartz's mind, missionary as he was. He did not +attack the system of caste, with its multitudinous separations and +distinctions. Of course he wished it to be abolished, but he accepted +converts without requiring its renunciation, allowed high-caste persons +to sit apart in the churches, and to communicate before Pariahs, and did +not interfere with their habits of touching no food that the very finger +of a person of a different caste had defiled. He no doubt thought these +things would wither away of themselves, but his having permitted them, +left a world of difficulty to his successors. + +He lived, however, the life of a saint, nearly that of an ascetic. His +almost unfurnished house was shared with some younger missionary. +Kohloff, who was one of these, related in after years how plain their +diet was. Some tea in a jug, with boiling water poured over it and dry +bread broken into it, formed the breakfast, which lasted five minutes; +dinner, at one, was of broth or curry; and at eight at night they had +some meal or gruel. If wine were sent them, it was reserved for the +communions or for the sick. Swartz only began, very late in life, to +take a single glass in the middle of his Sunday services. + +Every morning he assembled his native catechists at early prayer, and +appointed them their day's work. "You go there." "You do this." "You +call on such and such families." "You visit such a village." About four +o'clock they returned and made their report, when their master took them +all with him to the churchyard or some public place, or to the front of +the Mission-house, according to the season of the year, and there sat +either expounding the Scriptures to those who would come and listen, or +conversing with inquirers and objectors among the heathen. His manner +was mild, sometimes humorous, but very authoritative, and he would brook +neither idleness nor disobedience. + +Over his Christian flock his authority was as complete as ever that of +Samuel could have been as a judge. If any of them did wrong, the +alternative was-- + +"Will you go to the Rajah's court, or be punished by me?" + +"O Padre, you punish me!" was always the reply. + +"Give him twenty strokes," said the Padre, and it was done. + +The universal confidence in the Padre, felt alike by Englishmen and +Hindoos, was inestimable in procuring and carrying out regulations for +the temporal prosperity of the peasantry at Tanjore, under the Board +which had pretty well taken the authority out of the hands of the +inefficient and violent Ameer Singh. Districts that, partly from misery, +had become full of thieves, were brought into order, and the thieves +themselves often became hopeful converts, and endured a good deal of +persecution from their heathen neighbours. His good judgment in dealing +with all classes, high and low, English or native, does indeed seem to +have been wonderful, and almost always to have prevailed, probably +through his perfect honesty, simplicity, and disinterestedness. + +The converts in Tinnevelly became more and more numerous, and Sattianadem +had been ordained to the ministry, Lutheran fashion, by the assembly of +the presbytery at Tranquebar, there being as yet no Bishop in India; and +thus many, the very best of his catechists, served for many years, at +Palamcotta, the first Christian minister produced by modern India. On +the whole, Swartz could look back on the half-century of his mission with +great joy and thankfulness; he counted his spiritual children by +hundreds; and the influence he had exerted upon the whole Government had +saved multitudes of peasants from oppression and starvation, and had +raised the whole tone of the administration. He was once or twice +unkindly attacked by Englishmen who hated or mistrusted the propagation +of Christianity. One gentleman even wrote a letter in a newspaper +calling a missionary a disgrace to any nation, and raking up stories of +the malpractices of heathens who had been preached to without being +converted, which were laid to the charge of the actual Christians; but +imputations like these did not meet with faith from any one whose good +opinion was of any real consequence to Swartz. + +His strong health and the suitability of his constitution to the climate +brought him to a good old age in full activity. He had become the +patriarch of the community of missionaries, and had survived all those +with whom he had at first laboured; but he was still able to circulate +among the churches he had founded, teaching, praying, preaching and +counselling, or laying any difficulty before the Government, whose +attention he had so well earned. His last care was establishing the +validity of the adoption of Serfojee, who had grown up a thoughtful, +gentle, and upright man, satisfactory on all points except on the one +which rendered him eligible to the throne of Tanjore, his continued +heathenism. The question was referred to the Company at home, and before +the answer could arrive, by the slow communication of those days, when +the long voyage, and that by a sailing vessel, was the only mode of +conveyance, the venerable guardian of the young Rajah had sunk into his +last illness. + +This was connected with a mortification in his left foot, which had been +more or less painful for several years, but had probably been neglected. +His Danish colleague, Mr. Gericke, was with him most of the time, and it +was one of his subjects of thankfulness that he was permitted to depart +out of the world in the society of faithful brethren. He suffered +severely for about three months, but it was not till the last week that +his departure was thought to be near. He liked to have the English +children brought in to read to him chapters of the Bible and sing Dr. +Watts's hymns to him; and the beautiful old German hymns sung by Mr. +Gericke and Mr. Kohloff were his great delight. Indeed, when at the very +last, as he lay almost lifeless, with closed eyes, Mr. Gericke began to +sing the hymn, + + "Only to Thee, Lord JESUS CHRIST," + +he joined in with a clear melodious voice, and accompanied him to the +end. Two hours later, about four o'clock in the afternoon of the 13th of +February, 1798, Christian Friedrich Swartz breathed his last, in the +seventy-second year of his age, and the forty-eighth of his mission +service in India. + +The cries and wailings of the poor resounded all night around the house, +and Serfojee Rajah came from a distance to be present at his burial. It +had been intended to sing a funeral hymn, but the cries and lamentations +of the poor so overcame the clergy, that they could scarcely raise their +voices. Serfojee wept bitterly, laid a gold cloth over the bier, and +remained present while Mr. Gericke read the Funeral Service,--a most +unusual departure from Hindoo custom, and a great testimony of affection +and respect. + +A few months later arrived the decision of the East India Company, that +the weak and rapacious Ameer Singh should be deposed, and Serfojee placed +on the throne. He conducted himself excellently as a ruler, and greatly +favoured Christians in his territory, always assisting the various +schools, and giving liberal aid whenever the frequently-recurring famines +of India brought them into distress. + +Three years later, in 1801, Serfojee wrote to the Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge, to beg them to order a "monument of marble" at his +expense, to the memory of the late Rev. Father Swartz, to be affixed to +the pillar nearest the pulpit. Accordingly, a bas-relief in white marble +was executed by Flaxman, representing the death of Swartz, Gericke behind +him, two native Christians and three children standing by, and Serfojee +clasping his hand and receiving his blessing. It was not exactly fact, +but it was the monumental taste of the day; and it so much delighted the +Rajah, that he kept it in his palace, among the portraits of his +ancestors, for two years before he could resolve on parting with it to +the church. The Prince likewise composed the epitaph which was carved on +the stone which covers the grave of Swartz, the first instance of English +verse by a Hindoo:-- + + "Firm wast thou, humble and wise, + Honest, pure, free from disguise; + Father of orphans, the widow's support, + Comfort in sorrow of every sort: + To the benighted dispenser of light, + Doing and pointing to that which is right. + Blessing to princes, to people, to me, + May I, my father, be worthy of thee, + Wisheth and prayeth thy Sarabojee." + +Swartz had always been striving to be poor, and never succeeding. Living +and eating in the humblest manner, and giving away all that came to him, +still recognitions of services from English and natives had flowed in on +him; and, after all the hosts of poor he had fed, and of churches and +schools he had founded, he was an instance of "there is that scattereth +and yet increaseth;" for the property he bequeathed to the Mission was +enough to assist materially in carrying it on after his death. Moreover, +Serfojee maintained the blind, lame, and decrepit members of his church, +and founded an asylum for the orphan children; so that the good men, +Gericke, Kohloff, Pohle, and the rest, were not absolutely dependent on +Europe for assistance; and this was well, since the Orphan-house at Halle +and the Society at Copenhagen had in this long course of years ceased to +send out funds. + +But Swartz's work under their hands continued to prosper. He had a sort +of apotheosis among the heathen, such as he would have been the last to +covet; for statues were raised to him, lights burnt before him, and +crowns offered up. But about Palamcotta and throughout Tinnevelly there +was one of those sudden movements towards Christianity that sometimes +takes place. The natives were asking instruction from their friends, and +going eagerly in search of the catechists and of Sattianadem, and even +burning their idols and building chapels in preparation for the coming of +more fully qualified teachers. Mr. Gericke made a tour among them in +1803, and found their hearts so moved towards the Gospel, that he +baptized 1,300 in the course of his journey, and the work of Sattianadem +and the catechists raised the number of converts to 4,000. This was, +however, this good man's last journey. On his return, he found that his +only son, an officer in the Company's service, was dying, and, under the +weight of this and other troubles, his health gave way, and he died in +the thirty-eighth year of his mission. Others of the original Danish and +German missionaries likewise died, and scarcely any came out in their +stead. Their places were, therefore, supplied by ordinations, by the +assembly of ministers, of four native catechists, of whom was +Nyanapracasem, a favourite pupil of Swartz. No Church can take root +without a native ministry. But the absence of any central Church +government was grievously felt, both as concerned the English and the +Hindoos. There were more than twenty English regiments in India, and not +a single chaplain among them all. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. HENRY MARTYN, THE SCHOLAR-MISSIONARY. + + +Again do we find the steady, plodding labourer of a lifetime contrasted +with the warm enthusiast, whose lot seems rather to awaken others than to +achieve victories in his own person. St. Stephen falls beneath the +stones, but his glowing discourse is traced through many a deep argument +of St. Paul. St. James drains the cup in early manhood, but his brother +holds aloft his witness to extreme old age. + +The ardent zeal of the Keltic character; the religious atmosphere that +John Wesley had spread over Cornwall, even among those who did not enrol +themselves among his followers; the ability and sensitiveness hereditary +in the Martyn family, together with the strong influence of a university +tutor,--all combined to make such a bright and brief trail of light of +the career of Henry Martyn, the son of the head clerk in a merchant's +office at Truro, born on the 18th of February, 1781. This station sounds +lowly enough, but when we find that it was attained by a self-educated +man, who had begun life as a common miner, and taught himself in the +intervals of rest, it is plain that the elder Martyn must have possessed +no ordinary power. Out of a numerous family only four survived their +infancy, and only one reached middle age, and in Henry at least great +talent was united to an extreme susceptibility and delicacy of frame, +which made him as a child unusually tender and gentle in manner when at +his ease, but fretful and passionate when annoyed. + +Of course he fared as ill with his fellow-scholars at Truro Grammar +School as he did well with the masters; but an elder boy took him under +his protection, and not only lessened his grievances at the time, but +founded a lasting friendship. + +In 1795, when only fourteen, Henry Martyn was sufficiently advanced to be +sent up as a candidate for a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, +Oxford, and passed a very creditable examination, though he failed in +obtaining the election. Eight years later, we find him congratulating +himself in his journal on thus having escaped the "scenes of debauchery" +to which his "profligate acquaintances" might have introduced him. Was +Corpus very much changed, when, only eleven years after, John Keble +entered it at the same age? Was it that Martyn's Cornish schoolfellows +were a bad set, or does this thanksgiving proceed from the sort of pious +complacency which religious journalizing is apt to produce in the best of +men? + +The failure sent Henry back to work for two years longer at the Truro +Grammar School, and when at sixteen he was entered at St. John's, +Cambridge (most peculiarly the college of future missionaries), he +immediately made proof of his remarkable talent. Strange to say, +although his father's rise in life had begun in his mathematical ability, +Henry's training in this branch had been so deficient, and the study +appeared so repugnant to him, that his first endeavour at Cambridge was +to learn the proportions of Euclid by heart, without trying to follow +their reasoning. This story is told of many persons, but perhaps of no +one else who in four years' time, while still a month under twenty, was +declared Senior Wrangler. + +This was in 1801, and the intervening time had been spent in hard study +and regular habits, but neither his sister at home, nor a +seriously-minded college friend, were satisfied with his religious +feelings during the first part of the time, and he himself regarded it +afterwards as a period of darkness. Indeed, his temper was under so +little control that in a passion he threw a knife at a companion, but +happily missed his aim, so that it only pierced the wall. The shock of +horror no doubt was good for him. But the next step he recorded in his +life was his _surprise_ at hearing it maintained that the glory of God, +not the praise of man, should be the chief motive of study. After +thinking it over his mind assented, and he resolved to maintain this as a +noble saying, but did not perceive that it would affect his conduct. + +However, the dearest, almost the only hallowed form of the praise of man, +was taken from him by the death of his father in 1799, immediately after +the delight of hearing of his standing first in the Christmas +examination. The expense of a return home was beyond his means, but he +took to reading the Bible, as a proper form to be complied with in the +days of mourning; and beginning with the Acts, as being the most +entertaining part, he felt the full weight of the doctrine of the +Apostles borne in on him, and was roused to renew his long-neglected +prayers. When next he went to chapel, with his soul thus awakened, he +was struck by perceiving for the first time how joy for the coming of our +Lord rings through the _Magnificat_. + +The great religious influence of the day at Cambridge emanated from the +pulpit and the rooms of the Reverend Charles Simeon, who did a truly +remarkable work in stirring up young men to a sense of the +responsibilities of the ministry. Henry Martyn regularly attended his +sermons, and the newly lighted sparks were also fanned by anxious letters +from the good sister at home; but until the strain, pressure, and +excitement of preparing for the final examination were over, he had +little time or attention for any other form of mental exertion. + +When, however, he found himself in possession of the highest honours his +University could award, he was amazed to discover how little they +satisfied him, and that he felt as if he had grasped a shadow instead of +a substance. + +This instinctive longing, the sure token of a mind of the higher pitch, +was finding rest as he became more and more imbued with the spirit of +religion, and ventured upon manifesting it more openly. He had hitherto +intended to apply himself to the law, but the example and conversation of +Charles Simeon brought him to such a perception of the greatness of the +office of the ministry that he resolved to dedicate himself thereto. +During the term after this decision was made, while he was acting as a +tutor at his college, he heard Mr. Simeon speak of William Carey and his +self-devotion in India; he read the Life of that kindred spirit, David +Brainerd, and the spark of missionary zeal was kindled in his ardent +nature. The commission "Go ye and teach all nations" was borne in on his +mind, and, with the promptness that was a part of his nature, he at once +offered himself to the "Society for Missions to Africa and the East," +which had been established, in the year 1800, by members of the English +Church who wished to act independently of the elder Society for the +Propagation of the Gospel. The name has since been altered to the +"Church Missionary Society." + +However, Martyn was only just twenty-one, and not of an age to take Holy +Orders, and he had therefore to wait, while studying divinity, and acting +as a tutor at Cambridge. All through his life he kept copious journals +of his sensations and resolutions, full of the deepest piety, always +replete with sternness towards himself and others, and tinged with that +melancholy which usually pervades the more earnest of that school which +requires conscious feeling as the test of spiritual life. + +In October 1803, he went to Ely for ordination as a deacon, though still +wanting five months of twenty-three. Those were lax days, there was +little examination, and a very low standard of fitness was required. +Henry Martyn was so much scandalized by the lightness of demeanour of one +of his fellow candidates that he spoke to him in strong reproof--with +what effect we do not know, but he records that he never ventured to +speak in rebuke, "unless he at the same time experienced a peculiar +contrition of spirit." + +He became Mr. Simeon's curate, and at the same time took charge of the +neighbouring parish of Lolworth. People then had small expectations of +clerical care, if a parish could be entrusted to a young deacon, +non-resident, acting as tutor and examiner, and with an assistant curacy +besides! His whole mind was, however, intensely full of his duties, and +so unworthy did he consider all other occupations that he prayed and +struggled conscientiously against the pleasure he could not but feel, in +getting up Thucydides and Xenophon for the examinations. Everything not +actually devotional seemed to him at these times under a ban, and it is +painful to see how a mind of great scope and power was cramped and +contracted, and the spirits lowered by incessant self-contemplation and +distrust of almost all enjoyment. When, at another time, he had to +examine on "Locke on the Human Understanding," the metaphysical study +acting on his already introspective mind produced a sense of misery and +anguish that he could hardly endure. It is pleasant, however, to find +him in another mood, writing, "Since I have known God in a saving manner, +painting, poetry, and music have had charms unknown to me before; I have +received what I suppose is a taste for them, for religion has refined my +mind, and made it susceptible of impressions from the sublime and +beautiful." + +This, no doubt, was true, but another influence had awakened his heart, +earthly perhaps in itself, but so noble and so holy that it bears a +heavenly light. He had become attached to a young lady in Cornwall, +named Lydia Grenfell, like-minded enough to return his affection. His +intention of volunteering for the Church Missionary Society was +overthrown by a disaster in Cornwall which deprived himself and his +unmarried sister of all the provision that their father had made for +them, thus throwing her upon him for maintenance, and making it necessary +that he should obtain a salary that would support her. It was suggested +by some of his friends that one of the chaplaincies founded by the old +East India Company, before the jealousy of religious teaching had set in, +would both give him opportunities for missionary work and enable him to +provide for his sister at home. Application was accordingly made, and a +man of his talent and character could not fail of being accepted; he was +promised the next vacant post, and went down to spend the long vacation +in Cornwall, and bid farewell to all whom he loved there, for the journey +was long and expensive, and he had resolved not to trust himself among +them again. + +He writes in his journal, "Parted with Lydia for ever in this life with a +sort of uncertain pain, which I knew would increase to violence." And so +it was, he suffered most acutely for many days, and, though calmness and +comfort came after a time, never were hopes and affections more +thoroughly sacrificed, or with more anguish, than by this most truly +devoted disciple of his Master. + +He worked on at Cambridge till he received his appointment in the January +of 1805, and he then only waited to receive Priests' Orders before going +to London to prepare for his embarkation. + +In those times of war, a voyage to India was a perilous and lengthy +undertaking. A whole fleet was collected, containing merchant, convict, +and transport vessels, all under the convoy of the ships of war belonging +to the Company; and, as no straggler might be left behind, the progress +of the whole was dependent on the rate of sailing of the slowest, and all +were impeded by the disaster of one. The _Union_, in which a passage was +given to the chaplain, contained, besides the crew, passengers, the 59th +Regiment, some other soldiers, and young cadets, all thrown closely +together for many months. She sailed from Portsmouth on the 17th of +July; but in two days' time one of the many casualties attendant on at +least sixty vessels made the fleet put into Falmouth, where it remained +for three weeks. This opportunity of intercourse with his family might +well seem an especial boon of Providence to the young missionary, who had +denied himself a last visit to them, and he carried away much comfort +from this meeting. His sister was engaged to be suitably married, so +that he was relieved from care on her account, and some hope was +entertained that Lydia would be able to come out to him in India. A +correspondence likewise began, which has been in great part preserved. +Two days after weighing anchor, the _Union_ still lingered on the coast, +and the well-known outline, with Mount's Bay, the spire of St. Hilary's +church, and all the landmarks so dear and familiar to the young +Cornishman's eye and heart, were watched from morning to night with keen +pain and grief, but with steadfast resolve and constant inward prayer. + +Then he addressed himself to the duties of the voyage. Private study of +Hebrew and of Hindostanee was of course a part; but he hoped to be useful +to his companions as a friend and as a minister. He could only obtain +permission to hold one service every Sunday, but he hoped to do much by +private conversations and prayers, and he tried to gain over the cadets +by offering to assist them in their studies, especially mathematics. Some +of them had the sense to see that the teaching of a senior wrangler was +no small advantage, and these read with him throughout the voyage; but in +general they were but raw lads, and followed the example of their +superiors, who for the most part were strongly set against Mr. Martyn. +Those were the times when sailors were utterly uncared for, and when +_mauvais sujets_ at home were sent out to India to the corruptions of a +luxurious climate and a heathen atmosphere. Men of this stamp would +think it bad enough to have a parson on board at all, and when they found +that he was a faithful priest, who held himself bound not to leave them +unchecked in their evil courses, they thought themselves aggrieved. Nor +was his manner likely to gain them. Grave and earnest, he had never in +his life known sportiveness, and his distress and horror at the profanity +and blasphemy that rang in his ears made him doubly sad and stern. From +the first his Sunday service was by most treated as an infliction, and +the officers, both of the ship and of the military, had so little sense +of decency as to sit drinking, smoking, and talking within earshot. The +persons who professed to attend showed no reverence of attitude; and when +he endeavoured to make an impression on the soldiers and their wives +between-decks, he was met with the same rude and careless inattention. + +With very little experience of mankind, he imagined that these hardened +beings could be brought to repent by terror, and his discourses were full +of denunciations of the wrath of God. He was told that, if he threatened +them thus, they would not come to hear him, and his reply was an +uncompromising sermon on the text, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, +and all the people that forget God." The bravery of the thing, and the +spirit of truth and love that pervaded all he said on this solemn verse, +was not lost upon all: some of the cadets were moved to tears, and an +impression was made upon several persons. Indeed, there was much that +should have induced serious thought, for, after having touched at Madeira +and the Azores, it was made known that the 59th was to be disembarked at +the Cape, to assist in the struggle then going on between the English and +Dutch. Moreover, there was much sickness on board, and the captain +himself, who had been always bitterly opposed to Mr. Martyn, anxiously +called for him to attend upon his death-bed. + +The 59th were landed in Table Bay just in time to take part in Sir David +Baird's victory. Martyn went on shore the next day to do his best for +the wounded; but they were mostly in hospital, and, being Dutch, he could +do little for them. He found congenial spirits among the Dutch clergy in +Cape Town, and spent a happy month there, but the latter part of his +voyage was not more satisfactory than the first. The educated portion of +the passengers continued to set their faces against him, treating him +with increased contempt, and even turning into ridicule the farewell +sermon, in which he took an affectionate leave of all who had sailed with +him. + +It may be that his manner was ill-judged, but it is a fearful thing to +find that it was possible for so many Christian people to have been in +daily contact with as true a saint as ever lived, and yet make him their +mock! Perhaps some of his words, and far more his example, may have +borne fruit in after years, such as he never knew of. + +The whole voyage had lasted nearly ten months before entering the +Hooghly. While ascending the stream, the lassitude produced by the +climate was so great that Martyn's spirits sank under it: he thought he +should "lead an idle, worthless life to no purpose. Exertion seemed like +death; indeed, absolutely impossible." Yet at the least he could write, +"Even if I should never see a native converted, God may design, by my +patience and continuance, to encourage future missionaries." + +This feeling of exhaustion was the prelude to a severe attack of fever, +which assailed him almost immediately after his arrival; but happily not +till he was safely lodged at Aldeen, in the kindly house of the Rev. +David Brown, where he was nursed till his recovery. His friends wanted +to keep him among the English at Calcutta, but his heart was set on +ministering to the heathen, and the sights and sounds of idolatry that +constantly met him increased his eagerness. He once rushed out at the +sight of the flames of a Suttee, hoping to rescue the victim, but she had +perished before he reached the spot. + +His arrival was when the alarm about the meeting at Vellore was at its +height, and when the colony at Serampore had been forbidden to preach or +distribute tracts in Calcutta. He by no means agreed with all the +Baptist doctrines, but he held in great esteem and reverence such men as +Carey and Marshman, was glad to profit by their experience and +instructions, and heartily sympathised in all their difficulties. Mr. +Carey might well write, "A young clergyman, Mr. Martyn, is lately +arrived, who is possessed with a truly missionary spirit." Together the +Serampore missionaries, with Mr. Martyn, Mr. Corrie, and Mr. Brown, +united in dedicating to the worship of God a heathen pagoda, which the +last-mentioned had succeeded in purchasing from the natives. Altogether +he was much cheered and refreshed. During the time that he waited at +Aldeen he improved himself in Hindostanee, and began to study Sanscrit, +and learnt the most approved method of dealing with the natives. +Moreover, he found that his allowance as a chaplain was so liberal as +amply to justify him in writing to urge Miss Grenfell to come out and +join him; and, during the long period of sixteen or eighteen months +before her refusal to do so reached him, he was full of the hope of +receiving her. + +His appointed station was Dinapore, where his primary duty was to +minister to the English troops there posted, and to the families of the +civilians; but he also hoped to establish native schools, to preach in +their own language to the Hindoos, and to scatter translations of +portions of Scripture, such as the Parables, among them. + +He had to read prayers to the soldiers from the drum-head by way of desk; +there were no seats, and he was desired to omit the sermon: but +afterwards a room was provided, and then the families of the officers and +residents began to attend, though at first they were much scandalized by +his preaching extempore. In fact there was a good deal in his whole tone +that startled old orthodoxy; and in the opposition with which he met at +times, there was some lawful and just distrust of the _onesidedness_ of +his tenets, together with the ordinary hatred and dislike of darkness to +light. So scrupulous was he in the Jewish force given by his party to +the Fourth Commandment, that, having one Sunday conceived the plan of +translating the Prayer-book into Hindostanee, he worked at it till he had +reached the end of the _Te Deum_; and there, doubting whether it were a +proper employment for the day, desisted until the Monday, to give himself +up to prayer, singing hymns, Scripture-reading, and meditation. The +immediate value of this work was for the poor native wives of the English +soldiers, whom he found professing Christianity, but utterly ignorant; +and to them every Sunday, after the official English service, he repeated +the Liturgy in the vulgar tongue. In this holy work he was the pioneer, +since Swartz's service was in Tamul. While working at his translations +with his moonshee, or interpreter, a Mussulman, he had much opportunity +for conversation and for study of the Mahometan arguments, so as to be +very useful to himself; though he could not succeed in convincing the +impracticable moonshee, who had all that self-satisfaction belonging to +Mahometanism. "I told him that he ought to pray that God would teach him +what the truth really is. He said he had no occasion to pray on this +subject, as the word of God is express." With the Hindoos at Dinapore, +he found, to his surprise, that there was apparently little +disinclination to "become Feringees," as they called it, outwardly; but +the difficulty lay in his insistance on Christian faith and obedience, +instead of a mere external profession. + +It was while he was at Dinapore that we first acquire anything like a +distinct idea of Henry Martyn; for there a short halt of the 53rd +Regiment brought him in contact with one who had an eye to observe, a +heart to honour, and a pen to describe him; namely, Mrs. Sherwood, the +wife of the paymaster, a woman of deeply religious sentiments and +considerable powers as an author. Mutual friends had already prepared +Mr. Martyn to expect to find like-minded companions in the Sherwoods, +invited to stay with him for the few days of their sojourn at Dinapore. +"Mr. Martyn's quarters," says that lady, "were in the smaller square--a +church-like abode, with little furniture, the rooms wide and high, with +many vast doorways, having their green jalousied doors, and long +verandahs encompassing two sides of the quarters." So scanty, indeed, +was the furniture, that, though he gave up his own bedroom, Mrs. Sherwood +could not find a pillow, not only there, but in the whole house; and, +with a severe pain in her face, could get nothing to lay her head on "but +a bolster stuffed as hard as a pin-cushion." + +She thus describes the first sight of her host:--"He was dressed in +white, and looked very pale, which, however, was nothing singular in +India; his hair, a light brown, was raised from his forehead, which was a +remarkably fine one. His features were not regular, but the expression +was so luminous, so intellectual, so affectionate, so beaming with Divine +charity, that no one could have looked at his features and thought of +their shape or form; the outbeaming of his soul would absorb the +attention of every observer. There was a very decided air, too, of the +gentleman about Mr. Martyn, and a perfection of manners which, from his +extreme attention to all minute civilities, might seem almost +inconsistent with the general bent of his thoughts to the most serious +subjects. He was as remarkable for ease as for cheerfulness. He did not +appear like one who felt the necessity of contending with the world and +denying himself its delights, but, rather, as one who was unconscious of +the existence of any attractions in the world, or of any delights which +were worthy of his notice. When he relaxed from his labours in the +presence of his friends, it was to play and laugh like an innocent child, +more especially if children were present to play and laugh with him." + +His labours were the incessant charge of the English, travelling often +great distances to baptize, marry, or bury, together with constant +teaching in the schools he had established both for the English and +natives, attendance on the sick in the hospitals, and likewise private +arguments with Mahometans and Hindoos. Public preachings in the streets +and bazaars, like those of Swartz, Carey, and Ward, he does not seem to +have attempted at this time; but his translations were his great and +serious employment, and one that gave him much delight. His thorough +classical education and scholarship fitted him for this in an unusual +degree, and besides the Hindostanee version of the Prayer-book, the +Persian--so much wanted in the Bombay Presidency--was committed to him; +and an assistant was sent to him, whose history, disappointing as it is, +cannot be omitted from the account of Indian missions. + +Sabat was an Arab of the tribe of Koreish, the same which gave birth to +Mahomet himself. He was born on the banks of the Euphrates, and educated +in such learning as still lingered about the city of the Khalifs; but he +left home early, and served in the Turkish army against the French at +Acre. Afterwards he became a soldier in the Persian army, where he was +several times wounded, and in consequence retired, and, wandering into +Cabul, there rose to be a royal secretary. + +He formed a close friendship with his colleague, Abdallah, likewise a +Koreishite Arab, and very able and poetical. When the Wahabees, the +straitest sect of the Mussulmans, seized Mecca, their chief wrote a +letter to the King of Cabul, which was committed to Abdallah to translate +into Persian. By way of a graceful compliment, he put his translation +into Persian verse, and the reward he received was equally strange; +namely, the gift of as many pearls as could be stuffed into his mouth at +once. He was, however, observed to be unusually grave and thoughtful, +and to frequent the house of an Armenian--of course a Christian: but as +this person had a beautiful daughter, she was supposed to be the +attraction, and no suspicion was excited by his request to retire into +his own country. + +Soon after Sabat was made prisoner by the Tartars of Bokhara, and, by +appealing to the king, as a descendant of the prophet, obtained his +release and promotion to high honour. While visiting the city of +Bokhara, he recognized his old friend, Abdallah, and, perceiving that his +beard was shaved off, examined him on the cause so closely that he was +driven to confess that the Armenian had converted him to the Christian +faith, and that he did not wish to be known. Hereditary Christians are +tolerated by the Moslem, but converts are bitterly persecuted; and Sabat +flew into a great rage, argued, threatened, and at last denounced his old +friend to the Moollahs as a recreant from Islam. + +Abdallah was arrested, and showed himself a true and faithful confessor +and martyr. The Moollahs strove hard to make him recant. They demanded +of him: "In the Gospel of Christ, is anything said of our +Prophet?"--intending to extort that promise of the Comforter which +Mahomet blasphemously applied to himself. + +Abdallah's answer was: "Yea--Beware of false prophets which come to you +in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves." + +This brave reply was requited by blows on the mouth till the blood +flowed, and Sabat thought of the day he had seen that same mouth filled +with pearls. Abdallah was sent back to prison, and four days were +allowed him in which to recant; after which he was brought out and set +before an assembled multitude. Pardon was offered him if he would deny +his Lord, and, on his refusal, his left hand was cut off. The look of +deep sorrow and pity he gave the former friend who had betrayed him sunk +deep into Sabat's heart. Again his life was offered, again he confessed +himself a Christian, and finally his martyrdom was completed by cutting +off his head. + +This history Sabat told with feeling and earnestness, that convinced his +hearers of its truth; and from this he did not vary, though his account +of his own subsequent adventures varied so much that it was not possible +at last to attach credence to anything he said of himself before he +became expounder of Mohammedan Law in the Civil Court at Vizagapatam. At +any rate Abdallah's look dwelt with him; he detected discrepancies in the +Koran, and became anxious to study the Christian Scriptures. He obtained +from Bombay a copy, first of the New Testament, then of the Old, and, +having become convinced, he came to Madras, and demanded baptism from Dr. +Ker, the British chaplain. After some probation, which made Sabat so +impatient that he threatened that he should accuse the minister before +God if he delayed, he was baptized by the name of Nathanael, and sent to +Serampore as a person likely to be useful in the translations always in +hand there. + +He was delighted with the habits there prevailing, dismissed his +attendants, dined at the common table, and altogether conformed himself +to the spirit of the place. When it was decided to send him to Dinapore +to assist Mr. Martyn in rendering the Bible into Persian, he took leave +of Serampore with tears in his eyes. He was gladly welcomed by Mr. +Martyn, and they worked together at the Gospel of St. Matthew, Sabat +showing a scholar-like anxiety both for correctness and rhythm; but there +was so much of the wild Arab about him that he was a continual anxiety. +The Serampore missionaries thought him a grand, dignified figure. Mrs. +Sherwood paints him much less pleasantly, and says he was exactly like +the sign of the Saracen's head, with intensely flashing eyes, high nose, +white teeth, and jet black eyebrows, moustache, and beard. His voice was +like rolling thunder, his dress of gorgeous material and thoroughly +Oriental, silk skull-cap, jacket, jewelled girdle, loose trousers, and +embroidered shoes, and he had a free and haughty manner, according with +his signature, when writing to a gentleman who had offended +him--"Nathanael Sabat, an Arab, who never was in bondage." + +In April 1809, Mr. Martyn was removed to the station at Cawnpore, where +the Sherwoods were then residing. The time was one of the worst in the +whole year for travelling across the sandy plains, with a wind blowing +that made the air like "the mouth of an oven." For two days and two +nights, between Allahabad and Cawnpore, Mr. Martyn travelled in his +palanquin without intermission, and, having expected to arrive sooner, he +had brought no provision for the last day. "I lay in my palanquin, +faint, with a headache, neither awake nor asleep, between dead and alive, +the wind blowing flames." When he arrived, Mr. Sherwood had only just +time to lead him into the bungalow before he fainted away, and the hall +being the least heated place, a couch was made ready for him there, where +for some days he lay very ill; and the thermometer was never below 96 +degrees, though the punkah never ceased. + +As soon as he mended a little, he enjoyed talking over his Hebrew and +Greek studies and his ethnological researches with his clever and eager +hostess, who must have greatly refreshed his spirit. He delighted in +music: his voice and ear were both excellent, and he taught her many +hymns and their tunes. He also took much pleasure in a little orphan +girl whom she was bringing up. At this time she herself was almost a +childless mother, all her Indian-born infants having been victims to the +climate; but a few months later Mr. Martyn christened her little daughter +Lucy, a child of such gentle, gracious temper that he was wont to call +her Serena. Mrs. Sherwood gives a pretty picture of this little +creature, when about eighteen months old, creeping up to Mr. Martyn as he +lay on a sofa with all his books about him, and perching herself on his +Hebrew Lexicon, which he needed every moment, but would not touch so as +to disturb her. The pale, white-clad pastor, and the child with silky +hair, bare white feet and arms, and little muslin frock, looked equally +innocent and pure. + +Mr. Martyn's house at Cawnpore was at the end of an avenue of palms and +aloes: there were two bungalows connected by a long passage, in one of +which he himself lived, the other was given up to Sabat and his wife. The +garden was prettily laid out with shrubs and tall trees, with a raised +platform in the centre; and on one side was a whole colony, consisting +not only of the usual number of servants allowed to a military chaplain, +but of a host of pundits, moonshees, schoolmasters, and poor nominal +Christians, who hung about him because there was no one else to give them +a handful of rice for their daily maintenance. + +Here Mrs. Sherwood describes a motley entertainment, at which she was the +only lady. Her husband, in his scarlet and gold uniform, and Mr. Martyn, +in his clerical black silk coat, were the only other English. The other +European present was Padre Giulio Cesare, an Italian Franciscan, whom Mr. +Martyn was obliged to receive when he came to minister to the numerous +Irish Roman Catholics in the regiment. He wore a purple satin cassock, a +cord of twisted silk, a rosary of costly stones, and a little skull-cap, +and his languages were French with the Sherwoods, and Italian and Latin +with Mr. Martyn. Sabat was there in his Arab dress; there was a thin, +copper-coloured, half-caste gentleman in white nankeen, speaking only +Bengalee; and a Hindoo in full costume, speaking only his native tongue: +so that no two of the party were in similar costume, seven languages were +employed, and moreover the three Orientals viewed it as good breeding to +shout at the very top of their voices. + +Unluckily, too, Mr. Martyn in his politeness suddenly recollected that +Mrs. Sherwood had expressed a liking for certain mutton patties, and +ordered them to be brought, in a bachelor's entire oblivion whether any +mutton was procurable otherwise than by killing a sheep: and the delay +forced the guests to continue to sit on the platform in the dark, with +the voices and languages making too great a Babel for the night-enjoyment +sometimes so valued, when Mr. Martyn would show Mrs. Sherwood our own +Pole Star just above the horizon, or watch the new moon "looking like a +ball of ebony in a silver cup." At last the patties were ready, and Mr. +Martyn handed Mrs. Sherwood to a seat by him at the top of the table, +while Sabat perched himself cross-legged upon a chair at the bottom. + +The good chaplain's simplicity seems to have been a great amusement to +the Sherwoods. Late one evening he quietly observed, "The coolie does +not come with my money: I was thinking this morning how rich I should be, +and now I should not wonder in the least if he has run off and taken my +treasure with him." Thereupon it turned out that, not having drawn his +pay for some time, he had sent a note to the collector at Cawnpore, +asking that the amount should be forwarded by the bearer, a common +coolie. It was all paid in silver, tied up in cotton bags, and no one +expected that he would ever see it; however, the coolie arrived safely +with it a little later. Another time, when each household had ordered a +pineapple cheese, it was observed that the fissures in the two were +marvellously similar; and at last it was discovered that the servants, +though paid for two cheeses, made one do duty for both, appearing in turn +at the two tables, which was the easier as Mr. Martyn supped on limes and +other fruits, and only produced his cheese when the Sherwoods came to +supper. He heeded little but his immediate thoughts, and, when he drove +out in his gig, went on with his disquisitions on language and +pronunciation, utterly unheeding what his horse was about. + +The hope of having Lydia with him to brighten his life and aid his +labours had by this time passed away. She had some entanglement which +prevented her from coming out to India, and his disappointment was most +acute. His letters urging her to come out to him are so strong, and full +of such anguish, that it is hard to understand that the person who could +withstand them could have been the admirable woman Miss Grenfell is +described to have been in after-life--unless, indeed, Martyn did not +appreciate the claims at home to which she yielded. "Why do things go so +well with them and so hardly with me?" was a thought that would come into +his mind at the weddings where he officiated as priest. Meantime he had +established native schools, choosing a master, usually a Mussulman, and +giving him an anna a head for each boy whom he obtained as a scholar in +reading and writing. Mr. Martyn supplied books, and these were +translations of Scripture history, of the Parables, and the like, through +which he hoped to lay a foundation for distinctive teaching. Here is +Mrs. Sherwood's description of the Cawnpore school, then in a long shed +by the side of the cavalry lines:-- + +"The master sat at one end like a tailor on the dusty floor, and along +under the shed sat the scholars, a pack of little urchins with no other +clothes on than a skull-cap and a piece of cloth round their loins. These +little ones squatted, like their master, in the sand: they had wooden +imitations of slates in their hands, on which, having first written their +lessons with chalk, they recited them _a pleine gorge_, as the French +would say, being sure to raise their voices on the approach of any +European or native of note. Now Cawnpore is one of the most dusty places +in the world; the Sepoy lines are the most dusty part of Cawnpore; and as +the little urchins are always well greased either with cocoa-nut oil, or, +in failure thereof, with rancid mustard oil, whenever there was the +slightest breath of air they always looked as if they had been powdered +all over with brown powder. Who that has ever heard it, can forget the +sounds of the various notes with which these little people intonated +their 'Aleph, Zubbin ah, Zair a, Paiche oh,' as they moved backwards and +forwards in their recitations? Who can forget the self-importance of the +schoolmaster, who was generally a grey-bearded, dry, old man, who had no +other means of proving his superiority to the scholars than by making +more noise than even they could?" + +{i:Henry Martyn's first endeavour at native preaching: p1.jpg} + +In the winter of 1809, Mr. Martyn made his first endeavour at native +preaching. The Yogis and Fakers, devotees and vagrants, haunted the +station, and every Sunday evening he opened the gates of his garden, +admitted all who were collected by the assurance of the distribution of a +pice a head; and standing on his platform, read to them some simple verse +of Scripture, and then endeavoured to make them believe there is a pure +Almighty Universal Father. A frightful crowd: they were often five +hundred in number. "No dreams," says Mrs. Sherwood, "in the delirium of +a raging fever, could surpass the realities" of their appearance; +"clothed with abominable rags, or nearly without clothes, or plastered +with mud and cow-dung, or with long matted locks streaming down to their +heels; every countenance foul and frightful with evil passions; the lips +black with tobacco, or crimson with henna. One man, who came in a cart +drawn by a bullock, was so bloated as to look like an enormous frog; +another had kept an arm above his head with his hand clenched till the +nail had come out at the back of his hand; and one very tall man had all +his bones marked on his dark skin with white chalk, like the figure of +grim Death himself." The assemblage, in contrast with the pure, +innocent, pale face and white dress of the preacher who addressed them, +must have been like some of Gustave Dore's illustrations. + +These addresses were jealously watched by the British authorities, and +were often interrupted by the howls and threatenings of his loathsome +congregation; while, moreover, pulmonary complaint, the enemy of his +family, began to manifest itself, so that the physicians insisted on his +trying the effect of cessation from work, a sea-voyage, and a visit to +England. On this plan he had at first fixed. He enters in his journal a +happy dream of a walk with Lydia, and, waking, the recollection of the +16,000 miles between them; but in the meantime he heard from the critics +at Calcutta, that his translation of the Gospels into Persian, done with +the assistance of Sabat, was too full of Arabic idioms, and in language +not simple enough for its purpose; and he therefore made up his mind to +spend his leave of absence in making his way through Persia and part of +Arabia, so as to improve himself in the languages, and submit his +translation to more trustworthy scholars. Mr. Brown, on hearing of his +plan, consented in these remarkable terms: "Can I then bring myself to +cut the string and let you go? I confess I could not if your bodily +frame were strong, and promised to last for half a century. But as you +burn with the intenseness and rapid blaze of phosphorus, why should we +not make the most of you? Your flame may last as long, and perhaps +longer, in Arabia than in India. Where should the phoenix build her +odoriferous nest but in the land prophetically called the 'blessed'? And +where shall we ever expect but from that country the true Comforter to +come to the nations of the East?" + +In September, therefore, Henry Martyn made ready to set forth, and to +take leave of his congregation of beggars. He had baptized one poor old +Hindoo woman, and she seemed to him to be the only fruit of his toils; +but though the exhortation, at the end of all his labours of the Sunday, +cost him severe pain and exhaustion, he had constantly persisted, often +beginning in a low feeble tone, but gradually rising in fervour to the +full power of his musical voice; then himself going among the disgusting +throng to distribute their petty bribe for attendance, and often falling +afterwards, faint and speechless, on a sofa. + +He knew not that one seed, cast on these turbid waters, had found good +soil, and was springing up. Sheik Salah was the son of a pundit at +Delhi, and was well-learned in Persian and Arabic. When a youth he had +become moonshee to two English gentlemen then living at Lucknow, and +while in their service converted a Hindoo fellow-servant from his +idolatry to Islam. Elated with his success, he gave himself such airs +that his English masters reproved him; and he left them in displeasure, +vowing never to serve a Feringhee again. However, being in the pay of a +Mahratta chief, he was sent in company with a Mahometan envoy who had +undertaken to murder a rival of his master, and having lulled his victim +into security by an oath on the Koran that no treachery was intended, +decoyed him into his tent, and there stabbed him. + +Sheik Salah was a deeply conscientious man, and not only did he leave the +Mahratta service, lest some such horrible act should be required of him, +but he conceived a certain distrust of his own faith, which, though it +condemns such deeds, had not hindered them. While in search of +employment, he came to Cawnpore, and there, one fine evening, he sat with +some other young Mussulmans, in a summer-house on the garden wall that +bounded Mr. Martyn's garden, enjoying their hookahs and sherbet, and +amusing themselves with what they called the "foolishness" of the +Feringhee Padre, who was discoursing to the throng of hateful looking +beggars below. By and by, anxious to hear more, they came down, entered +the garden, and stood in a row before the front of the bungalow; their +arms folded, their turbans placed jauntily on one side, and their +countenances expressive of the utmost contempt. + +But the words that Sheik Salah caught were sinking deep. They were of +the intense purity and holiness of God and of His laws, and of the need +of His power to attain to the keeping of them, as well as of His +Sacrifice to atone for man's sinfulness. Sheik Salah could not rest +without hearing more, and becoming determined to obtain employment at +Cawnpore, he undertook to copy Persian manuscripts for Sabat, and was +lodged by him in one of the numerous huts in Mr. Martyn's compound. He +was a well-educated, graceful man, exceedingly handsome, looking like a +hero of the Old Testament; and probably Sabat was afraid of a rival, for +he never mentioned to Mr. Martyn the stranger who, Sunday after Sunday, +listened to his preaching, and no doubt would have as thankfully profited +by his individual teaching as he would have joyfully given it. + +Sabat was at this time a great trial to Mr. Martyn, who in the flush of +enthusiasm had let him be put too forward at first, and found the wild +man of the desert far too strong for him. Sometimes, when they differed +about a word in the translation, Sabat would contend so violently for a +whole morning that poor Mr. Martyn, when unable to bear it any longer, +would order his palanquin and be carried over to the Sherwoods to escape +from the intolerable brawling shout. What Sabat could be was plain from +the story of his wife Amina; his seventh, as he told his friends. When +he was trying to convert her, she asked his views upon the future lot of +those who remained Mahometans, and, when he consigned them to the state +of condemnation, she quietly replied that she greatly preferred hell +without Sabat's company to heaven with him. The poor man was no doubt in +great measure sincere, but his probation had been insufficient, and his +wild Ishmaelitish nature, so far from being overcome, gained in pride and +violence through the enthusiasm that was felt for him as a convert. Once, +in a fit of indignation, he wrote a Persian letter, full of abuse of Mr. +Martyn, to a friend in the service of the English resident at Lucknow. By +him it was carried to his master, who, wishing to show Mr. Martyn the +real character of his favourite convert, sent him the letter. Instead of +looking into it, Mr. Martyn summoned Sabat, and bade him read it aloud to +him. For once the Arab was overpowered; he cowered before his calm +master and entreated his pardon, and when Mr. Martyn put the letter into +his hands, assuring him that he had not read it, he was really touched, +and showed sorrow for his violence. + +On the last Sunday of September 1810, Mr. Martyn took leave of Cawnpore. +It was also the Sunday of the installation as chaplain of his dearest +friend, the Reverend Daniel Corrie, and of the opening of a church which +his exertions had prevailed to raise, whereas all former services had +been in his own long verandah. The first sound of the bell most deeply +affected those who had scarcely heard one since they had left their +native country. That church has given place to the beautiful building +which commemorates the horrors of 1857; but the name of Henry Martyn +ought never to be forgotten at Cawnpore, if only as the priest to whom it +was granted first to give thanks that, in his own words, "a temple of God +was erected and a door opened for the service of the Almighty in a place +where, from the foundation of the world, the tabernacle of the true God +had never stood." + +After returning from church he sank, nearly fainting, on a sofa in the +hall; but, as soon as he revived, begged his friends to sing to him. The +hymn was-- + + "O God, our help in ages past, + Our hope in years to come, + Our shelter from the stormy blast, + And our eternal home." + +After the early dinner and afternoon rest, on a sickly, hazy, burning +evening, he preached for the last time to his beggars; came away +fainting, and as he lay on his sofa told his friends that he did not +believe that he had ever made the slightest impression on _one_ of his +audience there. + +He knew not that Sheik Salah's heart had been touched, and so deeply that +he sought further instruction. As to Sabat, his later career was +piteous. He fell back into Mahometanism, and, after some years of a +wandering life, took service with the Mussulman chief of Acheen in +Sumatra, where, having given some offence, he was barbarously hacked to +pieces and thrown into the sea. Such bitter disappointments occur in +missionary life; and how should we wonder, since the like befel even St. +Paul and St. John? + +On the 1st of October, 1810, Mr. Martyn embarked on the Ganges, and on +the last day of the month arrived at Mr. Brown's house at Aldeen. He was +then much the stronger for the long rest to his voice and chest, but his +friends thought him greatly changed and enfeebled, and he could not even +hold a conversation without bringing on painful symptoms. Nevertheless, +he preached every Sunday but one at Calcutta until the 7th of January, +1811, when he took his last leave of his Anglo-Indian friends, and set +forth on his journey to lands almost entirely strange even to his +countrymen, in the hope of rendering the Scriptures available for the +study of the numerous Hindoos and Mahometans who understood Persian +better than any other literary language. He went forth, in broken +health, and not only without a companion, but without even an attendant, +and for his further history we have only his own journals and letters to +depend upon. He went by sea to Bombay with a captain who had been a +pupil of Swartz, and whose narratives delighted him much, and afterwards +obtained a passage in an English ship which was to cruise in the Persian +Gulf against Arab pirates. Here he was allowed to have public prayers +every evening, and on the 22nd of May was landed at Bushire, where he was +lodged in the house of an English merchant with an Armenian wife. + +The time for a journey to Persia was so far favourable that the Shah, +Fath' Ali, who had succeeded to the throne in 1794, owed England much +gratitude for having interfered to check the progress of Russian conquest +upon his northern frontier. After Persia had long been closed from +foreign intercourse by the jealous and cruel Shah, Aga Mohammed, Fath' +Ali, a comparatively enlightened prince in the prime of life, willingly +entertained envoys and travellers from European courts, and Sir Gore +Ouseley was resident at Shiraz as British Ambassador. Yet it was not +considered safe for a Frank to travel through Persia without an Oriental +dress, and, accordingly, Martyn had to provide himself with the tall +conical cap of black Tartar lambskin, baggy blue trousers, red boots, and +a chintz coat, allowing his beard and moustache to grow, and eating rice +by handfuls from the general dish. Meantime he was hospitably +entertained, the Armenian ladies came in a body to kiss his hand, and the +priest placed him beside the altar in church, and incensed him four times +over, for which he was not grateful on being told "it was for the honour +of our order." + +An English officer joined company with him, and a muleteer undertook +their transport to Shiraz. It was a terrible journey up the parching +mountain paths of Persia, where Alexander's army had suffered so much, +with the sun glaring down upon them, never, in that rainless belt around +the Persian Gulf, tempered by a cloud. They travelled only by night, and +encamped by day, sometimes without a tree to spread their tents under. +The only mode of existing was to wrap the head in a wet cloth, and the +body in all the heavy clothing to be had, to prevent the waste of +moisture; but even thus Martyn says his state was "a fire within my head, +my skin like a cinder, the pulse violent." The thermometer rose to 126 +degrees in the middle of the day, and came down to about 100 degrees in +the evening. When exhausted with fever and sleeplessness, but unable to +touch food, it was needful to mount, and, in a half-dead state of +sleepiness, be carried by the sure-footed mountain pony up steep ascents, +and along the verge of giddy precipices, with a general dreamy sense that +it was magnificent scenery for any one who was in a bodily condition to +admire it. + +Swift clear streams and emerald valleys began to refresh the travellers +as they rose into the higher land above the arid region; and, after one +twenty-four hours' halt in a sort of summer-house, where Henry Martyn was +too ill to move till he had had a few hours of sleep, they safely arrived +at the mountain-city of Shiraz, where he was kindly received by Jaffier +Ali Khan, a Persian gentleman to whom he had brought letters of +introduction. + +Persia, as is well known, has a peculiar intellectual character of its +own. Descended from the Indo-European stock, and preserved from total +enervation by their mountain air, the inhabitants have, even under Islam, +retained much of the vivacity, fire, and poetry inherent in the Aryan +nature. Their taste for beauty, especially in form and colour, has +always been exquisite; their delight in gardens, in music, and poetry has +had a certain refinement, and with many terrible faults--in especial +falsehood and cruelty, the absence of the Turkish stolidity, the Arab +wildness, and the Hindoo pride and indolence--has always made them an +attractive people. Their Mahommedanism, too, is of a different form from +that of the Arab and Turk. Theirs is the schismatical sect of Ali, which +is less rigid, and affords more scope for the intellect and fancy, and it +has thrown off a curious body called the Soofees, a sort of philosophers +in relation to Islam. The name may be either really taken from the Greek +_Sophos_, wise, or else comes from the Persian _Soof_, purity. The +Soofees profess to be continually in search of truth, and seem, for the +most part, to rest upon a general belief in an all-pervading Creator, +with a spirit diffused through all His works. Like their (apparent) +namesakes of old, they revel in argument, and delight to tell or to hear +some new thing. + +Thus, Jaffier Ali Khan, who belonged to this sect, made the English padre +welcome; and his brother, Seid Ali, whose title of Mirza shows him to +have been a Scribe, undertook to assist in the translation, while +Moollahs and students delighted to come and hold discussions with him; +and very vain and unprofitable logomachies he found them, whether with +Soofee, Mahometan, or Jew. But the life, on the whole, was interesting, +since he was fulfilling his most important object of providing a +trustworthy and classical version of the Scriptures, such as might +adequately express their meaning, and convey a sense of their beauty of +language and force of expression to the scholarly and fastidious +Oriental. + +He made friends in the suite of the Ambassador, Sir Gore Ouseley, whose +house he ministered on Sunday, and he was presented by him to the heir to +the throne, Prince Abbas Mirza. He had, by way of Court dress, to wear a +pair of red cloth stockings and high-heeled shoes, and was marched up +through the great court of the palace, where a hundred fountains began to +play the moment the Ambassador entered. The Prince sat on the ground in +his hall of audience, and all his visitors sat in a line with their hats +on, but he conversed with no one but the Ambassador, looking so gentle +and amiable that Mr. Martyn could hardly believe that the tyrannical acts +reported of him could be true. + +In the summer heat, Jaffier Ali pitched a tent for him in a garden +outside the walls of Shiraz, where he worked with much enjoyment, "living +among clusters of grapes, by the side of a clear stream," and sitting +under the shade of an orange-tree. From thence he made an expedition to +see the ruins of Persepolis, greatly to the perplexity of his escort, +who, after repeatedly telling him that the place was uninhabited, +concluded that he had come thither to drink brandy in secret! + +On the New Year's Day of 1812 Martyn wrote in his journal: "The present +year will probably be a perilous one, but my life is of little +consequence, whether I live to finish the Persian New Testament, or do +not. I look back with pity and shame on my former self, and on the +importance I then attached to my life and labours. The more I see of my +own works, the more I am ashamed of them. Coarseness and clumsiness mar +all the works of men. I am sick when I look at man, and his wisdom, and +his doings, and am relieved only by reflecting that we have a city whose +builder and maker is God. The least of _His_ works is refreshing to look +at. A dried leaf or a straw makes me feel myself in good company. +Complacency and admiration take the place of disgust." + +On the 24th of February he finished his Persian New Testament, and in six +weeks more his translation of the Psalms. His residence in Persia had +lasted just a year, and, though direct missionary work had not been +possible to him there, he had certainly inspired his coadjutor, Mirza +Seid Ali, with a much higher morality and with something very like faith. +On one of the last days before his leaving Shiraz, Seid Ali said +seriously, "Though a man had no other religious society, I suppose he +might, with the aid of the Bible, live alone with God." It was to this +solitude that Martyn left him, not attempting apparently to induce him to +give up anything for the sake of embracing Christianity. Death would +probably have been the consequence of joining the Armenian Church in +Persia, but why did Martyn's teaching stop at inward faith instead of +insisting on outward confession, the test fixed by the Saviour Himself? + +On the 24th of May, Mr. Martyn and another English clergyman set out to +lay his translation before the Shah, who was in his camp at Tebriz. There +they were admitted to the presence of the Vizier, before whom two +Moollahs, the most ignorant and discourteous whom he had met in Persia, +were set to argue with the English priest. The Vizier mingled in the +discussion, which ended thus: "You had better say God is God, and Mahomet +is His prophet." "God is God," repeated Henry Martyn, "and JESUS is the +Son of God." + +"He is neither born nor begets," cried the Moollahs; and one said, "What +will you say when your tongue is burnt out for blasphemy?" + +He had offended against the Mohammedan doctrine most strictly held; and, +knowing this well, he had kept back the confession of the core of the +true faith till to withhold it longer would have been a denial of his +Lord. After all, he was not allowed to see the Shah without the +Ambassador to present him, and descended again to Sultania--a painful +journey, from which he brought a severe ague and fever, through which he +was nursed by Sir Gore and Lady Ouseley. + +As soon as he had recovered, he decided on making his way to +Constantinople, and thence to England, where he hoped to recruit his +health and, it might be, induce Lydia to accompany him back to India. His +last letter to her was written from Tebriz on the 28th of August, +dreading illness on the journey, but still full of hope. In that letter, +too, he alludes to Sabat as the greatest tormentor he had known, but +warns her against mentioning to others that this "star of the East," as +Claudius Buchanan had called him, had been a disappointment. His diary +is carried on as far as Tocat. The last entry is on the 6th of October. +It closes thus: "Oh! when shall time give place to eternity? When shall +appear that new heaven and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? There, +there shall in nowise enter in anything that defileth; none of that +wickedness which has made men worse than wild beasts, none of those +corruptions which add still more to the miseries of mortality, shall be +seen or heard of any more." + +No more is known of Henry Martyn save that he died at Tocat on the 16th +of that same October of 1812, without a European near. It is not even +known whether his death were caused by fever, or by the plague, which was +raging at the place. He died a pilgrim's solitary death, and lies in an +unknown grave in a heathen land. + +What fruit has his mission zeal left? It has left one of the +soul-stirring examples that have raised up other labourers. It has left +the Persian Bible for the blessing of all to whom that language is +familiar. It left, for the time, a strong interest in Christianity in +Shiraz. It left in India many English quickened to a sense of religion; +and it assuredly left Sheik Salah a true convert. Baptized afterwards by +the name of Abdul Messeh, or Servant of the Messiah, he became the +teacher of no less than thirty-nine Hindoos whom he brought to Holy +Baptism. Such were the reapings in Paradise that Henry Martyn has won +from his thirty-one years' life and his seeming failure. + + + + +CHAPTER V. WILLIAM CAREY AND JOSHUA MARSHMAN, THE SERAMPORE +MISSIONARIES. + + +The English subjects and allies in India had hitherto owed their scanty +lessons in Christianity to Germans or Danes, and the first of our own +countrymen who attempted the work among them was, to the shame of our +Government be it spoken, a volunteer from among the humblest classes, of +no more education than falls to the lot of the child of a village +schoolmaster and parish clerk. + +In 1761, when Schwartz was just beginning to make his way in Tanjore, +William Carey was born in the village of Paulerspury, in +Northamptonshire. He showed himself a diligent scholar in his father's +little school, and had even picked up some Latin before, at fourteen +years old, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker at the neighbouring village +of Hackleton. Still he had an earnest taste for study; and, falling in +with a commentary on the New Testament full of Greek words, he copied +them all out, and carried them for explanation to a man living in his +native village, who had thrown away a classical education by his +dissipated habits. + +The young shoemaker, thus struggling on to instruct himself, fell under +the notice of Thomas Scott, the author of the Commentary on the Bible, +and it was from him that Carey first received any strong religious +impressions. Scott was a Baptist; and young Carey, who had grown up in +the days of the deadness of the Church, was naturally led to his +teacher's sect, and began to preach at eighteen years of age. He always +looked back with humiliation to the inexperienced performances of his +untried zeal at that time of life; but he was doing his best to study, +working hard at grammar, and every morning reading his portion of the +Scripture for the day in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as English. +Well might Mr. Scott say, as he looked at the little cobbler's shop, +"That was Mr. Carey's college;" for all this time he was working at his +trade, and, on his master's death, took the business, and married the +daughter of the house before he was twenty. + +It was an unlucky marriage, for she was a dull, ignorant woman, with no +feeling for her husband's high aims or superior powers, and the business +was not a flourishing one; but he never manifested anything but warm +affection and tenderness towards this very uncompanionable person, and +perhaps, like most men of low station and unusual intellect, had no idea +that more could be expected of a wife. + +Perhaps, in spite of his kindness, Mrs. Carey had to endure the disasters +common to the wives of struggling great men: for William Carey's shoes +were not equal to his sermons, and his congregation were too poor even to +raise means to clothe him decently. His time was spent in long tramps to +sell shoes he had made and to obtain the mending of others, and, +meantime, he was constantly suffering from fever and ague. + +In 1786, when in his twenty-fifth year, he obtained a little Baptist +chapel and the goodwill of a school at Moulton; but as a minister he only +received 16_l._ per annum, and at the same time proved, as many have done +before him, that aptness to learn does not imply aptness to teach. He +could not keep order, and his boys first played tricks with him and then +deserted, till he came nearly to starvation, and had to return to his +last and his leather. + +Yet it was the geography lessons of this poor little school that first +found the way to the true chord of Carey's soul. Those broad tracts of +heathenism that struck his eye in the map, and the summary of nations and +numbers professing false religions, were to a mind like his no mere items +of information to be driven into dull brains, but were terrible realities +representing souls perishing for lack of knowledge. Cook's Voyages fell +into his hands and fed the growing impulse. He hung up in his shop a +large map, composed of several sheets pasted together, and gazed at it +when at his work, writing against each country whatever information he +had been able to collect as to the number of the inhabitants, their +religion, government, or habits, also as to the