of the West; or approaching more nearly to our own times, to consider what foundation there may be for the tradition, repudiated though it be by Canon Farrar, that the first Missionary of the Gospel who reached the shores of India, was the Apostle St. Thomas. I must, however, confine myself to the more directly practical ques tions, the present position of the Church in India, its needs, and in what manner the Church of England can aid it. When we speak of the Church in India, few persons in England have, I think, an idea of the numerical importance of that body, using the term in its largest sense. The latest inquiries show that there are in India no less than 1,862,000 persons who profess the Christian religion. Of these 369,000 Europeans and Eurasians, and 865,000 natives, in all 1,175,000 reside in British ter ritory. Of the 369,000 Europeans and Eurasians, 134,000 are in communion with the Church of England, 132,000 are in obedience to the Church of Rome, and the remaining 100,000 are members of other denominations. The Church of Rome numbers among its members 526,000 natives, the Church of England, 170,000. The history of the Church in India, so far as it is undisputed, explains the disproportion of these numbers to the population, and accounts for the numerical superiority of the Church of Rome. Of the Christian colonies which have survived to the present day, the earliest, a colony of Syrian merchants reached the coast of Malabar probably in undecked vessels, similar to the "dhows" which are still used by the Arab traders on that coast. A deed known as the Syrian deed, to which native authority ascribes a date equivalent to A.D. 230, attests the grant, by a Malabar chief to these Syrians, of a site for a municipality, and the grant is made to the headmen of the Church. In 486 the Malabar Christians became Nestorians. I cannot find that they engaged in any missionary work. In 1500 the first Roman mission was established in Southern India under the auspices of the King of Portugal; and in 1542 St. Francis Xavier commenced his missionary labour in that country. The See of Goa, which had been created in 1642, was erected into an archbishopric in 1577. In 1596 the Malabar Nestorians entered the Roman communion, and although in 1650 they relapsed, Carmelite missionaries reconciled the majority to that Church in 1660. In 1606 a mission of Jesuits had been deputed to Mandura and Tanpore; and in 1700 the French sent an important mission to the Carnatie. The missionary efforts of the Roman Church in India were greatly impeded by the Bull, which conferred on the Kings of Portugal the right, subject to confirmation by the Pope, to appoint to ecclesiastical preferments in that country. Owing to the loss by Portugal of her Indian possessions and the decline of her commercial prosperity, and probably, in some degree, to the suppression of the religious orders in that country, the efficiency of the missions under the control of the Archbishops of Goa was impaired, and the converts, especially those of the fisher. man caste on the littoral of the Coromandel, were most imperfectly educated. To supply their defects the missionary societies at Rome sent out missions under Vicars and Prefects Apostolic, but questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction at once arose and are only now in process of settlement. The activity of these missions has of late years greatly increased, owing, it is said, to the dispersion of religious houses in France; and although in many parts of India Anglicans and Romans keep their fields of labour distinct, some of our missionaries in the southern districts of the Madras Presidency complain of attempts to proselytise their converts. The first Indian mission of a Reformed Church was that sent by Frederick IV., of Denmark, to Tranquebar in 1705, under Zieganbalg and Plutschau. The first mission of the Anglican Church was established by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1726, when Schultz, a German Lutheran, was deputed to Southern India. He was succeeded by the celebrated Schwartz and Kohlhoff. In 1758 this same society established a mission in Calcutta under John

