'T^ M K LIFE
Al.LXANT'>FR DLir. D
D.
GKORGH SMITH, C.\.K, \J I.;.
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THE LIFE
OF
ALEXANDER DUFF, D.D., LLD.
BY
GEORGE SMITH, CLE., LL.D..
AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF JOHN WILSON, D.D., F.R.S.,"
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL AND STAIISTICAL
SOCIETIES, ETC.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D.
IN ^ J VOLUMES.
WITH PORTRAITS BY JEENS.
VOL. I.
NEW YORK:
A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON,
TORONTO :
JAMES CAMPBELL & SON.
TO
THE PEOPLES OF INDIA
IS INSCRIBED
THIS LIFE OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY
WHOSE LATEST PUBLISHED WORDS WERE THESE:
*'WnERE7ER I WANDER, WHEREVER I STAT, MY HEART IS IN INDIA, IN
DEEP SYMPATHY WITH ITS MULTITUDINOUS INHABITANTS, AND IN EARNEST
LONGINGS FOR THEIR HIGHEST WELFARE IN TIME AND IN ETERNITTJ*
tb~'f^V^
This volume tells the story of the earlier half of
Dr. DufiTs life of nearly seventy-two years. Of the
Scottish Mission to India, which will see its jubilee
reached at the close of this year, the history is
brought down to 1843. The acknowledgment of
the assistance of friends, which the author has not
been able to make in the text, he hopes adequately
to express in the Preface to the whole work, when
the second volume shall appear.
The Rev. Principal Harper, D.D. and the Rev.
George Lewis have been removed by death as the
sheets have passed through the press.
Sebampore House, Merchiston,
Edinburgh, 28th A^ril, 1879.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER L
1 806-1 829.
The Boy and the Student
CHAPTER II.
1829.
The First Missionauy of the Cuurch of Scotlain.
CHAPTER III.
1830.
TlIK Two SuinVBECKS .
PAGES
1-32
33-04.
65-85
Calcutta as it was
The Mine Prepared
CHAPTER IV.
1830.
• * • •
CHAPTER V
1830-1831.
CHAPTER VL
i83i-i833-
The First Explosion and the Pour Converts
86-103
104-130
137-177
CHAPTER VII.
i833-J83S-
The Renais-sance in India — The English Language
AND the Church 178-205
CHAPTER VIII.
1833-1835.
The Renaissance in India — Science and Letters . 200-232
Vlll
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
1832-1835. PA0K8
Woiuc FOB Eunoi'KANa, Eurasians and NativI'I Christians 233-270
CHAPTER X.
•835.
TiiK Invalid and the Orator . .
'1-304
CHAPTER XL
1 83 5- 1 836.
l)l{. DlIFK ORdANIZINU
. 805-33!)
CHAPTER XII.
1837-1839-
Fishers op Men
. 840-387
CHAPTER XIII.
1 839- 1 840.
Eqypt — Sinai — TBomiuy — Madras .
388-424
CHAPTER XIV.
1841.
Fighting the Governor-General .
. 425-441
CHAPTER XV.
1841-1843.
The College and its Spiritual Fruit .
. 442-478
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Dr. Duff at Thirty
Calcutta .
Frontispiece
To face page 89
INTKODUCTION.
Alexandeii Ditkf, as tlic poniHal of tluH {idmirable
niomoir will inaki; a[)par<'iit, w;ih one of i\w. most vun-
iKMit of modern missi,,iiai'ies. TTis name will go down
to posterity witli those of William IJurns and David
Livingstone, as togetlun* constituting "the thrcse migh-
tics" of the noble band of Scottish worthies whose la-
bors in the fields of heathenism have given lustre to the
amials of our century. Others might be ranked among
the thirty ; but they were " the first three," each of
whom was distinguished by making a new departure in
the great enteiprise to which they had all devoted
themselves.
Livingstone saw that if anything was to be really
done for Africa, the slave-trade — that open sore of the
world — must be got rid of, and in order to secure that,
as well as other things of importance, he entered upon
these exploring expeditions which have made his name
imperishable. Burns, upon perceiving the prejudice of
the Chinese against foreigners of every sort, and finding
his European dress a hindrance in the prosecution of his
work, deliberately adopted the costume of the people
among whom he labored, became as a Chinaman to the
Chinese, and left a name at the mention of which t\Q
hearts of multitudes, both in Scotland and in China, are
ix
X INTRODUCTION.
quickened as Ly some potent spell, for they knew Mm
as their spiritual father. Duif, seeing that the false
science of the so-called sacred books of India was in-
separably connected with their religious teaching, came
to the conclusion that the thorough education of the
Hindoos would be subversive of the native superstitions.
He, therefore, not A\nthout the risk of being misunder-
stood by the committee at home, deliberately adopted
what may be called the educational plan. How that
was carried out by him, and the influence which he ex-
erted on education in India through Lord William
Bentinck, Sir Chai-les Trevellyan, and the young com-
missioner ^mIio was afterwards to become better known
as Lord Macaulay, is set forth with sufficient distinct-
ness in these j)ages. He was an uncompromising ad-
vocate of that which he believed to be right, and his
eloquence, alike in Calcutta and in Scotland, often car-
ried all before it. On his first return to his native land
he was virtually put, by the objections of many, upon
his own defence, and the speech which he delivered on
that occasion, in the General Assembly, has always been
referred to as one of the grandest specimens of sacred
eloquence. The ten years' conflict was then at its
height, but Moderates and Evangelicals alike laid down
their arms to listen, even as the hostile hosts at Tala-
vera forgot their enmity as together they drank from
the brook that flowed between their lines.
Thus the work of Duff was as important among the
churches of his native land as it was in India. His
zeal and oratory kindled an amazixig enthusiasm for the
PsTRODUCTION. XI
niissionaiy cause, and liis simple, fervent piety ahvays
preaclied a silent sermon of great power. His visit to
tlie manse of Ellon wrought such a change on the Rev.
James Robertson — the leader of the Moderate party in
the church — that Robertson's biographer does not hesi-
tate to speak of it as a conversion ; and wherever he
went he was recognized as being in veiy deed " a man
of God."
His labors in America are yet remembered with
gratitude and admiration by multitudes among us, wlio
will be glad to have former impressions recalled by the
account which is here given of iiis visit to oar laiid.
And students of Scottish ecclesiastical history will find
in this biography, which spans the fifty years between
Chalmers's professorship of Moral Philosophy at St.
Andrews, and the breaking up of the union negotia-
tions between the disestablished Presbyterian churches,
rich material for their purpose.
We need not do more than refer to the labors of
Duif in later yeai's as the Convener of the Foreign Mis-
sion Committee of the Free Church, and the first Profes-
sor of Evangelistic Theology in its college. To the last
he was a man of power, tall and stalwai't in form,
easily distinguishable, in later years, by his flowing
beard of silvery whiteness, he was always an object of
interest to the visitor to the Free Assembly, and though
the volcanic fire of his old eloquence had largely burnt
itself out, it occasionally flamed forth even then in such
a way as to give one some idea of its former brightness.
It is always difticult to convey an ade<piate impression
Xll INTRODUCTION.
of eloquence to those who have not heard it, and it may
be that tlie accounts here given of that of Duff may
seem to be exaggerated. But let the jeader remember
til at the essence of oratory is too volatile and subtle to
linger on the printed page. A far better test than the
reported speech is found in the permanent effects which
it produced, and judged by that tlie eloquence of Duff
must have been second only to that of Chalmers ; for if
the Free Churcli of Scotland was tlie result of the one,
the Indian Missions, both of the Established and Free
Churches, were as really the fruit of the other.
But enough. It seems to me to savor of presumption
that I should even thus allude to one whose " praise is
in all the churolies," and my only apology for writing
tliese sentences must be that I am glad of having my
name associated in any lowliest manner with that of one
of the greatest missionaries of his age.
W. M. T.
December, i879.
LIFE
OF
ALEXANDER DUFE, D.D., LL.D.
CHAPTER I.
1806-1829.
THE BOY AND THE STUDENT,
Alexander DuflTs spiritual Ancestry. — The Prince of the English
Evangfclicals and the Prince of Llissionaries. — James Duff" and
Jean Rattray. — Auchnaliyle and the Cottage at Balnakeilly. —
]jcn-i-vrackie, Pitloclirie, and Killiecrankie Pass. — The Duff
Chuich and tlio Duff Tombstone. — Portrait of a Cottage Patri-
arch. — Dugald Buchanan and David Hume. — Gaelic poems of
"The Skull," and "The Day of Judgment."— Alexander Duff's
First Dream. — The Call in his Second Vision. — Early School-
masfers. — Lost in the Snowstorm of 1819. — A year with Moncur
at Perth Grammar School. — Influence of " The Paradise Lost." —
St. Andrews University as it was. — Pictures of the Student by
surviving Contemporaries. — Five years of Thomas Chiilmers. —
The St. Andrews University ^lissionary Society. — Letter to
Dr. Chalmers. — Alexander Duff", M.A. — Licensed to preach the
Gospel.
rjlHE spiritual ancestry of Alexander Duflf it is not
-'- difficult to trace to Charles Simeon. Heredity,
even on its physical side, is a mystery which modern
science has as yet failed to explain. Much more difficult
is it to discover all that is comprehended in the in-
fluences through which the character receives its motive
power and peculiar colouring. It was the remark of
6
2 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1806.
Duff himself, when, in the fulness of his fame, ho
solemnly congratulated a young friend on a firstboi'n
son, that in nothing is the sovereignty of God so clearly
seen as in the birth of a child ; the fact, the sex, the
circumstances, the bent. To be at all, is much ; to be
this rather than that is, to the individual, more : but to
be the subject and the channel of a diviuo force such
as has made the men who have reformed the world,
in the days from the apostlcB to tlie greatest modern
missionaries, is so very much more, that we may well
look in every case for the signs which lie about their
infancy. In this case these signs are near the sur-
face. It was through the prince of the Evangelicals of
the Church of England that, unconsciously to both,
grace flowed, at one remove, to the distant Highland
boy of the Presbyterian kirk, who became the prince
of Evangelical missionaries. And the grace was the
same in both for it was marked by the catholicity of
true Evangelicalism, which is not always found in
the sectarian divisions and strifes of the Eeformed
Churches.
It was just after that conversation of his which
proved to be the foundation of the Church Missionary
Society that, in 1790, the accomplished English clergy-
man who filled the pulpit of Trinity Church, Cambridge,
was induced to make his first tour through Scotland.
At Dunkeld, Simeon tells us, his horses were at the
door to take liim on to the Pass of Killiccrankie, with
the intention of at once turning back to that gate of
the Highlands in order to hurry on to Glasgow. But
" I felt myself poorly, I ordered them back and pro-
ceeded to Killiccrankie the next day. At Moulin, a
village four miles from K., I called to see a Mr. Stew-
art." In that visit was the seed of Alexander Duffs
higher life. Having seen the pass, Simeon returned to
assist Mr. Stewart, who was the parish minister, at
yl^t. I. CHARLES SIMEON AND ALEXANDER DUFF. 3
the Lord's supper. Their intercourse resulted in an
iinmediate change in the preaching of a man of high
repute for amiabiUty and learning, but, like the young
Cliahners afterwards, '*very defective in his view of
the gospel and in his cxporie- co of its power." From
that moment Stewart '' changed the strain of his
preacliing, determining to know nothing among his
people but Jesur Christ and Ilim crucified."
Years afterwards, as Simeon looked back on that
visit to Scotland, and saw how in Moulin, at Dingwall,
and then in the Canongatc of Edinburgh, Dr. Stewart
was made a living power to the souls of men and
women, he blessed God for the indisposition which had
kept him back at Duukeld, and so liad sent him to
MouHn. This, and the results of his preaching for
Dr. Colquhoun in Leitli, led the Evangelical whom
the University then despised and his own brethren
condemned for preaching in non- Anglican churches, to
write, "amongst the many blessings which God vouch-
safed to me in those journeys, there were two in par-
ticular for which I have reason to adore His name."
After this, Simeon sent out to India the men, liko
David Brown and Henry Martyn, who, as chaplains
and missionaries, formed the salt of the infant empire.
He soon saw, also, one of tlie noblest of evangelizing
agencies established, the Church Missionary Society ;
and he had helped the London Missionary Society, fruit-
ful parent of similar organizations in Great Britain,
America and Germany. But the far-reaching conse-
quences of that day's work in Moulin he had not
dared to dream of.
Among Stewart's parishioners, of whom he had told
Simeon there are " few real Christians whom I can
number in my parish," were two young people, who
were not long in experiencing the new electric thrill
which showed itself in more than one revival such as a
4 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1 806.
few of the most aged villagers recall with fond memory
at the present day. James Duff and Jean Kattray
were under seventeen when Simeon preached wliat he
at the time bewailed as his barren and dull sermon.
Gaelic was the prevailing language of the district ;
few knew English. But what the English of Simeon
began, the Gaelic of Stewart continued, and James
Duff was equally master ol both languages. In due
time he married Jean Uattray and took her to the
farm of Auchnahyle. There Alexander Duff was born
to them, on the 25th April, 1806. Removing thence
soon after somewhat nearer Moulin, the boy's child-
hood and early youth was spent in and around a
picturesque cottage on the estate of Baluakeilly. No
trace remains of the old house of Auchnahyle, a new
one having been built on its site. All the missionary's
early reminiscences were identified with the cottage
at Balnakeilly, still standing and but little changed,
among the woods that slope up from the old north
road before it enters Moulin from Dunkeld.
And here, as he himself once wrote, " amid scenery
of unsurpassed beauty and grandeur, I acquired early
tastes and impulses which have animated and in-
fluenced me through life." To its natural beauty of
hill, wood and water, on which the artist's eye loves to
rest, there is now added the memory of him whose
whole genius was coloured by the surroundings, and
who, when the shadow of death was darkening over
him, delighted to recall the dear father-house. It is
the centre of Scotland. Rising gently some two
miles to the north-east, Ben-i-vrackie reaches a height
of 2,800 feet. Thence the young eye can descry
Arthur's Seat which guards Edinburgh, and, in the
far north of Aberdeenshire, the mightier Bens of
Nevis and Macdhui. The house is beautifully placed
in an open glade, with a brattling mountain stream
JEt. I. DUFf's DESCRimON OF HIS BIRTnPLACE. 5
on either side, and a wealth of weeping birch, ash,
lurch, and young oak trees, which, in the slanting
niitumn sun, seem to surround the cottage with a
setting of gold. Twice in after years, with a loving
and eloquent fondness, was he led to describe the
place and the father who trained lim there. When
in Calcutta, in 18G0, ho observed in the Witness news-
paper an advertisement soliciting subscriptions for a
new Free Church for the parish, which the altered
times made it desirable to erect in the neighbouring
railway town of Pitlochrie, he thus wrote in a public
appeal : —
" The parish of Moulin, fairly within the Grampians,
embraces the central portion of the great and noble
valley of Athole, watered by the Tummel and the
Garry, with several glens and straths stretching con-
siderably to the north. The great north road from
Dunkeld to Inverness passes through the southerly
section of the parish, along the banks of the fore-
named rivers. About a mile to the north of this road,
and wholly concealed from it by intervening knolls and
ridges, lies the village of Moulin, in a hollow or basin,
once partly the bed of a lake, but now drained and
turned into fertile corn-fields, with the ruins of an old
castle in the middle of them. Formerly the half,
probably the greater half of the population lay to the
north, north-west, and north-east of the village. But
things are very much altered now. From the enlarge-
ment of farms entire hamlets have been removed, and
the cottars in most villages in these directions greatly
reduced in number ; while one glen has been Avholly,
and more than one to a considerable extent depopu-
lated, to make way for sheep-walks."
The Pitlochrie portion of his native parish he de-
scribed as " slightly elevated on rolling ridges above
the Tummei, which, after its junction with the Garry
6 LIFE OP DR. DUFP. i8o6.
a littlo above, flows on to join tUo Tay a few miles
fartlier down ; with the country all around richly
wooded, while free from all marshy ground and
cultivated like a garden ; encompussed on all sides,
and at no great distance, with swelling hills and craggy
precipices, and the sharp pointed peaks of the lofty
Ben-i-vrackie towering up almost immediately behind
it; placed, also, within a mile or two of the celebrated
Pass of Killiecrankie, which is bounded on the east
by Fascally, with its enchanting scenery including the
Falls of Tummel, and on the west by the battle-field
on which Lord Dundee, ' the Bloody Clavers,' the
relentless scourge of Scotland's true patriot worthies,
the heroes of the Covenant, and the last hope of the
Stewart dynasty, fell mortally wounded in the hour of
victory; and which itself furnishes to the true lover
of nature's works a variety of views altogether un-
surpassed in their combination of the beautiful, the
picturesque, the romantic, and the sublime."
The Duff Church now stands in Pitlochrie as the
solitary memorial there of the man who has given a
new and higher interest to that portion of the Gram-
pian range than any of its sons. No ; not the only
memorial. There is another, a tombstone in the
Moulin kirk-yard, " erected as a grateful tribute to
the memory of his pious parents ... by their af-
fectionate son, Alexander Duff." When, early in
1848, he heard in Calcutta of his father's death, he
sent to Dr. Tweedie a prose elegy on that cottage
patriarch, which, undesignedly, enables us to trace the
spiritual influence as it had flowed through Simeon,
Stewart, and the good old Highlander to the son,
who had been then for nearly twenty years the fore-
most missionary in India.
*' If ever son had reason to thank God for the
prayers, the instructions, the counsels, and the con-
^.t. I. duff's description of his father. 7
sistont examples of a devoutly pious father, I am that
son. Thougli sent from home for my education at
the early age of eight, and thougli very little at homo
ever after, the sacred and awakening lessons of in-
fancy were never wholly forgotten; and, in tlie absence
of moulding influences of regenerating grace, the
feni' of offending a man who inspired me in earliest
boyhood with sentiments of profoundest reveretico and
love towards himself, as a man of God, was for many
a year the overmastering principle which restrained
my erring footsteps and saved mo from many of tho
overt follies and sins of youth. Oiiginally aroused to
a sense of sin and the necessity of salvation, when a
young man, under the remarkable ministry of the lato
Dr. Stewart of Moulin, and afterwards of Dingwall,
and the Canon gate, my father was led to flee for refiigo
to the hope set before him in the gospel. And tho
spark of light and life then enkindled in his soul, far
from becoming dim amid the still surviving corruptions
of the ' old man ' within, and the thick fogs of a carnal
earthly atmosphere without, continued ever since to
shine more and more with increasing intensity and
vividness. In the days of his health and strength, and
subsequently as of ten as health and strength permitted,
he was wont to labour much for the spiritual improve-
ment of his neighbourhood, by the kee[)ing or super-
intending of Sabbath schools, and the holding of weekly
meetings, at his own house or elsewhere, for prayer
and scriptural exposition. In prayer he was indeed
mighty — appearing at times as if in a rapture, caught
up to the third heavens and in full view of the beatific
vision. In the practical exposition and home-thrusting
enforcement of Scripture truth he was endowed with
an uncommon gift. In appealing to the conscience,
and in expatiating on the bleeding, dying love of the
Saviour he displayed a power before which many have
8 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1806.
been melted and subdued — findinj* immediate relief
only in sobs and tears — and being ecpially fluent in the
Gaelic and Knglisli languages, he could readily adapt
himself to the requirements of such mixed audiences
as the [lighlam'.i usually furnish.
" lu addressing the young ho was wont to manifest
a wiiming and affectionate tenderness, which soon
riveted the attention and captivated the feelings. His
very heart seemed to yearn through his eyes as he
imploi'Cil them to beware of the enticement of sinners,
and pointed to the outstretched arms of the Redeemer.
Seizing on some Bible narrative or incident or miracle
or parable, or proverb or emblem, ho would * picture
out ' one or other of these so as to leave a clear
and definite image on the youthful mind. And when
he fairly entered on the full spirit of some stirring
theme, such as Abraham's offering of his son Isaac, or
Jesus weei)ing over infatuated Jerusalem ; or when,
piercing through the outer folds, lie laid bare the
latent significance of some rich and beautiful emblem,
such as the * Rose of Sharon,' the ' Lily of the Valley,*
or the great ' Sun of Righteousness,' his diction
would swell into somewhat of dramatic energy, and
his illustrations into somewhat of the vividness and
sensible reality ; while his voice, respondent to the
thrilling within, would rise into something like the
undulations of a lofty but irregular chant, and so
vibrate athwart the mental imagery of the heart, and
leave an indelible impression there.
*' Next to the Bible my father's chief delight was in
studying the works of our old divines, of which, in
time-worn editions, he had succeeded in accumulat-
ing a goodly number. These, he was wont to say,
contained more of the ' sap and marrow of the gospel'
and had about them more of the * fragrance and fla-
vour of Paradise,' than aught more recently produced.
^t, ,. A COTTAGE TATRIAnOn. 9
Ilalyburtoii's 'Memoirs' was a prime favouriho; but
of all nieroly human productious, no one secMUod to
stir and animato his whole soul like the * Cloud of
Witnesses.' And he took a special pains to saturate
the minds of his children with its contents. Ills
habit was orrlly to tell us of the manner in which the
Papacy corrupted God's word and persecuted God's
people. lie would show us pictures of the enginery
and processes of cruel torture. lie then would givo
some short biographical notice of one or other of
the suffering worthies ; and last of all conclude with
reading some of the more striking passages in their
* Last Words and Dying Testimonies.' To tliis early-
training do I mainly owe my * heart-hatred ' of
popery, with any spiritual insight which I possess
into its subtle and malignant genius, its unchanged
and unchangeable anti-christian virulence.
" During his latter days, his answer to every personal
inquiry was, ' I am waiting till my blessed Master call
me to Himself.' His unsparing exposure and denun-
ciation of the follies, levities and vanities of a giddy
and sinful world subjected him, in an uncommon
degree, to the sneers, the ridicule, the contempt and
the calumny of the ungodly. But like his Divino
Master, when reviled he strove not to suffer himself
to revile again. His wonted utterance under such
trials was, ' Poor creatures, they are to be pitied, for
they know not what spirit they are of ;' or, ' Ah ! well,
it is only another reason why I should remember them
more earnestly in prayer. The day of judgment will
set all right.' In the sharpness and clearness with
which he drew the line between the merely expedient
and the absolutely right and true ; in his stern adhesion
to principle at all hazards ; in his ineffable loathing
for temporizing and compromise, in any shape or "orm
where the interests of * Zion's King and Zion's cause'
10 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1814.
were concerned ; in his energy of spirit, promptness of
decision, and unbending sturdiliood of cliaracter; in
tlio Abraliam-liko cast of his faith, which manifested
itself in its directness, sii ipHcity, and strength — in all
these and other respects he alwoys appeared to mo to
realize fully as much of my own beau-ideal of the
ancient martyr or hero of the Covenant as any other
man I ever knew. Indeed, had ho lived in the early
ages of persecution, or in Covenanting times, my per-
suasion is tliat ho would have been among the fore-
most in fearlessly facing the tyrant and the torture,
the scaffold and the stake. Oh that a double portion
of his spirit v/ero mine, and that the mantle of his
graces would fall upon mo ! "
This history will show how richly the prayer was
answered; this letter itself does so. But tlic pictures
of the " Cloud of Witnesses" wero not all that fired
the imngiuation of the Highland boy. Like Carey
with liis maps of the heathen world, the father spoko
to his children from such representations of Jugganath
and the gods of India as were rarely met with at that
time. On another occasion the son thus traced tho
specially missionary influences which surrounded him
as a child : " Into a general knowledge of the objects
and progress of modern missions I was initiated
from my earliest youth by my revered father, whoso
catholic spirit rejoiced in tracing the triumph of tho
gospel in different lands, and in connection with the
different branches of the Christian Church. Pictures
of Jugganath and other heathen idols ho was wont
to exhibit, accompanying the exhibition with copious
explanations, well fitted to create a feeling of horror
towards idolatry and of compassion towards the poor
blinded idolaters, and intermixing the whole with
statements of tho love of Jesus."
