It is true, that we English, settled in India nineteen centuries after Christ's coming, are not bound by the legislation by which Palestine was governed a thousand years before He came, but only because that legislation is superseded by the free, largehearted spirit of Christian munificence, which teaches us that 'High heaven disdains the lore

'Of nicely calculated less and more,'

and certainly should strike our consciences with shame, if we do not raise our conduct to even a Jewish standard of duty. It would be well if every man of £5,000 a year would ask himself whether he gives £500 a year to religious and benevolent objects, the man of £500 a year whether he gives £50, the man of £50 a year whether he gives £5. Not that even if they do, they are fulfilling all that may be expected of them as members of the Christian Church. Neither by establishing new ecclesiastical dignities, nor by circulating subscription lists, shall we build up in India that magnificent institution, the City set upon a hill, the true centre of beneficence, and zeal, and fervent piety, and heavenly charity, of which the foundation was laid by Christ, and which we must endeavour to build up and strengthen and adorn in the midst of this heathenland. St. Paul would not permit its members to estimate their devotion or their churchmanship in rupees, annas, and pice. Personal service in the work of doing good cannot be commuted for a money payment, unless a man be actually incapacitated from such service. If the Church of England is to fulfil its mission in India, clergy and laity must unite together, like the officers and soldiers of a great army, in contending against the evils which they see around them. The clergy by their services, their preaching, their pastoral labours, their faithful and frequent administration of the Sacraments, their thoughtfulness in inventing and zeal in executing new schemes for extending the influence of the Gospel; the laity by their readiness to help, to give, to work according to their strength and leisure; both, by the bright example of pure and Christian lives, must shew that they appreciate the force of their Lord's declaration, that His disciples are the light of the world. By such activity (to quote from an eloquent sketch of Christ's character and work which has emerged from our recent controversies,) the Church of England would display itself as an ardent and hopeful association of men, who had united for the purpose of contending against disease and distress, diminishing, by every contrivance of kindly sympathy, the rudeness, coarseness, ignorance, and imprudence of the poor, and the

'heartlessness and hardness of the rich, for the purpose of securing to all that moderate happiness which gives leisure to virtue, ' and that moderate occupation which removes the temptations to vice, for the purpose of providing a large and wise education 'for the young; lastly, for the purpose of handing on the tradition ' of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, maintaining the enthu'siasm of humanity in all the baptized, and preserving, in oppo'sition to all temptations to superstition or fanaticism, the filial 'freedom of their worship of God.'* And such a view of the Church's pastoral work among Christians or nominal Christians in India, stands in the closest possible connexion with its duties to the heathen. The one passes directly into the other, for by such an exhibition of the law of Christian love we shall persuade many who now misconceive it, or are ignorant of it, to place themselves under its guidance. This was what Arnold felt in advising his pupil, Henry Fox, on the duties of that missionary career to which his life was afterwards sacrificed. Whether you 'go to India,' he wrote, or to any other foreign country, the first and great point, I think, is to turn your thoughts to the edifica'tion of the Church already in existence, that is, the Christian or 'English societies as distinct from the Hindus. Unless the English 'and East Indians can be brought into a good state, how can you 'get on with the Hindus?.. [Purified Christian Churches] must be the nucleus to which individuals from the natives will con'tinually join themselves more and more, as these become more 'numerous and respectable. . . . . Remember how in every 'place, Paul made the evo eßeis the foundation of his Church, and then the idolatrous heathens gathered round these in 'more or less numbers.'t Arnold may in this passage have underrated the effect of the difference in language, which prevents English and Hindustani Christians from often gathering together in the same congregation: but his principle is thoroughly sound, for the lives of Christian Englishmen furnish the most effectual preaching of the Gospel to the heathen. We believe that if every Englishman, who feels his Christianity and his churchmanship to be realities, will devote himself with the true 'enthusiasm of humanity' to the 'edification of the Church already in existence,' our plans for the extension of pastoral work among Europeans must soon be followed by a call for its development among natives; for the Hindus, as they marvel at the blessings of charity, and goodwill, and righteousness, which are

Ecce Homo, p. 226.