climate and natural +history. + +After he had for some time thus dwelt on the great longing of his heart, +he ventured on speaking it forth at a meeting of ministers at +Northampton, when there was a request that some topic might be named for +discussion. Carey then modestly rose and proposed "the duty of +Christians to attempt the spread of the Gospel among the heathen." The +words were like a shock. The senior, who acted as president, sprang up +in displeasure, and shouted out, "Young man, sit down! When God pleases +to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine." And +another, namely Mr. Fuller, who afterwards became the sheet anchor of the +Missions, describes himself as having thought of the words of the noble +at Jezreel, "If the Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a +thing be?" + +Silenced by his brethren, Carey persevered, and proceeded to write what +he had not been allowed to speak. A Birmingham tradesman of the name of +Pott, an opulent man, was induced by his earnestness to begin a +subscription for the publication of Carey's pamphlet, which showed +wonderful acquaintance with the state of the countries it mentioned, and +manifested talent of a remarkable order. In truth, Carey had been +endowed with that peculiar missionary gift, facility for languages. A +friend gave him a large folio in Dutch, and was amazed by his returning +shortly after with a translation into English of one of the sermons which +the book contained. + +He was becoming more known, and an invitation from a congregation at +Leicester, in 1789, placed him in somewhat more comfortable +circumstances, and brought him into contact with persons better able to +enter into his views; but it was three years more before he could either +publish his pamphlet or take the very first steps towards the +establishment of a Society for Promoting the Conversion of the Heathen. + +The first endeavour to collect a subscription resulted in 13_l._ 2_s._ +6_d._ This was at Kettering, and at the same time Carey offered to +embark for any country the Society might appoint. The committee, +however, waited to collect more means, but they found it almost +impossible to awaken people's minds. At Birmingham, indeed, 70_l._ was +collected, but in London the dissenting pastors would have nothing to do +with the cause; and the only minister of any denomination who showed any +sympathy was the Rev. John Newton, that giant of his day, who had in his +youth been captain of a slaver, and well knew what were the dark places +of the earth. The objections made at that time were perfectly +astounding. In the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, several +Presbyterian ministers pronounced it to be "highly preposterous" to +attempt to spread the Gospel among barbarous nations, extolled the +"simple virtues" of the untutored savage, and even declared that the +funds of Missionary Societies might be turned against Government. + +In India itself, the endeavours of the Danish settlement at Tranquebar +had little affected Bengal, but a few of the more religious men at +Calcutta had begun to be shocked at the utter oblivion of all Christian +faith and morality by their own countrymen, and the absolute favour shown +to the grossest idolatry of the heathen. Charles Grant, a member of the +Board of Trade at Calcutta, was the foremost of these, and on his return +to England brought the subject under the notice of that great champion of +Christ, William Wilberforce. The charter of the East India Company was +renewed from time to time; and when it was brought before Parliament, +Wilberforce proposed the insertion of clauses enforcing the maintenance +of chaplains, churches, and schools, so that a branch of the Church might +take root in Hindostan. + +This scheme, however, excited violent and selfish alarm in the directors, +chiefly men who had made their fortunes in India, and after living there +for years under no restraint were come home to enjoy their riches. They +believed that the natives would take umbrage at the least interference +with their religion, and that their own wealth and power, so highly +prized, would be lost if idolatry were not merely tolerated, but +flattered and supported. The souls of men and the honour of God were +nothing to them; they were furious with indignation, and procured from +the House of Commons the omission of the clauses. There was another hope +in the Lords; but though Archbishop Moore and the Bishop of London spoke +in favour of the articles, the Bishop of St. David's said one nation had +no right to impose its faith on another. None of the other Bishops +stirred, and the charter passed without one line towards keeping +Englishmen Christians, or making Hindoos such! The lethargy of the +Church of the eighteenth century was so heavy that not only had such a +son as Carey been allowed to turn from her pale in search of earnest +religion, but while she was forced to employ foreigners, bred up in the +Lutheran communion, as the chaplains and missionaries of her Society for +the Propagation of the Gospel, he was going forth unaccredited as a +volunteer in the cause which her paralysed efforts could not support! + +For it was to India that the minds of the little Baptist Society were +turned by the return of one John Thomas, who seems to have been the +Gaultier _Sans Avoir_ of this crusade. He was Baptist by education, and +having gone out as a surgeon to Calcutta, had been so shocked at the +state of things as to begin to preach on his own account, but he was a +hot tempered, imprudent man, and quarrelled with everybody, so as to make +the cause still more unpopular with the East Indians. Yet this strange, +wild character had a wonderful power of awakening enthusiasm. He had +come home in the same ship with one Wilson, whose history was a marvel in +itself. He had been made prisoner by the French during the Carnatic war, +and finding that the captives were to be delivered up to Hyder Ali, he +resolved to escape, leapt forty feet from his prison window, and swam the +river Coleroon, in happy ignorance that it was infested with alligators; +but then going up an eminence to judge of his bearings, he was seen, +secured, and stripped naked, and, with his hands tied behind him, was +driven before Hyder Ali. His account of having crossed the Coleroon was +treated as a lie. "No mortal man," said the natives, "had ever swum the +river; did he but dip a finger in, he would be seized by the alligators," +but when evidence proved the fact, the Nabob held up his hands and cried, +"This is the man of God." Nevertheless Wilson was chained to a soldier, +and, like the well-known David Baird, John Lindsay, and many others, was +driven naked, barefoot, and wounded, 500 miles to Seringapatam; where, +loaded with irons of thirty-two pounds weight, and chained in couples, +they were thrust into a "black hole," and fed so scantily that Wilson +declared that at sight of food his jaws snapped together of themselves. +Many a time in the morning corpses were unchained, and the survivors +coupled up together again. Wilson was one of the thirty-one who lived to +be released after twenty-two months, in a frightful state of exhaustion +and disease. Afterwards, when commanding a ship at Bencoolen, every +European under his command died, and he alone escaped, yet all this time +he was an absolute infidel; and, when having made a fortune, he was +returning home, he appeared so utterly hardened against all the arguments +that the zealous Thomas could bring in favour of Christianity, as to make +him in despair remark to the chief officer that he should have more hope +of converting the Lascar sailors than of Captain Wilson. + +However, the words were penetrating the hitherto ignorant or obdurate +heart, and preparing it to attend to further instruction. After some +years of comfort at home, on hearing of plans for a mission to the South +Sea Islands, Wilson resolved to offer himself as a free and spontaneous +fellow-worker, ready to sacrifice his whole self in the great cause! + +Meantime Thomas's fervid account of the needs of India had made the +infant Society propose to send him out with one colleague; and William +Carey, now thirty-three years of age, offered himself as a fellow-worker. + +The notion was terrible to Mrs. Carey, who flatly refused to go; but her +husband decided on leaving her at home, and only taking his eldest boy, +then about ten or eleven years old. An application was made to the Board +of Directors for a licence to the two missionaries to preach, and for a +passage in one of the Company's vessels; but when Mr. Grant learnt that +Thomas was one of them, he refused to assist in promoting their request, +though he undertook to do what he could for Carey alone. However, the +Board were certain to refuse them a passage; not because they were +unordained or dissenters, but simply because they wished to be Christian +teachers. A captain with whom Thomas had sailed as surgeon, offered to +smuggle them over without permission; but while his ship was preparing, +they had to wait in the Isle of Wight, and Thomas was continually in +danger of being arrested by his creditors, and was constantly obliged to +hide himself, till Carey became ashamed of such an associate. At last, +just as they were on board, with 250_l._ paid for their passage, and the +goods in which the money for their support had been invested, the captain +received a letter warning him that an information was about to be laid +against him at the India House for taking out people without permission. +Not only missionaries, but Europeans of any kind, not in the public +service, were forbidden to set foot on the Company's territories without +special licence, and the danger was so great that the captain set them +ashore at once; and poor Carey beheld with tears the Indian fleet sailing +from Portsmouth without him. + +However, by vigorous exertion, Thomas found that a Danish ship would be +lying in the Downs, on her way to the East Indies, and that a passage in +her would cost 100_l._ for a full-grown person and 50_l._ for a child. +Posting down to Northamptonshire, Carey made a desperate effort to +persuade his wife to come with him, and succeeded at last, on condition +that her sister, Miss Old, should come too. There were now five +children, and the passage-money for the whole party amounted to 600_l._, +of which their utmost efforts, including the sale of all the little +property the Careys possessed, could only raise half. + +Thomas, who really had a generous spirit, then arranged that the whole +party should be squeezed into two cabins, and that Mr. and Mrs. Carey +alone should be treated as first-class passengers. They were taken on +these terms; but the captain, an Englishman, naturalized in Denmark, gave +Mr. Thomas and Miss Old each a cabin, made them dine at his own table, +and treated them all most kindly. + +Thus they safely arrived at Calcutta; but this was only the beginning of +troubles. The goods, the sale of which was intended to maintain the +mission, were entrusted to Thomas, and realized next to nothing; and +Carey was indebted to the goodwill of a rich Hindoo for a miserable house +in an unhealthy suburb of Calcutta, where he lodged his unfortunate +family. They had a great deal of illness, and he was able to do little +but study the language and endeavour to translate the Bible into +Bengalee. Several moves made their state rather worse than better, +until, in 1795, a gentleman in the Civil Service, Mr. George Udney, +offered Carey the superintendence of an indigo factory of his own at +Mudnabutty, where he hoped both to obtain a maintenance, and to have +great opportunities of teaching the natives in his employment. + +Disaster as usual followed him: the spot was unhealthy, the family had +fevers, one of the children died, and the mother lost her reason from +grief, so that she had to be kept under restraint for the rest of her +life. Nor was Carey a better indigo-planter than a shoe-maker; the +profits of the factory dwindled, and the buildings fell into ruin; the +seasons were bad, and in three years Mr. Udney found himself obliged to +give up the speculation; but in the meantime, though Carey had not been +able to produce much effect on the natives, he had completed the +preparation of the implement to which he most trusted for his work, a +translation of the New Testament; and, moreover, had been presented by +good Mr. Udney with a wooden printing-press with Bengalee type. The +wonderful-looking thing was set up in one of the side rooms at the +factory, and was supposed by the natives to be the idol of the Europeans! + +In the meantime he opened a school, and preached to the natives in all +the villages round, but without making much, if any, impression; indeed +he was so disheartened, that he did not even teach his own children. The +chief benefit of his residence in India was at present the example he +set, and the letters he sent home, which bore in on the minds of others +the necessities of their brethren in the East, and brought aid in +subscriptions and, what was still more needed, men. + +In 1799, four members of the Baptist communion offered themselves to go +out as missionaries to India, and two of these were men who left most +important traces behind them: William Ward, who had been a printer and +editor of a newspaper at Derby, and had seen Mr. Carey before his going +out to India, and Joshua Marshman. This latter was the person who, above +all others, gave the struggling mission the strength, consistency, and +prudence which it wanted. The descendant of an old Puritan officer on +the one side, and of Huguenot refugees on the other, he was brought up in +strict Baptist principles by his father, who was one of the cloth weavers +then inhabiting Wiltshire in great numbers. As a child, he was +passionately fond of reading, and his huge appetite for books and great +memory made him a wonder in his village. A London bookseller, who was +visiting the place, heard of this clever lad, and took him into his shop +as an errand boy; but Joshua found that his concern was more with the +outside of books than the inside, and came home, at the end of five +months, to his father's loom. + +He was a steady lad, with no passions save for reading and quiet +heartfelt religion; but though he had never been guilty of any serious +fault, the Baptist body to which his family belonged considered he had +too much "head-knowledge" of Christianity to have much "heart-knowledge" +of its truths; and for that reason only, and their distrust and contempt +of human learning, refused to admit him to baptism. + +However, this was no obstacle either to his marrying the daughter of a +minister of his own persuasion, or taking the mastership of a school at +Bristol, where he found less narrow-minded co-religionists, and was +baptized by them in 1734, when twenty-six years of age. He was a +successful schoolmaster, and was likewise able to join the classes at +Bristol Academy, where he studied thoroughly Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and +Syriac. His circumstances were prosperous and rapidly improving when, +after five years of great comfort at Bristol, his mind became so imbued +with the sense of the need that some one should assist Carey, that he +offered himself, together with Ward and two other young men, one of whom +he had recently brought back to Christianity from Tom Paine's infidel +doctrines. Again his "human learning" stood in his way. The honest, +ignorant men who were working so earnestly, fancied it connected with +Pharisaism, and had little idea that the Brahmin philosophy was as hard +to deal with as the Greek. They accepted him, but with hesitation, and a +passage for the whole party, including wives and children, was taken in +an American vessel. + +Mr. Charles Grant advised them not to attempt to land at Calcutta, where +they would probably be at once arrested and sent home again, but to land +at the Danish colony of Serampore, and there wait for an opportunity of +joining Carey at Mudnabutty. + +Serampore is on the Hooghly, sixteen miles above Calcutta, and here they +found themselves on the 13th of October, 1799, in a town pleasantly +situated, beautiful to look at, and full of a mixed population of Danes, +Dutch, English, and natives of all hues. They were preparing to set +forth for Mudnabutty when, on the fifth day after their arrival, they +were informed that the British Government demanded that they should be +immediately re-embarked and sent home again, whilst a local English +paper, having never heard of Baptists, concluded that the word was a +mistake for Papists, and announced the arrival of four Popish priests, +emissaries of Buonaparte. The Danish governor, Colonel Bie, was resolved +to stand his ground and not deliver them up; but they were prevented from +setting foot upon the Company's territory, and the unwholesome, damp, +little house that they were obliged to take while waiting at Serampore +proved fatal to one of their number, the young man whom Marshman had +rescued from infidelity, who died of chill and fever before his +inexperienced associates were aware of his danger. + +Another difficulty in the way of joining Carey and assisting in the +printing of his translations, was that papers which were thought +dangerous to the British power had lately been issued, and the Marquis +Wellesley, who was then in the midst of his great war with Tippoo Sahib, +was resolved not to allow any printing to be carried on except in +Calcutta, where it could be under the eye of his officials. However, he +had no objection to the establishment of mission, school, or press on the +Danish ground, and Colonel Bie was only desirous to keep them there; so +it was decided to send Ward alone, with a Danish passport, to visit Carey +at Mudnabutty, and confer with him upon his removal to Serampore, and the +establishment of a mission settlement there. + +All doubt was removed, while this consultation was in progress, by +finding that the jealous Anglo-Indians were prepared to arrest any +missionary whom they caught upon their ground; and Carey's five years' +covenant as an indigo planter being now run out, his supposed idol was +taken down and packed up, and his four boys and poor insane wife removed +to Serampore, where all their present capital was laid out in the +purchase of a piece of ground and the construction of the habitations of +the little colony. The expenses were to be defrayed from a common stock, +each missionary in turn superintending the domestic arrangements for a +month, all the household dining together at one table, and only a small +allowance being made to each head of a family for pocket money. + +Six families were here united, and only 200_l._ was left to support them +for the six months until remittances could be obtained from England; but +all were used to cottage fare, and were not so dependent on servants as +most Europeans in India. A piece of land attached to the house became, +under Mr. Carey's care, a beautiful botanic garden. The press was set up +under the care of Ward, and on the 18th of March, 1800, the first sheets +of the Gospels in Bengalee were struck off. Mr. and Mrs. Marshman opened +two boarding schools for European children for the maintenance of the +mission, and their great ability in tuition rendered these so profitable +as to become its main support. This was soon followed by another school +for the natives, to which they eagerly thronged. + +Meanwhile the missionaries went out, singly or in pairs, into the streets +or the neighbourhood of the heathen temples, and attracted a crowd by +singing hymns in Bengalee, and then preached to them, offering to receive +any inquiries at the mission-house. Carey's time was almost entirely +taken up in hearing and answering these questions; but, as usual, the +ties of family, society, and custom almost always proved too strong to be +broken through even by the conviction of the truth of Christianity. Ram- +bosoo, Mr. Carey's first Hindoo friend, was like Serfojee, ready to do +anything on behalf of Christianity except to embrace it openly himself. + +Mr. Thomas had meantime engaged himself as superintendent of a sugar +factory at Beerbhoom, whence he came to visit his brethren at Serampore, +bringing with him one of his workmen named Fukier, whom he believed that +he had converted. The man gave so good an account of his faith that the +missionaries deemed him fit for baptism, and rejoiced in him as the first- +fruits of seven years' labour; but he went home to take leave of his +friends, and either they prevailed on him to give up his intention, or +privately murdered him, for he never was heard of again. + +However, a carpenter of Serampore named Krishnu, who had been brought +into the mission-house with a dislocated arm for Mr. Thomas to set, was +so struck by what he heard there that he, with his wife and daughter and +his brother Goluk, were all willing to give up their caste and be +baptized. + +There was much, however, to render the joy of this day far from being +unmixed. Poor John Thomas, after his seventeen years of effort, fitful, +indeed, but sincere, was so overjoyed at this confession of faith that he +became frantic, and in three days was raving violently. Meanwhile, the +native mob, infuriated by hearing that Krishnu and Goluk had renounced +their caste, rose to the number of two thousand, and dragged them to the +magistrate, but found nothing to accuse them of. The magistrate released +them, but they were brought back immediately after, on the plea that the +person to whom Krishnu's daughter had been betrothed had a claim upon +her. This, however, the authorities disallowed, and they even gave the +missionaries a guard to secure them from any interruption during the rite +of Baptism, which, by the customs of their sect, was necessarily in +public, and by immersion; but there was serious consultation whether it +were fit to use the Ganges, so superstitiously adored by the natives, for +the purpose. Some argued that the Hindoos might think that the +sacredness of Gunga was thus recognized, others that they would consider +that the Christians had defiled it, and it was finally resolved to use it +like any other stream. In the meantime, Goluk and the two women had been +so much terrified that they would not come forward; and on the day of the +baptism, Sunday, the 26th of December, 1800, the only two candidates were +Krishnu and Felix Carey, the missionary's own eldest son. William Carey +walked from the chapel to the ghat, or steps leading to the river, with +his son on one side and the Hindoo on the other; but the court they had +to pass resounded with the frightful imprecations of poor Mr. Thomas in +one room, echoed by screams from Mrs. Carey in the other. + +At the ghat the Danish governor himself, together with several of his +countrymen, some Englishmen, a large body of Portuguese, and a throng of +natives, Hindoo and Mahometan, were waiting, and before all these the +baptism was performed by Mr. Carey. All were silent as if overawed, and +Colonel Bie even shed tears. + +The next day there was not a scholar in the native school, but the love +of learning soon filled it again. Even down till quite recently, when +the bands of attachment to the old heathenism have become much loosened, +every open conversion continued to empty the schools, though never for +long at a time. + +The women soon recovered from their alarm and were baptized, and the +mission also gained over an influential Portuguese gentleman named +Fernandez, whom their tenets led them to view as in as much need of +conversion as the heathen. He proved an active assistant, and for full +thirty years laboured in their cause. + +In the meantime Lord Wellesley had been engaged in founding the college +at Fort William, Calcutta, for the training of young Europeans for the +civil service in the knowledge of the numerous native tongues, laws, and +customs with which they had to deal--and which are as various as they are +important--not only practically, but philosophically. The only person at +that time in Bengal qualified to teach the Bengalese language was the +Northamptonshire cobbler, who had acquired it for the love of God and the +spread of Gospel light! + +His dissent was a disqualification for any of the higher offices of the +college, but the teachership was offered to him, with a salary of 500 +rupees a month--absolute affluence compared with his original condition. +Yet he would not accept the post unless he were allowed still to be +regarded as a missionary. No objection was made, and thus by his talent +and usefulness had Carey forced from the Government which had forbidden +him to set foot on their territories his recognition in the character he +had always claimed. Even his private secular earnings he never regarded +as his own: this income, and that arising from Marshman's school, these +good men viewed as rendering their mission from henceforth independent, +and setting free the Society at home to support fresh ones. Already the +accounts they sent home were stirring up many more subscribers, and the +commendations bestowed on them in the periodical accounts pained their +humility. Ward wrote that it was like a public show: "Very fine +missionaries to be seen here! Walk in, brethren and sisters, walk in!" + +It was happy for the missionaries that their ground had thus been won, +for the war with Denmark occasioned Serampore to be occupied by British +troops early in 1801, and this would, earlier in their career, infallibly +have led to their expulsion: but, as it was, they were allowed to proceed +exactly as they had done before. + +Their most serious difficulties were at an end before poor Thomas, though +he had recovered from his brain fever, died of an attack of fever and +ague, after having done almost an equal amount of good and harm to his +cause by his excitable nature and entire want of balance. Converts +continued from time to time to be gathered in: Goluk took courage after +waiting about two years, and a Brahmin named Krishnu-prisad trampled on +his brahminical cord or poita, and was baptized. He was allowed to wear +it as a mark of distinction, but he gave it up voluntarily after three +years. Moreover he broke through Indian prejudice by marrying the +daughter of Krishnu, the first convert, though of a caste far inferior to +his own. This was the occasion of a happy little wedding feast, given +under a tree in front of the house of the bride's father, when a hymn +composed by Krishnu was sung, and native dishes served up in Eastern +style, after which the entertainment concluded with prayer. Only the +next week, in contrast to the devotion that blessed these family ties, +three Hindoo widows were burnt on a pile not far from the mission-house! + +In still greater contrast was the first funeral among the converts of the +mission-house--that of a man named Gokool. The native custom is that the +dead are always carried to burial by persons of their own caste, and it +is intense defilement for one of another caste to touch the body. +Christians were always carried by the lowest class of the Portuguese, who +had fallen into so degraded a state that they were usually known by their +own word for poor, "pobre," and were despised by the whole population. +They were generally drunk and disorderly, and their rudeness, +irreverence, and quarrels were a scandal to the solemn occasion. Mr. +Marshman, who was in charge of the mission at the time in Mr. Carey's +absence, had some difficulty in persuading the Hindoo converts that it +was no shame, but a charitable work, to bear a brother's body to its last +resting-place, even though they were seen doing the work of the despised +pobres. Accordingly he resolved to set the example, and the corpse of +the convert, within a coffin covered with white muslin, was carried to +the burial-ground by Marshman, Felix Carey, a baptized Brahmin, and a +baptized Hindoo, all the procession singing a Bengalee Christian hymn. + +The most remarkable events that befell the Serampore Mission from this +time were either domestic, or related to their connection with the +College at Fort William, and the sanction they received from Government. +Lord Wellesley went home in 1805, Colonel Bie died the same year, and +these were most serious losses to the cause of the Serampore mission. +Lord Wellesley had followed his own judgment, and carried things with a +high hand, often against the will of the East India Company, and there +was a strong desire to reverse his policy. His successor, Lord +Cornwallis, died two months after landing, and Sir George Barlow, who +carried on the government in the interregnum, though a good man, had not +force enough to withstand the dislike of the Anglo-Indians to the +mission. Mr. Ward made an attempt at Calcutta to preach in Hindoo in a +chapel, the ground of which had been purchased by the missionaries, but +as he walked through the streets the people shouted, "That's the Hindoo +padre; why dost thou destroy the caste of the people?" And when, two +Sundays later, a preacher of Brahmin birth appeared, there were loud +cries of indignation. "O vagabond," cried one man, "why didst thou not +come to my house? I would have given thee a handful of rice rather than +that thou shouldst have become a Feringhee!" In spite of these cries, +however, the chapel was thronged, until, after the third Sunday, when an +order came forth from the magistrates, forbidding the missionaries either +to preach, allow their converts to preach, distribute tracts, or even +argue with the natives--or in anyway "interfere with their prejudices"--in +Calcutta; and two new missionaries, named Chater and Robinson, who had +come out without a licence, were prohibited from proceeding to Serampore. + +Considering that these orders emanated only from a Provisional Government +during an interregnum, and that there was every hope that they might be +reversed by the next Governor-General, the missionaries resolved to +submit to them for the time, and to abstain from working in Calcutta. +Early in the year 1806, however, the animosity of the English East +Indians was increased by a mutiny that broke out among the Sepoys at +Vellore, in the Madras Presidency, in consequence of some regulations as +to their dress, which they resented as being supposed to assimilate them +to Europeans. The English colonel and all his garrison were massacred, +and, though the mutineers were surrounded and destroyed, great alarm +prevailed. The discontent of the Sepoys was attributed to their +displeasure at the spread of Christianity, and it was even averred that +the lives of the English in India could only be preserved by the recall +of all the missionaries! + +At Calcutta, Sir George Barlow sent to forbid Mr. Carey and his +colleagues from making any further attempts at conversion, and for a +short time they were entirely restricted to the Danish territory, while +Chater and Robinson were ordered to embark for England, and were only +kept by their appeal to the flag of Denmark. + +Upon this Mr. Chater proceeded to Rangoon, an independent province, but +on the whole the current of opposition was diminishing. Lord Wellesley +and Mr. Pitt had prevailed upon Government not to permit the College at +Fort William to be broken up, though it was reduced and remodelled. Mr. +Carey was a gainer by the change, for he was promoted to a professorship, +with an increase of salary, which he said was "very good for the +mission." He soon after received the diploma of a Doctor of Divinity +from an American University. + +The head-quarters of the establishment continued to be at Serampore, +where the missionaries and their families still lived in common, +supported upon the proceeds of Mr. Carey's professorship, Mr. Marshman's +school, and likewise the subscriptions received from England. Here were +their chapel, their schools, and their printing-press, from whence +emanated such books and tracts in Bengalee as could be useful for their +purpose, and likewise their great work, the translation of the +Scriptures, which Marshman and Carey were continually revising and +improving as their knowledge of the language became more critical. Thence +Mr. Carey went to give instruction at Fort William, and thence the +preachers, as the opposition relaxed, went forth on expeditions into the +country to teach, argue, and persuade, without any very wide-spread +success, but still every year gaining a few converts--sometimes as many +as twenty--who, when they had given sufficient evidence of faith, were +always publicly baptized by immersion, according to the custom of the +sect, which indeed acknowledged no other form as valid, and re-baptized +such members of other communions as joined them. Every missionary to the +East Indies, whether belonging to their own society or not, was certain +to visit and hold council with them, as the veterans of the Christian +army in India, and the men most experienced in the character and language +of the natives; they were the prime leaders and authorities in all that +concerned the various vernacular translations of the Scriptures, and +their example was as a trumpet-call to others to follow them in their +labours; while all the time the simplicity, humility, self-denial, and +activity of the men themselves remained unspoiled. + +Wonderful, too, had been the effect produced by the stirring of the +sluggish waters of indifference. The Society that had been with such +difficulty established at home, was numbering multitudes of subscribers +both in England and America; it had awakened a like spirit in other +sects, and whereas no dissenting minister in London had at first taken up +Carey's cause, it had become a scandal for a minister not to subscribe to +or promote missions to the heathen. Missionary reports were everywhere +distributed, young men aspired to the work, and American Universities did +honour to the ability and scholarship of the pioneers of Serampore. + +Mrs. Carey died on the 7th of December, 1807, having spent twelve years +in a state of constant melancholy and often raving insanity. Poor woman! +she was from the first a victim to her husband's aspirations, which she +never understood. There is something piteous in the cobbler's daughter +marrying the apprentice to keep on the business, and finding him a genius +and a hero on her hands, starving, being laughed at, and at last carried +off to a strange land and fatal climate, all without the least +comprehension or sympathy for the cause, and her mind failing before the +material prosperity came, which she might have regarded as compensation. + +In 1807, when some progress had been made, the grant for the translation +of the Scriptures was withdrawn; but the superintendents resolved to +persevere on their own account, and at the same time to collect all the +information in their power respecting the Christians in India, so as to +be able to rouse the cold hearts at home to the perception that a real +work was in progress. For this purpose, Dr. Claudius Buchanan, the +Provost of the College at Fort William, made an expedition of inquiry +among the various Christians, and his little book, "Christian +Researches," brought much before the public at home, of which they had +hitherto been ignorant. + +Before his time the enormities of the worship of Jaghernauth, and the +horrors of the car, beneath which human victims threw themselves, had +hardly been realized; and his very effective style of writing brought +into full prominence the atrocities of the Suttee, or burning of widows +on the funeral pile, a custom with which it was supposed to be impossible +to interfere, but which has been proved to be entirely a corrupt +practice, unsanctioned by any ancient law, only encouraged by the +Brahmins out of avarice. Happily the present generation only knows of +these atrocities as almost proverbial expressions, but when the century +came in they were in full force. + +It was Buchanan, too, who first revealed to the English the existence of +those Nestorian Christians of St. Thomas, on the coast of Malabar, who +had probably had no ecclesiastical intercourse with this country since +the embassy of King Alfred, nine hundred years before. He also brought +into public notice the effect of Swartz's labours, by describing a visit +that he made to Tanjore, where he had a most kind reception from +Serfojee, and greatly admired the numerous charitable foundations of that +beneficent Rajah. He also heard the services held in three languages in +Swartz's church, and was greatly struck, when the Tamul sermon began, by +hearing a universal scratching and grating all round him. This was +caused, he found, by the iron pens upon the palmyra leaves upon which +most of the native congregation were taking notes, writing nearly as fast +as the minister spoke. He also heard Sattianadem--now a white-haired old +man--preach on the "Marvellous Light," and he felt that a great man had +verily left his impress on these districts. + +Carey's second marriage was curiously different from his first. It was +to a lady named Charlotte Rumohr, of noble extraction, belonging to a +family of high rank, in the duchy of Schleswig. She was small and +slightly deformed, but of good abilities; she had been highly educated, +and being generally a prisoner on a couch, she had read deeply in many +languages. She had come out to India in search of a warm climate, and +residing at Serampore, had fallen under the influence of the +missionaries, and had some years previously been admitted to their +congregation by immersion. For the first time, Dr. Carey now enjoyed a +really happy home, with a lady equal to conversing with him after the +labours of the day. + +But this mission, though subsisting for some years longer, hardly affords +many more events. It was not without troubles. At times came friendly +support; at others, opposition from the authorities--the committee at +home were sometimes ignorantly meddlesome, sometimes sordid in their fits +of economy; insufficiently tested fellow-labourers came out and failed; +promising converts fell away; the climate was one steady unrelaxing foe, +which took victims out of every family: but all these things were as the +dust of the highway, trials common to man, and only incident to the very +position that had been so wondrously achieved, since the day when the +poor Baptist cobbler was so peremptorily silenced for but venturing to +hint at the duty of converting the heathen. + +Lord Hastings' government was far more friendly than any previous one, +and the few notable events that befell the community are quickly +numbered. In 1821, they were visited by Swartz's pupil, Serfojee, who +was staying with the Governor-General, Lord Hastings, on his way to +Benares, whither, strange and sad to say, he was on pilgrimage, though +all the time showing full intellectual understanding of, and warm +external affection for, the Christian faith. He talked English easily, +and showed much interest in all that was going on, but a heathen he still +remained. + +This visit only preceded by a few weeks the death of Mrs. Carey, after +thirteen years' marriage, the happiest of Dr. Carey's life; but in +another year he married a widow of forty-five, who was ready to nurse his +now declining years. That year 1822 was a year of much sorrow; the +cholera, said to have first appeared in 1817, became very virulent. The +Hindoos viewed it as a visitation from the goddess of destruction, and +held services to propitiate it, and when that had passed away, a more +than usually fatal form of fever set in. Krishnu-pal, the first convert, +who had for twenty years been a consistent Christian, was one of the +first to be taken away. Dr. Carey himself, though exceedingly ill, +recovered his former state of health, and continued his arduous labours, +he being by this time the ablest philologist in India; but the little +band had come to the time of life when "the clouds return after the +rain," and in 1823 Mr. Ward died of cholera. For twenty-three years had +the threefold cord between Carey, Marshman, and Ward, been unbroken. They +had lived together like brothers, alike in aim and purposes, each +supplying what the other lacked; and the distress of the parting was +terrible, especially to Dr. Marshman, who at the time of his friend's +illness was suffering from an attack of deafness, temporary indeed, but +for some days total, so that he could only watch the final struggle +without hearing a single word. + +He wrote as if he longed to be with those whose toils and sorrows were at +an end, but he still had much more to do. In 1826, he visited England, +partly for the sake of pleading with the Society at home, first begun on +so small a scale by Carey, but which now numbered many members and +disposed of large sums. The committee, however, were often hard to deal +with. There were among them many men of good intentions, but without +breadth of views, and used to small economies. They listened to false +reports, censured without sufficient information, pinched their missions, +and dictated the management, so that to deal with them was but a vexation +of spirit. Indeed, such annoyances are inseparable from the very fact of +the supplies and the government being in the hands of a body at a +distance from the scene of action, and destitute of personal experience +of the needs. + +After much argument, the matter ended in the Serampore mission being +separated from the General Society, as indeed it had become nearly self- +supporting through the numerous schools which the talents of the members +of it had been able to establish. It was an unfortunate time, however, +when the two men whose abilities had earned their present position were +so far past the prime of life; and, in 1830, the failure of a great +banking company both deprived them of a large part of their investments, +and, by ruining numerous families, lessened the attendance at Dr. +Marshman's school. Moreover, the American subscribers sent a most +vexatious and absurd remonstrance against any part of their contributions +for training young men to the ministry, being employed in teaching +science. "As if," said Dr. Marshman, "youths in America could be +educated for ministers without learning science." + +Another disaster was that, on Lord William Bentinck's arrival in India in +1830, the finances of the Government were found to be in so +unsatisfactory a state, that salaries were everywhere reduced, and that +which Dr. Carey had derived from the college at Fort William was thus cut +down from 1,000 rupees per month to 500. At this time, the missions and +preachers dependent on Serampore required 1,500_l._ a year for their +support, and only 900_l._ was to be had, and this when both Marshman and +Carey were seventy years of age, and still were toiling as hard as ever. + +There were other troubles, too, as to who was the owner of the buildings, +whether the Baptist Society, or the missionaries as trustees, and as +having paid a large portion of the price. A great inundation of the +Hooghly had nearly settled the question by washing the whole away. As it +was, it did much damage, and destroyed the beautiful botanical garden +that had for twenty years been Dr. Carey's delight. Finally the whole of +the right of Marshman and Carey to the buildings was sold to the Society, +for a much less amount than they had paid from their own pockets; but +they were to occupy them rent free for the rest of their lives. + +The trouble and anxiety consequent on this question, which had been of +many years' standing, had greatly impaired Dr. Marshman's strength both +of body and mind. Morbid attacks of depression came on, during which he +wandered about, unable to apply himself so much as even to write a +letter, though in the intervals he was both cheerful and full of +activity. Dr. Carey's health was likewise failing, and, with no formed +illness, he gradually sank, and died on the 9th of June, 1834, in his +seventy-third year. + +To him belongs the honour of the awakening of the missionary spirit in +England. Yet, as an individual preacher and teacher, he does not seem to +have had much power. His talent was for language and philology; his +perfections were faith and perseverance. In these he was a giant; in +everything else, whether as a cobbler, schoolmaster, indigo-planter, nay, +even as father of a family, he was a failure: but his steady, faithful +purpose enabled him so to use that one talent as to make him the pioneer +and the support as well as the example of numbers better qualified for +the actual work than himself. + +His loss left Dr. Marshman alone, and suffering from melancholy more and +more, as well as much harassed by difficulties as to the resources, and +by captious complaints from home. In 1836, a great shock was given to +his nerves by the danger of his daughter. She was the wife of Lieutenant +Henry Havelock, a young officer, who, deeply impressed by Dr. Marshman's +piety, had joined his congregation, and who was destined to become in +after years one of the most heroic and able of the defenders of the +British cause in India. During his absence, she and her three children +had been left at Landour, when their bungalow caught fire in the middle +of the night, and blazed up with a rapidity due to its light, dry +materials. She rushed out with her baby in her arms, but in crossing the +verandah tripped and fell, losing her hold of the child. She was dragged +away by a faithful native servant, who likewise snatched out her two +eldest boys, but the poor baby was lost in the flames, and she herself +was so much injured and overwhelmed by the alarm and grief, that, when +her husband arrived, her state was almost hopeless, and he wrote a letter +preparing her father to hear of her death. From some untoward accident, +no more tidings reached Serampore for three days, and to spirits that had +already lost their balance the suspense was fatal. The aged father +wandered about the house in a purposeless manner, sometimes standing +gazing along the road through the Venetian blinds, sometimes talking +incoherently; and when at last the intelligence arrived that Mrs. +Havelock was out of danger, though his joy and thankfulness were +ecstatic, the effects of these three days were irremediable; he was +hardly ever seen to smile again, could take no part in the renewed +discussions with the Baptist Society, although his mind and memory were +still clear. He died on the 5th of December, 1837, just as the Serampore +mission had been re-united to the General Baptist mission. + +"There had been but few men at Serampore, but they were all giants," was +said of them by one of the dignitaries of the Church and assuredly it was +a wonderful triumph, that a shoe-maker, a schoolmaster, and a printer +should in thirty-eight years not only have aroused the missionary spirit +in England, but have, by their resolution and talent, established thirty- +three stations for the preaching of Christianity in India; while at the +time of the death of the last survivor, forty-nine ministers were in +union with them, half of whom were natives of Hindostan, and around each +of the elder stations was a fair proportion of converts. Still more +amazingly, these self-educated men had, by their accurate knowledge and +deep study, become most eminent authorities in matters of language and +philology; and by their usefulness had actually compelled a prejudiced +Government to depend on them for assistance, and thus to support the work +for which alone they cared. Never were the words more completely +fulfilled than in them, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His +righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." + +The reverses that chequered their wonderful success were not the more +interesting difficulties of wild country, or persecuting heathen, but +troubles with an obstructive Government, and with the Society at home, +which endeavoured to rule them without understanding them. These +vexations are inseparable from the conditions of Societies trying to +govern from home instead of letting the management be carried on by a +head upon the spot. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE JUDSON FAMILY. + + +We must turn to an important offshoot from the Serampore mission, which +assumed extensive proportions and a character of its own, chiefly in +consequence of American zeal. Here, be it observed, was the first ground +attempted by modern missions (not Roman Catholic) which belonged to an +independent sovereign. + +The great Burmese Empire, roughly speaking, occupies the Eastern India +peninsula, being separated from that of Hindostan by the Brahmapootra +river. The mountainous formation of the country, its indented coast, and +numerous rivers render it fertile, and the hills contain many valuable +metals and beautiful precious stones. + +The inhabitants are of the Mongolian race, short, stout, active, and +brown, with a good deal of ingenuity in arts and manufactures, but not +equal to the Chinese, their neighbours. Their language is monosyllabic, +their religion Buddhist, their government a despotic empire, and at the +time the mission was entered upon they had had little intercourse with +strangers, but their women were not secluded, were not wholly uneducated, +and were treated with consideration. + +Buddha is regarded as a manifestation of Vishnu--the Hindoos say, to +delude his enemies; the Buddhists, to bring a new revelation. Gautama +was the almost deified being who spread the knowledge of Buddhism, about +500 B.C. In different countries the religion has assumed different +forms, but it is nearly co-extensive with the Mongolian race, and the +general features are the rejection of the Vedas and of most of the Hindoo +myths, faith in the divinity of Buddha, and hope that the individual +personality will be entirely absorbed in his essence, the human being +lost in the Deity. Five laws of virtue must be observed, ten kinds of +sin avoided; and the Buddhist expects that transgressions will be +punished by the transmigration of his soul into some inferior creature, +whence he will rise by successive stages into another trial as a man, and +gradually improving by the help of contemplation, and of a sublime state +of annihilation of all self-consciousness, may become fit for his final +absorption into the Godhead. There is an extensive priesthood, called +Lamas, who live in a state of celibacy in dwellings not at all unlike +monasteries; and, in effect, so much in their practices seems to parody +the ceremonies of Christianity that the Portuguese thought them invented +by the devil for the very purpose. However, there is no doubt that +Buddhism inculcates a much purer morality than the religion of Brahma, +and far higher aims. In Burmah, however, the idea of the eternity of the +Deity had evidently been lost, and Gautama had practically usurped the +place that the higher Buddhists gave to Brahma. Indeed, though the true +Buddhist system looks to the absorption in the Deity,--Nirvana, as it is +called,--the popular notion, as received in Burmah and corrupted by less +refined minds, made it into what was either absolute nonentity or could +not be distinguished from it, so that the ordinary Burman's best hope for +the future was of nothing but annihilation. + +There was originally a Burman Empire, but it had become broken up, and +the territories of Ava, Pegu, and Siam were separated, though Ava claimed +them all, and owned a semi-barbarous magnificent court, with many +gradations of dignitaries, sending out Viceroys to the different +provinces and towns. + +When in 1807 strong opposition was made by Sir George Barlow's government +to the landing of the two Baptist missionaries, Robinson and Chater, the +former obtained forbearance on account of his wife's health, but the +latter was obliged to embark; and, rather than return to England, he +chose a vessel bound for Rangoon, a city at the mouth of the river +Irrawaddy, the nearest Burmese harbour. His was to be a reconnoitring +expedition to discover the condition of the Burmese Empire, the progress +that Roman Catholic missions were making there, and the possibility of +undertaking anything from the centre of Serampore. Another missionary, +named Mardon, went with him. They were well received by the European +merchants resident at Rangoon, and returned with an encouraging report. +It was decided that the attempt should be made; and as Mr. Mardon did not +feel equal to the undertaking, fifteen days were set apart as a time of +private prayer for direction who should be chosen in his stead. + +It was Felix Carey, then nearly twenty-two, who volunteered to go with +Mr. Chater, of whom he was very fond. His father was unwilling to send +him, not only on account of his youth, but because he was very valuable +in the printers' work, and had an unusual amount of acquaintance with +Sanskrit and Bengalee, so that he could hardly be spared from the +translations; but the majority of the council at Serampore were in favour +of his going, and after a long delay, in consequence of the danger +British trading vessels were incurring from French privateers from the +Isle of France, they set sail and arrived at Rangoon early in the year +1808. + +There they built themselves a house, and obtained a good deal of favour +from the gentleness and amiability of Mr. Chater, and from young Carey's +usefulness. He had regularly studied medicine for some years in the +hospital at Calcutta, and his skill was soon in great request, especially +for vaccination, which he was the first to introduce. His real turn was, +however, for philology, and he was delighted to discover that the Pali, +the sacred and learned language of Burmah, was really a variety of the +Sanskrit, cut down into agreement with the Mongolian monosyllabic speech. +He began, with the assistance of a pundit, to compile a grammar, and to +make a rough beginning of a translation of the Scripture, a work indeed +in which the Serampore people were apt to be almost too precipitate, not +waiting for those refinements of knowledge which are needful in dealing +with the shades of meaning of words of such intense importance and +delicate significancy. But on their principles, they could do nothing +without vernacular Bibles, and they had not that intense reverence and +trained scholarly appreciation which made Martyn spend his life on the +correctness of a single version, rather than send it forth with a flaw to +give wrong impressions. + +Neither does Felix Carey seem to have been a missionary in anything but +that bent which is given by training and family impulse. He delighted in +languages, but rather as an end than a means; and though he did what the +guiding fathers at Serampore required of him, it was as a matter of +course, not with his whole heart. In the meantime, the fact of Mr. +Chater being a married man occasioned difficulties. Like their kinsmen +the Chinese, the Burmese much objected to the residence of foreign +females within their bounds; and when Mr. Chater obtained leave to bring +his wife, she was so forlorn that he was obliged to seek for another +station, and, receiving an invitation to Ceylon, left Felix alone, except +for his marriage with a young woman of European extraction, but born in +Burmah. + +Soon after a dispute arose between the British and Burmese governments, +and two English ships of war appeared off Rangoon. The native +authorities wished the young missionary to act as interpreter, and on his +refusal he was accused of being a spy, and was forced to take refuge on +board one of the British ships where he remained for two months before +the differences were adjusted, and he was allowed to return on condition +that he should not refuse his services as interpreter another time. In +the October of 1812 he came home to Serampore to print his Burmese +grammar and Gospel of St. Matthew, and not only did this, but carried a +press back with him to Rangoon. A youth who was sent from the +congregation at Calcutta to co-operate with him proved unfit for the +work, and was advised to return to secular business; but in the meantime, +the person who was, above all others, to be identified with the Burmese +mission, had heard the call and was on his way. + +This was Adoniram Judson, a native of New England, the eldest son of the +minister of Malden, in Massachusetts, born in 1788, and bred up first at +a school near home, and afterwards at Brown University. His acuteness +and cleverness from infancy were great, especially in arithmetic and +mathematics. During his studies, he met with a clever and brilliant +friend who had imbibed the deistical teaching of the French Revolution, +and infected him with it, and he came home at seventeen the winner of all +the honours and prizes that the College afforded, but announcing himself +to his parents as a decided infidel! The pastor treated him with stern +displeasure, and argued hotly with him, but young Adoniram was the +cleverer man, and felt his advantage. His mother's tears and entreaties +were less easy to answer, and the thought of them dwelt with him, do what +he would, when he set out on a sort of tour through the surrounding +States. On his journey, he stopped at a country inn, and was told, with +much apology, that there was no choice but to give him a room next to +that of a young man who was so ill that he could scarcely live till +morning. In fact, Adoniram's rest was broken by the groans of the dying +man and the footsteps of the nurses, and there--close to the shadow of +death--his infidelity, which had been but pride of intellect and fashion, +began to quail, as the thought of the future haunted him. Morning came; +all was still. He asked after his fellow-lodger, and heard that he was +dead. He asked his name. It was no other than the very youth who had +staggered his faith. + +The shock changed his whole tone. He could not bear to continue his +journey, but turned back to Plymouth, determined to prove to himself what +was indeed truth; and, while deeply studying the evidences of +Christianity, he supported himself by keeping a school and writing +educational books on grammar and arithmetic. His mind was soon +thoroughly made up, as, indeed, his aberrations had been only on the +surface, and he became very anxious to enter the Theological College at +Andover, Massachusetts. This belonged to the most earnest of the +Congregationalists, and evidence of personal conversion and piety was +required from the candidates; but, in his case, the professors were +satisfied, and he entered on his course of study, which included Hebrew. +In the last year of his studies there he fell in with Claudius Buchanan's +"Star in the East," and the perusal directed his whole soul to the desire +of missionary labour. His mind was harassed night and day with the +thought of longing to do something for the enlightenment of the millions +in Asia; and, meeting with Symes' "Burmese Empire," his thoughts turned +especially in that direction. It was a quiet steady purpose, though he +was slow of communicating it; until, one evening at home, his father +began throwing out hopes and hints of some great preferment, and his +mother and sister smiled complacently, as if they were in the secret. +Adoniram begged for an explanation, since it was possible their plans +might not coincide, to which his father replied there was no fear, and +told him that the minister of the biggest church in Boston wished for him +as a colleague. "So near home," said the delighted mother. He could not +bear to answer her, but, when his sister chimed in, he turned to her, +saying, "No, sister, I shall never live in Boston; I have much farther to +go;" and then, steadily and calmly, but fervidly, he set forth the call +that he felt to be upon him. How different a communication from that +which he had made two years before! No doubt his family so felt it, for, +though his mother and sister shed many tears, neither they nor his father +offered a word of opposition. + +Thenceforth his fate was determined, and he began to prepare himself. He +was, in person, slightly made and delicate-looking, with an aquiline +face, dark eyes, and chesnut hair; and though his constitution must have +been immensely strong to have borne what he underwent, at this time he +was thought delicate; and therefore, with his one purpose before him, he +carefully studied physiology, and made himself a code of rules which he +obeyed to the end of his life, in especial inhaling large quantities of +air, sponging the whole body with cold water, and taking daily exercise +by walking. He was a man of great vivacity and acuteness, with the +poetical spirit that accompanies strong enthusiasm, and with a fastidious +delicacy and refinement in all personal matters, such as seemed rather to +mark him as destined to be an accomplished scholar than to lead the rude +life of a missionary; and Ann Hasseltine, the young lady on whom he had +fixed his affections, was a very beautiful girl, of great cultivation and +accomplishments, but they were alike in one other great respect,--namely, +in dauntless self-devotion. He began to talk of his purpose to the like- +minded among his college mates, and gradually gathered a few into a very +small missionary association, into which none were admitted who had any +duties that could forbid their going out to minister among the heathen. + +At the same time, and partly through their means, a wider association was +formed, which had its centre at Bradford, and which finally decided on +sending Judson to England to endeavour to effect a union with the London +Missionary Society, which had been formed in 1795, in imitation of +Carey's Baptist Society, to work in other directions by Nonconformists of +other denominations. + +The voyage in 1811, in the height of the continental war, was a very +perilous one. On the way the vessel was taken by the French and carried +into Bayonne, while the young American passenger was summarily thrown +into the hold with the common sailors. He became very ill, but, when the +French doctor visited him, he could hold no communication for want of a +common language. Then it was that there came thoughts of home, and of +the "biggest church in Boston," and a misgiving swept over him, which he +treated at once as a suggestion of the enemy, and betook himself to +prayer. Then, in the grey twilight of the hold, he felt about for his +Hebrew Bible; and to keep his mind fully absorbed, began mentally +rendering the Hebrew into Latin. When the doctor came in, he took up the +Bible, perceived that he had a scholar to deal with, began to talk Latin +to him, and arranged his release from the hold. + +But on landing at Bayonne, he was marched through the streets as a +prisoner with the English crew. He began declaiming in his native +language on the injustice of detaining an American, and obtained his +purpose by attracting the attention of an American gentleman in the +street, who promised to do what he could for him, but advised him in the +meantime to proceed quietly. The whole party were thrown into a dismal +underground vault, and the stones covered with straw, which seemed to +Judson so foul that he could not bear to sit down on it, and he walked up +and down, though sick and giddy with the chill, close, noisome +atmosphere. Before his walking powers were exhausted, his American +friend was at the door, and saying, "Let me see whether I know any of +these poor fellows," took up the lamp, looked at them, said "No friend of +mine," and as he put down the lamp threw his own large cloak round Mr. +Judson, and grasping his arm, led him out under it in the dark; while a +fee, put into the hand, first of the turnkey and then of the porter, may +have secured that the four legs under the cloak should pass unobserved. +"Now run," said the American, as soon as they were outside, and he rushed +off to the wharf, closely followed by his young countryman, whom he +placed on board a vessel from their own country for the night. +Afterwards, Judson's papers were laid before the authorities, and he was +not only released, but allowed to travel through France to the northern +coast, and, making friends with some of the Emperor's suite on the way +home from Spain, travelled to Paris in an Imperial carriage. Afterwards, +he made his way to England, where he received a warm welcome from the +London Missionary Society, by which he and the three friends he had left +in America--Samuel Newell, Samuel Nott, and Gordon Hall--were accepted as +missionaries; but on Judson's return to America, he found that the +Congregationalist Mission Board there was able to undertake their +expenses, and accordingly they went out, salaried by their own country. +All four were dedicated to the ministry at Salem on the 6th of February, +1812, and immediately prepared to sail for the East Indies. + +Judson, with his wife, the beautiful dark-eyed Ann Hasseltine, and his +friends Mr. and Mrs. Newell, also newly married, embarked in the +_Caravan_; Hall, Nott, and another college mate, named Luther Rice, were +in the _Harmony_. They were at once received at Serampore, on their +landing, in the June of 1812, but Dr. Carey's expectations of them were +not high. Adoniram and Ann Judson were both delicate, slender, refined- +looking people. "I have little hope from the Americans," he wrote; "if +they should stay in the East, American habits are too luxurious for a +preparation to live among savages." He little knew what were the +capabilities of Ann Judson, the first woman who worked effectively in the +cause, the first who rose above the level of being the comfort of her +husband in his domestic moments, and was an absolute and valuable +influence. + +The opposition to the arrival of missionaries was at its height, and this +large batch so dismayed the Calcutta authorities that, declaring them +British subjects come round by America, they required their instant re- +embarkation. It was decided to go to the Isle of France, whence it was +hoped to find a French ship to take them to the aid of Felix Carey, but +the first vessel could only take the Newells, and the detention at +Serampore drew the Judsons and Rice into the full influence of Marshman's +powerful and earnest mind. Aware that they would have to work with the +Baptist mission, they had studied the tenets on the voyage, but found +when they arrived, that the points of difference were subjects that the +trio at Serampore did not choose to discuss, lest their work among the +heathen should suffer by attention to personal controversy. However, +their own thoughts and the influences of the place led them to desire +baptism by immersion; and this being done, they considered it due to the +Congregationalists, who had sent them out, to resign their claim on them +for support, though this left them destitute. It was decided that Rice +should go home and appeal for their support to the American Baptists, and +in this he thoroughly succeeded, while the Judsons, after sailing for +Mauritius, where they found poor Mrs. Newell recently dead, made their +way back to Madras, and there found a vessel bound for Rangoon. It was a +crazy old craft, with a Malay crew, no one but the captain able to speak +a word of English. The voyage was full of disaster. A good European +nurse, who had been engaged to go with Mrs. Judson, fell on the floor and +died suddenly, even while the ship was getting under weigh, too late to +supply her place. Mrs. Judson became dangerously ill, and the vessel was +driven into a perilous strait between the Great and Little Andaman +Islands, where the captain was not only out of his bearings, but believed +that, if he were driven ashore, the whole ship's company would be eaten +by the cannibal islanders. The alarm, however, acted as a tonic, and +Mrs. Judson began to recover. + +They reached Rangoon in safety, but Judson writes: "We had never before +seen a place where European influence had not contributed to smooth and +soften the rough features of uncultivated nature. The prospect of +Rangoon, as we approached, was quite disheartening. I went on shore, +just at night, to take a view of the place and the mission-house, but so +dark and cheerless and unpromising did all things appear, that the +evening of that day, after my return to the ship, we have marked as the +most gloomy and distressing that we ever passed." The mission-house was +not quite empty, though Felix Carey, who they had hoped would welcome +them, was at Ava. When Mrs. Judson, still too weak to walk, was carried +ashore, she was received by his wife, who could speak Burmese, and +managed the household, providing daily dinners of fowls stewed with rice +or with cucumber. + +It was, however, a dismal place, near the spot where public executions +took place, and where the dead were burnt outside the walls. And all +around, among the beautiful vegetation and lovely forests on the banks of +the broad Irrawaddy, rose the pagodas, graceful with the peculiar beauty +of the far East, with gilded lacquer-work, umbrella-shaped roofs spiring +upwards; huge idols with solemn contemplative faces within, and all +around swarms of yellow-robed, fat, lazy lamas. + +The new comers meantime applied themselves to the study of the language, +after overcoming the disdain of their pundit at having to instruct a +woman. He could not speak English, and had neither grammar nor +dictionary, so that the difficulties were great; but the eager spirit of +the students overcame all, and they ventured to remove into town and keep +house themselves. + +Mrs. Judson was taken to visit the wives of the Myowoon, or Viceroy of +Rangoon, by a French lady who had been admitted before. On their first +arrival the principal wife was not up, and the ladies waited, while the +inferior wives examined all they wore, and tried on their gloves and +bonnets; but when the great lady appeared, they all crouched together at +a distance. She came in richly attired, and smoking a silver pipe, and +sat down on a mat by Mrs. Judson, whom she viewed with much curiosity, +asking if she were her husband's first wife. The Myowoon came in looking +wild and savage, and carrying a huge spear in his hand; but he was very +polite to Mrs. Judson, though he took very little notice of her husband. + +In fact the government was violent and barbarous. There were perpetual +murders and robberies, and these were punished by horrid executions, +accompanied by torture; yet the Burmese regarded themselves as superior +to all other nations, and were far from understanding how greatly they +fell short even of the requirements of Buddhism. + +Felix Carey, meantime, had been requested by the king to vaccinate the +royal children; but he had to return to Calcutta to procure matter for +the purpose. He then visited Rangoon on his way back, and prepared to +carry up his family, property, and printing-press to Ava, with the hope +of forming a fresh station there, under royal patronage; but after ten +days' voyage, the vessel was capsized by a sudden storm, and all who +could not swim were drowned. Felix tried to rescue his little son of +three years old, but, finding himself sinking, he let the child go, and +saved himself alone. + +Everything in the vessel was lost; but the king gave him compensation for +the property, and took him into high favour, sending him shortly after, +to conduct some negotiations with the British Government. He appeared at +Calcutta with the title and gorgeous dress of a Burmese noble, and showed +himself in the streets with a train of fifty followers. Old Dr. Carey +was seriously grieved at his thus "sinking from a missionary to an +ambassador;" and he was by no means successful in this new line; in fact +his negotiations turned out so ill, that on his return to Rangoon he was +obliged to fly the country. The excitement of his life had made +missionary labour distasteful to him, and, after strange wanderings in +the wild lands eastward of Bengal, he became prime minister and +generalissimo to a barbarous prince; and in that capacity led an army +against his old friends, the Burmese, sustained a defeat, and was forced +to wander in the jungle. After three years of this strange life, he fell +in by chance at Chittagong with Mr. Ward, and was by him persuaded to +return to the printing and philology, for which alone, like his father, +he really was well qualified. He lived at Serampore till 1822, and then +was carried off by the same sickly season that had proved fatal to +Krishnu-pal, who had been baptized with him, and to Bishop Middleton. + +Meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Judson were working steadily on, and were greatly +cheered by the arrival of a much less barbarous viceroy, named Mya-day- +men. They were invited, with all the Europeans, to a banquet at the new +official's house, and Mrs. Judson was entertained by the wife, who +questioned her eagerly, and asked if she knew how to dance in the English +way; but was satisfied on hearing that the wives of priests did not +dance. As Buddhist priests are celibate, Mrs. Judson must have been +rather a puzzle to the good lady; and all this time the real work of the +mission had not commenced, for the preliminary operation of acquiring the +language had not been completed, and Judson was warned not to attempt +preaching till he was familiar with it, by Dr. Carey having told him that +after some years in Bengal, when he imagined himself to be freely able to +use the language, he had found from the remark of a young man, that he +was really not in the least understood. Private arguments with the +teachers was all that could be attempted, and in these there seems to +have been some forgetfulness of St. Paul's words, "Who art thou that +judgest another? To his own master he standeth or falleth;" since there +was a very free threatening that the souls of the pagans must be lost; to +which the pundits replied with true Eastern calmness, "Our religion is +good for us, yours for you." During this time of perseverance and +preparation, Mrs. Judson's health became so much affected that she was +forced to go to Madras. Heroine as she was, she would not consent to let +her husband break up his work to accompany her; but the solitude of her +absence fell on him most severely. She says, "He had no individual +Christian with whom he could converse or unite in prayer during the six +months of her absence;" but he worked on heartily, and she returned in +perfect health. + +In the spring of 1816, the death of their first-born child was a great +shock to the father's health, which was already disordered; and he +continued in a declining state all through the summer. The Myowoon's +wife, whom Mrs. Judson conveniently calls the vice-reine, was very kind +to them, and took them on elephant-back to visit her country-house. The +way lay through the woods, between trees sometimes so thick that the +elephants broke them down, at the mahout's word, to make way. Thirty men +in red caps, with spears and guns, formed the guard; then came the vice- +reine's elephant, with a gilded howdah, where the lady sat dressed in red +and white silk; then the Judsons' animal, three or four more behind with +grandees, and 300 or 400 attendants followed. At a beautiful garden, +full of fruit trees, a feast was spread under