Another ^f Alexander Duff's early and constant
^^t. 8. CELTIC INFLUENCES. II
sclioolmastcrs out of school was the Gaelic poet,
j)ii<';ild Buchanan, catechist in the neighbouring
liannoch a century before, who has been well de-
scribed as a sort of Highland repetition of John
Ihmyan * in his spiritual experiences. The fire, the
t^low, of the missionary's genius was Celtic by nature
and by training. The fuel that kept the fire from
smouldering away in a passive pensiveness was the
prophetic denunciation, varied only by the subtle irony,
of poems like " Latha Bhreitheanais " — Tlie Dan of
Jinhimeid, and " An Chiigeann "—The Sl-iilL The
boy's great and fearful deliglit was to hear the Gaelic
lamentations and pasans of Buchanan^ which have at-
tained a popidarity second only to the misty visions
of Ossian, read or rehearsed by his father and others
who had committed them to memory. Buchanan is
the man who, when challenged by David Hume to
quote language equal in sublimity to Shakespeare's
well-known lines beginning " The cloud-capt towers,
the gorgeous palaces," gravely recited the Revelation
which opens, " I saw a Great AVhitc Throne," when
the sceptic, admitting its superiority, eagerly inquired
as to its author !
The bard of Rannoch moralizes in lines some of
which, as translated by Professor l^lackie, we quote,
from their applicability to liim whom they so
influenced : —
" I sat all alono,
By a cold grey stone,
And behold a skull lay on the ground !
I took in my hand, and ])iLiful scanned
Its ruin all round and round.
9|( :ic 4(- ;|C 9|(
* ProfcsRoi* J. S. T3Iaclvio on The Laiujuago and Literature of the
Sculttsh lHjhlands. 187G,
12 LTFE OP DR. DUrP. 1814.
" Or wert thou a teacher
Of truth and a preacher,
With niossage of mercy to tell j
With an arm swift and strong
To pull back the throng
That headlong were plunging to hell ?
* 41 « ♦ «
" Or wert thou a wight
That strove for the right,
With God for thy guide iu thy doing ?
Though now thou lie there
All bleached and bare.
In the blast a desolate ruin,
" From the tomb thou shalt rise
And mount to the skies.
When the trump of the judgment shall bray ;
Thy body of sin
Thou shalt slip like a skin.
And cast all corruption away,
" When in glory divine
The Kedeemer shall shine.
The hosts of His people to gather,
When the trumpet hath blared.
Like an eagle repaired
Thou shalfc rise to the home of thy Father."
The more weird and alarming strains of The Day
of Judgment so filled the boy's fancy that, when he
first left home for the Lowlands, he one night dreamed
he saw the signs of the approaching doom. In
vision he beheld nmnbers without number summoned
where the Judge was seated on the Great White
Throne. He saw the human race advance in suc-
cession to the tribunal, he heard sentence pro-
nounced upon men — some condemned to everlasting
punishment, others ordained to everlasting life. He
^t, 8. HIS VISIONS AND HIS CALL. 13
was seized with an indescribablo terror, uncertain
what his own fate would be. The doubt became so
terrible as to convulse his very frame. AVlien his turn
for sentence drew near, the dreamer awoke shivering
verj'' violently. The experience left an indelible im-
pression on his mind. It threw him into earnest
prayer for pardon, and was followed by what he long
after described as something like the assurance of
acceptance through the atoning blood of his Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ.
The next harvest vacation was marked by another
experience of a similar kind, in which those who
keep the ear of the soul open for every whisper of
the divine, will read a-prophetio call in the light of
the boy's future. He had not long before narrowly
escaped drowning in tlie more easterly of the two
streams around the cottage, having been drawn
into it as he was lifting out water from the swollen
torrent, and swirled under the rustic bridge. The
more peaceful westerly burn was the scene of his
second vision. He dreamed, as he lay on its banks
among the blae-berries musing alone, that there shone
in the distance a brightness surpas-^ing that of the
sun. By-and-bye from the great ligat there seemed
to approach him a magnificent chariot of gold
studded with gems, drawn by fiery horses. The
glory overawed him. At last the heavenly chariot
reached his side, and from its open window the
Almighty God looked out and addressed to him, in
the mildest tones, the words, "Come up hither; I
have work for thee to do." In the effort to rise he
awoke with astonishment, and told the dream in all
its details to his parents. Not long before his death,
he repeated it in this fcrtn to his grandson, so deep
and lasting had been the impression. Such a call, be
it the prevision of fancy or the revelation of a gracious
14 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1817.
(Icsliiiy, was a fitting commencement of Alexander
Duff's career, and a very real preparation of liim for
the work lie had to do.
The parish "dominie" of Moulin was an exception-
ally useless teacher, even in those days and under an
" indifferent " Presbytery. Amiable, ingenious, and
even learned, he divided his time between the repair of
watches and violins durino: school hours when the elder
children heard the lessons of the younger, and fishing
in the Tummel when his wife heard all read the Bible
in the kitchen. A father of James Duff's intelligence
and earnestness was sorely perplexed when, in 1814, a
friend invited him to send Alexander to a school
between Dunkeld and Perth, which the neighbouring
farmers, ensfaofed in reclaiming: some wastes of the
Duke of Athole, had established for their children.
After three years of rapid progress, the boy of eleven
was placed in the Kirkraichael school, twelve miles
from Moulin, though not till his father had visited the
teacher with whom Alexander was to board, and had
satisfied himself that there was good ground for his
great reputation all over the country-side. In time
the sluggish Presbytery of Dunkeld awoke to the new
educational light, and a deputation of their number
found Alexander Duff, as the head of the school, put
forward to read the Odes of Horace.
Mr. A. Macdougall was master of Kirkmichael
school. In his family and under his teaching Alex-
ander Duff laid the foundation of a well-disciplined
culture, for which, s^ long as his teacher lived, ho did
not cease to express to him the warmest affection.
Among his fellows were Dr. Duncan Forbes, who
afterwards became Professor of Oriental Languages
in King's College, London; Dr. Tweedie, associated
with the future missionary as convener of the Foreign
Missions Committee of the Free Church of Scotland ;
^t. II. I'OST IN THE SNOW. 1 5
the Rev. Donald Fergusson, still Free Church minister
of Loven ; and the Rev. Mr. Campbell, the present
parish minister of Moulin. Such was the teacher's
iil)ility, and such his well-deserved popularity, that
the thinly peopled parish at one time sent eleven
students to St. Andrews. " I have not forgotten the
days I passed under your roof," wrote Duff when he
liad become famous, to his old master, " nor the
manifold advantages derived from your tuition, and, I
trust, never will. And when the time comes that in
fho good providence of God I shall visit Kirkmichael,
I know that to mo aj least it will be matter of
licartfelt <^iatification." " Wliat would I have been
tliis day," ho wrote again, "had not an overruling
Providence directed mo to Kirkmichael school?" Of
every book and pamphlet which he wrote he sent a
copy to his first benefactor.
Before he left Kirkmichael to pass througli the
then famous grammar school of Perth to St. Andrews
University, he was to carry with him from his home
another experience never to be forgotten.
The winter at the end of 1819 was severe, and
the snow lay deep in the Grampians. The Saturday
liad come round for young Duff's weekly visit to
his parents. Taking the shorter track for ten miles
across the low hill by Glen Briarclian and Strathire,
from Kirkmichael to Moulin, ho and a companion
waded for hoars throuQ^h the snowv heather. The
sun set as they got oui. of the glen, no stars came out,
all landmarks were obliterated, and they knew oidy
that they had to pass between deep morasses and a
considerable tarn. To return was as impossible as it
was dangerous to advance, for already they felt the
ice of the moss-covered pools and then of the lake
cracking under their feet in the thick darkness. Still
going forward, they came to what they took to be
1 6 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1820,
a precipice hidden by the snow-driffc down -whicli
tlioy slid. Then they heard the purling of the burn
which, they well knew, would bring them down the
valley of Athole if they had only light to follow it.
The night went on, and the words with which they
tried to cheer themselves and each other grew fainter,
when exhaustion compelled them to sit down. Then
they cried to God for deliverance. With their heads
resting on a snow-wreath they were vainly trying to
keep their eyes open, when a bright light flashed upon
them and then disappeared. Roused as if by an
electric shock, they ran forward and stumbled against
a garden wall. The light, which proved to be the
flare of a torch used by salmon poachers in the Tura-
mel, was too distant to guide them to safety, but it had
been the means of leadino: them to a cottan^e three
miles from their home. The occupants, roused from
bed in the early morning, warmed and fed the wan-
derers. To Alexander Duff''s parents the deliverance
looked almost miraculous. Often in after years, when
he was in peril or difficulty, did the memory of that
sudden flash call forth new thankfulness and cheerful
hope. Trust in the overruling providence of a gra-
cious God so filled his heart that the deliverance
never failed to stimulate him to a fresh eff'ort in a
righteous cause when all seemed lost.
The boy spent his fourteenth year at Perth Grammar
School, of which Mr. Moncur, the ablest of the
students of John Hunter of St. Andrews, and a born
teacher, had just been made Rector. The flrst act of
the new master was, in presence of the whole school,
to summon the janitor to sink in the Tay the many
specimens of leathern " tawse " of various degrees of
torturing power, which had made his predecessor
feared by generations of boys. With consummate
acting, ho asked why the generous youths entrusted
^t. 14. INFLUENCE OP THE CLASSICS AND MILTON. 1 7
to liim sliould bo treated as savages. He at least had
confidenco in them to this extent, that each would do
liis duty ; and, being the perfect teacher he was, his
confidenco was justified. The scene was never forgot-
ten, and it went far to develop in Duff the power wliicli
fascinated and awed his Bengalee students for many
a year, and made his school and college the firt?t in all
Asia. Under Moncur his Latin and Greek scholarship
had their foundation broadened as well as deepened.
In the favourite optional exercise, now too much
neglected, of committing to memory the master-pieces
of both, he generally came off' first, and thus was
trained a faculty to which much of his oratorical
success afterwards was due. He left Perth at fifteen,
the dux of the school. Yet we question if he carried
away from it anything better than Johnson's "Ram-
bler," which the Rector lent to him for the vacation
before the University term, and especially Milton's
" Paradise Lost." Often in after years did ho refer to
the latter as having, unconsciously at the time, exercised
a great influence over his mental habitudes. He carried
the book constantly in his pocket, and read portions
of it every day. Thus the " Paradise Lost " moulded
his feelings and shaped his thoughts into forms pecu-
liarly his own. The Gaelic Buchanan and the English
Milton, the Celtic fire and the Puritan imagination,
feeding on Scripture story and classic culture, coloured
by such dreams and experiences, and directed by such
a father and a teacher — these were used to send forth
to the world from the bosom of the Grampians a tall
eagle-eyed and impulsive boy of fifteen. Presented
with twenty pounds by his father, from that day he
was at his own charges.
It was a fortunate circumstance that he went to
St. Andrews. Of the four Scottish universities at
that time the most venerable was still the most
c
1 8 LIFE 01' 1)11. nUFP. 182 1.
attractive, from tlic renown of some of its professoi's.
Little, of course, could be said for the schools of
divinity anywhere till Thomas Chalmers went to Edin-
huri^h, aUhough Principal IJaldano was not without
routine ability and goodness, as head of St. Mary's,
the theological college which Canhnal Beaton had
founded. But the other two, known as the United
CVdleges of St. Halvator and St. Leonard, enjoyed the
services of the ripest Latinist at that time in the
United Kingdom, Dr. John Hunter, and of Dr.
Jackson whoso lectures on natural philosophy were
reckoned the most scientific of the day. The reputa-
tion and the influence of even these, however, were con-
fined to their generation compared with that intellec-
tual and spiritual ferment caused by the new professor
of moral i)hilosop]iy, which is still working in the lives
of men and the institutions of his country. When Dr.
Chalmers almost suddenly disappeared from the pulpit
and platform, the wynds and the hovels of Glasgow, and
began the winter session of 1823-2-^l< at St. Andrews
with one lecture, Alexander Duff, having carried off the
highest honours in Greek, Latin, logic, and natural
philosophy, was one of the crowd Avho sat at the great
professor's feet. His Latin had procured fc ^ him the
most valuable of those rewards which Scotland, with
its peculiar mixture of Latin and French theological
and law terms, calls "bursaries," without sufficiently
distinguisliing between the prizes of genuine scholar-
ship guined by hard competition, like Duff's, and the
doles restricted to poor students, often because they
bear the same name or have been born in the same
district as the thoughtless or vain donor. Especially
had he carried off the essay prize offered for the
best translation into Latin of Plato's "Apology of
Socrates," and the Senaius spontaneously dubbed him
Master of Arts.
Jf,t. 15. ST. ANDRRWS AS IT WAS. I9
Tlio impetuous spirit of Du(T received impressions of
tlic theological deadness of St. Andrews, atidof the new
life brouglit to it by Clialmers, which found this ex-
pression, when recalled in the distant scenes of India :
" Poor St. Andrews lay far away, isolated and apart,
in a region so cold that th,o thaw and the breeze, so
relaxing and vivifying elsewhere, scarcely touched its
lianlened soil. The great stream of national progress
flowed past, leaving it undisturbed in its sluggishness.
Tiic breezes of healthful change blew over it, as over
the unruffled surface of a land-locked bay. From all
external influences, even of an ordinary kind, it soemed
entirely shut out. No steamer ever entered its
deserted harbour, with its influx of strangers carry-
ing along with them new tastes, new habits and
new thoughts. No mail-coach or oven common stage-
coach ever distuibed the silence of ts cfrass-grown
streets. Its magistracy was virtually self-elected,
enjoying in perpetuity a quiet monopoly of power.
The Hector, the very guardian and controller of its
University, must be himself one of the existing prin-
cipals or professors of divinity ; and not, as in tlio
case of other Scottish universities, a man beyond tlio
collegiate pale — a man of name, of independency and
power, whoso occasional visitation might tend to shako
the dry bones of dull, deadening, monotonous routine.
Dissent, so rife and flourishing elsewhere, could barely
show itself in the nerveless impotence of creeping
infancy. And even the rising spirit of the missionary
enterprise could only faintly struggle, and that too in
the bosoms of but a few, not. for life but for a sickly
weary existence, just as the palm or other rich pro-
duct of tropical climes might for a time be seen pain-
fully struggling for existence on a bleak Grampian
heath.
" Such was the condition of St. Andrews, — a con-
20 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1823.
dition in which the gfiiinb spirit of the eighteenth
century, mantled till over with the deadly night-shade,
was felt still shooting his baleful breath far into the
nineteenth, — a condition in which the policy and the
power of * moderate ' ascendancy were comparatively
unmodified and unchanged, when, in the spring of
1823, it was suddenly announced that Dr. Chalmers
was unanimously elected by the Senatus Academicus
to the vacant chair of Moral Philosophy. And when
it is remembered that at that time not one member
of the Senatus belonged to the evangelical party in
the Church, that all were moderate and some of them
intensely so, and that Principal Nicoll was even the
acknowledged leader of the moderate party in the
General Assembly ; it may well bo imagined how tlio
unexpected announcement was received with mingled
feelings of surprise and delight — surprise at the choice
of such a man. by such an elective body, delight that
the choice should have fallen on one so transcendently
worthy. Indeed, * delight ' is far too feeble and in-
adequate a term to express the full gust of pleasurable
emotion which instantaneously followed the announce-
ment, and speedily diffused itself through the whole
community. It was rather a burst of high-wrought
enthusiasm. Of some it might truly be said that they
believed not for very joy.
" Doubtless the sources of this joy were of an ex-
ceedingly varied and mingled description. Visions of
temporal aggrandizement already floated before the
minds of the townspeople, then sadly steeped in secu-
larity and religious indifference. Without commerce,
without manufacture or any leading branch of indus-
trial occupation, their very existence might bo said to
depend on the University. And in the presence of
such a * celebrity ' as Dr. Chalmers, they were sharp
enough to behold such a nucleus of attraction for
ylit. 17. 'i'UI^ COMING OF CUALMEI18 TO ST. ANDREWS. 21
btialcnts and strangers generally, that his residence
jiiiiongst them might fairly bo regarded as equivalent
to an increase of thousands of pounds to their scanty
niinual income. Again, many of the iidiabitants, alike
of town and countiy, had numberless traditionary
local anecdotes and recollections of him as a boy, a
student, a lecturer on mathematics and chemistry, and
lastly, as the eccentric minister of the neighbouring
parish of Kilmany. And to receive him back again
amongst them, in the full blaze of an unparalleled
popularity, they felt to bo like the shedding of some
nndetinable radiance on themselves. Tiie few, the
very few, scattered and almost hidden ones of piety
and prayer, hailed tho event with feelings somewhat
akin to those of him who beheld the cloud laden with
its watery treasure rise and swell from the west, after
a long and dreary season of parching drought. As
for the students, however careless or unconcerned as
to purely spiritual interests, they were, without any
known exception and with all the honest fervour of
youth, enraptured at tho thought of having for a
professor a man of genius, and the greatest pulpit
orator of his age. The dull dead sea of former apathy
and inertness was suddenly stirred up from the depths
by the rush and impulse of new and unwonted excite-
ment. For many dajs they could think of nothing
else, and speak of nothing. The third volume of
' Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk,' with its portrait and
graphic delineation of Dr. Chalmers, obtained from
the college library, was well-nigh torn and shattered
from tho avidity for its perusal. Already did every
one picture to himself the form of the man with his
pale countenance and drooping eyelids ; his mathe-
matical breadth of forehead with its ' arch of imaofina-
tiouj' surmounted by a grand apex of high and solemn
veueiation and love. Already, with anticipated breath-
23 LIl'E OF Dll. DL'l'F. 182J.
Icssncss, (lid ojicli otio scoin, in fancy, as if ho felt lii3
Tierves creeping jukI vibrating, and his l)l()od i'lvcz-
ing and boiling, when the elocpienco of tho niiglity
enchant(»r, bursting through all conventional trannnela,
shono forth in all tho splendour of its overpowering
glories.
" At length the time of his installation canio round.
In November, 1823, ho delivered his inaugund lecture
in the lower hall of the public lil)rary, still called tho
' Parliament Hall,* as there, in IGI'5, the Covenanting
1 Parliament assembled which tried and condemned
Sir Robert Spottiswood and other royalists for their
share in the battle of rhili[)haugh." Dr. ITanna has
told tho rest in tho memoirs of his great father-in-
law.
Such wcro tho professors. And what tho students ?
There had followed Duff to St. Andrews an old school-
fellow from Perth, John Urcpdiart, with whom ho
shared the same lodgings, and, morning and evening,
engaged in the same worship. Unpdiart was a Con-
gj'egationalist, as were also John Adam and W. Lind-
say Alexander, who is still spared to the ('hurch, and
has written this bright sketch of Duff in their student
days: "When I first became ac(puunted with him
he was in all the vigour and freshness of early youth,
stalwart in frame, buoyant of spirit, full of energy
and enthusiasm, impulsive but not rash, a diligent and
earnest student, and already crowned with academic
distinctions earned by success in different depart-
ments of learned and scientific study, llis reputation
stood high as a classical scholar, and he had gained
several prizes for essays in literature and philosophy.
Subsequently to the time of which I am speaking, he
gained equal distinction as a Hebrew scholar, and his
essays in theology commanded the strongest approba-
tion from his professors. Already also as a speaker,
^],:t ,7. AS A STUDKNT IN ST. ANDIJKWS. 23
li(> li:i(l in (lel)ii(inj^ fiociotios, and snbsoqucntly by liis
discourses in tlio IMicoloirical I lull, displayed that
intclk'ctiial [)o\vcr and that rare gift of elo(|UCMico
wliicli enabled him in after-years so niii^ditily to sway
the emotions, giiido the opinions, and iiitliieiico tho
decisions of others, in deliberative councils no less
than in ])opular assemblies."
Que of his juiuors, the son of Professor Ferric, and
now tlie Rev. AV^illiam Ferric, in the State of New
York, gives ns this other and very human gliuipsc of
ilic iuipeluous student: — "lie was passing the win-
tlows of my father's house in St. Andrews with others
innu(r to some great students' meeting, and 1 remember
Nairnc, who was theti my tutor, called out as they
passed, 'There is Duff.' I looked, and ho had on a
cloak, and was going Avith a good thick stick in liis
hand, as though ho expected that there might bo a
row." The Rev. J. ^V. Taylor, of Flisk, whose first
year at college was Duff's last, writes : " Though out-
rageously thoughtless I was much impressed l)y Duff.
There was a weight and a downi'ight earnestness
about him which everybody felt. lie was the l)oast
of the college, ''nd was greatly regarded by the towns-
folk of St. Andrews. His ap[)earancc as ho passed
with Imri'icd step is indelibly photographed on my
niiiid, and is thus put in my * Historical Antiquities '
of the city. * That tall figure, crossing tho street and
looking thoughtfully to the ground, stooped somewhat
ill tho shoulders and his hand awkwardly grasping
the lappet of his coat, is Alexander Duff, tho pride of
tlio college, whoso mind has received the impress of
Chalmers's big thoughts and tho form of his phrase-
ology. Under Chalmers, ho was, in St. Andrews, tlic
institutor of Sabbath schools and the originator of
the Students' Missionary Societ3^' " Another survivirig
fellow-student, Dr. A. M'Laren, the minister of Kem-
34 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1824.
back, near Cupar, describes him thus: — " As a friend he
was alwa^'^s singularly obliging, warm-hearted and con-
stant ; as a companion he was uniformly agreeable and
cheerful, and not unfrequently impressive in his appeals
to the better susceptibilities of our nature; though
generally in high spirits and mirthful, he never allowed
his mirth to degenerate into boisterous vulgarity."
Yv hat the lad was at St. Andrews, the man proved to
bo all through his life. He was high-minded, generous
and chivalrous with the bearing of the old school, and
that not less after his hours of controversy than in his
happiest times.
The first session was not over when the great
Christian economist, the expounder of Malthus and
Ricardo, who had transformed the worst wynds of
Glasgfow, bef?an the humblest mission work in the more
ancient city, and threw himself into the then despised
cause of foreign missions. Duff's young spiritual life,
which had been slumbering into formalism, he tells us,
was quickened with that burning enthusiasm which
glowed the brighter to his dying day. His friends,
Urquhart and Adam, took steps to offer themselves to
the London Missionary Society for China and Calcutta ;
and llobert Nesbit went to his friend John Wilson, of
Lauder, begging him to break the news to his motlier
that he was to be sent by the Scottish Missionary
Society to Bombay. It is not surprising that these,
and such companions as the late Henry Craik, of
Bristol, Mr. Midler's colleague; William Tait, son of
the godly Edinburgh minister who was deposed in the
Row heresy case ; and Mv. Scott Moncrieff, late of
Penicuik, met with Duff in the session of 1824-5, and
founded the Students' Missionary Society. Duff was
its librarian, Nesbit its secretary, and R. Trail its
president, as having originated an earlier society of
divinity students only. Their object was to study
^t..i8. THE STUDENTS MISSIONARY SOCIETr. 25
foreign missions, so as to satisfy themselves of the
necessities of the world outside of Christendom. IS^ot
a room for their meetings would the authorities of
either college, or the magistrates who had charge of
the city school, allow them, until, some time after, the
principal and professors were enlightened so far as to
subscribe an occasional guinea. And that in spite
of all the influence of Chalmers, who fed the spirit of
the students and interested the townsfolk in the cause
by lecturing on some portion of the field of heathenism
once a month in the town-hall. This society, note-
worthy in the history of Scottish Missions as the
fruitful parent of the most apostolic missionaries of
the country, met first in an adventure school in a
dingy lane of St. Andrews.
The Memoir of Urquhart, who passed away all too
early from the work for which he was preparing, reveals
at once the depth of Duff's friendship, in the letters
and in the preface to the third edition of 18G9, and
the very practical forms of mission study and prayer
followed by the members. When Urquhart, in his
concluding address, solemnly announced for the first
time his personal dedication to missionary work, and
charged every one of his fellows to take this matter
into most serious consideration, his friend Duff re-
ceived a deep and solemn impression. But books,
essays, and even the lectures of Chalmers, were not
all. In those days the giants of the early societies
occasionally came home with news of victory in the
high places of the field, with plans of further cam-
paigns, with appeals for recruits. When Urquhart
startled his companions by that announcement into
following his exam.ple, ne had just returned from a visit
to the great missionary, Dr. Morrison, then in London,
from whom he had been taking lessons in Chinese.
Dr. Chalmers kept open house for all such in St.
