worthy who looks on with dry eyes and without an effort to abate the evil on millions stretched out in deadly darkness of idolatry and superstition; on millions more surrounded with light, yet, by some strange fatality, continuing to work the works of darkness; on millions as yet incapable of good or evil, whose happiness or misery, both in this world and the world to come, must depend on the sort of education which is given them? "... Suppose that these things, which we have known from our childhood, and have, therefore, ceased to regard as they ought to be regarded, were at this time first made known to us; suppose we were now first told that there is a good, and just, and holy, and merciful God over all, to whom all His works are known, who requires from us no bloody sacrifice, no shocking, or difficult, or costly service, but whose eyes and ears are ever open to the prayer of the humble and the penitent! Suppose we now first heard that the sins by which we are each of us conscious that we have offended God are pardoned, on our true repentance, through the mediation and sufferings of God's beloved Son, who so loved the inhabitants of the world that He came down from Heaven to take on Himself their punishment! Suppose we had now first opened to us the prospect of another and a better world in which we may hope, together with those dear and virtuous friends of whom death has robbed us, to dwell in the presence of the Lord, the objects of His mercy and His favour! Suppose that when our prospect of this reward grew dim, and our heart fainted through a sense of our inherent weakness and unworthiness, we were now first lifted up to hope and diligence in well-doing by the promise of a pure and mighty Comforter to enlighten us when we were dark, to support us when we were feeble, to raise us when we fell, and finally to beat down under our feet our fiercest and mightiest enemy! Suppose, I say, these things were told you this day for the first time, and ask your own hearts whether the natural sympathies of humanity would not produce an earnest desire that the same glorious truths might be made known to others besides yourselves, and that all your neighbours, yea, that all mankind should, like you, be enabled to behold this great salvation? "My brethren, there are many millions of men in the world, hundreds of millions, to whom these blessed truths are yet unknown. Millions who have lost the knowledge of the one true God amid a multitude of false or evil deities, who bow down to stocks and stones, who propitiate their senseless idols with cruel and bloody sacrifices, who lose sight of their dying friends with no expectation of again beholding them, and who go down to the grave themselves in doubt and trembling ignorance, without light, without hope, without knowledge of a Saviour! "Is it your pleasure, is it your desire, that these your fellowcreatures should be brought from darkness into light, that they should share with you your helps, your hopes, your knowledge, your salvation? Can you pray with sincerity that the kingdom of God may come to them as it has come to you, and will you, thus desiring and thus praying, refuse to furnish, according to your ability, the means of bringing it to them? You cannot, you will not, you dare not! "... If it is the duty of all Christians everywhere to co-operate in the furtherance of these glorious prospects, so there is no nation in the world on whom so strong an obligation of this kind is laid as on the inhabitants of Great Britain. Our colonies, our commerce, our conquests, our discoveries, the empire which the Almighty has subjected to our sword, the purity of our national creed, the apostolic dignity of our national establishments, what are all these but so many calls to labour in the improvement of the heritage which we have received, so many talents entrusted to our charge, of which a strict account must be one day rendered? Shall we overlook our heavy debt of blood and tears to injured Africa? Shall we forget those innumerable isles of the southern ocean first visited by our sails, but which so long derived from us nothing but fresh wants, fresh diseases, fresh wickedness? Shall we forget the spiritual destitution of those sixty millions of our fellowmen, yea, our fellow-subjects, who in India still bow the head to vanities, and torment themselves, and burn their mothers, and butcher their infants at the shrine of a mad and devilish superstition? Shall we forget, while every sea is traversed by our keels, and every wind brings home wealth into our harbours, that we have a treasure at home of which those from whom we draw our wealth are in the utmost need a treasure, if used aright, more precious than rubies, but which, if wilfully and wantonly hid, must, like the Spartan fox, destroy and devour its possessor? Oh, when you are about to lie down this night, and begin, in the words which the Lord has taught you, to commend your bodies and souls to His protection, will you not blush, will you not tremble to think, while you say to God 'Thy kingdom come!' that you have this day refused your contributions towards the extension of that kingdom? I know you will not refuse them! Or, is it still necessary to recommend to your support that peculiar instrument of doing good in whose behalf I now stand before you, and to vindicate the Church Missionary Society from the suspicion of party and sectarian motives? This, also, I will attempt, though in the great cause of the propagation of the Gospel it is wearisome to descend to disputes as to the fittest channel of a benevolence which can hardly be directed into a wrong one. “... Did, in our own Church, and in the days of our immediate fathers, the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts presume to tell her younger sister for Promoting Christian Knowledge that in sending missionaries to India she was thrusting an intrusive sickle into the harvest of another? There are very many motives besides a sectarian spirit which may lead men to institute and encourage new institutions rather than to throw the whole weight of their bounty into the old. While some prefer the wary caution of a self-elected corporation, others may, with at least a show of reason, and certainly without just offence to any, conceive that more good is likely to be produced by the popular and expansive force