a noble banyan, the vice- +reine causing the cloth next to her to be allotted to her guests, whom +she tended affectionately, gathering and paring fruit, cutting flowers +and weaving them for them, and, unlike the Hindoos, freely eating what +they handed her. This hospitable and amiable lady had just begun to ask +Mrs. Judson the difference between the Christians' God and Gautama, when +she was obliged to return to Ava. + +For several months Mr. Judson's illness increased; but exercise on +horseback did much to relieve him, and the comfort and encouragement of +the arrival of a brother missionary, Mr. Hough, with his family, did +more. He weathered the attack without leaving his post, and in 1817 made +his first real step. A press had come out with Mr. Hough, and with it +two little tracts, summarizing the chief truths of Christianity, were +printed and distributed at Rangoon. + +Shortly after, a respectable-looking Burmese, attended by a servant, +walked into Mr. Judson's house, and sat down. Presently he inquired, +"How long a time will it take me to learn the religion of JESUS?" + +Mr. Judson answered, that where God gave light and wisdom, it was soon +learnt; but without, a whole lifetime would not teach a man. "But how," +he asked, "came the wish for this knowledge?" + +"I have seen two little books." + +"And who is JESUS?" said the missionary. + +"He is the Son of GOD, who, pitying human creatures, came into this world +and suffered death in their stead." + +"Who is GOD?" continued Mr. Judson. + +"He is a Being without beginning or end, who is not subject to old age or +death, but always is." + +Mr. Judson showed him the two little books, which he recognized, but +begged for more. He did not attend much to what Judson tried to teach +him by word of mouth, but begged for book. The Gospel of St. Matthew was +in hand, but could not be finished for three months; and when he was told +this "Have you not a little of that book done, which you will graciously +give me now?" he asked. "And I," writes Judson, "beginning to think that +God's time was better than man's, folded and gave him the two first half- +sheets, which contain the first five chapters of St. Matthew, on which he +instantly rose, as if his business was done, and took leave." + +It was long before they saw him again; though many other persons began +calling at the mission-house to inquire about what they called the new +religion; but all were so much afraid of one another, that no one would +ask any questions if a fellow-citizen were present. Mrs. Judson was also +getting together from fifteen to twenty women every Sunday, whom she +tried to instruct. One of them, like the Norseman of old, preferred +casting in her lot with her forefathers to a heaven separated from them; +and when Mrs. Judson told her they would reproach her with the rejection +of the truth they had never known, and that she would regret her folly +when it was too late, she answered, "If I do, I will cry out to you to be +my intercessor." Another combined prayers to our Lord and Gautama. + +The vice-reine came back from Ava, and continued to be very kind to Mrs. +Judson, made her explain her doctrine, caused the little catechism to be +taught to her daughter, and accepted a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew, +which was at length completed. This being finished, Mr. Judson, after +four years' study of the language, believed himself able to undertake +more public ministrations; but first went on a voyage to Chittagong, +where he hoped to find, among the Christian converts of Burmese speech, +one to assist him in communicating with the people. + +Mrs. Judson remained with the Houghs, and had the pleasure of receiving +the Burmese inquirer, whose long absence had been occasioned by his being +appointed governor of some villages in Pegu. He said he was thinking and +reading in order to become a believer. "But I cannot yet destroy my old +mind, for, when I see a handsome patso, or a handsome gounboun, {f:130} I +still desire it. Tell the great teacher, when he returns, that I wish to +see him, though I am not a disciple of Christ." She gave him the rest of +St. Matthew, and a tract to each of his attendants, and he promised that, +if the great teacher would come and see him, he would collect his +villagers to hear the new doctrine preached. There was something very +attractive, meek, and unassuming about the man's whole appearance, and of +him there was much hope; but, just about this time great anxiety fell on +the mission party. The kindly Myowoon and his wife were removed, and +immediately after a summons was sent to Mr. Hough to appear at the court- +house of the city, with the intimation, "that, if he did not tell the +whole truth they would write it in his blood." He was kept all Friday +and Saturday answering, through an interpreter, foolish questions: who +were his father and mother, how many suits of clothes he had, and the +like; all which was formally written down. On the third day, Sunday, +Mrs. Judson, resolving to ascertain whether this were really done by the +command of the Myowoon, drew up a petition, which she carried herself. +She was graciously received, and it presently appeared that an order had +really been sent for the banishment of some Portuguese priests, and that +the petty officials of the Court had taken advantage of it to harass Mr. +Hough, in the hope of extracting a reward for his liberation. + +At this time there was a terrible visitation of cholera, which the +Burmese attributed to evil spirits, and accordingly attempted to drive +away by force of noise. It was supposed that the evil spirits would take +refuge in any house that was silent, and for three whole nights cannon +were fired from the court-house, and every human creature used the utmost +powers nature or art afforded for producing a din. The mission party +were uninfected by the contagion, but it was a time of terrible anxiety, +for nothing had been heard of Mr. Judson or his ship for months; there +were reports of ill-feeling between the Burmese and British Governments, +no arrivals of English at Rangoon, and no intelligence. Mrs. Judson's +female classes had fallen off ever since Mr. Hough's summons, and the +state of things was such, that the Houghs decided on removing to Bengal. +Mrs. Judson, with her little girl, most reluctantly decided to accompany +them, but, just as the vessel in which they sailed had gone down the +river, she was ascertained not to be seaworthy; and, during this delay, +Mrs. Judson's fears of her husband's finding her gone, if he ever +returned to Rangoon, so increased, that she went back with her child to +the house, and, brave woman as she was, took up her abode there with the +native servants, trusting herself wholly to the protection of her God. +She was rewarded by her husband's arrival, after an absence of nine +months, caused by the captain of his ship having broken his engagement, +and carried him on to Madras, where he had been detained all this time +for want of a vessel to return in. The Houghs also came back, and two +young men from America soon after came out, full of zeal and activity, +but both fell ill very shortly afterwards, and the younger died, but his +fellow, Mr. Colman, became a valuable assistant. + +This era, the spring of 1819, was the first great step in the Burmese +mission. Funds had been raised by the Baptist Society in America, which +were applied to the erection of a zayat or public room, with walls of +bamboo and a thatched roof. It had two rooms, one for a school for the +women, another for the men, who gladly learnt to read and write from Mrs. +Judson and a Burmese teacher. Here, too, Mr. Judson openly held prayers +and preaching on Sunday, and these attracted many, some of whom would +come in the week for private discussion. + +The first real convert was a man of thirty-five, named Moung Nau, poor, +but of excellent character, and so intelligent, that he became a useful +assistant after his baptism, on the 27th of June, 1819. Others were +inquiring, among whom the most interesting was Moung Shwaygnong, a +schoolmaster or tutor by profession, at a village a little way from +Rangoon, and already a philosopher, "half deist, half sceptic, the first +of the sort I have seen among the Burmans" (our quotations are from Mr. +Judson's journal), who, however, worshipped at the pagodas, and conformed +to national observances. The second time he came the conversation seemed +to have made "no impression on his proud sceptical heart, yet he promised +to pray to the eternal God, through the Saviour." It appeared that, +about eight years previously, it had come before him that there is indeed +One Eternal God, and that this thought had been working in him ever +since. A copy of Mr. Judson's tract which fell in his way chimed in with +this primary belief, and next came the question of the Scripture +revelation, which he argued over with much metaphysical power and +acuteness, being a very powerful reasoner, and well trained in the +literature of his own country. Meantime three simpler minds--Moung +Thaahlah, Moung Byaay, and Moung Ing--had been thoroughly convinced, and, +though aware that they would expose themselves to considerable danger, +resolved to become Christians. + +The Viceroy had remarked the zayat, and notice was taken that men were +there led "to forsake the religion of the country." The alarm cleared +the zayat of all the audience, and emptied Mrs. Judson's class of women, +but Thaahlah {f:133} and Byaay sent in a letter, entreating to be +admitted to baptism, and Ing would have followed their example, but that +his trade as a fisherman carried him off to sea. They begged not to be +baptized openly, as Nau had been, in a piece of water near the town and +presided over by an image of Gautama; and Mr. Judson yielded so far, that +he conducted the preliminary devotions in the zayat, and baptized them in +the same pool two hours after dark. Shwaygnong had in the meantime taken +alarm at being interrogated by the Government, had apologized, and +apparently fallen away; but he could not keep aloof, and soon came back +again. After a good deal of fencing and putting forth metaphysical +cavils, he allowed that it was all for the sake of experiment, and +declared that he really believed both in God and in the Atonement. + +"Said I," writes Mr. Judson, "knowing his deistical weakness, do you +believe all that is contained in the book of St. Matthew which I gave +you? In particular, do you believe that the Son of God died on a cross?" + +"Ah!" he replied, "you have caught me now. I believe that He suffered +death, but I cannot admit that He suffered the shameful death of the +cross." + +"Therefore," said I, "you are not a disciple of Christ. A true disciple +inquires not whether a fact is agreeable to his own reason, but whether +it is in the Book. His pride has yielded to Divine testimony. Teacher, +your pride is unbroken. Break down your pride, and yield to the Word of +God." + +He stopped and thought. "As you utter these words," said he, "I see my +error. I have been trusting in my own reason, not in the Word of God." + +Some interruption now occurred. When we were again alone, he said, "This +day is different from all the days on which I have visited you. I see my +error in trusting to my own reason, and I now believe the Crucifixion of +Christ, because it is contained in the Scripture." + +The profession of Christianity had become more perilous since the +Judsons' arrival in Burmah. The old Emperor had died in 1819, and had +been succeeded by his grandson, who was far more zealous for Buddhism +than he had been, and who had appointed a viceroy at Rangoon, very minute +in exacting observances--so much so, as to put forth an edict forbidding +any person with hat, shoes, umbrella, or horse, to pass through the +grounds belonging to the great pagoda, Shwaay Dagon, which extended half +a mile from the building, and were crossed by all the chief roads. At +the same time, he was new gilding the pagoda, a specially sacred one, as +containing some bits of hair of Gautama. + +It was plain that the mission had little chance of succeeding, unless +some sanction could be obtained from royalty; and Mr. Judson therefore +determined to go to Ava and petition the Emperor to grant him permission +to teach at Rangoon. So he obtained a pass from the Viceroy "to go up to +the golden feet, and lift up our eyes to the golden face," and hired a +boat to take him and Mr. Colman, with ten oarsmen, a headman, a +steersman, a washerman, and two cooks, of whom Moung Nau was one. They +had invited Shwaygnong to accompany them, but he refused, though he +appeared waving his hand to them on the bank as they pushed off from the +land. They took with them, as the most appropriate present, a Bible, +bound in six volumes, in gold leaf, intending to ask permission to +translate it. + +They arrived at Ava on the 28th of January, 1820, and beheld the gilded +roofs of the pagodas and palace. Two English residents welcomed them, +and Mya-day-men, the Viceroy who had been their friend at Rangoon, +undertook to present them to the Emperor. + +They were taken to the palace, and were explaining their wishes to the +Prime Minister, Moung Zah, when it was announced that "the golden foot +was about to advance," and he had to hasten to attend the Emperor. The +dome whither the missionaries followed him was dazzling with splendour, +very lofty, and supported on pillars entirely covered with gold, and +forming long avenues, through one of which the Emperor advanced alone, +with the proud gait and majesty of an Eastern monarch, with a +gold-sheathed sword in his hand. Every one prostrated his forehead in +the dust except the two Americans, who merely knelt with folded hands. He +paused before them, and demanded who they were. + +"The teachers, great king," replied Mr. Judson. + +"What? You speak Burmese--the priests that I heard of last night? When +did you arrive? Are you like the Portuguese priests? Are you married?" +and so on, he asked; then placing himself on a high seat, with his hand +on the hilt of his sword, he listened to the petition read aloud by Moung +Zah. He then held out his hand for it; Moung Zah crawled forward and +gave it; the Emperor read it through to himself, and held out his hand +for the little tract which was handed to him in like manner. The hearts +of the missionaries throbbed with hope and prayer; but, after reading the +two first sentences, the Emperor threw it from him, and when the gift was +presented would not notice it. The answer communicated through Moung Zah +was: "In regard to the objects of your petition, his Majesty gives no +order. In regard to your sacred books, his Majesty has no use for them; +take them away." Something was said of Colman's skill in medicine; upon +which the Emperor desired that both should be taken to the Portuguese +priest, who acted as his physician, to ascertain whether they could be +useful in that line, and then lay down on his cushions to listen to +music. + +They were taken two miles to the residence of the Portuguese, who of +course perceived that they brought no wonderful secret of medicine, and +then returned to their boat. They afterwards saw Moung Zah in private, +and heard that the Burmese laws tolerated foreign religions, but that +there was no security for natives who embraced them, and that it was an +unpardonable offence even to propose it. The English collector went to +the Emperor, but could obtain nothing from him but permission for them to +return to Rangoon, where they might find some of their countrymen to +teach. There was no actual prohibition against teaching Burmese +subjects, but there was no security that the converts would not be +persecuted; and the collector told them that fifteen years previously a +Burmese teacher who had been converted by the Portuguese, and had even +visited Rome, was denounced on his return by his nephew and commanded to +recant. On his refusal, he was tortured with the iron mall--hammered, +namely, from his feet upwards till he was all one livid wound as far as +his breast, pronouncing the name of Christ at every blow. Some persons +at last told the Emperor that he was a mere madman, on which he was +spared, and the Portuguese contrived to send him away to Bengal, where he +died. The nephew was high in the favour of the present Sovereign, who +was besides far more attached than his grandfather had ever been to the +Buddhist doctrine. Only four Portuguese clergy were in the country, and +they confined themselves to ministrations to the descendants of the +converts of the old Jesuit mission, instead of attempting to extend their +Church. Nothing was to be done but to return to Rangoon, and for this a +passport was necessary, the obtaining of which cost thirty dollars in +presents. Mr. Judson was advised also to procure a royal order for +personal protection, otherwise, when it became known that the royal +patronage had been refused, he might be molested by ill-disposed persons; +but finding that this would be exceedingly costly, he preferred "trusting +in the Lord to keep us and our poor disciples." + +It was encouraging that at Pyece, a place on the banks of the Irrawaddy, +the missionaries met Shwaygnong, who had come thither to visit a sick +friend, and came on board eagerly to know the result of their journey. +They told him all, even of the good confession beneath the iron mall, and +he seemed less affected and intimidated than they expected, though he had +nearly made up his mind to cast in his lot with them. "If I die, I shall +die in a good cause," he said. "I know it is the cause of truth." And +then he repeated his actual faith: "I believe in the Eternal God, in His +Son Jesus Christ, in the Atonement which Christ has made, and in the +writings of the Apostles as the true and one Word of God." He also said +he had never, since their last conversation, lifted up his folded hands +before a pagoda, though on the day of worship, to avoid persecution, he +would walk up one side of the building and down the other. To this Mr. +Judson replied, "You may be a disciple of Christ in heart, but you are +not a full disciple. You have not faith and resolution enough to keep +all the commands of Christ, particularly that which commands you to be +baptized though in the face of persecution and death. Consider the words +of JESUS--'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.'" + +He listened in profound silence, and with the manner with which he always +received what he considered deeply; but there was still a long struggle +to come, and many fluctuations, and the simpler minds were the stay and +comfort of the missionaries, when on their return to Rangoon they +considered what steps to take. Their first proposal was to move to a +district between Bengal and Arracan, where were several Christian natives +now destitute of a pastor, and where the language was very like Burmese, +though the place was beyond the power of the Emperor, and to take their +three baptized converts with them. Nau and Thaahlah were ready to follow +them everywhere, but Byaay was married, and no Burmese woman was allowed +to leave the country. He, with several others who were on the point of +conversion, entreated the missionaries not to leave them, and Thaahlah +made a remarkable speech. "Be it remembered," he said, "that this work +is not yours or ours, but the work of God. If He give light, the +religion will spread." + +It was decided, according to the earnest wish of these poor people, that +they should not be deserted till there were enough of them to form a +congregation and have a teacher from among themselves set over them, and +this--as the sect to which the Judsons belonged has no form of setting +apart for the ministry--was all that they regarded as requisite. The +Arracan converts were not, however, to be neglected, and Mr. Colman +therefore was to go to Chittagong, and there establish a station, which +might receive those from Rangoon in case it should become needful to +leave the place. He was doing well there, when he died from an attack of +fever. + +The Judsons remained, and held their worship in the zayat on Sunday with +the doors closed and only the initiated present; but it seemed as if the +fear of losing their teachers quickened the zeal of the Christian +converts in bringing their friends to inquire. Shwaygnong had long been +unconsciously preparing the way by his philosophical instructions, going +so much deeper than the popular Buddhism, and he brought several of his +pupils, both male and female, telling them that "he had found the true +wisdom;" but he still hung back. {f:137} Mr. Judson suspected him of +wanting a companion of his own rank to keep him in countenance, and +doubted whether it were fear of the world or pride of heart that kept him +back; but he seems to have had a genuine battle with his own sceptical +spirit, and the acceptance of such ordinances as the Baptists required +was a difficulty to him. Four or five later converts were baptized +before him, and at last he kept away from the mission for so long that +Mr. Judson thought they had lost him; but when he reappeared it turned +out that he had been ill with fever, and had had much sickness in his +family, and had meantime fought out his mental conflict, and made up his +mind to the full acceptance of Christianity at all risks. + +He came again with five disciples, one of them a woman of fifty-one years +old, named Mah-menlay, with her husband, all formally requesting baptism; +but Mr. Judson was not sufficiently satisfied of the earnestness of any +to receive them at once, excepting Shwaygnong himself, whom Mr. Judson +kept till evening; and then, after reading the history of St. Philip's +baptism of the Ethiopian, and praying, led him down to the water in the +woods and baptized him, like others, in the pool, by the light of the +stars in the tropical night. That same night Mah-menlay came back, +entreating so earnestly for baptism, that she, too, was led down to the +water and baptized. "Now," she said, "I have taken the oath of +allegiance to JESUS CHRIST, and I have nothing to do but to commit +myself, soul and body, to the hands of my Lord, assured that He will +never suffer me to fall away." + +This was the last thing before the Judsons embarked for Serampore, a +journey necessitated by a severe attack of liver complaint, from which +Mrs. Judson had long been suffering and their little girl had also died. + +To these devoted people a visit to Calcutta was a change for the sake of +health! On their return, after half a year's absence, the first thing +they heard was that their kind friend Mya-day-men had come as Myowoon to +Rangoon, and they were met on the wharf by all their disciples, led by +Shwaygnong, in a state of rapture. They found that such as had lived in +the yard of the mission had been subjected to a petty official +persecution, which had made them fly to the woods; but that the good Mya- +day-men had refused to hear an accusation brought against Moung +Shwaygnong by the lamas and officials of the village, who had him before +the tribunal, accusing him of trying "to turn the priest's rice-pot +bottom upwards." + +"What matters it," said the Myowoon; "let the priests turn it back +again." + +This was enough to ensure the safety of the Christians during his +viceroyalty, though at first he paid little attention to Mr. Judson, +being absorbed in grief for the death of his favourite daughter, one of +the wives of the Emperor. She does not seem to have been the child of +the amiable Vice-reine, or, as her title had now become, +Woon-gyee-gaadaw, who had been promoted to the right of riding in a +_wau_, a vehicle carried by forty or fifty men, but who had not forgotten +Mrs. Judson, and received her affectionately. + +There were now twenty-five disciples. Ing likewise joined them having +returned from his voyage, and was shortly after baptized. Mah-menlay +opened a school for little girls, and Shwaygnong was regularly engaged by +Mr. Judson to revise his translation of the Epistle to the Ephesians and +the first part of the Book of Acts, before they were printed. Another +remarkable man came to study the subject, Moung Long, a philosopher of +the most metaphysical kind, whose domestic conversations with his wife +were reported to be of this description.--The wife would tell him, "The +rice is ready." + +"Rice! what is rice? Is it matter or spirit? Is it an idea or a +nonentity?" + +If she answered, "It is matter," he would reply, "And what is matter? Are +you sure there is such a thing in existence, or are you merely subject to +a delusion of the senses?" + +Mr. Judson was struck with the expression of this man's one eye, which +had "as great a quantity of being as half-a-dozen common eyes." After +the first exposition of the Christian doctrine, the philosopher began +with extreme suavity and politeness: "Your lordship says that in the +beginning God created one man and one woman. I do not understand (I beg +your lordship's pardon) what a man is, and why he is called a man." + +Mr. Judson does not record his own line of argument, only that the +Buddhist sceptic was foiled, and Shwaygnong, who had often argued with +him, was delighted to see his old adversary posed. He came again and +again, and so did his wife, the ablest woman whom Mrs. Judson had met, +asking questions on the possibility of sin finding entrance to a pure +mind, and they were soon promising catechumens; but in the midst of all +this hopefulness, a season of cholera and fever set in, both the Judsons +were taken ill at the same time, and could not even help one another, and +the effect on Ann's health was such that, as the only means of saving her +life, she was sent off at once to England, while her husband remained at +his post quite alone, for Colman had died a martyr to the climate. + +She was warmly welcomed by the Missionary Societies in London and +Edinburgh, and thence returned to America, where her mother and sisters +were still living to hail her return. Her narratives, backed by her +natural sweetness, eloquence and beauty, had a great effect in stirring +up the mission spirit among both her countrymen and countrywomen, and +there was no lack of recruits willing to return with her and share her +toil. + +The account of Colman's devotion and death had had an especial effect +upon a young girl named Sarah Hall, of Salem, Massachusetts, one of those +natures that seem peculiarly gifted with poetic enthusiasm, yet able to +stand the brunt of the severest test of practice. She was the daughter +of one of those old-fashioned New England families, where a considerable +amount of prosperity and a good deal of mental culture is compatible with +much personal homely exertion. As the eldest of thirteen, Sarah had to +work hard, but all the time she kept a prim little journal, recording, at +an age when one is surprised to see her able to write at all, that her +mother is too busy to let her go to school, and she must improve herself +at home; and this she really did, for her notes, as she grew older, speak +of studying Butler's Analogy, Paley's Evidences, logic, geometry, and +Latin. Her library of poetry is said to have consisted only of Thomson's +Castle of Indolence, and Macpherson's Ossian; but hymns must have filled +her ear with the ring of rhyme, for she was continually versifying, +sometimes passages of Scripture, sometimes Ossian, long before she was +halfway through her teens. Very foolish, sing-song, emotional specimens +they are, but notable as showing the bent of nature that forms itself +into heroism. Her family were Baptists, and she was sixteen when the +sense of religion came on her so strongly as to lead her to seek baptism. +Remarkably enough, the thought of the ignorance of the heathen, and the +desire to teach them, began to haunt her from that time, and is recorded +in the last page of her childish journal, dated a month later than her +baptism. + +In fact, her zeal seems to have been pretty strong towards the persons +around her. While staying at a friend's house, she found a pack of cards +left by a young man on the table, and wrote on it the text beginning, +"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth," &c. Hearing that +the owner was very curious to know the perpetrator, she wrote down this +verse for him: + + "And wouldst thou know what friend sincere + Reminds thee of thy day of doom? + Repress the wish, yet thou mayst hear + She shed for thee a pitying tear, + For thine are paths of gloom." + +She also says that she had been for six weeks engaged, with the +assistance of a gentleman, in working out proofs of the immortality of +the soul, apart from those in Scripture. She had prayer-meetings for her +young friends in her own room, and distributed tracts in the town, while +still acting at home, as her mother's right hand, among her little +brothers and sisters. + +But her vocation she felt to be for missionary life. At one time she +thought of joining a mission to the Red Indians, and her verses were full +of the subject. Her ode on Colman's death expressed the feeling of her +soul in the verse: + + "The spirit of love from on high + The hearts of the righteous hath fired; + Lo! they come, and with transport they cry, + 'We will go where our brother expired, + And labour and die.'" + +The words fall sadly short of the feeling,--a very real one, but the ode +not only satisfied Sarah's critics and obtained circulation, but it fired +the heart of George Dana Boardman, a young student at Waterville College, +intended for the Baptist ministry; and he never rested till he had found +out the authoress, met her, and asked her to be his partner in "labouring +and dying," as Colman had done before them. + +There was no illusion in her mind; she knew her task would be full of +toil and suffering; but her feeling was the desire to devote her whole +self to the work of the Redeemer, who had done so much for her. Mr. and +Mrs. Hall were at first reluctant, but after a time heartily consented, +and she was introduced to Mrs. Judson as a future companion in her toils. +With very questionable taste, some of her friends insisted on her reading +her own elegy on Colman, aloud, before a whole circle of friends that +they might see Mrs. Judson listen to it. Blushes and refusals were of no +avail; she was dragged out, and the paper thrust into her hand; she +began, faltering, but as she proceeded the strong purpose of her soul +inspired her, and she ended with firmness and enthusiasm--but was so +overpowered that, without daring to look up and see that Mrs. Judson's +eyes were overflowing, she crept away to hide in a corner the burning +tears on her own cheeks. Twenty years after she spoke of it as one of +the most painful moments of her life. + +At first it had been proposed that Mr. Boardman and Sarah should +accompany Mrs. Judson on her return, but it was thought better that he +should spend a little more time on his studies, and Ann Judson therefore +sailed in 1823, with Mr. and Mrs. Wade as her companions. + +In the meantime Judson himself had been going on with his work at +Rangoon, among many troubles. + +Another accusation was drawn up by the lamas against Shwaygnong, and the +Viceroy, on reading it, pronounced him worthy of death; but before he +could be arrested, he took boat, came down to the mission-house with his +family, obtained a supply of tracts and portions of Scripture, and then +secretly fled up the river to a town named Shway-doung, where he began to +argue and distribute the tracts. So little regular communication was +there between different places in Burmah, that this could be done with +comparative safety; but the accusation and his flight created so much +alarm at Rangoon, that Mr. Judson had to shut up the zayat, and only +assemble his converts in the mission-house. They suffered another loss +in Moung Thaahlah, their second convert, who died of cholera, after +nineteen hours' illness. He had seven months before married a young +Christian woman, this being the first Burmese Christian wedding; and as +he was a youth of much promise and good education, he was a serious loss +to the mission. All this time Mr. Judson was alone, until the arrival of +Jonathan Price, who had wisely qualified himself to act as a physician, +and no sooner did a report of his skill reach Ava, than the King sent for +him; and as he had no time to learn the language, Judson went with him as +interpreter. Dr. Price says, "The King is a man of small stature, very +straight, steps with a natural air of superiority, but has not the least +appearance of it in conversation. He wears a red, finely-striped silk +cloth from his waist to his knees, and a blue-and-white handkerchief on +his head. He has apparently the good of his people as well as the glory +of his kingdom at heart, and is encouraging foreign merchants, and +especially artisans to settle in his capital. A watchmaker at this +moment could obtain any favour he should please to ask." + +As soon as the missionaries arrived, he sent for them and received them +in an open court, where they were seated on a bamboo floor about ten feet +from his chair. He took no notice of Judson, except as an interpreter, +but interrogated Price as to his skill in surgery, sent for his +medicines, looked at them and at his instrument, and was greatly amused +with his galvanic battery; he then dismissed them with orders to choose a +spot on which a house should be built for them, and to look up the +diseased to try Price's skill upon. + +Moung Zah, the former minister, recognized Judson kindly, and after a +time the King took notice of him: "You in black, what are you, a medical +man too?" + +"Not a medical man, but a teacher of religion, your Majesty." + +After a few questions about his religion the King proceeded to ask +whether any Burmese had embraced it. + +"Not here," diplomatically said Judson. + +"Are there any in Rangoon?" + +"There are a few." + +"Are they foreigners?" + +Mr. Judson says he trembled for the consequences of an answer, but the +truth must be spoken at all risks, and he replied, "Some foreigners and +some Burmese." + +The King showed no displeasure, but asked questions on religion, +geography, and astronomy, as though his temper was quite changed. His +brother, a fine young man of twenty-eight, who suffered from paralysis, +became a patient of Dr. Price, and had much conversation with Judson, +showing great eagerness for instruction. He assured the missionaries +that under the present reign there was no danger to the native +Christians, and after a successful operation for cataract, performed by +Dr. Price, the missionaries were so much in favour that while Price +remained at Ava and there married a native lady, Judson was desired only +to go back to Rangoon to meet his wife on her return, and bring her to +reside at Ava. + +Their good and tolerant friend, the Viceroy, was dead, and his successor +was a severe and unjust man, so that the people had fled in numbers from +the place, and few Christians remained except at Moung Shwaygnong's +village. There was thus the less to leave, when in December 1823 Mrs. +Judson safely arrived, and two fresh missionaries with her, to whom the +flock at Rangoon could be left. There is a most happy letter written on +the voyage up the Irrawaddy to Ava, when it seemed as though all the +troubles and difficulties of four years had been smoothed away. The +mission had been kindly welcomed at Ava, and established in the promised +house, when the first of the English wars with Burmah broke out, on +grounds on which it is needless to enter. It is enough to say that after +many mutual offences, Sir Archibald Campbell, with a fleet and army, +entered Rangoon, and occupied it without resistance, the Viceroy being +absent at the time. + +The Court of Ava were exceedingly amazed at the insolence of the +foreigners. An army supposed to be irresistible was sent off, dancing +and singing, in boats down the river, and all the fear was lest the alarm +should drive away the white strangers with the "cock-feather chief" +before there was time to catch any for slaves. A lady sent a commission +for four to manage the affairs of her household, as she heard they were +trustworthy; a courtier, for six to row his boat. + +The capture of Rangoon was supposed by national pride to be wholly owing +to the treachery of spies, and three English merchants were fixed upon as +those spies and put under arrest. The King was advised likewise to +secure the persons of the missionaries, but he answered, "They are quiet +men; let them alone." Unfortunately, however, a receipt for some money +paid to Adoniram Judson was found among the papers of one of the +merchants, and this to the Burmese mind was proof of his complicity in +the plot. Suddenly, an official, accompanied by a dozen men, one of whom +had his face marked with spots, to denote his being an executioner, made +his appearance demanding Mr. Judson. "You are called by the King," said +the official, and at the same moment the executioner produced a cord, +threw Mr. Judson on the floor, and tied his arms behind his back. His +wife vainly offered money to have his arms unbound, and he was led away, +the faithful Ing following at a distance to see what was done with him, +while Mrs. Judson retired to her room and poured out her soul "to Him who +for our sakes was bound and led away to execution," and great was her +comfort even in that moment. She was immediately after summoned to be +examined by a magistrate in the verandah, and after hastily destroying +all journals and papers, went out to meet him. He took down her name and +age, those of four little Burmese girls she had charge of, and of two +Bengal servants; pronounced them all slaves to the King, and set a guard +over them. Mrs. Judson fastened herself and her children into the inner +room, while the guards threatened her savagely if she would not show +herself, and even put her servants' feet in the stocks till she had +obtained their release by promises of money. + +Moung Ing had ascertained that his master was in prison; and when, after +the most dreadful night she had ever spent, she sent him again in the +morning, with a piece of silver to obtain admittance, he brought word +that both Judson and Price, with the three English merchants, were in the +death-prison, each wearing three pairs of iron fetters and fastened to a +long pole. Mrs. Judson immediately sent to the governor of the city with +an entreaty to be allowed to visit him with a present. This procured her +a favourable reception, and he promised to make the condition of the +prisoners more comfortable, but told her that she must consult his head +writer as to the means. This man, a brutal-looking fellow, extorted from +her a huge bribe, and then promised to release the two teachers from the +pole, and to put them into another building where she might send them +food daily, and pillows and mats to sleep on. She obtained an order for +an interview with her husband, whose looks were so wretched and ghastly +that she lost no time in fulfilling these exorbitant demands. + +Her hope was in a petition to the Queen, but being under arrest herself, +she could not go to the Queen in person, and had to approach her through +her sister-in-law--a proud, haughty dame, who received her in the most +cold, discouraging manner, but who undertook to present the petition. She +then went to the prison again, but the head writer would not allow her to +enter; and on her return home she found that all the property in the +mission-house was to undergo a scrutiny; but this was humanely done, and +was only inventoried, not seized--_i.e._ the King did not seize it, but +the officials helped themselves to whatever took their fancy. The next +day the Queen's answer was obtained--"He is not to be executed; let him +remain where he is." + +The poor lady's heart fainted within her, but she thought of the widow +and the unjust judge, and persevered day after day in applying to every +member of the royal family or of Government to entreat for her husband's +liberation. The King's mother, sisters, and brother were all interested +in his favour, but none of them ventured to apply direct to the King lest +they should offend the favourite Queen. All failed, but the hopes that +from time to time were excited, kept up the spirits of the sufferers. +During the long weary months while the missionaries continued in fetters, +_i.e._ chained by the feet to a bar of bamboo, Mrs. Judson was often not +allowed to visit them for ten days at a time, and then only by walking to +the prison after dark, two miles, unattended. She could, however, +communicate with her husband by means of the provisions she sent him +daily. At first she used to write on the dough of a flat cake, which she +afterwards baked and concealed in a bowl of rice, while he answered by +writing on a tile, where the inscription disappeared when dry but was +visible when wet; but latterly they found it most convenient to write on +a roll of paper hidden in the long nose of a coffee-pot, in which tea was +sent to the prisoners. + +Mrs. Judson delighted to send him little surprises, once a mince-pie, +which Moung Ing carried with the utmost pride to his imprisoned master. +Mrs. Judson found herself obliged to wear the native dress, though she +was so much taller than the Burmese women that she could be hardly taken +for one of them. It was a becoming dress; her hair was drawn into a knot +on the forehead, with a cocoa-blossom, like a white plume, drooping from +it; a saffron vest open in front to show a crimson tunic below; and a +tight skirt of rich silk, sloping down behind, made her look to +advantage, so that her husband liked to remember her as she stood at his +prison door. She never was allowed to come further. + +For twenty days she was absent, and then she came with a tiny, pale, +wailing, blue-eyed baby on her breast. Poor Judson, clanking up to the +door in his chains to welcome his little daughter, commemorated his +feelings in some touching verses ending:-- + + "And when in future years + Thou know'st thy father's tongue, + These lines will show thee how he felt, + How o'er his babe he sung." + +Every defeat by the European forces added to the perils of captives. A +favourite old general named Bundoolah had promised, when sent to command +the army against Rangoon, that he would release all the white prisoners +on his return as a conqueror; and when he was totally defeated, the wrath +of the Burmese was so great that at this time the King himself seems to +have scarcely acted at all. He was gentle, indolent and indifferent, +more intelligent than those around him, scarcely a Buddhist in belief, +and very kind-hearted: indeed Judson believed that it was his +interposition alone that prevented the lives of the captives from being +taken at once; but he was demoralized by self-indulgence, and allowed +himself to be governed by his queen, the daughter of a superintendent of +gaols; and through her, by her brother, who was cruel, rapacious and +violent, and the chief author of all the sufferings inflicted on the +prisoners. Among these were seven or eight British officers, and the +King had commanded that a daily allowance of rice should be served to +these, but scarcely half of it ever reached them; Mrs. Judson did her +best to supply them as well as her husband, but their health gave way +under their sufferings, and all died but one. + +At the end of seven months, it was reported that the English army was +advancing into the interior; and in the passionate alarm thus excited, +the English captives were all loaded with five pairs of fetters and +thrown into the common prison among Burman thieves and robbers,--a +hundred in a room without a window, and that in the hottest season of the +year. Mrs. Judson again besought the governor to relieve them from this +horrible condition, by at least allowing them to sit outside the door, +and he actually shed tears at her distress, but he told her that he had +been commanded to put them all to death privately, and that he was doing +his best for them by massing them with the rest. The Queen's brother had +really given this order, but the governor delayed the execution in case +they should be required of him by the King, and they continued in this +frightful state for a whole month, until Mr. Judson sickened with violent +fever, and the governor permitted him to be removed into a little bamboo +room, six feet long and four wide, where his wife was allowed to visit +him and bring him food and medicine, she meantime living in a bamboo +house in the governor's compound, where the thermometer rose daily to 106 +degrees, but where she thought herself happy as she saw her husband begin +to recover. + +One day, however, when the governor had sent for her and was kindly +conversing with her, a servant came in and whispered to him that the +white strangers had suddenly been taken away, no one knew whither. The +governor pretended to be taken by surprise, but there could be no doubt +that he had occupied Mrs. Judson to hinder her from witnessing the +removal; and it was not till the evening that she learnt that the +prisoners had been taken to Umerapoonah, whither she proceeded with her +three months old baby and one servant. There she found that the +prisoners had been sent on two hours before to a sort of penal settlement +called Oung-pen-lay, whither she followed, to find her husband in a +lamentable state. He had been dragged out of his little room, allowed no +clothing but his shirt and trowsers, a rope had been tied round his +waist, and he had been literally driven ten miles in the hottest part of +the day. His feet were so lacerated that he was absolutely falling, when +a servant of one of the merchants tore a piece from his turban, and this +wrapped round his feet enabled him to proceed, but he could not stand for +six weeks after; indeed the scars remained for life. In this state he +lay chained to Dr. Price. The intention was to sacrifice them both, in +order to obtain success for an intended expedition; but before this could +be done, a different woongye, or prime minister, came in, and their +condition was somewhat improved, for they only wore one bamboo, through +two slits in which their feet were forced, and they were allowed to crawl +into the enclosure. Meantime, a poor lion, once a great favourite, which +was thought to be connected with the lions on the English colours, was +placed in a bamboo cage in sight of the prisoners, and there starved to +death, in hopes of thus abating the force of the enemy. When its carcase +was removed, Mr. Judson, at his own earnest entreaty, was allowed the +reversion of its cage, and there, to his great joy, Moung Ing brought him +his MS. translation of part of the Burmese Bible, which he had kept in +his pillow at Ava till it was torn away by the jailors on his removal. +The faithful Ing, thinking only to secure a relic of his master, had +picked up the pillow and secured the treasure. + +Solitude was the greatest boon to Judson, whose fastidious delicacy +suffered greatly in the thronged prison, but his faithful Ann was +suffering terribly. One of the little Burmese girls who lived with her +had caught the small-pox, and was very ill: Mrs. Judson inoculated the +other child and her own little Maria, but Maria's inoculation did not +take effect, and she caught the disease, and had it very severely. Then +Mrs. Judson herself fell ill of a fever, and remained for two months +unable to visit her husband, both of them owing all their food to the +exertions of their good Bengalee cook. Poor little Maria was nearly +starved, no milk was to be had, and the only food she obtained was when +the jailers were bribed to let her father carry her round the village to +beg a little nourishment from the nursing mothers. Her moans at night +rent the heart of her sick mother, and it is scarcely possible to imagine +how either survived. By this time, the English troops were so far +advancing that the King was reduced to negotiate, and, being in need of +an interpreter, he sent an order for Mr. Judson's release; but as his +wife was not named in it, she had great difficulty in effecting her +departure, and half-way through the journey a guard came down and carried +him off to Ava without her. Arriving next day, she found him in prison, +but under orders to embark in a little boat and go at once to the camp at +Maloun. She hastened to prepare all that was needful for his comfort, +but all was stolen except a mattress, pillow, and one blanket. The boat +had no awning, and was so crowded that there was no room to lie down for +the three days and three nights of alternate scorching heat and heavy +dew; there was no food but a bag of refuse-rice, and the banks on either +side of the Irrawaddy were bordered with glittering white sand, which in +sunlight emitted a metallic glare intolerable to the eyes, and heat like +a burning furnace. The fever returned upon Judson, and, when he reached +Maloun, he was almost helpless; but he found himself lodged in a small +bamboo hut in the middle of the white sand, where he could not admit air +by rolling up the matting without letting in the distressing glare, and +where the heat reflected from the sand was like a furnace. He could not +stir when the officers came to summon him to the presence of the Burmese +general, and they thought it stubbornness, and threatened him; then they +brought him papers and commanded him to translate them, while he writhed +in torture and only longed that the fever in his brain would deprive him +of his senses. This it must have done, for he had only a confused +impression of feet around him, and of fancying that he was going to be +burnt alive, until he found himself on a bed in a somewhat cooler room. +As he lay there, papers were continually brought him to explain and +translate, and he found that the greatest difficulty was in making the +Burmese understand that a State paper could mean what it said, or that +truth and honesty were possible. Sometimes, as he tried to explain the +commonest principle: of good faith and fair dealing among Christian +nations, his auditors would exclaim, "That is noble," "That is as it +should be;" but then they would shake their heads and say, "The teacher +dreams; he has a heavenly spirit, and so he thinks himself in the land of +the dwellers in heaven." + +He remained here six weeks, suffering much at night from cold, for his +only covering was a small rug and his well-worn blanket. Then, on the +advance of the English, he was sent back to Ava, but was marched straight +to the court-house without being suffered to halt for a moment at his own +abode, to discover whether his wife was there. He was placed in a shed, +guarded all day, and left without food, till Moung Ing found him out in +the evening, and replied to his questions, that the Mamma Judson and the +child were well; yet there was something about his manner that was +unsatisfactory, and Judson, thinking it over, became terribly uneasy, and +in the morning, being sent for by the governor of the jail, obtained +permission to go to his own house. + +At the door he saw a fat, half-naked Burmese woman with a child in her +arms, so dark with dirt that it never occurred to him that it could be +his own; and entering, he found, lying across the foot of the bed, his +wife, ghastly white and emaciated, her hair all cut away, and her whole +appearance that of a corpse. She woke as he knelt down by her in +despair! She had been ill all this time with a horrible spotted fever. +The day she had fallen ill, the Burmese woman had offered to take charge +of little Maria, and the Bengalee cook had attended on her. Dr. Price +was released from prison and had cut off her hair, bled, and blistered +her, but she could hardly move when the tidings came of her husband being +in the town, and she had sent Moung Ing to him. The husband and wife +were at last together again, and Dr. Price was sent to conduct the treaty +at the English camp. + +As soon as Sir Archibald Campbell heard of the sufferings of the Judsons, +he demanded them as well as the English subjects; but the King was aware +that they were not English, and would not let them go. This attempt at a +treaty failed; but its failure, and the alarm consequent upon a report of +the advance of the English, led to Mr. Judson's being sent off, almost by +force, with two officials, to promise a ransom if Ava were spared. Sir +Archibald Campbell undertook that the city should not be attacked, +provided his terms were complied with before he reached it; and among +these was the stipulation that not only English subjects, but all +foreigners should have free choice whether to go or to stay. Some of the +officials tried to persuade Mr. Judson to stay, declaring that he would +become a great man, but he could not refuse the freedom offered him after +such cruel sufferings, and he was wont to declare that the joy of finding +himself floating down the Irrawaddy in a boat with his wife and baby, +made up for their twenty-one months of peril and misery. + +They were received with courtesy, and indeed with gratitude, respect, and +veneration at the English camp. The Englishmen who had been in captivity +bore witness to the kindness with which Mrs. Judson had relieved their +wants, as well as those of her husband: how she had brought them food, +mended their clothes, obtained new ones, and, as they believed, by her +arguments and appeals to the ignorant and barbarous Government, had not +only saved their lives, but convinced the authorities of the necessity of +accepting the British terms of peace. + +These terms included the cession of a large portion of the Burmese +territory; and this it was that decided the missionaries to leave Ava; +for the state of exasperation and intolerance into which this brought the +Court, made it vain to think of continuing to give instruction where they +would be regarded with enmity and suspicion. Meantime, the officers in +the English camp, who had not seen a lady for nearly two years, could not +make enough of the graceful, gentle woman, so pale and fragile, yet such +a dauntless heroine, and always ready to exert herself beyond her +strength for every sufferer who came in her way. + +There was a curious scene at a dinner given to the Burmese commissioners, +in a magnificent tent, with all the military pomp the camp could furnish. +When Sir Archibald appeared with Mrs. Judson on his arm, and seated her +by his side, there was such a look of discomfiture on the faces of the +guests, that he asked her if they were not old acquaintance who had +treated her ill. "That fellow with the pointed beard," he said, "seems +taken with an ague fit." Then Mrs. Judson told how, when her husband lay +in a burning fever with the five pairs of fetters, she had walked several +miles with a petition to this man, had been kept waiting till the +noontide sun was at its height, and not only was she refused, but as she +departed her silk umbrella was torn out of her hand by his greediness; +and when she begged at least to let her have a paper one to go home with, +the officer only laughed at her, and told her that she was too thin to be +in danger of a sunstroke! The English gentlemen could not restrain their +countenances at least from expressing their indignation; and the Burmese, +who thought she was asking for their heads, or to have them laid out in +the sun with weights upon their chests, were yellow with fright, and +trembled visibly. Mrs. Judson kindly turned to them with a smile, +assuring them that they had nothing to fear, and, on repeating her words +to Sir Archibald Campbell, he confirmed them to the frightened +barbarians. + +That visit to the English camp was one of the few spaces of comfort or +repose in those busy lives. It concluded by the husband and wife being +forwarded to their old home at Rangoon. + +It was in the height of the war, when anxieties for the fate of Mr. and +Mrs. Judson were at the utmost, that, on the 4th of July, 1825, George +Boardman and Sarah Hall were married, and sailed for Calcutta, thinking +it possible that they might find their predecessors martyred, and that +they were coming "to step where their comrades stood." + +At Calcutta they found Mr. and Mrs. Wade, who had with great difficulty +escaped, and soon after they heard of the rescue of the Judsons, and +welcomed Dr. Price. Rangoon, in the meantime, had been occupied by the +English, and then besieged by the Peguans; the mission-house was ruined, +and the people dispersed, and Moung Shwaygnong had died of cholera, +faithful to the last. The city was to be restored to the Burmese, and +the King, though willing to employ Judson politically, refused toleration +to his subjects; so that, as the provinces on the Martaban river were to +be ceded to the English, it seemed wise to take advantage of the +reputation which the Judsons had established to found a mission-station +under their protection in the new town of Amherst, which Sir Archibald +Campbell proposed to build on the banks of the Martaban river. + +Hither was transported the old zayat of Rangoon; and Mount Ing, Moung +Shwaba, and a few other of the flock accompanied their teachers, to form +the nucleus of the mission. Sir Archibald Campbell had made a great +point of Mr. Judson's accompanying the English embassy that was to +conclude the treaty at Ava; and he, hoping to obtain something for the +Christian cause, complied, leaving that most brave and patient woman, his +wife, with her little delicate girl, in a temporary house in Amherst, +which, as yet, consisted only of barracks, officers' houses, and fifty +native huts by the riverside in the space of freshly-cleared jungle. +There she set to work with energy that enfeebled health could not daunt, +to prepare the way for the Wades and the Boardmans, to superintend a +little school, of which Moung Ing was master, and to have a house built +for her husband. + +She had just moved into it, when she was attacked with remittent fever, +and, though attended by an English army surgeon and nursed by a soldier's +wife, she sank under it, and died on the 24th of October, 1826. She was +buried under a _hopia_, or, as her friends loved to call it, a hope tree; +and the Wades, coming shortly after, took charge of poor little Maria, +who lived to be embraced by her father, on his arrival after three +months' absence; but she continued to pine away, and only survived her +mother six months. + +Judson endured patiently, thought of his wife's sufferings as gems in her +crown, wrote cheerful letters, and toiled indefatigably, without breaking +down, but he was never the same man again. Amherst was probably +unhealthy, for several of the Rangoon converts died there, among them one +of the little Burmese girls who had been with Mrs. Judson throughout her +troubles. Those who died almost always spoke with joy of their hope of +seeing Mamma Judson in heaven. "But first," said one woman, "I shall +fall down before the Saviour's feet, and thank Him for sending us our +teachers." + +It was shortly before little Maria's death that Mr. and Mrs. Boardman +arrived, bringing with them a daughter born at Calcutta. Moulmein, the +town near at hand, was decided on as their station, and they removed to a +mission-house on the border of the jungle, about a mile from the +cantonments, with a beautiful range of hills behind them, and the river +in front. Opposite lay the Burman province of Martaban, which had been +desolated during the war, and was now the haunt of terrible Malay +pirates, who came and robbed in the town, and then fled securely to the +opposite bank, where they could not be pursued. The English officers had +entreated the Boardmans to reside within the cantonments, but they wished +to be among the people, so as to learn the language more readily and +become acquainted with them. + +One night, Mrs. Boardman awoke and found the lamp gone out. She rose and +re-lighted it. Every box and drawer lay overthrown and rifled, nothing +left but what the thieves deemed not worth taking. She turned round to +the mosquito curtain which concealed her husband; it was cut by two long +gashes, the one close to his head, the other to his feet. There the +robber-sentry must have kept watch, ready to destroy the sleepers if they +had wakened for a moment! Nearly every valuable had been carried away, +and not a trace of any was ever found. After this, Sir Archibald +Campbell gave them a Sepoy guard; and, as population increased, the +danger diminished. Indeed, Amherst proved an unsuccessful attempt, and +was gradually abandoned in favour of Moulmein, which became the +head-quarters both of Government and of the Mission. + +The Boardmans were specially devoted to that, because of the work which +regarded the Karens. These were a wandering race who occupied a strip of +jungle, a hilly country to the south of Burmah, living chiefly by hunting +and fishing, making canoes, and clothed in cotton cloth. They had very +scanty ideas either of religion or civilization, but were not idolaters, +and had a good many of what Judson calls the gentler virtues of savages, +though their habits were lazy and dirty. They had been a good deal +misused by the Burmese, but occasionally wandered into the cities; and +there Judson had asked questions about them which had roused the interest +of his Burman converts. During the war, one of these Burmese found a +poor Karen, named Ko-Thah-byoo, in bondage for debt, paid the amount, +made him his own servant, and, on the removal to Moulmein, brought him +thither. He proved susceptible of instruction, and full of energy and +zeal; and not only embraced Christianity heartily himself, but introduced +it to his tribe, and assisted the missionaries in acquiring the language. + +To be nearer to these people, the Boardmans removed to Tavoy, where they +had a Burmese congregation; and Mr. Boardman made an expedition among the +Karens, who were, for the most part, by no means unwilling to listen, and +with little tradition to pre-occupy their minds, as well as intelligence +enough to receive new ideas. At one place, the people were found devoted +to an object that was thought to have magic power, and which they kept +with great veneration, wrapt up in many coverings. It proved to be an +English Common Prayer Book, printed at Oxford, which had been left behind +by a Mahometan traveller. On the whole, this has been a flourishing +mission; the Karens were delighted to have their language reduced to +writing, and the influence of their teachers began to raise them in the +scale; but all was done under the terrible drawback of climate. Mrs. +Boardman never was well from the time she landed at Moulmein, and her +beautiful flower-covered house at Tavoy was the constant haunt of +sickness, under which her elder child, Sarah, died, after showing all +that precocity that white children often do in these fatal regions. A +little boy named George had by this time been born, and shared with his +mother the dangers of the Tavoy rebellion, an insurrection stirred up by +a prince of the Burmese royal blood, in hopes of wresting the province +from the English. + +One night, a Burmese lad belonging to the school close to the Boardmans' +house, was awakened by steps; and, peeping through the braided bamboo +walls of his hut, saw parties of men talking in an undertone about lost +buffaloes. Some went into the town, others gathered about the gate, and, +when their numbers began to thicken, a cloud of smoke was seen in the +morning dawn, and yells from a thousand voices proclaimed, "Tavoy has +risen!" + +Boardman awoke and rushed out to the door, but a friendly voice told him +that no harm was intended him. The revolt was against the English, and +never was a movement more perilous. The commandant, Colonel Burney, was +absent at Moulmein, the English officer next in command was ill of a +fatal disease, the gunner was ill, and the whole defence of a long, +straggling city was in the hands of a hundred Sepoys, commanded by a very +young surgeon, assisted by Mrs. Burney, who had a babe of three weeks +old. The chief of the fight was at the powder magazine, not very far +from the Boardmans' abode. It was attacked by two hundred men with +clubs, knives, spears, but happily with very few muskets, and defended by +only six Sepoys, who showed great readiness and faithfulness. Just as +their bullets seemed to be likely to endanger the frightened little +family, a savage-looking troop of natives were seen consulting, with +threatening gestures aimed at the mission-house, and Mr. Boardman, fully +expecting to be massacred, made his wife and her baby hide in a little +shed, crouching to escape the bullets; but this alarm passed off, and, at +the end of an hour, the whole of the gates had been regained by the +Sepoys, and the attack on the magazine repulsed. Mr. Boardman took this +opportunity of carrying his family to the Government house, where they +were warmly welcomed by Mrs. Burney; but it was impossible to continue +the defence of so large an extent as the town occupied, and therefore the +tiny garrison decided on retiring to a large wooden building on the +wharf, whither the Sepoys conveyed three cannon and as much powder as +they expected to want, throwing the rest down wells. This was not done +without constant skirmishing, and was not completed till three o'clock, +when the refugees were collected,--namely, a hundred Sepoys, with their +wives and children, stripped of all their ornaments, which they had +buried; some Hindoo and Burmese servants; a few Portuguese traders; a +wily old Mussulman; Mrs. Boardman and Mrs. Burney, each with her baby; +and seven Englishmen besides Mr. Boardman. Among them rode the ghastly +figure of the sick officer, who had been taken from his bed, but who +hoped to encourage his men by appearing on horseback; but his almost +orange skin, wasted form, sunken eyes, and perfect helplessness, were to +Mrs. Boardman even more terrible than the yells of the insurgents around +and the shots of their scanty escort. + +Three hundred persons were crowded together in the wooden shed, roofed +over, and supported on posts above the water, with no partitions. The +situation was miserable enough, but they trusted that the enemy, being +only armed with spears, could not reach them. By and by, however, the +report of a cannon dismayed them. The jingals, or small field-pieces, +were brought up, but not till evening; and the inexperienced rebels took +such bad aim that all the balls passed over the wharf into the sea, and +the dense darkness put a stop to the attempt; but all night the trembling +inmates were awakened by savage yells; and a Sepoy, detecting a spark of +light through the chinks of the floor, fired, and killed an enemy who had +come beneath in a boat to set fire to the frail shelter! + +In the morning the firing from the walls was renewed, but at long +intervals, for there was a great scarcity of powder, though the unhappy +besieged apprehended every moment that the right direction would be hit +upon, and then that the balls would be among them. They could send +nowhere for help, though there was a Chinese junk within their reach, for +it could not put to sea under the fire of the rebels; and two more days, +and two still more terrible nights, passed in what must have been almost +a black hole. The fifth night was the worst of all, for the town was set +on fire around, and by the light of the flames the enemy made a furious +attack; but just in time to prevent the fire from attaining the frail +wooden structure, a providential storm quenched it, and the muskets of +the Sepoys again repulsed the enemy. By this time the provisions were +all but exhausted, and there were few among even the defenders who were +not seriously ill from the alternate burning sun and drenching rain. +Death seemed hovering over the devoted wharf from every quarter; when at +last, soon after sunrise on the fifth day, the young doctor quietly +beckoned the Colonel's wife to the door that opened upon the sea, and +pointed to the horizon, where a little cloudy thread of smoke was rising. + +It was the steamer bringing Colonel Burney back, in perfect ignorance of +the peril of Tavoy and of his wife! But he understood all at a glance. +The women and children were instantly transferred to the steamer, and she +was sent back to Moulmein, but Colonel Burney and the few men who came +with him landed, and restored courage and spirit to the besieged. Not +only was a breastwork thrown up to protect the wharf, but the Colonel led +a trusty little band of Sepoys to the wall where the cannon stood, +recaptured them, and had absolutely regained Tavoy before the tidings of +the insurrection had reached Moulmein. Mrs. Burney's babe died soon +after the steamer had brought the two mothers and their infants to their +refuge; but little George Boardman did not suffer any ill effects from +these dreadful days and nights, and was, in fact, the only child of his +patents who outlived infancy. Another son, born a few months afterwards, +soon ended a feeble existence, and Mrs. Boardman was ill for many months. +Her husband, delicate from the first, never entirely recovered the +sufferings at the wharf; yet in spite of an affection of the lungs, he +would often walk twenty miles a day through the Karen villages, teaching +and preaching, and at night have no food but rice, and sleep on a mat on +the floor of an open zayat. + +The Moulmein station was a comparative rest, and the husband and wife +removed thither to supply the place of Judson and of the Wades, who were +making another attempt upon Burmah Proper; the Wades taking up their +residence at Rangoon, and Judson going on to Prome, the ancient capital, +where he preached in the zayats, distributed tracts, and argued with the +teachers in his old fashion; but the Ava Government had become far more +suspicious, and interfered as soon as he began to make anything like +progress, requesting the English officer now in residence at the Court to +remonstrate with him, and desire him not to proceed further than Rangoon. +He was obliged to yield, and again to float down the river in his little +boat, baffled, but patient and hopeful. + +A great change had come upon the bright, enthusiastic, lively young man +who had set out, with his beautiful Ann, to explore the unknown Eastern +world. Suffering of body had not altered him so much as bereavement, and +bereavement without rest in which to face and recover the shock. A +strong ascetic spirit was growing on him. Already on his first return to +Moulmein, after joining in the embassy, he had thought it right to cut +short the ordinary intercourse of society, to which his residence in the +camp had given rise, and had announced his intention in a letter to Sir +Archibald Campbell. He was much regretted, for he was a particularly +agreeable man; and it is evident, both from all testimony and from the +lively tone of his letters, that he was full of good-natured sympathy, +and, however sad at heart, was a cheerful and even merry companion. + +But through these years, throughout constant care and unrelaxed activity +of mind and body, his heart was aching for the wife he had no time to +mourn; and the agony thus suppressed led to an utter loathing for all +that he thought held him back from perfect likeness to the glorified +Saint whom he loved. He took delight in the most spiritual mystical +writings he could find,--a Kempis, Madame Guyon, Fenelon, and the +like,--and endeavoured to fulfil the Gospel measure of holiness. He gave +up his whole patrimony to the American Baptist Mission Board (now +separate from England and Serampore), mortified to the very utmost his +fastidious delicacy by ministering to the most loathsome diseases; and to +crush his love of honour, he burnt a letter of thanks for his services +from the Governor-General of India, and other documents of the same kind. +He fasted severely, and having by nature a peculiar horror of the decay +and mouldering of death, he deemed it pride and self-love, and dug a +grave beside which he would sit meditating on the appearance of the body +after death. He had a bamboo hermitage on the borders of the jungle, +where he would live on rice for weeks together--only holding converse +with those who came to him for religious instruction; and once, when worn +out with his work of translation, he went far into the depths of the +wildest jungle, near a deserted pagoda, and there sat down to read, pray, +and meditate. The next day, on returning to the spot, he found a seat of +bamboo, and the branches woven together for a shelter. Judson never +learnt whose work this was, but it was done by a loving disciple, who had +overcome the fear of tigers to provide by night for his comfort, though +the place was thought so dangerous that his safety, during the forty days +that he haunted it, was viewed by the natives as a miracle. He spent +several months in retirement. It was indeed four years after his +bereavement, but it is plain that he was taking the needful rest and calm +that his whole nature required after the shock that he had undergone, but +which he had in a manner deferred until the numbers of workers were so +increased that his constant labour could be dispensed with. He came +forth from his retirement renovated in spirit, for the second period of +his toils. + +Meantime, the Boardmans had returned to Tavoy, where they were eagerly +welcomed by their Karen flock, and found many candidates for baptism. +Weak as he was, Mr. Boardman examined them. He was sometimes able to sit +up in his chair and speak for himself, but oftener so weak that his wife +sat on his couch and interpreted his feeble whispers; but he was so happy +that tears of joy often filled his eyes. The actual baptism, performed +by going down into the water like Philip with the Ethiopian, could hardly +have been carried out by a man in his state; but Moung Ing, who had been +admitted to the pastorate, touched at Moulmein, on a mission to Mergui, +and undertook the baptisms. The Karens carried Mr. Boardman to the water +in his cot, along a street filled with lamaseries, whence the +yellow-clothed priests looked down in scorn, and the common people hooted +and reviled: "See! see your teacher, a living man borne as if he were +already dead!" with still worse unfeeling taunts. The Christians, about +fifty in number, reached the spot, a beautiful lake, nearly a mile in +circumference, and bordered by green grass overshadowed by trees. There +they all knelt down and prayed, and then Moung Ing baptized the nineteen +new disciples, while the pastor lay pale and happy, and his wife watched +him with her heart full of the last baptism, when it had been he who +poured the water and spoke the words. + +Mr. Boardman lived on into the year 1831, and welcomed a new arrival from +America, Francis Mason and his wife, on the 23rd of January, and a week +later set out to introduce the former to the Karens, a band of whom had +come down to convey the party. Mr. Boardman was carried on his bed, his +wife in a chair, and on the third day they reached a spot where the +Karens, of their own accord, had erected a bamboo chapel beside a +beautiful stream beneath a range of mountains. Nearly