26 LlFli 01' mi. DUFF. 1828.
Andrews, to which his sympathy with them as well
as his fame attracted them. Thus the students saw
Dr. Marshman, who was full of the enterprise of 1818,
when ho and Carey had opened, in Serampore, the first
English and Sanscrit college for native missionaries
and educated Hindoos. Dr. Morrison in due time
came north, to plead for IIong-Kong and Canton,
to which his labours were then confined; to tell of
his triumphs iu Biblo translating and dictionary
making, and to give some account of the ten thousand
Chinese books which he had brought home. And
from Calcutta there might be seen, at the lively break-
fast table of the renowned professor of moral philo-
sophy, the spare form of that Sanscrit and Bengalee
pundit. Dr. Yates, alternating between attacks on
Church establishments and expositions of Brahmanical
subtleties, or listening to the professor's emphatically
expressed opinion that religious societies should bo
managed by laymen, while ministers confine themselves
to the more spiritual duties of their ofifice.* John
Urquhart was right when he Avrote that the colleges
of St. Andrews, under all these influences, had become
like those of Oxford in the days of Ilervey and Wesley.
Reckoning up the fruits of the influence of Chalmers
for five years on the three hundred students who
passed through his classes, his accomplished biographer
exclaims : — " More than one missionary for each col-
lege session — two out of every hundred students —
what other University record can present a parallel ! "
The six were Nesbit, Adam, Duff and Urquhart, and
Mackay and Ewart who followed them. Dr. Hanna,
remarks of Duff, that the life and labours of this prince
of missionaries proved how truly and how intensely he
• Dr. Hanna's Memoirs of Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D., vol.
iii., p. 15'i, note.
^t. 22. LETTER TO DR. CHALMERS. 27
was impelled to tread in the footsteps and to imitate
the noble pattern of his great teacher.
It was on the 19th October, 1828, that Dr. Chalmers
made this entry in his journal : — " Enjoyed my last
Sunday at the beautiful garden of St. Leonard's : a
sad sinking of heart." Duff returned to his last ses-
sion at St. Andrews to find the light of the University
leaving for the wider and more purely proft*ssional
sphere of Professor of Divinity in Edinburgh. But
tlio disappointed student found some recompense in
being asked by Chalmers to write freely to him. Tho
first fruit of a correspondence and a personal friend-
ship which ceased, twenty years after, only v/iMi tho
death of the greatest Scotsman since Knox, was the
following. Dr. Chalmers seems to have carefully pre-
served the original, having that sympathy with students
which more than doubles the preacher's and the pro-
fessor's power : —
" St. Andrews, 20th Jan., 1829.
"Rev. and Dear Sir, — When leaving St. Andrews,
you were so good as to request me to write to you
during the session, and I promised to do so. I assure
you that neither the request nor the promise was for
one moment forgotten. I reckoned tho request an
honour, and you know it is not human nature to
neglect what is viewed in this light. . . .
" The sum total of students attending the Old Col-
lege is 191 ; St. Mary's, nearly 40. The session has
as yet passed by very quietly. T>here are no gcnfleman
outlaws or iwivileged desperadoes to gain an infamous
notoriety by disturbing the general peace, and setting
laws and discipline at open defiance. Billiard? and
nocturnal riots and other irregularities are therefore
unheard of; and if there be an indulirerco in any ex-
cesses, it is still shroud* "1 uiidcr the veil of scores v.
28 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1829.
The vigorous measures taken by the professors on a
former session operate as a very salutary if not an
effectual check ; and tlie rigid upholding of these mea-
sures will no doubt render the check permanent.
*' Dr. Cook's arrival in St. Andrews caused littlo
inquiry, and created littlo or no excitement. His in-
troductory lecture was delivered in the Latin class-
room to an audience almost solely composed of students,
and not very numerous. Its brilliance may be esti-
mated from the fact that most of the students appeared
very restless and fidgety; Mr. Lothian sat yawning
in one of the back seats. Dr. Cook has proclaimed
himself the champion of the ancient system. He
seemed to exult in having the high honour of restoring
the poor houseless fugitive to its former domains, and
investing it with its former dignity. His was a most
perfect science : it was independent of revelation ; it
could exalt man to a state of dignity allied to the
Fountain of being, and could achieve wonders in
refining the moral constitution of the lord of nature.
Moral philosophy could not be understood without a
previous view of the mental faculties. This was proved
and illustrated by a lengthened analogy, of which this
is the substance : It is as impossible to investigate the
principles of morals without a previous knowledge of
the faculties of the mind — which is the instrument em-
ployed — as it is for the astronomer to have a know-
ledge of his science without a previous acquaintance
with the facts of astronomy. The depth of this rea-
soning no one could fathom, and it was unanimously
enrolled among the list of paralogisms. He then gave
a sketch of his course, of which I have endeavoured to
send you a faithful outline. From it you will at once
perceive how rigidly he intends to follow the traces of
the olden time, and how St. Andrews is likely to retain
its character of the * Old Maiden ' strictly inviolate.
M. 23. ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY AFTER CHALMERS. 29
IIg concluded by a lon^ panegyric on his father, wlio
was one of the most distinguished of moral pliiloso-
pliers ; and another upon Dr. Crawford, adding, ' Nei-
tlicr can I bo supposed to bo altogether unaffected by
the brilliant talents and the splendid eloquence of my
immediate predecessor/ Almost in the next breath
he proceeded, ' Entering the chair which I now occupy,
after three such distinguished men, it may bo thougiit
that I labour under many disadvantages,' etc., and
concluded by stating that he had thought long and
much upon the subject, and therefore felt himself by
no means unprepared to deliver a course of lectures
upon moral philosophy. Upon this a certain gentle-
man facetiously remarked t ' No wonder, for he has
been preaching upon morals all his lifetime.* My own
feelings, and the feelings of all those whose memories
fondly dwelt upon better days and enabled them to
draw a sorrowful contrast, would heartily incline mo
to inscribe above the door of entrance, in legible
characters, ' Ichabod, the glory is gone.' The number
of students attending this class has actually dwindled
to 28 — not half the number for the last five years.
This some of the professors account for by saying
that last session some of the second-year students
attended moral philosophy instead of logic, and this
season they attend logic instead of moral philosophy.
But the truth is, there are only four or five students of
whom this can be said, leaving still the deficiency un-
accounted for on any such principle. He was prepared
to lecture on political economy, and every exertion
was made to muster a class ; but the thing would
not succeed. Two students were at last induced to
enrol; but such an attendance was too meagre to
escape the imputation of being a farce, and accordingly
the scheme was abandoned as hopeless.
" The other classes are conducted in the usual way,
30 LIFE OF Dll. DUFF. 1S29.
except that Mr. Duncan and Dr. Jackson have estab-
hshcd a regular system of weekly competitions, which
promise to do much good in stimulating and rewarding
the really deserving.
" About ten days ago old Dr. Hunter was found in
his study asleep and almost stilT with cold, his fire
having gone out. For some days he was confined to
bed, very unwell, but is now rapidly recovering.
*' The building of a new college is still the subject of
conversation. Reports have flourished without num-
b^ r, and repeatedly died ; but the happy consummation
of their dying into a reality seems yet to be somewhat
distant. True, the professors talk confidently of
£23,000 being granted through the intercession of
Lord Melville, of the money being already in the Ex-
chequer in Edinburgh, of the king's architect being
expected everyday; the foundation stone is to be laid
in March, and your class-rooms are to be finished
during the ensuing summer, etc., etc. These things
may be true, but past disappointments suggest the
propriety of not being very sanguine till actual opera-
tions are commenced.
" The Students' Missionary Society is succeeding as
well as ever, its numbers in no degree diminished.
Even those who were at first disposed to view it with
a jealous eye and shrink from any contact with it, as
being an institution quite unacademical, begin to regard
it more auspiciously and countenance it with their
support. Our meetings are well attended, our books
much read ; so that I trust the spirit which was sud-
denly kindled five years ago may long survive in this
quarter at least, and demonstrate that it was not an
ephemeral effervescence, founded on no principle and
supported by no truth. I would rejoice to be en-
abled to assert the same of the Town Missionary
Society. All were prepared for a great change, so that
JEt. 23. CITY MISSION WORK. 3 I
its decrease was not unexpected. Its monthly meet-
ings are truly the wreck of what they were. The
animating spirit is gone, and gone with it have most
of the attendants. I fear they will find the greatest
(lilficiilty in keeping up these interesting meetings, and
tliat the Society will relapse into its original state of
inefficiency. ]\lr. Bain reads the greatest part of the
evening, and Mr. Lothian takes also a share. But
there is the absence of those connecting remarks, and
those appeals and addresses which, to most of the
auditors, constituted the charm of the evening's busi-
ness in past years. Mr. Bain is well-meaning and
very anxious for its prosperity, but he wants life,
energy and activity. If the new burgher-minister
now to be elected, Mr. Aiken, be a popular man, ho
may lend effective aid and in some measure cause a
revival.
" Sabbath schools have now overtaken almost tho
whole population. I have personally visited all tho
lower classes in the town, and did not find twenty
children who were not attending some school or other.
A very great, if not the greatest proportion appears
to be taught by Dissenters — a circumstance which of
course grieves Dr. Haldano very much. lie is so
much annoyed by it, that he spends no inconsiderable
portion of his time in visiting the parents for the ex-
press purpose of requesting them to beware of the
arts and beguiling insinuations of the Dissenters,
and to remove their children from their schools ere
they be tinctured with their pestiferous principles.
At all events every Christian must rejoice that ' by
all means ' the doctrine of the Cross is now regularly
and systematically taught to nearly all the children of
St. Andrews.
"Dr. Haldane has contrived to muster a class of
mechanics, or rather apprentice-lads, to whom I ex-
32 LIFE OF DU. DCFF. 1829.
plain an appointed passage of Scripture every Sunday
morning between ten antl eleven o'clock. I have tlio
conducting of a girls' school between four and six; and
later in the evening I spend an hour and a half or two
hours with Messrs. Smyth, Fortune, Watson and an-
other fellow-boarder, Ilobb, from Stirling. I prescribe
a chapter to be read and studied for the following
Sabbath, examine upon it, make remarks and explana-
tions. Messrs. Watson and Fortune, in whose welfare
you expressed yourself as interested, are conducting
themselves with great propriety, and I feel very much
delighted with the intelligent a;iswers which they
give to most of the questions put to them on the
Sabbath evening. Mr. Craik expresses himself satis-
fied with the manner in which they prepare their
regular class-lessons.
" I have been proposed for trials before the Presby-
tery of St. Andrews, and my first examination takes
place on the lltli of February. I almost begin to fear
when I think of the awful responsibility of the Chris-
tian ministry, and tliis fear sometimes makes me shrink
from the office, as if it were to be tarnished by my pre-
sence. Again I reflect, that if my motives are well
founded the Lord will sustain me ; and if not, it were
far better that I desisted in time."
In the spring of 1829, and in this spirit, Alexander
Dulf, M.A., was licensed by the Presbytery of St.
Andrews " to preach the gospel of Christ and to exer-
cise his gifts as a probationer of the holy ministry."
The man was ready ; the work had been long waiting
for him.
CHAPTER 11.
1829.
TUE FIRST MISSIONARY OF THE CEUUCII OF
SCOTLAND.
Early Missionary Confession of the Kirk. — The Apathy of Two Cen-
turies. — Preparations by the Scottish Layman, Charles Grant. —
Tho Foundation of the Missioni>ry Societies after the French
Revolution. — The First Preshjtonan Chaplain and Enj^lish
Bishop of Calcutta. — Dr. Inj^lis, Founder of tho Mission. — Lord
Binning's Help. — General Assembly's Letter to tho People of
Scotland. — Alexander Duff's Ansv/er. — Announcement to hir
Father and Mother. — Accepted by the Foreign Mission Com-
mittee on his own Conditions. — Ilis First Missionary Sermons. —
Bagster's Bible Presented to Him. — Pathetic Counsels and Fare-
wells. — David Ewart. — Patrick Lawson's Advice. — Marriage and
Ordination. — Mr. and Mrs. Duff leave Leith for London. — Dr.
Inglis to Dr. Bryco. — Letter to Dr. Chalmers.
The work had been waiting for two hundred and
seventy years. Alone of all the Reformed Churches
the Kirk of Scotland had placed in the very front of
its Confession the fact that it was a missionary church.
The foresight of John Knox, the statesmanship of the
Scotsmen who gave civil as well as religious freedom
to the kingdom, have been extolled by secular historians
so opposite as Mr. Froude and Mr. Hill Burton. But
that foresight saw farther than even they acknowledge,
when the Scottish Parliament of 1560 passed an Act
embodying the first Confession, which has this for its
motto, " And this glaid tydingis of the kyngdome sail
be precheit through the haill warld for a witncs unto
all natiouns, and then sail the end cum." That con-
fession was the four days' work of John Winram, John
D
34 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1S29.
Spotswood, John Willock, John Doiighis, Jolm Row
and John Knox.
First self-presci'vation, then the attempt to throw
their own ecclesiastical organization uniformly over
England also by political means, and finally the re-
action and tho indifference which mere policy brings
about, succeeded in reducing the Kirk of tho eighteenth
century to lifelossncss. What had, for all Christendom,
been a series of crusades against the Turks; and for
tho Spanish and Portuguese discoverers in the Indies,
West and East, a series of raids by the Latin Church
on tho native inhabitants, became in tho Reformed
Churches at homo a defence of the orthodox faith
against popery. But tho General Assembly of 1G17
had expressed a ^vish for " a more firm consocia-
tion for propagating it to those who aro without,
especially the Jews. For the unanimity of all the
Churches, as in evil 'tis of all things most hurtful, so,
on the contrary side, in good it is most pleasant,
most profitable, and most effectual." Again do w^o
catch a glimpse of tho missionary spirit when, in
sending forth ministers with tho unfortunate Darien
expedition, the Assembly of 1G99 enjoined them
particularly to labour among the natives ; while its
successor added, " The Lord, we hope, will yet honour
.you and this Churcli from which you are sent to carry
His name among the heathen." In 1743 tho Kirk
indirectly supported Brainerd, and in 1774 tried to
raise up native teachers in Africa. Yet so far did it
decline from the ideal of Knox, that when the French
Revolution and the progress of commercial discovery
had roused England, America and Germany, as little
Denmark had long before been stimulated, the General
Assembly selected as its Moderator the minister who
in 1796 carried this opinion by a majority — " To spread
abroad the knowledge of tho gospel among barbarous
^t. 23. THE EAST INDIA COMrANY's CUAUTKUS. 35
and lioatlicu nutions sclmhs to bo liiglily preposterous,
ill so far as it anticipates, nay, it cveu reverses tlio
order of nature."
What the Kirk of Scothuid refused to do till 1820,
one of the greatest of its sons was for half a century
carefully preparing. Charles Grant, an Inverness-
sliiro boy, was a civil servant of the East India Com-
pany during the famine which swept off a third of
the population of a largo portion of Bengal in 1770.
From thai time, as an evangelical Christian first and a
Presbyterian, Baptist and Episcopalian afterwards, as
his position led him, Charles Grant in India, in tlio
Court of Directors, in the House of Commons, in
society and in the press, never ceased till he induced
Parliament to send out chaplains and schoolmasters,
and tho Churches to supply missionaries. Before
Carey had landed at Calcutta and become his friend,
Charles Grant had implored Simeon to send out
eight missionaries, offering to receive all and him-
self to bear permanently the cost of two. That was
before Simeon's pregnant visit to Moulin. To Charles
Grant and the friends whom he stirred up, like AVilbcr-
force and the elder Macaulay, wo owe first the Charter
Act of 1793 which conceived, that of 1813 wliicli
brought to the birth, and that of 1833 which completed,
what we may fairly describe as the christianization
of the East India Company, opening its settlements in
India and China to toleration in the widest sense alike
of truth and of trade.
The nearly successful attempt of Wilberforce to get
" the pious clauses " of Charles Grant into the charter
of 1793, though foiled by the time-serving Dundas,
then dictator of Scotland, led Christian men through-
out England and Scotland to do what the Churches in
their corporate character were still unwilling to organ-
ize. Tlie Baptists had shown tho way under Carey, in
36 LIFE OF DIl. DUFF. 1829.
1792. rrcsbytcrians, Indcpontlonts and some Anglican
Evangelicals united to found the London JMissionary
Society in 1795. The year after saw tlio more local
Scottish and Glasgow ^lissionary Societies. And to
tlic partly colonial, partly foreign agency of the Propa-
gation Society, the Evangelicals of tho Church of
England added the Church Missionary Society, which,
in 1804, sent forth to West Africa its first represent-
atives, who were German. By its establishment of
one bishop, three archdeacons, several Episcopalian
and three Presbyterian chaplains in India, tho charter
of 1813 compelled the directors of the East I:idia
Company " to show our desire to encourage, by every
prudent means in our power, tho exteuoion of the
principle of the Christian religion in India." That
language is sufficiently cautious, and tho concession
marks no advance on the orders of William III., in
the charter of 1C98. But it was accompawiied by the
very practical resolution of Parliament, without which
much of Duff's career would have been very different,
that " a sum of not less than one lakh of rupees
(£10,000, at par) in each year shall be set apart and
applied to the revival and improvement 0^ literature,
and the encouragement of the learned natives of India,
and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge
of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British
territories of India." The chaplain was thus legalized,
tho schoolmaster was thus made possible. But it was
not till 1833 that the missionary, the merchant, the
capitalist, the Christian settler in any form was recog-
nised or tolerated save as an "interloper" — that was
the official term — admitted under passports, watched
by the police, sometimes deported and ruined, always
socially despised.
The first Scottish chaplain duly balloted for by the
Court of Directors, and sent out to Calcutta, was the
^t. 23. DR. JOHN INOLIS. " 37
Rev. James Bryco, of Strachan, in tho Presbytery of
Kincardinc-O'Noil. ITo sailed in the same East India-
man with tho first bishop selected by tho Prusidetit
of tho Board of Control, Dr. Middleton, who liked
neither his Presbyterian brother nor the missionaries
sent out by tho Church Missionary Society under
protection of tho same charter. So littlo of a mission-
ary spirit had tho first representa^ivo of tho Church of
Scotland in India, that " ho has no hesitation in con-
fessing that ho went to tho scene of his labours strongly
impressed with a belief, should ho step beyond tho pale
of his own countrymen ho would find every attempt
to shako the Hindoo in the faith of his fathers to bo
futile and unavailing." So ho and Bishop Middleton
fell to squabbling about sects and churches, about the
height of a steeple and the name of a church building,
till tho Governor-Generals, Cabinet Ministers and tho
directors were dragged into the fray, and that in a city
of which the wise Claudius Buchanan had written ten
years before, that a name or a sect was never men-
tioned from the pulpit now filled by tho Bishop, '* and
thus the Word preached becomes profitable to all."
Of a very different type was the Rev. John Inglis,D.D.
The minister of Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh, was tho
one man of the Moderate party in tho Church worthy,
as an ecclesiastic at least, to rank with his great
evangelical contemporaries, Chalmers, Andrew Thom-
son and Sir Harry Moncreiff. His worthiness lay
in the fact that, as Lord Cockburn puts it, ho was the
only leader of that party whose opinions advanced with
the progress of the times. Ecclesiastically, in matters
of Kirk diplomacy, he was a moderate, so that tho
same authority has described his powerful qualities
as thrown away on the ignoble task of attempting to
repress the popular spirit of the Kirk, although these
would have raised him high in any department of
38 LIFK or DC. DUFF. 1829.
public life. Spiritually, as a preacher, lie was an
evangelical, altliongli before liis deatli, in 1834, lie had
preached his church nearly empty. As an ecclesiastical
lawyer, his clear thinkir.g, lucid exposition and innate
eloquence, were such as to make his hearers forget his
tall, ungainly figure and raucous voice. His fruitless
intolerance in the Leslie case was due to his party
in 1805, and he grew out of that in the subsequent
thirty years of his career, to nobler work and a finer
spirit. That and smaller follies were amply atoned
for by his foundation of the India Mission and his
selection of the first three missionaries.
So early, comparatively for Scotland, as 1818, Dr.
Liglis preached a sermon in which we find the seed of
the foreign mission system of the Churcli of Scotland,
and of the call of Alexander Duff. The one glimmer-
ing missionary taper of the Kirk since the beginning
of the eighteenth century had been the " Society in
Scotland, Incorporated by Royal Charter, for Propa-
gating Christian Knowledge." Although benefiting
chiefly the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, it did spend
a few small sums on an occasional missionary at
Astrakhan in the East, and among the Indians of the
AYest, while it gave grants to the Serampore and other
labourers. To preach the annual missionary sermon
of the society was an honour reserved for the ablest
ministers, who generally talked platitudes on education
or kept themselves to formal theology. But when on
Friday, the 5th June, 1818, Dr. Inglis announced his
text, the spirit of unconscious prediction moved him.
*' Is it a light thing," were the words which he read
from Isaiah, " that Thou shouldest be My servant to
raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the pre-
served of Israel ? I will also give Thee for a light to
the Gentiles, that Thou maycst be My salvation unto
the end of the earth." With triumphant faith in the
_/Et. 23. TDE GEKM OF THE SCOTTISH MISSION SYSTEM. 39
ultimate universal prcvabnce of ChristiaTiify, ho saw
in the prophet's message " the most exalted idea both
of Divine love and humxan felicity." In terms only
less enthusiastic than those which ever afterwards
marked the first missionary whom his Church was to
send forth, and far removed from the " moderatism "
of the ecclesiastical party who claimed him, Dr. Inglis
showed how the nature and the divine agencies of
Christianity secured its future universal dominion, in
spite of its very limited success at that time. Among
these agencies he placed education foremost, not
because he made the mistake attributed to him of
requiring civilization to precede Christianity, but
because out of converted savage races he might thus
raise indigenous preachers, and by means of natives
endowed with intellectual vigour, and with a capacity
of estimating what is just and true, he might secure
more abiding and ultimately rapid progress. Pointing
to the conquest of the Roman Empire by the Church,
he asked why our connection with our commercial
dependencies should be less favourable; upon what
principle we who raised factories for trade concluded
that " establishments for the instruction and civiliza-
tion of our benighted brethren might not be rendered
signally effectual." The three chaplains sent to India
he accepted as only an instalment ol the Church's and
the nation's duty. The translation of the Scriptures
without comment ho in^ged as of equal importance
with schools. And this was written just before the
Serampore missionaries had opened the first Chris-
tian college, while the sceptical English and educated
Hindoos of Calcutta were striving to establish their
Anglo-Indian college on non-moral principles, from
which even the theist, Rammohun Roy, dissented as
fatal to the true well-being of a people.
It was Ramraohun Roy, too, who was tho instrument
40 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1829.
of the conversion of the first chaplain, Dr. Bryce,
from the opinion of the Abbe Dubois that no Hindoo
couM be made a true Christiau, to the conviction that
the past want of success was largely owing to the
inaptitude of the means employed. Some nine years
after the confession which we have already quoted,
we find Dr. Bryce writing : " Encouraged by the ap-
probation of Rammohun," I " presented to the General
Assembly of 1824 the petition and memorial which
first directed the attention of the Church of Scotland
to British India as a field for missionary exertions,
on the plan that is now so successfully following out,
and to which this eminently gifted scholar, himself a
Brahman of high caste, had specially annexed his sanc-
tion. . . Bammohun Boy was himself a hearer in
the Scotch Church of Calcutta." To the minute of St.
Andrew's kirk-session on the subject Rammohun Roy
appended this singular testimony on the 8th December,
1823 : "As I have the honour of being a member of
the congregation meeting in St. Andrew's Church
(although not fully concurring in every article of the
"Westminster Confession of Faith), I feel happy to have
an opportunity of expressing my opinion that, if the
prayer of the memorial is complied with, there is a
fair and reasonable prospect of this measure proving
conducive to the diffusion of religious and moral know-
ledge in India." But, in reality. Dr. Bryce's scheme
was one for almost everything that Duff's was not.
His plan of a " Scottish College " was dictated by
sectarian hostility to the Bishop's College of his rival.
Dr. Middleton.* His proposal condemned schools
for *' the lower and illiterate classes of the Hindoos "
as strongly as the Abbe himself had done, and urged
* See Memorial and Petition, at page 284 of liis Sketch of Native
Education in India.
^t. 23. MISSIONARY LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OP SCOTLAND. 4!
