BISHOP HEBER POET AND CHIEF MISSIONARY TO THE EAST SECOND LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA 1783-1826 BY AUTHOR OF GEORGE SMITH, C.I.E., LL.D. WILLIAM CAREY, D.D.'; HENRY MARTYN, SAINT AND SCHOLAR,' ETC. Μὴ φοβοῦ· ἐγώ ἔχω τὰς κλεῖς τοῦ ᾅδου καὶ τοῦ θανάτου LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1895 LIBRARY. Waikar fund Two generations hav Heber in the bath published, in two these the most lo gentlemen and especially his, his name in re The time revival of th century, an developme the south the stud of the of the and i in t no PREFACE In Two generations have passed away since the death of Reginald Heber in the bath at Trichinopoly. His widow promptly published, in two quarto volumes, a Memoir of his Life. these the most lovable and the most laborious of all English gentlemen and missionaries lies buried. His verse, and especially his, as yet, matchless missionary hymn, have kept his name in remembrance. The time has come to record the part which he took in the revival of the Church of England at the beginning of the century, and what he accomplished, or set in motion, for the development of the early missionary enterprise, especially in the south of India. For years he stood almost alone among the students of Oxford, the squires of England, and the clergy of the Church, in the personal support and public advocacy of the four great Missionary and Bible Societies of his youth, and in catholic co-operation with Nonconformists. A patriot in the most stirring period of our national history, he was of no party in the Church. A theologian of ripe scholarship and evangelic zeal, he resented alike the extremes of the so-called Calvinists, and the pelagianism of the Arminians of his day. He was for Christ; he loved and he did much to elevate the great Reformed Church which he loyally served; he worked with all good men, or wished them well in the one divinely commanded cause. His short episcopate, while he was still a young man, was the rich and fruitful outcome of such zeal, such wisdom, and such charity. While striving to put Reginald Heber's public life in its right perspective and setting in England, and especially in India, I have attempted to reveal the man who so charmed his contemporaries, both men and women. I thank his nephew, the present Rector of Hodnet, the Rev. Richard Hugh Cholmondeley, for most courteous assistance. I gratefully acknowledge the help of the present Rector of Malpas, the Rev. and the Hon. W. Trevor Kenyon, especially in permitting me to publish, for the first time, Heber's letters and verses to Charlotte Dod, Edge Hall, Cheshire. Reginald Heber's relation to her, as to Maria Leycester, afterwards Mrs. Augustus Hare, forms another chapter in the history of literary and spiritual friendships, like William Cowper's not long before. The illustrations have been reproduced chiefly from the original wood engravings cut from Heber's own sketches. The Portrait is an intaglio from an early proof of the copperplate engraving of the oil painting in All Souls College, Oxford, by Phillips, R.A. The pictures of the old Cathedral of St. John and of the Mausoleum of Job Charnock, the founder of Calcutta, are from platinotypes by Professor Thomson, M.A., of the Duff College, Calcutta. The Rock of Trichinopoly is from a recent photograph. The Map of India in Bishop Heber's time has been reproduced from the original copperplate of J. Walker's work. SERAMPORE HOUSE, MERCHISTON, Edinburgh, 26th September 1895. |