officers, while there was a full establishment of civil servants and their clerks. The Mission, which had suffered since the death of Pohle, Schwartz's colleague, still consisted of nearly 500 Native Christians, under the care of a catechist, and of Schwartz's schools, Tamil and English. The latter was supported from the Vestry Fund. For the whole work in the Tamil vernacular, including the villages in the suburbs, the sum available was only thirty rupees a month. With even more than his usual care-for his heart was enlarged by the needs and the prospects of the South India missions, which have since developed with wonderful rapidity and thoroughness-Heber spent the hot and unresting day in mastering all the facts and planning the necessary reforms with a generous hope. As if that were not enough, he must have spent hours at his desk, before retiring, in the preparation of his sermon for the morrow, and his confirmation addresses in English and Tamil, and in writing several letters, one of them very long. To Captain Fyfe, the Resident at Tanjor, he wrote a private letter, covering an official communication for the Maharaja.

Private.

"TRICHINOPOLY, 1st April 1826. To yourself and Mrs. Fyfe, for the kindness and hospitality which you have shown to us all, both in sickness and in health, as well as the impression which your agreeable society has left on my mind, what can I say more than I have already said, or to express all that I feel? God bless you both, and make you long happy in each other and in your children! I am sorry to say that we have another invalid in our party, poor Robinson being very far from well this morning."

"MY DEAR SIR-May I request you to convey to his highness the Maharaja of Tanjor the expression of my best thanks for the kind and gratifying attentions with which his highness has honoured myself and my party during our visit to Tanjor, and the assurance that I shall, through life, continue to recollect with pleasure my introduction to the acquaintance of a prince so much distinguished by his virtues and talents, as well as by his courteous and condescending manners, and the variety of his accomplish

ments.

"I feel much flattered by the manner in which his highness

has been pleased to speak of my offer to superintend the education of the Prince Sewajee, in the event of his being willing to give me the pleasure of his company in my present tour, and afterwards to accompany me to Calcutta. I regret extremely, though I fully feel and appreciate the causes which render this arrangement at present impossible. But I beg you, at the same time, to state to his highness that, should the improved health of the prince, or a better season of the year, make her highness the Ranee less reluctant to part with him for a time, it would be my study to make his stay in Calcutta as agreeable and useful to him as possible, both by directing his studies, and introducing him to the most distinguished society of the place; and that in health, and every other respect, I would take the same care of him as I should, under similar circumstances, of a son of my own sovereign.

"I beg you, at the same time, to offer my best compliments and good wishes to his highness and Prince Sewajee.-Believe me, dear sir, your obliged and faithful humble servant,

"REGINALD CALCUTTA."

Heber's last letter to one of his attached friends was written to Wilmot Horton, the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. After sketching the character and pursuits of Maharaja Serfojee1 and the prospects of his son Sewajee, whom he would fain have rescued from being doomed all his life 2 to doing nothing but "chew betel, sit in the zanana, and pursue the other amusements of the common race of Hindoo princes," Heber leaves us this portrait of Schwartz.

"TRICHINOPOLY, 1st April 1826.

"MY DEAR WILMOT-. . . Of Schwartz and his fifty years' labour among the heathens, the extraordinary influence and popularity which he acquired, both with Musalmans, Hindoos, and contending European governments, I need give you no account, except that my idea of him has been raised since I came into the south of India. I used to suspect that, with many admirable qualities, there was too great a mixture of intrigue in his character, that he was too much of a political prophet, and that the venera

1 Serfojee died in 1832, and was succeeded by Sewajee, on whose death, in 1855, without male heirs, direct or collateral, the titular dignity became extinct.

2 Compare with Alexander Duff's in his Life, vol. ii. chap. xix.

tion which the heathen paid, and still pay him, and which indeed almost regards him as a superior being, putting crowns and burning lights before his statue, was purchased by some unwarrantable compromise with their prejudices. I find I was quite mistaken. He was really one of the most active and fearless, as he was one of the most successful missionaries who have appeared since the Apostles. To say that he was disinterested in regard to money is nothing; he was perfectly careless of power, and renown never seemed to affect him, even so far as to induce even an outward show of humility. His temper was perfectly simple, open, and cheerful, and in his political negotiations (employments which he never sought for, but which fell in his way) he never pretended to impartiality, but acted as the avowed, though certainly the successful and judicious agent of the orphan prince entrusted to his care, and from attempting whose conversion to Christianity he seems to have abstained from a feeling of honour. His other converts were between 6000 and 7000, besides those which his predecessors and companions in the cause had brought

over.