" addressing the better informed natives at this capital
in their own language, and from under the roof of an
established Christian temple, and under the sanction
and countenance of an established .ecclesiastical au-
thority." The secular ecclesiastic desired, in fact, to
create such a college for himself " by the maintenance
of two or more probationers or clergymen of our
Ciuirch, under the ecclesiastical superintendence of
the kirk-session of St. Andrew's Church, to be edu-
cated under their eye in the native languages of the
country, and employed under tlioir authority, when
duly qualified, to preach, from the pulpit of St. An-
drew's Church, to such native congregation as might
attend their ministry."
Dr. Inglis and the General Assembly of 1825 were
less informed as to the actual state of society in Ben-
gal and Calcutta than their chaplain on the spot, but,
being free from his ecclesiastical vanities and enmities,
they drew up a much wiser plan, though one still far
from adequate to the needs and opportunities of India
at the time. They pronounced it desirable to establish,
in the first instance, one central seminary of education,
with branch schools in the surrounding country, for
behoof of the children of the native population, under
one who ought to be an ordained minister of the national
Church, and not less than two assistant teachers from
this country. That General Assembly re-appointed the
committee of Dr. Inglis upon the propagation of the
gospel abroad as a permanent body, with power to
raise funds and select masters. It ordered an extra-
ordinary collection in all churches and chapels for the
purpose, thus adding to the " great schemes " of the
Kirk, or the Highlands, the Home and the Colonial,
the fourth and greatest of Foreign Missions. And on
April 2Gth Dr. Inglis, as convener of the new com-
mittee, issued a letter " to the People of Scotland,"
42 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1829.
apologising for " our forefathers," since perchance
their utmost exertions were not more than sufficient
for estabUshing themselves and their posterity in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free ; pointing
to the recent missionary efforts of otlier religious com-
munities, and summoning the nation in the name of
the General Assembly to do its duty. Appealing to
the facts stated in the fifth report of the Calcutta
School Book Society, founded in 1817, and in the
*' History of Calcutta Institutions," by Mr. Charles
Lushington, one of the secretaries to Government,
the national letter mentioned schools for the educa-
tion in English of natives of both sexes, and colleges
to train a more select number to be the teachers and
preachers, as the best means for sowing a great
spiritual harvest which may " be reaped by the estab-
lishment of the Redeemer's kingdom over the exten-
sive regions of Asia. Yet let it not be inferred from
our having said so much about schools and other
seminaries of education, that we for a moment lose
sight of the more direct means of accomplishing our
object, by the preaching of the gospel to the heathen
world. . . It is in subserviency to the success of
preaching that we would, in this case, devote our labour
to the education of the young/' The whole letter, and
especially the evangelic note of the predicted triumph
with which it closes, show the same spirit which
eight years before had preached, but with necessarily
less information, of the ultimate and universal pre-
valence of the Redeemer's kingdom. But though the
aims and the proposals of Dr. Inglis were very dif-
ferent from those of Dr. Bryce, we shall see how far
both fell short of the genias of the first missionary,
who refused to be fettered by any conditions.
With the exception of the Campbells of Argyll, and,
for a time, those of Breadalbane and tho Stuarts of
^t. 23. niS ANSWER TO THE LETTER TO THE TEOrLE. 43
Moray, the peers of Scotland have been so seldom in
their proper places as the natural leaders of the
people, that it is pleasant to be able to record the part
taken in the foundation of its India Mission by the
Haddington branch of the ducal house of Hamilton.
The ninth earl, when still Lord IJinniuGf and one of
the commissioners of the old Board of Control, used
all his otlicial influence to encourage Dr. Inglis iu his
efforts for the Christian education of the natives of
Bengal. The harmony of the Church and the Board
in measures for the good of India, was not disturbed,
as was too often the case in other reforms, by tlio
Court of Directors, for Charles Grant was then
supreme in influence with the " chairs." Lord Bin-
ning had at this time made the acquaintance in Home
of the young Bunsen, " for whom he has a great
liking and value," says the Baroness of her husband,
and he was afterwards Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Alexander Duff's answer to this letter to the people
of Scotland was to give himself — not, indeed, to the
new committee for a time, but to the Master, to bo
used as His minister wherever amonof the Gentiles Ho
might send him. But all his sympathies were with
the natives of India. " It was," ho long afterwards
told his converts* when bnldimi-^thttm a life don f^ftire- *
well, " when a student at college, in perusing the
article on India* in Sir David Brewster's " Edinburgli
Encyclopa)dia," that my soul was first drawn out as by
* The article is a wonderfully elaborate and intelligent perform-
ance for that time. In a hundred double-columu quarto pages
the writer, Mv. Stevenson, librarian of the Treasury, writes tlio his-
tory, describes the rise and progress of the European establishments,
states the geographical and statistical facts, pictures the Hindoo
religion, social iustitutionn and languages, and closes with details of
the population of Bengal and Calcutta. The whole ai'ticlo is worthy
of the work m which Thomas Carlyle began his literary career.
44 I^IFE OF DR. DUFF. 1829.
a spell-liko fascination towards India. And when, at
a later j3eriod, I was led to respond to the call to
proceed to India as the first missionary ever sent
forth by the Established National Church of Scotland,
rny resolution was, if the Lord so willed it, never,
never to return again."
Session after session, as he had returned from the
winter's study at St. Andrews to the quiet of his
Grampian homo, the student had delighted his parents
with details of his domgs. John Urquhart had always
been first in his talk. Especially had his father been
struck with admiration at that student's determination
to be a missionary to the Hindoos. In 1827 the
usual budget of iutePigence was produced, but as
the parents hung on their sou's revelations, now with
tears, now with smiles, and ever with thankfulness
and pride, the loved name of his Jonathan was not
once mentioned. " But what of your friend Urqu-
hart ?" at last exclaimed the father. " Urquhart is no
more," said Duff with the almost stern abruptness
of self-restraint, and then slowly, wistfully added,
*' What if your son should take up his cloak ?
You approved the motive that directed the choice of
UrquluiTi} ; you ^ommende^ h;s high p»irposo, — ;- .The
cloak is taken up." Mother and father were awed
into silence at this, the first breaking to them, or to
man, of the vow that had already been made to God.*
So the missionary mantle fell in circumstances very
unlike Elijah's and Elisha's. He knew that they had
* Our authority for this most eignificanC anecdote is the Rev.
and now venerable Andrew Wallace, long minister of Oldham-
stocks, who has extracted the facts from a diarywritten while Duff's
parents were still alive. In prco-railway days, on a journey from
Hawick to Edinburgh, his companion on the top of the coach proved
to be a Highlander from Moulin, who, having lived in the house next
to Duff's, and loving him much, told Mr. Wallace the story.
^t. 23. DECLARES HIS DETERMINATION TO BE A MISSIONAUY. 45
set their heart upon his being a minister in the High-
lands, and tliat ho had a prospect of not being long
without a parish. Ho had therefore considered, before
God, what his course of duty should be towards them,
and had come to the conclusion that he ought to have
no dealings in such a matter with flesh and blood.
Moved chiefly by what he afterwards termed the grand
utterance of Christ, " If any man love father or
mother more than Mo ho is not worthy of Me," Diilf
thus anticipated all remonstrance. At first they were
overwhelmed, in spite of all the father's early teaching
on the various mission fields, and especially that of
India ; for they were parents wisely proud of their
student son's reputation, and fondly indulging in tlio
prospect of his settlement near themselves. But calm
reflection brought them to acquiesce in the deliberate
choice and solemn announcement of the young evange-
list as the will of God, and they lived to rejoice in the
surrender of themselves and their boy.
The case of India came very close to him when,
during the subsequent session of 1827-28, Principal
Haldano laid before him a letter from Dr. Inc^lis, who
had, thus far, been unsuccessful in inducing any
ministel' or prt^acher of thb Church of Scotland to offer
himself for Calcutta, although students like Nesbit
and Wilson were preparing to bo sent out to Bombay
by the Scottish, and others by the London Missionary
Society. Dr. Haldane pronounced the third year's
student of theology precisely the man that the Church's
committee wanted. But Duff declined, from his
youth and inexperience, to commit himself to any
definite station until his studies were completed. A
year after, in the spring of 1829, the proposal was
again made to him ; this time by Dr. Ferric, Professor
of Civil History, and minister of Kilconquhar. IIo
thus turned for counsel to Dr. Chalmers : —
46 LIFE OF DIl. DUFF. 1829.
{(
St. An'dk'kws, 12//^ March, 1820.
** Ili:v. AND DuAU Sir, — In redemption of a pledge
formerly given, and encouraged by your kind reply, I
sliould now endeavour to communicate whatever local
intelligence can bo collected since the writing of my
last letter. But i trust that, though such communi-
cation be deferred for the present, I will be exonerated
f I'om the charge of neglect, by a desire to make known
without delay the following particulars. Unexpected
as they are in their nature, [ind deciding, as they ap-
pear to do, my future destiny in life, I trust you will
excuse their exclusive e^'otism.
" About three weeks ago I was sent for by Dr.
Ferric, who stated that he had received a letter from a
cousin of his, asking his advice as to the propriety of
going out to superintend the Assembly's scheme for
propagating the gospel in India, and that he dissuaded
him from going, for, although he was satisfied as to
his piety and '^.cal, yet he knew ho wanted several other
qualifications that were indispensably necessary. Im-
mediately, he said, I occurred to him as a person well
fitted for such a sacred and important station, and
accordingly Tie made the proposal to mo of going to
India to take charge of the new establishment. A
proposal so weighty was neither to be precipitately
rejected, nor inconsiderately acceded to. I therefore
assured him I would solemnly deliberate on the
measure, would wait for more definite information re-
garding its precise nature, and in the meantime would
make it the subject of prayer. On the subject of
im'ssions in general, I have read much and thought
much, and in regard both to the sacredness of the
cause and the propriety of personal engagement, my
mind has long been entirely satisfied ; nay more, on
often revolving the matter, a kind of ominous fore-
boding mingled so constantly with my thoughts, that
ALt. 23. INl'OKMS CJIALIIEKS THAT HE WILL GO TO INDIA. 47
it became an .almost settled impression that tlio chiy
was not far distant vvhen I would feel it to bo my duty
to adopt the decisive step of devotiiii^ my life to tho
sacred cause. In these circumstances and with these
feelings nouglit remained in the present instance but
to inquire, seriously and prayerfully to inquire,
* whether do I consciously feel myself ]iossessed of
tho qualifications necessary to constitute the truo mis-
sionary character?* and 'whether can I accept of tho
offered appointment, uuactuated by any but tho proper
motives, a desiro to promote God's glory and tho
Avelfare of immortal souls?' Now, were this a matter
which required merely human consultation or advice,
you, my dear sir, are tho tried friend on whose readi-
ness in giving advice, as well as its soundness when
given, I could most confidently rely. But I hope that
I acted in accordance with your views, when I con-
cluded that the present inquiry rested almost solely
between myself and I'ny Maker. With this view of tli©
case and in this spirit the inquiry was certainly con-
ducted. And the result was, that, weak as is my
faith and secularized as, I must confess, are all my
desires, I yet felt I could find it in my heart to devote
myself to tho service of tho Lord, undivided by any
worldly tie and uninfluenced by any mercenary motive.
" The inquiry as to the motives being brought to
this conclusion, at which may the Lord grant that I
have not arrived through any self-deception, the other
inquiry, respecting the requisite qualifications, was by
no means concluded so much to my own satisfaction.
But on further reflection on the subject, the exceeding
precious promises of God appeared to rebuke my dis-
trustful vacillating spirit ; and I seemed to have tho
faith — I trust it was not the presumption — to conclude
that, if I engaged in the work with full sincerity of
soul, by faith accompanied with prayer, God's grace
48 LIFE OF DIl. DUFF. 1829.
might bo sufTicicnt for mo, and ITis strength might bo
made perfect in my weakness. In this frame of mind,
therefore, I resolved, if offered the appointment, to ac-
cept of it. Tliis offer was not long in being virtually
made. On Wednesday, last week, Dv. Ferrio received
a letter from Dr. Muir (Dr. Inglis, the convener of the
committee, being unwell), which among other things
contained the following clauses : * Dr. Inglis intimated
his earnest desire to know from you as soon as pos-
sible what may be the determination of Mr. Duff. Tlio
Doctor is satisfied by all you have said that he is tho
very person fitted for the important purpose, and ho
is therefore extremely anxious to receive Mr. Duff's
decision on the side of the offer; as he is not able to
occupy himself with the routine of ordinary duty, his
mind is exercised with almost a keen feeling of anxiety
on the Indian scheme. If you can write to me soon,
and especially if you can send me any encouraging in-
telligence from Mr. D., your letter on the subject will
be very acceptable to him.* From this you perceive
that the offer was fairly laid at my door, and that a
definite answer was required as soon as possible.
And having already made up my own mind on the
subject, I lost no time in visiting my friends, in order
to justify to them a conduct to which I knew they
would feel a strong aversion. I have now returned,
after having succeeded in securing their concurrence,
and have thus endeavoured to present you with a brief
statement of all that has transpired
"I am now prepared to reply to the committee in the
words of the prophet, * Here am I, send me.' The work is
most arduous, but is of God and must prosper ; many
sacrifices painful to *flesh and blood' must be made, but
not any correspondent to the glory of winning souls to
Christ. With the thought of this glory I feel myself
almost transported with joy; every thing else appears to
ALt. 23. SELF-DliVOTlON. 49
fall out of view as vaia and insinfnificant. The kinoes
and great men of the earth have reared the sculptured
monument and the lofty pyramid with tho vain hope
of transmitting their names witli reverence to succeed-
ing generations; and yet the sculptured monument
and the lofty pyramid do crumble into decay, and must
finally bo burnt up in the general wreck of dissolving
nature; but he who has been tho means of subduing
one soul to tho Cross of Christ, hath reared a far moro
enduring monument — a monument that will outlast all
time, and survive the widespread ruins of ten thousand
worlds ; a trophy which is destined to bloom and flourish
in immortal youth in the land of immortality, and which
will perpetuate tho remembrance of him who raised it
throughout the boundless duration of eternal ages.
"But I am wandering, and have almost forgotten
that I am writing a letter and not a discourse. I trust,
however, that you, who know human nature so well,
will grant me every indulgence when you take into ac-
count the present freshness and excitation of my feel-
ings. My heart is full ; would to God that it continued
so, as out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh ! As the active members of committee sc^m
to have formed a favourable opinion of me, anything
which you may feel yourself entitled to say calculated
to confirm that opinion, or any opportunity which you
may have it in your power to take of making known my
sentiments on the present important subject, will be
viewed as a token of kindness, surpassed only by the
many already experienced at your hands, most unde-
served on my part. But I am almost disgusted with
this continued tissue of selfishness, and must endeavour
to atone for it in my next communication. Please pre-
sent my kindest regards to Mrs. Chalmers and family,
and Miss Edio, and 1 remain, rev. and dear sir, yours
with deep feelings of gratitude, Alexander Duff."
50 LIFK OF DR. DUFF. 1829.
But lio was Dot tlio man to yii'ld liimsolf blindly to
conditions wliicli niitj^lit fcttiT his action in a new field,
and ncutralizo all that was ori;j^inal or strong in liis
nature, lie required to bo assured, first, that he should
be -wholly unshackled in the modes of meeting and
operating on the natives; and secondly, in particular
that ho should be entirely independent of the chaplains
and kirk-scssion of Calcutta. Ilis foresight in these
Tiost wise provisions proved equal to his self-devotion,
and enabled that devotion to accomplish all that his
genius was peculiarly fitted to attenq)t. Alexander
Dull: in trammels would have meant shipwreck of the
mission. To these terms Dr. Inglis consented, and
with sucb utter trust that the dilliculty afterwards was
to receive instructions of any kind from the Church.
Referred in vain to Dr. David Dickson as likely, from
his experience of the Scottish Society, to enter into
useful details, the first missionary of the Church of
Scotland went out to Calcutta with oidy one injunction
laid upon him, which it became his duty to violate the
moment he saw the country and the people for him-
self. That order was, not to settle in the metropolis
itself but in a rural district of Bengal.
The committee had a rule, that they must formally
jiear a man preach before ordaining him as a mis-
.sionary. Accordingly, at a week-day evening service
then conducted in one of the churches into which a
barbarous ecclesiasticism has divided the once bcau-
liful Presbyterian cathedral of St. Giles, the Rev.
Alexander Duff, M.A., licentiate of the Kirk, preached
his first sermon, before Dr. Inglis and Dr. Andrew
Thomson, representatives of the two great parties
in the Church, and the only members of committee
present. The text was that word of St. Paul, in which
he and all his true successors have planted the mis-
sionary standard, from Corinth west to Columba on
AH.23. DANIKL WILSON. DIl. CUNNINGHAM. EDWAUI) HIVING. 5 I
lona, and east to Duflf in Calcutta : " I doti'rmim'd
not to know anytliinjif among you save Josus Christ
and llini crucified." Mr. Diiif breakfasted with Dr.
('Iiahners on the niornijig after the great orator had
made tliat cmanci[)ation speech wliich carried not only
h^diiiburgh but the wliole country by storm. Of this
speech the Duko of Wellington, then L^'imo INIinister,
caused 105,000 coi)ies to be printed and circulated
throughout the country. At that time also (he rc>print
of Baxter's *' Reformed Pastor" had apj)eared, forming
one of the series of Collins's Select (Miristiun Authors,
with the introductory essay by Bishop Wilson ot'
Calcutta, then Daniel AVilson, vicar of Islington. Dr.
Chalmers luid just finished tlie perusal of it, and said iu
his own blunt way, " In this essay Daniel Wilson has
risen far above himself." On the same occasion there
was a meeting of students held in one of the class-
I'ooms of the University, which Duff had the curiosity
to attend. There for tlic first time he saw and lieard
Principal Cuimingham, then a student of theology,
speak. He was so struck with the close, comjiact, argii-
inentative power of the address, that he remarked, "that
man, if spared, vv^ill be sure to shine forth as a great
ecclesiastical debater." Then, too, ho received his
first impressions of Edward Irving, being more than
once one of the crowd who got up on a winter's morn-
ing at four o'clock to besiege the gates of St. Cuth-
bert's, for a place to hear Thomas Carlyle's inspired
friend, whom ho pronounced worthy of his marvellous
reputation.
The report read by Dr. Inglis to the Assembly of
1829, buried in old records and magazines from which
we have exhumed it, declared that what the committee
had wanted in its first missionary was " nothing less
than a combination of the distinguished talents requi-
site for that oOice (head of a college), with such dis-
52 L1F2 OF DE. DUFF. 1829.
interested zeal for the propagation of the gospel as
could induce a highly gifted individual to foiegothe
prospect of a settlement at home corresponding to his
merits, for the purpose of devoting himself to labour
in a distant land, without any prospect of earthly
reward beyond what should be indispensably necessary
to his outward respectability in the society with which
he was to mingle." This subsistence allowance was
nxed at £300 a year and a free house, *' as the least
that could be reasonably proffered," in the year 1829.
The committee then described " Mr. Alexander Duff,
preacher of the gospel," whom they had found " after
long-continued inquiry and much patient waiting,"
as " a person possessed of such talents and acquire-
ments, literary, scientific and theological, as would do
honour to any station in the Church ; who also com-
bines with these the prudence and discretion which are
so peculiarly requisite in the discharge of the duties
which will devolve upon him ; and is, at the same time,
animated with such zeal in the cause to which he
devotes himself, as to make him think lightly of all the
advantages which he foregoes in leaving his native
laud." The self-dedication of the young preacher was
made a reason for a renewed appeal to the congrega-
tions of the Kirk to do their duty. Not half of them —
only 400 — had subscribed, and that but £5,000 in three
years. *' The natives of India," they were told, " are
our fellow subjects, members of the same grefit com-
monwealth to which we belong, dependent upon the
fostering care of the same government under which we
live. Shall not this consideration find its way to the
heart of a Briton ? . . Our exertions for this be-
nevolent purpose may even have the effect to sanctify,
in the sight of Heaven, the government . . f^nd
to prolon;^', for the benefit of many generations, tuo
interesting relation in which we stand to so huge a
.^t. 23. ORDINATION BY DR. CHALMERS. 53
portion of tlie human race. What would the fathers of
our Churclx have said if, looking forward to a period
of such internal peace and prosperity as it now enjoys,
they could have supposed that the men whc now fill
tlieir places in the world, would not even aim at
participating in the high honour of being instrumental
in the hand of God for promotyig the enlargement of
the Redeemer's kingdom on earth?" Who shall say
that the convener who wrote, and the Assembly who
heartily adopted such language as that, had not a truly
imperial spirit in the highest sense. Christian as well
as political ? The response had waited only for the
man. Mr. Duff's ordination resulted in the offer, by
not a few parislies, of that annual collection which, in
the three temporarily severed but heartily co-operating
branches of the Kir^ of Scotland, has risen to a gross
revenue for foreign missions of nearly £100,000 a year.
The General Assembly of May, 1829, cordially and
unanimously appointed Mr. Duff their first mission-
ary, and his ordination in St. George's followed on
the 12th of August, Dr. Chalmers officiating on the
historic occasion. Dr. Harper, the venerable Principal
of the United Presbyterian College, still recalls the
marvellous speech delivered by the new missionary,
then a young man of twenty-three, on his formal
designation to the East. With such force and fire,
such energy and action, did the rapt enthusiast picture
the work to which he was giving his life, that Dr.
Harper feared he would too soon waste himself away
in the heat of the tropics.
From not a few pulpits and platforms before his
departure for India he delivered missionary discourses
and appeals, which roused a new spirit in the country,
and have left behind them, in the long half-century
since they were uttered, the echo of such a burst of
self-dedication as this in the fine old kirk of Leuchars,
54 LIFE OP Dli. DUrP. 1829.
where, preaching from Romans i. 14, " I am debtor both
to tlie Greeks and to the Barbarians," he exclaimed —
" There was a time when I had no care or concern
for the heathen : that was a time when I liad no care
or concern for my own soul When by the grace of
God I was led to caro for my own soul, then it was I
began to care for the Jieathen abroad. In my closet,
on my bended knees, I then said to God, '0 Lord,
Tliou knowest that silver and gold to give to this
cause I have none ; what I have I give unto Thee, — I
offer Thee myself, wilt Thou accept tL> gift ? ' " The
hearer who recalls this, adds, " I think I see him, with
tears trickling down his checks as he uttered theso
words. Afterwards I walked from Dundee to St-
Andrews, and went to his Sabbath school, when ho
gave a very afTccting address th his class of young
people, urging them to remember him in their prayers
as he would them in his, and the same God who heard
them would hear him in India."
To Mrs. Briggs and other friends who presented him
with that Baofster's Bible which had afterwards so event-
ful a history, he wrote : — " I surely can never forget St.
Andrews. Endeared by many interesting associations,
and linked to my soul by the fondest recollections of
kindness and friendship and Christian fellowship, it
would argue a destitution of all principle and of all
feeling did I ever wholly forget it. And if, amid the
cares and the employments of an arduous but Tlorious
undertaking in a foreign land, the fieshness of x ^eling
be apt to become languid, and the vividness of mcmcry
to fade, the daily obtrusion on the eye of sense of a
memorial like the present cannot fail to quicken the
languishing feelings, and revive the fading impres-
sions on the memory. What is more : the daily
perusal of that blessed book, which, in its present
adventitious connection, must serve as the reviver of
^.t. 23. TO FATHER AND MOTUER. 53
what had a tciidency to decay, and tho remombrancci'
of friends that are far distant, will invest these im-
pressions with a sacredness, and those feelings with a
hallowedness, to the possession of which they could
not otherwise have any claim."
The decision of the General Assembly, and the
arrangements which followed it, led him thus to address
his fiithcr, wlio had watched with a grateful pride the
consecration of the son to a higher than an ecclesiastical
bishopric of souls : — " Pray with redoubled earnestness
that I may be strengthened with all might in the inner
man, and with all grace and all divine knowledge, that
I may be enabled to approve myself a good and a
valiant soldier of the Cross, and not merely a common
soldier but a champion. Oh ! that I breathed a nobler
spirit, and were filled with a more fervent and devoted
zeal, and were more humbled on account of my vilcness
and unworthiness, and were clinging more closely to
my Saviour." Tho natural affection of his mother
lie thus reasoned with : " Beware of making an idol
of me. AVhilo you feel all the tenderness of parental
love which the faith of tho gospel, far from extirpating,
strengthens, sanctifies, and refines, be earnest in prayer
to God that Satan may not tempt you to raise me to
an undue place in your affections, lest God, in His holy
displeasure, see fit to remove mo not only to India,
but to the land of skulls anu sepulchres. Think
then, ponder, pray over these things, and may God
Himself guide and direct you into the ways of peace
and heavenly resignation. Your account of the
people about Moulin has driven me to pray, and
humbled me in the dust. Lord, what am I that I
should bo so highly honor.red as to be made the in-
strument of conveying such truths as were calculated
to arouse, to awaken, to edify ? Merit, is it said ?
