EDUCATION IN INDIA.

(Continued from our last Number.)

In the face of facts like these, it appears that persons are now and then found to proclaim their own ignorance (or worse), by affirming that Christianity has made no progress in India! Some anonymous writers in the Times newspaper have lately been telling the world, that there are no cases of real conversion amongst the Hindoos! According to their liberal and charitable opinions, the hundred ordained clergymen of the Church of England, now labouring as missionaries in India (to say nothing of their dissenting brethren), are either rank impostors, deceiving the public with false reports; or deluded idiots, imposed upon by a parcel of "black rascals," whom these clear-sighted, (but unhappily anonymous) writers know to be insincere in their profession of the Gospel. By the same rule, the fifty thousand natives, now living in the communion of the Church of England, must be all such "black rascals," wickedly cheating the poor Missionaries, or, indeed, with so little religion of any kind as not to care what name they are called by. Why these "black fellows" should pretend to forsake the idolatry of their native land, which is so powerful that many Europeans, and even our own governments, think it politic to respect and encourage it-why they should separate from kith and kin to encounter (as they do) manifold persecutions-and why any of them should press into our Colleges, seek Holy Orders of our Bishops, and spend their lives themselves as Missionaries in support of this great delusion—our nameless writers do not venture to tell us. One thing, indeed, they have made but too plain: that there are persons bearing the name of CHRIST, through His merciful providence in casting their lot within His fold, who have not the hearts to have embraced His cross had they been born in heathenism. That they would not themselves exchange anything of value for the gospel, is probably the secret conviction of the writers in question; judging others by themselves, they conclude that the Hindoos, who profess to have done so, are not sincere. To argue with such persons is impossible. It is the old controversy of light and darkness, -of fact with conjecture-of knowledge with ignorance-of men with names who report what they have witnessed, and shadows without name or authority, who depose to what they have never seen, heard, or believed.

Leaving these, we are anxious that our readers should understand the real merits of the different systems employed in India for the education of the natives. A paper which is thought to speak with some

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authority upon Indian affairs, "Allen's Indian Mail," takes upon itself to ascribe the progress which Christianity has really made in India to the "prudent middle course" of the Indian Governments; in other words, to their "steady perseverance in the diffusion of education by means of schools and colleges, in which all interference with the religious belief of the students is strictly forbidden." So that while one set of Indian officials would persuade us there are no real native Christians at all, another affirms that their conversion has been effected by the prudent course of strictly forbidding all interference with their religious belief!! The reason, which the former set of opponents were unable to assign, why any natives should embrace Christianity at all, is supplied by the latter: the Hindoos have certainly believed out of contradiction; they have become Christians, because their teachers never asked or insinuated that they should desert their native idolatries!

The truth, of course, is that Christianity has advanced in India by means of the labours of the Missionaries, and of the Christian education imparted in our Mission Schools and Colleges. These are conducted upon principles exactly opposite to those of the government; whose avowed policy was, in former years, hostility, and is at present indifference, to the spread of the Gospel. Instead of "not interfering with the religious belief of the students, Bishop's College, and all the Mission Schools, are established expressly to expose the folly of idolatry, and to demonstrate the glory and happiness of the gospel. Translations of the scriptures, and learned works for this purpose have issued from the College-Press with great efficiency. Before this decided, straightforward, march of truth, the powers of darkness have been compelled to recede. But the unhappy policy of our Indian governments has ever led them to be afraid of the truth. In former years they made open compact with falsehood, actually managing and assisting the idolatrous ceremonies out of the public revenues, and by the officers of government. When Bishop Middleton was despatched in 1818 to Calcutta (in opposition to their earnest remonstrances), they made him land without the usual tokens of respect, for fear of alarming the natives: and their present system of education ostentatiously excludes Christianity, as the best means of attracting the confidence of the idolaters. With what face, then, can they now pretend to be really assisting the gospel, and appropriate to themselves the merit of results brought about in the very teeth of their exertions and wishes?

Our readers will form a false notion of the Indian government education, if they confound it with that of our own government in

England, or even in Ireland. Here the advantage and necessity of Christianity are fully admitted, and its direct doctrinal inculcation is omitted only on the plea of leaving it in the hands of the Church, or other religious denomination to which the pupil may belong. But in India, Christianity is excluded from the government education as unnecessary, if not dangerous, for the native to learn at all. A system professing to include all that is required for social and national "regeneration" (they do not hesitate to use the sacred term) deliberately passes over the gospel of JESUS CHRIST! Or to speak more correctly, it exhibits the gospel as a matter of history-parallel with the religions of Confucius and Mahomet-and leaves its reception or rejection a point of perfect indifference with the well educated Hindoo. Such an "education" is viewed by many-by ourselves among the number as the greatest obstacle the government could now put in the way of the gospel. Certainly it has never, that we have heard of, produced, or assisted to produce, a single convert. Overthrow idolatry it may, or rather convert the worshipper of stocks and stones into a casehardened, complacent, worshipper of himself. But to humble and convert the "natural mind"-to enlighten the sensualized spirit-to regenerate and save the millions of India, we must proclaim, without compromise, the "unsearchable riches of CHRIST." We must support the Christian Missions in their simple, right-principled, method of training for eternity; not the tortuous, sapless, withering, "education" of half-enlightened worldlings. Indeed the natives themselves are signally bearing witness that "honesty is the best policy;" for while the Mission schools, where Christianity is openly taught, are frequented even by Pagan scholars, the "prudent middle course" of government seems in very little request. The Madras University (in which it was systematically developed) has been publicly condemned by the present governor as failing to realize the expectations with which it was founded, and new devices are accordingly in preparation. How much nobler, and more full of comfort, are the "old ways" of Bishop's College, Calcutta, teaching, as it does, the "faith once delivered unto the saints"-the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

CODRINGTON COLLEGE, BARBADOS.