a hundred had +assembled there, of whom half were candidates for baptism. They cooked, +ate, and slept in the open air, but they had made a small shed for Mr. +Mason, and another for the Boardmans, too small to stand upright in, and +so ill-enclosed as to be exposed to sun by day and cold air by night. + +The sufferer rapidly became worse, but he had an ardent desire to see +this last baptism, and all the thirty-four women, who were sufficiently +prepared, were baptized in his sight, though he was so spent as scarcely +to be able to breathe without the fan and smelling-bottle. In the +evening he contrived to speak a few words of exhortation to the +disciples, and to give them each a tract or a portion of Scripture. The +next morning the party set out on their return, but in the afternoon were +overtaken by a great storm of thunder and lightning, with rain that +drenched his mattress and pillows; and when they reached a house, they +found it belonged to heathens, who would scarcely let the strange teacher +lie in the verandah. + +His cot was so wet that he was forced to lie on the bamboo floor, and the +rain continued all night. A boat was expected at twelve the next day, +and it was resolved to wait for this, while the Tavoyans looked grimly +on, and refused even to sell a chicken to make broth for the sick man. By +nine o'clock he was evidently dying, and the Karens rubbed his hands and +feet as they grew cold. Almost immediately after being conveyed to the +boat, the last struggles came on, and in a few minutes he had passed +away. He was buried at Tavoy, beside his little Sarah; all the Europeans +in the town attending, as well as a grateful multitude of Burmese and +Karens. + + "The tree to which the frail creeper clung + Still lifts its stately head, + But he, on whom my spirit hung, + Is sleeping with the dead," + +wrote Sarah Boardman; and her first thought was of course to go home with +her child, but the Masons had not learnt the languages, and had no +experience, and, without her, there would be no schools, no possibility +of instruction for the converts of either people until they could speak +freely, and she therefore resolved not to desert her work. She was +keeping school, attending to all comers, and interpreting from sunrise +till ten o'clock at night, besides having the care of her little boy, and +her schools were so good that, when the British Government established +some, orders were given for conducting them on the same system. + +She tried to learn Karen, but never had time, and it was the less needful +that a little Burmese was known to some Karens, and thus she could always +have an interpreter. She sometimes made mission tours to keep up the +spirit of the Karens till Mr. Mason should be qualified to come among +them. Her little George was carried by her attendants, and there is a +note to Mrs. Mason, sent back from one of the stages of her journey, +which shows what her travels must have been: "Perhaps you had better send +the chair, as it is convenient to be carried over the streams when they +are deep. You will laugh when I tell you that I have forded all the +smaller ones." But there is scarcely any record of these journeys of +hers, she was too modest and shy to dwell on what only related to +herself; and though she several times, with the help of her Burmese +interpreter, led the devotions of two or three hundred Karens, it was +always with a sense of reluctance, and only under necessity. + +She had been a widow four years, when Adoniram Judson, who had returned +from Rangoon, and was about to take charge of the station at Moulmein, +made her his second wife, on the 10th of April, 1834. At the same time, +an opportunity offered of sending little George back to America for +education; but year after year filled the house at Moulmein with other +little ones,--careful comforts, in that fatal climate, which had begun to +tell on the health of both the parents. Pain and sorrow went for little +with this devoted pair. To be as holy as the Apostles though without +their power, was the endeavour which Judson set before himself, and the +work of such a man was one of spirit that drew all to hear and follow +him. The Burmese converts were numbered by hundreds, and one of the +missionaries in the Karen country could write: "I no longer date from a +heathen land. Heathenism has fled from these banks; I eat the rice and +fruits cultivated by Christian hands, look on the fields of Christians, +see no dwellings but those of Christian families. I am seated in the +midst of a Christian village, surrounded by a people that live as +Christians, converse as Christians, act as Christians, and, to my eyes, +look like Christians." + +All this, like every other popular conversion, involved many individual +disappointments from persons not keeping up to the Christian standard, +and from coolness setting in when the excitement of the change was over; +and great attention had to be paid to rules, discipline, &c., as well as +to providing books and schools. Judson himself had to work hard at the +completion and correction of the Burmese Bible, to which he devoted +himself, the more entirely because an affection of the throat and cough +came on, and for some time prevented him from preaching. In 1839, he +tried to alleviate it by a voyage to Calcutta, where he was received by +both Bishop Wilson and by the Marshman family at Serampore; but, as he +observes, "the glory of Serampore had departed," and his stay there must +have been full of sad associations. His work upon the Scriptures was +finished in 1840, and he then began a complete Burmese dictionary, while +his wife was translating the Pilgrim's Progress; but both were completely +shattered in health, and their children, four in number, had all been +brought low by the hooping cough, and then by other complaints. A voyage +to Calcutta was imperatively enjoined on all; but it was stormy and full +of suffering, and soon after they arrived at Serampore their youngest +child, little Henry, died. A still further voyage was thought advisable, +and the whole family went as far as the Isle of France, where they +recovered some measure of health, and their toil at Moulmein was resumed. +Four more years passed, three more children were born, and then the +strength that had been for nineteen years so severely tried, gave way, +and the doctors pronounced that Sarah Judson's life could only be saved +by a voyage to America. The three elder children were to go with her, +but the three little ones were to remain, since their father only +intended to go as far as the Isle of France, and then return to his +labour. The last words she ever wrote were pencilled on a slip of paper, +intended to be given to him to comfort him at their farewell:-- + + "We part on this green islet, love: + Thou for the Eastern main, + I for the setting sun, love; + Oh! when to meet again? + + My heart is sad for thee, love, + For lone thy way will be; + And oft thy tears will fall, love, + For thy children and for me. + + The music of thy daughter's voice + Thou'lt miss for many a year, + And the merry shout of thine elder boys + Thou'lt list in vain to hear. + + * * * * * + + Yet my spirit clings to thine, love, + Thy soul remains with me, + And oft we'll hold communion sweet + O'er the dark and distant sea. + + And who can paint our mutual joy + When, all our wanderings o'er, + We both shall clasp our infants three + At home on Burmah's shore? + + But higher shall our raptures glow + On yon celestial plain, + When the loved and parted here below + Meet, ne'er to part again. + + Then gird thine armour on, love, + Nor faint thou by the way + Till Boodh shall fall, and Burmah's sons + Shall own Messiah's sway." + +What a trumpet-note for a soldier to leave after nineteen years service +"through peril, toil, and pain," undaunted to the last! For by the time +the ship left the Isle of France, she was fading so rapidly that her +husband could not quit her, and sailed on with her to St. Helena. She +was fast dying, but so composed about her children, that some one +observed that she seemed to have forgotten the three babes. "Can a +mother forget?" was all her answer. She died on board the ship, at +anchor in the bay of St. Helena, and was carried to the burial-ground, +where all the colonial clergy in the island attended, and she was laid +beside Mrs. Chater, the wife of that Serampore missionary whose expulsion +had led to the first pioneering at Rangoon, and who had since worked in +Ceylon. She was just forty-two, and died September 1st, 1845. + +Her husband found her beautiful farewell; and, as he copied it out, he +wrote after the last verse, "Gird thine armour on," "And so, God willing, +I will yet endeavour to do; and while her prostrate form finds repose on +the rock of the ocean, and her sanctified spirit enjoys sweeter repose on +the bosom of JESUS, let me continue to toil on all my appointed time, +until my change too shall come." + +On the evening of the day of her burial, he sailed with the three +children, and arrived at Boston on the 15th of October, 1845. He +remained in his native country only nine months, and, if a universal +welcome could have delighted him, he received it to the utmost. So +little did he know of his own fame, that, returning after thirty years, +he had been in pain to know where to procure a night's lodging at Boston, +whereas he found half the city ready to compete for the honour of +receiving him, and every one wanted to meet him. Places of worship where +he was to preach were thronged, and every public meeting where he was +expected to speak was fully attended; but all this fervour of welcome was +a distress to him, his affection of the throat made oratory painful and +often impossible, and the mere going silently to an evening assembly so +excited his nerves that he could not sleep for the whole night after. Any +sort of display was misery to him; he could not bear to sit still and +hear the usual laudation of his achievements; and, when distinguished and +excellent men were introduced to him, he received them with chilling +shyness and coldness, too humble to believe that it was for his goodness +and greatness that they sought to know him, but fancying it was out of +mere curiosity. + +His whole desire was to get back to his work and escape from American +notoriety, and, disregarding all representations that longer residence in +the north might confirm his health, he intended to seize the first +opportunity of returning to Moulmein. But a wife was almost a necessity +both to himself and his mission, and even now, at his mature age and +broken health, he was able to win a woman of qualities almost if not +quite equal to those of the Ann and Sarah who had gone before her. + +Emily Chubbuck, born in 1817, was the daughter of parents of the Baptist +persuasion, living in the State of New York. She was the fifth child of +a large family in such poor circumstances that, when she was only eleven +years old, she was sent to work at a woollen factory, where her +recollections were only of "noise and filth, bleeding hands and aching +feet, and a very sad heart;" but happily for her, the frost stopped the +works during the winter months, and she was able to go to school; and, +after two years, the family removed to a country farm. They were all +very delicate, and her elder sisters were one after the other slowly +dying of decline. This, with their "conversions" and baptisms, deepened +Emily's longing to give the tokens required by her sect for Christian +membership, but they came slowly and tardily with her, and she quaintly +told how one day she was addressed by one of the congregation whose +prayers had been asked for her, "What! this little girl not converted +yet? How do you suppose we can waste any more time in praying for you?" +Her intelligence was very great, and in 1832, when her mother wanted her +to become a milliner, she entreated to be allowed to engage herself as a +school teacher. "I stood as tall as I could," she says, when she went to +offer herself, and she was accepted, although only fifteen. The system +was that of "boarding round"--_i.e._ the young mistress had to live a +week alternately at each house, and went from thence to her school, but +she found this so uncomfortable that she ended by sleeping at home every +night. She struggled on, teaching in various schools, doing needlework +in after-hours, trying to improve herself, and always contending with +great delicacy of health, which must have made it most trying to cope +with what she calls in one of her letters "a little regiment of wild +cats" for about seven years, when some of the friends she had made +obtained of two sisters who kept a boarding school at Utica that she +should be admitted there to pursue the higher branches of study for a +year or two, and then to repay them by her services as a teacher. + +The two ladies, Miss Urania and Miss Cynthia Sheldon, and their widowed +sister, Mrs. Anable, proved Emily's kindest friends, and made a +thoroughly happy home for her. She was very frail and nervous, but of +great power of influence, and even while still only a pupil had this +gift. Here she spent the rest of her maiden days, and here she supplied +the failure of her labours in needlework by contributions to magazines, +generally under the _nom de plume_ of Fanny Forester. They were chiefly +poems and short tales, and were popular enough to bring in a sum that was +very important to the Chubbuck family. The day's employment was very +full, and she stole the time required from her rest. Late one night, +Miss Sheldon seeing a light in the room looked in, and found her +trembling in nervous agitation, holding her head with her hands and her +manuscript before her; and when gently rebuked, and entreated to lie down +at once, she exclaimed with a burst of tears, "Oh! Miss Urania, I must +write; I must help my poor parents." + +Her brave and dutiful endeavours prospered so much that she was actually +able to buy a house for them. It was during her stay at Utica that she +was baptized, and several of her writings were expressly for the Baptist +Sunday School Union; and though others were of a more secular cast, all +were such as could only be composed by a religious woman. A little book +of hers fell into the hands of Dr. Judson, and struck him so much that he +said, "I should be glad to know her. A lady who writes so well ought to +write better." She was then at Philadelphia, and at the moment of his +introduction to her was undergoing the process of vaccination. As soon +as it was over he entered into conversation with her with some +abruptness, demanding of her how she could employ her talents in writings +so trifling and so little spiritual as those he had read. + +Emily met the rebuke without offence, but defended herself by describing +the necessity of her case, with her indigent parents depending upon her; +so that her work must almost of necessity be popular and profitable, +though, as a duty, she avoided all that could be of doubtful tendency. + +The missionary was thoroughly softened, and not only acquitted her, but +begged her to undertake the biography of his wife Sarah: and this threw +them much together. He was fifty-seven, she twenty-eight, when he +offered himself to her in the following letter, sent with a watch:-- + +"I hand you, dearest, a charmed watch. It always comes back to me, and +brings its wearer with it. I gave it to Ann when a hemisphere divided +us, and it brought her safely and surely to my arms. I gave it to Sarah +during her husband's lifetime (not then aware of the secret), and the +charm, though slow in its operation, was true at last." + +The charm worked. Emily Chubbuck was ready to follow Dr. Judson to the +deadly climate of Burmah, to share his labours, and become a mother to +the babies he had left there. + +They were married on the 2nd of June, 1846, and five weeks later sailed +for Burmah, leaving the three children at school. + +Emily seems to have differed from Ann and Sarah, in that she had less +actual missionary zeal than they. Sarah at least was a missionary in +heart, and, as such, became a wife; but Emily was more the wife, working +as her husband worked. She had much more literary power than either; her +letters to her friends were full of vivid description, playful accounts +of their adventures, and lively colouring even of misfortunes, pain, and +sickness. She arrived at Moulmein in November. One little boy had died +during Dr. Judson's absence, but the other two were tenderly cared for by +the new Mrs. Judson, who threw herself into all the work and interests of +the mission with great animation. It proved, however, that both the +Burman and Karen missions were well supplied with teachers; and Dr. +Judson thought he should be more useful at Rangoon, where there had, +since one attempt on the part of the Wades, been no resident missionary. +He heard accounts of the Court which made him hope to recover a footing +at Ava, and decided on again living at Rangoon; but he soon heard that +there was less hope than ever at Ava. The king whom he had known was +dead, and had been succeeded by a devoted Buddhist, whose brother and +heir, "having been prevented from being a lama," writes Dr. Judson, "poor +man! does all that he can. He descends from his prince-regal seat, +pounds and winnows the rice with his own hands, washes and boils it in +his own cook-house, and then, on bended knees, presents it to the +priests. This strong pulsation at the heart has thrown fresh blood +through the once shrivelled system of the national superstition, and now +every one vies with his neighbour in building pagodas and making +offerings to the priests. What can one poor missionary effect, +accompanied by his yet speechless wife, and followed by three men and one +woman from Moulmein, and summoning to his aid the aged pastor of Rangoon +and eight or ten surviving members of the church?" + +The Vice-governor, or Raywoon, was a violent and cruel savage, whose +house and court-yard rang with shrieks from the tortured, and the old +remnant of Christians were sadly scattered. When they were collected to +worship on Sunday, they durst not either come in or go out in company, +and used to arrive with their garments tucked up to look like Coolies, or +carrying fruit or parcels, while the Karens crept down from the hills in +small parties. The Governor was friendly, but a weak man, whose +authority the Raywoon openly set at defiance; and all sorts of petty +annoyances were set in action against the teachers, while the probability +that the converts would suffer actual persecution daily increased. Dr. +Judson used to call the present difficulties the Splugen Pass, and +illness, of course, added to their troubles. + +The great Buddhist fast of the year had never before been imposed on +strangers, but now the markets contained nothing but boiled rice, fruit, +or decaying fish, and terrible illness was the consequence both with +themselves and the children, until some boxes of biscuit arrived from +Moulmein, and a Mahometan was bribed to supply fowls. + +But the finances of the Society at home were at a low ebb, and it was +thought needful to diminish the number of stations. The intolerance of +the Burmese Government led to the decision that there was less benefit in +maintaining that at Rangoon than those in the British provinces; and, as +Dr. Judson had no private means, he was obliged to obey and return to +Moulmein. Here he had a curious correspondence with the Prince of Siam, +whose letter began in his own English: "Venerable sir, having received +very often your far-famed qualities, honesty, faithfulness, +righteousness, gracefulness, and very kindness to poor nation, &c., from +reading the book of your ancient wife's memoir and journal." . . . The +object of this letter was to ask for some of his Burmese translations, +and, in return for them, his Royal Highness sent "a few artificial +flowers, two passion flowers, one mognayet or surnamed flower, and three +roses manufactured by most celebrated princess the daughter of the late +second king or sub-king." + +The Dictionary continued to be Judson's chief occupation, for his +affection of the voice rendered him unable to take charge of a +congregation. He continued to work at it till the November of 1849, when +he caught a severe cold, which brought on an attack of fever, and from +that time he never entirely rallied. + +One of the last pleasures of his life deserves to be mentioned. He had +always had a strong feeling for the Jews, and had longed to work for +their conversion, praying that he might at least do something towards it. +After his last illness had begun, a letter was read to him by his wife, +giving an account of a German Jew who had been led, by reading the +history of his toils in Burmah in the Gospel cause, to study Christianity +and believe. "Love," he said presently, his eyes full of tears, "this +frightens me. I do not know what to make of it." "What?" "What you +have just been reading. I never was deeply interested in any object; I +never prayed sincerely and fervently for anything, but it came at some +time--no matter how distant a day--somehow, in some shape, probably the +last I should have devised, it came. And yet I have always had so little +faith." + +After spending a month at Amherst in the vain hope of improvement, a sea- +voyage was recommended; but his reluctance was great, for his wife was +expecting a second child, and could not go with him. There are some +lines of hers describing her night-watches, so exquisite and descriptive, +that we must transcribe them:-- + + "Sleep, love, sleep! + The dusty day is done. + Lo! from afar the freshening breezes sweep + Wide over groves of balm, + Down from the towering palm, + In at the open casement cooling run; + And round thy lowly bed, + Thy bed of pain, + Bathing thy patient head, + Like grateful showers of rain + They come; + While the white curtains, waving to and fro, + Fan the sick air; + And pityingly the shadows come and go, + With gentle human care, + Compassionate and dumb. + The dusty day is done, + The night begun; + While prayerful watch I keep, + Sleep, love, sleep! + Is there no magic in the touch + Of fingers thou dost love so much? + Fain would they scatter poppies o'er thee now; + Or, with its mute caress, + The tremulous lip some soft nepenthe press + Upon thy weary lid and aching brow; + While prayerful watch I keep, + Sleep, love, sleep! + + On the pagoda spire + The bells are swinging, + Their little golden circlet in a flutter + With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter, + Till all are ringing, + As if a choir + Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing; + And with a lulling sound + The music floats around, + And drops like balm into the drowsy ear; + Commingling with the hum + Of the Sepoy's distant drum, + And lazy beetle ever droning near. + Sounds these of deepest silence born, + Like night made visible by morn; + So silent that I sometimes start + To hear the throbbings of my heart, + And watch, with shivering sense of pain, + To see thy pale lids lift again. + + The lizard, with his mouse-like eyes, + Peeps from the mortise in surprise + At such strange quiet after day's hard din; + Then boldly ventures out, + And looks around, + And with his hollow feet + Treads his small evening beat, + Darting upon his prey + In such a tricksy, winsome sort of way, + His delicate marauding seems no sin. + And still the curtains swing, + But noiselessly; + The bells a melancholy murmur ring, + As tears were in the sky: + More heavily the shadows fall, + Like the black foldings of a pall, + Where juts the rough beam from the wall; + The candles flare + With fresher gusts of air; + The beetle's drone + Turns to a dirge-like, solitary moan; + Night deepens, and I sit, in cheerless doubt, alone." + +In spite of all this tender care, Dr. Judson became so much worse that, +as a last resource, a passage was taken for him and another missionary, +named Ramney, on board a French vessel bound for the Isle of Bourbon. The +outset of the voyage was very rough, and this produced such an increase +of illness, that his life closed on the 12th of April, 1850, only a +fortnight after parting from his wife, though it was not for four months +that she could be informed of his loss. During this time she had given +birth to a dead babe, and had suffered fearfully from sorrow and +suspense. + +She had become valuable enough to the mission for there to be much +anxiety to retain her, and at first she thought of remaining; but her +health was too much broken, and in a few months she carried home her +little girl and her two step-sons. She collected the family together, +and spent her time in the care of them, and in contributing materials for +the Life of her husband; but the hereditary disease of her family had +already laid its grasp on her, and she died on the 1st of June, 1854, the +last of a truly devoted group of workers, as remarkable for their +cheerfulness as for their heroism. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE BISHOPRIC OF CALCUTTA: THOMAS MIDDLETON, REGINALD +HEBER, DANIEL WILSON. + + +Perhaps dying in a cause is the surest way of leading to its success. +Henry Martyn was sinking on his homeward journey, while in England the +renewal of the Charter of the East India Company was leading to the +renewal of those discussions on the promotion of religion in Hindostan +which had been so entirely quashed twenty years before, in 1793. Claudius +Buchanan had published his "Christian Researches," the Life of Schwartz +had become known, the labours of Marshman and Carey were reported, and +the Legislature at length attended to the representations, made through +Archbishop Manners Sutton, by the Society for Promoting Christian +Knowledge, and consented to sanction the establishment of a branch of the +Church, with a Bishop to govern it at Calcutta, and an Archdeacon there +and also at Madras and Bombay; the Bishop to have 5,000_l._ a year but no +house, and each Archdeacon 2,000_l._ Such was all that the efforts of +Wilberforce could wring from the East India Company for a diocese, in +length twenty degrees, in breadth ten, and where the inconvenience of +distances was infinitely increased by the difficulties and dangers of +travelling. + +One excuse for the insufficiency of this provision had more weight with +the supporters of the Church than we can understand. England had for +more than a thousand years been accustomed to connect temporal grandeur +with the Episcopacy; a Bishop not in the House of Lords seemed an +anomaly, and it was imagined that to create chief pastors without a +considerable endowment would serve to bring them into contempt; whereas +to many minds, that very wealth and station was an absolute stumbling- +block. However, a beginning was made, and a year after Henry Martyn's +death, in 1814, the first of the Colonial Bishops of England was +appointed, namely, Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, the son of a Derbyshire +clergyman, who had been educated at Christ's Hospital, and Pembroke +College, Cambridge, and had since been known as an excellent Greek +scholar, and an active clergyman in the diocese of Lincoln. Thence he +removed to the rectory of St. Pancras, London, where he strove hard to +accomplish the building of a new church, but could not succeed, such was +the dead indifference of the period. He was also Archdeacon of +Huntingdon, and one of a firmly compacted body of friends who were doing +much in a resolute though quiet way for the awakening of the nation from +its apathy towards religion. Joshua Watson, a merchant, might be +regarded as the lay-manager and leader, as having more leisure, and more +habit of business than the clergy, with and for whom he worked. This is +no place for detailing their home labours, but it may be well to mention +that to their exertions we owe the National Society for the education of +the poor, and likewise that edition of the Holy Scriptures, with notes, +which is commonly known as Mant's Bible. They were the chief managers at +that time of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and when, in +1813, a Danish missionary was sent out by that Society to take charge of +the congregations left by Schwartz and his colleagues, it was Archdeacon +Middleton who was selected to deliver a charge to him. It was a very +powerful and impressive speech, and perhaps occasioned Dr. Tomline, +Bishop of Lincoln, to recommend the speaker to the Earl of +Buckinghamshire for the bishopric created the next year. + +The office would be, humanly speaking, most trying, laborious and +perplexing, and neither Archdeacon Middleton's age (forty-five) nor his +habits inclined to enthusiasm. He shrank from it at first, then +"suspected," as he says, "that I had yielded to some unmanly +considerations," and decided that it was his duty to accept the charge as +a call from his Master. He was consecrated in the chapel at Lambeth, by +Archbishop Manners Sutton, with the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and +Salisbury assisting. The sermon was preached by Dr. Rennell, Dean of +Winchester, but was withheld from publication for the strange reason that +there was so strong an aversion to the establishment of episcopacy in +India, that it was thought better not to attract attention to the fact +that had just been accomplished. + +Bishop Middleton, his wife, and two of his Archdeacons (the third was +already in India) sailed on the 8th of June, 1814, and they landed at +Calcutta on the 28th of November. There was no public reception, for +fear of alarming the natives, though, on the other hand, they were found +to entertain a better opinion of the English on finding they respected +their own religion. The difficulties of the Bishop's arrival were +increased by the absence of Lord Moira, the Governor-General, who was +engaged in the Nepaulese war; and as no house had been provided for the +Bishop, he had to be the guest of Mr. Seton, a member of the Council, +till a house could be procured, at a high rent. + +One of the first visitors was a Hindoo gentleman, who told him, "Sir +William Jones was a great man and understood our books, but he attended +only to our law. Your lordship will study our religion; your people +mistake our religion; it is not in our books. The Brahminee religion and +your lordship's are the same; we mean the same thing." + +The man seems to have been one of those of whom there are now only too +many in India, who have thrown off their old superstitions only to +believe in nothing, save the existence of a Supreme Being, and who fancy +that all other religions can be simplified into the like. This is the +class that has, for the seventy years during which Christianity has been +preached in earnest, been the alternate hope and anxiety of the +missionary; intellectually renouncing their own paganism, but withheld by +the prejudices of their families from giving up the heathenish customs of +caste; admiring divine morality, but not perceiving the inability of man +to attain the standard; and refusing to accept the mysteries in the +supernatural portion of Revelation. Such was probably Serfojee; such was +the celebrated Brahmin Ram Mohun Roy, with whom Bishop Middleton had much +discussion, and of whom he had at one time many hopes, a man of very +remarkable powers of mind and clear practical intelligence. Roy's +endeavour at first was to purify the native forms of religion, and, +recurring to the Vedas, to find a high philosophy in them; but he and the +friends he gathered round him soon became convinced that these contained +no system of reasonable theology, still less of morality, and they then +constructed for themselves a theory culled from Christianity, but +rejecting whatever did not approve itself to their intellect, in especial +the holy mysteries regarding the nature of the Godhead and the +Incarnation of our Lord. This teaching, called Brahmoism, from Brahma, +the purest and highest of Hindoo divinities, is, under another form, the +Neo-Platonism of the Greeks, or the Soofeeism of the Persians. There was +even the germ of it in the grotesque medicine-man encountered by David +Brainerd. It is the form of opposition which the spirit of evil always +stirs up, wherever the natural character is elevated enough to appreciate +the beauty of Christian morality. It only prevails where there are +refined and cultivated men, afraid of all belief in the supernatural, as +a humbling of their intellect to superstition; and just at present a form +of it is very prevalent in India, owing to the amount of education which +the natives receive, which uproots the old belief, but does not always +implant the new. Whether it will become a stepping-stone to +Christianity, or whether it has substance to become a separate sect, +remains to be proved. + +To return to Bishop Middleton. He knew when he left home that his work +would be heavy, and that to set in order the things that were wanting +must be his first undertaking; but no words could have conveyed the dead +weight of care and toil that lay on him. The huge diocese was shamefully +deficient in all that was needful for the keeping up of religious +ordinances; the Company's chaplains, few in number, were stationed at +immense distances apart, and for the most part had no attempt at a proper +church for their congregations. Verandahs or dining-rooms were used on +Sundays; and at Meerut, an edifice was actually built for the purpose of +a riding-school in the week, and a place of worship on Sunday. Moreover, +these chaplains were accustomed to look to the Governor-General as their +only superior, and, living so far apart, each followed his own +independent line of action, as if entirely unaccountable. Some, such as +Mr. Corrie at Cawnpore, were admirable and earnest men; but Henry +Martyn's successor at Dinapore had let the place sink into a lamentable +state, and there were several chaplains who greatly resented the being +brought under authority. The brunt of the battle fell of course upon the +first Bishop, and being a man as sensitive as he was firm, it tried him +severely. His entreaty was constantly for more men; and in order to +obtain a ministry beyond that which the East India Company would provide +for, he occupied himself in procuring the foundation of Bishop's College, +close to Calcutta, a seminary where young men, both European and native, +could receive a good theological and classical education, and be prepared +for Holy Orders. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge granted +5,000_l._ for the purpose, and private subscriptions came in, until on +the 15th of December, 1820, the Bishop was enabled to lay the foundation- +stone of an institution that has, now for half a century, admirably +answered its purpose. + +It has long been found that Christianity cannot take root without a +native ministry, and Bishop Middleton was most anxious to ordain such +catechists of Schwartz's training as were ready; but he found great +technical difficulties in the way, since the ordination form in the +Prayer Book left no opening for persons who, not being British subjects, +could not be expected to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; and, +moreover, it was not certain what language ought to be used with men not +speaking English. The arrangement of these difficulties hindered him +from ordaining Christian David, the godson and pupil of Schwartz, and a +subject of Tanjore, on his visitation to the Presidency. This good man +met him, together with the minister of Palamcotta, bringing a deputation +about thirty in number. The minister was an exceedingly dark man, with a +very interesting countenance. Addresses, interpreted by Christian, were +made on either side, and the thirty sang a psalm of thanksgiving in +Tamul. They were only a small deputation, for there were several +Christian villages in Tinnevelly, with churches built of unburnt brick, +and roofed with palmyra leaves, where the English Liturgy was used, +having been translated into Tamul by David. + +At Tanjore, the Bishop was received in the most friendly manner by +Serfojee, who came down from his throne to welcome him, and caused Mrs. +Middleton to be conducted to visit the ladies of his zenana. He +conducted the Bishop into his library, which contained books in various +European languages; also on medicine and anatomy, this being his +favourite study, to assist him in which he had an ivory skeleton. He +returned the visit in great state, with six elephants, two of enormous +size, going before him, and accompanied by his troops, with a wild, +horrid dissonance of cannon and native music. Two thousand persons +escorted the Rajah to the Bishop's tent, where he conversed very sensibly +on various subjects, especially English history, or as he called it, "the +Generations of English Kings." He was keeping up the good works he had +established, under the encouragement of the British resident, Colonel +Blackburne, and in this district the native Christians numbered about +500, who were under the direction of Schwartz's companion, Pohle. + +On the Malabar coast Bishop Middleton had much intercourse with the +Christians of St. Thomas, visited their churches, and held much +conversation with their Bishop, convincing himself that the distinctive +tenets of Nestorianism had died out among them, and arranging for their +receiving assistance in books and teachers. + +His visit to Ceylon followed, and was always regarded by him as a time of +much gratification; the good Governor, Sir Robert Brownrigg, had done so +much for the improvement of the people, and the missions were flourishing +so well. Here Christian David became a catechist, and on the Bishop's +second visitation, in 1821, he ordained as deacon a man named Armour, +whose history one longs to know more fully. He had come out to Ceylon +originally as a private soldier, and finding a number of natives, +probably the remnant of the Dutch Mission, whose profession of +Christianity was only nominal, he had taken upon himself "almost the work +of an evangelist," never varying from the teaching and services of the +English Church. He had taught himself to speak and preach fluently in +Cingalese, and could use the Dutch and Portuguese languages freely. He +had even some knowledge of Latin and Greek, and was so staunch Churchman +that he had resisted all invitations from the Baptists to join them. He +had gone through frightful difficulties and dangers in the swamp and the +jungle, and travelled thousands of miles; and when he came to the Bishop +it was with deep humility, and the hope that he had not been presumptuous +in taking on himself the charge of souls without sanction. It was his +great desire to obtain this commission, and the Bishop, finding how sound +in faith, pious, and excellent he was, admitted him to deacon's orders +before leaving Colombo. + +Ceylon was erected into an archdeaconry and attached to the Bishopric of +Calcutta, and shortly after the same arrangement was made respecting +Australia--an archdeaconry a great deal larger than the continent of +Europe! Thence Bishop Middleton received and attended to the petition of +the Rev. Samuel Marsden, a devoted worker in the vineyard, of whom our +next chapter will speak. + +Distinct missionary labour was scarcely possible to a man overtasked like +Bishop Middleton. The district that kept St. Paul in continual +"journeyings often" would have been but a quarter of that which depended +on him for "the care of all the churches," and the long journeys by sea +and land were by far the least harassing part of his life; for he had to +fight the battles, sometimes of his Church, sometimes of the whole +Christian cause, with unfair and prejudiced officials, and a malignant +newspaper press, by which the bitterest attacks were circulated against +him and his doings. And, "besides those things that were without," there +were the troubles of dealing with men used to do "that which was right in +their own eyes," and determined to oppose or neglect one whose powers +could only thoroughly be defined by actual practice. To go into these +conflicts would be wearisome and vain. They have lost their interest +now; but it must be remembered that it is by manfully and firmly enduring +vexations such as these, that systems are established which form the +framework and foundation of more visible labours, which gain more praise +for those who are allowed to carry them out. + +The constant wearing effort, the daily vexation, the inability to gain +support, the binding of his hands from free action by the machinery of +State regulations only applicable to home ecclesiastics, the continual +making beginnings that never were allowed to progress--or, as he himself +called it, the continual rolling of the stone of Sisyphus--could not but +exhaust his powers, above all in such a climate; and that same sickly +summer of 1822 which proved fatal to Felix Carey was his last. In July, +one of his clergy, on whom he had been obliged to pass censure, +instituted proceedings against him in the Supreme Court--a most improper +and disloyal act, which much grieved and agitated him. He had to spend +eight hours in writing in preparation for this painful matter, and +afterwards went out in the carriage with his wife, but too early in the +evening, for the slanting rays of the sun, not yet down, fell full on +him, and their force is always especially dreaded at that damp and sickly +season. He immediately said that the sun had struck him, and returned +home; a most distressing fever, chiefly on the nerves, and accompanied by +grievous restlessness and afterwards delirium, set in, and he died on the +8th of July, 1822, in his fifty-fourth year, absolutely worn out by toil +and worry. But his career had established both the needfulness and the +position of a Bishop, and his successor was appointed without the same +opposition, still to a path perhaps only less thorny because briefer. + +Of a Yorkshire family, where the eldest son was always bred up as the +country gentleman, the younger ones usually prepared to hold the family +livings, Reginald Heber was born on the 21st of April, 1783, at Malpas, +in Cheshire, a rectory held by his father, who was the clerical second +son, but soon after became head of the house by the death of his squire- +brother. He was twice married, and had a son by his first wife, so that +Reginald was born, as it were, to the prospect of taking Holy Orders; and +this fact seems to have in a certain degree coloured his whole boyhood, +and acted as a consecration, not saddening, but brightening his life. + +A happy, eager, docile childhood seems to have been his; so obedient, +that when an attack on the lungs necessitated the use of very painful +remedies, the physician said that the chances of his recovery turned upon +his being the most tractable of children; and with such a love and +knowledge of the Bible that, when only five years old, his father could +consult him like a little Concordance, and withal full of boyish mirth +and daring. When sent to school at Neasdon, he was so excited by the +story of an African traveller overawing a wild bull by the calm defiance +of the eye, as to attempt the like process upon one that he found grazing +in a field, but without the like success; for he provoked so furious a +charge that he was forced to escape ignominiously over a high paling, +whence he descended into a muddy pond. + +Neasdon was the place of education of his whole boyhood, among twelve +other pupils. Mr. John Thornton, the schoolfellow friend and +correspondent of his life, describes him as having been much beloved +there. He had no scruple as to fighting rather than submitting to +tyranny from a bigger boy, but his unfailing good nature and +unselfishness generally prevented such collisions; he was full of fun, +and excellent at games of all sorts; and though at one time evil talk was +prevalent among the boys, his perfect purity of mind and power of +creating innocent amusement destroyed the habit, without estranging the +other lads from him. He took many of his stories from books not read by +them, for he was an omnivorous reader, taking special delight in poetry, +loving nothing better than a solitary walk with Spenser's "Faerie Queen" +in his hand, and often himself composing verses above the average for so +young a boy. + +He was always thoughtful, and there is a letter of his to his friend +Thornton, written when only seventeen, which shows that he had begun to +think over Church questions, was deeply sensible of the sacredness of the +apostolical commission to the ministry, and of the evils of State +interference. That same year, 1800, began his University education, at +Brasenose College, Oxford. His course there was alike blameless in life +and brilliant in scholarship; his talents and industry could not fail to +secure him honours in the schools. + +Another young man was at the very same time at Oxford, whose course had +been steered thither with more difficulties than Reginald Heber's. Daniel +Wilson's father was a wealthy silk manufacturer, at Spitalfields, where +he was born in the year 1778. He was educated at a private school at +Hackney, kept by a clergyman named Eyre, who must have had a good deal of +discernment of character, for he said, "There is no milk and water in +that boy. He will be either something very bad or very good." One day, +when he was in an obstinate and impracticable state of idleness, Mr. Eyre +said, "Daniel, you are not worth flogging, or I would flog you," which so +stung him that he never fell into similar disgrace again; nay, one +morning when he had failed in his appointed task, he refused food saying, +"No! If my head will not work, my body shall not eat." He had +considerable powers, and when his own theme on a given subject was +finished, would find "sense" for all the dull boys--varying the matter +but keeping to the point in all: but his education ceased at fourteen, +when he was bound apprentice to his uncle, who followed the same trade as +his father, and lived in Cheapside. He was a widower with seven +children, one of whom in after years became Daniel's wife. It was a +strictly religious household, and whereas Daniel's parents had been wont +to attend church or meeting as suited them best, his uncle was a regular +churchman, and took his whole family constantly with him, as decidedly as +he kept up discipline in his warehouse, where the young men had so little +liberty, that for weeks together they never had occasion to put on their +hats except on Sunday. + +Daniel was a thoughtless, irreverent lad, full of schoolboy restlessness +when first he came; but though he was at first remarkable for his ill- +behaviour in church, his attendance insensibly took effect upon him, as +it brought his mind under the influence of the two chief powers for good +then in London, John Newton and Richard Cecil. The vehement struggle for +conversion and sense of individual salvation that their teaching deemed +the beginning of grace took place, and he turned for aid to them and to +his old schoolmaster, Mr. Eyre. It was from his hands in 1797, at the +age of nineteen, that he received his first Communion, with so much +emotion and such trembling, that he writes to his mother, "I have no +doubt I appeared very foolish to those about me," but he adds in another +letter to a friend that it had been the happiest day of his life. "And +to you I confess it," he says, "(though it ought perhaps to be a cause +for shame,) that I have felt great desire to go or do anything for the +love of JESUS, and that I have even wished, if it were the Lord's will, +to go as a missionary to foreign lands." + +It is very remarkable that this thought should have occurred at such a +moment to one who only became a missionary thirty-five years later, at a +summons from without, not from within. The distinct mission impulse +passed away, but a strong desire remained to devote himself to the +ministry of the Church. He tried to stifle it at first, lest it should +be a form of conceit or pride; but it only grew upon him, and at last he +spoke to Mr. Eyre, who promised to broach the subject to his parents. + +His father was strongly averse to it, as an overthrow to all his plans, +and Mr. Eyre, after hearing both sides, said that he should give no +opinion for a year; it would not hurt Daniel to remain another year in +the warehouse, to fulfil the term of his apprenticeship, and it would +then be proper time to decide whether to press his father to change his +mind. It was a very sore trial to the young man, who had many reasons +for deeming this sheer waste of time, though he owned he had not lost +much of his school learning, having always loved it so much as to read as +much Latin as he could in his leisure hours. He submitted at first, but +was uneasy under his submission, and asked counsel from all the clergymen +he revered, who seem all to have advised _him_ to be patient, but to have +urged his father to yield, which he finally did before the year was out; +so that Daniel Wilson was entered at St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, on the +1st of May, 1798. He struggled with the eagerness of one whose desire +had grown by meeting with obstacles. In order to acquire a good Latin +style, he translated all Cicero's letters into English, and then back +into Latin; and when he went up for his degree, he took, besides his +Latin and Greek books, the whole Hebrew Bible, but was only examined in +the Psalms. He gained a triumphant first-class, and the next year, 1803, +he carried off the English prose essay prize. The theme was "Common +Sense." He had not in the least expected to gain the prize, and had not +even mentioned the competition to his friends, so that their delight and +surprise were equal. That same year, Reginald Heber was happy in the +subject for Sir Roger Newdegate's prize for English verse, namely, +"Palestine," which in this case had fallen to a poet too real to be +crushed by the greatness of his subject. + +Reginald Heber was used to society of high talent and cultivation. His +elder brother, Richard, was an elegant scholar and antiquary, and was +intimate with Mr. Marriott, of Rokeby; with Mr. Surtees, the beauty of +whose forged ballads almost makes us forgive him for having palmed them +off as genuine; and with Walter Scott, then chiefly known as "the +compiler of the 'Border Minstrelsy,'" but who a few years later +immortalized his friendship for Richard Heber by the sixth of his +introductions to "Marmion,"--the best known, as it contains the +description of the Christmas of the olden time. It concludes with the +wish-- + + "Adieu, dear Heber, life and health! + And store of literary wealth." + +Just as Reginald was finishing his prize poem, Scott was on a tour +through England, and breakfasted at Richard Heber's rooms at Oxford, when +on the way to lionize Blenheim. The young brother's poem was brought +forward and read aloud, and Scott's opinion was anxiously looked for. It +was thoroughly favourable, "but," said Scott, "you have missed one +striking circumstance in your account of the building of the Temple, that +no tools were used in its erection." + +Before the party broke up the lines had been added: + + "No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung; + Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung; + Majestic silence--" + +The prose essay on "Common Sense" was first recited from the rostrum in +the Sheldonian theatre, and Wilson always remembered the hearty applause +of the young man who sat waiting his turn. But the effect of the +recitation of "Palestine" was entirely unrivalled on that as on any other +occasion. Reginald Heber,--a graceful, fine-looking, rather pale young +man of twenty,--with his younger brother Thomas beside him as prompter, +stood in the rostrum, and commenced in a clear, beautiful, melancholy +voice, with perfect declamation, which overcame all the stir and +tumultuous restlessness of the audience by the power and sweetness of +words and action: + + "Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn, + Mourn, widow'd queen; forgotten Zion, mourn. + Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne, + Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone; + While suns unblest their angry lustre fling, + And wayworn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?" + +On flowed the harmonious lines, looking back to the call of the Chosen, +the victory of Joshua, the glory of Solomon, the hidden glory of the +Greater than Solomon, the crime of crimes, the destruction, the renewal +by the Empress Helena, the Crusades, and after a tribute (excusable at +the time of excitement) to Sir Sidney Smith's defence of Acre, gradually +rising to a magnificent description of the heavenly Jerusalem. + + "Ten thousand harps attune the mystic throng, + Ten thousand thousand saints the strain prolong. + 'Worthy the Lamb, omnipotent to save! + Who died, Who lives triumphant o'er the grave." + +The enthusiasm, the hush, the feeling, the acclamations have ever since +been remembered at Oxford as unequalled. Heber's parents were both +present, and his mother, repairing at once in her joy to his rooms, found +him kneeling by his bedside, laying the burthen of honour and success +upon his God. His father, recently recovered from illness, was so +overcome and shaken by the pressure of the throng and the thunder of +applause as never entirely to recover the fatigue, and he died eight +months later, early in 1804. + +The two youths who were in juxtaposition at the rostrum were not to meet +again. Daniel Wilson was ordained to the curacy of Chobham, under Mr. +Cecil, an excellent master for impressing hard study on his curates. He +writes: "What should a young minister do? His office says, 'Go to your +books, go to retirement, go to prayer.' 'No,' says the enthusiast, 'go +to preach, go and be a witness.'" + +"'A witness of what?' + +"'He don't know!'" + +While Wilson worked under Cecil, Heber, who was still too young for the +family living of Hodnet, in Shropshire, after taking his bachelor's +degree, obtaining a fellowship at All Souls College, and gaining the +prize for the prose essay, accompanied John Thornton on a tour through +northern and eastern Europe, the only portions then accessible to the +traveller; and, returning in 1806, was welcomed at home by his brother's +tenants with a banquet, for which three sheep were slaughtered, and at +which he appeared in the red coat of the volunteer regiment in which he +had taken an eager share during former years. + +It was his last appearance in a military character, for in 1807 he was +ordained, and entered on his duties as Rector of Hodnet. Two years later +he married Amelia Shipley, the daughter of the Dean of St. Asaph. +Floating thus easily into preferment, without a shoal or rock in his +course, fairly wealthy, and belonging to a well-esteemed county family, +connected through his brother with the very _elite_ of literary society, +it seemed as though, in the laxity of the early part of the century, +Reginald Heber could hardly have helped falling into the indolence of +learned ease, the peril of the well-beneficed clergy of his day, +especially among those who had not accepted the peculiarities of the +awakening school of the period. + +But such was not the case. He was at once an earnest parish priest, +working hard to win his people, not only to attend at church, but to +become regular communicants, and to give up their prevalent evil courses. +We find him in one letter mentioning the writing of an article on Pindar +in the _Quarterly Review_, planning for a village-school on the +Lancastrian principle, and endeavouring to improve the psalmody. "At +least," he says, "I have a better reason to plead for silence than the +Cambridge man who, on being asked in what pursuit he was then engaged, +replied that he was diligently employed in suffering his hair to grow." + +These "endeavours to improve the psalmody" were a forestalling of the +victory over the version of Tate and Brady. The Olney Hymns, produced by +Cowper, under the guidance of John Newton, had been introduced by Heber +on his first arrival in the parish, but he felt the lack of something +more thoroughly in accordance with the course of the Christian year, less +personal and meditative, and more congregational. Therefore he produced +by degrees a series of hymns, which he described as designed to be sung +between the Nicene Creed and the Sermon, and to be connected in some +degree with the Collects and Gospels for the day. Thus he was the real +originator in England of the great system of appropriate hymnology, which +has become almost universal, and many of his own are among the most +beautiful voices of praise our Church possesses. We would instance Nos. +135 and 263 in "Hymns Ancient and Modern,"--that for the 21st Sunday +after Trinity, a magnificent Christian battle-song; and that for +Innocents' Day, an imitation of the old Latin hymn "_Salvete flores +Martyrum_." They were put together, with others by Dean Milman and a few +more, into a little volume, which Heber requested Dr. Howley, then Bishop +of London, to lay before the Archbishop, that it might be recommended for +use in churches, but the timidity of the time prevented this from being +carried into effect. + +A deep student of church history, his letters show him trying every +practical question by the tests of ancient authority as well as +instructive piety, and, on these principles, already deploring the undue +elevation of the pulpit and debasement of the Altar to which exclusive +preference of preaching had led. Missions had, since the days of Carey's +first opening of the subject become so predominant a thought with the +Nonconformist bodies, and were often conducted so irregularly, that there +was certain dread and distrust of them among the sober-minded and +orthodox; but Heber was one of the first English churchmen who perceived +that to enlarge her borders and strengthen her stakes was the bounden +duty of the living Church. He was a fervent admirer of Henry Martyn, +whose biography was published soon after the news of his death reached +England, and his feeling found vent in that hymn so familiar to us +all--"From Greenland's icy mountains." + +He was meantime rising in influence and station,--Canon of St. Asaph, +Preacher at Lincoln's Inn, Select Preacher before the University. He was +beloved by all ranks: by the poor for his boundless charity and sympathy; +and by his equals, not only for these qualities, but for his sunny +temper, bright wit, and playfulness, which showed in his conversation, +his letters, and in many a droll, elegant, and scholarly _jeu d'esprit_, +thrown off by a mind that could do nothing without gracefulness. All +this prosperity was alloyed only by such domestic sorrow as might be +fitly termed gentle chastening. The death of his next brother, Thomas, +who had acted as his curate, was a severe loss to him; and in the desire +to make every affliction a stepping-stone in Christian progress, he +began, from that date, a custom of composing a short collect-like prayer, +veiled in Latin, on every marked occurrence in his life. The next +occasion was, after several years of marriage, the birth of a little +daughter, whom (in his own words) "he had the pleasure of seeing and +caressing for six months," ere she faded away, and died just before the +Christmas of 1817. He never could speak of her without tears, and (his +wife tells us) ever after added to his private prayers a petition to be +worthy to rejoin his "sinless child." His grief and his faith further +found voice in the hymn, each verse of which begins with "Thou art gone +to the grave, but we will not deplore thee," and which finishes-- + + "Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee, + Whose God was thy ransom, thy Guardian and Guide. + He gave thee, He took thee, and He will restore thee, + And death has no sting, for the Saviour has died." + +Such had been the training of Reginald Heber, through the pleasant paths +of successful scholarship and literature, and of well-beneficed country +pastorship; a life perilous to spirituality and earnestness, but which he +kept full of the salt of piety, charity and unwearied activity as parish +priest, and as one of the voices of the Church. Such had been his life +up to 1822, when, on the tidings of the death of Dr. Middleton, Bishop of +Calcutta, his friend Charles Williams Wynn, President of the Board of +Commissioners for the affairs of India, offered him the appointment. + +To a man of his present position, talents, and prospects at home, the +preferment was not advantageous: the income, with the heavy attendant +expenses, would very little increase his means; the promotion threw him +out of the chances of the like at home; and the labour and toil of the +half-constituted and enormous diocese, the needful struggles with English +irreligion and native heathenism, and the perils of climate, offered a +trying exchange for all that had made life delightful at Hodnet Rectory. +A second little daughter too, whom he could not of course look to +educating in India, rendered the decision more trying. But in his own +peculiarly calm and simple way, he wrote: "I really should not think +myself justified in declining a situation of so great usefulness, and for +which, without vanity, I think myself not ill adapted, either from a love +for the society and friendship of England, or from a hope, which may +never be realized, of being some time or other in a situation of more +importance at home." At first, however, the fear for the child's health +induced him to decline, but only if anyone else equally suitable could be +found; and finally he accepted it, with apparent coolness, veiling the +deep spirit of zeal and enthusiasm that glowed within. It was not the +ardent vehemence that enables some to follow their inward call, +overcoming all obstacles, but it was calm obedience to a call from +without. "After all," he wrote, "I hope I am not enthusiastic in +thinking that a clergyman is, like a soldier or a sailor, bound to go on +any service, however remote or undesirable, where the course of his duty +leads him, and my destiny (though there are some circumstances attending +it which make my heart ache) has many, very many, advantages in an +extended sphere of professional activity, in the indulgence of literary +curiosity, and, what to me has many charms, the opportunity of seeing +nature in some of its wildest and most majestic features." + +In the spring of 1823, he took leave of Hodnet, amid the tears of his +parishioners; and on the 18th of May preached his last sermon in +Lincoln's Inn chapel, on the Atonement. On coming out, one of the most +leading men among the Wesleyan Methodists could only express his feelings +by exclaiming, "Thank God for that man! Thank God for that man!" + +It is striking to find him in the full pressure of business, while +preparing in London for his consecration and his voyage, making time for +a letter to one of the Hodnet farmers, to warn him against habits of +drunkenness, hoping that it would dwell with him "as a voice from the +dead." On the 1st of June, 1823, Reginald Heber was consecrated at +Lambeth, and on the 10th sailed for India! He made several sketches +along the southern coast, under one of which he wrote:-- + + "And we must have danger, and fever, and pain, + Ere we look on the white rocks of Albion again." + +A few days later, when passing the western coast of France on a Sunday, +the sound of the bells suggested the following meditative verses:-- + + "Bounding along the obedient surges, + Cheerly on her onward way, + Her course the gallant vessel urges + Across thy stormy gulf, Biscay. + In the sun the bright waves glisten; + Rising slow with solemn swell, + Hark, hark, what sound unwonted? Listen-- + Listen--'tis the Sabbath bell. + + It tells of ties which duties sever, + Of hearts so fondly knit to thee, + Kind hands, kind looks, which, wanderer, never + Thy hand shall grasp, thine eye shall see. + It tells of home and all its pleasures, + Of scenes where memory loves to dwell, + And bids thee count thy heart's best treasures + Far, far away, that Sabbath bell. + + Listen again! Thy wounded spirit + Shall soar from earth and seek above + That kingdom which the blest inherit, + The mansions of eternal love. + Earth and her lowly cares forsaking, + Bemoaned too keenly, loved too well, + To faith and hope thy soul awaking, + Thou hear'st with joy that Sabbath bell." + +By the 28th of September, the vessel was in sight of the Temple of +Jaghernauth, and on the 3rd of October was anchored close to the island +of Saugor. + +All through his voyage and residence in India, the Bishop kept a journal +of the doings and scenes of each day, full of interesting sketches, both +in pen and pencil. The beauty of the villages on the Hooghly, "the +greenhouse-like smell and temperature of the atmosphere," and the gentle +countenances and manners of the natives, struck him greatly, as he says, +"with a very solemn and earnest wish that I might in some degree, however +small, be enabled to conduce to the spiritual advantage of creatures so +goodly, so gentle, and now so misled and blinded. '_Angili forent si +essent Christiani_.'" + +On the 10th of October the Heber family entered their temporary abode in +the Fort at Calcutta, and were received by two Sepoy sentries and a long +train of servants in cotton dresses and turbans, one of them with a long +silver stick, another with a mace. There, too, were assembled the +neighbouring clergy--alas! far too few--and the next day the Bishop was +installed in his cathedral. + +Then began a life of very severe labour, for not only had the arrears of +episcopal business after the interregnum to be made up, but the +deficiency of clergy rendered the Sunday duties very heavy; and the +Bishop took as full a share of them as any working parish priest; and +even though he authorized the Church Missionary Society's teachers to +read prayers and to preach, the lack of sufficient ministrations was +great. Bishop's College had, however, been completed, and what Middleton +had founded was opened by Heber, with the happiest effect, which has +lasted to the present time. + +The difficulties as to the form of ordination of such as were not British +subjects had also been overcome, and Christian David was to be sent up +from Ceylon in company with Mr. Armour, who was to receive Priest's +orders. The latter excellent man died just before he was to set off, and +this delayed David until the next spring, when he came to Calcutta, was +lodged in Bishop's College, passed an excellent examination, and was +ordained deacon on Holy Thursday, 1824, and priest on the ensuing Trinity +Sunday. He is memorable as the first man of the dark-skinned races +admitted by the Church of England to her ministry. An excellent and well- +expressed letter from him, on the difficulties respecting the +distinctions of caste, is given in Bishop Heber's Life. This, indeed, +was one of the greatest troubles in dealing with converts. The Serampore +missionaries had striven to destroy it, but Ziegenbalg, Schwartz, and +their elder companions, regarded it as a distinction of society--not +religious--and, though discouraging it, had not so opposed it as to +insist on high and low castes mingling indiscriminately in church or at +meals. The younger men who had since come out had been scandalized, and +tried to make a change, which had led to much heartburning. + +Next to his hymns, Bishop Heber is best known by the journal he kept of +his visitation tour, not intended for publication but containing so much +of vivid description of scenery and manners, that it forms a valuable +picture of the condition of Hindostan as it then was. + +His first stage, in barges along the Ganges, brought him to Dacca, where +he was delayed by the illness and death of his much esteemed and beloved +chaplain. He then went on to Bhaugulpore, where he was much interested +in a wild tribe called the Puharries, who inhabit the Rajmahal hills, +remnants of the aborigines of India. They carried bows and arrows, lived +by the chase, and were viewed as great marauders; but they had a +primitive faith, free from idolatry, hated falsehood, and, having no +observance of caste and a great respect for Europeans, seemed promising +objects for a mission; but unfortunately the climate of their mountains +was so injurious to European life, that the clergyman, Mr. Thomas +Christian, a scholar of Bishop's College, whom the Bishop appointed to +this mission, was only able to spend three months in the hills in the +course of the year, while for the other nine he took the children under +his instruction back with him to Bhaugulpore. + +At Bankipore, the Bishop met Padre Giulio Cesare, still a remarkably +handsome and intelligent-looking little man, and speaking warmly of Henry +Martyn. Dinapore, that first station of Martyn's, had since his time +fallen into a very unsatisfactory state, owing to the carelessness of his +successor, though it was newly come into better hands. + +On the contrary, at Buxar, the Fort-adjutant, Captain Field, had so +influenced all around, though without a chaplain, that, though the Bishop +could not give the place a Sunday, his Saturday evening service in the +verandah was thronged, the English soldiers coming with Prayer-books and +making the responses, besides numerous Hindoos, many of them the +Christian wives and children of the soldiers. There was a boys' school +kept by a converted Mahometan, and one for girls by "Mrs. Simpson," a +native of Agra, converted by Mr. Corrie, and the widow of a sergeant. +She, however, got no scholars but the half-caste daughters of the +soldiers. A little boy of four years old, son to an English sergeant +with a native wife, was baptized, and the Bishop was delighted with the +reverent devotion of the spectators. Cureem Musseh, once a Sepoy +havildar, had his sword and sash hung over the desk, where, in a clean +white cotton dress and turban, he presided over his scholars, whom he had +taught to read Hindostanee, and to say the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and +Commandments, with a short exposition of each. The school served them +likewise to hold prayer-meetings in, and, on rare occasions, a clergyman +visited them. + +The Bishop's entrance into the sacred city of Benares he describes to his +wife thus: "I will endeavour to give you an account of the concert, vocal +and instrumental, which saluted us as we entered the town:-- + +"_First beggar_.--Agha Sahib! Judge Sahib, Burra Sahib, give me some +pice; I am a fakir; I am a priest; I am dying of hunger! + +"_Bearers trotting under the tonjon_.--Ugh! ugh!--Ugh! ugh! + +"_Musicians_.--Tingle, tangle; tingle, tangle; bray, bray, bray. + +"_Chuprassee_, _clearing the way with his sheathed sabre_.--Silence! Room +for the Lord Judge, the Lord Priest. Get out of the way! Quick! (_Then +gently patting and stroking the broad back of a Brahmin bull_.) Oh, good +man, move. + +"_Bull_, _scarcely moving_.--Bu-u-uh. + +"_Second beggar_, _counting his beads_, _rolling his eyes_, _and moving +his body backwards and forwards_.