No, no, had I any more tlian tlio hollowed channel
56 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1829.
of tlie river along wliicli are inaclo to flow tliose
streams tbat enrich and fertilize the neighbouring
lands ? " Again when leaving Scotland he thus
poured out all the sacred confidences and trust of
his heart : —
"EniNBUEon, 25t7i August^ 1829.
"My* Dear Father, — I received your gratifying
letter in time to prevent uneasiness. It was truly a
gratifying letter, vividly displaying the workings and
resolutions of a Christian mind, as well as the feelings
of a tender parent. Who sent us all our blessings ?
God. And shall we return His kindness with base
ingratitude ? shall we become more obdurate the more
He showers upon us of His loving-kindness ? Yes, we
may, but woe unto us if we shall; we may, but heaven
will frown upon us if we do, and hell will exult with
joy. Come, then, let us acknowledge the goodness of
God. Let us pour out our souls in praise and thanks-
giving at a throne of grace. Is He not a kind God,
and shall we be unmindful ? Is He not a gracious
forgiving God, and shall we be rebellious ? Is He not
a God of love, and shall we therefore hate Him and
His children ? Ah ! What do I say ? Forget, rebel
against, and hate the great Creator, Preserver, Re-
deemer, and Judge ! Oh, my soul, shrink from the
impious thought; and praise God that thou art not
at this moment an outcast in the place of perdition.
" This, my dear father, I believe to be the language
of your heart, when you have finally resolved to deliver
mo up a free-will offering to the Lord. In so delivering
me do reckon it to be a duty and a privilege. Instead
of my being willing in this service, and preserved from
the evil that is in the world, might I not, at this
moment, be a rake, and given up to all manner of vice,
and doomed to expiate my crime against an outraged
JEt. 2^. TENDEU FAREWELLS. 57
community on the scaffold ? And would not your
heart be broken and your grey liairs brought down
•with sorrow to the grave, if this were my unhappy
destiny ? Yes, ray dear father, sure I am that, in this
case, anguish inexpressible would be your anguish,
such as alone a parent can feel. Who then has so
highly favoured you and me as to save us the anguish
and shame of such a death ? God alone, in the riches
of His restraining grace and boundless compassion.
And if, on the other hand, God, with a love that is
unfathomable as the abyss of His own infinity, has
blessed me undeservedly, blessed me with the comforts
of this life, infused into my soul a portion of His
grace, taught me to look forward to a glorious
heaven as my home ; nay more, made my venerable
parent the Church of Scotland call me, one of the
unworthiest of her sons, to fight the battles of the
Lord in the land of the enemy, and exhibit feats of
divine heroism, and live the life and die the death of
a special ambassador of the Lord to the heathen, oh !
should not I rejoice, should not y^ u rejoice and fall
down on your knees, and bless and praise and magnify
the holy name of God, for having so richly favoured,
so highly honoured a feeble, undeserving son of yours ?
Or will you be a loser by so giving me up to the Lord,
and so praising Him for His goodness in having called
me to so mighty a work? No, God will bless you
with the blessing of Abraham,- will enrich you with
His faith and reward, and will reward you a thousand-
fold for your willing resignation and cheerful readiness
in obeying God's command. The Lord bless you, and
my dear mother, and all the people of God at Moulin.
Adieu ! Your dear and affectionate son,
"Alexander Doff.'*
The student who seems to have taken the place of
58 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1829.
Urquliarfc In liis affections was one of bis own age,
but several years junior to him in college. To David
Ewart, also a Perthsliire man but born at Alytli, lie
thus describes his preparation in Edinburgli for tho
work which he had undertaken. The glowing lan-
guage and utter self-surrender doubtless influenced his
friend to follow him after some years to Calcutta : —
" EoiNnuRGU, 8th J'lihj, 1829.
"My Dear Mr. Ewart, — In rede, ption of a pledge
given at our last parting I now write to you. At
present my time is chiefly occupied in inspecting the
best conducted schools in this city, in writing dis-
courses for my ordination-trials, etc., and in studying
the religion and character of the Hindoos, so far as
a knowledge of these can be acquired from books and
the information of gentlemen who have been in India ;
my object being, under the divine blessing, to employ
every means that may conduce to render myself more
fully qualified for satisfactorily fulfilling tho arduous
duties which I have undertaken to discharge. To
imbue these dead exercises with the living energy of
heaven, and convert them into usefulness in the service
of heaven, I endeavour feebly and imperfectly, yet,
I trust, earnestly and incessantly, to pour out my
soul in prayer and supplication to the Father of spirits,
that He may cause His richest blessings to descend
upon my feeble efforts. I have endeavoured to exam.-
ine into the state of my soul, to prove the sincerity of
my motives in my self-dedication to the cause of Christ.
I have endeavoured not only to subdue, but absolutely
to crucify and annihilate, that fair and plausible and
insinuating but withal hell-enkindled and soul-destroy-
ing thing, self : I have endeavoured to count the cost
and view it in its most fearful magnitude : I havo
JFA. 23. FIRST LETTER TO DAVID EWART. 59
endeavoured to ascend tlio mountain of tlio Lord, to
enter His holy temple and presence, to lay liold of tho
balances of the sanctuary. In the one side I liave
placed the clinging ties and lingering claims of tlio
land of my fatliers, the fond caresses of friends and
acquaintances dear as life, the refined enjoyments of
civilized society, the delights arising from favourite
studies, and the exhilarating benefits of a kindly cli-
mate : in the other, the unredeemed chcerlcssness of a
foreign land, the scorn and contempt and ridicule of
the strangers for whose welfare I labour, the grating
inconveniences of a rude untutored community, tho
engagements in studies and pursuits inherently unwel-
come to the mind, and tho enervating, destructive
influences of an unwholesome atmosphere; dangers,
difficulties, disappointments, yea, the great probability
of a sudden, premature death : — these have I, in depen-
dence upon divine grace, endeavoured to weigh in tho
balances. Tho former side, notwithstanding its appci'
rent weight, has been found wanting ; the latter God
has been graciously pleased, to cause uniformly to pro-
ponderate. And in the glow of a feeling Avhich is not
natural to flesh and blood, and which, from its per-
manence, cannot bo the offspring of a heated imagina-
tion, I have been enabled to exclaim : ' May the former
considerations not only be weakened, but be utterly
swept out of existence. Lord, I feel their littleness,
their total insignificancy, and, for the sake of promoting
Thy glory among the heatlien, I cordially, cheerfully
embrace the latter : yea, if such were Thy will, I
am ready to go to the parched desert or the howling
wilderness, to live on its bitter herbs and at the mercy
of its savage inhabitants. Lord, strengthen the weak-
ness of my faith that I may bo powerful in accom-
plishing Thy will.' . . Your affectionate friend,
^* Alexander Duff."
60 LIFE OF DR. DUFF, 1829.
Next to liis own people, none took so keen an in-
terest in the whole career of the young missionary as a
patriarchal couple at Blairgowrie, who, being childless,
had long devoted themselves exclusively^ to work for
Christ. Patrick Lawson and his wife became young
again when they had students around them ; and few
were so welcome as Alexander Duff, who had been in
the habit of visiting them annually, on the rising of the
college, attracted chiefly by their rich and racy l)iblical
talk. In his last interview, after his appointment by
the General Assembly, ho was asked abruptly whether
he intended to marry. He replied that he had been
too close a student to think of such matters, and had
not, up to that time, met one whom he could conscien-
tiously regard as a suitable helpmeet in so arduous an
enterprise. " Well," said the old gentleman, stead-
fastly regarding him, " I do not approve of young men
fresh from college taking wives to themselves when
newly married to their church, before they can pos-
sibly know the requirements of their work. But your
case is wholly different. You go to a distant region
of heathenism, where you will find little sympathy
among your countrymen, and will need the com-
panionship of one like-minded to whom you may un-
bosom yourself. My advice to you is, be quietly on
the look-out ; and if, in God's providence, you make
the acquaintance of one of the daughters of Zion,
traversing, like yourself, the wilderness of this world,
her face set thitherward, get into friendly converse
with her. If you find that in mind, in heart, in tem-
per and disposition you congenialize, and if God puts
it into her heart to be willing to forsake father and
mother and cast in her lot with you, regard it as a
token from the God of providence that you should use
the proper means to secure her Christian society."
Thus he went on, in the allegorical style of Bunyan,
JEt. 23. MAKllIAGE. 61
and with a deep feeling wliicli speedily won Mr. Duff's
assent.
Just before Dr. Chalmers ordained the missionary,
Dr. Inglis married him to Anne Scott Drysdale, of
Edinburgh. It was, and was more than once pronounced
by him, when left the survivor but not solitary, a happy
consummation. Never had even missionary a moro
devoted wife. Sinking herself in her husband from
the very first, she gave him a new strength, and left
the whole fulness of his nature and his time free for
the one work of his life. She worthily takes her place
among those noble women, in many lands of the East,
who have supplied the domestic order, the family joy,
the wedded strength needed to nerve the pioneers of
missions for the unceasing conflict that ends in
victory.
It was on the 19th September, 1829, that the mis-
sionary and his wife left Leith for London, where they
became the guests of Alderman and Mrs. Pirie, and
where Mr., afterwards Sir John Pirie, secured a
passage and fitted up a cabin for them in the Ladij
Holland East Indiaman. Dr. Inglis had formally
npplied to the Court of Directors for that permission
for Mr. Duff and his wife to sail to India as "inter-
lopers," not in the covenanted civil, military and naval
service of the East India Company, which passport
Parliament was soon to declare unnecessary by the
liberal charter of 1833. He was. Dr. Inglis reported
to the Assembly of 1830, " supplied with letters of
introduction and recommendation to the Governor-
General, to our countryman the Earl of Dalhousie,
to other men of influence at the seat of Government
at Calcutta, and to some of our private friends." The
Earl, who was Commander-in-Chief of the Indian
armies, was the father of the great Marquis, and tho
Governor-General was Lord William Bentinck. This
6a LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1829.
was tlio letter to the Calcutta cliaplaln. Dr. Bryco
and his wife in due time welcomed Mr. and Mrs. Duff
with the proverbial kindliness of Anglo-Indians.
"Edinburqii, \Gth Snptnmhcr, 1829.
"My Dear Sir, — This letter will bo delivered to you by Mr.
Alexander Duff, who is, at length, sent out as Head Master of
the General Assembly's proposed Institution in India. I need
not say much for explaining to you tlio causes of delay in the
acconiplishmcnt of an object which I have had much at heart.
Want of money will readily occur to you j and it was in fact
tho only impediment. But we now hope that wo may venture
to send out one assistant to Mr. Duff, who may reach him
pretty nearly as soon as he shnll have made all tho requisite
preparations for tho work assigned to him.
"I have great confidence in Mr. Duff for an able and faith-
ful and prudent discharge of all the duty which lie has under-
taken. At tho College of St. Andrews, where lie was bred,
he stood very high in respect of attainments — literary and
scientific as well as theological; he carried off many of tho
first prizes in every department. At the samo time his whole
heart seems to be committed in the work which he has under-
taken ; and we have had the strongest attestations of the pru-
dence and discretion of his general conduct.
" As to his side in tho Church I have made no inquiry.
It was obvious from tho beginning that this was not a point to
bo insisted on. But he has been recommended to mo by men
of both sides of the Church in language equally strong. I
have no doubt of his experiencing from you all the kindness
which my heart can desire ; and I am confident that my friend
Mrs. Bryce will have an equal disposition to show kindness to
Mrs. Duff. With her I am littlo acquainted; but it would
give me much pleasure to learn that sho proves an agreeable
accompaniment of our mission to India.
** Many thanks to you for whai you did in procuring contri-
butions to our fund. I received notice from Dr. Meiklejohn
and Mr. Peterkin that they amount to about £1,000, lying in
a bank at Calcutta, and bearing interest at the order of the
General Assembly. I received a similar intimation that 3,350
rupees were lying for us at Bombay. An order will bo sent
^t. 23. T)R. INGLIS TO DR. CUYCE. 63
through tho house of Coutts & Co., in London, for the pay-
ment of botli tho Calcutta and tho Bombay money to their
correspondent in Calcutta, who will bo empowered to dispose
of it, for behoof of the Assembly's Committee, in tho payment
of salaries, etc., as circumstances shall require.
" I must refer you to Mr. Duff for an explanation of all our
plan, which has been arranged in tho course of consultation
with your excellent friend, Dr. Macwhirter. In truth, tho
want of money seems to be the only thing that stands in tho
way of a fair prospect of great success. This want I shall do
everything in my power to supply ; and I am very hopeful
that you will now find it in your power to assist mo farther
with your friends in India. In this case wo should be able
very soon to completo what has been proposed by having, be-
sides tho head-master, two assistant-teachers from Europe,
and as many native teachers as they can conveuieutly superin-
tend. I shall now bo very anxious to hear from you about
what is doing after Mr. Duff's arrival. Tho precise site of
our Institution will bo an important object to fix. All that wo
have determined hero is that it should bo in tho neighbourhood
of Calcutta."
The missionary's last letter from London was
addressed to Dr. Chalmers :
''6th October, 1829.
" Dear Doctor, — I cannot make a sufficient acknow-
ledgment to you for your kindness in forwarding to
me a copy of your charge. No boon could be to me
so invaluable, no address equally pregnant with sound
advice and eloquent admonition. Major Carnac, to
whom you so kindly introduced me, I found truly
agreeable and ready to promote my views. By Mr.
Orme I was last week introduced to a full meeting of
the directors of the London Missionary Si5ciety, who
received mo with the most marked attention ; and in
private I have reaped much benefit from the conversa-
tions of Mr. Townly, Dr. Henderson, and Mr. Hands.
64 LIFK OV D\L DUFF. 1829.
I have attciulcd Mr. Forbes for tlio acquisition of
oriental languages. My kindest respects to Mrs.
Chalmers and family, and Miss Edio. This evening
wc aot off for Portsmouth."
CHAPTER III.
1830.
THE TWO SmrWREGKS.
"In Perils of Waters." — The Lady Holland and lier Pnsscn<:;er8
— Lieutenant- J[. Af. Diirand. — Madeira. — Tho Unfortunate Ball.
— Captain Marryat. — Georj^o Canin'u;»''.s KIdcst 8on. — Pirates. —
Capo Vcrd Islands. — OIF Dassen I.sland. — Tlio First Shipwreck.
— Anticipations of the Day of Judgment. — Resignation and
Prayer. — Saved at Last. — Tho Biblo and Psalter cast up by
the Sea. — Fervent Thanksgiving of All. — Lesson from tho Lost
Library.— Capo Town. — Letter to Dr. Chalmers. — Mr. and Mrs.
Duff sail in tlio Muira for Calcutta. — Opposing Gaics. — At the
Sandheads. — Cyclone off Saugar Island. — The Second Shipwreck.
— A Night and Day of Storm. — Tho Missionary and his ^Vifo
thrown on the Shore of India. — A Day and Night in a Temple.
— Welcomed at Calcutta. — Adam and Lacroix. — Lord and Lady
William Bentinck. — Superstition of tho Natives forecasts Duff's
Future.
The vision of judgment seen by the child who had
been feeding his fancy on the Gaehc rhapsodies of
Dugald Buchanan; the divine call to the boy as ho
lay dreaming among the blae-berries on the stream-
let's bank ; the deliverance of the youth by the flare
of a torch when he and his companion were falling
into the sleep of death, lost amid the snowdrifts
of the Grampians — these foreshadowings were not
to cease until the missionary's preparation for his
work was completed. He had followed the monition
of all three, not blindly, but as explained by John
Urquhart's death-consecrated appeal, by Dr. Haldane's
apparently premature invitation, by Dr. Ferrie's ap-
propriate demand that he should offer himself for
66 LIFE OF DU. DUFF. 1829.
Calcutta, by Dr. Inglis's approval, by tlio General
Assembly's appointment ; and, finally, by ordination
at the hands of the Presbytery, amid the crowd that
filled St. George's, Edinburgh, and after the inspirit-
ing eloquence of Dr. Chalmers. Alexander Duff and
his wife were still to undergo the experience of tlie
greatest of all missionaries who wrote, *' Thrice I
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in
the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of waters."
The East India Company's ship Lady Holland,
having filled up in the Thames with a cargo valued
at £48,000, entered the Channel, shipped her passen-
gers at Portsmouth, became windbound for a week at
Spiihcad, and finally set sail from Ryde on the 14th
October, 1829. Plunging heavily into the storm out-
side the Isle of Wight, the ship made for Falmouth.
When the gale had abated she passed close to a
derelict vessel carrying w^ood and swept desolate by
the waves. Not a trace of the crew could be found.
The sight affected the Ladij IlollaiuVs passengers
and crew, filling not a few Avith ominous apprehen-
sions as to the issues of a voyage thus begun. But
the dreaded Bay of Biscay proved to be unusually
friendly, although contrary winds did not allow the
ship to reach the roads of Funchal till the 7th of
November. By that time the twenty-two passengers
had taken stock of each other. The great man on board
■was no higher than a judge in the Madras civil service ;
but it was a fortunate circumstance that Mr. Lascelles
and his party of seven proved to be " decidedly pious,"
as described by Mr. Duff in a letter to Principal
Haldane. An eighth, and next to Duff himself the
most remarkable man on board, was Henry Marion
Durand, the young lieutenant of Engineers who was
to come second only to Sir Henry Lawrence on the
brilliant roll of the Company's soldier-statesmen. lie
JEt. 23. LIEUTENANT DDRAND. CAPTAIN MARRYAT. 67
mado up a gatlieriug of at least ten who attcndcil
daily worship.*
The captain, as usual, had intended to remain
a week at Madeira, to take in a cargo of wine
that it might make the voyage to India to bo
mellowed for the English market. Anticipating tliis
Alderman Pirio had provided for the hospitable
reception of Mr. and Mrs. Duff by his agent, Mr.
Stoddart, who was one of the principal merchants and
afterwards British Consul. As there were at tho
time three British frigates in the roads, they found
their fellow-guest to be the famous novelist, Captain
Marryat, who was in command of one. The week had
nearly passed; the agent of tho ship gave the usual
ball to the captain and passengers on the night before
her announced departure, and all were present at the
dance save the Duffs and Lieutenant Durand. After
midnight westerly gales set in with violence and drove
tho ships in the Bay out to sea. Three of them
missed stays, were driven ashore and dashed to pieces,
and not a li '' was saved. The captains of the frigates
and other vessels, being on shore at the ball, were in
a very sorry plight. Day after day there was a suc-
cession of gales, so that nothing was heard of any
one of the vessels for upwards of three weeks.
We may imagine the position of those passengers
who had gone ashore in their ball-dress with no
change of garments. Despairip'-'^ of tho vessel some
of them began to negotiate wi i a Portuguese ship
about to proceed to Lisbon, that tucy might thence go
to London and take ouu a new passage.
Being thus unexpectedly detained upwards of three
* Tlio life of Sir Henry Duraiul, tho noblest member of tlio dacal
house of Northauibcrlaud, is beiug wriLton by his second son, who
is of the Bengal "-vil scrvioo.
68 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1829.
"weeks beyond the allotted time, the passengers in the
different parties visited the most interesting sights of
the island, amongst others the Curral, in the centre,
which is in reality the gigantic crater of a volcano
rising to the height of six thousand feet. Approached
by a difficult zigzag path along many precipices which
look down upon a tremendous chasm, the Curral was
not seen till they actually reached it. At the first
sight of its vast dimensions, in breadth as well as height
and depth, all were struck dumb by a sensation of the
sublime. The appearance of the place suggested to
Mr. Duff the well-known lines of Cowper, —
" Higher than the heights above.
Deeper than the depths beneath.
Free and faithful, strong as death,"
which he could not help repeating aloud. During
his stay he also inspected some conventual and mon-
astic institutions, making inquiries into the practical
workinof of both. At that time Don MiLmel had
usurped the throne of Portugal, and had seized the
Portuguese fleet, which ho sent to Madeira to capture
the island, to expel the Constitutionalists, and to pro-
claim his own sovereignty over it. Such was the
ignorance of the inhabitants, that the priests succeeded
in making them believe that Miguel was the incarna-
tion of the archangel Michael; and their professed
belief or non-belief in this impudent dogma was con-
stituted into a test to distincruish between the Miofucl-
ites and the Constitutionalists.
A little before this time the eldest surviving: son
of the great George Canning had been there in com-
mand of an English frigate. Animated by the liberal
principles of his father, he made it to be understood
that, though he could not officially interfere, if any of
the persecuted Constitutionalists chose to seek refuge
ALL 23. DROWNING OF LOUD CANMIMG's BUOTIIEB. 69
on board liis sliip he would receive them. In time it
was known to the Portuguese authorities that he had
upwards of three hundred of these on board, and the
Governor of the island and the Admiral of the Portu-
guese sent him a message to the effect that if he did
not deliver up the refugees, whom they reckoned
traitors, they would blow his frigate in pieces. This
they could have done, but young Canning, witli the
spirit of the British seaman, always repUed, "No,
never: I will deliver up not one of them, and you
may blow my ship in pieces if you like, but that will
only precipitate your own doom, as it would send
forth the English Navy to put an end to you utterly."
In point of fact they did not meddle with him. A
good way up the hill a retired merchant of the name
of Gordon resided in a house beautifully situated.
He was a very humane man. He had got himself
appointed conservator of animals, so that he was
constantly on the look-out for cases of cruelty to be
punished. It was a real instance of benevolence of
natural instinct. He was also very hospitable. One
day Captain Canning went up the hill to the house,
in front of which was a tank of fresh water. Being
greatly heated lie threw off his clothes, plunged into
the tank, was seized with cramp, and never came out
alive. Thus perished one whose younger brother be-
came the first Viceroy of India.* Among the Consti-
tutionalists tliere was throughout the island universal
lamentation.
Mr. Duff held Sabbath services in the had of one
the boarding-houses, which were attended by most
* Shall we never sec a memoir of Charles John Earl Canning, K.tjr ,
and his more noble vvit'e r Their name seems likely to perish most
uudt'servedly, absorbed in that of the De-Burghs or Burkes, of whom
is their nephew, the Marquis of Clanriearde.
70 LIFE 0¥ DR. DUFF. 1830.
of tlio English pcoplo in Fiinclial ; and there was no
hearer more attentive than Captain Marryat, who used
to boast that one of his ancestors was a martyr to the
Christian faith. After three weeks one and another of
tlie missing ships began to return, and on the 3rd
December the Ladi/ Holland set sail in company with
one of the British frigates which had been ordered
to the equatorial regions to look after pirates. This
necessitated a detour to the port of the principal
of the Cape Verd islands, where the captain of the
frigate had to consult the British Consul, and learn
from him all that was known about the proceedings
of the pirates. There the ship was again detained
a week. At that time the islands, instead of realizing;
what their name implies, were suffering from long-
continued drought, so that everything on the surface
was literally burned up.
One morning, within a few hundred yards of the
vessel there passea, scudding before the wind, one
of the famous pirate ships with at least fifty men
on deck, and the British frigate in full pursuit.
The Lady Holland, thus saved from what otherwise
would have been destruction to passengers and ves-
sel, rapidly proceeded on her voyage, leaving the
frigate to deal with the pirate. After having been
driven by the south-east trade-wind very near to the
coast of Buenos Ayres, she at last, early in February,
ai)proachcd the coast of South Africa, for the ca[)taiii
intended to call at the Cape of Good Hope. For
a whole week the weather had been cloudy and bois-
terous, so that no accurate observation could be ob-
tained as to the position of the ship ; still, the captain
knew that he was within no great distance of the
coast. Three times, by contrary winds, he was driven
considerably to the south of Table Bay, and returned
with the view of going into it.