"The number is gradually increasing, and there are now in the south of India about 200 Protestant congregations, the numbers of which have been sometimes vaguely stated at 40,000. I doubt whether they reach 15,000, but even this, all things considered, is a great number. The Roman Catholics are considerably more numerous, but belong to a lower caste of Indians, for even these Christians retain many prejudices of caste, and in point of knowledge and morality are said to be extremely inferior. This inferiority, as injuring the general character of the religion, is alleged to have occasioned the very unfavourable eye with which all native Christians have been regarded in the Madras Government. If they have not actually been persecuted, they have been disqualified,' totidem verbis, from holding any place or appointment, whether civil or military, under the Company's Government; and that in districts where, while the native princes remained in power, Christians were employed without scruple. Nor is this the worst-many peasants have been beaten by authority of the English magistrates for refusing, on a religious account, to assist in drawing the chariots of the idols on festival days; and it is only the present Collector of Tanjor who has withheld the assistance of the secular arm from the Brahmans on these occasions. The consequence is that the Brahmans, being limited to voluntary votaries, have now often very hard work to speed the ponderous wheels of Kali and Siva through the deep

lanes of this fertile country. This is, however, still the most favoured land of Brahmanism, and the temples are larger and more beautiful than any which I have seen in Northern India; they are also decidedly older, but as to their very remote age I am still incredulous.

"You will have heard, perhaps, from your brother that I had the pleasure of meeting him in Ceylon. That country might be one of the happiest, as it is one of the loveliest spots in the universe, if some of the old Dutch laws were done away, among which, in my judgment, the chief are the monopoly of cinnamon, and the compulsory labour of the peasants on the high roads, and in other species of corvées. The Kandian provinces, where neither of these exist, seemed to me the most prosperous parts of the country. . . .

"You will perceive, from the date and tenor of my letter, that I am again on my visitation tour; again, too, I am grieved to say, separated from my family. Circumstances had detained me so late at Calcutta that the cool season was quite spent, and it would have been tempting Heaven to take them with me in such a journey at this time of the year. It is, indeed, intensely hot-often from 98° to 100° in the shade; but I could not defer it to another year, and I thank God, continue quite well, though some of my companions have suffered, and I have been compelled to leave my surgeon behind sick at Tanjor.1 My chaplain I feared yesterday must have remained there also, but he has now rallied. I am compelled to pass on in order to get to Travancore, where I have much curious discussion before me with the Syrian Christians before the monsoon renders that country impassable. This I hope to accomplish; but meantime the hot winds are growing very oppressive, and must be much worse than they are before I reach Quilon. The hospitality, however, of Europeans in India assures me of house-room at all the principal stations, so that there are not, I think, above 200 miles over which we must trust to the shelter of tents alone.

"Ever your obliged and affectionate friend,

"REGINALD CALCUTTA."

Reginald Heber's last letter was to his wife, and his last written words were for justice to the Native Christians from his own Government.

"Will it be believed, that while the Raja kept his dominions,

1 Mr. Hyne died of an abscess in the liver on 4th April.

Christians were eligible to all the different offices of State, while now there is an order of Government against their being admitted to any employment! Surely we are in matters of religion the most lukewarm and cowardly people on the face of the earth. I mean to make this and some other things which I have seen, a matter of formal representation to all the three Governments of India, and to the Board of Control."

Lord William Bentinck, five years afterwards, extinguished what the historian of British India1 terms this "disreputable anomaly," and now the Hindoos themselves acknowledge that, by their superior character and education, their Christian countrymen are securing for themselves the highest offices open to the natives of India, distancing the Brahmans.2

Sunday, 2nd April, saw St. John's Church, in the Fort of Trichinopoly, crowded by eager worshippers. "With his usual animation and energy, and without any appearance of languor or incipient disease," as his chaplain testifies, Heber preached on that hot morning from the classical passage 1 John v. 6-8-This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ. Shirking no difficulty in the text, glancing with ripe theological scholarship at the Three Heavenly Witnesses, Heber devoted the sermon, which proved to be his last, to enforcing the great subject of his ministry-the evangelical meaning of the Atonement by blood and of Regeneration by the Spirit, for every sinner, and of the new power and duty to live as the children of God.

1 By Regulation in 1831, ordaining that there shall be no exclusion from office on account of caste, creed, or nation. See Marshman's History of India, chap. xxxi.

2 The Right Hon. H. H. Fowler, the Secretary of State for India, gave in the House of Commons in 1894 some very remarkable statistics showing the place which is being taken by natives of India in the government of their country. Thirty years ago, he said, no native held any post of first importance; now, out of 898 positions in the higher branches of the civil service, they occupy 93; there is one native judge in each of the High Courts of Justice; there are 2000 native magistrates; and of the 37,350 subordinate posts, they hold the vast majority. By his Report of the Public Service Commission (Calcutta, 1888), 1886-87, of which he was President, the Hon. Sir C. U. Aitchison, M.A. (Oxford), LL.D. (Edinburgh), K.C.S.I., C.I.E., thus completed his life's services to the people of India. The fullest details and statesmanlike recommendations will be found there. Most of them have been since carried into effect.