of a society where every member has a voice in the application of his contributions. With many, a personal knowledge of the directors of one association will induce them to prefer it to another equally respectable, and there are many who, from experience of the superior activity possessed by most recent institutions, will expect greater and more beneficial exertions from a new society for no other reason than because it is new. But while there is room and employment for all, while there is a unity of faith, a unity of object, a unity of symbols and sacraments, a unity of religious and canonical obedience, and, above all, a unity of Christian charity, such institutions may all wish each other good luck in the name of the Lord, with no other rivalry than that of which shall best serve their common Master." In his Bampton lecture on The Personality and Office of the Christian Comforter the position of the heathen is discussed at some length in relation to the Lord's promise of the Paraclete. Most powerful of all the influences which led Heber on to live and die for the people of India was the career of Henry Martyn, whose first convert he was to ordain in the Cathedral of Calcutta.2 Mrs. Heber wrote thus when referring to the year 1822:— "For many years Mr. Reginald Heber had watched with interest the progress made by Christianity wherever English in 1 Read in the year 1815. Second edition, 1818, chap. vi. fluence extended, and he assisted, by every means within his power, the exertions of the various religious societies to which he belonged; but more especially to India had his thoughts and views been anxiously directed. With Martyn he had, in idea, traversed its sultry regions, had shared in his privations, had sympathised in his sufferings, and had exulted in the prospects of success occasionally opened to him. Many of Martyn's sufferings and privations he saw were caused by a peculiar temperament, and by a zeal which, disregarding all personal danger and sacrifice, led that devoted servant of God to follow, at whatever risk, those objects which would have been more effectually attained, and at a less costly sacrifice, had they been pursued with caution and patience. He could separate the real and unavoidable difficulties of the task from such as resulted from these causes, and he felt that they were not insuperable. "Without ever looking to anything beyond the privilege of assisting at a distance those excellent men who were using their talents for the advancement of Christianity, he would frequently express a wish that his lot had been thrown among them; and he would say that, were he alone concerned, and were there none who depended on him, and whose interests and feelings he was bound to respect, he would cheerfully go forth to join in that glorious train of martyrs, whose triumphs he has celebrated in one of his hymns. He felt (and on that Christian feeling did he act) that any sacrifice which he could make would be amply compensated by his becoming the instrument of saving one soul from destruction. On the erection of the episcopal see in India, and on the appointment of Dr. Middleton to its duties, his interest in that country increased." Not for five months after the death of Bishop Middleton at Calcutta, in the ninth year of his episcopate and fifty-fourth of his age, did the intelligence reach England. All who interested themselves in the East at once turned to the Rector of Hodnet and preacher at Lincoln's Inn as best fitted to be his successor. Heber's old college friend, the Right Honourable C. W. Williams Wynn, was President of the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, and with him it rested to submit names, as usual, to the Crown. Heber's services to the Church of England and to vital religion were such that all classes, ecclesiastical and political, believed his appointment to the bench of bishops to be only a question of time. Hence the following demi-official correspondence, most honourable to both the writers : "EAST INDIA OFFICE, 2nd December 1822. "MY DEAR REGINALD-You will have seen in the newspapers the death of the Bishop of Calcutta. I cannot expect, and certainly do not wish, that, with your fair prospects of eminence at home, you should go to the Ganges for a mitre. Indeed £5000 per annum for fifteen years, and a retiring pension of £1500 at the end of them, is not a temptation which could compensate you for quitting the situation and comforts which you now enjoy, if you were certain of never being promoted. You would, however, extremely oblige me by giving me, in the strictest confidence, your opinion as to those who have been, or are likely to be suggested for that appointment; and you would add to the obligation if you could point out any one who, to an inferior degree of theological and literary qualification, adds the same moderation, discretion, and active benevolence, which would make me feel that, if you were not destined, I trust, to be still more usefully employed at home, I should confer the greatest blessing upon India in recommending you.-Ever most faithfully yours, "C. W. WILLIAMS WYNN." "HODNET RECTORY, 7th December 1822. "MY DEAR WYNN-I can hardly tell you how much I feel obliged by the kind manner in which you speak of me, and the confidence which you have reposed in me. I will endeavour to merit both by the strictest secrecy, and by speaking honestly and closely to the points in which you wish for information. . . . I heartily wish I myself deserved even a small part of the kind expressions you have used towards me. I will confess that (after reading missionary reports and some of Southey's articles in the Quarterly) I have sometimes been tempted to wish myself Bishop of Calcutta, and to fancy that I could be of service there. you, as was once reported, gone out to the East, I should have liked it beyond most other preferment. As it is, I am, probably, better at home, so far as my personal happiness is concerned, than in a situation, however distinguished and however splendidly paid, which involves so many sacrifices of health, home, and friendship. Yet, in my present feelings, and with very imperfect information as to some particulars which, for my family's sake, it is necessary I should know, will you permit me to defer my answer for a few days, till I have been able to consult those whom Had |