JEt. 24. THE FIRST SillPWllECK. 7 1
From the Cape coast tlicrc shoots out into the sea, for
forty or fifty miles, a sandbank on wliicli soundings may
be liad, but along wliicli a tremendous current sweeps
round from the Cape. By soundings, on Saturday
evening, loth February, the captain knew that ho had
entered on this bank. His intention, therefore, was
to avoid risks by turning his vessel back to sea about
eight o'clock. But having then sounded, his conclu-
sion was that he might safely go on for other two
hours, and his fixed determination was by ten o'clock
to turn back or heave to and stay till morning. But
as four bells announced ten o'clock, and he rose to
give the order to turn the vessel back, she bumped
with alarming violence upon rocks. The concussion
was tremendous, and from the first moment her case
seemed hopeless. It was not upon a precipice, but
on reefs of rock over which the waves and billows
dashed furiously, so that at once her back was
broken and the fore part sank down between the reefs.
As in all East Indiamen in those days lights were
put out at ten, almost all the passengers had retired
to their berths. The vio^ ..x> collision, as it seemed,
at once roused them up, and they rushed to the
cuddy, wrapped up in blankets, sheets, or whatever
they could lay hold of. Occupying one of the back-
most poop cabins, Mr. DufF was half undressed when
the shock took place. Ho ran out into the cuddy,
crossed the cabin, met the captain on the deck, and
heard him exclaim in agony, " Oh, she's gone, she's
gone I
I "
Seeing that the condition of the vessel was hopeless,
the command was promptly given to cut down the masts
in order to relieve the pressure of the wind on the sails,
and then, in case there might be a way of escape, to caulk
the seams of the long-boat, which was in the centre of tho
vessel, and in which were forty sheep when it left Eng-
72 LIFE OF Dll. DUFF. 1830.
land. Meanwhile almost all the passengers assembled
in the cuddy, but, from the violence of the motion, they
could neither sit nor stand without clinging to some ob-
ject. At first consternation was depicted in every coun-
tenance at the suddenness of so terrible a catastrophe,
for all had joyfully made their arrangements to go on
shore at Cape Town next forenoon. In one of the
cabins adjoining tlie cuddy there was a captain who was
heard crying out in bitter agony, " What shall become
of me, I have been such a hypocrite!" The explan-
ation of this was, that he had been married to a
godly lady, and while she lived he tried to pay at
least outward homage t») the observances of religion,
but, after her death, ho relapsed into the follies of
the world. Mr. Duff was wont to hold a religious
service every Lord's-day, which all the passengers
attended except this officer, who, to show his con-
tempt used to pace the poop deck over their heads.
One of the ladies, who was a Christian, happened to
notice that another of the passengers, a colonel who
occupied one of the poop cabins, was not among
the number present, and her remark was, " Let
us not allow him to go down without at least his
knowing it." Two or three entered his cabin and
found him profoundly askep. AVaking him up, they
dragged him into the cuddy. Astonished he began
to cry out, " Are you all crazed ? " and then he
suddenly broke out into a bacchanalian song. This
surprised every one, because it was not known that he
could sing at all. He was naturally a most affable and
courteous man, who was a general favourite with the
passengers. But it turned out that he had a habit,
unknown to most of them, of nightly taking a very
copious dranglit of brandy, and then retiring to bis
berth. Having slept it off, the next morning he would
appear cheerful as usual. The disaster having taken
A'A. 24. THE FIRST SUirWRECK. JT,
place about ten o'clock, tlicro liad not been time for
him to recover from the effects of the draught.
A few of the passengers were God-fearing people,
and they were calmly resigned to what seemed to
be their inevitable fate. As was often the case in these
long voyages, several of them were not even on speak-
ing terms. To introduce a mollifying element, Mr.
Duff was accustomed daily to have a number of them in
his cabin, to whom he read portions of the history of
India and other works. Now all, oppressed with the
conviction that they might immediately appear before
the judgment seat of God, became suddenly reconciled,
shaking each other by the hand and imploring forgive-
ness. Others thought of the friends whom they had
left at home, and gave varied utterance to their feel-
ings. The whole scene, Mr. Duff used to say after-
wards, tended to suG^s^est the marvellous revelations
which shall take place at the Day of Judgment. In
about half an hour, when the first convulsive agonies
of feeling began to abate, ho suggested that, as all
might suddenly bo called together to give their final
account, they should join as best they could in prayer
to God for their deliverance, if it were Ilis holy will,
and if otherwise that they might bo prepared to meet
Him. All responded, clustering around him and hold-
ing by what objects they could, while the missionary
poured out his soul in fervent sup[)lications.
While such was the scene below, the captain and
the sailors were eagerly doing their part on the deck.
All around the wreck there was one mass of white
foam, except immediately behind. The captain had,
at the very outset, ordered one of the gig boats
hanging over the side of the vessel to be launched.
He put three seamen into her, with the order to
follow this darker part, and, if possible, get round the
mass of white foam to ascertain whether there was
74 LIFE OF DK. DUFF. iSjot
any landing place available. For, at the time, it was
not known wlieihor the vessel had struck on a sunken
reef, on an island, or on the mainland. It wjis a
desperate endeavour. The sea was running mountains
high, and it seemed impossible that a small boat could
live in it. Three hours had passed and the boat was
given up as lost, when it appeared and the seamen
announced that, round the mass of Avhite foam, they
had. found a small sandy bay, on which, if it could be
reached, a landing would be practicable. This inten-
sified the desire to launch the long-boat, but, sur-
rounded as the wreck was by masts, spars and broken
bulwarks, it seemed more than doubtful whether this
could be done. Every wave was now rolling over the
main deck.
At last, watching their opportunity, the sailors got
the boat afloat by the help of one of the waves.
When they saw it fairly oif at a short distance from
the wreck, they raised the shout, " There goes our
last hope," meaning, there it is safe among the floating
fragments of the wreck. But scarcely had the cry
been uttered when the rope snapped, and the boat was
seen like a dark speck moving away into the mass of
white foam. By this time the moon gave a dim
flickering light. Though the last hope of deliver-
ance thus seemed gone, not a word was uttered by
any one of the passengers, who had become so ex-
hausted that their only desire was for a speedy end.
To their surprise, however, the dark speck in the
foam, wdiicli had disappeared, began to approach, and
a human voice was heard from it calling for a rope.
It turned out that a wretched sailor, who had seemed
to be the worst man on board, confessed that ho
had resolved, if any one were to be saved he would.
Amid the uproar and darkness he had concealed
himself lengthways in the bottom of the boat. When
yEl. 24. THE OWEAT DELIVERANCE. 75
it approacliGcl tho dark line of rock he saw it might
bo dashed in pieces, and so he seized an oar and held
it up against the rock, thus turning the boat round
into a small cove. There the next wave threatened
to dash him to pieces, so witli the energy of despair
he grasped a second oar, and succeeded in owing
back to tho wreck.
The long-boat could not contain above a third part
of those on board ; the question therefore was, who
should go first. Had it been at the outset there
might have been a rush for tho boat, but by this
time all tumultuous feelings were assuaged. The
prevalent feeling was, that all the lady passengers
should if possible get on board. Then a very strik-
ing scene occurred : some of these were married, some
unmarried. The unmarried ones went to the married
men, saying, " You go with your wives, — you are two,
we are only one," — because the wives had said that
they would not leave without their husbands. Event-
ually all the ladies and married men got on board.
Manned by a few strong sailors, with the gig leading
the wav, tlie lonof-boat at lensfth reached the shallow
sandy beach. The wind after midnight had begun
considerably to abate, and all were landed.
Soon after the last boat arrived daylight began to
appear. Before this there was no means of knowing
whether the place was inhabited ; but sounds in end-
less variety were heard, amongst which all agreed that
they could distinguish the braying of asses. It was
found that the shipwrecked party had reached an
island, of which the only tenants were myriads of pen-
guins who had given forth these discordant noises.
The penguin is a bird in size intermediate between a
duck and a goose, with short flappers which assist it
in swimming and in running- quickly along the shore.
Soon also it was found that, since at that season the
76 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1830.
pongiilns laid their eggs in holes burrowed in the
sandy surface of the island, there were two Dutchmen
on the spot sent from Capo Town to collect the spoil.
The passengers bargained with these men for the use
of their cooking-pot, and then divided themselves into
companies — one, to collect eggs ; another, to gather
withered grass and sea-weed for the fire; and a third,
to remain by the pot and constantly boil the eggs as
their only food.
Soon after this a sailor, walking along the beach,
noticed an object cast ashore. Going up to it, he found
it was a quarto copy of Bagster's liible and a Scotch
Psalm-book, somewhat shattered but with Mr. Duff's
name written distinctly on both. The precious volumes
had not been used on the voyage out. Wrapped in
chamois leather they had been put with other books
in a box, which must have been broken to pieces. The
sailor who found the volumes high and dry on the
beach had been the most attentive at the service which
the missionary had held with the crew every Sabbath.
Taking Bible and Psalter to the hovel where the pas-
sengers sought shelter, with a glowing face he pre-
sented them to their owner. All were deeply affected
by what they regarded as a message from God. Led
by Mr. Duff they kneeled down, and there he spread
out the precious books on the white bleached sand.
What a meaning to each had the travellers' Psalm, the
107tli which he read, as to all exiles, captives and
stormtossed wanderers since the days when its first
singers were gathered from all lands to rebuild Jeru-
salem ! What fervent prayer and thanksgiving followed
its words, as tne band of shipwrecked but delivered men
and women lifted their wearied faces to the heavens :
" Whoso is wise and will observe these things,
Even thuy tjliuU undcrslaud the lovingkinduess of the Lord,
}>
JEt. 24. Till-: LOSS OF HIS Lir.KARY. 77
For the missionary liimself tlio appnrcnfc miracle
had a very special meaning, wliicli influenced his after-
life. His letters, so far as we liaveu^iveu extracts from
them, have shown that when in all the flusli of his
collei^e successes he anew devoted himself to God,
for what was tlien dreaded as a missionai'y career,
he counted learnini^ as nothing in com[)arison of
winning Christ for himself and for others. As to
some of the greatest of the Fathers on their tui'ii-
ing from Paganism, Homer, Yirgil and Horace had
been dear companions, wliose lines lingered on the
tongue and rang in the ear when their books were
not in the hands, so was it to Alexander Duff. Ho
loved these less only because he cared for tlie old and
never to be dethroned queen of tlie sciences more. He
had but half parted with their companionship, and ho
could never lose the culture they gave him — tlie sym-
pathy with all literature by which he was nmrked till
his last days when ho read to his grand-children the
" Paradise Lost," which classical associations made
more dear to him. So when going forth to found a col-
lege, a Christian Institute, like Bishop Berkeley at the
Bermudas, he had taken with him a library of more
than eight hundred volumes, representing "every
department of knowledge." All were swallowed up in
the shipwreck save forty. And of these forty the only
books not reduced nearly to pulp were the Bible, in
the best edition of those days, solenndy presented to
him by friends in St. Andrews on his ordination ; and
the Psalter with which Moses and David, Asaph and tlio
other authors of the five books of the orioinal Hebrew
lays, have ever since fed the Church of God and com-
forted sinning, ])onitent humanity. AYitli the books
had gone all his journals, notes, memoranda and
essays, dear to an honest student as his own flesh.
The instinct which had led all the passengers, even the
78 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1830.
least devout of the twenty-two, to recognise in the
preservation of the Bible and Psalter a message from
God, became in his case a conviction that henceforth
human learninof must bo to him a means onlv, not in
itself an end. That the word of God abide th for ever,
was afresh written upon his soul. The man to whom
purely secular scholars in the next generation bore
this testimony as tlic highest they could give, that ho
was afraid of no truth but sanctified all truth, did not
cease, even then, his allegiance to learning in every
form when of his books and journals he wrote to Dr.
Inglis : * " They are gone, and, blessed be God, I can
say, gone without a murmur. So perish all earthly
thingfs : the treasure that is laid up in Leaven alone is
unassailable. God has been to me a God full of mercy,
and not the least of His mercies do I find in cheerful
resignation."
The land proved to be Dassen Island, in the Atlantic,
forty miles N.N.W. of Cape Town and ten miles from
the mainland of Africa. From afar they saw the
white mist which forms the ' table-cloth ' of Tablo
Mountain. The shipwrecked people planned to cross
the strait and find their way on foot to the town, but
the Dutchmen's skiff was too small to do the work of
ferrying in less than a mouth. So the Irish surgeon of
the ship set out alone, and in four days a brig of war
rescued them, sent by the humane Governor, Sir Lowric
Cole, although it was just weighing anchor for other
duty at Port Elizabeth. The surgeon had sought an
immediate interview with his Excellency, who had just
finished his despatches. The gallant soldier, who had
been one of Wellington's generals in the Peninsular
* Extract of a Letter respecting the Wrcch of the " Ladij
IloUand," East Indiaman, from tlio Rev. Alcxuudcr Duff. Edin-
burgh, 1830.
^t. 24. AT CAPE TOWN. 79
war, declared, •' liumanity has tlie first claim." The
weather-beaten party landed in the midst of the British
and Dutch inhabitants, who crowded to express their
sympathy.
Mr. and Mrs. Duff were received by the Rev. Dr.
Adamson, son of that minister at Cupar Fife who
had been colleague of Dr. Campbell, father of the
Lord Chancellor. For weeks the passengers were de-
tained. The next East Indiaman was so full that three
of them paid a hundred guineas each to be allowed to
swing their cots in the steerage. Furlough rules make
no allowance for even shipwreck, and high salaries
draw belated officials. Mr. and Mrs. Duif could get
a passage in the last ship of the season, the Molra,
and that only on payment of 3,000 rupees ! This sum
was equal to £2G2 10s. in gold, such was the rate of
exchange then as now. From Cape Town he thus
addressed Dr. Chalmers : —
" Cape Town, March hth, 1830.
" My Dear Doctoi?, — I know your time is precious
and I shall not detain you, as my tale may be briefly
told : On Saturday night, February 13th, the Lady
Holland was w^reckcd off Dassen Island, forty miles
north from Cape Town, but not a life was lost, not
even a personal injury sustained by any one of the
passengers or ciew. This is the fact : for a detail of
the fact and its consequences I refer you to a com-
munication of this date, addressed to Dr. Inglis as the
official organ of the Assembly's committee. You will
there have an account of the nature of our danger and
deliverance, our severe loss and future prospects.
And the object of ray writing to yoii separately, is —
that a circumstance so calamitous in its aspect may
not be permitted to cool zeal or damp exertion, but
may be improved, to kindle a new flame throughout
So LIFE OF DIJ. DUFP. 1830
the Churcli and cause it to burn inextinguishably.
As remarked in the communication referred to, ' tliough
part of the first-fruits of the Churcli of Scotland in
the great cause of Cliristian philanthropy has perished
in the total wreck of the Lad// Ilulland, the cause of
Christ has not perished. The former, like the leaves
of autumn, may be tossed al)outby every tempest; the
latter, more stal)le than nature, ever reviving with
the bloom of youth, will flourish when nature herself
is no more.
*' The cause of Christ is a heavenly and divine
thing, and shrinks from the touch of earth. Often
has its high origin been gloriously vindicated. Often
has it cast a mockery on the mightiest efforts of
human power. Often has it gathered strength amid
weakness, become rich amid losses, rejoiced amid
dangers, and triumphed amid the fires and tortures of
hoU-enkindled men. And shall the Church of Scotland
dishonour such a cause, by exhibiting any symptoms
of coldness or despondency in consequence of the
recent catastrophe ! God forbid. Let her rather
arouse herself into new energy; let her shake off
every earthly alliance with the cause of Christ, as a
retarding, polluting alliance ; let her confide less in
her own resources and more in the arm of Him who
saith, * Not by power, nor by might, but by My Spirit.'
From her faithful appeals let the flame of devotedness
circulate through every parish, and prayers ascend to
* the Lord of the harvest, ' from every family ; and
then may we expect her fountains to overflow, for the
watering and fertilizing of many a dry and parched
heathen land.
" This is the improvement suggested ; and of all
men living you, my dear Doctor, are, with God's
blessing, the individual most capable of making it.
Let the committee be awakened, and, from the awaken-
^t. 24. SAILS FROM CAPE TOWN. 8 1
ing appeals of tlio committee, let tlie Cliurcli be aroused.
Who, that has heard it, can ever forget your own
vivid description and eloquent improv^ement of the
magnificent preparation and total failure of the first
great missionary enterprise ? F om it ours stands at
an immeasurabb distance ; but the principle is the
same. I fear that much of calculatinor worldliness is
apt to enter into the schemes and preparations of the
Assembly. And now Heaven frowns in mercy, and
buries a portion of its fruits in the depths of ocean,
to excite, if possible, to the clierishing of a holier
spirit, and a more prayerful waiting on the Lord for
the outpouring of His grace.
" Mrs. Duff desires her kindest remembrance to
you, and with kindest regards to Mrs. Chalmers and
family, I remain, my dear Doctor, yours most sin-
cerely, cc K T\ J»
•^' "Alexander Duff.
" Sunday sail, never fail," was the chant to which
the sailors lifted the anchor for Calcutta. But the
day proved to be no better omen than the derelict
timber-ship which had crossed the bows of the Ladi/
Holland in the English Channel. Contrary winds
drove the Moira to fifty degrees of south latitude, and
then for weeks she was beaten out of her course by
westerly gales, culminating off Mauritius in a hur-
ricane which threatened the foundering of the ship.
Although the year 1830 was well advanced, and Lord
William Bentinck had not been satisfied with the first
attempt to send a steamer from Bombay to Suez, all
the rewards offered had failed to discover the course
and the tacking which have since reduced the Capo
voyage from an uncertainty that might spread beyond
half the year, to an average of a hundred dnjs. Not
till near the end of May did the Moira sight the hardy
little pilot brig which, far out in the Bay of Bengal
a
82 LIFE OF DK. DUFF. 1830.
but still in the muddy waters of tlie united Ganges
and Brahmapootra rivers, is the advanced post of
British India proper.
The hot sun was blazing with intcnsest power
as the belated East Indiaman was carefully navi-
gated into the estuary of the Hooghly, the most
westerly of the so-called mouths of the Ganges.
Hardly had she been moored in the rapid stream
off the long, low muddy flat of Saugar Island, when
the south-west monsoon was upon her in all that
splendid fury which the Hindoo epics describe with
almost Homeric realism. The clouds hid the sun, and
ffave birth to a storm which soon chano^ed into the
dreaded cyclone. It seemed a portentous welcome at
the very threshold of India, after the previous wreck
at its then outmost gate. In spite of three anchors
thrown out the Molra was dragged, tossed and — as
we have twice since seen in similar cases — lifted by
the wind and the storm- wave on to the muddy shore
of the Saugar, the sagara or Cobleutz or confluence of
Gunga with the ocean. The river was of unusually
vast A^olume, the low delta land was flooded. Poised
on the very edge of Saugar bank, with some ten feet
of water on the shore and sixty or seventy on the
river-side, and wedged in this position by the force of
the hurricane, the Molra worked for herself a bed in
the clay. There is no lime for calculation when the
genius of the cyclone rides the rotary storm so that
no living thing can stand upright. But instinct takes
the place of thought, and the love of life develops
daring which, in calmer hours, were madness. The
vessel was soon found to bo very slowly heeling over
into the deep water. But nothing could be done, for
the great wind of heaven was still loose, and the mid-
night darkness that might bo felt was broken only by
the flash of the forked lightning. The captain managed
JEt 24. THE CYCLONE AND THE SECOND SniPWRECK. 83
to secure the ship's papers on his person, and waited
for tlie dawn, which revealed the vessel leaning over at
a sharp angle, but still kept from disappearing by the
wedge-like compression of the silt of the bank. Often
afterwards did Alexander Duff describe the scene on
which that May morning broke, and the deliverance.
The appearance of the river from the cuddy por-
tion of the hull was very awful. The wind, in
mighty whirling eddies, raised up columns of water
which came down like so many cataracts. From the
extremely perilous position of the ship it was necessary
that all should be put on shore, but that meant deep
water. One largo tree, however, was espied, and to
that the pilot and the natives succeeded in making a
hawser fast, by swimming to its branches. Along this
a boat was moored to the tree, and there, on somewhat
higher ground, the passengers were " landed " up to
the waist in 'water, at the time rolling in billows.
The wind drove all, passengers and crew, inland to a
village where caste forbade the natives to give them
shelter. The island stretches for ten miles in length
and five in breadtl and at that time had a population
of some ten thousand persons, who lived by the manu-
factui'e of salt, and on the offerings of the pilgrims at
the annual bathing festival of the winter solstice,
which used to attract a quarter of a million of devotees
from all parts of India. Denied access to the few huts
that were not flooded, the shipwrecked party took
possession of the village temple. Whether it was that
of the sage Kapilmoonnee, whose curse had destroyed
the eponymous Sagar, king of Oiidh, with its great
banyan tree in front, or the tiger-haunted pagoda
which forms the centre of the fair, we know not. But
it was thus that the first missionary of the Church of
Scotland was, with his wife and fellows, literally
thrown on the mud-formed strand of Bengal, where
$4 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1830.
the last land of tlio lioly goddess, Gunga, receives her
embrace, and manv a motlior was tlien wont to commit
licr living child to the pitiless waters.
When the tidings reached the capital, a hundred
miles np the Ilooghly, numerous small boats of tlie
covered " dinghy " class began to appear. In one
of these Mr. and Mrs. Duff arrived at the City of
Palaces, dvenchod with mud, and terribly exhausted
after twenty-four hours in the temple following such a
day and night of storm. Young Durand, too, found
his way to the city, to the palace of the Bishop, where
the tall lieutenant for some days excited amusement
by appearing in the epicene dress of his kind host.
The Duffs were hospitably entertained by Dr. Brown,
the junior Scottish cluiplain. In due time three
steamers dragged the Moira off Saugar shore, sorely
shattered, but thus the baofrrnGfe was saved. It was
on the 27th May, 1830, that they readied the scene
of the next third of a century's triumphs, having left
Edinburgh on the 19th September, 1829, more than
eight mouths before.
The first to visit Mr. Duff the evening on which
he landed were his old St. Andrews companion, the
llcv. J. Adam, and his afterwards life-long friend
and greatly beloved brother, the Rev. A. F. Lacroix,
both of the London Missionary Society. Next day
came the venerable Archdeacon Corrie, fruit of
Simeon's work ; also Dr. Bryce, the senior chaplain ;
General Beatson, and other Christian strangers, who,
with the more than freemasonry that has not yet died
out of Anglo-India, desired to welcome Duff to Bengal.
His own letters of introduction, preserved on his
person in the two shipwrecks, he duly presented.
With his wife ho lost no time in calling at Government
House on Lady William Bentinck, who received them
not merely with courtesy but with genial Christian
JEt 24. LANDS AT CALCUTTA. 85
sympathy. Tlio Governor-General bimsclf did not
need the letter from a personal friend at liomo, to
give tlio young missionary a warm reception. His
Excellency sent for him, spoke encouragingly to him,
and at a private dinner fully entered into his plans.
"Was Lord William not the greatest of the Bentiucks,
the best of all the Governor-Generals ?
Alexander Dulf was little more than twenty-fonr
years of ago when, a tall and handsome man, with
flashing eye, quivering voice, and restless gesticulation,
ho first told the ruler of India what he liad given his
life to do for its people. Heir of Knox and Chalmers,
he had to begin in the heart of Hindooism what they
had carried out in the medicGvalism of Rome and the
moderatism of the Kirk of the eighteenth century.
He had also to make it a missionary Kirk. His work
was to be twofold — in East and West.
Need we wonder that, when the Calcutta news-
papers told the story of the repeated shipwrecks, the
very natives remarked — " Surely this man is a favourite
of the gods, who must have some notable work for
him to do in India ?'*
CHAPTER rV.
1830.
CALCUTTA AS IT WAS.
Duff disobeys tlie only Order of his CliurcL. — Calcutta a fourtli of
London. — Bengal. — Job Charnock selects KalUatta. — Tho First
European Settlers. — Growtli of the City. — Native.s be<>inning to
learn Enj^lish. — Foiinders of the great ]?cngalec Families. — Tho
leading Natives Oi Bull's Arrival. — Tho washerman who first
taught English. — Adventnro Schools. — Matrimonial Value of
Penmanship then and of "t.A. Degree now. — The Oriental
Colleges and Orientalists. — i^ natchcs Written by James Mill. —
Dufl's Account of tho Origin of the First English College in
India. — Tentative Efforts of tho Early Missionaries. — The Work
of Destruction Begun, -who shall Construct ?
Having secured full power to carry out his own plaus
unfettered by conditions in Scotland or on the spot,
and having failed to obtain from his Church any in-
structions for his guidance save one, Mr. Duff's first
duty was to refuse to give effect to tliat one. He
had been forbidden to open his mission in Calcutta.