Kiernander. In 1790 the first native clergyman of a Reformed Church, Sathianathan, was ordained by the Lutherans. Early in this century the two great Missionary Societies of our Church commenced active operations in India. In 1814, Bishop Middleton was consecrated first Bishop of Calcutta, and, in 1818, received from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel a grant of £5,000 for general missionary purposes, and in the following year a grant of £45,000 for the establishment of Bishop's College-a training institution for clergy. In 1820 the Church Missionary Society sent Rhenius to Tinnevelly. In 1824 the Church Missionary Society transferred its missions to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, though they were not, I believe, actually taken over for some years. The latter society commenced work in Bombay in 1840. The Bishopric of Calcutta was created in pursuance of an Act passed in 1813, the Bishoprics of Madras and Bombay under an Act of 1833, when Calcutta was constituted the Metropolitan See. The Bishoprics of Rangoon and Lahore were created in 1877; in the same year Bishops Caldwell and Sargent were consecrated and appointed assistants to the Bishop of Madras, and in 1879 Dr. Speechly was consecrated Bishop of Travancore. I have mentioned these dates to refute any inference that might be drawn from the larger number of Christians in obedience to Rome, that this Anglican Church has neglected the field of labour presented to it in the Eastern possessions of the Crown. For more than a century after our nation obtained a footing in India the East India Company obstructed the free access of the Church of England to that country. When that policy was abandoned, our Church was not slow to make use of her freedom. The committee of the Congress has, I think, justly estimated the relative importance of our duties to the Church in India by assigning priority in the debate to the needs of the Europeans and Eurasians. But the Venerable Archdeacon, who has made the wants of those classes his peculiar study, has left me little more to say than that to every word he has read I give my entire assent. With few exceptions, the domiciled Europeans and the Eurasians are not at present sufficiently wealthy to maintain a sufficient staff of clergy or provide for their children adequate instruction, religious or secular. Though Martine and Doveton devoted their fortunes to the establishment of schools for the benefit of Europeans and Eurasians, endowments are far more disproportionate to the needs of these classes than are the endowments we enjoy in England. The assistance given by the State to all efficient educational institutions, the services of the chaplains, the liberality of the wealthier members of the Church of England residing in India, the large subscriptions of the shareholders of some of the principal railway companies, and the generous grants of the venerable Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, have done much to meet the wants of the classes with which I am now dealing. In answer to inquiries addressed to the Metropolitan and to the other bishops in India as to the requirements of these classes in their respective dioceses, I received replies which disclosed no pressing emergencies that could not be met if the Church of England continues its liberality to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, or efficiently supports the society of which Archdeacon Baly is at once the founder and the secretary. There is need of more clergy, of more or enlarged orphanages, and of industrial schools to enable the poor, by the acquisition of technical knowledge, to compete in probably the cheapest labour market in the civilised world; above all, in my judgment, there is need of an adequate provision for the education of the sons of Europeans and Eurasians for Holy Orders. I entirely agree with the last speaker as to the importance of securing to every race in India an educated clergy of its own race. Not only may we expect from such ministers a more complete sympathy with the needs, and a more practical acquaintance with the circumstances of members of their race or class; but any race or section of the community is socially