--Ram, ram; ram, ram!" + +Benares, said to be founded on the point of Siva's trident, as the most +sacred city of all Hindostan, swarmed with beggars, fakirs, sacred +animals, and idols of every description; but close beside it was a church +for consecration and thirty candidates for confirmation, of whom fourteen +were natives. The next day the Bishop was taken to see a school founded +by a rich Bengalee baboo, whom Mr. Corrie had almost persuaded to be a +Christian, but who had settled down into a sort of general admiration for +the beauty of the Gospel, and a wish to improve his countrymen. He had +made over the house where the school was kept to the Church Missionary +Society, and the staff consisted of an English schoolmaster, a Persian +moonshee, and two Hindostanee writing masters, the whole presided over by +an English catechist, a candidate for Holy Orders. There were several +class rooms, and a large, lofty hall, supported by pillars, where the +Bishop examined the 140, who read Persian and English, answered questions +in Hindostanee and English, and showed great proficiency in writing, +arithmetic, and geography. No objection was made to their reading the +New Testament. + +Afterwards, when the Bishop looked into a little pagoda, richly carved, +and containing an image of Siva, crowned with scarlet flowers, with lamps +burning before him, and a painted bull in front, a little boy, one of the +brightest scholars in the school, came forward, and showing his +Brahminical string, told, in tolerable English, the histories of the +deities with which the walls were painted. "This," says the Bishop, +"opened my eyes more fully to a danger which had before struck me as +possible, that some of the boys brought up in our schools might grow up +accomplished hypocrites, playing the part of Christian with us, and with +their own people of zealous followers of Brahma, or else that they would +settle down in a sort of compromise between the two creeds, allowing that +Christianity was the best for us, but that idolatry was necessary and +commendable in persons of their own nation." This in fact seems to have +been ever since the state of a large proportion of the educated Hindoos. +May it be only a transition state! + +The street preaching employed by the Serampore community had not been +resorted to by the Church Missionary Society, and Bishop Heber decided +that in the fanatic population, amid the crowds of bulls, beggars, and +sacred apes, it was far wiser not to attempt it; but the missionaries +were often sent for to private houses to converse with natives of rank, +on their doctrine. One notable Hindoo, Amrut Row, who had at one time +been Peishwa of the Mahrattas, who had retired to Benares, used on the +feast of his patron god to give a portion of rice and a rupee to every +Brahmin and blind or lame person who applied between sunrise and sunset. +He had a large garden with four gates, three of which were set open for +the three classes of applicants; the fourth served himself and his +servants. As each person received his dole, he was shown into the +garden, and detained there to prevent his applying twice, but there he +enjoyed plenty of shade, water, company, and idols! This day's +distribution often amounted to above 50,000 rupees, and his charities +altogether were three times as great in the course of every year. He was +a good kind man, religious to the best of his knowledge; and just before +the Bishop's visit, he had sent a message to Mr. Morris, the clergyman at +Sealcote, to call on him in the middle of the next week as he wished to +inquire further into Christianity. Alas! before the appointed day Amrut +Row was dead, and his ashes were still smoking when the Bishop quitted +Benares. + +What had become of Henry Martyn's church does not appear, for at Cawnpore +he found none, but service was alternately performed in a bungalow and in +the riding-school. He went as far north as Oude, and found at Chinear a +much larger native congregation than he expected, though the women still +retained so much of Eastern customs that they would not even raise their +veils when receiving the Holy Communion. Almost all were the converts of +the excellent Mr. Corrie, Henry Martyn's friend. + +Arriving at Surat, after a journey of ten months, he there embarked for +Bombay, where his wife and eldest child came from Calcutta, by sea, to +meet him, and thence, after a stay in Ceylon for some weeks, returned to +Calcutta, where, in December, he ordained Abdul Messeh, the man who had +been won by Henry Martyn's garden preachings. It was a very remarkable +ordination, for Father Abraham, the Armenian Suffragan from the Patriarch +of Jerusalem, was present, in the black robes of his convent, and laid +his hand on the heads of the candidates, and the service was in +Hindostanee, whenever Abdul Messeh was individually concerned. Abdul +Messeh was a most valuable worker among his countrymen, but he only +survived about eighteen months. + +In his last letter to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the +Bishop records the reception into Bishop's College of Mesrop David, the +kinsman of the Armenian Bishop and already a deacon; also of two native +youths from Ceylon, one Tamul and one Cingalese. This college, though a +work which had none of the romance of adventure about it, afforded the +surest and most important means of thoroughly implanting the Gospel, and +forming a native priesthood fit for the varying needs of the various +people. Nor could such a task be committed to any but superior men. Only +such as have abilities that would win them distinction in England, are +fit to cope with the difficulties of dealing with intellects quite as +argumentative as, and even more subtle than, those of the ordinary level +of Englishmen. + +Soon after writing this letter, Bishop Heber set forth on what was to +prove his last visitation. On the voyage to Madras, he spent much time +upon some invalid soldiers who were being sent home, and confirmed one of +them on board. Also he devoted himself to comforting a poor lady whose +baby died on the voyage, not only when with her in her cabin, but +Archdeacon Robinson, his chaplain, could hear him weeping and praying for +her when alone in his own. + +At Madras, he was lodged in the house of Sir Thomas Munro, the governor, +who had done much by the help of his excellent wife to promote all that +was good. At Vepery, close at hand, the Bishop found, nearly finished, +the first church built in the Gothic style in India. He was greatly +delighted with it, and especially that the desk and pulpit had not been +allowed to obstruct the view of the altar, which had more dignity than +was usual in the churches of 1826. A monstrous pulpit in another little +church at Poonamalee, a depot for recruits, and an asylum for pensioners +and soldiers' children, he caused to be removed. He had a confirmation +at this place, or rather two, for some unexpected candidates presented +themselves, and he desired Archdeacon Robinson to examine them, so that +they might be confirmed later in the day. Among them was an old +pensioner, and a sickly-looking young woman with a little boy, whom the +Archdeacon thought too young, and recommended her to keep back for +another opportunity. She wept much, and the Bishop said, "Bring them +both to me; who knows whether they may live to wish for it again?" The +native Christians, poor people employed on the beach, remnants of the old +Portuguese Missions, had built a church at their own expense, and, being +unable to obtain regular ministrations from their own clergy, begged the +Bishop to consecrate their building, and give them a clergyman, and this +he hoped to do on his return. + +Meantime, he went in his robes to present Lady Munro with a vote of +thanks from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, for the good +works in the schools of her husband's government. "I have seldom +witnessed a more interesting or affecting picture," writes Archdeacon +Robinson: "the beauty and gracefulness of Lady Munro, the grave and +commanding figure of the Governor, the youthful appearance and simple +dignity of the dear Bishop, the beloved of all beholders, presented a +scene such as few can ever hope to witness." "My lord," said Sir Thomas, +with the tears rolling down his cheeks, "it will be vain for me after +this to preach humility to Lady Munro; she will be proud of this day to +the latest hour she lives." + +"God bless you, Sir Thomas!" was all the Bishop could utter. + +"And God bless _you_, my lord!" was the fervent answer. + +Before eighteen months had passed the two good men who exchanged this +blessing, had met in Paradise! + +The Bishop went on from Madras, travelling by dak, and encamping during +the heat of the day. He soon came into the field of labour of the Danish +Missions, and was disappointed to find how poor and forlorn the Christian +converts about Cuddalore were, and the great want of employment for them. +Things were better in the Tanjore territory, where the Bishop was much +interested by a visit from the native pastor of one of the villages, a +fine, venerable old man. When about to take leave, he lingered, and the +Bishop was told that the Tamul Christians never quitted a minister +without receiving his blessing. He was greatly touched. "I will bless +them all, the good people," he said, after blessing the pastor. + +Arriving at Tanjore, the Bishop thus describes Serfojee:--"I have been +passing the last four days in the society of a Hindoo Prince, the Rajah +of Tanjore, who quotes Fourcroy, Lavoilier, Linnaeus, and Buffon +fluently; has formed a more accurate judgment of the poetical merits of +Shakespeare than that so felicitously expressed by Lord Byron; and has +actually emitted English poetry, very superior indeed to Rousseau's +epitaph on Shenstone; at the same time that he is much respected by the +English officers in his neighbourhood, as a real good judge of a horse, +and a cool, bold, and deadly shot at a tiger. The truth is, that he is +an extraordinary man, who, having in early youth received such an +education as old Schwartz, the celebrated missionary, could give him, has +ever since continued, in the midst of many disadvantages, to preserve his +taste for, and extend his knowledge of, European literature: while he has +never neglected the active exercises and frank, soldierly bearing which +become the descendant of the old Mahratta conquerors; and by which only, +in the present state of things, he has it in his power to gratify the +prejudices of his people, and prolong his popularity among them. Had he +lived in the days of Hyder, he would have been a formidable ally or +enemy; for he is, by the testimony of all in his neighbourhood, frugal, +bold, popular, and insinuating. At present, with less power than an +English nobleman, he holds his head high, and appears contented; and the +print of Buonaparte, which hangs in his library, is so neutralized by +that of Lord Hastings in full costume, that it can do no harm to anybody. +. . . To finish the portrait of Maha Raja Sarbojee, I should tell you +that he is a strong-built and very handsome middle-aged man, with eyes +and nose like a fine hawk, and very bushy grey mustachios, generally +splendidly dressed, but with no effeminacy of ornament, and looking and +talking more like a favourable specimen of a French general officer than +any other object of comparison which occurs to me. His son, Raja +Seroojee (so named after their great ancestor), is a pale, sickly-looking +lad of seventeen, who also speaks English, but imperfectly, and on whose +account his father lamented, with much apparent concern, the +impossibility which he found of obtaining any tolerable instruction in +Tanjore. I was moved at this, and offered to take him on my tour, and +afterwards to Calcutta, where he might have apartments in my house, and +be introduced into good English society; at the same time that I would +superintend his studies, and procure for him the best masters which India +affords. The father and son, in different ways,--the one catching at the +idea with great eagerness, the other as if he were afraid to say all he +wished,--seemed both well pleased with the proposal. Both, however, on +consulting together, expressed a doubt of the mother's concurrence; and, +accordingly, next day I had a very civil message, through the Resident, +that the Rannee had already lost two sons; that this survivor was a +sickly boy; that she was sure he would not come back alive, and it would +kill her to part with him; but that all the family joined in gratitude, +&c. So poor Seroojee must chew betel and sit in the zenana, and pursue +the other amusements of the common race of Hindoo princes, till he is +gathered to those heroic forms who, girded with long swords with hawks on +their wrists, and garments like those of the king of spades (whose +portrait-painter, as I guess, has been retained by this family), adorn +the principal room in the palace." + +To the Bishop's great indignation, he found that whereas while the Rajah +had retained his dominions, Christians had been eligible to all the +different offices of State, there was now an order from the Company's +Government against their admission to any employment. "Surely," he says, +"we are, in matters of religion, the most lukewarm and cowardly people on +the face of the earth. I mean to make this and some other things I have +seen a matter of formal representation to all the three Governments of +India, and to the Board of Control." + +It is highly probable that this systematic dread of encouraging God's +service on the part of the Company assisted in keeping Serfojee a +heathen, in spite of the many prayers offered up for him. Almost the +last in Heber's book of private devotions was for the Rajah; and he drew +up one, to be translated into Tamul, for use in all the churches in his +territory; this last not directly for his conversion, but for his +temporal and spiritual welfare. + +It is pleasant to know that the last Easter of Heber's life was made +joyful by ministering to Schwartz's spiritual children. He preached in +that church which Schwartz had raised, and where his monument stood. His +text was, "I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for +evermore." Many English-speaking natives went there, and others besides; +and at the Holy Eucharist that followed there were thirty English and +fifty-seven native communicants. The delight and admiration of the +Bishop were speedily apparent. In the evening he attended a Tamul +service, where the prayers were said by a Hindoo, the sermon preached by +a Dane, and the blessing delivered by the Bishop in Tamul, to the +surprise and pleasure of the congregation, which numbered no less than +1,300, all reverent, all making the responses, joining in the Easter +hymn, and in the 100th Psalm. Never had the Bishop been happier! As he +was taking off his robes, he exclaimed, "Gladly would I exchange years of +common life for _one_ such day as this!" Even at night he could not help +coming back to Archdeacon Robinson's room to rejoice, discuss, and +finally pray over this blessed fruit of the toils of a holy man, who had +been at rest thirty-eight years, yet whose work still increased. The +next day he confirmed a large number; and Kohloff, a contemporary +missionary of Schwartz, preached in Tamul. + +After this happy Easter, the Bishop continued his route to Trichinopoly, +where he preached and confirmed on the Sunday, but complained of a slight +headache, and allowed himself to be persuaded not to go to the native +service in the evening, though he spent a good deal of time conversing +with Mr. Robinson, who was unwell enough to be lying in bed. + +On Monday, the 3rd of April, he went at daybreak to hold a Tamul +confirmation at the poor little neglected native church; then looked at +the schools, but found that the want of ventilation rendered them too +oppressive for him to remain; and afterwards received and graciously +answered an address from the poor Christians, praying him to send them a +pastor, for they had been without one for two years. He came back, still +in his robes, to Mr. Robinson's bedroom, and, with great eagerness, +talked over what he had seen and heard; speaking of the destitution of +this poor church, and of the needfulness that a Bishop should receive +regular reports of every station; also mentioning a Danish missionary +whom he intended to appoint. He then went to his own room, and, +according to Indian habit after exertion, went out in order to bathe. The +bath was in a separate building. It was fifteen feet long, eight broad, +and with stone steps descending into it to a depth of seven feet, and it +was perfectly full of water. The servant sitting outside wondered at the +length of time and unbroken silence, and at last looked in; but Reginald +Heber had, by that time, long been lifeless in the cold bath! + +He was only in his forty-fourth year; but medical opinion declared that +there had been, unsuspected, the seeds of fatal disease, accelerated by +climate, exertion, and excitement, and such as would probably have caused +long helplessness and inaction, unless thus suddenly developed. + +He was buried the next day at Trichinopoly church, where the mural +tablet, with most touching and appropriate simplicity, bears no +inscription in laudation, but merely the holy words, "Be ye also ready." + +Thus ended a life of inward and outward brightness, which comes like a +stream of sunshine among the shadows through which most of the labourers +had to struggle, either for want of means of education, or from poverty +or melancholy, and yet as true and as exhilarating a course as was ever +one of theirs. May we not read his description in the verse:-- + + "And there are souls that seem to dwell + Above this earth--so rich a spell + Floats round their steps where'er they move, + Of hopes fulfilled, and mutual love: + Such, if on high their hopes are set, + Nor in the stream the source forget; + If, prompt to quit the bliss they know, + Following the Lamb where'er He go, + By purest pleasures unbeguiled + To idolize or wife or child, + Such wedded souls our God shall own + For faultless virgins round His throne." + +Mrs. Heber published soon after her return her husband's journals, and +these, bearing the impress of his graceful, scholarly hand, attracted +many readers who care merely for information and amusement; and thus, by +their mere mundane qualities, his writings did much to spread knowledge +of, and therefore interest in, the field of labour in which he died. +Large subscriptions came into the societies, and in a few years a church +and three schools for the natives, with the pastor he had indicated, +served as the best monument of that Low Sunday at Trichinopoly. + +His successor was John Thomas James: the most memorable event in whose +life was a halt at the Cape of Good Hope. This was the first time that +colony had ever been visited by a Bishop, and there was no church, though +a piece of land had been newly granted for one, which he consecrated +before proceeding on his voyage. He arrived in 1828, but the climate of +Calcutta struck him for death almost immediately. He was only able to +perform one ordination, one confirmation, and one charge to the Calcutta +clergy, then was forced to embark, and died at sea within a few months of +his arrival. + +During this time Daniel Wilson had been working under Mr. Cecil at +Chobham, where he remained for three years, when a tutorship at St. +Edmund's Hall was offered to him, which enabled him to marry his cousin +Ann, combining the small living of Warton with his tutorship. On the +death of the Rev. Richard Cecil he took, by his especial wish, his +proprietary chapel in Bloomsbury, and there continued till 1824 as one of +the most marked London clergy, keeping up the earnestness that Newton and +Cecil had been noted for, with quite as much energy; and though without +the same originality, there was a _telling_ force about his sermons which +made a young man exclaim the first time he heard him, "I will never hear +Daniel Wilson again," but something led him happily to infringe the +resolution, and then it became, "I will always, if possible, hear Daniel +Wilson." Sentences of his were very memorable; for instance, "Nineteen- +twentieths of sanctification consist in holy tempers," and, besides +exhibiting a pithy force of language, his sermons were prepared with +infinite care and labour. When at St. John's, where he had no parochial +charge, he selected his text on Monday and carried it about with him, so +to speak, all the week, chewing the cud of it as it were, looking it up +in every authority, ancient or modern, within his reach, and conversing +on the subject with any one whom he thought likely to give him a hint. +The sermons were written in a large legible shorthand, only on one side +of the paper, and on the opposite page were copied out extracts of +translations from illustrative authors, often as many as eight to a +single sermon, so that he had in fact a huge secretion of stores, which +he could adapt according to the needs of his congregation, and he made +notes of what he found fall flat and incomprehensible, or what he felt +was stirring the souls of his audience; and this time was most profitably +spent, not only for his immediate congregation, but in laying up a +provision for the busier days of after-life, when the same amount of +study was out of his power. And the benefit of such painstaking may be +estimated by the words of a gentleman when introduced to a relative of +his in after-years, "I am only one of very many who do not know and never +spoke to Mr. Wilson, but to whom he has been a father in CHRIST. He +never will know, and he never ought to know, the good that he has been +the means of doing, for no man could bear it." + +Proprietary chapels have now nearly become extinct. They were an effect +of the neglect of the heathenish eighteenth century, and one of the means +of providing church room by private speculation; and thus they almost +necessarily were liable to the abuses of popularity-hunting and of lack +of care for individuals, especially the poor: but a man in thorough +earnestness is sure to draw good even out of a defective system; and +Daniel Wilson, sitting in his study which was connected with the chapel, +became the counsellor of hundreds who sought spiritual advice and +assistance, chiefly of the upper and well-to-do classes, but he took care +to avoid wasting time over these conferences, and when it came to mere +talk would put people's hats and umbrellas into their hands. There were +also large Sunday-schools connected with his chapel, and taught by the +members of his congregation, and these led to the first organization of a +district visitors' society, one of the earliest attempts of the slowly +reviving English Church to show her laity how to minister to the poor +under pastoral direction. + +His father-in-law, Mr. William Wilson, had purchased the advowson of the +living of Islington, and, when it became vacant in 1824, presented it to +him, when he carried thither all his vigour and thoroughness. Church +building was his first necessity, and he absolutely prevailed on his +parish to rate themselves for the purpose, so that three churches were +begun almost at once, and by the time his Life was written in 1860 the +great suburb had multiplied its single church in thirty-six years into +fifteen. At Islington the chief sorrows of his life befel him. He had +had six children, of whom one died an infant and two more in early +childhood. The second son, John, after a boyhood of great promise, fell +into temptation at the University and led a wild and degrading course; +ending by his retirement to the Continent, where he died in 1833, after a +very painful illness, in which he had evinced great agony of mind, which +softened at length into repentance and hope. The eldest son, Daniel, who +attended him on his death-bed, had taken holy orders and succeeded to his +father's former living of Warton; and one daughter, Eliza, born in 1814, +survived to cheer his home when his wife, after some years of invalidism, +died in 1827. Zealous, resolute, and hardworking, he never allowed +sorrow to interfere with his work, and was soon in the midst of his +confirmation classes, and of a scheme for educating young tradespeople on +a more thorough and religious system. + +In the meantime he had always loved and urged the missionary cause, and +had consulted with Bishop Turner before he went out. When the news of +his decease was received (the fourth Bishop to die at his post within +nine years), the appointment began to be looked on as a sentence of +death, and it was declined in succession by several eminent clergymen. +Daniel Wilson had anxiously watched for the answer in each case, and was +suggesting several persons to Mr. Charles Grant, when the thought struck +him, "Here I am, send me." A widower of fifty-four years old, of much +strength, and with no young children, seemed to him the fit person to +volunteer to fill the breach; and he wrote stating, that if no one else +could be found for the post, he was willing to offer himself. The +appointment was accordingly given to him, after an interval of nine +months since the see had become vacant, and an infinity of toil and +arrangements crowded on him. Islington was resigned to his son Daniel, +and he was consecrated by Archbishop Howley on the 29th of April, 1832, +"the day of my espousals to CHRIST my Saviour," as he wrote in his +journal; and on the ensuing 18th of June he sailed with his daughter for +Calcutta. The ship touched at the Cape, which under the government of +Sir Lowry Cole was by no means in the same hopeless state of neglect as +when Martyn had visited it. Bishop Wilson there held an ordination and a +confirmation, the first for himself as well as for South Africa, whose +Episcopate was not founded till twenty-three years later. + +He landed at Calcutta on the 5th of November, 1832, and took possession +of the large unfurnished house that had at last been wrung out of +Government. He found only just enough chairs and tables, placed there by +the Archdeacon, to suffice for immediate use; and was answered, when he +asked why his orders that the place should be completely fitted up had +not been attended to, "I thought this would be enough to last for six +months,"--this being the term for which a Bishop of Calcutta was thought +likely to need earthly furniture. But Bishop Wilson was resolved to take +reasonable precaution, and not to be daunted, or to act as if he were +afraid. He furnished the place, and rented a pleasant country-house, +called the Hive, at Tittaghur, where he spent a few days of every week; +and, having been told that much danger was incurred by the exertion of +visitation tours before the constitution had become accustomed to the +climate, he resolved to wait for two years before making any long +journey; and, in the meantime, he was able to collect a great amount of +information, as well as attending to the regulation of matters at head- +quarters. He kept up more formality and state than Bishop Heber had +done; and, of course, as the one had been censured for his simplicity, so +the other was found fault with for pomp and stiffness. But these were +minor points, chiefly belonging to the character of the two men, whose +whole natures were in curious accordance with their prize performances at +Oxford,--the one with all the warmth, fire, and animation of the poet of +Palestine, sensitive to every impression, and making all serve to light +his altar-flame; the other all common-sense, sincere, deep, and +laborious, but with a narrower range of sympathies, and afraid of all +that might distract attention from the one great subject. General +literature had no charms for Wilson. He is believed never to have read +one of Scott's poems or novels; and the playful mirth that enlivened all +Heber's paths was not with him, though he had the equable cheerfulness of +a faithful servant doing his Lord's work. His daughter, soon after his +arrival, married her cousin, Josiah Bateman, his chaplain (and +biographer), and thus continued to be the mistress of her father's house. + +On the Whitsunday of 1833 the Bishop baptized one of those Hindoo +gentlemen who are among the most satisfactory of Christian converts; they +are free from the suspicion of interested motives which has always +attached to the pariahs and low-caste people who hung about Serampore and +its dependent stations, and, justly or unjustly, were accused of turning +Christians when they had exhausted other resources of idleness and +knavery. A curious instance of a thorough conversion happened the same +year. A lad, educated like most other well-to-do Hindoos in the schools +of the Church Missionary at Mirzampore, when about fifteen, became +persuaded of the saving grace of Christianity, and determined to be +baptized and openly forsake his idols. His parents persecuted him, and +he fled to a friend, a Hindoo convert; but he was seized by his +relations, and the case was referred to the Supreme Court, who decided +that the father's power over the son must not be interfered with; and the +poor boy was dragged away, clinging to the barrister's table, amid the +shouts of the heathen and the tears of the Christians. The boy remained +staunch, and three years later came again and received baptism; but his +sufferings had injured his health, both of mind and body, and his promise +of superior intelligence was blighted. + +In 1834, the Bishop set off on his first long journey, which included +Penang and Moulmein, where the Judsons had taken refuge after the Burmese +war, and where he found, in the midst of half-cleared jungle and Buddhist +temples full of enormous idols, a school kept by an American master, so +full of notions of equality, that, at the examination, he expected the +Bishop to go to each class, not the class to the Bishop. + +The Commissioner had built a church, the walls of teak slabs, and the +pillars each a single teak-tree, and it was ready for consecration. After +this and a confirmation, the Bishop went on his way to Ceylon, and then +to the Madras Presidency, where he had already had a long correspondence +with the pastors of the Christian congregations on the question of caste. +Things had not prospered of late; and, to the dismay of the Bishop, he +found that, in the course of the last year, 168 Christians had fallen +back to heathenism, where, not having broken their caste, they could +still be received and find a place. The truth was that, though caste +might appear only a distinction of mere social rank, it was derived from +a pagan superstition, and was a stronghold of heathenism. Schwartz was +all his life trying to make it wear and die out, lest the violent +renunciation should be too much for his converts' faith. But his +successors had allowed the feeling to retrograde; and Bishop Wilson found +separate services, sides of the church allotted to the high and low +castes, and the most unchristian distinctions made between them. He +decided that toleration of the prejudice was only doing harm, and issued +orders that henceforth catechumens preparing for baptism, confirmation, +or communion, should be called on to renounce caste as a condition of +admittance; and that, though the adult communicants should be gently +dealt with, there should be no recognition of the distinction in the +places in church, in the order of administering the Holy Communion, in +marriages or processions, and that differences of food or dress, or marks +on the forehead, should be discontinued. The clergy were in +consternation, and made an appeal before they published the Bishop's +letter to their flocks; but they found his mind made up, and yielded. The +lesser stations complied without much difficulty; but at Trichinopoly, +Vepery, and Tanjore, there were many Soodras, the soldier-caste, +professing to have come from Brahma's shoulders, and second only to the +Brahmins. They were desperately offended. At Trichinopoly, only seven +Soodra families continued to attend the services, although the seceders +behaved quietly, and offered no insults either to the clergy or the +pariahs. At Vepery, on the reading of the Bishop's letter, the whole +Soodra population walked out _en masse_, except one catechist, who joined +them afterwards. They then drew up a paper, declaring that they would +not yield, and would neither come to church nor send their children to +school, unless they continued to be distinguished; and they set up a +service of their own in a chapel lent them by a missionary belonging to +the London Society. He was, however, reprimanded for this by the +committee which employed him at Madras, and the chapel was withdrawn; +upon which the Soodras remained without any public worship whatever for +five months, when the catechists and schoolmasters came forward and +acknowledged their pride and contumacy, the children dropped into the +schools, and the grown-up people, one by one, returned to church, but in +their own way. + +At Tanjore, the contest was a much harder one. Serfojee had died in +1834, and the son whom Bishop Heber had vainly tried to obtain for +education was one of the ordinary specimens of indolent, useless rajahs, +enjoying ease and display under British protection; but the Mission had +gone on thriving as to numbers, though scarcely as to earnestness or +energy; and the Christians numbered 7,000, with 107 catechists and four +native clergy, under the management of Mr. Kohloff, almost the last of +Schwartz's fellow-workers. The Bishop's letter was read aloud by him, +after the sermon, on the 10th of November, 1833. There was an immediate +clamour of all the Soodras, who would not be hushed by being reminded +that they were in church, and, while Mr. Kohloff was being assisted from +the pulpit, gathered round his wife and insulted her. + +Letters passed between the Soodras and the missionaries. There was no +denial that the Bishop's command was right in itself; but an immense +variety of excuses were offered for not complying with it, and only one +of the four priests consented,--Nyanapracasem, an old man of eighty, who +may be remembered as one of Schwartz's earliest converts, and of the four +priests ordained by the Lutherans,--with three catechists, and ten of the +general body; all the others remained in a state of secession. When the +first death took place among them, Nyanapracasem, the one conforming +priest, was appointed to read the funeral service; but he fell sick, and +the only substitute available on the spot was a low-caste catechist, a +very respectable man, but whom the Soodras silenced with threats, +employing one of their own people in his stead. Next time, they borrowed +the Roman Catholic burial-ground, and services were carried on, on +Sunday, by one of the dissentient priests, but marriages were celebrated +in the heathen fashion, and there was evidently a strong disposition to +form a schism, which the reckless, easy, self-willed conduct of the +Soodras showed would be Christianity only in name. There had even been +an appeal to the Governor-General, and the Bishop felt the whole tone of +Christianity in India to be at stake. + +It was in the height of this crisis that his journey to Madras was made +in the track of Bishop Heber. Twice he preached at Vepery, and the +Soodras attended; but he asked no questions, and let them place +themselves as they chose, and take precedence, intending to fight out the +question at Tanjore. + +There, at seven o'clock in the morning of January 10, 1835, on the bank +of the Cavery River, he was received by all the faithful Christians and +school-children, headed by Kohloff and Nyanapracasem, These were the two +remaining fellow-workers of Schwartz. Kohloff, now becoming aged, had +his hair long and loose round his florid German face; he was still a true +German, full of simple kindness, and his English had a good deal of +accent. His Hindoo companion was a beautiful old man, with long snowy +hair flowing over his long white robes, who took the Bishop's hand +between both of his, and blessed God for his coming, hoping that as +Elijah brought back the stiff-necked Israelites, so the Bishop might turn +the hearts of the Soodras. + +Late that afternoon, a great party of these assembled to lay their +complaints before the Bishop, bringing their two dissentient priests. One +was of doubtful character, and was unnoticed; but to the other, John +Pillay, the Bishop addressed himself, telling him to assure the other +Christians that his heart was full of love, and that he would hear their +grievances, and answer them another time, when less weary with his +journey. + +Several spoke, and the Bishop listened to their individual cases. They +were anxious to come and hear his sermon, but would only do so if allowed +to sit apart; and to this, as one great object was to obtain their +attention, the Bishop consented, with a reservation that it was only for +that once. The church was thronged, and after a Tamul service, the +Bishop preached, pausing after every sentence that a catechist might +render his words into Tamul. The text was, "Walk in love, as Christ also +loved us," and the latter part of his discourse was on the lesson from +the Good Samaritan, as to "who is my neighbour." There was at the end a +long pause of breathless silence, and then he called on everyone present +to offer up the following prayer: "Lord, give me a broken heart to +receive the love of Christ, and obey His commands." The whole +congregation repeated the words aloud in Tamul, and then he gave the +blessing and dismissed them. + +After this there were a great number of private conferences. People came +and owned that they had been very unhappy; religion had died in their +hearts, and they had had no peace; but their wives were the great +objectors--they feared whether they should marry their daughters, &c. &c. +The two priests especially saw the badness of their standing-ground, but +they should lose respect, they said. No Pariah seems to have been in +holy orders, but if a Pariah catechist visited a sick person, he was not +allowed to come under the roof, and the patient was carried out into the +verandah. And then came a rather stormy conference with about 150 +Soodras, which occupied two days, since every sentence had to pass +through an interpreter. The objections were various, but as a body the +resistance continued, and it was only individuals that came over; some of +these, however, did, and it was so clear from all that had passed that to +permit the distinctions was but a truckling to heathenism, that the +Bishop was more than ever resolved on firmness. Two of the priests had +conformed, and the Christianity of those who would not do so was plainly +not worth having. + +There was some polite intercourse with Serfojee's son, whose taste was +visible in the alteration of a fine statue of his father by Flaxman, from +which the white marble turban had been removed to substitute a coloured +one, with black feathers and tassels. In him the family has become +extinct, since he only left a daughter, and the adoption of a son, after +the old Hindoo fashion, has not been permitted by Government. + +Thence, Bishop Wilson proceeded towards Trichinopoly. He encamped, by +the way, at a place called Muttooputty, a large station on the Coleroon +river, where the way had been so prepared for him that there was a grand +throng of native Christians, untroubled about caste, and he was obliged +literally to lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes of the large +tent used as a chapel. It was one of the memorable days of joy that come +now and then to support the laborious spirit of the faithful servant. +"One such day as we have just passed is worth years of common service." + +At Trichinopoly, with the deepest sense of reverence, he visited the +scene of Heber's death, ministered at the same altar, and preached from +the same pulpit, after an interval of nine years. + +Here, his mode of dealing with the caste-question was thus: When he came +robed into the church, he saw groups of natives standing about, instead +of placing themselves like the others of the congregation. He went up to +two, led them to seats, and his chaplain following, did the same; the +rest were seated in like manner without resistance. + +When the Celebration took place, the Bishop had given directions as to +the order of things. First, a Soodra catechist communicated, then two +Pariah catechists, then an English gentleman, next a Pariah, then two +Eurasians; and thus without distinction, 147 communicated. The barrier +was broken down, and the nucleus of a church without caste was formed. + +This presidency of Madras was immediately after formed into a separate +see, and given to Daniel Corrie, the friend of Martyn, while Dr. Thomas +Carr became Bishop of Bombay. + +On Wilson's return to Tanjore he found an increasing though still small +number had conformed, and before he left the place there were hopes of +larger numbers. On his way back to Calcutta, he visited the horrible +pagoda of Juggernaut (properly Jaghanatha, Lord of the World), which was +still the centre of worship and pilgrimage; and though the +self-immolation of the pilgrims beneath the car had been prohibited, yet +the Company's Government still fancied themselves justified in receiving +a toll from the visitors to this shrine of cruelty and all uncleanness, +up to 1839, when the disgrace was done away by Lord Auckland. + +In the year 1836 another journey was made, first to Bombay and then +further into the interior, to many places, never visited by a bishop +before, and with no chaplain or anything to keep up the sense of +religion. At Aurungabad, the utter ignorance of the English officers was +appalling. The old Colonel-commandant had not heard a sermon for twenty +years, and thought every sentence on the text, "Walk in love," was a +personal attack on himself. He refused to attend another service, or to +bid the Bishop farewell! And when the Holy Communion was celebrated, +nobody knew what the offertory meant, and scarcely any one was prepared +to respond. + +Yet in contrast to these English, a small band of Hindoos, four men, six +women, and five children, presented themselves, asking permission to join +in the service, and to have their children baptized. They had been once +Roman Catholics, but an old Dutchwoman from Ceylon had taught them most +of what they knew; and they had a Hindostanee prayer-book, whence they +held a service every Sunday, but leaving out the Absolution and +Benediction, which they rightly perceived to be priestly functions. Two +of them were servants to an English officer, and they were all nearly +related. They were perfectly respectable and trustworthy, and looked +well dressed and intelligent. The Bishop tried to bring about an +application from the Company to the Nizam, to defray the expenses of an +occasional visit from a chaplain to the Christian officers and residents +in his employ, but he was answered that "it would form a dangerous +precedent." + +The next step was into the Bengal presidency, always with the same kind +of adventures; quaint civilities of the presentation of flowery garlands +bedecking the neck and arms, given by the native princes, with a +sprinkling of rose-water, and sometimes an anointing with oil; and then +an endeavour to stir into Christian life the neglected English military +and civil officers stationed in their dominions. + +One of these, a gentleman of good birth and repute, actually went on +smoking and gurgling his hookah when the Bishop was beginning family +prayers, apparently with no more perception that it was anything that +concerned him than if he had seen a Mahometan turning to Mecca, or a +Parsee saluting the rising sun. Indeed many of these Company's servants +had been sent out when fourteen or fifteen years old; and, if in a remote +station, had been left without anything external whatever to remind them +of Christianity. + +This journey extended to the Himalayas, where the Bishop had four months' +repose at Simlah, then in its infancy as a resort for wearied East +Indians; and on his descent from thence, his first halting-place was +Kurnaul, where he found the church in a state of efficiency, owing, in +great part, to an officer whose conversion to a religious life had been +very remarkable. Once, when in a large party, where gambling was going +on to a reckless extent, he saw one of the players take out a hideous +little black figure, supposed to represent the devil, to which he +addressed himself with a mixture of entreaties and threats, involving +such blasphemy that this officer, utterly horrified, withdrew from the +company, spent the night in tears and prayers, and from that time became +a religious man. There was also an active chaplain, a large church, and +a bungalow, built by the soldiers of an English regiment, the centre part +arranged for service, and the surrounding verandah partitioned into +little cells, where the soldiers could retire for private prayer or +reading. It was called St. John's Chapel, and was in the hands of the +chaplain. Here the Bishop remained for two Sundays, and ordained Anund +Musseeh, who had been fifteen years a Christian, and had been known to +Bishop Heber. The difficulty in his case was the rule not to ordain a +person who had a heathen family, since he had not been able to convert +his wife. His excellence outweighed the objection, and he was the first +Brahmin who received holy orders from an English bishop; but in after- +times the heathen influence at home told upon him; and this failure +perhaps rendered Bishop Daniel Wilson somewhat over-cautious and backward +in ordaining a native ministry. + +The next stage was Delhi, where a very interesting interview awaited him. +An officer of Anglo-Indian birth, James Skinner by name, who had raised +and commanded a capital body of light horse, had twenty years before +entered Delhi with a conquering army, and, gazing on the countless domes +and minarets, vowed that if ever he should be able, he would build an +English church to raise its cross among them. He had persevered, though +the cost far exceeded the estimate, and though the failure of houses of +business had greatly lessened his means; and now he came, a tall, stout, +dark man of fifty-six, in a uniform of blue, silver, and steel, a helmet +on his head and a red ribbon on his breast, to beg for consecration for +his church. His sons were Christians, but his wife was a Mahometan, +though, he said with tears, that "for thirty years a better wife no man +ever had." + +The church was of Greek architecture, shaped as a Greek cross, with +porticoes with flights of steps at each extremity except the east, which +formed the chancel, and at the intersection was a dome and cupola. It +was paved with marble, and the whole effect was beautiful. After the +consecration a confirmation followed, and the first to receive the +apostolic rite were the noble old Colonel himself and his three sons. +Twenty years later this fine building was filled with dying men, and +shared in the horrors of the siege of Delhi; but it has now returned to +its rightful use, and as a church of martyrs. + +Indeed, all the places that the Bishop visited in this excursion have +since been associated with the Mutiny. Cawnpore was not much more +satisfactory than when Heber had visited it; an irreligious commandant +and a dissipated regiment had done much harm; and an imprudent letter of +one of the chaplains had led to a quarrel, in which the clergyman +unfortunately put himself in the wrong. Happily, a new commanding +officer and better conducted regiment had replaced the first, and the ill- +feeling was so entirely removed that the Bishop wrote, "Never did I enter +a station with such despondency, nor leave one with so much joy." And +thus he prepared Cawnpore for that which was in store for it! + +His visit to Allahabad was chiefly memorable for his horror at the large +resort of pilgrims to bathe in the Ganges, and at the tax by which a +Christian government profited by their pagan superstition, with all its +grossness and cruelty. He brought home a little ticket, with the number +76902 stamped on it, such as was issued to the pilgrims, and made a +strong appeal to the Governor-General, as well as to persons in England. +The next year both this tax and that on the pilgrims to Jaghernauth were +suppressed. Here he heard of the death of Bishop Corrie, after having +held the see of Madras only a year and a quarter, but having spent many +years in India, and worked there for a whole lifetime, in which he had +seen the very dawn of missionary efforts, and had watched the English +Church spread from a few scattered chaplains to three bishoprics. + +Lord Auckland and his sisters were more sincere friends of Christian +efforts than any Governor-General had yet been, but these were trying +times. Mr. Bateman, his daughter's husband, fell ill, and his wife was +obliged to return to England with him; the Bishop's other chaplain died, +and also some of his best friends. On going, a few years later, to +consecrate a church at Singapore, he visited Moulmein, and was introduced +to Dr. Judson, with whom he was very much struck. + +The great work connected with Daniel Wilson's name, as that of Bishop's +College is with Middleton's, is the building of the Cathedral of +Calcutta. "What do you say, my four children," he writes, "to your +father's attempting to build a cathedral to the name of the Lord his God +in this heathen land?" It had been the desire of Bishop Middleton, but +there had been too much to do during his nine years, and it was only now +that at last the times were ripe. Subscriptions were opened, and the +Bishop devoted a large amount of his income to the fund; plans were drawn +up, land granted freely, and on the 9th of October, 1839, the first stone +of St. Paul's Cathedral was laid by the Bishop. + +Just at this time there was a most remarkable move made towards +Christianity. Krishnaghur, 130 miles from Calcutta, was the great centre +of the worship of Krishna, one of the manifestations of Vishnu. Here two +missionaries of the Church Missionary Society had been at work; and when +the Bishop was there in 1837, he described them as having made "a little +beginning," by keeping schools and holding conferences with the people, +but they had then no adult convert. A year after a message was brought +by a native, entreating for further help. There were 1,200 seriously +inquiring into the doctrine, with many candidates for baptism, and at +many places around it was the same. In the year 1840, the Bishop set +forth to visit the spot and the adjacent districts, where almost all the +villages seemed to be actuated by the same impulse. The missionaries did +their utmost to distinguish between mere fashion and hope of gain and a +true faith; but after all their siftings, large numbers were ready for +baptism, and the hope was so great that the Bishop was full of thankful +ecstasy, and could hardly sleep from agitation, joy, and anxiety. One +hundred and fifty converts were baptized at once, at a place called +Anunda Bass. The examination was thus, the Bishop standing in the +midst:-- + +"Are you sinners?" + +"Yes, we are." + +"How do you hope to obtain forgiveness?" + +"By the sacrifice of Christ." + +"What was that sacrifice?" + +"We were sinners, and Christ died in our stead." + +"How is your heart to be changed?" + +"By the Holy Ghost." + +"Will you renounce all idolatry, feasts, poojahs, and caste?" + +"Yes, we renounce them all." + +"Will you renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil?" + +"Yes." + +"Will you suffer for Christ's sake?" + +"Yes." + +"Will you forgive injuries?" + +"Yes." + +These converts had been under preparation for more than a year, and +seemed thoroughly convinced and fairly instructed. Therefore the +baptismal service was read by Mr. Deerr; and when the vows were reached, +the Bishop turned to the Christians around and asked if they would be +witnesses and godparents to these candidates; and, with one voice, they +shouted that they would. Each candidate was singly baptized, and then +came up to the Bishop, by whom the words receiving him into the Ark of +Christ's Church were spoken. At Ranobunda there was another baptism of +250, and, in the whole district, full a thousand were admitted. It was +not in over-confident joy. "Time will show," said the Bishop, "who are +wheat and who are tares." It was impossible among so many that all +should be perfect Christians, but it was a real foundation; the flame +then lighted burns on steadily, and the Christian faith has a firm and +strong hold in the district of Krishnaghur. + +Anxieties of course crossed his work. The Church Missionary Society, +after being used to control its clergy, was not properly ready to allow +their canonical obedience to a Bishop; and the troubles that thus arose +made him once speak of Heber as happy in being shielded by his early +death from the class of vexations connected with societies. To his great +grief, too, a lady who had worked for years at the education of girls and +orphans at Calcutta seceded to the Plymouth Brethren, and was necessarily +obliged to give up the charge. It was to him "as if a standard-bearer +fainteth." The Oxford controversy also vexed him a good deal. The +school of Newton and Cecil, in which he had been brought up, was at the +most distant point that the Church permitted from the doctrines of the +Tracts for the Times; and few men are able or willing candidly to judge +or appreciate opinions that have grown up since their own budget was +completed, especially after they have been for some time in the exercise +of authority. Thus he set his mind very strongly against all the clergy +holding those views who came to work in the diocese; and thereby impeded +a good deal that might have worked heartily with him if he had only been +able to believe it, and to understand that the maintenance of the voice +of the Church is truly the maintenance of the voice of Christ. + +In November 1844, when on a visitation at Umballah, he had his first +serious illness, a fever, he being then in his sixty-sixth year and in +the thirteenth of his residence in India. For about a week he was in +great danger, but rallied, and was able to be removed by slow stages, +though not without an attack of inflammation on the lungs before reaching +Calcutta; and his constitution was altogether so much shaken that he was +ordered home, without loss of time, to recruit his health. + +He returned to England by the Overland route, and after a short respite +recovered much of his strength, so as to be able to preach in many +churches and appear at numerous meetings; and in a year's time the +vigorous old man was on his way back to his diocese, where he arrived in +time to keep the Christmas of 1846, just two years after he had been +stricken down by fever. In the October of the next year he consecrated +his cathedral, towards which 20,000_l._ had been his own donation, half +towards the building, half towards the endowment. His strength was not +quite what it had been before, but he still had abundant energy, and new +branches of the Church were springing up around him; not only the three +dioceses that had branched from his own in India, but Ceylon had a Bishop +of its own, Australia had five, and the Cape and New Zealand and the Isle +of Hong Kong had each received a Bishop. The principle had come to be +recognized that to send out isolated workers without a head to organize +was a plan that could hardly be reasonably expected to succeed; and in +the long run prosperity has certainly attended the contrary arrangement. +Not to speak of the Divine authority, the action of a body under a +recognized head and superior on the spot must be far readier of +adaptation to circumstances than that of a number of equals, accountable +only to some necessarily half-informed Society at home. + +In his 73rd year, just after a visitation tour, it somewhat dismayed +Bishop Wilson to find a letter from the Bishop of London sending him to +consecrate the new church erected by Sir James Brooke, at Sarawak. Few +careers have been more remarkable than that of the truly great man who +subdued Malay piracy, and gained the confidence of the natives of Borneo; +and when the effort of the fourteen weeks' voyage had been made, the +Bishop returned full of joy and hope, and not long after, together with +the Bishops of Madras and Victoria, joined in consecrating the missionary +Bishop of Labuan to the new field of work there opening. On the last +journey of his life he also visited Rangoon, and there consecrated the +church, finding the clergy hard at work and numerous converts. + +During the year 1856 he had many attacks of illness, more or less severe; +and in December, in going across the room in haste, he struck himself +against a wooden screen, and was thrown down. His thigh was broken, and +his age was such that great fears for his life were entertained, but he +recovered, and was able to pray with, cheer, and comfort the many anxious +hearts at Calcutta during the dreadful days of the Indian mutiny of 1857, +when the churches he had consecrated were stained with the blood of the +worshippers. + +But there was no cause for despondency in the attitude of the converts. +The districts where Christianity had been so widely diffused remained +tranquil, and the Christians in the cities where the mutineers were +raging did not apostatize; but, unless they could conceal themselves, +suffered with the whites. There was a great day of fasting and +humiliation appointed by him for the 24th of July, 1857. + +That day Bishop Wilson preached his last sermon. The text was from +Habakkuk i. 12. "Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy +One? we shall not die. O Lord, Thou hast ordained them for judgment; +and, O mighty God, Thou hast established them for correction." Calcutta +was then trembling under the tidings of the horrors of Cawnpore, the +death of Sir Henry Lawrence, and the siege of Lucknow; and no one knew +what peril might be the next. Slaughter seemed at the very gates, when +the old man stood forth to console and encourage, but yet to give warning +strong and clear that these frightful catastrophes were in great measure +the effect of our sins, our fostering of heathenism, our recognition of +caste, and were especially a judgment on the viciousness and irreligion +that had been the curse of English life in India. It was in open +Christianity alone that he beheld hope. + +The day was observed by all the clergy, but the Governor-General for some +reason declined to make it official, and, only when the worst of the +danger was over, appointed the 4th of October as a fast-day. The Bishop +arranged the services, but was too unwell to attend them. This was the +beginning of his last illness; and though he held an ordination some +weeks later, these latter weeks were all sinking, and increasing +feebleness. A sea-voyage was twice attempted, but without success; and +on the 1st of January, 1858, his trembling hand wrote, "All going on +well, but I am dead almost.--D. C. Firm in hope." + +Daniel Calcutta, whom these initials indicated, wrote these words at half- +past seven at night. By the same hour in the morning he had peacefully +passed to his rest. + +One more Bishop of Calcutta we have since mourned; though the shortness +of his career was owing to accident, not disease or climate. But with +Daniel Wilson the see of Calcutta became established as a metropolitan +bishopric, and ceased to possess that character of gradual extension +which rendered its first holders necessarily missionaries. True, it +needs many subdivisions. Four Bishops are a scanty allowance for our +vast Indian Empire, and the see of Calcutta has a boundary scarce limited +to the north; but these are better days than when it included the Cape, +Australia, and New Zealand. The Bishop has now more to do with the +development of old missions than with the working of new ones; and there +can be no doubt that though there has been much of disappointment, and +the progress is very slow, yet progress there is. The older converts +form more and more of a nucleus, and although there is a large class who +hang about missions from interested motives, there are also multitudes of +quiet and contented villagers whose simplicity and remoteness shield them +from the notice of the travellers who sneer at Christianity and call +mission reports _couleur de rose_, because they have been taken in by +some cunning scamp against whom any missionary would have warned them. + +The towns and the neighbourhood of troops are not favourable places for +observing the effects of Christianity. The work of the schools in the +great cities tells but very slowly. At present, out of a hundred boys +who go thither and receive the facts of Christianity intellectually, only +the minority are practically affected by it; and of these, some lose all +faith in their own system, but retain it outwardly in deference to their +families, while others try to take Christian morality without Christian +doctrine; and only one or two perhaps may be sincere and open believers. +But even if only one is gained, is not that an exceeding gain? It took +three hundred years of apostolic teaching to make the Roman Empire +Christian. Why should we "faint, and say 'tis vain," after one hundred +in India? + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. SAMUEL MARSDEN, THE AUSTRALIAN CHAPLAIN AND FRIEND OF THE +MAORI. + + +It has been mentioned that the island of Australia was considered as an +archdeaconry of the see of Calcutta. This enormous island, first +discovered in 1607 by Luis de Torres, and inhabited only by the very +lowest race of savages, appeared to the Government of George III. a +convenient spot for forming a penal settlement; and in 1787 the first +convict ships carried out an instalment from the English jails to New +South Wales, where the city of Sydney was founded by Governor Phillip. + +As usual in those days, the provision made for the moral or religious +training of this felon population was lamentably and even absurdly +deficient; for it seemed to be considered, that so long as the criminals +were safe out of England, it did not greatly matter to her what became of +them. But the power of grace is sure to work sooner or later wherever +the Christian name has been carried, and a holy man rose up, not only to +fight hard with the mass of corruption in Australia, but to carry on the +light to the more distant shores of the Southern Ocean. + +This good man, Samuel Marsden, was the son of a small farmer at Farsley, +near Calverley, in Yorkshire, and was educated at the free Grammar School +at Hull by Dr. Joseph Milner, whose Church History used to be a standard +book in the early part of this century. He began his career as a +tradesman at Leeds, but his school influences had given him higher +aspirations; and a body termed the Elland Society, whose object was to +educate young men of small means and suitable character for the ministry, +and whose chief supporters were Wilberforce, Simeon, and Thornton, +selected him as one of their scholars, and placed him at St. John's +College, Cambridge. He had not even taken his degree when, to his +surprise, he was offered a chaplaincy in New South Wales! The post was +no doubt a difficult one to fill,--for who would willingly undertake to +be one of two clergymen sent to labour among an untamed multitude of +criminals?--and Mr. Wilberforce was, no doubt, glad to suggest a young +man so blameless and full of zeal, and of whom, from personal observation +at Cambridge, Mr. Simeon had so high an opinion. + +Samuel Marsden wished to decline it at first; but finding that no one +else would come forward to undertake the charge, he accepted it; and in +the spring of 1793 he was ordained, and married, being then nearly twenty- +nine years of age. His wife, Elizabeth Tristan, was thoroughly worthy of +him, and ruled his house admirably, never calling him back from any duty, +but so managing that his open-handed charity never brought him into +difficulties. They were obliged to take their passage in a convict ship, +which was to sail from Hull. Marsden was engaged to preach in a church +near the harbour, and was just about to enter the pulpit when the signal- +gun was fired to summon the passengers on board. He took off his gown, +gave his arm to his bride at her pew door, and walked to the beach, the +whole congregation streaming out after them down to the boat, where the +young clergyman stood for a few moments ere pushing off, to give his +parting benedictions. + +The ship went round to Portsmouth to receive her load of convicts; and +while she was lying there, Marsden visited the Isle of Wight, and one +Sunday preached in Brading Church. The effect of his sermon in touching +the heart of one young woman was long remembered, in consequence of a +memoir of her, entitled "The Dairyman's Daughter," which was drawn up +after her death by the clergyman of her parish, the Rev. Legh Richmond. + +It was as trying a voyage as Henry Martyn's, except that even less was to +be expected from his shipmates. The captain was unwilling to allow +prayers to be read even on Sunday, saying he had never known a religious +sailor; and though, after a time, Mr. Marsden prevailed, he never felt +himself making much impression for good. One of his books on the voyage +was the Life of David Brainerd, that torch of missionaries, and who +proved the example which served to stir Mr. Marsden to look beyond his +own immediate field of labour, severe though that was, and unflinching as +was his toil. + +His arrival at Paramatta, his new home, was in the March of 1794, when +the convict system had prevailed about seven years, and had been +sufficient to form a population disgraceful to human nature. None of +those endeavours to reclaim the prisoner which now prevail had then been +attempted, and jails were schools and hotbeds of crime, whence the +transported were sent forth to corrupt each other more and more on board +ship; and then, though employed on Government works or assigned to free +settlers as servants, so soon as they had worked out their time of +servitude they were let loose to live after their own will. + +Such as had any capacity for steady industry soon made their fortunes on +the parcels of land allotted to them by Government, to which they added +by purchase; and these persons, by the influence of wealth and property, +rose into colonial rank and authority, though without any such real +training in the sense of uprightness or morality as could fit them for +the posts they occupied. The least tainted by crime were the Irish, who +had been deported by wholesale after the rebellion, some without even a +form of trial, but these were idle and prone to violence; while of the +regular convicts there was a large proportion addicted to every brutality +that vice could conceive, and their numbers were continually being +recruited by fresh shiploads after the assizes at home. The only attempt +at securing order and tolerable safety was by visiting every offence, +even the slightest, of which a convict was accused in a court of justice, +with the most unrelenting severity; and this, of course, had the effect +of further brutalizing these felon people, making them reckless of the +deeds they committed, and often driving them to become +bush-rangers--outlawed wild men of the woods--a terror to the colony. A +powerful military force was kept up to repress these wretched beings by +physical force, but of moral training there was only what was afforded by +the openings for industry in a new country, and religious teaching was +represented by--two chaplains, for convicts, soldiers, settlers, and all! +No wonder that the senior soon broke down under the hopeless toil of such +a position, and left the junior to struggle with it alone. And nobly he +did struggle! Wilberforce had made a wise choice of a man in the prime +of youth, whose bullet-headed portrait speaks of the most dogged +determination, with nerves, health, and weight enough to contend for a +whole lifetime with the horrible depravity around him--the only +clergyman, and with three settlements far apart dependent on his +ministry. And in the outset he was severely tried by domestic sorrows; +for his eldest son, at two years old, was thrown out of his mother's arms +by a jolt to the carriage over the rough road, and killed on the spot; +and a younger child, who was shortly after left at home from dread of a +similar accident, was allowed by its attendant to stray into the kitchen, +where it fell backwards into a pan of boiling water and was fatally +scalded. + +The father bore these calamities as one who had steadfast faith and +resignation--"one who felt much and said little." The demands on his +time, indeed, left him no leisure for giving way to grief. Spiritual +matters were not all that came upon him. In the utter lack of +conscientious men to perform the functions of the magistracy, he was at +once appointed to the bench; nor, indeed, was there the same feeling in +England then as now against the combination of the clergyman and justice +of the peace. The most exemplary parish priests viewed it as a duty to +administer justice in their villages; and the first, and till quite +recently the sole manual of prayers to be used with prisoners, was the +production of one of these clerical magistrates. A Yorkshire farmer's +son could not be expected to know much about law, but good sense, +uprightness, perception of justice, and intense determination, he had, as +well as Christian humanity; and in these he was superior to any of his +colleagues on the Paramatta bench, whom he was continually striving to +raise to some comprehension of the commonest rules of justice, mercy, and +decency; and in this, after a long course of years, he in some measure +succeeded; but not till after his strong hand, impartial justice, and +hatred of vice, had made him enemies among all parties; and it is only +too probable that his secular authority, though always nobly wielded, +impeded rather than otherwise his pastoral influence. + +His farming education served him well when he received a grant of land, +and of thirteen convicts to bring it into order. It was part of his +payment, almost indispensable for procuring to his family the necessaries +of life, and it gave him, besides, the means of imparting instruction in +honest labour. His property became the model farm of New South Wales, +and the profits afforded him the means of establishing the schools, +benevolent institutions, and missions, for which there were few, if any +purses to draw upon. He won himself respect on all sides, especially +from the Governor of the colony, Captain King, a hasty, violent, but good- +hearted man, with whom more than once he had misunderstandings, but such +as were made up again. On one of these occasions, the chaplain's advice +was asked by the Governor, and promised on condition that he might speak +as to a private individual. So, when they met, Mr. Marsden locked the +door, and, in plain and forcible terms, gave _Captain_ King a +thoroughgoing remonstrance on the faults of _Governor_ King, which was +taken in perfect good part. + +Nevertheless, the whole construction of Society was so atrocious, that +nothing could effect any improvement but interference from higher +authority. The Court of Judicature in New South Wales was the most +shamelessly corrupt and abandoned in existence, and a rebellious spirit +broke out which imperilled the military authority of the Governor. Mr. +Marsden saw no hope, except in laying a full statement in person before +the home Government; and therefore, at the end of fourteen years, when +Governor King was about to return home, he resolved to go himself, and +make a strong personal representation to Government. The two families +sailed in the same ship, the _Buffalo_, which proved to be leaky; and, +when a heavy gale was expected, it was proposed that the passengers +should quit her, and take refuge in a stronger vessel; but Mrs. King was +too unwell to be moved, and Mrs. Marsden would not leave her, so that the +proposal was abandoned, and most providentially, for the ship that had +been thought secure was lost in the night and never seen more! + +The voyage was a slow one; and the first thing Mr. Marsden heard on +arriving was, that the insurrection he had expected had actually broken +out. This rendered Lord Castlereagh, then Colonial Secretary, the more +anxious to obtain the advice of a sensible, clear-headed man like Samuel +Marsden, and he was encouraged to explain his views. First, he was +anxious for whatever would tend to reform the convicts; and having +observed that the most respectable of these were such as had married, or +whose wives had come out to them, he begged that, for the future, the +families of the married men might be sent out with them. This was +refused; but his representation that the convicts ought to be instructed +in trades was attended to, when he showed that, by this means, the whole +expense of their clothing might be saved. He had discerned the wonderful +capacities of Australia for sheep farming, and having brought home some +wool, and found it much approved by the manufacturers, he thereupon +ventured to petition the King for a couple of merino {f:221} sheep from +the royal farm at Windsor, to improve the breed. The request was after +"Farmer George's" own heart; he gave five, and thus Mr. Marsden did the +work of agricultural improvement of the Benedictines of old. He also +obtained that three more clergymen and three schoolmasters should be sent +out; and he strove hard for other institutions, chiefly for the +reformation of the female convicts, which he could not at the time get +carried out. He likewise conducted an immense correspondence on behalf +of persons who had not found any other means of communicating with their +homes; and, at the same time, he became personally acquainted with +Wilberforce, and many others of the supporters of the cause of religion. + +Above all, it was in this visit to England that Mr. Marsden laid the +foundations of the missions to New Zealand, and prepared to become the +apostle of the Maori race. These great islands of New Zealand had been +discovered and named by Tasman in 1642, and first visited by Captain Cook +in 1769. He found them inhabited by a brave, high-spirited, and quick- +witted set of natives, with as large a proportion of the fine qualities +sometimes found in a wild race as ever savages possessed, but their +tribes continually at war, and the custom of cannibalism prevailing: he +had been on friendly terms with them, and presented them with pigs, +fowls, and potatoes--no small boon in a land where there was no quadruped +bigger than a rat, and very few esculent vegetables. From this time, +whalers occasionally stopped to take in water, &c., and kept up a sort of +intercourse with the Maori, sometimes amiable, and resulting in the +natives taking voyages on board the vessels, but sometimes quarrelsome, +and characterized by mutual outrages, when, if a white man were made +prisoner, he was sure to be killed and eaten, to serve as a sort of +triumphal and sacrificial banquet. + +Nevertheless, it was plain that these Maories were of a much higher type +of humanity than the Australian natives, whom Mr. Marsden had found so +far entirely unteachable and untameable, but for whom he was trying to +establish some plan of training and protection. Such a spirit of +curiosity and enterprise possessed some of the New Zealand chieftains, +that they would come on visits to Australia, and on these occasions Mr. +Marsden always gave them a welcome at his parsonage at Paramatta. At one +time there were thirty staying there, over whom he had great influence. +Once, when he was absent from home, the nephew of one of the chiefs died, +and his uncle immediately prepared to sacrifice a slave; nor could Mrs. +Marsden prevent it, otherwise than by hiding the intended victim till her +husband came home, who made the chief understand that it was not to be +done, though the man continued to lament that his nephew was deprived of +his proper attendant in the other world, and seemed afraid to return +home, lest the father of the youth should reproach him with the omission. + +Mr. Marsden made known all that he had been able to gather of the +promising nature of the field of labour in New Zealand, and sought aid +from the Church Missionary Society, since the Society for the Propagation +of the Gospel was then unable to reach beyond the colonies. The almost +universal indifference of the upper classes to missionary labour was +terribly crippling in the matter of means; and perhaps the fact was that +the underbred class of agents of the Societies stirred up by the example +of Marshman and Carey, together with the vulgarly-sensational appeals +against which Ward's good taste so strongly protested, greatly tended to +make them incredulous. It was not till the statements of scholars and +gentlemen, like Henry Martyn and Bishop Heber, became generally known, +that the work was looked on without sarcasm, provoked by vulgarity, even +where there was great devotion. + +No clergyman could be found to undertake the mission to New Zealand; but +William Hall and John King, two laymen, undertook to act as pioneers, +with instructions to establish family worship, converse on religion with +the natives, and instruct their children; trying, at the same time, to +show the benefits of civilization, but to take care it was not confounded +with Christianity. + +These two good men, who were presently followed by Thomas Kendall, sailed +in the same ship with Mr. Marsden, when, in August 1809, he paid his last +farewell to his native land, and sailed in the _Ann_ for New South Wales. +Strange to say, this very ship contained a Maori, on his return home! He +was a young chief named Duaterra, who had, in a spirit of adventure, +embarked on board a whaler named the _Argo_, and worked as a sailor for +six months, till the captain, having no further occasion for his +services, put him ashore at Port Jackson, without payment or friends. +However, he embarked in another whaler, and worked his way home, but soon +was on board of a third English ship, the _Santa Anna_, in search of seal- +skins, and having conceived a great desire to see the country whence +these vessels came forth, and to know its chief, he engaged to come to +England in it, the captain and sailors not scrupling to promise him an +introduction to King George. When the _Santa Anna_ reached England, the +crew had grown tired of him, used him roughly and harshly, and tried to +put him off his pertinacious recollection of the promise of seeing the +king, by telling him that King George's house could not be found; while +he was worked beyond his strength, and scarcely ever suffered to go on +shore. When, in fifteen days, the cargo was all discharged, the captain +put him on board the _Ann_, to be taken back to Australia, and when he +asked for his wages, to provide some clothing, told him that the owner of +the