Why, it is difficult to understand, in the absence of
all reasons assigned for such a prohibition. So the
agents of the Scottish Missionary Society before Dr.
Wilson had neglected Bombay city, while shut out from
the Maratha capital of Poona, and had wasted years
in the obscure villages of the Konkan. The example
of tho Apostles, beginning at Jerusalem, might have
sufficed. The first of all Protestant missions and
colleges in Bengal had, indeed, been established out-
side of the capital, but that was because the East
India Company's early intolerance had driven Carey
^t. 24. TIIK MODERN CALCUTTA. 87
and Marshman to the protection of the little Danish
Government at Serampore. Bishop Miildleton had
followed, spontaneonsly, the unfortunate precedent, by
building his Gothic pile so Far down the right bank of the
Hooghly that his college has proved useless for its great
object ever since. This only had been determined on
by Dr. Inglis and Mr. Duff, that the first missionary
was to open a school or college, just because that line of
proselytising work had been neglected by the few other
missionaries then in Calcutta. When Duff had seen
these at work, in the city and all round it to Carey
at Serampore, and twenty-five miles up the river to
Chinsurah and the old factory of Hooghly, he resolved
to begin his career by disobeying the one order ho had
received. It was the resolve of genius, the beginning
of an ever-growing success, without which failure,
comparatively, was inevitable. The young Scot had
vowed to kill Ilindooism, and this he could best do by
striking at its brain. Benares, Poorce, Bombay more
lately, might have been its heart ; but Calcutta was its
brain. Let others pursue their own methods in their
own places, he would plant his foot down here, among
the then half-million eager, fermenting Bengalees,
feeling after God if haply they might find Him with
Western help, and about to be used by the English
Government as instruments for carrying its civilization
all over Eastern, Central and North-western India.
Calcutta, the metropolis of the British Empire in
the southern half of Asia, now covers an area of
thirty-one square miles, and has a fixed population of
900,000, exclusive of the hundreds of thousands who
daily visit the port, the markets, the offices, the ware-
houses, the domestic homes and the schools for trade,
service and education. That is, the greatest city
of the English in the East is just one fourth the size,
in area and inhabitants, of London itself within the
88 LIFE OF DR. DUI'P. 1830.
juristHctlon of the Metropolitan Board of Works or
the district of the School Board. London had the
same population at the bogininng of this century as
Calcutta now has. To what point Calcutta will reach
in the next century, under tlio same wise and peaceful
administration which has made it what it is, he may
conjecture who hest realizes its unparalleled position.
It is at once the centre of tho most densely packed
and fast-breeding rural population in the world, and
of a network of rivers, canals and railways compared
with which those that have created Holland are micro-
scopic. It is the focus of our whole political system
in Asia.
Itself impregnable by nature and the entrepot of the
wealth of Bengal, Calcutta has sent forth triumphant
expeditions to Burma, to Java, to Canton and to Peking
in the far East. It has been prepared to civilize the
Maories of Australasia, as it had previously pushed
the edge of the sword that separates evil from good
into the heart of the Pathans of the Suleiman range
and the Western Himalayas. From Calcutta, Mauri-
tius and even the Cape have been started on a new
career. Embassies from the palace of its Governor-
General, still known simply as Government House,
seventy years ago dictated terms of peace and pro-
gress, against the barbarous aggression of Russian
and French absolutism, to the Shah of Persia, the
Ameer of Cabul, and the Maharaja of the Sikhs, when
the Sutlej was our only frontier besides the sea.
Were we basely to retire from the responsibilities of
empire, and confine our administrative system to the
one Lieutenant-Governorship of Bengal, its swarming
sixty millions would enable Calcutta to send to the
mother country a clear annual surplus of from four
to six millions sterling. For it is with the twelve mil-
lions of revenue yielded every year by Bengal, that
CALCUTTA
Scale of I English MUe
■t
2 S^Jbfin's Church
3 ad Hunan CK.
4 3* Anirawi JErh
5 J^to Ouaf Scotlarul
6 Xfinian, OujptH^
7 BapUrt Chapd'
.SgK Court
9 Jbtt Of/it»
10 HiwTvSaZb
U SnMootPresuUiuyiaiUeye/
14 DovetoTu CoHtgt
15 CauraZ Atstmhly Jturt'}
IG la, JUiarttnura
V Fret Ovurohi inat.
tHaDr DxjJfh Hou^e
^
\
r/".
BtrwTfi
19 .A<c« Church, MiaaioTV ^
20 Urvuresrsify
21 BenofoUjvti hurtttutUm, .
22 MtdbLaHConegu ®'
23 Cofi'i itG«s. CoUegt/ ibfl
2i ^auu;09u« «»-^^/
25 .^otwr's CoU^efAC
20 Seotoh Conatery
27 ^fTTR^nuzTi/ Cv-
28 Xoman GufioSc
Ouhtdral
29 OustcmllotLSe,
30 SaHars' Borne
^^m
a< Gmmalht Sftuo^
\> CoVege Stuart
C HUiinyton. Jfr^. re
a. VaVuiujii* 3ifujirt,
^^TVJluUif Square
18
to
B
ei
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Ki
a
FOBI
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s^fo
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Jiy pemU'iMoTi o'' tJiC "hurrh Mici>HL<ntnry >')oii4:fy
^t. 24. JOB CnAENOCK FOUNDS CALCUTTA. 89
Calcutta has spread tlie British Empire all over
Southern Asia.
In the Old World thore is no example of the growtli
of a capital so rapid. In 159G this mighty metro-
polis figures on the rent-roll of the Emperor Akbar
as Kalkatta, one of three villaofos in the district of
Hooglily which together paid an annual tax of £2,31-1.
The great temple, still in its suburbs, is that of the
black destroying goddess of Kaleegliat. Driven from
the factory at Rooghly by the Mussulman officer of
Aurungzeb, the East India Company's agent, the
notorious Mr. Job Charnock, with his council, sailed
down the river in search of another site. Oolabaria,
on the same right bauk and somewhat below the
present Botanical Garden, was tried. But, though
the ferry town on the high road to the shrine of
Jugganath, in Orissa, that place had the two disad-
vantages of bad anchorage and exposure to the raids
of the Marathas. Not so the high ground immedi-
ately to the north of Kalkatta. There the river was
deep ; its expanse, a mile broad at high water, protected
the place from the western devastators ; and the sur-
rounding inhabitants were a prosperous brotherhood
of weavers for the Company's trade. Under " a large
shady tree," somewhere between the present Mint and
the most orthodox quarter of Sobha Bazaar, Job
Charnock set up the Company's flag and his own
zanana. For he had taken to himself the beautiful
Suttee or Hindoo widow whom ho rescued from
cremation only to be himself Hindooized, and on
whose tomb ho used afterwards to sacrifice a cock,
according to that contemporary gossip. Captain
Alexander Hamilton. It is significant that the
second college which Duff built as the Free Church
Institution stands in the great thoroughfare leading
down to the oldest burning ghaut, NeemtoUa, the
90 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1830.
place of the neem-tree, wliich name probably em-
balms tlie tradition of that " large shady tree." Many
a suttee must have taken place within car-shot of the
founder of Calcutta, who used to have his sentences
of whipping executed on native offenders " when he
was at dinner, so near his dining-room that the groans
and cries of the poor delinquent served him for
music."
The days of the glorious Revolution had come ; the
new East India Company got a new and most Chris-
tian charter ; the old church of St. John was raised
with a proud steeple only to be cast down by the next
cyclone ; and the Fort, of Black Hole memory, was
i^uilt in Kalkatta village under William the Third's
name. The Court of Directors, too, under revolu-
tion influences, became Christian once more, and
directed their agent at Calcutta to use this mis-
sionary form of prayer : *' That these Indian nations
among whom we dwell, seeing our sober and righteous
conversation, may be induced to have a just esteem
for our most holy profession of the gospel." Char-
nock's rough and, towards the natives, revengeful
administration ceased five or six years after his first
settlement at Kalkatta. Sir John Goldsborough was
sent by the older and then superior Government of
Madras to reform the little colony, which he began
to do by sending the Roman Catholic priests off" to
Bandel, because they encouraged the civilians to form
connections with the half-breed Portuo^uese under their
influence. " In Calcutta »11 religions are tolerated
but the Presbj'terians, and they are browbeat," wrote
Hamilton. By 1706 there were 1200 English in the
infant capital; but such were the excesses of many
of them, and such the absence of sanitary arrange-
ments adapted to the climate, that 460 burials were
registered in that year. Hamilton blames the site of
JEt. 24. THE LLACK HOLE AND PLASSEY. 9 1
the factory, and especially tlio neiglibouriiig saltwater
lakes or swamps. But time and science have proved
that Job Charnock selected a jiosition on which nearly
a million of human beings, many of them foreigners
from the cold north, live and labour with a rate of
mortality little higher tlia.i that of London. The
water, the drainage, the gas, the conservancy arrange-
ments of the modern Calc itta may compare favour-
ably with those of the other capitals of the world.
By 1752 the population had grown, according to
Holwcll, to 400,000, when the irate Governor of
Bengal, Sooraj-ood-Dowla, made a swoop upon them
from his capital of Moorshedabad. Cf the English
who did not flee to the ships one hundred and twenty-
three perished within twenty feet square of the guard-
room called, by the soldiers usually confined there, the
Black Hole. Instead of the Hindoo Ghaut of Kalee,
the city was re-named the Muhammadan place of Alee,
Aleenuggur. But the sack and the burning proved
only new sources of wealth, when Olive and Watson
had chased the tyrant back to his capital, and
had defeated him at Plassey. In 1758 a long pro-
cession of a hundred boats, laden with seven hundred
chests, and then a second despatch, brought to Cal-
cutta the largest prize that the British people had
ever taken, or £1,110,000 in silver rupees. From
much of tbat, sent as compensation, the citizens,
English, Armenian, Portuguese and Bengalee, built the
present city of Calcutta and Fort William. The reign
of extravagance began ; but also that of health, be-
nevolence, education and, gradually, outward respect
for religion. There were two thousand Europeans in
the new city, many of whom,, had spent twenty or
thirty years in India without once attending public
worship. For them a new St. John's arose in the
old cemetery. Friends of Cecil, Simeon, and the
92 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 18301
Clapliam men were sent out as chaplains, after
Clive had purged the services. Ho liimself invited
the missionary Kiernander, when Lally had broken
up the Lutheran settlement at Cuddalore, to instruct
the natives and bury the Europeans in Calcutta, after
the only chaplain there had perished in the Black
Hole. The Company's ships carried liis annual sup-
plies free, and ho raised the building wl ich still
flourishes, under the Church Missionary Society, as
the old mission church, thank;? to Charles Grant's
foresigl)t. The jungle, termed forest, around the new
Fort AYilliam was cleared away, and Calcutta obtained
that magniPcent plain called by the Persian name
Maidan, around which are its great public buildings
and its Chowri.ighee paLaces. By the close of last
century, when the Marquis Wellesley plrnted down
on its edge the fine reproduction of Keddlestone
Hall in Derbyshire, designed by the brothers Adams,
which is still called Government House, defying the
Court of Directors, Calcutta was worthy of the
position given it in the days of Warren Hastings as
"the seat of the central government. By that time
it had become the outlet and the inlet for the
trade of all Eastern and Northern India up to the
Sutlej, so far as the Company's monopolies allowed
trade to follow a natural course.
The necessities of intercourse with the natives,
diplomatically with the court at Dacca and Moor-
shedabad and commercially with the capitalists and
manufacturerii, had early created a class of interme-
diaries and assistants between the English and the
people of the country. Of the former was the
Punjabee Omichund, the wealthy intriguer who tried
to cheat both Clive and the Muhammadan ruler,
whom he had instigated to the destruction of tho
English, and was defeated by his own weapons. Of
Et. 24. CALCUiTA UNDEll CLIVE AND UASTINGS. 93
tlio latter were nearly all the great Hindoo families
which are still the heads of native society. Lord
Olive's moonshee was, to his countrymen, more power-
ful than the great Governor himself, llaja Nobokissen
founded a house like the Barin<j:s of Enj^land. More
famous at the time, though now forgotten, was Olive's
dowan, Ramchand. In the year of the victory of
Plassey each of these men had a salary of £7'2
pounds; yet on his death, in 17G7, ten years aft(;r,
the latter left a fortune of a million and a quarter
sterling. Nobokissen spent ninety thousand pounds
on his mother's obsequies. The various ghauts,
or bathing places, on both banks of the Ilooghly,
from Oalcutta to Serampore, commemorate at once
the wealth and the superstition of the men who, in
those days, lived on the ignorant foreigners whom
they assisted, and on their own less educated country-
men whom they oppressed. Many a Bengalee proverb
has come down from the times of Olive, Yerelst and
Hastings, such as the triplet which Mr. J. 0. Marshmau
used thus to render —
" Who does not know Govindram's club,
Or tlio liou!-e of" Jjonmuleo Sirkar,
Or the beard of Omicliund?"
Govindram Mitter was the "black zemindar" who
for thirty years was the nominal subordinate of the
English collector of the taxes of Calcutta on from
j£36 to .£60 a year, and whom only the brave Holwell,
hero of the Black Hole time, finally deprived of the
power to oppress like a Turkish pasha. The cruel
e^xactions of Raja Daby Sing under Warren Hastings
have been handed down to everlasting shame by the
eloquence of Sheridan.
The advance merchants known as " Daduny,"
through whom the Oompany njade its contracts with
94 Wi^'iS OF Dli. DUFF. 1830.
the native weavers for their calicoes and muslins, which
Lancashire soon learned to manufacture from Indian
cotton for export, were the first to learn as much
English as was necessary for their intercourse with
the masters they defrauded. A lower class were the
panders and agents whom ship captains were forced
to use, and who still, as from the seventeenth century,
mislead our sailors to their too fi-equenb destruc-
tion. Tiiese were termed •' dobhasias " or two-
language natives, a word used in the earlier commercial
transactions at the Portuguese Calicut and the English
Madras. Ram Komul Sen, the author of the first
English and Bengalee dictionary, tells in his preface
how the first English captain who sailed to the infant
Calcutta sent ashore askincf for a dhobasia. The
Setts, the Bengalee middlemen who helped Job
Charnock to buy the Company's piece goods, in
ignorance of the word sent a " dhobee " or washerman
on board, with propitiatory gifts of plantains and
sugar-candy. To that washerman, wlio made good
use of the monopoly of English which he acquired,
the native lexicographer ascribes " the honour of
having been the first English scholar, if scholar ho
could be called, amongst the people of Bengal." The
mere vocabulary of nouns, adverbs, and interjections,
which, for nearly a century, constituted the English
of the Bengalees, as it still forms that of the domestic
servants of Madras, became improved when Sir Elijah
Inipey went out to establish the Supreme Court in
1774. Cases like the trial and hanging of Nuncomar
for forgery, and the growing business of the Court
which included all the citizens of Calcutta in its
jurisdiction, while the judges strove to extend their
power far into the interior, made the next generation
of middle-class Bengalees a little more familiar with
English. Interpreters, clerks, copjists, and agents of
^t. 24. THE GREAT DENGALEE FAMILIES. 95
a. respectable class were in demand, alike by tlio
Government and the great mercantile houses. For a
time Lord Cornwallis pursued the illiberal and, as it
proved, impossible policy of employing only Europeans.
Hence the greatest nativ ^ of the time^ whom we dhall
learn to admire hc.eafter, Raja Rammohun Roy, did
not begin to learn English till he was twenty-two, nor
did he master it till he was thirty.
He stood at the head of the leading Hindoo families
of Calcutta at the time of DufTs appearance there.
After winning the gratitude of the Government as
" dowan " or principal native assistant to the Collector
of Rungpore, he had settled in the city in 1814. Others
worthy of note were Dwarkanath Tagoro, of the mer-
cantile firm of Carr, Tagore & Co., and his cousin, Pro-
sunno Coomar Tagore, great landholder and lawyer.
Ram Komul Sen, already alluded to, was "dewan"
of the Bnnk of Bengal. Russomoy Dutt was at that
time " banian " or broker to Messrs. Cruttenden,
Mackillop & Co., and afterwards honoured judge o£
the Small Cause Court. Raja Radliakant Deb was
head of the orthodox party. Ram Gopal Gboso was
a member of the firm of Messrs. Kelsall, Ghose & Co.
These were the principal English-speaking native
gentlemen, the most active in the education of their
countrymen, the reformers before that reformation
of which the young Scottish missionary became the
apostle. We shall see how the Christianity that he
brought and applied, in a form adapted to the wants
of the time, tested them and sifted their families, and
still tries their descendants as a divine touchstone.
How did these men and the other respectable Ben-
galee families get their English, such as it was, before
the educational as well as spiritual revolution begun
by Duff? First, a keen self-interest drove them to
find it at the hands of Eurasians, Armenians, and
96 LirE OF DR. DUFF. 1830.
English advonturers. Then Government, which had
ignored and even opposed the Enghsh education of
the natives, was forced by Parhament to patronise it.
Then a very few of the missionaries at that time
in Bengal lent their aid. Bui- all proceeded on the
same mechanical, utilitarian, and routine sj^stem which
marked English schools till the days cf Lancaster and
Beh.
Sherborne, a Eurasian, kept a school in the Jo-
rasanko quarter, where Dwarkanath Tagore learned
the English alphabet. Martin Bowl, in Amratolla,
taught the founder of the wealthy Seal family. Ara-
toon Petroos was another who kept a school of fifty
or sixty Bengalee lads. The best of the pupils be-
came teachers in their turn like the blind Nittyanund
Sen in Colootolla, and the lame Udytchurn Sen, who
was the tutor of the mlllionnalvG Mulliks. Their text-
books were such pitiful productions as those of Dytclie
-■ and Enfield, Cooke's letters and Greenwood's gram-
mar. To write a good hand was far more important
than to understand what was read, for to be a copyist
or book-keeper was the destiny of the majority. One
of the Mullik family, when in 18G9 reviewing that
period of dim twilight, stated in his own English,
" that the betrothmcnt of a maid to a youth fit to
wear the laurel of Hymen, was chiefly influenced by
the capability of the latter in point of his English
penmanship, a specimen of which was invariably called
for by the parent of the girl." Now the possession of
the degree of Master of Arts is the test, a fact that
gauges the whole intellectual and social progress which
Duff had come to set in motion for far higher religious
ends. As the vernaculars of the country were neglected
by the British Government for the Persian of its
Muhammadan predecessor, so English had to give way
to a vicious orientalism. In 1780 AVarren Hastings
JEt. 24. THE ORIENTAL COLLEGES. 97
had founded tlio Mddrissa or Muliammadan college in
Calcutta, to conciliate the Moulvies by teaching the
•whole range of the religion of Islam, and preparing
their sons as officials of the law courts. In 1791
Jonathan Duncan, of philanthropic memory, did the
same for the Hindoos, by e«ta, ^shing the Benares
Sanscrit College avowedly to cultivate their " laws,
literature and religion." From Plassey to the char-
ter of 1813 was the most evil time of the East India
Company's intolerance of light in every form, so much
did it dread the overturning of a political fabric which
had sprung up in spite of it. But then the Court
of Directors was compelled by Parliament, expressing
weakly the voice of the Christian public, to write the
despatch of the 6th September, 1813, which com-
municated the order that " a sum of not less than one
lakh of rupees (£10,000) in each year shall be set
apart and applied to the revival and improvement of
literature, and the encouragement of the learned
natives of India, and for the introduction and pro-
motion of a knowledge of the sciences among the in-
habitants of the British territories of India." Weakly,
we say, for Charles Grant had, in 1792, sketched in
detail, and had continued all these yep^'S to press on
the court and in Parliament, a scheme of tolerant
English and vernacular education, of such far-sighted
ability and benevolence that all subsequent progress
to the present hour is only a commentary upon his
suggestions.*
In spite of the charter of 1813, that order was not,
in its spirit and intention, carried out till Duff landed
* Observations o^r the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of
Great Britain, particularly with respect to Morals, and on the Means
of Improving it. Written cliieP.y iu the year 1792. Ordered by the
House of Commons to be printed, 16th June, 1813.
H
9^ LH'E OF DR. DUFF. 1830.
in Calcutta. First, Colt'l)rooke — tlio groatost orien-
talist who has yet lived — when a raenihr of Lord
Minto's Council, and then Dr. H. II. Wilson — who,
in England, comes only second to him — directed the
Parliamentary instructions to t'.ie establishment of
another Sanscrit college, this time in Calcutta. The
directors' despatch of 3rd June, 1814, Avas all in favour
of such orientalism, but, though ignoring English, it
deserves the credit of having urged the establishment
of a system of vernacular schools, on Bell's principles,
from a cess on the land. Had that been attended to as
each province w\is added to the empire or settled in its
land revenue and tenures, the whole work of national
education for which DufF laboured side by side with
his English system, as we shall see, might have been
done. Instead of either, the public money was so
misapplied as to call forth a despatch on the 18th
February, 1824, in which James Mill, in the name of
the directors, reviewed the fruitless and wasteful past,
usino; this lanij^uage : —
" The great end should noL Lave been to teach Hindoo learn-
ii)g, but useful learning. No doubt in teaching useful learning
to the Hindoos or Muliammadans, Hindoo media or Muliam-
inadan media, so far as they were found the most effectual,
would have been proper to be employed, and Hindoo and
Muhammadan prejudices would have needed to be consulted,
while everything which was useful in Hindoo or Muhammadan
literature it would have been proper to retain ; nor would
there have been any insuperable difficulty in introducing,
under these reservations, a system of instruction from which
great advantage might have been derived. In professing, on
the other hand, to establish seminaries for the purpose of
teaching mere Hindoo or mere Muhammadan literature, you
bound yourselves to teach a great deal of what was frivolous,
not a little of what was purely mischievous, and a small re-
mainder indeed in which utility was in any way concerned.
In the new college which is to be instituted, and which we
/Et. 24. THE DIRECTORS CONDEMN THE ORIENTAL COLLECJES. 99
think you have acted judiciously in placing at Calcutta instead
of Nuddoa and Tirhoot as originally sanctioned, it will bo
much farther in your power, because not fettered by any pre-
ceding practice, to consult the pnuciplo of utility iu the course
of study which you nuiy prescribe."
Threo years later, on tlio 5th September, 1827, tho
directors took a stronger position, wlien pointing out
that the course of education must not merely " pro-
duce a higlier degree of intellectual fitness, but that it
will contribute to raise the moral cliaracter of those
who partake of its advantages." The writer, charac-
teristically, could not find " the best security against
desfradinof vices " elsewhere than in " that rational
self-esteem " of which his greater son's autobiography
gives us such sad glimpses. But that despatch had
hardly been discussed and angrily answered by the
orientalists around the Governor-General, when Duff
gave himself to the life task oi supplying the only
motive power which would secure " the last and
highest object of education " to the natives of India.
Fortunately we have his own account of the estab-
lishment of the first English college in India, tho
Vidyalaya, or Anglo-Indian, or Hindoo College, as
given in his evidence before the select committee of
the House of Commons previous to the Company's last
charter of 1853. The immediate precursor of that
movement was the minute of 2nd October, 1815, in
which Lord Hastings, declaring his solicitude for the
moral and intellectual condition of the natives, pro-
jected a system of public instruction, and thereafter
visited Serampore to inspect its schools and encour-
age its missionaries. The David Hare mentioned was
the son of a watchmaker in London, who and whose
brothers made a modest fortune in India.