+ Stanley's Life of Arnold, p. 511, cf p. 602.

136 The Anglican Establishment in the Diocese of Calcutta.

gradually diffused more and more richly among them, will discern amidst the darkness of the Kali Yuga the dawn of a golden age, and will hasten to rejoice in the beams of the Sun of Righteousness.

137

ART. V.-1. The Reports of the Revenue Settlements, North

West Provinces.

2. Thomason's Despatches.

3. The Directions for Revenue Officers.

4. The Oude Blue Books.

5. The writings of Henry St. George Tucker.

6. Memorandum on Talookdaree Settlements by the late Henry S. Boulderson, B. C. S.

THE exigencies of the times seem to require that we should

and present, which have been made by the British Government for the exclusion or the maintenance, as the case might be, of the more influential class of landlords, who are known in the West as feudal barons, and in the East as talookdars.

pos

The word correctly written is Ta'alluka, and is derived from the Arabic word ''aluk', a leech, and even as this animal remains suspended to the body to which it attaches itself, so the word 'aluk is used in the sense of hanging or adhering. Hence ta'alluka technically signifies relation, dependence, session, &c. In this view the nomenclature of the Lower Provinces and of the old regulations, is the more correct where the ta'alluka is the smaller, the zamindarry the larger property. In Upper India the reverse is the case; the ta'alluka is the larger property to which the smaller zamindarries have become attached, or have adhered.

Returning now to the ordinary way of writing the word talookdar, it is not evident when this term came into ordinary use. It is not to be found in the Ayn-i-akberi, and it might, therefore, be assumed that it was unknown to the revenue system of the great Akber, but of this there is ample proof that the title and tenure existed long before the British rule. They are mentioned by Mr. Thomason as having existed in 1677 A. D.; we have seen them mentioned in a deed of the year 1642 under the seal of the emperor Shahjehan; and they are, therefore, undoubtedly part and parcel of the inherit.ance, which we at different times acquired from the various native dynasties which we replaced. Moreover, the title of Rajah and the tenure of Raj, (which, though not exactly synonymous are somewhat analogous to the terms talookdar

R

and talooka, the talookas possessing many of the essential features of the raj )are as old as the Shasters, in which it is recorded of this tenure of raj that the property descends intact to the next male heir on the primogeniture system. Rajahs and talookdars therefore having existed long before our rule, they were a part of the system which we took over from our predecessors, and as it has always been our professed system to carry on native revenue institutions as we found them, it would prima facie appear that these men were as much entitled to our consideration and protection, as any others that we found to be connected with the soil.

Talookas have appropriately been divided into two classes, the pure and the impure, and we shall now show how these had their origin.

It is asserted that at a particular period of the world's history, probably about the time of Abraham, Upper India was peopled by Rajpoots. At a subsequent period these people had to give way to other sects, Brahmins, Buddhists, &c., and then for a term of years they disappeared altogether, either sinking into social insignificance and mingling with the aborigines, or migrating to other parts of Hindostan, where their superiority was still recognized. But in process of time the Rajpoots again became powerful, and once more overwhelmed the then inhabitants by their incursions under different leaders, and in the middle of the twelfth century, the Rajpoot Kings or Rajahs of Canouj had full sway over these provinces. To these invasions of the Rajpoots, Mr. Thomason traces the foundation of the existing proprietary right in land. The descendants of each chief, he tells us, multiplied til at length in some instances they displaced all other occupants of the land, or at least assumed all the proprietary privileges. The members, he adds, were numerous, and each territorial subdivision is marked by the prevalence of its own stock. These all trace their origin to a single person who first conquered the country.

Those whom we now call the pure talookdars, are the chiefs descended from the leaders above referred to. They may be the legal successors in the direct line of the original settler, or they may be sprung from a junior branch raised to power by favour, ability, or the voice of the tribe; but of this there can be no doubt, that these feudal lords, whom we found in possession, are the hereditary chiefs of important tribes, whose position in the eyes of the people had become hallowed by the memories of an. extreme and not inglorious antiquity. Whenever, then, we meet with a dominant clan of Rajpoots, with one or more acknowledged chiefs at its head, we may rest assured that these