degraded if access to the ministry of the Church is denied to its members. Domiciled Europeans and Eurasians find it difficult out of their slender incomes to meet the expense of providing their children with the higher education, and where these difficulties are surmounted, the professions of law and medicine offer inducements in the shape of more certain and larger incomes than can be enjoyed by the clergy. In the professions to which I have referred and in the public service the sons of domiciled Europeans and Eurasians have shown, that they can overcome the disadvantages inseparable from the circumstances of the country of their birth, and in the present year the Church in India has had to deplore the loss of two eminent clergy of the same race, the Rev. Charles Kennett, D.D., and the Rev. Henry Bower, D.D., of whom the former was justly respected as ranking among the first theologians of India, and the latter the reviser of the Tamil Bible among the first of Indian linguists. The need to which I have alluded should have been less felt in Calcutta than elsewhere; for Bishop's College was designed for Europeans and Eurasians as well as for Natives; but of late years I understand the former classes have been practically excluded from the institution. But it will, I think, be admitted by all who are acquainted with the difficulties of education in India that it would conduce greatly to the efficiency of the Anglo-Indian and Eurasian clergy if opportunities were afforded to candidates for orders of receiving some portion of their education or training in England, and I know of no greater boon which could be afforded to our brethren in the East than the provision of such opportunities. I should like to add a few words as to present position and future prospects of the work of our Church in India as a Missionary Church. The figures I have already quoted will satisfy you that so much success has attended its operations in the past as to justify large hopes for the future. How rapid that success has been since the Church strenuously exerted herself appears from the following returns :-"In 1826, in the Presidency of Madras, the number of Native Christians connected with the S.P.G. Society was 8352; in 1880 it was 37,306, and there were 20,083 catechumens. In 1835 the Native Christians and Catechumens of the C.M.S. were 8693-they now number 56,287. The first native of Tinnevelly who received Anglican Orders was John Devasagayan, ordained priest by Bishop Corrie in 1836. The C.M.S. now has in Tinnevelly a staff of 68 native clergy, and the S.P.G. in the Madras Diocese, a staff of 40. But while it is admitted that the missionary efforts of the Church have been successful among certain castes, it is often objected that they have failed to convince the higher castes, and that the higher education which is now available to natives is inimical to the propagation of Christianity. The labours of our missionaries have not been fruitless among the highest castes, though no doubt the social difficulties which restrain the timid from the profession of Christianity have operated more powerfully in the case of the higher than of the lower castes, but competent observers, even among native thinkers, have not failed to note that there are numerous influences at work, secular as well as religious, to enfeeble and eventually to abolish caste distinctions. The disseminations of higher education will, I am convinced, assist rather than impede the acceptance of Christianity. It is true that some men of the highest scientific attainments assert that they have no need of a religion. But let me again quote Professor Max Muller, "There are minds perfectly satisfied with empirical knowledge, a knowledge of facts well ascertained, well classified, and well labelled. Such knowledge may assume vast proportions, and if knowledge is power it may impart great power, real intellectual power, to the man who can utilise it. But for all that there is a beyond, and he who has once caught a glance of it, is like a man who has gazed at the sun; wherever he looks, everywhere he sees the image of the sun." It is a matter of common experience, that the vast majority of men cannot do without a religion; that

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there is in each of us, if we will not strangle it, a craving for something more perfect than any perfection to which we can attain, something which transcends sense, and this craving can be satisfied only by a creed. In the address which you, my lord, delivered yesterday to working men in this hall, you told us of the philosopher who was convinced of the existence of God by observing law in nature and mind in man, and I was reminded of a struggle, which years ago I underwent when a student at the University, and I heartily acknowledge an obligation to one who, though not a professing member of our branch of the Church, has rendered effectual service to religion, Thomas Carlyle. I have never forgotten his teaching that "the shoeblack is infinite;" that mere material happiness can satisfy none of us, that "there is in man a higher than love of happiness, that he can do without happiness, and in lieu thereof find blessedness." The aspiration for a higher moral perfection than unaided humanity is capable of, the conviction of a law that transcends experience, is not peculiar to European minds, nor to minds on whose training, even unconsciously to themselves, Christianity has exerted its influence. After discussing the philosophy of the Vedanta, Professor Max Muller observes, "If I were to indicate by one word the distingushing feature of the Indian character, as I have tried to sketch it, I should say it was transcendent, using that word in its more general acceptation as denoting a mind bent on transcending the limits of empirical knowledge." Influences other than Missionary are at work to subvert the faith of the Hindoo in what tenets he still retains of Brahminism or Buddhism. It is impossible to impart an education in English literature without communicating something of the spirit of Christianity by which that literature is so largely pervaded. Sir Alfred Lyall, in his "Indian Studies," calls attention to the anarchy and want of system prevailing in the religious ideas of modern Hinduism. He asserts that the descriptions given by Eusebius of Cæsarea, in his Theophaina of the condition of religious thought in the Roman Empire, when Christianity was first preached, may be applied word for word to Hindustan. So far as I can speak from personal experience, educated Hindus by no means reject a creed. They endeavour to find, in the creed they profess, a hidden meaning which would embrace much of what they cannot refuse to recognise as excellent in Christianity; or when they profess to have freed themselves from the shackles of their own creed they take refuge in Theism. They invoke, and I am satisfied in all sincerity, God's blessing on those they esteem as their friends. They thus acknowledge there is a God, and a God who intervenes in human affairs. They indeed worship "the unknown God." And this suggests the doctrine which must prevail to bring them to a knowledge of the one God. It is the doctrine of the great Apostle of the Gentiles that we are "all under sin," but that "the righteousness of God is manifested, even the righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe." Other creeds profess that man can of himself, and by his own works, render himself acceptable to God. Our faith presents to us the infinite holiness, the infinite purity, the infinite justice, and the infinite wisdom of Jehovah, and when we are pervaded with the consciousness of our own unworthiness to approach Him, then it tells us how infinite love provided an expiation of infinite merit, a Sanctifier of infinite power, a Mediator of infinite eloquence. No system of morality founded merely on considerations of happiness or utility, will, I am convinced, satisfy the thoughtful and educated Hindoo; and because I believe that our faith is the one true faith, and that those who humbly seek the truth will assuredly be guided to it, I cannot but feel sanguine of the future of the Church in India. When I was on the eve of quitting Hindustan the rumour of a Russian war evoked an expression of loyalty far more fervent, and more sincere than its rulers had anticipated. We had not taken count of the eagerness for political liberty which English education had instilled in the educated Hindus; and