We indicated last month an intention of one day giving some account of this important Missionary Institution in the West Indies. We have since been favoured (if we mistake not from a very distinguished correspondent) with a little publication issued in the Island of Jersey,

which contains a view of the College, accompanied by an article which we now propose to translate. For the publication before us is in the French language, and is called "Le Glaneur Chretien," or the Christian Gleaner. It appears to be of some standing, as the first number of this year is the beginning of a fifth volume: and curiously enough, the anecdote of the "Hindoo Churchwarden" is translated into it, word for word, from the first volume of our own Magazine, page 88. We are much pleased with the manifestation thus afforded of Missionary feeling, in so distant a part of the kingdom, and it will both interest our readers, and testify our friendship for our fellow workers in Jersey, if we give their account of the College, instead of our own.

"This College, of which we give an engraving, is rendered very interesting to several members of the Church in Jersey, by the fact, that two of our brethren, advantageously known, Messrs. Thomas Beaugie and Elie Nicolle, studied there with a view to preparing for the sacred work of the ministry in the West Indies; whither, also, two other young ecclesiastics, after passing the first years of their ministerial labours in Jersey, had preceded them in that remote portion of the Lord's vineyard. The two first-named repaired to Barbados under the auspices of the Bishop; but an inscrutable Providence has severely tried the faith of those who followed them with their best wishes and prayers. We knew them both; and during the time that we served the Church of S. Helier as Curate, we witnessed their fervent devotion, their humble piety, and the sincere affection which united them to one another, drawn, no doubt, by the ties of that 'brotherly love without hypocrisy,' which is shed abroad in the hearts of God's elect by the Holy Ghost given unto them.

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Very different, however, was the lot in store for the one and for the other. The one was taken, the other left. The one had hardly commenced his studies, when he was received to the reward of his ardent desires, and of his fixed design to consecrate himself entirely to the advancement of his heavenly Saviour's Kingdom. The other has finished the ordinary course of studies, with the approbation of the principal of the College, and at the last ordination of the Bishop of Barbados he was admitted to Holy Orders, after passing a most honourable examination, and obtaining the commendation of the Bishop. He is now occupying the very important charge of Curate in the parish church of the principal town in the island of Trinidad; and promises to be a shining light in the Church of CHRIST. Possessing robust health, endowed with a high degree of intelligenee, of an energetic and persevering character, and above all, giving evidence that

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his heart is alive to the guidance of the Holy Ghost, we have every right to expect that, by the grace of God, he will manifest more and more that he is indeed a vessel of honour, meet for the Master's use.' Codrington College is so called after its founder General Codrington, who died in 1710. He bequeathed to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel his estates in Barbados, expressing in his will his desire that a sufficient number of professors and students should be supported in this College, who should be bound to study medicine and surgery, as well as divinity, so that by the manifest utility of the two former, they might win the affections of men, and dispose them the more readily to receive the great truths of salvation. The details of the government of the Institution he left to the discretion of the 'Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,' as an association of wise and religious men.

"The Society of this College consists of the Visitor, Principal, Tutor, Professors of Medicine and Mathematics, and twelve Divinity Scholars who have apartments, tuition, and commons, free of charge.

"The College has already abundantly answered the pious designs of its founder, and promises to become, more and more, a source of blessing to the West Indies, in furnishing the higher classes with the means of obtaining a superior education, preserving, at the same time, its character of a theological seminary, the students of which, one may hope, will soon suffice for the wants of the Church in that part of the world.-S. Pierre Port."

[The illustration which we gave at page 94 of part 1, with Mr. Hulbert's spirited lines, "The Church of our Fathers," is a view of the chapel on the Codrington Estate.]

PICTURES OF MISSION STATIONS IN SOUTHERN INDIA.

No. 2.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-In my last I gave you some account of Tuticorin, and promised in my next to say something of Sawyerpuram. I suppose that all your readers know that Tinnevelly occupies the south-eastern extremity of the peninsula of India. It lies between the 8th and 10th degrees of north latitude, and between 77 and 78 degrees of east longitude. Sawyerpuram is about 60 miles north of Cape Comorin, and 10 miles to the westward of Tuticorin. Mounting our ponies, then, let us commence our journey. On the outskirts of Tuticorin we pass by two or three of the Romish burial grounds, neatly walled in, with the cross conspicuously placed over the arched entrance. I cannot but agree with