ship would give him two muskets when he should reach Port Jackson. + +The poor fellow was little likely to reach it, for lung disease, the +great foe of the Maori, had set in; and he was in a pitiable condition +when Mr. Marsden, by chance, remarked his brown face on the forecastle, +and inquired into his history, which was confirmed by the master of the +_Ann_, and was really only a specimen of a sailor's vague promises, and +incapacity to understand that a dark skin ought to be treated with the +same justice as a white one. Duaterra was a man of much intelligence, +and even under these most unfavourable circumstances had been greatly +impressed with the civilization of England, and was so desirous of +improvement that, on arriving at Port Jackson, Mr. Marsden took him to +his farm, where he applied eagerly to the learning of husbandry. + +Duaterra was not the only Maori ill-treated by British sailors. Another +chief having been used in like manner, or worse, on board the _Boyd_, +bided his time till the ship was in the Bay of Islands, and then brought +his tribe, armed with clubs and hatchets, to revenge his sufferings. They +overpowered the crew, slaughtered and feasted upon them, burning the +ship, and only retaining as captives two women and a boy. Nevertheless, +Hall and King were ready to take the missionaries to this dangerous spot, +but Mr. Marsden thought it best to give time for the passions thus +excited to cool down. + +Meantime Governor Macquarie had come out to take charge of New South +Wales. He was a man of great determination and despotic will, and +carried out many regulations that were of exceeding benefit to the +colony, but he did not know the limits of his authority, dealt with the +chaplains as with subordinate officials, and sometimes met with staunch +opposition from the sturdy Yorkshireman, his senior chaplain, so that +they were in a state of almost constant feud throughout his government, +although at the end of his career he bore the strongest testimony to the +merits of the only man who durst resist him. The old game of Ambrose and +Theodosius, Hildebrand and Henry, Becket and Plantagenet, has to be +played over and over again, wherever the State refuses to understand that +spiritual matters lie beyond its grasp; and when Governor Macquarie +prescribed the doctrines to be preached and the hymns to be used in the +churches, and commanded the most unsuitable secular notices to be +promulgated by the clergy, if Mr. Marsden had not resisted the Church +would have been absolutely degraded. When convicts of wealth and +station, but still leading most vicious lives, were raised to the +magistrates' bench, Mr. Marsden could not but refuse to associate or act +with them, and even tendered his resignation of the magistracy, but +Macquarie would not accept it. How uncompromising these sermons were is +evidenced by an anecdote of a man, who, being stung to the quick, fancied +that the words had been individually aimed at him, and determined to be +revenged. Accordingly, as soon as he saw the chaplain riding near a +piece of water he jumped in, and when Mr. Marsden at once sprung after +him, did his utmost to drown his intended deliverer; but after a violent +struggle the Yorkshire muscles prevailed, and the man was dragged out, so +startled by the shock that he confessed his intention, and, under the +counsel he had so fiercely spurned at first, became truly penitent, and +warmly attached to Mr. Marsden, whose service he ultimately entered. + +The square short face and sturdy form of Samuel Marsden show the force, +vigour, and determination of his nature, which told on beast as well as +man. On the road between Sydney and Paramatta, he used to let the reins +lie loose on the splash-board of his gig and read, saying that "the horse +that could not keep itself up was not worth driving," and though one of +the pair he usually drove was unmanageable in other hands, nothing ever +went amiss with it when it went out with its master. Such a spirit of +determination produced an impress even on those who opposed him most, and +many works were carried out in the teeth of the difficulties thrown in +their way; such as the erection of schools, of a factory for the +reception of the female convicts, and of a sort of model farm, where it +was intended to collect, tame, and civilize the aborigines. This was at +first planned between the governor and chaplain, but when it was ready +Marsden was under Colonel Macquarie's displeasure, and was therefore +excluded from all share in the management, though the site was actually +in his own parish of Paramatta. The experiment was a failure, probably +not on this account, but from the restless character of the blacks, whose +intellect was too small, and their wants too few, to feel any comfort a +compensation for their freedom and wandering life. Mr. Marsden and the +other chaplains repeatedly tried bringing up children,--some too young to +retain any memory of their native habits, but they always relapsed into +savage life on the first opportunity, and though here and there +individuals may have better come up to the hopes of their devoted +friends, yet as a race they seem too little above the animal to be +susceptible of being raised. + +Governor Macquarie was an iron-handed man, who could not brook +opposition, or endure any scheme that did not originate with himself. So +when Mr. Marsden laid before him a project for diminishing the appalling +misery and vice in which the utter neglect of Government left the female +convicts, he acknowledged the letter, but did not act upon it. After +waiting eighteen months for him to take some measure, the chaplain sent a +statement of the condition of these poor creatures to the Colonial +Office; it was laid before Parliament, and Lord Bathurst, the Colonial +Secretary, sent a letter of inquiry to the Governor. Macquarie's fury +was intense on finding that the chaplain had dared to look above and +beyond him; and he gave a willing encouragement to whatever resisted the +attempts of Marsden at establishing some sense of religion and morality. +After refusing to accept his resignation of his post as a magistrate, he +dismissed him ignominiously, and all the underlings of Government knew +that any attack from them would be regarded with favour. A vile and +slanderous letter, full of infamous libels, not only against Samuel +Marsden, as a man and a Christian priest, but against the missionaries, +and signed "Philo-free," appeared in the _Sydney Herald_, the Government +paper, and was traced to Macquarie's own secretary! The libel was such +that Mr. Marsden felt it due to his cause to bring an action against the +publisher, and in spite of the prejudice against him, after a trial of +three days, he gained a complete victory and damages of 200 pounds; but +the newspaper published such a false and scandalous report of the trial +that he was obliged a second time to prosecute, and again obtained a +verdict in his favour. + +The officers of the 46th Regiment, on leaving the colony, presented him +with a testimonial, and an address most gratifying, amid the general +obloquy, and showing a feeling most honourable to themselves. Every one +who cared for the cause of virtue at home, especially Wilberforce, +Simeon, and Mrs. Fry, wrote encouraging letters to him; and Lord +Bathurst, on receiving a despatch from Macquarie, full of charges against +the chaplain as man, magistrate, and minister, sent out a commission of +inquiry, which, coming with fresh eyes from England, was horrified at the +abuses to which the Australian world was accustomed, found every word of +Mr. Marsden's perfectly justified, and at last extracted the following +confession from Colonel Macquarie: "The Governor admits that Mr. +Marsden's manner to him has been constantly civil and accommodating, and +that nothing in his manner could provoke the Governor's warmth. The +Governor admits his qualifications, his activity, and his unremitting +vigilance as a magistrate, and in society his cheerful disposition and +readiness to please." The report of this commission resulted, among +other more important consequences, in the unsolicited grant of 400 pounds +a year additional stipend to Mr. Marsden, "in consideration of his long, +laborious, and praiseworthy exertions in behalf of religion and +morality." This was only fitting compensation on the part of Government, +for the accusation of avarice had brought to light how many schools and +asylums, the proper work of the Government, had been built, and were +being maintained, out of the proceeds of the farm which had prospered so +excellently. + +As long as Macquarie continued in office, Mr. Marsden was out of favour, +but Sir Thomas Brisbane, who came out in 1821, was friendly with him, and +knew his value, insisting on his returning to the bench of magistrates. +He did all he could to avoid it, till the judges and almost every one in +the colony so urged him to accept that he yielded; but in 1824 a case +occurred in which a rich and insolent culprit was severely punished by +the Paramatta bench, and contrived to raise such an outrageous storm that +Sir Thomas Brisbane, who, if better disposed, was more timid than his +predecessor, dismissed the whole five magistrates. The offender's wish +had been merely to overthrow Mr. Marsden, but this was found impossible. +The whole fury of the colony again rose against this fearless man, and +accusations absolutely absurd were trumped up. One was that he allowed +his windmill to work on Sunday! The fact turned out to be, when +investigated, that somebody had once seen the sails turning on a Sunday, +some time before Mr. Marsden had purchased the land on which the mill +stood. A real act of persecution affected him more seriously, as it was +the ruin of another person in whom he was interested. There was an old +regulation forbidding the hiring out of convicts who were assigned to +residents as domestic servants, but this had been virtually repealed by +another under Macquarie, permitting such hiring out on the owners +complying with certain rules. These had been duly attended to by Mr. +Marsden in the case of one James Ring, a plumber and glazier, who, as a +reward for good conduct, was allowed to go out to work in Paramatta for +his own profit. Being ill-used and beaten by another servant, he +summoned the man before the bench of magistrates, but these, who had been +put in when Mr. Marsden and his colleagues were dismissed, immediately +committed Ring to jail for being at large. His master went to demand his +release, showing that the rules had been observed, but the magistrates +replied by levying a fine of two-and-sixpence for every day that Ring had +been at work, and as Marsden did not offer to pay, they sent a convict +constable to his house to seize property to that amount, while poor Ring +himself was sent to work in irons with the penal gang; though at that +very moment one of the magistrates had a servant, a tailor, at work in +Mr. Marsden's house; and another person had two hired convicts of another +of these justices employed at his home. In fact, it was the only +sentence of the kind ever inflicted, yet Sir Thomas Brisbane was afraid +to interfere; whereupon Mr. Marsden caused his case to be tried before +the Supreme Court, and so completely proved it, that restitution of the +illegal fine was commanded, though the spirit of persecution was still +shown in the absurdly small sum of damages allotted to him. What was +worse was that he could not procure the release of Ring, for while he was +sending an appeal to England the unhappy man lost patience, ran away from +the gang where he was working in irons on the roads, and escaped to New +Zealand, but was never heard of more. Had he but borne with his misery a +little longer he would have been restored to his kind master, for a +commission came out which a second time resulted in the complete triumph +of Mr. Marsden, and the entire discomfiture of his persecutors. + +We have gone through the history of his home troubles before entering on +the part that concerned his missionary labours. It is a painful picture, +but the staunch firmness that never failed to "boldly rebuke vice," is +too essential a part of the picture to be passed over. The Apostle of +New Zealand was the Baptist of the Herods of Australia. We return to the +year 1816, when, after some months' training in agriculture at Mr. +Marsden's farm, Duaterra had sailed for his home, but only again to +suffer from the perfidy of the master of the ship. The ordinary English +mind seemed incapable of perceiving that any faith need be kept with a +dark-coloured man, and Duaterra was defrauded of his share of the oil +procured from the whales he had helped to catch, carried past his own +shores, only two miles from the _pah_ where the master had engaged to +land him, and turned adrift in the then uninhabited Norfolk Island, where +a whaler picked him up almost starved, and brought him back to Australia. +However, Mr. Marsden found another ship, which did fulfil its +engagements, and Duaterra was at last set ashore in the Bay of Islands, +close to the northern point of New Zealand, with a supply of wheat which +Mr. Marsden had given him. + +Two years had passed, and Mr. Marsden had been trying to procure from the +Society at home a mission ship to carry teachers to the islands, visit +them, and supply their wants there, but he had not as yet succeeded, and +he therefore decided on purchasing a small one from Australia at his own +expense. This was the _Active_, the first of the mission vessels that +now bear the Cross in several quarters of the globe. In her Hall and +King sailed, and Mr. Marsden would have accompanied them but for the +express prohibition of Governor Macquarie, who, little as he loved his +senior chaplain, did not choose to lose him on what he regarded as a +scheme of almost fanatic folly. The two teachers were not to settle on +shore, nor even to sleep there, but they were to visit Duaterra, +reconnoitre the ground, and see whether it would be possible to settle +there as they had at first proposed. + +To their delight, Duaterra came eagerly to meet them, very anxious for +their assistance with his corn. He had shown it to his tribe, telling +them that hence came the bread and biscuit they had eaten in English +ships, and great had been their disappointment when neither the ear nor +the root of the wheat proved at all like these articles. However, he had +been successful in his farmer operations, but was entirely puzzled by +those of the miller, only knowing that the grain ought to be ground, and +unable to contrive it, though he had borrowed a coffee-mill from a +trading vessel. When the new comers produced a hand-mill he was +delighted. His kindred, to whom he had been a laughing-stock for +averring that biscuit had any connection with his new grass, crowded +round incredulously to watch the mill, showed unbounded amazement as the +white flour streamed forth, and when a cake was hastily made and baked in +a frying-pan they leapt about shouting and dancing for joy. Duaterra, +his uncle Hunghi, a very powerful chief, and five more, accepted an +invitation to come and confer with Mr. Marsden, and the _Active_ brought +them back to New South Wales. They were very anxious for the benefits +which they hoped to derive from intercourse with the whites, and readily +undertook to secure Hall and King from all danger. Even Governor +Macquarie was so far satisfied that he consented to let Mr. Marsden go +out and arrange the new settlement, to which he presented two cows and a +bull. These, with three horses, and some sheep and poultry, were +embarked on board the _Active_, with a motley collection of passengers, +the eight Maories, the three missionaries with their wives and children, +a sawyer, a smith, Mr. Marsden, and another gentleman named John Lydiard +Nicholas, the master of the vessel, his wife, son, and crew, which +included two Tahitians, and lastly a runaway convict who had secreted +himself on board. Their arrival might have been rendered dangerous by +the conduct of a whaling crew at Wangaroa, in the northern island of New +Zealand, who, by way of retaliation for the massacre of the _Boyd's_ ship- +company, had murdered a chief named Tippahee with all his family, without +waiting to find out whether he had been concerned in the slaughter. +Nevertheless, these brave men were ready to dare to the utmost, and the +fame of Mr. Marsden, "the friend of the Maori," had preceded him, and the +_Active_ was welcomed with presents of fish and visits from the natives. + +They found that Tippahee's people at Wangaroa had accused the tribe of +the Bay of Islands of leading the English to murder their chief, that +there was in consequence a deadly feud, and that several desperate +battles had been fought. Marsden knew that if he came as the friend of +Duaterra and his tribe alone, party spirit would entirely alienate the +rest of the islanders, and he therefore determined at once to prove that +he came not as the ally of one party, but as the friend of both. He +therefore determined to prove to the Wangaroans his confidence in them by +not only landing among them unarmed, but actually spending the night +among them. His friend Mr. Nicholas accompanied him in this, one of the +most intrepid actions ever performed, when it is remembered that this +tribe consisted of the cannibals who had eaten his own countrymen, and +had of late been freshly provoked. The two gentlemen supped in Hunghi's +hut on potatoes and fish, and then quietly walked over to the hostile +camp, where they met with a friendly welcome. One of the natives who had +sailed in an English vessel was able to interpret, and with his +assistance Mr. Marsden explained the purpose of the missionaries, and the +desirableness of peace. Maories appreciate being spoken to at length and +with due respect, and they listened politely, making speeches in their +own fashion in return, until towards eleven, when most had gone to rest. +The two Englishmen wrapped themselves in their great coats and lay down, +the interpreter bidding them lie near him. It was a clear night, +countless stars shining above, the sea in front smooth, all around a +forest of spears stuck upright in the earth, and on the ground the +multitude of human beings in their scanty loose garb of tapa cloth lying +fast asleep, while the man who had come as an apostle to them spent the +night in thought and prayer. Such a scene can never be forgotten! + +In the morning the ship's boat came to fetch him off, and he took the +chiefs back with him to the ship to receive presents and be introduced to +those who were to live among them. There was also a formal +reconciliation with Duaterra and his tribe, and the wondering Maories +took their travelled brother into high estimation when they really beheld +the animals they had imagined to be mere creations of his fancy, and were +specially amazed at the sight of Mr. Marsden mounted on horseback. + +Duaterra, meantime, of his own accord, was making preparations for the +first Sunday service held in New Zealand. It was likewise the Christmas +Day of 1815, and Mr. Marsden felt it a most appropriate moment for his +first proclamation of the good tidings of great joy among this most +distant of the nations. Duaterra's ideas of a church consisted in +enclosing about half an acre of land with a fence, and erecting in the +midst a reading-desk three feet, and a pulpit six feet high, both made +out of canoes, covered with either black native cloth or some canvas he +had brought from Port Jackson, and ranging near them some bottoms of old +canoes, as seats for the English part of the congregation, and on the +hill above he hoisted, of his own accord, the British flag. + +On the Sunday morning Duaterra, his uncle, and Koro Koro, another chief +who had been in Australia, all appeared in regimentals given them by +Governor Macquarie, swords by their sides, and switches in their hands, +and all their men drawn up behind them. When the English had entered, +the chiefs arranged their tribes, and Mr. Marsden began by singing the +Old Hundredth Psalm, the first note of praise to the Creator that ever +rung from the bays and rocks of New Zealand. Then he went through the +Christmas Day service, his twenty-two English joining in it, and Koro +Koro making signs with his switch to the natives when to stand and when +to sit. Mr. Marsden ended with a sermon on the Angelic greeting, and +when the natives complained that they could not understand, Duaterra +promised to explain afterwards, and this he performed--it may be feared, +after a fashion of his own, for as yet he was very ignorant, although +very acute. + +Mr. Marsden's principle was not that of Eliot, to begin with the faith, +then come to civilization. He thought that the benefits of civilization +would lead to the acceptance of the faith; and, besides, he had only +laymen to act as teachers; and, as his system was that of the Church, he +could only employ them in laying foundations, in preparing instead of +admitting converts, while his own duties only permitted of his making +flying visits. So he established his settlers to show the benefits of +peace, industry, and morality, and thus bring the natives to look higher. +Seed, tools, clothing, he assisted them in procuring and using, but his +smith was expressly forbidden ever to make or repair any warlike weapon, +or the settlers ever to barter muskets or powder for any possession of +whatever value with the natives. He likewise strove, in his +conversations with the chiefs, to show the evils of their vices in such a +manner as their shrewd minds could enter into, trying to make them see +the disgrace and horror of cannibalism, and the inconveniences of +polygamy, thus hoping to raise their standard. + +In order that the mission settlement might have some security, he +purchased a plot of land in the name of the Church Missionary Society, +drawing up a regular deed of sale, to which his signature was affixed, +together with a likeness of the tattooed pattern of the Maori chieftain's +face. Duaterra walked about with him in delight, talking of the time +when the church should be built, and planning the spot; but the poor +fellow had probably never recovered the injury his constitution had +suffered, for he fell ill, and his state was soon hopeless. It was a +great grief to Mr. Marsden, who had reckoned much on his assistance, and +found it hard to acquiesce in the will of Providence, more especially as +the poor young man was not yet so entirely a Christian as to warrant +baptizing him. He begged Mr. Marsden to pray with him, but he kept his +heathen priest at hand, and his mind was tossed to and fro between the +new truth and the old superstition. In this state Mr. Marsden was forced +to leave him, four days before his death, when Kendall, who visited him +to the last, was shocked at the savage manner in which his relatives +gashed themselves, to show their grief, and far more when his favourite +wife stole out and hung herself, according to a frequent custom, regarded +as rather honourable than otherwise! + +Soon after his death fresh wars broke out, and a hostile tribe encamped +near the mission settlement, loudly threatening to kill and devour the +inhabitants, who, for months together, had to keep watch day and night, +put their children to bed in their clothes ready for instant flight, and +had their boat always afloat with oars and sails; but they remained +steadfast, and the danger passed over. + +The _Active_ plied backwards and forwards, supplying them with the +necessaries of life, and bringing guests to the farm at Paramatta, where +Mr. Marsden provided instruction for them. Two, named Tooi and Teterree, +were sent in charge of Mr. Nicholas to visit England in a King's ship, +where they had learnt to speak English tolerably, and to follow the +customs of civilized society. They were gentle and intelligent, and +eager to learn, but no one could reckon on what would interest or excite +them. They were taken to see St. Paul's Cathedral, which did not seem to +strike them at all; but, as they were walking along Fleet Street, they +came to a sudden stand before a hairdresser's shop, screaming out, +"Women, women," as they beheld the display of waxen busts, which they +thought did credit to the Pakeha, or English, style of preserving dried +human heads! Like Duaterra, their great anxiety was to see King George; +but, in 1817, the apology recorded in Teterree's English letter was only +too true,--"I never see the King of England, he very poorly; and Queen +Charlotte very poorly too." + +On their return to Paramatta, Mr. Marsden made a second visit to New +Zealand, taking them back, and also going to instal some fresh +missionaries and mechanics on a new settlement. There was great +competition among the chiefs; for the possession of a Pakeha, or +Englishman, was greatly coveted as a means of bringing the material good +things of life, and Mr. Marsden was eagerly assured that there was no +danger of the English being killed and eaten, since the Maori flesh was +much sweeter, because the whites ate so much salt. There was as yet no +convert, but Mr. Marsden's resolution by no means failed him; he +believed--and he was right--that kindness, truth, and uprightness, in +those who could confer temporal benefits, would, in time, lead these +intelligent men to appreciate the spiritual blessings that were offered +to them. + +Presents of hoes, with which to plant the sweet potato, were greatly +appreciated. Hunghi's head wife was working away with a wooden spade, +though perfectly blind, and was delighted with the new instrument. +Indeed, Hunghi was one of the most eager friends of the mission, though +the splendidly tattooed heads of his enemies decorated his abode, and he +defended cannibalism, on the ground that animals preyed upon one another, +and that the gods devoured each other. His manners had all the high-bred +courtesy that marked the chief, and he was a noble-looking creature, full +of native majesty and gentleness. Every hope was entertained of him, and +he was sent, in 1820, to visit England, where he had an interview with +George IV., and received presents of weapons from him. But the moral +Hunghi brought home was, "There is but one king in England. There shall +be but one in New Zealand." And this consummation he endeavoured to +bring about by challenging a hostile chief whom he met on his way back +from Sydney to New Zealand. He gained the battle, by arranging his men +in the form of a wedge, and likewise by the number of muskets with which +he was able to arm them. When the chief himself fell by his hand, he +drank his fresh blood, and devoured his eye, in the belief that it thus +became a star in the firmament, and conferred glory on himself; and the +whole battle-field was covered with the ovens in which his followers +cooked the flesh of the prisoners whom they did not keep as slaves! + +This horrible scene took place while Mr. Marsden was in Australia, but he +could hardly have prevented it. Probably the chief's ferocity, so long +repressed, was in a state of reaction; for, though the missionaries were +not molested, their efforts seemed lost. Hunghi declared that he wished +his children to learn to fight, not to read; and the Maoris insisted on +being paid for any service to the missionaries in fire-arms and powder. +When this was refused they became insolent and mischievous, intruding +into the houses, demanding food, breaking down the fences, and stealing +whatever they could seize; and there was reason to fear that any +excitement might lead to absolute danger. In this crisis some of the +missionaries failed, sold ammunition, and otherwise were wanting in the +testimony they were intended to maintain. The tidings determined Mr. +Marsden on making a fourth visit to New Zealand: and this time he was +able to take with him a clergyman, the Rev. Henry Williams, who lived to +become Bishop of a Maori district. It was nine years since the first +landing there, and, in spite of all disappointments, he found many of the +natives much improved, and the friendly chiefs quite able to understand +his prohibition against the sale of powder, although they were at first +inclined to be angry at his having sent home a missionary on that +account. The other missionaries expressed repentance for their errors, +but he was not thoroughly satisfied with them, though allowing much for +their isolation from Christian society and ordinances. + +A Wesleyan mission had been established at Wangaroa, which he visited and +assisted, and finding Mr. Leigh, the chief minister, very ill, offered +him a passage to Sydney for advice, but this ship had scarcely weighed +anchor before a great storm came on; the ship was lost, and the crew and +passengers had to land in boats, and return for two months longer before +a ship could be found to bring them home, and in this time he did all in +his power to bring the Maories to agree to some settled form of +government under a single chief; but though any chief, especially Hunghi, +was quite willing to be that one, nobody would be anything secondary, and +thus the project failed. He also set the missionaries the task of +endeavouring to collect a fixed vocabulary and grammar, which might be +available in future translations. The great kindness shown him at his +shipwreck had greatly touched his heart, especially in contrast with the +usage he was meeting with in Australia, for this was in the height of the +persecution about Ring, which detained him at home for more than two +years. During this time Mr. Williams was joined by his brother William, +also a priest of the English Church, but the wars of the Maories had +become so desperate that the peril of the missionaries had been much +increased; indeed, the Wesleyans had had the whole of their premises +ravaged, so that the minister came as a fugitive to find a refuge at +Paramatta, as a guest of Mr. Marsden. + +That brave soldier of his Lord decided on going at once to the scene of +peril. Though sixty-three years old, he sailed as soon as possible in +H.M.S. _Rainbow_, but found peace restored and the danger to his missions +over. He therefore came back, after remaining only five days at his +labours in New South Wales, to the superintendence of the translation of +several chapters of Holy Scripture, and to the instruction of the young +Maories at the sort of college he had tried from the first to keep up at +Paramatta, but which he was forced to abandon, since the delicate lungs +of the Maories could not endure the parching dryness of the Australian +climate. + +By the time he went again to New Zealand, in 1830, Hunghi had been killed +in battle, and the nation was fast dwindling between war and a disease +resembling the influenza. It was estimated that in twenty years the +numbers had diminished by one-half, and in the meantime English settlers +were entering on the lands so numerously that it was evident that before +long the islands would be annexed to the British crown. Mr. Marsden had +hoped at first that this brave and intelligent people might have been +Christianized and civilized, so as to stand alone, but finding that their +deadly feuds and internecine savagery rendered this impossible, he +thought it best to prepare them to come willingly under a curb that he +trusted would be no more than beneficial. + +He found the missionaries much alarmed, for a horrible battle had just +been fought, caused by the misconduct and insulting behaviour of the crew +of an English ship. One tribe had taken their part, another had risen to +revenge the affront, and a great mutual slaughter had taken place; +victory had remained with the avengers, and though the offending crew had +sailed away, it was apprehended that all the English might suffer in +their stead. There was not an hour to be lost. Mr. Marsden and Mr. +Williams crossed the bay and entered the camp of the English allies, +where they were affectionately greeted, and allowed to carry proposals of +peace to the victorious party, but there they met with a less friendly +reception, being told that they were answerable for the lives of those +who had fallen in the battle, since it had been occasioned by the +misconduct of their countrymen. When Mr. Marsden promised to write to +England to prevent the return of the offenders, the savages desired he +would do no such thing, since they only desired vengeance. However, they +agreed to hold a meeting with the hostile tribe, and endeavour to come to +terms. Early the next morning thirty-six canoes arrived opposite to the +mission station, some containing forty men; and notice was given that if +the commissioners appointed on either side did not come to terms, the +white men would be the sacrifice. + +The day was spent in conferences, but at night the chief of the hostile +tribe clove a stick in two, in token that his anger was broken, and the +two parties joined in a hideous war-dance, frequently firing their +muskets; but peace was ratified, and Mr. Marsden found that real progress +had been made among the natives around the stations. Many had become +true and sincere Christians, among them the widow and daughters of +Hunghi. A Maori Christian woman was married by Mr. Marsden to an +Englishman. She made all the responses in good English, and appeared in +decent English clothes of her own sewing. He also married a young man, +free, and of good family, to a girl who had been a slave taken in war, +who was redeemed from her master for five blankets, an axe, and an iron +pot. A number of natives lived round the missions, attending the +services, and working with a good deal of industry and intelligence, and +an increasingly large proportion of these were openly baptized +Christians. + +A seventh visit was paid by Mr. Marsden in 1837, when seventy-two years +of age. On his return an officer in the ship observed: "I think, sir, +you may look on this as your last visit to New Zealand." "No," he +answered, "I intend to be off again in about six weeks; the people in the +colony are becoming too fine for me now. I am too old to preach before +them, but I can talk to the New Zealanders." He adhered to his purpose, +and his daughter, Martha, who had been with him on his last voyage, +accompanied him again in this. There had been some quarrels with the +crews of ships, but the natives always separated Mr. Marsden from the +misdeeds of his people, and the old chiefs were delighted to see him. +"Stay with us and learn our language," one of them said: "become our +father and our friend, and we will build you a house." "No," replied +another, "we cannot build a house good enough, but we will hire Europeans +to do it for us." + +Wherever he went, he was hailed as the friend of the Maori, and he made a +progress through all the mission stations, which were growing up +numerously, and whence Christianity was fast spreading by the agency of +the Maories themselves. A chief named Koromona, made captive in Hunghi's +great war, who had become blind, had been converted by Mr. William +Williams, and soon learnt the whole Liturgy, with many chapters of the +Bible, and hymns, by heart, and was fit to be sent as a teacher among the +other tribes. Sunday was generally observed, cannibalism and polygamy +were retreating into the more remote and heathenish regions, and there +was every token that the noble Apostle of New Zealand had verily +conquered a country and people for the Church of God. Terrible wars +among the tribes, provoking all the old ferocities, still were liable to +arise, and the whaling crews, among whom might be found some of the most +unscrupulous, licentious, and violent of mankind, continued to take +advantage of there being no regular jurisdiction to commit outrages, +which spread corruption or provoked retaliation, and for this there was +no remedy but annexation to the British crown, which the influence of the +mission was leading the natives themselves to desire, though this was not +carried out till after Mr. Marsden's death. + +This last visit took place in 1837. By that time the persecutions and +troubles of Mr. Marsden's colonial life had been outlived,--though even +as late as 1828, he writes about a pamphlet which actually charged him +with inflicting torture to extract confession! But his character +outweighed all such absurd charges, and as a more respectable class of +settlers flowed into the colony he was better appreciated. What the tone +must have been may be guessed from the fact that when, in 1825, Governor +Darling began regularly to attend church with his wife and family, it was +regarded as an unexampled act in the supreme magistrate! + +Mr. Marsden lost his wife in 1835, but his daughter did her best to +minister to his happiness, and was his companion and assistant in all he +undertook. Once, when she was driving with him, two of the most terrible +of the bushrangers, who were feared by the whole country, broke forth +upon them, seized the horse, and holding a loaded pistol to Mr. Marsden's +breast, bade her empty his pockets into their hands, threatening to shoot +them both if either said a word. Nevertheless, the fearless old man +continued to remonstrate with them on their wicked life, telling them +that he should see them again upon the gallows, and though they charged +him with savage threats not to follow them with his eyes, he turned round +and continued to warn them of the consequences of a life like theirs. In +a few months' time they were captured, and it did actually fall to his +lot to attend them to the scaffold. + +Yet, though of this fearless mould, he was one of the most loveable of +men; everyone on his farm, as well as all little children, and the +savages he conversed with, all loved him passionately. Some young +Maories, whom he brought back on his last voyage, used to race after his +gig to catch his eye, and when they took hold of any book, used to point +upwards, as if whatever was associated with Matua, as they called him, +must lead to heaven. He was fond of playing with children, and never was +so happy as when he yearly collected the schoolchildren of Paramatta on +his lawn, for a feast and games after it. + +In 1834, the Rev. William Grant Broughton, one of the clergy of +Australia, took home an account of the spiritual destitution of New South +Wales, and the effect was that in 1836 a bishopric was there created, and +the first presentation given to him. Some thought that this was a +passing over of the chaplain who had laboured so hard for so many years, +but Mr. Marsden himself only observed that it was better thus: he was too +old a man, and it was with sincere goodwill that he handed over the +charge he had held for more than forty years, so that only the parish of +Paramatta remained to him, and there he continued his ministry in church, +to the sick, and among the poor to the end. + +On the last Sunday of his life he seemed in his usual health; but for the +first time he did not take part in the service, and at the celebration he +seemed to be so overcome by his feelings as not to move from his place to +communicate, when, after a pause, his son-in-law went to him with the +sacred elements. There were many tears shed by those who foreboded that +his hand would never administer to them again. On the Tuesday he set out +for a short journey, but apparently he took a chill on the way to the +house of his friend, Mr. Styles, at Windsor, and arrived unwell; +erysipelas in the head came on, with a stupor of the faculties, and he +died on Saturday, the 12th of May, 1838,--a man much tried, but resolute, +staunch, and gallant, and, in the end, blessedly successful. + +Two years later, New Zealand, by the wish of the Maories themselves, was +added to the British dominions, a bishopric was erected there, and, did +not our bounds forbid us to speak of those who are still among us, we +could tell much of the development, under Bishop Selwyn, of Samuel +Marsden's work: though, alas! there is a tale to tell that disgraces, not +our Government, but our people,--a story of lust of land and of gain, and +of pertinacious unfairness towards the Maori, which has alienated a large +number of that promising and noble people, led to their relapse into the +horrors from which they had been freed, overthrown their flourishing +Church in favour of a horrid, bloodthirsty superstition, and will +probably finish its work by the destruction of the gallant race that once +asked our protection. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. JOHN WILLIAMS, THE MARTYR OF ERROMANGO. + + +Of Welsh extraction, and respectable though humble parentage, the pioneer +and martyr of Polynesia, John Williams, was born at Tottenham High Court, +London, in the year 1796. His parents were Nonconformists, and he was +educated at a "commercial" school at Edmonton, where the teaching did not +aim at much beyond writing and accounts, all that was supposed, at that +time, to be needful for a young tradesman. The chief point remembered of +his childhood was an aptitude and handiness which caused all little +breakages to be kept for John to repair,--a small quality, but one of no +small importance in the life of a missionary, who often finds ready +resource essential to safety and to influence. + +His mother was a good and religious woman, whose one great purpose in +choosing a situation was to place him in a family where he might be +influenced for good; and she was fortunate in finding a furnishing +ironmonger whose care of his apprentices exactly met her views. While +serving his time, John Williams was observed to delight in the hard +practical work of the forge far more than in the easier and more popular +employments of the shop, and he was always eager to be sent out to +execute repairs, a task that was rather despised by his companions. He +was not regarded as a religious youth till he was about eighteen; he +considered that a serious direction had been given to his mind one Sunday +evening, when his master's wife, finding him just about to enter a tea- +garden with some idle companions, persuaded him to come with her to +chapel, where he heard an impressive sermon that gave a colour to his +life. + +After this, distinct habits of piety were formed, Williams was admitted +to full membership at the chapel called the Tabernacle, and, together +with others of the more earnest young men of the congregation, formed a +society called "The Youths' Class," one of those associations which, +under whatever form, have, in all ages of Christianity, been found a most +powerful and salutary means of quickening, uniting, and strengthening the +young by the sense of fellowship. The lads met every Monday evening for +discussion, and every eighteenth Monday was devoted to special prayer. +The minister of the chapel did not naturally preside, but would often +look in, say a few words on the subject in hand, and thus keep watch that +the debates were properly conducted. + +It was through this pastor, Mr. Wilks, that John Williams first imbibed +his interest in the missionary cause,--an interest that gradually grew +upon him so much, that in his twentieth year he decided upon devoting +himself to the task. Good Mr. Wilks freely gave the young ironmonger +assistance in supplying the deficiencies of his education, and in July +1816 he was presented to the directors of the London Missionary Society, +and passed an examination, after which he was accepted, before he was out +of his apprenticeship. According to rule, so young and so insufficiently +instructed a man would ordinarily have had some years of training before +actually undertaking to labour among the heathen, but there was at the +moment an urgent call for aid from various branches, and it was decided, +by a special vote of the committee, to send him out as soon as possible +to the South Sea Islands. His master willingly released him from the +seven months that remained of his term; nor had his time of +apprenticeship been by any means wasted, for the mechanical skill he had +acquired was of great importance to his success as a civilizer. Marriage +was always recommended to the missionaries of the Baptist Societies, and +Williams's fate was no sooner decided than he chose Mary Channer, a +constant attendant at the Tabernacle, and a woman helpful, kind, and +brave, as befitted a missionary's wife. + +A great meeting was soon after held, as a sort of dedication of the new +labourers, nine in number, who were thence to go forth,--five to South +Africa, four to Polynesia. Among the Africans was Robert Moffat, a name +memorable, both on his own account and as the father-in-law of +Livingstone. An elderly minister stood forth and questioned the young +men in the face of the congregation on their faith, their opinions, their +motives, and their intentions; and then a Bible was solemnly presented to +each by an elder minister, John Angell James, of Birmingham, one of the +most able and highly reputed Nonconformists then living; and another +minister, Dr. Waugh, addressing himself to Williams, who was much the +youngest of the nine, said, "Go, my dear young brother, and if your +tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth, let it be with telling poor +sinners the love of JESUS CHRIST; and if your arms drop from their +shoulders, let it be with knocking at men's hearts to gain admittance for +Him there." + +The impression never left John Williams, and the injunction was fulfilled +to the utmost of his power. He was a man of strong and vigorous frame, +well fitted to encounter the perils of climate; and with much enterprise, +hardihood, and ingenuity. That his mind was in some degree narrowed by +want of education, perhaps mattered less in the peculiar field of his +labours, where he was seldom brought in contact with wide questions. He +had the excellent quality of ready sympathy and adaptability to the +persons around him, whether civilized or savage, and was so good-natured +and yielding in unimportant matters, that the strength and firmness with +which he would stand up for whatever he viewed as a matter of conscience, +always took his opponents by surprise; but it was always long before this +point was reached, and he was perhaps too ready to give up when it was +judgment rather than right and wrong that came into play. Williams's +face, as given in the portrait attached to his "History of Missionary +Enterprise in the South Sea," curiously agrees with his history. There +is much power about the brow, much enterprise in the strong, somewhat +aquiline nose, great softness and sweetness in the eyes, but the +thickness of the lips and chin betray the want of cultivation; indeed, +the curious manner in which the mouth is pursed up, would seem to +indicate that an eager temper naturally kept it unclosed, and that the +restraint of sitting for a picture rendered the expression uncomfortably +prim. + +The Polynesian Mission on which John Williams was sent, had been +commenced in 1796 by the London Missionary Society, partly in consequence +of the death-bed entreaties of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, who had +been exceedingly interested by the accounts of the South Sea Islands in +Captain Cook's Voyages. The subscriptions amounted to 10,000_l._, and +were sufficient to purchase a ship called the _Duff_, which was commanded +by that Captain Wilson whose wonderful history has been noticed in the +lives of the Serampore body. Twenty-five missionaries were taken out, +and received at Tahiti with grotesque dances and caperings. The +dwelling, which had been erected when Captain Bligh was collecting bread- +fruit, was given to them, and several were placed there, while the _Duff_ +carried others to the Friendly and Marquesan Islands, and, after visiting +them all a second time, returned home for reinforcements. + +On the next voyage, however, with a different captain, the _Duff_ was +captured by a French privateer, the captain of which, when he understood +the purpose of the voyage, greatly regretted what he had done, and +declared that he would rather have given 500_l._ than have interfered +with it. He landed the missionaries at Monte Video, and assisted them in +obtaining a passage home, in the course of which they were again captured +by a Portuguese, whose treatment of them was a wretched contrast to that +of the friendly Frenchman. + +Meantime, many disasters had befallen the unassisted missionaries, who +suffered from the hostility of a section of the natives, though the king, +Pomare, always protected them. One of their number insisted on marrying +a native woman still unconverted, separated from his brethren, and was +soon after murdered by the natives. Another was lost in a still sadder +way. He reasoned himself into doubts of the Divine power and of the +immortality of the soul, and finally left the island, nor was he heard of +again for many years, though prayer was constantly made for him, and at +length it became known that he had wandered to Serampore, where the +influence of Marshman and Carey had prevailed to bring back his faith, +but he had since been lost at sea. What wonderful glimpses we get of +strange wild lives! + +But the Tahitian Mission had not included any one leading character, so +that it may be enough to state that, after years of patient effort and +often of danger, the missionaries beheld King Pomare II., the successor +of him whom they had found on the throne, solemnly burn his idols, and +profess himself a Christian. + +From that time the island has been Christian. The standard of morality +has been by no means as high as it ought to be, and there is much +disappointment in dealing with any nation, with none more so than with an +indolent and voluptuous people, in a climate disposing them to inertness, +and in a part subject to the visits of lawless seamen of all nations. +However, the mission kept its hold of Tahiti, until the French, in 1844, +began a series of aggressions, which ended in their establishing a +protectorate over the islands, introducing their Church, and doing all in +their power to discourage the London Mission, to which, however, many of +the natives still adhere. + +This, however, is anticipating. When the five young men sailed in 1817, +and after a kindly welcome on their way from Mr. Marsden at Sydney, +things were in the full blush of promise. Eight hundred people +worshipped at the chapel of Erineo, near the landing-place. It was a +circular building, a good deal like a haystack, with walls of stakes, a +thatch of large leaves, and a desk in the centre of the floor for the +preacher. This was his first station, and whilst there he gave his +assistance in building a ship, to enable King Pomare to open a trade with +New South Wales. He stayed in this place till he had become familiar +with the language, and his first child was born there. + +Not long after some allies of Pomare, from Huahime, struck with the +benefits produced among the Tahitians by the missionaries, entreated that +some might be sent to them likewise; and Williams, his wife and child, +with two other married pairs, and an interpreter, were told off for the +mission. + +They were welcomed eagerly, had oval huts assigned to them, and no lack +of pork and yams, but Mr. Williams did not long remain there, being +called away by an invitation from Raiatea. This is one of the loveliest +of tropical islands, the largest of the Society Islands. Huge mountain +masses rise from the centre of an isle, about fifty miles in +circumference, and give it the grandeur of the rock, the precipice, and +the waterfall; but all around and below, the sides are clothed with the +exquisite verdure of the southern clime, the palm, the bread-fruit, the +yam, and all that can delight the eye; and both this and a little +satellite islet are fenced in by an encircling coral reef, within which +is clear still deep water, fit for navies to ride in, and approachable +through numerous inlets in its natural breakwater. It was a spot of much +distinction, containing the temple of the god Oro, who was revered by all +the surrounding groups, as the god of war, to whom children were +dedicated to make them courageous. There dreadful human sacrifices were +offered, concluded by cannibal feasts. Whenever such a sacrifice was +required, the priest and king despatched messengers to the chiefs of the +districts around to inquire whether they had a broken calabash, or a +rotten cocoa-nut. These terms indicated a man whom they would be willing +to give up. The victim was then either knocked down with a blow of a +small stone at the back of his head, or else speared in his own house; +and when one man of a family had thus been sacrificed, all the rest had +the same horrid preference. + +The last human victim of Tahiti was verily a martyr. He was designated +because he had begun to pray. The emissaries came to his house and asked +his wife where he was. Then, borrowing from her the ironwood stick used +for breaking open cocoa-nuts, they went after him, and knocked him down +with it, binding him hand and foot, and placing him in a long basket made +of cocoa-nut leaves. His wife rushed forward, but was kept away, as the +touch or breath of a woman is considered to pollute a sacrifice. The +man, however, recovered the blow, and spoke out boldly: "Friends, I know +what you intend to do with me. You are about to kill me, and offer me up +as a _tabae_ to your savage gods. I know it is vain for me to beg for +mercy, for you will not spare my life. You may kill my body, but you +cannot hurt my soul, for I have begun to pray to JESUS." + +On hearing this, his bearers set him on the ground, put one stone under +his head, and beat out his brains with another, and thus died the last +Tahitian sacrifice, truly baptized in his own blood. The other gods +besides Oro were numerous, and there were also many animals supposed to +be possessed with familiar spirits. A chief was once in the cabin of a +ship where there was a talking cockatoo: the moment the bird spoke he +rushed away in the utmost terror, leapt overboard, and swam for his life, +convinced that he had heard the captain's demon. + +The chief of Raiatea was named Tamatoa, and was a man of considerable +power. Two years previously the Tahitian king, Pomare, nineteen of his +subjects, and a missionary named Wilson had been driven thither in a +canoe by stress of weather; and what Tamatoa had heard from them had so +impressed him that he had persuaded his people to build a place of +worship, observe the Sunday, and meet to repeat together the scant +lessons they had been able to receive during the visit of the Tahitians. +This led to a resolve to entreat for the presence of a missionary among +them; and the chieftain himself came to Huahime to make the request. +Williams longed to go, but, as the youngest minister, waited till all the +rest had decided to the contrary, and then gladly accepted his lot to go +with Tamatoa. There was a joyous welcome, and a feast was brought, +consisting of five pigs for Mr. Williams, five for his wife, and five for +their baby-boy; besides crates of yams, bananas, and cocoa-nuts, which, +however, they were not required to eat themselves, only to see eaten in +their house. + +The islanders were ready to give up their idols and call themselves +Christians, to hear Mr. Williams preach, and to observe the Sabbath; +being, in fact, like the Red Indians of Eliot's experience, so idle that +a day of no work made no difference to them. Their indolence, the effect +of their enervating climate, was well-nigh invincible; they preferred +hunger to trouble, and withal their customs were abhorrent to Christian +morality. Most islets of the South Seas have much the same experience. +The people, taken on their best side, show themselves gentle and +intelligent, and their chiefs are dignified gentlemen; but there is a +horrible background of ferocity and barbarism--often cannibalism. It +generally proves comparatively easy to obtain a recognition of +Christianity, and the cruelty and violence are usually laid aside; but to +bring purity and morality to bear upon these races is a much more +difficult thing, and the apparent failures have been at once the grief +and reproach of missionaries, while those who assail them with scoffs +forget the difficulty of dealing with the inveterate customs of a whole +people, in a luxurious climate, and with little or no inducement to such +industrial occupations or refinements of mind, as are the best +auxiliaries of religion in raising the tone. + +Lands where cold is unknown, and where fruit grows as freely as in +Paradise, offer no inducement to labour; and the missionaries, striving +in vain to lead the people to think occupation a duty, were deserted as +being troublesome when they bade them to work. A school which the +Williams's set up was more popular; the Polynesians had no lack of +brains, and reading and writing were pleasanter than digging and +building, or carrying logs. + +Thinking that examples of the civilization that the islanders had never +seen would do more for their advance than anything else, Mr. Williams, +with such assistance as he could obtain from the natives, built himself a +house with eight rooms, sash windows with Venetian blinds, a verandah, +and a most beautiful garden, and filled it with polished furniture, made +by his own clever mechanical hands. With the assistance of one or two +other missionaries who joined him, he succeeded in thus exciting a +certain emulation among the natives. The king had a house built for him +like that of the white men, others followed, and thus a very important +step was made out of the degraded customs encouraged by the old oval +huts. The coral, made into lime, afforded excellent material for +plaster, and trades began to be fostered among the natives; they became +carpenters, blacksmiths, plasterers, boat-builders, and acquired some +ideas of agriculture. By the end of the second year, the chapel and +school stood in the midst of white cottages; the population still wore +clothing made of their own bark cloth, but in imitation of that of their +teachers, and the open savagery of the island was gone. The congregation +assembled three times on Sunday, and there was family prayer in almost +every house. Cannibalism was ended, and so was infanticide, one of the +most terrible customs of the island, for there was scarcely a woman above +thirty who had not put to death several of her infants. Much had been +done, although the good man to whom so much was owing did not feel +satisfied that the profession in many cases was thoroughly deep, and he +still knew of many an inveterate evil, that only time, discipline, and +above all heartfelt religion, could uproot. + +A large chapel, built with all the taste and ornament that he could +achieve, was erected, the sides wattled, the roof supported by pillars of +tree-trunks, and the floors and pews, the pulpit and desk, which were all +to which the young ironmonger at the Tabernacle attached the notion of a +worthy place of worship, were solid and well finished. He even fashioned +some chandeliers for evening service, and these so astonished the +Raiateans, that on first entering the chapel, they broke out into a cry +of amaze, "Oh, Britannia! Britannia!" and gave the name to England of +"the land whose customs were without end." + +The opening of this chapel was one great step in Mr. Williams's work; the +next was the inducing Tamatoa and the other chiefs to bind themselves to +govern by a code of Christian laws, not complex, but based on the Ten +Commandments, and agreeing with those newly established by Pomare in +Tahiti, but with this difference, that Williams ventured to introduce +trial by jury, in the hope that it would tend to qualify the despotic +power of the chiefs. Tamatoa's brother, Pahi, was appointed judge, and +the community was arranged on a Christian basis. The congregation was +likewise put under regular discipline after the example of the +Independents in England, with ruling pastors and elders appointed from +among the people; and an auxiliary Missionary Society was formed for +assisting in the conversion of the other isles. + +Just as this was thoroughly arranged, in about the fourth year of his +mission, Williams suffered from a malady which seemed to him and his +companion, Mr. Threlkeld, to necessitate his return home. The +information was received by the islanders with something like despair. +Old King Tamatoa came to him and said, "Viriamu, I have been thinking you +are a strange man. JESUS did not take care of His body. He did not even +shrink from death, and now you are afflicted you are going to leave us." + +Prayer was offered all over the island, and in the midst of all the +preparations for departure the disease began to ameliorate, and Mr. +Williams recovered for a time, though the next year a recurrence of the +attack made him resolve upon a visit to Sydney, not only for the sake of +advice, but in the hope of establishing a market for the produce of the +Society Isles, which might give a motive to the industry he was so +anxious to promote, and likewise to obtain a vessel to be used for the +missions. + +Two Raiatean teachers instructed by him were landed at the island of +Aitutake on the way, after the chiefs had pledged themselves to support +and protect them, and the voyage was continued to Australia, where there +was as usual a warm reception from Mr. Marsden. It was a very important +visit. Parts of the Holy Scriptures, catechisms, and spelling-books, +were printed; the ship, with the assistance of the Society of which +Marsden was agent, was purchased, a schooner of ninety tons, and named +_Te Matama_, the Beginner; a person named Scott secured, at 150_l._ per +annum, to instruct the natives in the cultivation of sugar and tobacco, +and stores laid in of presents for the natives, clothes for the women, +shoes, stockings, tea-kettles, tea-cups, saucers, and tea. The natives +had a great liking for tea, and as they could not cherish cups and +saucers without shelves to put them on, all this was an indirect mode of +introducing European comforts and decencies. As to shoes, there can be +no spade husbandry with an unshod foot, and thus the system of hoeing- +women doing all the labour was attacked. + +On the way back to Raiatea, Mr. Williams visited New Zealand, but not at +a favourable moment, for the chiefs were at war, and he had to hurry +away. The cargo was gladly welcomed at Raiatea, and the desire to +purchase European dress was found a great incentive to industry. + +In 1823, Mr. Williams began a series of missionary voyages. The events +of these have almost too much sameness for description, though full of +interest in detail. The people, when taken on their right side, were +almost always ready to admit teachers, and adopt certain externals, +though the true essentials of Christianity were of much slower growth. +Our limits prevent us from giving much of detail of his intercourse with +these isles. Raiatea was his first home, Rarotonga his second. There he +placed his family, which long consisted of his one boy, John, born in +Tahiti, all Mrs. Williams's subsequent babes scarcely living to see the +light, until, in the sixteenth year of her Polynesian life, another son +rejoiced her. She became a centre and pattern of domestic life, and +instructed the women in feminine habits, and she patiently encountered +the anxieties and perils, chiefly from storm and hurricane, that beset +her life. The chief troubles that Mr. Williams encountered at Raiatea, +were the vices that civilization brought. After old Tamatoa's death, his +son allowed a distillery to be established, and drunkenness threatened to +overthrow the habits so diligently taught. May be, the Puritanical form +of religion and the acquired tastes of the London tradesman did not allow +brightness and beauty enough to these children of the South, and tempted +them by proscribing things innocent, but there is no telling: nothing but +strictness seemed a sufficient protection from the foul rites of +idolatry, and all that his judgment or devotion could devise for these +people Williams and his fellows did. + +The Samoan group of islands was one of those where the people showed the +most intelligence. They were already great cultivators of the toilette. +A Samoan beau glistened from the head to the hips with sweet-scented oil, +and was tastefully tattooed from the hips to the knees; he wore a bandage +of red leaves oiled and shining, a head-dress formed of a pearly disk of +nautilus-shell, and a string of small white shells round each arm. His +lady was not tattooed, but spotted all over, and when in full attire, +wore a beautiful white silky mat at her waist, a wreath of sweet flowers +round her head, rows of large blue beads round her neck, and the upper +part of her person was tinged with turmeric rouge. + +These Samoans, though they deified many animals, had no temples, idols, +priests, nor sacrifices, and thus were more than usually amenable to +Christian ideas; and on Mr. Williams's second visit to the island, he had +a numerous congregation, but so arranged that he could hardly keep his +countenance. Some had their long hair greased and stiffened into +separate locks, standing erect like quills upon the fretful porcupine; +while others wore it cultivated into one huge bush, stiffened with coral +line, diversified with turmeric. Indeed, there is no rest for such heads +as these--none of their wearers dares to sleep without a little stool to +support his neck, so as not to crush his _chevelure_ against the ground. + +These fine gentlemen had a readiness and intelligence about them that +warmed to the first rays of light. They listened eagerly, and their +attachment to the missionary was expressed in a song sung in what they +called a "heavenly dance" of the ladies in his honour, when he had +remained with them long enough to plant the good seed of a growing +church. + + "Let us talk of Viriamu, + Let cocoa-nuts glow in peace for months; + When strong the east winds blow, our hearts forget him not. + Let us greatly love the Christian land of the great white chief. + All victors are we now, for we all have one God. + No food is sacred now. All kinds of fish we catch and eat, + Even the sting-ray. + + The birds are crying for Viriamu, + His ship has sailed another way. + The birds are crying for Viriamu, + Long time is he in coming. + Will he ever come again? + Will he ever come again?" + +It was some time before he could come again; for, after eighteen years of +unremitting labour in the isles of Raiatea and Rarotonga, and of voyages +touching on many other isles, he had made up his mind to visit England. + +He came home in 1834, and remained about four years, doing much for his +cause by his personal narratives and vivid accounts of the people to whom +he had devoted his life. Curiously enough, his son, now a youth of +twenty, was introduced to Earl Fitzwilliam's gardener, who proved to have +been one of the mission party who had been captured in the _Duff_ on the +second voyage, and who was delighted to hear of the wonderful progress of +the cause from which he himself had been turned back. + +A subscription was raised for the purchase of a mission ship, exceeding +in size and suitability such craft as could be purchased or hired in +Australia; and the _Camden_, a vessel admirably fitted for the purpose, +was obtained and equipped at a cost of 2,600_l._, the command of her +given to Captain Morgan, who was well experienced in the navigation of +the Polynesian seas, and had, moreover, such a reputation for piety, that +the natives termed his vessel "the praying ship." + +In this vessel a large reinforcement of missionaries was taken out, +including a married pair for Samoa, and likewise young John Williams, who +had found himself an English wife; but his little brother was left at +home for education. The intention of Williams was to station the +missionaries upon the friendly isles, and himself circulate among them in +the _Camden_, breaking fresh ground in yet unvisited isles, and +stationing first native and then English teachers, as they were prepared +for them. + +Among the Samoans he remained a good while. He estimated the population +at 60,000, of whom nearly 50,000 were under instruction. Several places +of worship were opened with feasts, at which huge hecatombs of swine were +consumed--1,370 at one festival. One young chief under instruction +became so good a preacher, that Williams called him the Whitfield of +Samoa; and these islands have, under the training then set on foot, +furnished many a missionary and even martyr to the isles around, and are, +to the present day, one of the happiest specimens of the effects of +missionary labour. + +The want of extended views in good Mr. Williams was shown in his manner +of regarding the expected arrival of some Roman Catholic priests in the +Polynesian seas. He set to work to translate Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," +and begged that a present offered him for his people might be expended in +slides illustrating it for a beautiful magic lantern which he already +possessed, and whose Scripture scenes drew tears from the natives. He +had not Church knowledge enough to rise above the ordinary popular view +of "Popery," and did not understand its Christianity enough to see the +evils of sowing the bitterest seeds of the Protestant controversy among +scarcely reclaimed heathens. + +On their side, the Roman Catholics would have done better to enter on +untrodden ground, of which there was such an infinity, than to force +themselves where, if they did not find their Church, at least they found +faith in the Saviour. But the Society Isles were coveted, for political +reasons, by the existing French Government, and the struggle was there +beginning, of which Mr. Williams was not destined to see the unfortunate +conclusion. + +Raiatea he found much improving; and at Rarotonga civilization had made +such progress, that the chiefs house was two storeys high, with ten +bedrooms, and good furniture made in imitation of English, and any linen +Mr. Williams left in his room was immediately washed, ironed, and laid +ready for use. Much of the lurking heathenism was giving way, and fair +progress being made in religious feeling, when, after a stay in Samoa, +where Mrs. Williams now chiefly resided, John Williams set out on an +exploring voyage in the _Camden_. + +Strangely enough, his last text in preaching to the Samoans was, +"Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see +his face no more;" and the people, who always grieved whenever he left +them, wept as bitterly at the words as if they had known them to be an +omen. He was bent on an attempt on the heathen isle of Erromango, which +his wife viewed with a foreboding terror, that made her in vain try to +extract a promise from him not to land there. + +But he viewed the New Hebrides as an important link, leading perhaps to +reaching the Papuan race in New Guinea. He hoped to gain a footing +there, and make the spot such a centre as Tahiti, Raiatea, Rarotonga, and +Samoa had successively been; and, as the _Camden_ glided along the shores +of the island, he talked of his schemes, and of a certain sense of fear +that they gave him, lest they were too vast to be accomplished by his +means and in his lifetime, but with the sanguine buoyancy of a man still +in full vigour, and who had met with almost unmixed success. + +On the 20th of November, 1839, the vessel entered Dillon's Bay, and a +canoe with three men paddled up to her. A boat was lowered, in which Mr. +Williams, two other missionaries named Harris and Cunningham, Captain +Morgan, and four sailors seated themselves. They tried to converse with +the natives, but the language proved to be unlike any in use in Polynesia +(it is, in fact, one of the Melanesian dialects), and not a word could be +made out. + +Pulling into a creek, some beads and a small looking-glass were thrown to +the natives, and water asked for by signs. It was brought, and this gave +more confidence. Harris then waded ashore. At first the people ran +away, but Mr. Williams called to him to sit down, and, on his doing so, +they came nearer, and offered him some cocoa-nut milk. Mr. Williams +observed little boys at play, and thought it a good sign. Captain Morgan +wished they had been women, because the natives always send their wives +out of the way when they mean violence. However, Williams landed, and +divided some cloth among those who stood nearest. Then Harris began to +walk forward into the bush, Williams following, and, with a crowd of +natives round him, was counting in Samoan, trying whether the boys around +would recognize the names of the figures. Cunningham did not like the +countenances of the natives, and remarked it to him, but was not heard. +Stooping to pick up a shell, Cunningham was startled by a yell, and +Harris came rushing along, pursued by a native. Williams turned and +looked, a blast on a shell was heard, and he too fled. Cunningham +reached the boat in safety, but Harris fell in crossing a small brook, +and the natives were at once upon him with their clubs. Williams had +made for the sea, apparently intending to swim off and let the boat pick +him up, but the beach was stony; he fell as he reached the water, and the +natives with their clubs and arrows had fallen upon him before Morgan +could turn his boat's head to the spot, under a shower of arrows, which +forced him to put off. + +He saw the body lying on the beach, and fired a gun, loaded with powder, +in hopes of driving away the natives and rescuing it; but they dragged it +away into the bush, and all that was left for him to do was to sail for +Sydney, whence a Queen's ship, the _Favourite_, was despatched to +endeavour to recover the remains, and to convey the tidings to Samoa. + +By the 26th of February the vessel arrived. The war-conch was heard, and +the savages were seen flying in all directions; but, as there was no +intention of exacting a revenge, means of communication were at last +arranged, and it was discovered that these two good men had furnished a +cannibal feast, but that their skulls and many of their bones had been +preserved, and these were recovered and carried on board ship. The +Erromangans have always been an exceptionally treacherous and savage +race, and, even to the present day, are more hostile to white men, and +more addicted to cannibalism, than any of the other islanders. + +The _Favourite_ then proceeded to Samoa, where the weeping and wailing of +the tender-hearted race was overwhelming. Mrs. Williams, in her silent +English sorrow, was made the centre of a multitude of frantic mourners. +"Aue kriamu, aue Viriamu, our father, our father! He has turned his face +from us! We shall never see him more! He that brought us the good word +of salvation is gone! Oh, cruel heathen, they knew not what they did. +How great a man they have destroyed!" + +Such laments went on round the widow in the wild poetic language of the +poor Samoans, till the other teachers, by their prayers and sermons, had +produced a somewhat calmer tone; and the funeral took place beside the +chapel, attended by the officers and crew of the _Favourite_, and a great +concourse of