of their zeal in the defence of that empire which secured to them so large a measure of freedom, and I was tempted to observe of our country :

"Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam.

Profuit invitis te dominante capi."

May those who doubt the effect of the influences at work in Hindustan to dispose the minds of the races of that land to the reception of Christian truth, have made a like miscalculation. When races of Hindustan have become our fellow subjects in the Kingdom of Christ, and entitled with us to the privileges of citizenship in the New Jerusalem, the Universal Church may greet its Lord in how much larger and truer a sense,

"Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam.

Profuit invitis te dominante capi."

The Rev. W. R. BLACKETT, Vicar of Holy Trinity, Nottingham.

I HAVE been asked to speak on this subject, I presume, because I was for seven years a missionary in Bengal, and for two years chairman of the Bengal Native Church Council. In this way I have been led to study the matter in some degree, and to see, perhaps, something of what is needed for the further development of the native Churches.

The first step towards the setting up of a sound Church organisation is doubtless the collecting of converts. In this something has been done in India. There are now nearly 450,000 native Christians in India and Ceylon, apart from those connected with the Romanists. Of these far on for 200,000 are connected with the Church of England. This seems a large number, but it must be remembered that they are gathered out of divers and manifold “kingdoms and peoples and nations and tongues," and are but as handfuls here and there among a vast mass of heathenism. In Bengal proper we have some 8,000 or 9,000 Christians, most of whom are connected with the Church Missionary Society. The largest mass of these is in the Nadiya District, but there they are scattered in some fifty villages, the largest of which may contain 500 or 600 Christians, the smallest perhaps a single family of three or four persons. I mention these facts in order that it may not be supposed that the condition of Indian Christians in any way resembles that of English parishes. They are widely scattered, and separated by immense distances, as well as by wide differences in language, race, and customs.

Given then the materials, the building up of the Church's organisation goes on naturally, from the base toward the summit. A good deal of progress has been made in organising the scattered converts into congregations, and supplying them with ministers. At first, and for some time, European missionaries were wont to act as pastors to the congregations they had gathered. But this has been found to be a mistake. It was good for neither party. The missionary was apt almost to cease from evangelising work, and settle down into a parish pastor-and was generally both unsuccessful and dissatisfied in that position. He was too far separated from his people to win their confidence or get at their real minds. At the same time, as a Sahib, he was too much an object of dependence. The people rested on him for everything, and the Indian character has naturally too little self-reliance to remain