natives. + +"Alas, Viriamu!" was the cry in every Christian Polynesian island for +many a day; and well it might be, for, in spite of the shortcomings of a +poorly-educated ministry and a tropical and feeble race, there are few +who ever turned more men from darkness to light, from cannibal fury to +Christian love, than the Martyr of Erromango,--John Williams,--one of the +happiest of missionaries, in that to him was given the martyr's crown, in +the full tide of his success and hope. + + + + +CHAPTER X. ALLEN GARDINER, THE SAILOR MARTYR. + + +The biography we next have to turn to is not that of a founder, scarcely +that of a pioneer, but rather of a brave guerilla, whose efforts were +little availing because wanting in combination, and undirected, but who, +nevertheless, has left behind him a heart-thrilling name won by +unflinching self-devotion even unto death. + +Allen Francis Gardiner, the fifth son of a Berkshire squire, was born in +1794. He was a born sailor, and became a midshipman before the end of +the great war of the French revolution; but the only naval action in +which he was engaged was against the American vessel _Essex_, which was +captured by his ship, the _Phoebe_, off Valparaiso. Allen Gardiner had +been carefully brought up by a good mother, but her death in his early +youth cast him loose and left him without any influence to keep up +serious impressions. He drifted into carelessness and godlessness, +though at times some old remembrance, roused by danger or by a comrade's +death, would sting him sharply. Once, feeling ashamed of having +forgotten the very words of Scripture, he made up his mind to buy a +Bible, and then was so full of false shame that he waited about in the +street till the shop should be empty, and then only thought how odd his +demand must seem to the bookseller. + +Most likely this was at Portsmouth, for he had there met a lady who had +been with his mother at her death, and had given him a narrative of her +last days, which his father had written, but from some sense of want of +sympathy had withheld from the son. The friend judged him better. The +copy in his own handwriting bears the date, "Portsmouth, November 18, +1818," and therewith was a little Bible with the same date written in it. +For two years, however, this produced no effect; but in 1820, when at +Penang, as a lieutenant in the _Dauntless_, Allen received a letter of +grave reproof from his father, and one of warm kindness and expostulation +from the same lady, his mother's friend, together with some books. +Nothing would have seemed more hopeless than the chance that a letter +from a religious old lady would make an impression on a dashing young +naval officer, and yet Allen Gardiner always considered this as the +turning-point of his life, and connected it with his mother's prayers. + +It was when his thoughts were directed to religious subjects, and his +intelligence freshly excited, that he visited the coasts of South +America, the region above all others where the Roman Catholic Church is +seen to the most disadvantage. Two things most especially struck him, +the remnants of the Inquisition at Lima, and the discovery that the poor +were buried without prayer or mass. Such scenes as these gave him an +extreme horror of Romanism and all that he supposed to be connected +therewith, and his next station at Tahiti, in all the freshness of the +newly established mission, full of devout people, filled him with strong +enthusiasm for the good men who were carrying out the work. Shortly +after he was invalided home, and as soon as he was fit for employment he +offered himself to the London Missionary Society, begging them to send +him to the neglected Indians of South America; but this did not suit +their plans, and his ardour was slackened by the more common affairs of +life. He fell in love and married a young lady named Julia Reade, and +his only voyage was in his naval, not his missionary capacity. But his +wife's health was exceedingly frail, and after eleven years of marriage +she died, leaving four children, a fifth having preceded her to the +grave. Beside her death-bed Allen Gardiner made a solemn dedication of +himself to act as a pioneer in one or other of the most neglected parts +of the earth, not so much to establish missions himself as to reconnoitre +the ground and prepare the way for their establishment. + +Africa was the country to which his attention was first called. His wife +died in May 1834, and the 24th of August was the last Sunday he spent in +England, at Calbourne, the native parish of Charles Simeon. He sailed at +once for Cape Colony, where the English, who had in the course of the +Revolutionary war obtained possession of the ground from the original +settlers, the Dutch, were making progress in every direction, and coming +into collision, not with the spiritless Hottentots of the Cape of Good +Hope itself, but with that far more spirited and intellectual race, the +Kaffirs--unbelievers, as the name meant--they being in fact of Arab +descent, though Africanized by their transition through tropical +latitudes, and not Mahometans. Such traditional religion as they +possessed seemed to be vanishing, since only a few of the elders retained +a curious legend of a supreme Deity who sent another Divine being to +"publish the news," and divide the sexes. A message was sent to him from +the Power in heaven to announce that man should not die, but this was +committed to that tardy reptile the chameleon; then another message that +man should die was given to the lizard, who outran the chameleon, and +thus brought death into the world. + +Sir Benjamin D'Urban had just been appointed Governor, and it was +apprehended that a war must take place, since the settlers were +continually liable to sudden attacks by these wild Kaffirs, who burnt, +slew, and robbed any homestead they fell upon. Captain Gardiner thought, +and justly, that it would be better to begin by proclaiming the glad +tidings of peace to these wild and ignorant people rather than to meet +them with the strong hand of war. The colony was lamentably deficient in +clergy, and the missions that existed were chiefly to the Hottentots and +Bushmen. The Moravians, whose work we have not mentioned because it is a +history in itself, had some excellent establishments, but no one had yet +attempted to penetrate into the home of the Kaffirs themselves, the Zulu +country, to endeavour to deal with their chieftains. This was Allen +Gardiner's intention, and on his outward voyage he met with a Polish +refugee named Berken, who had intended to settle in Australia, but was +induced to become his companion in his explorations in South Africa. + +They rode together from Capetown to Grahamstown, where they obtained an +interpreter named George Cyrus, and began to travel in the regular South +African fashion, namely, with waggons fitted for sleeping in, and drawn +by huge teams of oxen, and taking seven horses with them. Their first +adventure during a halt at the Buffalo river was the loss of all their +oxen, who were driven off by some natives. They applied to the chief of +the tribe, named Tzatzoe, who recovered the cattle for them, but showed +himself an insatiable beggar, even asking why, as Mr. Berken had two +shoes, he could not spare him one of them. However, he was honest +enough, when Mr. Berken chanced to leave his umbrella behind him, to send +after him to ask whether he knew that he had left his _house_. + +The next anxiety was at a spot called the Yellow-wood River, where the +mid-day halt was disturbed by an assembly of natives with a hostile +appearance. Captain Gardiner sent orders to collect the oxen, and in- +span (_i.e._ harness) them as soon as possible, but without appearance of +alarm, and in the meantime he tried to keep the natives occupied. To one +he lent his penknife, and after the man had vainly tried to cut off his +own beard with it, he offered to shave him, lathered him well, and +performed the operation like a true barber, then showed him his face in a +glass. His only disappointment was that the moustache had not been +removed, and as by this time the razor was past work, Captain Gardiner +had to pacify him by assuring him that such was the appearance of many +English warriors (for these were the days when moustaches were confined +to the cavalry). The amusement this excited occupied them nearly long +enough, but hostile murmurs then began to be heard--"One of our chiefs +has been killed by the white men, no more shall enter our country!" +Fearing that an angry word would be fatal, Captain Gardiner asked for a +war-song, promising some tobacco at the conclusion. Accordingly they +danced madly, and shouted at the top of their voices, + + "No white man shall drink our milk, + No white man shall eat our children's bread. + Ho-how! ho-how! ho-how!" + +But this couplet often repeated seemed to work off their rage; they +accepted the tobacco, and sullenly said the travellers might pass, but +they were the last who should. This was in the Amakosa country, lying +between the Grahamstown settlement and Port Natal, and to the present day +unannexed, though even then there were traders' stations at intervals, so +filthy and wretched as to be little above the huts of the natives. These +Amakosa tribes were such thieves that great vigilance was needed to +prevent property being stolen; but the next tribes, the Amapondas, were +scrupulously honest and friendly to the English. Their chief was found +by Gardiner and Berken dressed in a leopard's skin, sitting in state +under a canopy of shields, trying a rain-maker, who had failed to bring +showers in consequence of not having his dues of cattle delivered to him! +The chief advised them not to proceed, as he said the Zulus were angry +people who would kill them; but they pushed on, though finding that the +journey occupied much longer than they expected, so that provisions +became a difficulty. + +A full month had passed since leaving Grahamstown, and Gardiner decided +on pressing on upon horseback, leaving Mr. Berken to bring up the +waggons, and taking with him the interpreter and two natives. The +distance was 180 miles, and a terrible journey it was. A few waggon +tracks had made a sort of road, but this was not always to be +distinguished from hippopotamus paths, which led into horrible morasses, +where the horses almost entirely disappeared, and had to be scooped out +as it were by the hands; moreover, scarcely any food was to be had. In +crossing one river one of the horses was so irretrievably stuck in a +quicksand that humanity required it to be shot, and at the next, the +Umkamas, the stream was so swollen that the Captain had to devise a canoe +by sewing two cowskins together with sinews and stretching it upon +branches, in which, as no one save himself had any notion of boating, he +shoved off alone. The stream was too strong for him, and he had to +return and obtain the help of the only good swimmer among his party. With +him he crossed, but with no food save a canister of sugar! However, the +native swam back and fetched a loaf of bread, while Captain Gardiner +waited among the reeds, hearing the snorting and grunting of hippopotami +all round. The transit of the natives was secured by the holding a sort +of float made of a bundle of reeds, and in the morning, as the river was +too high for the rest of the party to cross, he brought over a few +necessaries, and a horse, with which the Captain was able to proceed to +Port Natal, where he found English traders, and sent back supplies to +those in the rear. + +The Zulus, on whom his attention was fixed, inhabit a fine country to the +north of the Tugela, which is considered as the boundary of the British +territory. The nation is full of intelligence and spirit, and by no +means incapable of improvement, and their princes have been for +generations past men of considerable natural ability, and of iron will, +but often savagely cruel. The first known to Englishmen was named +Charka, a great warrior, who kept his armies in a rude but thorough +discipline, and had made considerable conquests. About the year 1829, +Charka had been murdered by his brother Dingarn, who had reigned ever +since, and was the terror of the English settlers, who were beginning to +immigrate into the fertile terraced country of Natal. His forays might +at any time sweep away farms and homesteads; and his subjects were +continually fleeing from his violence across the Tugela, and thus might +bring him down as a pursuer. + +Allen Gardiner's plan was to go to the fountain head and endeavour to +deal with the chief himself, so as to make him a Christian instead of an +enemy. With this end he set out absolutely unaccompanied, except by +Cyrus the interpreter, and a Zulu servant whom he had hired named +Umpondombeni, and this with the knowledge that an English officer had +shortly before been treacherously murdered, and that Dingarn was a blood- +stained savage. + +The king had been informed of his coming, and had pronounced that he was +_his_ white man, and should make haste to Umkingoglove, his present +abode. The first view of this place, with a double circular fence around +it, resembled a race-course, the huts being ranged along the ring of the +enclosure so as to leave the centre free for the reviews and war dances +of the Kaffirs. Gardiner was very near entering by the wrong gate, in +which case all his escort would have been put to death. A hut was +assigned to him, a sort of beehive of grass and mud, with a hole to enter +by. His own lines, strung together in his many unoccupied moments for +his children's benefit, are so good a description of the Kaffir huts that +form a kraal or village, as to be worth inserting:-- + + "I see them now, those four low props + That held the haystack o'er my head, + The dusky framework from their tops + Like a large mouse-trap round me spread. + + To stand erect I never tried, + For reasons you may guess: + Full fourteen feet my hut was wide, + Its height was nine feet less. + + My furniture, a scanty store, + On saddle-bags beside me laid, + A hurdle, used to close the door, + Raised upon stones, my table made." + +There he received a bundle of the native sugar-cane, a bowl of maize beer +from Dingarn, and was invited to his palace. + +This was surrounded by a fence, outside which the Captain was desired to +sit down. Presently a black head and very stout pair of shoulders +appeared above it, and a keen sable visage eyed the visitor fixedly for +some time, in silence, which was only broken by these words, while +indicating an ox, "There is the beast I give you to slaughter." His +black majesty then vanished, but presently to reappear from beneath the +gateway dressed in a long blue cloak, with a white collar, and devices at +the back. After directing the distribution of some heaps of freshly +slain oxen that lay around, he stood like a statue till a seat was +brought him, and then entered into conversation. Captain Gardiner made +him understand that trade was not the object of the visit; but the real +purpose was quite beyond him; he seemed to regard what was proposed to +him as an impossibility, and began to inquire after the presents, which, +unfortunately, were still on the road. + +The delay exposed the Captain to some inconvenience and danger, and two +_indunas_, or chiefs, a sort of prime ministers, who were offended with +him for not having applied to the king through them, treated him with +increasing insolence. At last he persuaded them that he had better send +a note to hasten the coming of the presents, and he also managed to write +a letter for England, on his last half-sheet of paper, by the light of a +lamp made of a rag wick floating in native butter in a calabash. From +time to time he was called upon to witness the wonderful evolutions, +manoeuvres, and mock fights in the camp. The men were solely soldiers; +the women did all the work, planting maize, weeding corn, and herding +cattle, and thus the more wives a man had the more slaves he could +employ. Every wife had a value, and could only be obtained from her +father for a certain price in cattle, varying according to his rank. If +the full rate were not paid, she remained, as well as her children, the +property of her father or the head of her family. The king, having the +power to help himself, had an establishment of ninety women, who on gala- +days, or when his army was going to take the field, were drawn up in a +regiment, all wearing two long feathers on the top of their heads, a veil +of strings of coloured beads over their faces, bead skirts, and brass +rings over their throats and arms; these beads being the current coin of +the traders. They approached and retreated in files, flourishing their +arms like bell-ringers, while they sang:-- + + "Arise, vulture, + Thou art the bird that eateth other birds." + +These were, however, not wives, only female slaves. Either from jealousy +of possible sons growing up, or from the desire not to be considered as +in the ranks of the _umpagati_--elders or married men--neither Charka nor +Dingarn would marry, and no man could take a wife without the king's +permission. Dingarn wore his head closely shaven, whereas the married +trained their woolly hair to fasten over a circle of reed, so as to look +much as if they had an inverted saucepan on their heads. Besides this +they wore nothing but a sort of apron of skin before and behind, except +when gaily arrayed in beads, or ornaments of leopard's fur and teeth, for +dancing or for battle. Their wealth was their cattle, and their mealie +or maize grounds; their food, beef, mealies, and curdled milk; their +drink, beer, made of maize; their great luxury, snuff, made of dried +dacca and burnt aloes, and taken from an ivory spoon. Though sometimes +acting with great cruelty, and wholly ignorant, they were by no means a +dull or indolent people; they were full of courage and spirit, excellent +walkers and runners, capable of learning and of thinking, and with much +readiness to receive new ideas. + +The presents arrived, and the red cloak, made of the long scarlet nap +often used in linings, was presented, and gave infinite satisfaction; the +king tried it on first himself, then judged of the effect upon the back +of one of his servants, caused it to be carried flowing through the air, +and finally hung it up outside his palace for the admiration of his +subjects, then laid it by for the great national festival at the feast of +first-fruits. + +Captain Gardiner's object was to obtain a house and piece of land and +protection for a Christian missionary, and with this object he remained +at the kraal, trying to make some impression on Dingarn, and the two +indunas, who assured him that they were the king's eyes and ears. Thus +he became witness to much horrible barbarity. One of the least shocking +of Dingarn's acts was the exhibiting the powers of a burning-glass that +had been given him, by burning a hole in the wrist of one of his +servants; and his indifference to the pain and death of others was +frightful. His own brother, the next in succession, was, with his two +servants, put to death through some jealousy; and, more horrible still, +every living creature in thirty villages belonging to him was massacred +as a matter of course. + +Captain Gardiner, though often horrified and sickened by the sights he +was obliged to witness, remained for a month, and then, after +accompanying the king on his march, and seeing some astonishing reviews +and dances of his wild warriors, made another effort; but the king +referred him to the two indunas, and the indunas were positive that they +did not wish to learn, either they or their people. They would never +hear nor understand his book, but if he would instruct them in the use of +the musket he was welcome to stay. Dingarn pronounced, "I will not +overrule the decision of my indunas;" but, probably looking on the white +man as a mine of presents, he politely invited Gardiner to return. + +So ended his first attempt, and with no possessions remaining except his +clothes, his saddle, a spoon, and a Testament, he proceeded to the +Tugela, where he met his friend Berken, who had made up his mind to +settle in Natal, and he set out to return to England for the purchase of +stock and implements; but the vessel in which he sailed was never heard +of more. + +Captain Gardiner remained at Port Natal, which in 1835 consisted of a +cluster of huts, all of them built Kaffir-fashion, like so many hollow +haycocks, except Mr. Collis's, which was regarded as English because it +had upright sides, with a good garden surrounded by reeds. About thirty +English and a few Hottentots clustered around, and some three thousand +Zulus, refugees from Dingarn's cruelty, who showed themselves ready and +willing to work for hire, but who exposed their masters to the danger of +the king coming after them with fire and assagai. Hitherto on such an +alarm the whole settlement had been wont to take to the woods, but their +numbers were so increasing that they were beginning to erect a stockade +and think of defence. + +To this little germ of a colony, Allen Gardiner brought the first +recollection of Christian faith and duty. On Sunday mornings he stood +under a tree, as he had been wont to do on the deck of his ship, and read +the Church Service in English to such as would come round him and be +reminded of their homes; in the afternoon, by the help of his +interpreter, he prayed with and for the Kaffirs, and expounded the truths +of the Gospel; and in the week, he kept school for such Kaffir children +as he could collect, dressing them decently in printed calico. He began +with very few, partly because many parents fancied he would steal and +make slaves of them, and partly because he wished to train a few to be in +advance and act as monitors to the rest. The English were on very good +terms with him, and allotted a piece of land for a missionary settlement, +which he called Berea, and began to build upon it in the fashion of the +country. + +Fresh threats from Dingarn led the settlers to try to come to a treaty +with him, by which he was to leave them unmolested with all their +Kaffirs, on their undertaking to harbour no more of his deserters. There +was something hard in this, considering the horrid barbarities from which +the deserters fled, and the impossibility of carrying out the agreement, +as no one could undertake to watch the Tugela; but Captain Gardiner, +always eager and hasty, thinking that he should thus secure safety for +the colony and opportunities for the mission, undertook the embassy, and +set forth in a waggon with two Zulus and Cyrus, falling in on the way +with one of the grotesque parties of European hunters, who were wont to +go on expeditions after the elephant, hippopotamus, and buffalo, with a +hunting train of Hottentots and Kaffirs in their company. On whose +aspect he remarks truly:-- + + "I've seen the savage in his wildest mood, + And marked him reeked with human blood, + But never so repulsive made. + Something incongruous strikes the mind + Whene'er a barbarous race we find + With shreds of civil life displayed. + + There's more of symmetry, however bare, + In what a savage deigns to wear, + In keeping with the scene. + These, each deformed by what he wears, + Like apes that dance at country fairs, + Seemed but a link between." + +Dingarn proved to be at Congella, another circular town or kraal, on the +top of a hill. He gave a ready welcome to the Captain, and his +presents--some looking-glasses, a pair of epaulettes, and some coloured +prints, especially full-lengths of George IV. and William IV. The +collection in a place such as Natal then was must have been very hard to +make, but it was very successful, and still more so was the Captain's +presenting himself in his uniform when he went to propose the treaty. +Dingarn said he must look at it before he could do anything else, and +fully appreciated the compliment when the sailor said it was his war +dress, in which he appeared before King William. He agreed to the +treaty, but declared that the English would be the first to break it. The +Captain answered that a true Englishman never broke a treaty, and that +any white man who deceived was not the right sort of Englishman; and the +king responded that "now a great chief was come, to whom he could speak +his heart." Captain Gardiner tried to impress on him that it was the +fear of God that made himself an honourable man, and to persuade him that +the knowledge of the "Book" would make him and his people still greater; +and the next time of meeting set forth an outline of the morality and +promises of Revelation. Dingarn was attentive, and said they were good +words, and that he would hear more of them, but in the meantime Gardiner +must go back to Natal and see that his people kept the treaty. It was a +good deal more than he could do. A Kaffir inkosikase, or female +chieftain, who, with two servants and three children, was fleeing into +Natal at the time of his return, was sent back, with all her companions. +The poor creatures pleaded hard that the Captain would accompany them and +save them, and he returned with them, and interceded for them with all +his might, but soon found they were being starved to death. "Their bonds +must kill them," said Dingarn. A second great effort resulted in a +little food being sent, and a kind of promise that their lives should be +spared; but this was only made to get rid of him, and they all perished +after his departure. + +Deserters, as Gardiner called the fugitives to reconcile the surrender to +his loyal English conscience, were hardly such as these: they were the +only ones ever sent back, and the loose wild traders, who he ought to +have known would never be bound by treaties, were at that very time +enticing Kaffirs, who could be useful as herdsmen and labourers, across +the frontier. This led to great indignation from Dingarn, and he +declared that no Englishman save his favourite great chief should come +near him. + +Meantime Gardiner was assisting an assembly of traders and hunters who +had decided on building a town--all shaggy, unkempt, bearded men of the +woods, who decided the spot, the name, the arrangements, the spot for +church and magistrate's house, by vote, on the 25th of June, 1835, the +birthday of the town of Durban, so called after Sir Benjamin D'Urban, +Governor of the Cape, while the Portuguese name of Natal passed to the +entire territory. + +The dispute with Dingarn continuing, the Captain was again sent to +negotiate. This time he was received in the royal mansion, a magnified +beehive, where the king was lying on a mat with his head on one of the +little stools made to act as pillows, with about fifty women ranged +round. As to the matter in question, Gardiner was able to declare that, +in the white settlement itself, no deserters had found a home since the +treaty, and that none should do so; Dingarn said he considered him the +chief of the whites there, and should look to him to keep them in order. +Gardiner explained that he had no authority. "You must have power," said +Dingarn. "I give you all the country of the white people's ford." This +was a piece of land extending from the Tugela to the Nouzincoolu, from +the Snowy Mountains to the sea--in fact, the present whole colony of +Natal. A smaller portion, including the district about Natal, was to be +his own immediate property. Dingarn was perfectly in earnest, and thus +intended to make him responsible for the conduct of every individual of +the motley population of Natal, declaring that he should receive no +trader who did not bring credentials from him. It was as curious a +situation as ever commander in the navy was placed in. All he could do +was to return to Durban, explain matters to Mr. Collis and the other +traders, and then set out for the Cape to consult Sir Benjamin Durban. + +His journey across the mountains was very perilous and difficult, and +took much longer than his sanguine nature had reckoned; but he reached +Grahamstown at last, and explained matters to the Governor, who instantly +sent off a British officer to assume authority over the settlement at +Natal, and try to keep the peace with Dingarn, while Captain Gardiner +embarked for England to lay the state of things before Government and the +Church Missionary Society, at whose disposal he placed all his own +personal grant from Dingarn. When the prospects of the mission were +proclaimed, the Rev. Francis Owen volunteered for it, and Captain +Gardiner collected all that he thought needful for the great work he +hoped to carry out. He married Miss Marsh, of Hampstead, and, with her +and his three children, Mr. Owen and his wife and sister, sailed on the +24th of December, 1836; but the arrival was a sorrowful one, for his +eldest child, a girl, of twelve years old, was slowly declining. She +died just as they entered Durban Bay, and was buried at Berea immediately +on their arrival. As soon as the Kaffirs heard of Captain Gardiner's +landing, they flocked in to express their willingness to live under his +authority. He chose a pleasant spot for his home, and having settled his +family there, went up to see Dingarn. The presents this time were indeed +ecstatically received, and especially a watch and seals, and a huge pair +of gay worsted slippers. "He took my measure before he went," cried +Dingarn, who had tried a pair of boots before, but could not get them on. +The king was made to understand that his gift of land must be not to the +Captain, but to the King of England, and with this he complied. He was +also persuaded to modify his demands; as to the fugitives, Gardiner +undertook not to encourage or employ them, but would not search them out +or return them. Mr. Owen was also favourably received, as the +_umfundisi_ or teacher; a hut was allotted to him, and he was allowed to +preach. He took up his abode at Umkingoglove, the first town where +Captain Gardiner had seen the king, held services and opened a school, +often holding conversations with the king. "Has God commanded kings and +indunas to learn His word?" demanded Dingarn; and he actually did learn +to read the words printed upon a card for the children. + +Meantime Captain Gardiner was forming his settlement at a place which he +had named in the Kaffir tongue, Hambanati, "Go with us," in allusion to +Moses' invitation to Hobab: "Go with us, and we will do thee good." It +was half-way between Durban Bay and the Tugela, on a hill-side in the +midst of the beautiful undulating ground and rich wood characteristic of +the country, and with a river in front. There he had raised a thatched +house for himself, and around it Zulu huts were continually multiplying. +The English carpenter and labourers whom he had brought out instructed +the Kaffirs in various kinds of labour, for which they were quite +willing; and as they wore decent garments, they were called the clothed +tribe. School was kept for the children in the week; for the grown-up +people on Sunday; and on every alternate morning some Scripture fact was +read and explained to them, the Captain still being obliged to act as +chaplain, until the arrival of Mr. Hewetson, whom the Church Missionary +Society were sending out. + +Never had the generous toil of a devoted man seemed likely to meet with +better success, when a storm came from a most unexpected quarter. The +original colonists of the Cape of Good Hope were Dutch, and the whole +district was peopled with boers or farmers of that nation, stolid, +prosperous, and entirely uncontrolled by public opinion. They had +treated the unfortunate Hottentots as slaves, with all the cruelty of +stupidity, and imported Malays and Negroes to work in the same manner; +and they had shown, even when under their native state, a sort of grim +turbulence that made them very hard to deal with. When in 1834 the +British Government emancipated their slaves, and made cruelty penal and +labour necessarily remunerative, their discontent was immense, and a +great number sold their farms, and moved off into the interior to form an +independent settlement on the Orange River. A large number of them, +however, hearing of Dingarn's liberality to Captain Gardiner, were +determined to extort a similar grant to themselves by a display of power. +First came a letter, which Mr. Owen had to read and interpret to the +chief, and not long after a large deputation arrived, armed and mounted +on strong horses. Dingarn showed them a war-dance, and they in return +said they would show how the boers danced on horseback, and exhibited a +sham-fight, which did indeed alarm the savage, but, so far from daunting +him, only excited his treachery and fierceness. He gave a sort of +general answer, and the messengers retired. But from that time his +interest in Mr. Owen's teaching flagged; he wanted fire-arms instead of +religion, and preachings led to cavillings. Indications of evil +intentions likewise reached Captain Gardiner, who sent to warn Mr. Owen, +and to offer him a refuge at Hambanati in case of need. Still Mr. Owen +could gather nothing; he was called from time to time to read the +Dutchmen's letters, but was never told how they were to be dealt with. In +fact, Dingarn had replied by an offer of the very district he had given +Captain Gardiner, on condition that the new-comers would recover some +cattle which had been carried off by a hostile tribe. This was done, and +the detachment which had been employed on the service arrived at +Umkingoglove, where they were welcomed with war-dances, and exhibited +their own sham-fights; but in the midst of the ensuing meal they were +suddenly surrounded by a huge circle of the Zulus, as if for another war- +dance. The black ring came nearer and nearer still, and finally rushed +in upon the unhappy boers, and slaughtered every man of them. + +Mr. Owen had suspected nothing of what was passing, till he received a +message from Dingarn that he need not fear; the boers had been killed for +plotting, but the umfundisi should not be hurt. A time of terrible +anxiety followed, during which the Owen family saw large bodies of the +Kaffir army marching towards the Tugela, and in effect they fell upon the +Dutch camp, and upwards of a hundred and fifty white men, women, and +children were massacred. This horrible act, showing that no reliance +could be placed on Dingarn's promise, made the Owens decide on leaving +Umkingoglove, and they arrived at Hambanati, whence they proceeded to +Durban. The Gardiner family waited for another week; but, finding the +whole of the settlers infuriated, and bent on joining the Dutch in a war +of extermination against Dingarn, they were obliged to retreat to the +coast. First, however, Captain Gardiner assembled his Kaffirs, and +promised to do his utmost to find another tract, where they might settle +in peace, if they would abstain from all share in the coming war. They +promised; but in his absence the promise was not easy to keep; they +joined in the fight, many were killed, and the settlement entirely broken +up. The cause seemed to Gardiner hopeless; and, after waiting for a +short time in Algoa Bay, he decided on leaving the scene of action, where +peaceful teaching could not prevail for some time to come. Whether it +would not have been better to have tarried a little while, and then to +have availed himself of the confidence and affection he had inspired, so +as to gather the remnants of his mission again, we cannot say. At any +rate, he consoled himself for the disastrous failure at Natal by setting +forth on a fresh scheme of Christian knight-errantry on behalf of the +Indians of South America. + +Long ago, in Brazil, the Jesuits had done their best to Christianize and +protect the Indians; but the Portuguese settlers had, as usual, savagely +resented any interference with their cruel oppressions, broken up the +Jesuit settlement, and sold their unfortunate converts as slaves. After +this, the Jesuit Fathers had formed excellent establishments in the more +independent country of Paraguay, lying to the south, where they had many +churches, and peaceful, prosperous, happy communities of Christian +Indians around them. South American Indians are essentially childish +beings; and the Jesuits, when providing labour enough to occupy them +wholesomely, found themselves obliged to undertake the disposal of the +produce, thus not merely rendering their mission self-supporting, but so +increasing the wealth of the already powerful Order as to render it a +still greater object of jealousy to the European potentates; and when, in +the eighteenth century, the tide of opposition set strongly against it, +the unecclesiastical traffic of the settlements in Paraguay was one of +the accusations. The result was, that the Jesuit Fathers were banished +from South America in 1767; and whether it was that they had neglected to +train the Indians in self-reliance, or whether it was impossible to do +so, their departure led to an immediate collapse into barbarism; nor had +anything since been done on behalf of the neglected race. Indeed, the +break-up of all Spanish authority had been doubly fatal to the natives, +by removing all protection, and leaving them to the self-interested +violence of the petty republics, unrestrained by any loftier +consideration. + +In the Republic of Buenos Ayres, under the dictatorship of General Rosas, +the lot of these poor creatures was specially cruel. A war of +extermination was carried on against them, and eighty had at one time +been shot together in the market-place of the capital. Nothing could be +done towards reclaiming them while so savage a warfare lasted; but +Gardiner hoped to push on to the more northerly tribes, on the borders of +Chili, and he took a journey to reconnoitre across the Pampas, with many +strange hardships and adventures; but he found always the same story,--the +Indians regarded as wild beasts, and, acting only too much as such, +falling by night on solitary ranchos, or on lonely travellers, and +murdering them, and, on the other hand, being shot down wherever they +were found. + +With great difficulty and perseverance he made his way to the Biobio +river, leaving his family at Concepcion, the nearest comparatively +civilized place. Here he meant to make his way to a village of +independent Indians, with whose chief, Corbalan, he had hopes of entering +into relations. + +To cross the rapid stream of the Biobio, he had to use a primitive raft, +formed of four trunks of trees, about eighteen feet long, lashed together +by hide-thongs to two poles, one at each end. A horse was fastened to +it, by knotting his tail to the tow-rope, and on his back was a boy, +holding on by the single lock of the mane that is allowed to remain on +Chilian horses, who guided him across with much entreating, urging, and +coaxing. On the other side appeared Corbalan, the Indian chief on +horseback, and in a dark poncho, a sort of round cloak, with a hole to +admit the head, much worn all over South America. He took Captain +Gardiner to his house, an oval, with wattled side-walls, about five feet +high and thirty-five long, neatly thatched with grass, with a fireplace +in the centre, where a sheep was cooked for supper. Corbalan could speak +Spanish, and seemed to be pleased with the visit, making an agreement +that he should teach Gardiner his Indian tongue, and, in return, be +instructed in the way of God and heaven. He had convened forty-five of +his people, among whom were five chiefs, each of whom made the visitor +the offering of a boiled chicken, while he gave them some coloured cotton +handkerchiefs and some brass buttons. It was a beautiful country, and +reminded the guest so much of some parts of England, that it needed a +glance at the brown skin, flowing hair, and long poncho of Corbalan to +dispel the illusion that he was near home. Things looked so favourable, +that he had even selected a site for the mission-house, when some change +of sentiment came over Corbalan, probably from the remonstrances of his +fellow-chiefs: he declared that a warlike tribe near at hand would not +suffer him to harbour a stranger, and that he must therefore withdraw his +invitation. + +So ended this attempt; and the indefatigable Captain turned his attention +to the Indians to the southward, but he found that these were on good +terms with the Chilian Government, and that no one could come among them +without a pass from thence; and, as there was a cautious attempt at +Christianizing then going on, by persuading the cacique to be baptized +and to admit priests to their villages, there was both the less need and +the less opening for him. + +So, picking up his wife and children again at Concepcion, he sailed with +them for Valdivia, where, as wandering Europeans were always supposed to +be in search of objects for museums, and perhaps from some confusion +about his name, he was called "El Botanico." Again he plunged among the +Indians; but, wherever he came to a peaceable tribe, they were under the +influence of Spanish clergy, who were, of course, determined to exclude +him, while the warlike and independent Indians could not understand the +difference between him and their Spanish enemies; and thus, after two +years of effort, he found that no opening existed for reaching these wild +people. A proposal was made to him to remain and act as an agent for the +Bible and Tract Societies among the South American Roman Catholics, but +this he rejected. "No," he said; "I have devoted myself to God, to seek +for openings among the heathen, and I cannot go back or modify my vow." + +The Malay Archipelago was his next goal. He sailed with his wife and +children from Valparaiso for Sydney on the 29th of May, 1839, but the +vessel got out of her course, and was forced to put in at Tahiti, where +he found things sadly changed by the aggression of Louis Philippe's +Government, which had claimed the protectorate. The troubles of Queen +Pomare's reign were at their height, and the conflict between French and +English, Roman Catholic and Protestant, prevented any efficient struggle +against the corruption introduced by the crews of all nations. + +The great savage island of New Guinea seemed to Captain Gardiner a field +calling for labour, and, on his arrival in Australia, he found that the +Roman Catholic Bishop of Sydney was trying to organize a mission. He +left Australia, hoping to obtain permission from the Dutch authorities at +Timor to proceed to Papua, to take steps for being beforehand with the +Australian expedition. He reached the place with great difficulty, and +he himself, and all his family, began to suffer severely from fever. The +Dutch governor told him that he might as well try to teach the monkeys as +the Papuans, and the Dutch clergy gave him very little encouragement. He +remained in these strange and beautiful islands for several months, +trying one Dutch governor after another, and always finding them civil +but impenetrable; for, in fact, they could not believe that an officer in +her Britannic Majesty's Navy could be purely actuated by missionary zeal, +but thought that it concealed some political object. They were not more +gracious even to clergy of other nations. He found an American +missionary at Macassar, whom they had detained, and some Germans, who +were vainly entreating to be allowed to proceed to Borneo; and his +efforts met only with the most baffling, passive, but systematic denial. +It was reserved for the enterprise and prudence of Sir James Brooke to +open a way in this quarter. + +The health of the Gardiner family had been much injured by their +residence in those lovely but unwholesome countries, but the voyage to +Capetown restored it; and immediately after they sailed again for South +America, where the Captain had heard of an Indian tribe in the passes of +the Cordilleras, who seemed more possible of access. Here again he was +baffled in his dealings with the local government by the suspicions of +the priests, and never could obtain the means of penetrating beyond the +city of San Carlos, so that he decided at last to repair to the Falkland +Islands, and make an endeavour thence to reach the people of Patagonia +and Tierra del Fuego, where no hostile Church should put stumbling-blocks +in his way. + +A doleful region he found those Falkland Isles, covered only with their +peculiar grass and short heather, and without a tree. A little wooden +cottage, brought from Valparaiso, sheltered the much-enduring Mrs. +Gardiner and the two children, while the Captain looked out for a vessel +to take him to Patagonia; but he found that no one ever went there, and +the whalers who made these dismal islands their station did not wish to +go out of their course. Captain Gardiner offered 200_l._, the probable +value of a whole whale, as the price of his passage; but the skippers +told him that, though they would willingly take him anywhere for nothing, +they could not go out of their course. + +To seek the most hopeless and uncultivated was always this good man's +object. The Falkland Isles were dreary enough, but they were a paradise +compared to the desolate fag-end of the American world,--a cluster of +barren rocks, intersected by arms of the sea, which divide them into +numerous islets, the larger ones bearing stunted forests of beech and +birch, on the skirts of hills covered with perpetual snow, and sending +down blue glaciers to the water's edge. The narrower channels are very +shallow; the wider, rough and storm-tossed; and scarcely anything edible +grows on the islands. The Fuegians are as degraded a people as any on +the face of the earth, with just intelligence enough to maintain +themselves by hunting and fishing, by the help of dogs, which, it is +said, they prize so much that they would rather, in time of scarcity, eat +up an old mother than a dog; and they are churlishly inhospitable to +strangers, although with an unusual facility for imitating their +language, nor had any one ever attempted their conversion. + +However, the master of the _Montgomery_, who had brought the Gardiners +out to the Falkland Islands, hearing of the offer, undertook such a +profitable expedition; but his schooner was utterly frail, had to be +caulked and to borrow a sail, and, as he was losing no whales, Captain +Gardiner refused to give more than 100_l._, a sufficiently exorbitant +sum, for the passage of himself and a servant named Johnstone. While the +crazy vessel was refitting a Sunday intervened, during which he offered +to hold a service, but only two men attended it, the rest were all absent +or intoxicated. + +The poor little ship put to sea, and struggled into the Straits of +Magelhaen, drifting near the Fuegian coast. Landing, the Captain lighted +a fire to attract the attention of the natives, and some came down and +shouted. The English did not, however, think it safe to go further from +the boat, and presently the Fuegians likewise kindled their fire, +whereupon Gardiner heaped more fuel on his own, and continued his +signals, when two men advanced, descending to the beach. They were clad +in cloaks of the skin of the guanaco, a small kind of llama, and were +about five feet ten in height, with broad shoulders and chests, but lean, +disproportionate legs. Each carried a bow and quiver of arrows; and they +spoke loudly, making evident signs that the strangers were unwelcome. +Presents were offered them; brass buttons, a clasp knife, and worsted +comforter; and they sat down, but apparently with a sullen resolution not +to relax their faces, nor utter another word. A small looking-glass was +handed to one of them, and he was grimly putting it under his cloak when +Captain Gardiner held it up to him, and he laughed at the reflection of +his own face; and his friend then looked at the knife, as if expecting it +to produce the same effect, but, though they seemed to appreciate it, +they made no friendly sign, and appeared unmoved when spoken to either in +Spanish or in the few Patagonian phrases that Captain Gardiner had +managed to pick up; nor did anything seem to afford them any satisfaction +except demonstrations of departure. + +Nothing seemed practicable with these uncouth, distrustful beings, and +the Captain therefore went on in search of a tribe of Patagonians, among +which, he was told, was a Creole Spaniard named San Leon, who had +acquired great influence by his reckless courage and daring, and through +whom it might be possible to have some communication with them. The camp +of these people on the main continent, near Cape Gregory, was discovered +newly deserted, with hollow places in the ground where fires had been +made, and many marks of footsteps. This extreme point of the continent +was by no means so dreary as the Land of Fire; it bore thorny bushes ten +feet high, wild celery and clover, and cranberry-bushes covered with red +berries. Indeed, the Patagonians--so called because their big splay +boots made Magelhaen conclude they walked on _patas_ (paws), like +bears--are a superior race to the Fuegians, larger in stature than most +Europeans, great riders, and clever in catching guanacos by means of +bolas, _i.e._ two round stones attached to a string. If the Fuegians are +Antarctic Esquimaux, the Patagonians are Antarctic Tartars, leading a +wandering life under tents made of skins of horses and guanacos, and +hating all settled habits, but not so utterly inhospitable and +impracticable as their neighbours beyond the Strait. In truth, the +division is not clearly marked, for there are Fuegians on the continent +and Patagonians in the islands. Ascending a height, the Captain took a +survey of the country, and, seeing two wreaths of smoke near Oazy +Harbour, sailed in, cast anchor, and in the morning was visited by the +natives of their own accord, after which he returned with them to their +camp, consisting of horse-hide tents, semicircular in form, and entirely +open. They were full of men, women, and children, and among them San +Leon, to whom it was possible to talk in Spanish, and indeed several +natives, from intercourse with ships, knew a few words of English. San +Leon had been with the tribe for twelve years, and said that American +missionaries had visited them, but that they had gone away because the +Fuegians who crossed the Strait were such thieves that they ate up their +provisions and cut up their books. However, no objection was made to +Gardiner's remaining, so he set up a tarred canvas tent, closed at each +end with bullock-hides, and slept on shore, a good deal disturbed by the +dogs, who gnawed at the bullock-hides, till a coat of tar laid over them +prevented them. Not so, however, with another visitor, a huge +Patagonian, who walked in with the words, "I go sleep," and leisurely +coiled himself up for the purpose, unheeding Johnstone's discourse; but +the Captain, pointing with his finger, and emphatically saying "Go," +produced the desired effect. Then followed the erection of seventeen +skin tents, all in a row, set up by the women. These Patagonians behaved +well and quietly; but, in the meantime, the master of the schooner had +asked San Leon to obtain some guanaco meat for the crew, and the natives +who went in search of the animals insisted on being paid, though they had +caught nothing. These however were Fuegians, and the Patagonians were +very angry with them. Captain Gardiner even ventured to remain alone +with Johnstone among this people, while San Leon went on to Port Famine +in the _Montgomery_, which was in search of wood; but, in the meantime, +he could do nothing but hold a little monosyllabic communication; and +once, when he and his servant both went out at the same time, they lost +their dinner, which, left to simmer over the fire, proved irresistible to +the Patagonians. They, however, differed from the Fuegians in not +ordinarily being thieves. + +A chief named Wissale arrived with a body of his tribe with whom he had +been purchasing horses on the Rio Negro, and bringing with him an +American negro named Isaac, who had three years since run away from a +whaler, and who spoke enough English to be a useful interpreter. + +Wissale, with Isaac's help, was made to perceive Captain Gardiner's +intentions sufficiently to promise to make him welcome if he should +return, and to declare that he should be glad to learn good things. There +seemed so favourable an opening that the Captain made up his mind to take +up his abode there with his family to prepare the way for a missionary in +Holy Orders, for whom he never deemed himself more than a pioneer. + +After distributing presents to the friendly Patagonians, he embarked, and +making a weary passage, reached the Falkland Islands, where he found the +two ships _Erebus_ and _Terror_ anchored, in the course of their voyage +of Antarctic discovery. The presence of the two captains and their +officers was a great pleasure and enlivenment to the Gardiners, who +received from them many comforts very needful in that inclement climate +to people lately come from some of the hottest regions of the southern +hemisphere. + +Whalers continually put in, but not one, even though Captain Gardiner's +offers rose to 300_l._, would undertake to go out of his course to +Patagonia to convey him and his family, and he would not trust his wife +and children on board that wretched craft the _Montgomery_, so he waited +on at the Falkland Islands, doing what good he could there, and expecting +the answer of a letter he had despatched to the Church Missionary +Society, begging for the appointment of a clergyman to this field of +labour. After six months' delay, the letter came, and proved to be +unfavourable; there was a falling off in the funds of the Society, and a +new and doubtful mission was thought undesirable. The Captain believed +that nothing but personal representations could prevail, and therefore +decided on going home to plead the cause of his Patagonians. He sailed +with his family for Rio in a small vessel, and the voyage could not have +been one of the least of the dangers, for the skipper was a Guacho who +had been a shoemaker, and knew nothing about seafaring, and there was not +a spare rope in the ship. From Rio Gardiner took a passage home, and +safely arrived, after six years of brave pioneering in three different +quarters of the globe. + +He found, however, that the Church Missionary Society could not undertake +the Patagonian Mission, and neither could the London nor Wesleyan +Societies. He declared that every one grew cold when they heard of South +America, and viewed it as the natural inheritance of Giants Pope and +Pagan; and for this very reason he was the more bent upon doing his +utmost. Failing in his attack on Pagan he made an assault on Pope, +obtaining a grant of Bibles, Testaments, and tracts from the Bible +Society, and in 1843 sailed for Rio to distribute them; this time, +however, going alone, as his children were of an age to require an +English education and an English home. + +He undertook this mission, in fact, chiefly for the purpose of continuing +his attempts to reach the Indian tribes. His journey was, as usual, wild +and adventurous, and its principal result was an acquaintance with the +English chaplains and congregations at several of the chief South +American ports, from whom he received a promise of 100_l._, per annum for +the support of a mission to Patagonia. + +With this beginning he returned home, and while residing at Brighton, his +earnestness so stirred people's minds that a Society was formed with an +income of 500_l._, and Mr. Robert Hunt, giving up the mastership of an +endowed school, offered himself to the Church Missionary Society. A +clergyman could not immediately be found, and it was determined that +these two should go first and prepare the way. In 1844, then, they +landed in Oazy Harbour in Magelhaen's Straits, and set up three tents, +one for stores, one for cooking, and one for sleeping. One Fuegian hut +was near, where the people were inoffensive, and presently there arrived +a Chilian deserter named Mariano, who said that he had run away from the +fort at Port Famine with another man named Cruz, who had remained among +the Patagonians. He reported that Wissale had lost much of his +authority, and that San Leon was now chief of the tribe; also that there +was a Padre Domingo at Port Famine, who was teaching the Patagonians to +become "Catolicos." + +To learn the truth as soon as possible, the Captain and Mr. Hunt locked +up two of their huts, leaving the other for Mariano, and set off in +search of the Patagonians; and a severe journey it was, as they had to +carry the heavy clothing required to keep up warmth at night, besides +their food, gun, powder, and shot. The fatigue was too much for Hunt, +who was at one time obliged to lie down exhausted while the Captain went +in search of water; and after four days they were obliged to return to +their huts, where shortly after Wissale arrived, but with a very scanty +following, only ten or twelve horses, and himself and family very hungry; +but though ready to eat whatever Captain Gardiner would give him, his +whole manner was changed by his disasters. He was surly and quarrelsome, +and evidently under the influence of the deserter Cruz, who was resolved +to set him against the new-comers, and so worked upon him that he once +threatened the Captain with his dirk. Moreover, a Chilian vessel +arrived, bringing Padre Mariano himself, a Spanish South American, with a +real zeal for conversion, though he was very courteous to the Englishmen. +An English vessel arrived about the same time, and Gardiner, thinking the +cause for the present hopeless, accepted a homeward passage, writing in +his journal, "We can never do wrong in casting the Gospel net on any side +or in any place. During many a dark and wearisome night we may appear to +have toiled in vain, but it will not be always so. If we will but wait +the appointed time, the promise, though long delayed, will assuredly come +to pass." + +But if he was not daunted his supporters were, and nothing but his +intense earnestness, and assurance that he should never abandon South +America, prevented the whole cause from being dropped. His next attempt +was to reach the Indians beyond Bolivia, in the company of Federigo +Gonzales, a Spaniard, who had become a Protestant, and was to have gone +on the Patagonian Mission. Here fever became their enemy, but after much +suffering and opposition Gonzales was settled at Potosi, studying the +Quichuan language, and hoping to work upon the Indians, while the +unwearied Gardiner again returned to England to strain every nerve for +the Fuegian Mission, which lay nearest of all to his heart. + +He travelled all over England and Scotland, lecturing and making +collections, speaking with the same energy whether he had few or many +auditors. At one town, when asked what sort of a meeting he had had, he +answered, "Not very good, but better than sometimes." + +"How many were present?" + +"Not one; but no meeting is better than a bad one." + +He could not obtain means enough for a well-appointed expedition such as +he wished for; but he urged that a small experimental one might be sent +out, consisting of himself, four sailors, one carpenter, with three +boats, two huts, and provisions for half a year. He hoped to establish a +station on Staten Island, whence the Fuegians could be visited, and the +stores kept out of their reach. + +Having found the men, he embarked on board the barque _Clymene_, which +was bound for Payta, in Peru, and was landed on Picton Island; but before +the vessel had departed the Fuegians had beset the little party, and +shown themselves so obstinately and mischievously thievish, that it was +plainly impossible for so small a party to hold their ground among them. +Before there could be a possibility of convincing them of even the +temporal benefit of the white man's residence among them, they would have +stripped and carried off everything from persons who would refrain from +hurting them. So, once more, the Captain drew up the net which had taken +nothing, decided that the only mission which would suit the Fuegians must +be afloat, and went on to Payta in the _Clymene_. + +While in Peru, he met with a Spanish lady, who asked if he knew a friend +of hers who came from Genoa, and then proceeded to inquire which was the +largest city, Genoa or Italy, and if Europe was not a little on this side +of Spain, while a priest asked if London was a part of France. After +spending a little time in distributing Bibles in Peru, he made his way +home by the way of Panama, and on his arrival made an attempt to interest +the Moravians in the cause so near his heart, thinking that what they had +done in Greenland proved their power of dealing with that savage apathy +that springs from inclemency of climate, but the mission was by them +pronounced impracticable. + +In the meantime, his former ground, Port Natal, was in a more hopeful +state. Tremendous battles had been fought between Dingarn and the boers; +but, in 1839, Panda, Dingarn's brother, finding his life threatened, went +over to the enemy, carrying 4,000 men with him, and thus turned the +scale. Dingarn was routed, fled, and was murdered by the tribe with whom +he had taken refuge, and Panda became Zulu king, while the boers occupied +Natal, and founded the city of Pieter Maritzburg as the capital of a +Republic; but the disputes between them and the Zulus led to the +interference of the Governor of the Cape, and finally Natal was made a +British colony, with the Tugela for a boundary; and, as Panda's +government was exceedingly violent and bloody, his subjects were +continually flocking across the river to put themselves under British +protection, and were received on condition of paying a small yearly rate +for every hut in each kraal, and conforming themselves to English law, so +far as regarded the suppression of violence and theft. One of the +survivors of Gardiner's old pupils, meeting a gentleman who was going to +England, sent him the following message: "Tell Cappan Garna he promise to +come again if his hair was as white as his shirt, and we are waiting for +him;" and he added a little calabash snuff-box as a token. But the +Captain had made his promise to return contingent upon the Kaffirs of his +settlement taking no part in the war, and they, poor things, had, with +the single exception of his own personal attendant, Umpondombeni, broken +this condition; so that he did not deem himself bound by it. Moreover, +means were being taken for providing a mission for Natal, and Christian +teachers were already there, while he regarded his own personal exertions +as the only hope for the desolate natives of Cape Horn. So he only sent +a letter and a present to the man, urging him to attach himself to a +mission-station, and then turned again to his unwearied labour in the +Patagonian and Fuegian cause. His little Society found it impossible to +raise means for the purchase of a brigantine, and he therefore limited +his plans to the equipment of two launches and two smaller boats. He +would store in these provisions for six months, and take a crew of +Cornish fishermen, used to the stormy Irish Sea. As to the funds, a lady +at Cheltenham gave 700_l._, he himself 300_l._ The boats were purchased, +three Cornishmen, named Pearce, Badcock, and Bryant, all of good +character, volunteered from the same village; Joseph Erwin, the +carpenter, who had been with him before, begged to go with him again, +because, he said, "being with Captain Gardiner was like a heaven upon +earth; he was such a man of prayer." One catechist was Richard Williams, +a surgeon; the other John Maidment, who was pointed out by the secretary +of the Young Men's Association in London; and these seven persons, with +their two launches, the _Pioneer_ and the _Speedwell_, were embarked on +board the _Ocean Queen_, and sailed from Liverpool on the 7th of +September, 1850. They carried with them six months' provisions, and the +committee were to send the same quantity out in due time, but they failed +to find a ship that would undertake to go out of its course to Picton +Island, and therefore could only send the stores to the Falklands, to be +thence despatched by a ship that was reported to go monthly to Tierra del +Fuego for wood. + +Meantime, the seven, with their boats and their provisions, were landed +on Picton Island, and the _Ocean Queen_ pursued her way. Time passed on, +and no more was heard of them. The Governor of the Falklands had twice +made arrangements for ships to touch at Picton Island, but the first +master was wrecked, the second disobeyed him; and in great anxiety, on +the discovery of this second failure, he sent, in October 1851, a vessel +on purpose to search for them. At the same time, the _Dido_, Captain +William Morshead, had been commanded by the Admiralty to touch at the +isles of Cape Horn and carry relief to the missionaries. + +On the 21st of October, in a lonely little bay called Spaniards' Harbour, +in Picton Island, the Falkland Island vessel found the _Speedwell_ on the +beach, and near it an open grave. In the boat lay one body, near the +grave another. They returned with these tidings, and in the meantime the +_Dido_ having come out, her boats explored the coast, and a mile and a +half beyond the first found the other boat, beside which lay a skeleton, +the dress of which showed it to be the remains of Allen Gardiner. Near +at hand was a cavern, outside which were these words painted, beneath a +hand:-- + + "My soul, wait thou still upon God, for my hope is in Him. + + "He truly is my strength and my salvation; He is my defence, so that I + shall not fall. + + "In God is my strength and my glory; the rock of my might, and in God + is my trust." + +Within the cave lay another body, that of Maidment. Reverent hands +collected the remains and dug a grave; the funeral service was read by +one of the officers, the ship's colours were hung half-mast high, and +three volleys of musketry fired over the grave--"the only tribute of +respect," says Captain Morshead, "I could pay to this lofty-minded man +and his devoted companions who have perished in the cause of the Gospel." +There was no doubt of the cause and manner of their death, for Captain +Gardiner's diary was found written up to probably the last day of his +life. + +It appeared that in their first voyage, on the 20th of December, they had +fallen in with a heavy sea, and a great drift of seaweed, in which the +anchor of the _Speedwell_ and the two lesser boats had been hopelessly +entangled and lost. It was found impossible for such small numbers to +manage the launches in the stormy channels while loaded, and it was +therefore resolved to lighten them by burying the stores at Banner Cove, +and, while this was being done, it was discovered that all the +ammunition, except one flask and a half of powder, had been left behind +in the _Ocean Queen_; so that there was no means of obtaining either +guanacos or birds. Attempts were made at establishing friendly barter +with the natives, but no sooner did these perceive the smallness of the +number of the strangers, than they beset them with obstinate hostility. +Meantime, Gardiner's object was to reach a certain Button Island, where +was a man called Jemmy Button, who had had much intercourse with English +sailors, and who, he hoped, might pave the way for a better understanding +with the natives. + +But the _Pioneer_ had been damaged from the first, and could not go so +far. At Banner Cove the natives were hostile and troublesome, and +Spaniards' Harbour was the only refuge, and even there a furious wind, on +the 1st of February, drove the _Pioneer_ ashore against the jagged root +of a tree, so as to damage her past all her crew's power of mending, +though they hauled her higher up on the beach, and, by the help of a +tent, made a lodging for the night of the wreck close to the cave, which +they called after her name. + +The question then was, whether to place all the seven in the _Speedwell_ +with some of the provisions and make for Button Island, and this might +probably have saved their lives; but they had already experienced the +exceeding difficulty of navigating the launch in the heavy seas. Both +their landing boats were lost, and they therefore decided to remain where +they were until the arrival of the vessel with supplies, which they +confidently expected either from home or from the Falklands. Indeed, +their power of moving away was soon lost, for Williams, the surgeon, and +Badcock, one of the Cornishmen, both fell ill of the scurvy. The cold +was severe, and neither fresh meat nor green food was to be had, and this +in February--the southern August. However, the patients improved enough +to enable the party to make a last expedition to Banner Cove to recover +more of the provisions buried there, and to paint notices upon the rocks +to guide the hoped-for relief to Spaniards' Harbour; but this was not +effected without much molestation from the Fuegians. Then passed six +weary months of patient expectation and hope deferred. There was no +murmuring, no insubordination, while these seven men waited--waited--waited +in vain, through the dismal Antarctic winter for the relief that came too +late. The journals of Williams and Gardiner breathe nothing but hopeful, +resigned trust, and comfort in the heavenly-minded resolution of each of +the devoted band, who may almost be said to have been the Theban legion +of the nineteenth century. + +For a month they were able to procure fish, and were not put on short +allowance till April, when Williams and Badcock both became worse, and +Bryant began to fail, though he never took to his bed. They, with Erwin, +were lodged in the _Speedwell_ at Blomfield Harbour, a sheltered inlet, +about a mile and a half from the wreck of the _Pioneer_, where, to leave +the sick more room, Captain Gardiner lodged with Maidment and Pearce. + +With the months whose names spoke of English summer, storms and terrible +cold began to set in. The verses that Gardiner wrote in his diary during +this frightful period are inexpressibly touching in the wondrous strength +of their faith and cheerfulness. + + "Let that sweet word our spirits cheer + Which quelled the tossed disciples' fear: + 'Be not afraid!' + He who could bid the tempest cease + Can keep our souls in perfect peace, + If on Him stayed. + And we shall own 'twas good to wait: + No blessing ever came too late." + +This was written on the 4th of June; on the 8th their fishing-net was +torn to pieces by blocks of drifting ice. On the 28th Badcock died, +begging his comrades to sing a hymn to him in his last moments. In +August, Gardiner, hitherto the healthiest, was obliged to take to his bed +in the _Pioneer_, and there heard of the death of Erwin on the 23rd of +August, and of Bryant on the 27th. Maidment buried them both, and came +back to Captain Gardiner, who, as he lay in bed, had continued his +journal, and written his farewell letters to his wife and children. +Hitherto, the stores of food had been eked out by mussels and wild +celery, but there was now no one to search for them. Gardiner, wishing +to save Maidment the journeys to and fro, determined to try to reach the +_Speedwell_, and Maidment cut two forked sticks to serve as crutches, but +the Captain found himself too weak for the walk, and had to return. This +was on the 30th of August. On Sunday, the 31st, there is no record in +the diary, but the markers stand in his Prayer-book at the Psalms for the +day and the Collect for the Sunday. On the 3rd of September, Maidment +was so much exhausted that he could not leave his bed till noon, and +Gardiner never saw him again. He must have died in the _Pioneer_ cavern, +being unable to return. The diary continues five days longer. A little +peppermint-water had been left by the solitary sufferer's bed, and a +little fresh water he also managed to scoop up from the sides of the boat +in an india-rubber shoe. This was all the sustenance he had. On the 6th +of September he wrote--"Yet a little while, and through grace we may join +that blessed throng to sing the praises of Christ throughout eternity. I +neither hunger nor thirst, though five days without food! Marvellous +loving-kindness to me, a sinner. Your affectionate brother in +CHRIST,--ALLEN F. GARDINER." + +These last words were in a letter to Williams. He must afterwards have +left the boat, perhaps to catch more water, and have been too weak to +climb back into it, for his remains were on the beach. Williams lost the +power of writing sooner, and no more is known of his end, though probably +he died first, and Pearce must have been trying to prepare his grave when +he, too, sank. + +What words can befit this piteous history better than "This is the +patience of the saints"? + +The memorial to Allen Gardiner has been a mission-ship bearing his name, +with her head-quarters at the Falkland Isles. We believe that these +isles are to become a Bishop's See. Assuredly a branch of the Church +should spring up where the seed of so patient and devoted a martyrdom has +been sown. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. CHARLES FREDERICK MACKENZIE, THE MARTYR OF THE ZAMBESI. + + +That Zulu country where poor Allen Gardiner had made his first attempt +became doubly interesting to the English when the adjoining district of +Natal became a British colony. It fell under the superintendence of +Bishop Robert Gray, of Capetown, who still lives and labours, and +therefore cannot be here spoken of; and mainly by his exertions it was +formed into a separate Episcopal See in the year 1853. Most of the +actors in the founding of the Church of Natal are still living, but there +are some of whom it can truly be said that-- + + "Death hath moulded into calm completeness + The statue of their life." + +Charles Frederick Mackenzie was born in 1825 of an old Scottish Tory +family, members from the first of the Scottish Church in the days of her +persecution. His father, Colin Mackenzie, was one of Walter Scott's +fellow-Clerks of Session, and is commemorated by one of the Introductions +to "Marmion," as-- + + "He whose absence we deplore, + Who breathes the gales of Devon's shore; + The longer missed, bewailed the more." + +His mother was Elizabeth Forbes, and he was the youngest of so unusually +large a family that the elders had been launched into the world before +the younger ones were born, so that they never were all together under +one roof. The father's delicacy of health kept the mother much +engrossed; the elder girls were therefore appointed as little mothers to +the younger children, and it was to his eldest sister, Elizabeth +(afterwards Mrs. Dundas), that the young Charles always looked with the +tender reverence that is felt towards the earliest strong influence for +good. + +From the first he had one of those pure and stainless natures that seem +to be good without effort, but his talents were only considered +remarkable for arithmetic. His elder brothers used to set him up on a +table and try to puzzle him with questions, which he could often answer +mentally before they had worked them out on their slates. His father +died in 1830, after so much invalidism and separation that his five-year- +old boy had no personal recollection of him. The eldest son, Mr. Forbes +Mackenzie, succeeded to the estate of Portmore, and the rest of the +family resided in Edinburgh for education. Charles attended the Academy +till he was fifteen, when he was sent to the Grange School at Bishop's +Wearmouth, all along showing a predominant taste for mathematics, which +he would study for his own amusement and assist his elder brothers in. +His perfect modesty prevented them from ever feeling hurt by his +superiority in this branch, and he held his place well in classics, +though they were not the same delight to him, and were studied rather as +a duty and as a step to the ministry of the Church, the desire of his +heart from the first. At school, his companions respected him heartily, +and loved him for his unselfish kindness and sweetness, while a few of +the more graceless were inclined to brand him as soft or slow, because he +never consented to join in anything blameable, and was not devoted to +boyish sports, though at times he would join in them with great vigour, +and was always perfectly fearless. + +From the Grange he passed to Cambridge, and was entered at St. John's, +but finding that his Scottish birth was a disadvantage according to +restrictions now removed, he transferred himself to Caius College. He +kept up a constant correspondence with his eldest sister, Mrs. Dundas, +and from it may be gathered much of his inner life, while outwardly he +was working steadily on, as a very able and studious undergraduate. With +hopes of the ministry before his eyes, he begged one of the parochial +clergy to give him work that would serve as training, and accordingly he +was requested to read and pray with a set of old people living in an +asylum. The effort cost his bashfulness much, but he persevered, with +the sense that if he did not go "no one else would," and that his +attempts were "better than nothing." This was the key to all his life. +At the same time he felt, what biography shows many another to have done, +the influence of the more constant and complete worship then enjoined by +college rules. Daily service was new to him, and was accepted of course +as college discipline, but after a time it gathered force and power over +his mind, and as the _Magnificat_ had been a revelation to Henry Martyn, +so Charles Mackenzie's affection first fixed upon the General +Thanksgiving, and on the commemoration of the departed in the prayer for +the Church Militant. + +His fellow-collegians thought of him as a steady, religious-minded man, +but not peculiarly devout, and indeed the just balance of his mind made +him perceive that the prime duty of an undergraduate was industry rather +than attempts to exercise his yet unformed and uncultivated powers. In +1848 he was second wrangler. There were two prizes, called Dr. Smith's, +for the two most distinguished mathematicians of the year. The senior +wrangler's papers had the first of these; for the second, Mackenzie was +neck and neck with a Trinity College man, and the question was only +decided by the fact that Dr. Smith had desired that his own college +(Trinity) should have the preference. + +After this he became tutor and fellow of his college, taking private +pupils, and at the same time preparing for Holy Orders, not only by study +of books, but by work among the poor, with whom his exceeding kindness +and intense reality gave him especial influence at all times. + +He was ordained on the Trinity Sunday of 1851, and took an assistant +curacy at a short distance from Cambridge, his vigorous powers of walking +enabling him to give it full attention as well as to his pupils and to +the University offices he filled. His great characteristic seems always +to have been the tenderest kindness and consideration; and in the year +when he was public examiner, this was especially felt by the young men +undergoing an ordeal so terrible to strained and excited intellect and +nerves, when a little hastiness or harshness often destroys the hopes of +a man's youth. + +With this combination of pastoral work and college life Mackenzie was +perfectly satisfied and happy, but in another year the turning-point of +his life was reached. A mission at Delhi to the natives was in prospect, +and the Rev. J. S. Jackson, who belonged to the same college with him, +came to Cambridge in search of a fellow-labourer therein. During the +conversations and consultations as to who could be asked, the thought +came upon Mackenzie, why should he strive to send forth others without +going himself. He could not put it from his mind. He read Henry +Martyn's life, and resolved on praying for guidance as to his own duty. +In the words of his letter to Mrs. Dundas, "I thought chiefly of the +command, 'Go ye and baptize all nations,' and how some one ought to go; +and I thought how in another world one would look back and rejoice at +having seized this opportunity of taking the good news of the Gospel to +those who had never heard of it; but for whom, as well as for us, Christ +died. I thought of the Saviour sitting in heaven, and looking down upon +this world, and seeing us, who have heard the news, selfishly keeping it +to ourselves, and only one or two, or eight or ten, going out in the year +to preach to His other sheep, who must be brought, that there may be one +fold and one Shepherd; and I thought that if other men would go abroad, +then I might stay at home, but as no one, or so few, would go out, then +it was the duty of every one that could go to go. . . . And I thought, +what right have I to say to young men here, 'You had better go out to +India,' when I am hugging myself in my comfortable place at home." And +afterwards, "Now, dear Lizzie, I have always looked to you as my mother +and early teacher. To you I owe more than I can ever repay, more than I +can well tell. I do hope you will pray for me and give me your advice." + +Mrs. Dundas's reply to this letter was a most wise and full expression of +sympathy with the aspiration, given with the deep consideration of a +peculiarly calm and devotional spirit, which perceived that it is far +better for a man to work up to his fullest perception of right, and +highest aims, than to linger in a sphere which does not occupy his +fullest soul and highest self; and she also recognized the influence that +the fact of one of a family being engaged in such work exercises on those +connected with them. + +Others of the family, however, were startled, and some of his Cambridge +friends did not think him adapted to the Delhi Mission, and this +therefore was given up, but without altering the bent that his mind had +received; and indeed Mrs. Dundas, in one of her beautiful letters, +advised him to keep the aim once set before him in view, and thus his +interest became more and more turned towards the support of missionary +work at home. + +In 1854, the first Primate of New Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn, +visited England, after twelve years of labour spent in building up the +Colonial and Maori Church, and of pioneering for missions in the +Melanesian Isles, over which his vast see then extended. He preached a +course of four sermons at Cambridge; Mackenzie was an eager listener, and +those forcible, heart-stirring discourses clenched his long growing +resolution to obey the first call to missionary labour that should come +to him, though, on the other hand, he desired so far to follow the +leadings of Providence that he would not choose nor volunteer, but wait +for the summons--whither he knew not. + +Ere long the invitation came. The erection of the colony of Natal into a +Bishop's See had been decided upon a year before, and it had been offered +to John William Colenso, a clergyman known as active in the support of +the missionary cause, and a member of the University of Cambridge. On +his appointment he had gone out in company with the Bishop of Capetown to +inspect his diocese and study its needs, as well as to lay the +foundations of future work. In the party who then sailed for Natal was a +lady who had recently been left a widow, Henrietta Woodrow by name, +ardent in zeal for the conversion of the heathen, and hoping that the +warm climate of Africa would enable her to devote herself to good works +more entirely than her delicate health permitted at home. + +Pieter Maritzburg had by this time risen into a capital, with a strange +mixture of Dutch and English buildings; but the English population +strongly predominated. Panda was king of the Kaffirs, and fearfully +bloody massacres had taken place in his dominions, causing an immense +number of refugees to take shelter in the English territory. Young +people who thus came were bound apprentices to persons who would take +charge of them for the sake of their services, and thus the missions and +those connected with them gained considerable influence for a time. A +Kaffir, who must have been Captain Gardiner's faithful Umpondobeni, +though he was now called by another name, inquired for his former good +master, and fell into an agony of distress on hearing of his fate. + +Mrs. Woodrow at once opened an orphanage for the destitute English +children that are sure to be found in a new colony, where the parents, if +unsuccessful, are soon tempted to drink, and then fall victims to climate +and accident. The Kaffir servant whom she engaged had already been +converted, and was baptized by the name of Abraham, soon after he entered +her service; but "Boy,"--the name at first given to him,--became a sort +of surname to him and to his family. While watching over the little band +of children, Mrs. Woodrow was already--even though as yet only learning +the language--preparing the way for the coming Church. She wrote of the +Kaffirs: "They come to me of all ages, men and women, some old men from +the country, with their rings upon their heads, and wrapped in their +house blankets. Then they sit down on the kitchen floor, our 'Boy' +telling them, in his earnest way, about JESUS CHRIST. These I cannot +speak to, but I manage to let them know that I care for them, and 'Boy' +says they go away with 'tears in their hearts.'" + +About two years previously, a Scottish colonist at the Cape, named Robert +Robertson, had been touched by the need of ministers; had been ordained +by the Bishop of Capetown, and sent to Natal as missionary clergyman to +the Zulus. Early in 1855 these two devoted workers were married, and, +taking up their abode at Durban, continued together their care of the +English orphans, and of the Kaffir children whom they could collect. + +In the meantime, Bishop Colenso, having taken his survey of the colony, +had returned to England to collect his staff of fellow-workers; and one +of his first requests was that Charles Mackenzie would accompany him as +Archdeacon of Pieter Maritzburg. There was not such entire willingness +in Mrs. Dundas's mind to part with him on this mission as on the former +proposal; not that she wished to hold him back from the task to which he +had in a manner dedicated himself, but she preferred his going out +without the title of a dignitary, and, from the tone of the new Bishop's +letters, she foresaw that doctrinal difficulties and differences might +arise. + +Her brother had, however, made up his mind that no great work would ever +be done, if those who co-operated were too minute in seeking for perfect +accordance of opinions; and that boundless charity which was his great +characteristic made him perhaps underrate the importance of the fissure +which his sister even then perceived between the ways of thinking of +himself and his Bishop. His next sister, Anne, whose health was too +delicate for a northern climate, was to accompany him; and the entire +party who went out with Bishop Colenso numbered thirty or forty persons, +including several ladies, who were to devote themselves to education, +both of the white and black inhabitants. They sailed in the barque _Jane +Morice_ early in the March of 1855, and, after a pleasant and prosperous +voyage, entered Durban Bay in the ensuing May. + +The first home of the brother and sister was at Durban, among the English +colonists. It somewhat disappointed the Archdeacon, as those who come +out for purely missionary aims always are disappointed, when called to +the equally needful but less interesting field of labour among their own +countrymen; put as he says, he satisfied his mind by recollecting, "I +came out here simply because there was a scarcity of people that could +and would come. I did not come because I thought the work more important +than that I was leaving." So he set himself heartily to gather and +confirm the congregation that had had its first commencement when Allen +Gardiner used to read prayers to the first few settlers; and, at the same +time, Kaffir services were held for the some thousand persons in the town +in the employment of the whites. + +The Archdeacon read prayers in Kaffir, and Mr. Robertson preached on the +Sunday evenings. The numbers of attendants were not large, and the most +work was done by the school that the Robertsons collected round them. The +indifference and slackness of the English at Durban made it all the +harder to work upon the Kaffirs; and, in truth, Archdeacon Mackenzie's +residence there was a troublous time. The endeavour, by the wish of the +Bishop, to establish a weekly offertory, was angrily received by the +colonists, who were furious at the sight of the surplice in the pulpit, +and, no doubt, disguised much real enmity, both to holiness of life and +to true discipline, under their censure of what they called a badge of +party. Their treatment of the Archdeacon, when they found him resolute, +amounted to persecution; the most malignant rumours were set afloat, and +nothing but his strength and calmness, perfect forgiveness, and yet +unswerving determination, carried him through what was probably the most +trying period of his life. + +Intercourse with the Robertsons was the great refreshment in those +anxious days. A grant from Government had been made for a Church Mission +station upon the coast, and upon the river Umlazi, not many miles from +Durban; and here Mr. and Mrs. Robertson stationed themselves with their +little company of orphans, refugees, and Kaffirs; also a Hottentot +family, whose children they were bringing up. + +Their own house had straight walls, coffee-coloured, a brown thatched +roof, and a boarded floor, in consideration of Mrs. Robertson's exceeding +delicacy of health; but such boards! loose, and so springy that the +furniture leapt and danced when the floor was crossed. It was all on the +ground-floor, partitioned by screens; and the thatched roof continued a +good way out, supported on posts, so as to form a wide verandah; and +scattered all around were the beehive dwellings of the Kaffir following, +and huts raised for the nonce for European guests. + +At six o'clock in the morning a large bell was rung. At eight, Kaffir +prayers were read by Mr. Robertson, for his own servants, in the +verandah, and for some who would come in from the neighbouring kraals; +then followed breakfast; then English matins; and, by that time, Kaffir +children were creeping up to the verandah to be taught. They were first +washed, and then taught their letters, with some hymns translated into +their language, and a little religious instruction. The children were +generally particularly pleasant to deal with, bright and intelligent, and +with a natural amiability of disposition that rendered quarrels and +jealousies rare. Good temper seems, indeed, to be quite a Zulu +characteristic; the large mixed families of the numerous wives live +together harmoniously, and the gift of a kraal to one member is +acknowledged by all the rest. Revenge, violence, and passion are to be +found among them, but not fretfulness and quarrelsomeness. + +After the work of instruction, there was generally a ride into the +neighbouring kraals, to converse with the people, and invite the children +to school. They had to be propitiated with packets of sugar, and shown +the happy faces of the home flock. There was, at first, a good deal of +inclination to distrust; and the endeavour to bring the women and girls +to wear clothes had to be most cautiously managed, as a little over-haste +would make them take fright and desert altogether. + +The Kaffir customs of marriage proved one of the most serious impediments +in the way of the missionaries. The female sex had its value as +furnishing servants and cultivators of the ground, and every man wished +to own as many wives as possible. Not only did the question what was to +be done in the case of many-wived converts come under consideration, but +the fathers objected to their daughters acquiring the rudiments of +civilization, lest it should lessen their capabilities to act as beasts +of burden, and thus spoil their price in cattle, (the true _pecunia_ of +the Zulu). Practically, it was found, that no polygamist ever became +more than an inquirer; the way of life seemed to harden the heart or +blind the eyes against conviction; but the difficulty as regarded the +younger people was great, since as long as a girl remained the lawful +property of the head of her kraal, she was liable to be sold to any +polygamist of any age who might pay her value; and thus it became a +question whether it were safe to baptize her. Even Christian Zulus +marrying Christian women according to the English rite could not be +secure of them unless the cows were duly paid over; and as these Kaffirs +are a really fine race, with more of the elements of true love in them +than is usual in savages, adventures fit for a novel would sometimes +occur, when maidens came flying to the mission station to avoid some old +husband who had made large offers to their father; and the real lover +would arrive entreating protection for the lady of his heart until he +could earn the requisite amount of cows to satisfy her father. + +Mr. Robertson was always called the umfundisi, or teacher. He held his +Sunday Kaffir service in a clearing in the bush, and gained many hearts +to himself, and some souls for the Church, while toiling with his hands +as well as setting forth the truth with his lips. Mrs. Robertson at the +same time worked upon the women by her tenderness to their little ones, +offering them little frocks if they would wash them, caressing them with +all a woman's true love for babies, and then training their elder +children and girls, teaching them needlework, and whatever could lead to +aspirations towards modesty and the other graces of Christian womanhood. +Often extremely ill, always fragile, her energy never failed; and there +was a grace and dignity about her whole deportment and manner which +caused "the Lady" to be the emphatic title always given to her by her +husband and his friends. Of these the Mackenzie family were among the +warmest, and the Archdeacon gladly gave valuable assistance to Mr. +Robertson by supplementing an education which had not been definitely +clerical, but rather of that order which seems to render an able Scotsman +fit to apply himself to almost anything. + +In February 1857 another sister, named Alice, joined the Mackenzie +family, when they were on a visit to the Umlazi station. Her quick +powers and enthusiastic spirit fitted her in a wonderful manner for +missionary labour, and she was at once in such sympathy with the Kaffirs +that it was a playful arrangement among the home party that Anne should +be the white and Alice the black sister. + +Just after her arrival, it was determined that the Archdeacon should +leave Durban, where, indeed, he had been only filling the post of an +absent clergyman, and take a district on the Umhlali river, forty miles +from Durban, containing a number of English settlements, a camp, and a +large amount of Kaffir kraals. Every Sunday he had five services at +different places, one of them eighteen miles from the nearest, a space +that had to be ridden at speed in the mid-day sun. There was no house, +but a couple of rooms with perpendicular sides and a verandah, one for +chapel, the other for sitting-room, while Kaffir beehive huts were the +bedrooms of all. For a long time blankets and plaids did the part of +doors and shutters; and just as the accommodations were improving, the +whole grass and wattle structure was burnt down, and it was many months +before the tardy labour of colonial workmen enabled the family to take +possession of the new house, in a better situation, which they named +Seaforth, after the title of the former head of the Mackenzie clan. + +All this time the whole party had been working. A school was collected +every morning of both boys and girls; not many in number, but from a +large area: children of white settlers, varying in rank, gentlemen or +farmers, but all alike running wild for want of time and means to +instruct them. They came riding on horses or oxen, attended by their +Kaffirs, and were generally found exceedingly ignorant of all English +learning, but precocious and independent in practical matters: young boys +able to shoot, ride, and often entrusted with difficult commissions by +their fathers at an age when their cousins at home would scarcely be at a +public school, and little girls accustomed to superintend the Kaffirs in +all household business; both far excelling their parents in familiarity +with the language, but accustomed to tyrannize over the black servants, +and in danger of imbibing unsuspected evil from their heathen converse. +It was a task of no small importance to endeavour to raise the tone, +improve the manners, and instruct the minds of these young colonists, and +it could only be attempted by teaching them as friends upon an equality. + +With the Kaffirs, at the same time, the treatment was moulded on that of +Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, who at one time paid the Umhlali a visit, +bringing with them their whole train of converts, servants, orphans, and +adopted children, who could be easily accommodated by putting up fresh +grass huts, to which even the Europeans of the party had become so +accustomed, that they viewed a chameleon tumbling down on the +dinner-table with rather more indifference than we do the intrusion of an +earwig, quite acquiesced in periodically remaking the clay floor when the +white ants were coming up through it, scorpions being found in the +Archdeacon's whiskers, and green snakes, instead of mice, being killed by +the cat. + +The sight of Christian Kaffirs was very beneficial to the learners, to +whom it was a great stumbling block to have no fellows within their ken, +but to be totally separated from all of their own race and colour. At +Seaforth, the wedding was celebrated of two of Mr. Robertson's converts, +named Benjamin and Louisa, the marriage Psalms being chanted in Kaffir, +and the Holy Communion celebrated, when there were seven Kaffir +communicants. The bride wore a white checked muslin and a wreath of +white natural flowers on her head. This was the first Christian Zulu +wedding, and it has been followed by many more, and we believe that in no +case has there been a relapse into heathenism or polygamy. + +The Mackenzies continued at Seaforth until the early part of the year +1859. The work was peaceful and cheerful. There were no such remarkable +successes in conversion as the Robertsons met with, probably because in +the further and wilder district the work was more pioneering, and the +Robertsons had never been without a nucleus of Christians, besides which +the gifts of both appear to have been surpassing in their power of +dealing with natives, and producing thorough conversions. Moreover, they +had no cure but of the Kaffirs, whereas Archdeacon Mackenzie was the +pastor of a widely scattered population, and his time and strength on +Sundays employed to their very uttermost. Church affairs weighed heavily +upon him; and another heavy sorrow fell on him in the death of the +guardian elder sister, Mrs. Dundas. Her illness, typhus fever, left time +for the preparation of knowing of her danger, and a letter written to her +by her brother during the suspense breathes his resigned hope:--"Dear +Lizzie, you may now be among the members of the Church in heaven, who +have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. If +so, we shall never meet again on earth. But what a meeting in heaven! +Any two of us to meet so would be, more than we can conceive, to be made +perfect, and never more to part." And when writing to the bereaved +husband after the blow had fallen, he says: "Surely we ought not to think +it strange if the brightest gems are sometimes removed from the workshop +to the immediate presence of the Great King." + +But the grief, though borne in such a spirit, probably made him +susceptible to the only illness he experienced while in Natal. The +immediate cause was riding in the burning sun of a southern February, and +the drinking cold water, the result of which was a fever, that kept him +at home for about a month. + +There was at this time a strong desire to send a mission into independent +Zululand, with a Bishop at its head. Bishop Colenso was at first +inclined to undertake the lead himself, resigning Natal; and next a plan +arose that Archdeacon Mackenzie should become the missionary Bishop. The +plan was to be submitted to the Society for the Propagation of the +Gospel, and for this purpose the Archdeacon was despatched to England, +taking Miss Mackenzie with him; but the younger sister, Alice, having so +recently arrived, and being so valuable as a worker among the natives, +remained to assist in the school of young chiefs who had been gathered +together by Bishop Colenso. + +The time of the return of the brother and sister was just when Dr. +Livingstone's account of the interior of Africa, and of the character of +the chiefs on the Zambesi, had excited an immense enthusiasm throughout +England. He had appealed to the Universities to found a mission, and +found it they would, on a truly grand scale, commensurate with their +wealth and numbers. It was to have a Bishop at the head, and a strong +staff of clergy, vessels built on purpose to navigate the rivers, and +every requisite amply provided. Crowded meetings were held at each +University, and the enthusiasm produced by the appeal of Dr. Livingstone, +a Scottish Presbyterian, to the English Universities, as the only bodies +capable of such an effort, produced unspeakable excitement. At a huge +meeting at Cambridge, attended by the most distinguished of English +Churchmen, Archdeacon Mackenzie was present. His quiet remark to the +friend beside him, was, "I am _afraid_ of this. Most great works have +been carried on by one or two men in a quieter way, and have had a more +humble beginning." In fact, Bishop Gray, of Capetown, had long been +thinking of a Central African Mission; but his plan, and that which +Mackenzie would have preferred, was to work gradually northwards from the +places already Christian, or partially so, instead of commencing an +isolated station at so great a distance, not only from all aid to the +workers, but from all example or mode of bringing civilized life to the +pupils. But Livingstone had so thoroughly won the sympathies of the +country that only the exact plan which he advocated could obtain favour, +and it was therefore felt that it was better to accept and co-operate +with his spirit than to give any check, or divide the flow by contrary +suggestions. + +Thus Livingstone became almost as much the guide and referee of the +Zambesi expedition as ever a Cardinal Legate was of a crusade. Nor could +this be wondered at, for the ordinary Englishman is generally almost +ignorant of missions and their history, and in this case an able and +interesting book of travels had stirred the mind of the nation; nor had +experience then shown how much more there was of the explorer than of the +missionary in the writer. + +From the first, Archdeacon Mackenzie was designated as the chief of the +mission. He felt the appointment a call not to be rejected. His sister +Anne viewed it in the same spirit, and was ready to cast in her lot with +him, and letters were written to the other sister in Natal proposing to +her to accompany them. Then came a year of constant travelling and +oratory in churches and on platforms, collecting means and rousing +interest in the mission--a year that would have been a mere whirl to any +one not possessed of the wonderful calmness and simplicity that +characterized Mackenzie, and made him just do the work that came to hand +in the best manner in his power, without question or choice as to what +that work might be. + +By the October of 1860 all was ready, and the brother and sister had +taken leave of the remaining members of their family, and embarked at +Southampton, together with two clergymen, a lay superintendent, a +carpenter and a labourer, and likewise Miss Fanny Woodrow, Mrs. +Robertson's niece, who was to join in her work. Their first stage was +Capetown, where it had been arranged that the consecration should take +place, since it is best that a Missionary Bishop governing persons not +under English government should not be fettered by regulations that +concern her Prelates, not as belonging to the Church, but to the +Establishment. There was some delay in collecting the bishops of South +Africa, so that the _Pioneer_, placed at Dr. Livingstone's disposal, +could not wait; and the two clergy, Mr. Waller and Mr. Scudamore, +proceeded without their chief. + +On the 1st of January, 1861, the rite took place, memorable as the first +English consecration of a Missionary Bishop, and an example was set that +has happily been since duly followed, as the Church has more and more +been roused to the fulfilment of the parting command, "Go ye, and teach +_all_ nations." + +And, on the 7th, the new Bishop sailed in H.M.S. _Lyra_, Captain +Oldfield, which had been appointed, in the course of its East African +cruise, to take him to the scene of his labours, on the way setting down +the Bishop of Natal at his diocese. The first exploration and formation +of a settlement had been decided to be too arduous and perilous for +women, especially for such an invalid as Miss Mackenzie, and she was +therefore left at Capetown, to follow as soon as things should be made +ready for her. The so-called black sister, who then fully intended also +to be a member of the Central African Mission, came down to meet her +brother at Durban, and a few days of exceeding peace and joy were here +spent. The victory over his opponents at Durban had been won by the +recollection of his unfailing meekness and love; they hailed him with +ardent affection and joy, expressed their regret for all that had been +unfriendly, and eagerly sought for all pastoral offices at his hand. He +consecrated a church, and held a confirmation at the Umlazi; but the +Robertsons were not there to welcome him. The long-contemplated mission +into independent Zululand had devolved upon Mr. Robertson, and he and his +wife, and the choicest and most trustworthy of their converts, had +removed across the Tugela into the territories of old King Panda, the +last of the terrible brotherhood, and now himself greatly ruled by the +ablest and most successful of his sons, Ketchewayo by name. The work was +very near Bishop Mackenzie's heart, and, both with substantial aid, +prayers, blessings, and encouragements, he endeavoured to forward it. + +His last day in Natal was spent in a service with a confirmation at +Claremont, and an evening service at Durban. "As we were returning," +wrote his sister Alice, "we saw a rocket from the sea; a gun fired, the +mail was in; and the captain, who was with us, said he would let us know +the first thing in the morning the hour he would sail. Well, after this, +there was little peace or quiet. We were too tired to sit up that night, +and next morning there was much to arrange, and everybody was coming and +going, and we heard we were to go by the half-past two train. A great +many friends were with us, but on the shore we slipped away, and, leaning +together on a heap of bricks, had a few sweet, quiet collects together, +till we were warned we must go to the boat. We went on board the tug, +and stood together high up on the captain's place; we were washed again +and again by the great waves. When he went, and I had his last kiss and +blessing, his own bright, beautiful spirit infected mine, and I could +return his parting words without flinching; I saw him go without even a +tear dimming my eye: so that I could watch him to the last, looking after +our little boat again crossing the bar, till we could distinguish each +other no more. + +"In speaking one day of happiness, he said, 'I have given up looking for +that altogether. Now, till death, my post is one of unrest and care. To +be the sharer of everyone's sorrow, the comforter of everyone's grief, +the strengthener of everyone's weakness: to do this as much as in me lies +is now my aim and object; for, you know, when the members suffer, the +pain must always fly to the head.' He said this with a smile, and oh! +the peace in his face; it seemed as if nothing _could_ shake it." + +The last photograph, taken during this visit to Durban, with the high +calm brow, and the quiet contemplative eye, bears out this beautiful, +sisterly description of that last look. + +The _Lyra_ next proceeded to the Kongone mouth of the Zambesi, where the +two parties who had gone forward, including Dr. Livingstone himself, were +met, and a consultation took place. The Bishop was anxious to go +forward, arrange his settlement, and commence his work at once; but Dr. +Livingstone thought the season a bad one, and was anxious to explore the +River Rovuma, to see whether its banks afforded a better opening; and it +ended in the Bishop feeling obliged to give way to his experience, +although against his own judgment. + +He therefore, with Mr. Rowley, who had joined him at Durban, accompanied +Livingstone in the _Pioneer_, leaving the others at Johanna, a little +island used as a depot for coal. + +The expedition was not successful; there was only water enough in the +channel to enable the _Pioneer_ to go thirty miles up in five days, and +it failed more and more in the descent. The steamer, too, though built +for the purpose of navigating the shallows of rivers, drew more water +than had been expected; the current when among shoals made the descent +worse than the ascent; there was a continual necessity for landing to cut +wood to feed the engine; and, in five days, the _Pioneer_ had not made +ten miles. The Bishop worked as hard as any of the crew, once narrowly +escaped the jaws of a crocodile, and had a slight touch of fever, so +trifling that it perhaps disposed him to think lightly of the danger; but +he was still weak when he came back to Johanna, and, by way of remedy, +set out before breakfast for a mountain walk, and came back exhausted, +and obliged to lie still, thoroughly depressed in mind as well as body +for two days. The expedition proved the more unfortunate, that it +delayed the start for the Zambesi from February, when the stream was +full, till May, when the water was so low that a great quantity of the +stores had to be left behind, in order that the _Pioneer_ might not draw +too much water. The chief assistants were the Malokolo, a portion of a +tribe who had attached themselves to Dr. Livingstone, and had been +awaiting his return on the banks of the river. The Bishop would fain +have gone without weapons of any sort, but Dr. Livingstone decided that +this was impracticable. He said, by all means take guns, and use them, +if needed, and they would prove the best pacificators; and Mackenzie, as +usual, yielded his own judgment, and heartily accepted what was decided +on for him. + +All those left at Johanna had suffered from fever, and were relieved that +the time of inaction was over when they embarked in the _Pioneer_ on the +1st of May, and in due time ascended the Zambesi, and again the Shire, +but very slowly, for much time was consumed in cutting wood for the +engines, every _stick_ in the mud costing three days' labour, and in +three weeks going only six or seven miles, seeing numerous crocodiles and +hippopotami by the way. + +It was not till the middle of July that they reached the landing-place. +As soon as the goods had been landed the whole party set out on an +exploration, intending to seek for a place, high enough on the hills to +be healthy, on which to form their settlement. + +Their goods were carried by negroes, and a good many by themselves, the +Bishop's share being in one hand a loaded gun, in the other a crozier, in +front a can of oil, behind, a bag of seeds. "I thought," he writes, "of +the contrast between my weapon and my staff, the one like Jacob, the +other like Abraham, who armed all his trained servants to rescue Lot. I +thought also of the seed which we must sow in the hearts of the people, +and of the oil of the Spirit that must strengthen us in all we do." + +The example of Abraham going forth to rescue Lot was brought suddenly +before the mission party. While halting at a negro village, a sound was +heard like the blowing of penny trumpets, and six men, with muskets, came +into the village, driving with them eighty-four slaves, men, women, and +children, whom they had collected for Portuguese slave-dealers at Tette. + +The Bishop and Mr. Scudamore had gone out of the village to bathe just +before they arrived; but Dr. Livingstone, recognizing one of the drivers, +whom he had seen at Tette, took him by the wrist, saying, "What are you +doing here, killing people? I shall kill you to-day." + +The man answered: "I do not kill; I am not making war. I bought these +people." + +Then Livingstone turned to the slaves. Two men said, "We were bought." +Six said, "We were captured." And several of the women, "Our husbands +and relatives were killed, and here we are." + +Whereupon Livingstone began to cut the bonds of cord that fastened them +together, while the slave-catchers ran away. All this was over before +the Bishop returned; and Livingstone was explaining to the rescued +negroes that they might either return to their homes, go to Tette, or +remain under English protection, while they expressed their joy and +gratitude by a slow clapping of the hands. They told a terrible story, +of women shot for trying to escape, and of a babe whose brains were +dashed out, because its mother could not carry it and her brothers +together. + +If asked by what authority he did these things, Livingstone would have +answered, by the right of a Christian man to protect the weak from +devilish cruelty. There was no doubt in his mind that these slaves, even +though purchased, were deprived of their liberty so unjustly, that their +deliverance was only a sacred duty, and that their owners had no right of +property in them. If a British cruiser descended on a slave-ship, and +released her freight, should he not also deliver the captive wherever he +met him? + +And, with this, another question was raised, namely, that of the use of +weapons. The party were in the country of the Man-gnaja, a tribe of +negroes who were continually harried by the fiercer and more powerful +neighbour-tribe of Ajawa, great slave-catchers, who supplied the slave- +hunters who came out from Tette to collect their human droves. These +were mostly Arabs, with some Portuguese admixture; and the blacks, after +being disposed of in the market at Tette, were usually shipped off to +supply the demand in Arabia and Egypt, where, to tell the truth, their +lot was a far easier one than befell the slaves of the West, the toilers +among sugar and cotton. + +A crusade against slave-catching could not be carried on without, at +least, a show of force; and, this granted, a further difficulty presented +itself, in the fact that, out of the scanty number of white men, one was +a bishop and two were priests of the English Church, and one a +Presbyterian minister. In all former cases, the missionaries had freely +ventured themselves, using no means of self-defence, and marking the +difference between themselves and others by the absence of all weapons. +But, in those places, it was self-defence that was given up; here the +point was, whether to deliver the captive, or, by silence, to acquiesce +in the wrong done to him; and if his rescue were attempted, it was in +vain, unless the clergy assisted; and thus it was that the mission party +did not march so much as men of peace as deliverers of the captive and +breakers of the yoke. The captives had no power of returning home, and +chose to remain with their deliverers; and the next day the party reached +a negro village, called Chibisa's, after the chief who had ruled it at +the time of Dr. Livingstone's first visit. He was now dead, but his +successor, Chigunda, begged the white men to remain, to protect him from +the Ajawa, who were only five or ten miles off, and from whom an attack +was expected. + +It was decided to forestall it by marching towards them. On the way +another great convoy of slaves was encountered, and with the merest show +of force, no bloodshed at all, more than forty were liberated--the men +from forked clogs to their necks, consisting of a pole as thick as a +man's thigh, branched at the top like the letter Y, so that the neck of +the prisoner could be inserted, and fastened with an iron pin. + +The large number of these liberated captives made it necessary to choose +a home, but Chibisa's was not the place selected, but a spot some sixty +miles further on, called Magomero. It was on a plain 3,000 feet above +the level of the sea, or rather in a hole on the plain; for it was chosen +because the bend of a river encircled it on three sides, so that a +stockade on the fourth would serve for defence, in case of an attack from +the Ajawa; and this consideration made Livingstone enforce the choice +upon the Bishop, who again yielded to his opinion. The higher ground +around was not unhealthy; the air was pure, the heat never excessive; but +the river was too near, and brought fever to a spot soon overcrowded. It +was occupied, however, with high hope and cheerfulness; huts, formed of +poles and roofed with piles of grass, were erected, a larger one set +apart for a church, and a system established of regular training for the +numerous troop of clients, now amounting to above a hundred. To give +them regular religious instruction, without being secure of the language, +was thought by the Bishop inexpedient, and he therefore desired, at +first, to prepare the way by the effects of physical training and +discipline. This was a Magomero day:--English matins at early morning; +breakfast on fowls or goats'-flesh, yam, beans, and porridge; then a +visit to the sick; for, alas! already the whole thirteen of the mission +staff were never well at the same time. After this, the negroes were +collected, answered to their names, and had breakfast served out to them; +two women being found to receive and apportion the shares of the lesser +children, and this they did carefully and kindly. + +The tender sweetness of Mackenzie told greatly in dealing with these poor +creatures. He did not think it waste of time to spend an hour a day +trying to teach the little ones their letters; and Mr. Rowley draws a +beautiful picture of him feeding, with a bottle, a black babe, whose +mother had not nutriment enough to sustain it,--the little naked thing +nestling up to his big beard, and going to sleep against his broad chest. + +Work followed. One whith man drilled the boys, one command being for +them all to leap into the river at the same moment to bathe; one +bargained with the vendors of mealies, beer, goats, fowls, yams, &c., who +came in numbers from the villages round, and received payment in beads, +and a blue cotton manufacture, called selampore, which is the current +coin of Central Africa. Others worked, and showed how to work, at the +buildings till one o'clock, when the dinner was served, only differing +from breakfast in the drink being native beer instead of coffee. Rest +followed till five, when there were two hours' more work, nearly till +sunset, which, even on the longest day, was before half-past six; then +tea, evensong, and bed. + +The great need was of some female element, to train and deal with the +women and girls; and there was an earnest desire for the arrival of the +sisters. But, in the meantime, the occupation of Magomero proved far +from peaceful. The Ajawa were always coming down upon the Man-gnaja to +burn their villages and steal slaves, and the Man-gnaja called upon the +whites as invincible allies. + +The Bishop and his clergy (Livingstone had now left them, and gone on to +Lake Nyassa) thought that to present a resolute front to the Ajawa would +drive them back for good and all; and that the Man-gnaja could be bound +over henceforth to give up slave-dealing, and, on this condition, they +did not refuse their assistance. Subsequent events have led to the +belief that this warfare of the Ajawa was really the advance of one of +those great tides of nations that take place from time to time, and that +they were a much finer people than the cowardly and false Man-gnaja; but, +of course, a small company of strangers, almost ignorant of the language, +and communicating with the natives through a released and educated negro, +could not enter into the state of things, and could only struggle against +the immediate acts of oppression that came before them. + +There were thus about three expeditions to drive back the Ajawa and +deliver the rescued slaves--bloodless expeditions, for the sight of the +white men and their guns was quite enough to produce a general flight, +and a large colony of the rescued had gathered at Magomero in the course +of a few months. Meantime another clergyman, the Rev. H. De Wint Burrup, +with his newly-married wife and three lay members of the mission, had +arrived at Capetown, and, leaving Mrs. Burrup there with Miss Mackenzie, +had come on to join the others. Mr. Burrup and Mr. Dickinson (a surgeon) +actually made their way in canoes and river boats from Quillinane up to +Chibisa's, where the _Pioneer_ was lying, Dr. Livingstone having just +returned from his three months' expedition. + +It was an absolute exploit in travelling, but a very perilous one, since +these open boats, in the rain and on the low level of the river, exposed +them to the greatest danger of fever; and there can be no doubt that +their constitutions were injured, although, no serious symptoms +appearing, the mission party were still further induced to underrate the +necessity of precaution. + +The Bishop coming down to visit Livingstone (seventy miles in thirty +hours on foot), gladly hailed the new-comers, and returned rapidly with +Mr. Burrup, both a good deal over-fatigued; and, indeed, the Bishop never +thoroughly recovered this reckless expenditure of strength. He +considered that things were now forward enough for a summons to the +ladies at Capetown. Communication was very difficult, and the +arrangements had therefore to be made somewhat blindly; but his plan was, +that his sisters and Mrs. Burrup should try to obtain a passage to +Kongone, where the _Pioneer_ should meet them, and bring them up the +rivers to the landing-place at Chibisa's. He did not know of his sister +Alice's marriage at Natal, though he would have rejoiced at it if he had +known. He himself intended to come down to the spot where the rivers +Shire and Ruo meet, and there greet the sister and the wife on board the +_Pioneer_, and return with them to Magomero. + +The way by the river and by Chibisa's was a great circuit, and it was +thought that a more direct way might be found by exploration. Mr. +Procter and Mr. Scudamore, with the black interpreter, Charles Thomas, +and some of the negroes, started to pioneer a way. After five days +Charles appeared at Magomero, exhausted, foot-sore, ragged, and famished, +having had no food for forty-eight hours, and just able to say "the Man- +gnaja attacked us; I am the only one who has escaped." + +When he had had some soup, he told that the party had come to a village +where they had been taken for slave-dealers, and the natives, on finding +they were not, put on a hostile appearance, and as they pushed on came +out in great numbers with bows and arrows, insisting on their return. +After consulting they thought it would be better to turn back and +conciliate the chief, rather than leave a nest of enemies in their rear, +and they therefore turned. Unfortunately the negroes had caught sight of +the 140 yards of selampore that they were taking with them as cash for +the journey, and though the chief, who had been at Senna and Quillinane, +was civil, there was much discontent at their not expending more in +purchases of provisions; and Charles told them that their bearers had +overheard plans for burning their huts in the night, killing them and +taking their goods. They decided to escape; and occupying the chief's +attention by a present of a bright scarf, they bade their men get under +weigh. A cry arose, "They are running away." There was a rush upon +them, and Charles managed to break through. He heard two shots fired, +and was pursued for some distance, but, as darkness came on, effected his +escape. + +It seems to have been just one of the cases when a little hesitation and +uncertainty on the part of the civilized men did all the mischief by +emboldening the savages. Of course it was necessary to rescue them, but +as the Ajawa were but twenty miles off, and Magomero must be guarded, +there was no choice but to have recourse to the Makololo, and thus let +loose one set of savages against another. Just, however, as a message +was being despatched to bring them, the two clergymen were seen +returning. They too had walked eighty-five miles in forty-eight hours, +and had had but one fowl between them. They had in fact got out of the +village almost immediately after Charles, but closely beset with natives +armed with bows and poisoned arrows. Some tried to wrest Mr. Procter's +gun from him, and even got him down, when he defended himself with his +heels, until Mr. Scudamore, who was a little in advance, fired on his +assailants, when they gave back; but an arrow aimed at him penetrated the +stock of his gun so deeply that the head remained embedded in it. Firing +both barrels, he produced a panic, under cover of which they made their +way into the bush, and contrived with much difficulty to reach home. + +Six of their eight bearers gradually straggled in, and the last brought +the following message from a chief in the next village: "I am not in +blame for this war; Manasomba has tried to kill the English, has stolen +their baggage and their boy, and has kept two of your men. He says if +the English want the men, let them come and buy them out, or else fight +for them." + +It appeared that Manasomba was not a Man-gnaja, and that his suspicions +were excited by anything so inexplicable to the negro mind as white men +going about with so much cloth without buying slaves nor much of anything +else. + +There were still two men to be rescued, and the question was, whether to +wait for Livingstone, who was armed with authority to give a lesson to +the negroes, or for the mission party to undertake it themselves, +especially in the haste which was needful in order to be in time for the +meeting with the _Pioneer_. They decided on the march, so as to release +the men, and thus were forced to break up the calm of the Christmas +feast. "If it is right to do it at all, it is right to do it on a holy +day," was the Bishop's argument, and so the Christmas Day was spent, +partly in walking, partly at Chipoka's village, where was held the Holy +Communion feast. "How wondrous," wrote the Bishop, "the feeling of +actual instantaneous communion with all you dear ones, though the +distance and means of earthly communication are so great and so +difficult!" The negroes of the neighbouring villages joined them, and +they proceeded. Near Manasomba's village they met a large body of men, +with whom the Bishop attempted to hold a parley, but they ran away, and +only discharged a few arrows. The village was deserted except by a few +sheep, goats, and Muscovy ducks, and these were driven out and the huts +set on fire. + +This punishment was as a "vindication of the English name," and as an act +of self-defence, since any faltering in resolution among such savages +would have been fatal; but, after all, the men were not recovered, and +the expedition had been so exhausting that none of the party were really +fit to push on for the place of meeting with the _Pioneer_, nor would +Chipoka give them guides or bearers in that direction, saying it was all +occupied by Manasomba's friends. + +They came back to Magomero grievously exhausted; Scudamore fell down on a +bed only just alive, and even the Bishop, though he tried to act and +speak with vigour, was evidently suffering from illness and over-fatigue. + +But there was the appointment to be kept with Livingstone and the ladies +at the Ruo, and, unfit as he was, he persevered, setting off with Burrup, +sadly enough, for Scudamore was lying in a dangerous state; but no one +guessed that they would never meet again upon earth. + +It was on the 4th of January, 1862, that they started with a few Malokolo +and the interpreter Charles, and it was six weeks before the colony at +Magomero heard any tidings. There the stores were all but exhausted, and +having hardly any goods left for barter, there was little food to be +obtained but green corn and pumpkin, most unsuited to the Englishmen's +present state of health. + +Meanwhile, in constant rain and through swollen streams, Mackenzie and +Burrup had made their way down to the river, and there with much +difficulty obtained a canoe. On the first night of the voyage all the +party, except the Bishop, wished to go on, because the mosquitoes +rendered rest impossible. He thought moving on in the dark imprudent, +but gave up his own will, and even wrote jestingly afterwards on the +convenience of making the mosquitoes act as a spur. The consequence was +that they came suddenly upon a projecting bend; the boat upset, and +everything they had was in the water. They spent more than an hour in +recovering what could be brought up; but their powder and their +provisions were spoilt, and, what was still worse, their medicines: +including the quinine, almost essential to life, and that when they were +thoroughly drenched in the middle of an African night. + +Making sure, however, of speedily meeting Dr. Livingstone, they pushed +on; but when they came to Malo, the isle at the confluence of the Ruo and +Shire, they learnt from the natives that the _Pioneer_ had gone down the +stream. The negroes could give no clear account of how long ago it had +been. If they had known that it had been only five days, they would +probably have put forth their speed and have overtaken her, but they +thought that a much longer time was intended, and that waiting for the +return would be not only more prudent, but might enable them to make +friends with the chief, and prepare for a station to be established on +the island. A hut was given them, and there was plenty of wholesome food +on the island. + +Inaction, is, however the most fatal curse in that land of fever. There +is a cheerful letter written by the Bishop to his home friends, on the +14th and 15th of January; but his vigour was flagging. He spoke with +disappointment of the inability of Dr. Livingstone to bring up stores to +Chibisa's, and longed much for his sisters' arrival, telling his +companion it would break his heart if they did not now come. He also +wrote a strong letter to the Secretary of the Universities' Mission, +begging for a steam launch to keep up the supplies, where the _Pioneer_ +had failed. Soon after this, both became grievously ill; the Bishop's +fever grew violent, he perceived his danger, and told the Malokolo that +JESUS would come to take him, but he presently became delirious and +insensible, in which condition he lay for five days, the Malokolo waiting +on him as well as they could under Burrup's superintendence. + +The negro tribes have an exceeding dread of death, and a hut which has +had a corpse in it is shut up for three years. Probably for this reason +the chief begged that the dying man might be carried to another hut less +needful to himself, and as he had been kind and friendly throughout Mr. +Burrup thought it right to comply. Shortly after, on the afternoon of +the 31st of January, the pure, gentle, and noble spirit passed away. The +chief, from superstitious fear, insisted that the body should be +immediately interred, and not on the island, and Mr. Burrup and the +Malokolo therefore laid it in their canoe, and paddled to the mainland, +where a spot was cleared in the bush, the grave dug, and as it was by +this time too dark to see to read, Mr. Burrup said all that he could +remember of the burial service, the four blacks standing wondering and +mournful by. + +He saw that for himself the only hope was in a return to Magomero. The +canoe was tried, but the current was so strong that such small numbers +could not make head against it. He therefore proceeded on foot, but fell +down repeatedly from weakness, and was only dragged on by his strong will +and the aid of the Malokolo. They behaved admirably, and when he reached +Chibisa's, and could walk no longer, they and the villagers contrived a +palanquin of wood, and carried him on in it. The chief, finding that his +store of cloth (_i.e._ coin) was expended, actually offered him a present +of some to carry him on. + +On the 14th of February, one of the Malokolo appeared before the anxious +colonists at Magomero. His face was that of a bearer of evil tidings, +and when they asked for the Bishop, he hid his face in his hands. When +they pressed further, he said, "_wafa_, _wafa_" (he is dead, he is dead). +And while they stood round stunned, he made them understand that Burrup +was at hand, so ill as to be carried on men's shoulders. + +There was nothing to be done but to hurry out to meet him, taking the +last drop of wine remaining. He had become the very shadow of himself, +but even then he slightly rallied, and could he have had nourishing food, +wine or brandy, the strength of his constitution would probably have +carried him through; but the stores were exhausted, there was nothing to +recruit his powers, and on the 23rd of February he likewise died. + +Meantime, his young wife, with Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Livingstone, had +sailed in December in a wretchedly uncomfortable little craft, called the +_Hetty Ellen_. On reaching the Kongone they saw no token of the +_Pioneer_, but after waiting in great discomfort, tossing at the mouth of +the river, the vessel made for Mozambique. There they fell in with +H.M.S. _Gorgon_. Captain Wilson, resolved to render them every service +in his power, took the ladies on board, the vessel in tow, and carried +them to Quillinane, where they presently fell in with Dr. Livingstone and +the _Pioneer_. + +His little lake steamer, the _Lady Nyassa_, had been packed on board the +_Hetty Ellen_, and had formed the only shelter Miss Mackenzie had from +the sun, and the transference of this occupied some time. Then the +unhappy _Pioneer_ began to proceed at her snail's pace, one day on a sand- +bank, another with the machinery out of order, continually halting for +supplies of wood, and thinking a couple of miles a good day's work. +Captain Wilson, shocked at the notion of women spending weeks in +labouring up that pestiferous stream, beset with mosquitoes by night and +tsetse flies by day, offered to man his gig and take them up himself. So +desperate a journey was it for a frail invalid like Miss Mackenzie, that +one of the sailors took a spade to dig her grave with; and in fact she +was soon prostrated with fever. None of the party knew who lay sleeping +in his grave under the trees. The natives on the island entirely denied +having seen or heard anything of the Bishop, and never gave Mr. Burrup's +letter, fearing perhaps that some revenge might fall on them. Baffled by +not meeting him, Captain Wilson still would not leave the ladies till he +should have seen them safe among their friends, and pushed on his boat +with speed very unlike that of the tardy _Pioneer_, and thus, in a day +and a half, arrived at Chibisa's, where the Malokolo came down to the +boat, with tidings that, though their language was but imperfectly +understood, were only too certain. The brave and tender-hearted leader +of the mission was dead! Still there was hope of Mr. Burrup; but Captain +Wilson would not allow the young wife to take the difficult journey only +to find desolation, but went on by land himself, leaving her with Miss +Mackenzie, under charge of his ship's surgeon, Dr. Ramsay. He came back +after a few days, having become too ill by the way to get further than +Soche, where he had been met by three of the mission party, who now +returned with him to Chibisa's, with the tidings in all their sad +fulness; and the mournful party set forth upon their return. On coming +to the island, he demanded Mr. Burrup's letter, and the negroes looked at +one another, saying, "It is all known." They gave him the letter, but it +was with very great difficulty that they could be persuaded to show him +the grave, over which he set up a cross of reeds, and then continuing +this sad voyage, placed the ladies on board his ship, and carried them +back to Capetown. + +Bishop Mackenzie had executed a will not six weeks before his death, +bequeathing to the Additional Bishoprics Fund his property, and to the +mission his books, except those specially connected with his personal +devotions, which were to go to his family, and which Captain Wilson +brought down with him, the Bible, Prayer-book, and "Christian Year," +bearing tokens of that immersion in the water which, by the destruction +of the medicines, may be believed to have been the chief cause of his +death. Until the arrival of a new Bishop, or of instructions from the +Metropolitan of Capetown, the headship of the mission was to remain with +the senior clergyman, or failing him, of the senior layman. Thus the +little colony had their instructions to wait and carry on the work: but +further difficulties soon arose. Stores were still wanting, fever +prevailed even among the negroes. All the class of little children whom +the Bishop used to teach had died under it, each being baptized before +its death, and the Ajawa began to threaten again. The lessened force, +without a head, decided that, though their advance might drive the enemy +back, it was better to avoid further warfare, and relinquish the post at +Magomero. With the long train of helpless natives, then, the few white +men set forth, and after several days' tedious and weary march came to +Chibisa's, where they founded a new station on a hill-side, above the +native village, and tried to continue their old system; but by Christmas +Mr. Scudamore had become fatally ill, and he died on the morning of New +Year's Day, 1863, greatly lamented, not only by the remnant of his own +party, but by all the negroes; and on the 17th of March he was followed +by Dr. Dickinson. + +We do not deal with those still living, therefore we will only further +mention that on the 26th of June following Bishop Tozer arrived at +Chibisa's. He decided on removing to a place called Morumbala, a station +nearer Quillinane, which he hoped might prove healthier, and out of the +reach of the Ajawa. The remaining clergy of the mission were greatly +concerned at this, for they had hopes of influencing the Ajawa, and +besides, the negroes whom they had rescued, who had been now more than a +year under their care, could not for the most part be taken to Morumbala; +for, though grieving much at losing their "English fathers," they would +be placed at a distance from their own tribe, among strangers and +possible enemies. + +The families who could provide for themselves were left at Chibisa's, Mr. +Waller making the best terms in his power for them. It was sad to leave +them without having more thoroughly Christianized them, but the frequent +sicknesses of the clergy, the loss of the chief pastor, and the want of +some one to take the lead, had prevented their instruction from being all +that could have been hoped. They had become warmly attached to the +English, and had in many respects much improved, and it is hoped that +they may keep alive the memory of the training they have received, and +prepare the way for better things. + +There were about twenty orphan boys, for whom Bishop Tozer undertook to +provide; but there were also ten or twelve women and girls, the former +old and infirm, the latter orphans, and these Mr. Waller could not bear +to abandon, so he carried them with him to Morumbala, and supported them +at his own expense, until at the end of five months it was decided to +give up Morumbala, and fix the head-quarters of the Central African +Mission at Zanzibar. Then, as it was not easy to convey the boys, or +provide for them there, Mr. Waller took the charge of them likewise, and, +with Dr. Livingstone's assistance, conveyed both them and the women and +children to Capetown, where he succeeded in procuring homes for them in +different families and mission schools or stations. All are now +Christians, and show themselves gentle, and susceptible of training and +education; nor have they much of that disposition so familiar to us in +the transplanted negroes of Western Africa. Four boys were brought to +England, but the climate would soon have been fatal to them, and it is +evident that Capetown or Natal and its dependencies must be the meeting +ground of the English and African races, since there alone can both +retain their vigour in the same climate. + +Thus ended the first venture of the University mission, in the sacrifice +of four lives, which may be well esteemed as freely laid down in the +cause of the Gospel. Such lives and such deaths are the seed of the +Church. It is they that speak the loudest in calling for the fresh +labourers; and though the Zanzibar Mission has drifted far away from the +field of Mackenzie's labours, and has adopted a different system, and +though his toils in Natal never were allowed to continue long enough in a +single spot for him personally to reap their fruits upon earth, not only +has his name become a trumpet call, but out of his grave has sprung, as +it were, a mission in the very quarter where, had he been permitted, he +would have spent his best efforts, namely, the free Zulu country, Panda's +kingdom, to the north of the Tugela. + +It has been already mentioned that Mr. and Mrs. Robertson had removed +thither, from their station upon the Umlazi, taking with them a selection +of their Christian Kaffirs, and settling, with the king's permission, at +a place called Kwamagwaza. At first they lived in a waggon and tents, +for, delicate and often ill as was Mrs. Robertson, she shrank from no +hardship or exertion. She writes, "My own health has been wonderful, in +spite of much real suffering from the closeness of the waggon, and +exposure to rain or hot sun, which is even more trying. I often have to +sleep with the waggon open, and a damp foggy air flowing through to keep +me from fainting, and I have often told myself, 'You might be worse off +in the cabin of a steamer,' that I might not pity myself too much." + +A hut was soon raised, and Mrs. Robertson here ruled in her own +peculiarly dignified and tender way as the mother of the whole station, +keeping guard there while her husband went on expeditions to visit the +king and his son Ketchewayo, the chief executive authority. Another hut +was raised to serve as a church, and the days were arranged much as those +on the Umlazi had been. Children were born to the Christian couples, and +Mrs. Robertson spent much time and care in teaching the mothers how to +deal with them after a civilized and Christian fashion. Other children +were sometimes brought to her to be adopted, and when entirely made over +by their parents were baptized and bred up as Christians. The general +trust in Mr. Robertson's skill as a doctor brought many people under his +influence, and likewise gave some, though very slight assistance, in +combating the belief in witchcraft, the worst enemy with which +Christianity has to contend. + +Whenever a person falls sick or meets with an accident, a conjurer is +sent for, who attributes the disaster to some other person, on whom +revenge must be taken. In the British territory, no more can be done +than to treat the supposed wizard with contumely, such as to render his +life a burthen to him, and he can generally escape this by entering some +white man's service, or attaching himself to a mission-station; but in +independent Zululand, any disaster to prince or great chief was sure to +be followed by a horrible massacre of the whole family of the supposed +offender, unless he had time to escape across the border. Many a time +did wounded women and children fly from the slaughter to Kwamagwaza, and +Mr. and Mrs. Robertson protect them from the first fury of the pursuers, +and then almost force consent from Ketchewayo to their living under the +protection of the umfundisi. + +Visits to Ketchewayo formed a very important part of the work, since they +gradually established his confidence in Mr. Robertson, and obtained +concessions that facilitated the Christianizing of his people. One of +his great objections was the fear of losing their services as warriors. +The regiments still assemble at his camp as in the days of Dingarn, go +through their exercises and sing their war-songs, into some of which are +introduced lines in contempt of the Kaffirs who have passed the Tugela to +live under British law:-- + + "The Natal people have no king, + They eat salt; + To every tag-rag white man they say, + 'Your Excellency!'" + +Mrs. Robertson's niece, Miss Fanny Woodrow, who had come out to join her, +arrived at Durban, and was there met by Mrs. Robertson herself, in her +waggon, after the long and perilous journey undertaken alone with the +Kaffirs. Her residence at Kwamagwaza was a time of much interest and +prosperity; she threw herself into the work, and much assisted in the +training of the women and children, and one or two visits she made to +Ketchewayo greatly delighted the prince. She came in June 1861, but she +had become engaged on her way out to the Rev. Lovell Procter, and when +the mission at Chibisa's was given up, he was in such a state of health +as not to be able to continue with the University Mission. Therefore he +set out on his return, and, coming to Natal by the way, arrived at +Kwamagwaza early in 1864. He was the first brother clergyman Mr. +Robertson had seen since coming into Zululand, and the mingling of joy at +the meeting, and of sorrow for Bishop Mackenzie, were almost +overwhelming. At Easter Mr. Procter and Miss Woodrow were married, in +the little mission church, built of bricks made by Mr. Robertson's own +hands and those of his pupils; and soon after Mr. and Mrs. Robertson set +out in their waggon to escort the newly-married pair to Durban, taking +with them several of their converts, and all their flock of adopted +children. + +The stay in Durban, and Pieter Maritzburg, among old friends, was full of +comfort and pleasure; but the indefatigable missionary and his wife were +soon on their way home, their waggon heavily loaded with boxes sent by +friends in England, containing much that they had longed for--among other +things, iron-work for fitting their church. On the 18th of June, when +they were three days' journey across the Tugela, while Mr. Robertson was +walking in front of the waggon to secure a safe track for it, the wheels, +in coming down a descent, slid along on some slippery grass, and there +was a complete overturn, the waggon falling on its side with the wheels +in the air, and Mrs. Robertson, and a little Kaffir boy of three years +old, under the whole of the front portion of the load. + +Her husband and the Kaffirs cut away the side of the waggon with axes, +and tried to draw her out, but she was too fast wedged in. She said in a +calm voice, "Oh, remove the boxes," but before this could be done she had +breathed her last, apparently from suffocation, for her limbs were not +crushed, and her exceeding delicacy of frame and shortness of breath +probably made the weight and suffocation fatal to her. The little boy +suffered no injury. + +The spot was near a Norwegian mission station, where the kindest help was +immediately offered to the husband. A coffin was made of plank that had +been bought at Durban to be made into church doors, and when her husband +had kept lonely vigil all night over her remains, Henrietta Robertson was +laid in her grave, where the Norwegians hope to build their church, Mr. +Robertson himself reading the service over her. + +But her work has not died with her. Mr. Robertson returned to his lonely +task, helped and tended by the converted man and his wife, Usajabula and +Christina, whom she had trained, and whose child had been with her in the +fatal overturn. A clergyman returning from the Zanzibar Mission came to +him and aided him for a while; other helpers have come out from time to +time, and meantime, Miss Mackenzie exerted herself to the utmost, +straining every nerve to obtain funds for the establishment of a +Missionary Bishopric in Zululand, as the most fitting memorial to her +brother, since it was here that, had he chosen for himself, his work +would have lain. After several years of endeavour she has succeeded, +and, even as these last pages are written, we hold in our hands the +account of the arrival of the new Bishop at Kwamagwaza. + +So it is that the work never perishes, but the very extinction of one +light seems to cause the lighting of many more; and thus it is that the +word is being gradually fulfilled that the Gospel shall be preached to +all nations, and that "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of +the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{f:6} At first sight this seems one of the last misfortunes likely to +have befallen a godly gentleman of Charlestown; but throughout the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Algerine pirates swept the seas +up to the very coasts of England, as Sir John Eliot's biography +testifies. Dr. James Yonge, of Plymouth, an ancestor only four removes +from the writer, was at one time in captivity to them; and there was +still probability enough of such a catastrophe for Priscilla Wakefield to +introduce it in her "Juvenile Travellers," written about 1780. + +{f:130} Articles of dress. + +{f:133} The Judsons always use the universal prefix Moung, which we +omit, as evidently is a general title. + +{f:137} All along in these letters, written journal fashion, it is to be +observed how careful and even distrustful Mr. Judson is. + +{f:221} Merino sheep, so called in Spain because the breed came from +beyond the sea (_Mer_), having been introduced from England by Constance, +daughter of John of Gaunt, and wife of Juan II. + +LONDON: R. 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