€t
The system of English education commenced in the follow-
lOO LIFE OP DR, DUFF. 1830.
ing very simplo way in Bengal. Tlicre woro two persona who
had to do with it,— one was Mr. 13avid Hare, and the other
was a native, Rainmohim Roy. In the year 1815 they woro in
consultation one evening with a few friends as to what should
bo done with a viow to the elevation of the native mind and
character. Ilainmohun lioy's proposition was that they should
establish an assembly or convocation, in which what aro called
the higher or purer dogmas of Vedantism or ancient Hindooism
might be taught j in short tho Pantheism of tho Vedas and
their Upanishads, but what Ilammohun Roy delighted to call
by the more genial title of Monotheism. Mr. David Uaro was
a watchmaker in Calcutta, an ordinary illiterate man himself;
but being a man of great energy and strong practical sense,
he said the plan should be to institute an English school or
college for the instruction of native youths. Accordingly ho
soon drew up and issued a circular on the subject, which
gradually attracted the attention of the leading Europeans,
and, among others, of the Chief Justice Sir Hyde East. Being
led to consider the proposed measure, he entered heartily into
it, and got a meeting of European gentlemen assembled in
May, 181G. He invited also some of the influential natives to
attend. Then it was unanimously agreed that they should
commence an institution for tho teaching of English to tho
children of the higher classes, to be designated ' The Hindoo
College of Calcutta/ A large joint committee of Europeans
and natives was appointed to carry the design into effect. In
the beginning of 1817 the college, or rather school, was
opened, and it was the very first English seminary in Bengal,
or even in India, as far as I know. In the joint committee
there was a preponderance of natives, and partly from iieir
inexperience and inaptitude, and partly from their absurd
prejudices and jealousies, it was not very well managed nor
very successful. Indeed, had it not been for the untiring
perseverance of Mr. Hare, it would have soon come to an end.
The number of pupils enrolled at its first opening was but
small — not exceeding twenty — and even all along, for the
subsequent five or six years, the number did not rise above
sixty or seventy. Then it was, when they were well-nigh in
a state of total wreck, and most of the Europeans had retired
from the management in disgust, that Mr, Hare and a few
others resolved to apply to the Government for help as the only
^':t. 24. THE FIRST ENGLISH SCHOOL IN INDIA. 10 1
means of savinj? the sinkitif? institution from irretriovnblo ruin.
The Govornmeut, when thus appealed to, did come forward and
proffer its aid upon certain reasonable terms and conditions ;
and it was iu this way that the British Government was first
brought into an activo participation in the cause of Euylish
education.
"The Gcvernnient then came forward and said in substance,
— *If you will allow us to appoint a duly qualified visitor, so
as to give us some control over the course of instruction, wo
will help you with a considerable pecuniary granc' But,
however equitable the proposal that they, as large subscribers
to the funds, should have an iiiilueutial voice iu the manage-
ment, such was the blindfold bigc try of the larger moiety of
the native committee, that the interposition of the Govern-
ment, even in the mild form proposed, was at first very stoutly
resisted. At length the sober sense of the smaller moiety
prevailed. The first visitor happened to bo Mr. Horace
Hayman Wilson, the famous Sanscrit scholar. It was not,
perhaps, an appointment altogether congenial to his other
pursuits, he being thoroughly wrapped up in Sanscrit and
Sanscrit lore of every sort. But still, as his iuQuenco with the
natives was deservedly groat, he was appoiuted to the office ;
and, as an honourable man, he rigorously resolved to do his
duty. He very soon threw new life into tho system, and got
it very much improved; the number of pupils soon also g.-eatly
increased, so that altogether there was a great deal of zeal
manifested, and a considerable degree of success attained. At
the same time, so far as the Government were concerned, their
views at the outset, with regard to the best mode of communi-
cating European literature and science, were somewhat peculiar
and contracted ; in other words, their views seemed to be that
whatever of European literature and science might be con-
veyed to the native mind should be conveyed chiefly through
native media, that is to say, the learned languages of India —
for the Muhammadans, Arabic and Persian ; and for the Hindoos,
Sanscrit. This was the predominant spirit and intent of the
British Government."
The college, which had upwards of a hundred
students and an endowment of £15,000 on Duff's
arrival, lost all its capital in the commercic'l collapse
I02 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1830.
whicli occurred soon after. Then, too, perished the
Calcutta School Society, established about the same
time and on the same principles intolerant of Chris-
tianity. Its committee had, in 1823, opened an English
school as a feeder to the college, >n which it maintained
thirty free students out of one hundred and twenty
in atteudauce in 1829. The object was the then
far-sighted one of encouraging the purely vernacular
schools, in which the public subscriptions were more
beneficially used, to train their pupils well in Bengalee
before drafting them into English classes. But the
fifth report of that society, and the official investiga-
tions of Mr. Adam soon after, show that there were not
more than five thousand native children at school in the
whole city of Calcutta when Duff landed. Not more
than five hundred of these learned English, and that
after the straitest sect of secularists of the Tom Paine
stamp. Such was the educational destitution of Cal-
cutta, low and high, seventeen years after the Olapham
philanthropists had, through Parliament, forced the
Court of Directors to promise to educate the natives.
Outside of Calcutta the few missionaries had made
somewhat fitful attempts to use English as the best
medium for the conveyance of truth. A Hindoo who
was " almost a Christian," Jeynarain Ghosal, in 1814
left 20,000 rupees to found that college in Benares which
tlif Church Missionary Society still conducts so well.
In the same year, at Chinsurah, the London Missionary
Society's agent, Mr. May, opened a high school, which
received the first grant-in-aid. Helped by Rammohun
Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore, Dr. Marshman estab-
lished many native schools in 1816 ; but it was in 1818
that the great college of the Serampore missionaries
was projected to do on the Christian sido what the
Calcutta Hindoos were attempting on the purely
secular. Ur Happily, that was not in Calcutta. There
yEt. 24. THE WORK OP DESTIIUCI'ION BEGUN. IO3
sattee, infanticido, and tlio clicking of the dyln;^ with
Ganges mud were as common as in the time of
its apostate founder, Job Charnock. Mr. G. Pcarce,
who landed there three years before Duff, as a mis-
sionary of the Baptist society, was even then required
to report himself to the police and to make oath that
he would behave himself peaceably. Sunday was blot-
ted out of the calendar. Caste and idolatry revelled
under the protection of the Company. Human sacri-
fices and Thug murder by strangling were common.
Only four societies, represented by a dozen foreign
missionaries, were at work in Calcutta and all Bengal :
— the Baptist, the London, the Church, and the Orissa
General Baptist. In 1827 there were only nine Baptist
and half a dozen Anglican converts in all Calcutta, and
of these but a portion were Hindoos, and one had
been a Muhammadan. This was the fruit of ten years'
labour.
Thus far the work of destruction had beQ:un, and
Hindoo hands hrd been the first to try to pull down
their Dagon of falsehood, while Government officials
had been active, more or less unconsciously, in prop-
ping it up. The Bengalees, beginning to leave even
the glimmering and reflected light of natural religion
as embodied in the varied concrete of their own
system, were groping in the still darker region whero
all was doubt, where the old was gone and nothing
had taken its place. Who was to arrest the demoral-
ization ? Who could so guide the fermenting process
as to w^ork into the mass the leaven which is slowly
leavening the whole lump ? AVho should begin the
work of construction side by side w^itli that of a dis-
integration such as even the nihilists of the Hindoo
College had not dared to dream of?
CHAPTER V.
1830-1831.
TEE MINE PBEPABED.
Preliminary Researches. — DuflF's first Interview with Carey. — They
Agree as to the best System of Aggression on Hindooism. — That
System confirmed by Experience. — Preparing tne Mine and
Setting the Train. — The Bible the Base and Crown of the System.
— Why Previous Attempts Failed. — Buchanan's Christian In-
stitution in tlie East. — Serampore College. — Bishop's College and
Dr. Mill's Sanscrit Christiad. — All Providential Advantages
centred in Duff. — His Bengalee Ally, the Raja Rammohun Roy,
the Erasmus of Hindooism. — The Brumho Sobha and Dharma
Sobha. — Dufi"s Treatment of Rammohun different from that by
Dr. Marshman. — The Theist finds for the Christian a School and
five Pupils. — The first Day. — The Lord's Prayer and the Gospels
in Bengalee. — Opposition of the other Missionaries. — Dufi" teach-
ing the English Alphabet. — Contemporaneous teaching of
Bengalee and English. — Removes to College Square. — First
Public Examination of the School converts all Oppocents. —
Branch Institution at Takee. — A new Educational Era in India. —
Rev. W. S, Mackay joins Duff. — Letter introducing Rammohun
Roy to Dr. Chalmers. — Story of an English Adventurer. — Dufi"
the first to teach Political Economy in India. — The Home Com-
mittee remonstrate, confounding it with Politics.
With the exliaustless energy which marked his whole
life, Alexander Duff spent the hottest and wettest
period of the Bengal year, the six weeks from the
end of May to the middle of July, in preliminary in-
quiries. From early morning till latest eve he visited
every missionary and mission station in and around
Calcutta, from the southern villages on the skirts of
the malarious Soonderbun forests to the older settle-
ments of the Dutch at Chinsurah and the Danes at
ALL 24. BUFF* a FIJiST MEliTINQ WJTH CAREY. IO5
Serampore, There was not a school which he did not
inspect ; not one of those thatched bamboo and wicker-
work chapels, in which apostolic men like Lacroix
preached night and morning in Bengalee to the passers-
by in the crowded thoroughfares of the capital, in which
he did not spend hours noting the people and the
preaching alike. For he had at once begun that study
of the vernacular without which half his knowledge of
and sympathy with the natives must have been lost.
He was especially careful to visit in detail represen-
tative rural villages, that he might satisfy himself and
the committee. From such minute investigations, and
from frequent conferences with the more experienced
men already in the field, h© arrived at two conclu-
sions. These were, that Calcutta itself must be the
scene of his earliest and principal efforts, from
which he could best operate on the interior ; and that
the method of his operations must be different from
that of all his predecessors in India.
With one exception the other missionaries discour-
aged these two conclusions. He had left to the last
the aged Carey, then within three years of the close of
the brightest of missionary careers up to that time, in
order that he might lay his wh( > case before the man
whose apostolic successor he was to be, even as Carey
had carried on the continuity from Schwartz and the
baptism of the first Protestant convert in 1707.
Landing at the college ghaut one sweltering July
day, the still ruddy Highlander strode up to the flight
of steps that leads to the finest modern building in
Asia. Turning to the left, he sought the study of
Carey in the house — " built for angels " said one, so
simple is it — where the greatest of missionary scholars
was still working for India. There he beheld what
seemed to be a little yellow old man in a white jacket,
who tottered up to the visitor of whom he had already
I06 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1830
often heard, and with outstretched hands solemnly
blessed hira, A contemporary soon after wrote thus
of the childlike saint —
" Thou^rt in our hearts — with tresses thin and grey,
And eye that knew the Book of Life so well.
And brow serene, as thou wci-t wont to stray
Amidst thy flowers, like Adam ere he fell."
The result of the conference was a double blessing,
for Carey could speak with the influence at once of a
scholar who had created the best college at that time
in the country, and of a vernacularist who had preached
to the people for half a century. The young Scots-
man left his presence with the approval of the one
authority whose opinion was best worth having. The
meeting, as Duff himself once described it to us, was
the beginning of an era in the history of the Church
of India which the poet and the painter might well
symbolize.
Though for two years the Kirk's committee han-
kered after station in the interior, we may at once
dismiss the decision to begin first at Calcutta. But
the determination, confirmed by all he had seen
and heard, to open an English school, in time to be
developed into a college different from any then in
existence, and yet only the nucleus of a great spiritual
campaign against Hindooism, proved too fruitful in its
consequences to be merely stated.
Duff's object was, in the strength of God and the
intensity of a faith that '. irned even more brightly to
his dying hour, nothing less than the destruction of a
system of beliefs, life, and ancient civilization of the
highest type, based on a great literature expressed in
the most elaborate language the world has seen. Up
to that time, missionaries in the less Hindooized south
of India had been at work for more than a century, and
^t. 24. HIS MISSIONARY TOLICY. IO7
Lad been driven to evangelize the non-Bralimanical
tribes. The system remained untouched — nay, re-
mains so to the present day, according to the most
scholarly authority, Mr. Burnell.* In the coast settle-
ments of Eastern and Western India, after some twenty
years' labour a few missionaries had detached a few
units from the mass by ill-taught vernacular schools
generally under heathen masters, and by addressing
fluctuating and promiscuous groups in the streets and
villages amid the contempt of the learned and the scorn
of the respectable classes. Up to that time the converts
had not only been few, but their new fuitli liad not
been st r-propagating. It had died out with them.
Of the hundreds of Kiernander's converts during his
long work in Calcutta Simeon's chaplains found hardly
a trace, so that the biographer of Thomas, f the surgeon
who brought Carey to Bengal, doubts their existence.
Of the tens brought over by the evangelical clergy of
whom Martyn was the type the earlier missionaries
found none. The first fact forced on Duff was, that, as
against the Brahmanized Hindoos, the prevailing mis-
sionary method had failed both in immediate results and
in self-developing power. The logical, if also anti-
spiritual conclusion, was undoubtedly that of the Abbe
Dubois, who knew no other method — that it was impos-
sible to convert the Hindoos, and needless to try.
Long after that time we have heard the greatest
vernacular preacher Bengal has seen, Dufi''s dear friend,
Lacroix, confess that during fifty years he did not
know that he had been the means of making one
convert from Hindooism. And so recently as this
year an equally typical missionary to Islam, the Rev.
T. P. Hughes, warns us that there is very little, if any,
* See Academy for Dec. 28fch, 1878, page G04.
t The Life of John Thomas, First Baptist Missionary to Bengal, by
C. B. Lewis. London, 1873.
Io8 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1830.
analogy between street preaehing in England and in
an Indian city. ** There the evangelist stands up not
as a recognised religious teacher, and the doctrinal
terms he uses will either seem strange to the ears of his
listeners, or will convey a meaning totally at variance to
the one he wishes to impart. But in private interviews
the evangelist stands face to face, eye to eye, and heart
to heart with the opponent or the inquirer, and can
speak as one fallen sinner should speak to another.
There is a chord of sympathy in such meetings which is
not to be found in the public market-place, and it needs
but the touch of love and the power of God's Spirit to
awaken its emotions ! "* Still stronger and yet more
sensitive and true is that chord when it is in the heart
of ingenuous and grateful youth, and day after day in
the class-room, and night after night in the enthusiasm
of the lecture-room or in the heavenly contagion of
the secret conversation, the miesionary plays upon it
with the art of the Master in the synagogue or by the
well, and in the oft-frequented places by the sea-shore
or on the hill-side.
We have Duff's own statement of his divine strategy
when, ten years afterwards, he told the people of
Scotland, " In this way we thought not of individuals
merely ; we looked to the masses. Spurning the no-
tion of a present day's success, and a present year's
wonder, we directed our view not merely to the pre-
sent but to future generations." Admitting the pro-
priety of the direct policy adopted by his fellow-
labourers of every sect in other circumstances, he
thus "joyfully hailed" them : "While you engage in
directly separating as many precious atoms from the
mass as the stubborn resistance to ordinary appliances
can admit, tve shallj with the blessing of God^ devote our
* The Church Missionary Intelligencer for January, 1879.
iEt. 24. THE BIBLE THE CENTRE OF EDUCATIONAL MISSIONS. I09
time and strength to the preparing of a mine, and the
setting of a train which shall one day explode and tear
up the whole from its loioest depths^ So Jolm Wilson
reasoned on independent grounds, and acted on de-
tailed plans adapted to Western India. So, as against
the Brahmanical and Muhammadan systems, all tlie
Protestant — now the only aggressive — missions in
Northern India, have gradually come to do. In this
sense, education, saturated with the Bible, became the
most evangelical and evangelistic agency ever adopted
against the ancient Aryan faiths.
When reviewing this period in the last weeks of his
life, Duff declared that he was resolutely determined
on this one thing : Whatever scheme of instruction
he might adopt must involve the necessity of read
ing some portion of the Bible daily by every class
that could read it, and of expounding it to such as
could not, with a view to enlightening the understand-
ing, spiritually impressing the heart and quickening
the conscience, while the teacher prayed, at the same
time, that the truth might be brought home, by the
grace of the Spirit, for the real conversion to God of
at least some of them. As he read Scripture and the
history of the Church, he did not expect that all or
the majority of these Bengalee youths would certainly
be thus turned, for in nominal Christendom he felt
that few have been, or are, so changed under the most
favourable circumstances. That '* many are called but
few chosen,'* however, only quickened his zeal. But
he did expect that, if the Bible were thus faithfully
taught or preached, some at least would be turned
from their idols to serve the living God.
While religion was thus to be in the forefront, his
resolution was, from the first, to teach every variety of
useful knowledge, first in elementary forms, and, as the
pupils advanced, in the higher branches, which might
no LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1830.
ultimately embrace tlio most advanced and improved
studies in history, civil and sacred, sound litera-
ture, logic, mental and moral pliilosopliy after the
Baconian method, mathematics in all departments,
with natural history, natural philosopliy and other
sciences. In short, the design of the first of Scot-
tish missionaries was to lay the foundation of a system
of education which might ultimately embrace all the
branches ordinarily taught in the higher schools and
colleges of Christian Europe, but in inseparable com-
bination with the Christian faith and its doctrines,
precepts and evidences, with a view to the practical
regulation of life and conduct. Religion was thus
intended to be, not merely the foundation upon
which the superstructure of all useful knowledge was
to be reared, but the animating spirit which ivas to
pervade and hallow all^ and thus conduce to the
highest welfare of man in time and for eternity, as
well as to the glory of God. These sentiments he was
wont to inculcate in the case of all whom he consulted
on the subject at that time. All truth, directed by
the two-edged sword of the Yery word of God, was
that which was to pierce to the vitals of Brahman-
ism, save the Hindoo people, and make them in-
struments of truth to the rest of Asia, even more
widely than their Buddhist fathers had sought to be.
Wherein did this differ from previous attempts?
"When, on the 24th June, 1806, Dr. Claudius Buchanan,
fruit of the Cambuslang revival, looked back on the
horrors of Jugganath worship from an eminence on
the pleasant banks of the Chilka Lake, he projected
*' xhe Christian Institution in the East," which, " being
fostered by Britain, my Christian country, might grad-
ually undermine this baleful idolatry, and put out the
merftory of it for ever." This was to be a catholic col-
lege for translating the Bible into the oriental tongues
JEt. 2^. FAILURU OF PREVIOUS COLLEGES. Ill
by planting a professor in every province with a lan-
guage and literature of its own, to report on both and
to teach the natives printing. So far as that was not
premature, it was being done by the immortal three of
Serampore, who refused to impede their own organ-
ization by this untried project. Buchanan thereupon
turned himself to the creation of the ecclesiastical estab-
lishment of a bishop, three archdeacons, and more
numerous chaplains. Just as Buchanan had looked to
Jews and Armenians as his best missionaries, the men
who made the great stride of establishing the Seram-
pore College depended on Eurasians or Christians
born in the country. Nobly did their agents work,
from Ava to Peshawur ; but here; too, there was no
self -development in the system. The distance of tlio
college from Calcutta shut it out "rom taking its place
as the counteractive of the false philosophy and im-
pure literature taught by the Hindoo College.
When ecclesiastical rivalry stirred up Bishop Middle-
ton to erect of his college, he made the same mistake.
He pictured a second grove of Academe, in which —
that is, in the neighbouring avenues of the Botanic Gar-
den — the professors and students would walk, but he
left the sweltering class-rooms and debating societies
of the Chitpore quarter of Calcutta to atheism and
Voltaire. Hence, the only good fruit of the vast ex-
pense lavished to this day on Bishop's College has
been the Christa Sangita, the Christian epic in Sans-
crit of the learned Dr. Mill, its first principal. What
one of the early missionaries, who shared the dream,
wrote in 1844 is still true : *' Sure I am, that if sainted
spirits can weep. Bishop Middleton is now weeping iu
heaven over the idol of his heart."* Men make sys-
* Sketches of Christianity in North India, by tho Rev. M. Wilkin-
son. London, 1844.
112 LIFE OP DR. DUFF, 1830.
tems, and some men can work in spito of systems
doomed to failure. Duff might have in time trans-
formed even Bishop's College, for its two fundamental
objects were to raise native preachers and teachers,
and to teach " the elements of useful knowledge and
the English language to Muhammadans and Hindoos."
But it was more than a fortunate, it was a directly
providential combination of circumstances, which cul-
minated in the Scottish evangelization of the Hindoos
by education. These were, the sermon of Dr. Inglis in
1818 ; the call of Alexander Duff in 1828 ; his wise
independence and his wiser disobedience of the only
command laid upon him ; his unrivalled educational
experience as well as spiritual energy ; the revolution
in belief and opinion begun by the Hindoo College ; the
official toleration and personal friendship shown by
the Governor-General ; and, lastly, that to which we
now come, the help of the one Hindoo whom English
teaching had led to find the living God.
In a pleasant garden house in the leafy suburbs of
Calcutta, the Raja Rammohun Roy, then fifty-six years
of age, was spending his declining days in earnest
meditation on divine truth, broken only by works of
practical benevolence among his countrymen, and soon
by preparations for that visit to England, where, in
1834, he yielded to the uncongenial climate. " You
must at once visit the Raja," said General Beatson,
when Mr. Duff presented his letter of introduction,
" and I will drive you out on an early evening."
Save by Duff himself afterwards, justice has never
been done to this Hindoo reformer, this Erasmus of
India. He was early misunderstood by the Serampore
missionaries in his own country, and he was thus
driven into the arms of the Unitarians when he was
lionized in Great Britain. Had the truth-seeking
Bengalee and the Scottish apostle met when the
i^t. 24. THE YOUNO ItAMilOUUN ROY. II3
former was yet young, Eastern and Northern India
might have been brought to Christ by a Bengalee
Luther, greater than their own Chaitunya, instead of
their more earnest youth being kept from Ilim by the
Vedic dreams of the Brumho Sobha, and now by the
vaguG ethical naturahsm of its successor, the Brumho
Somaj.
At the close of the administration of Warren
Hastings, when the bleached bones of the victims
of the great famine were beginning to disappear, in
1774, a Brahman landholder and his most orthodox
wife had a son born to them on the ancestral estate
in the county of Burdwan, some fifty miles from the
English capital of Calcutta. Rammoliun Roy's father
had retired in disgust from the service of the
tyrant, Sooraj-ood-Dowla; his predecessors had been
holy ascetics or sacerdotal lords, till the intolerant
Aurungzeb forced one of them to take office at court.
Their spirit, withdrawing from worldly wealth and
distinction, came out in the young Rammohun, who,
though trained in all the asceticism of his mother's
breviary, the "Ahnika Tattina," renounced idolatry at
the age of sixteen, when he wrote but did not pub-
lish an attack on " the idolatrous system of the Hin-
doos." That is, he gave up his father's love, his
mother's care and his rights of inheritance, and he
braved the loss of caste and the persecution of his
friends. To this he had been led by too intimate a
knowledge of the Bengalee and Sanscrit literature, in
his own home, followed by a course of Arabic and Per-
sian at Patna, and by the study of Muhammadanism.
From Patna the young and truth-loving theist went
to Benares, where he learned that the Brahmanism
of his day was a corruption of what seemed to him
the monotheism which underlay the nature-worship of
the Vedas. Captivated for a time by philosophic
I
ri4 tilFE OP DR. DUFF. 1830.
Buddliism, he visited Tibet, where its practical Lamaio
form disgusted him. Recalled by his father, ho tried
to influence tho old man who died in 1803, and ho so
succeeded in convincing his motlier of the folly of her
life-long austerities that she confessed her disbelief in
Hindooism before her death. But he had no Divino
Saviour to reveal to her. The widow died in the service
of the idol Jugganath at Pooree, having declared before
she set out on the hideous pilgrimage : " Ramtnohun,
you are right, but I am a weak woman, and am grown
too old to give up rites which are a comfort to me."
In a brief autobiograpliy which ho wrote in England,
he states that ho was about twenty when ho began to
associate with Europeans. *' Finding them generally
more intelligent, more steady and moderate in their
conduct, I gave up my prejudice against them and
became inclined in their favour, feeling persuaded that
their rule, though a foreign yoke, would lead more
speedily 8,nd surely to tho amelioration of the native
inhabitants."
Seeking a livelihood in the service of the English,
as his fathers had done in that of the Delhi emperors
and their Bengal lieutenant-governors, Rammohun
Roy became an example of rectitude to the corrupt
native officials who made our name detested, and he
won the friendship of his British superiors. At fifty
he retired to philosophic ease and spiritual meditation,
and became the centre of the Calcutta reformers. But
he was far ahead of his timid contemporaries, who
while approving the better followed the worse. The
English language had introduced him to the English
Bible, and the necessity of mastering that led him to
the original Hebrew and Greek. It was all eclecticism
at first, tor he admired in the law of the Old and the
gospel of the New Testament only the same doctrine
of the Adwaita or unity of God, which he had held
yEt. 24. TUB BAUIili;!: VLiDANTIC WOUSIIir. II5
up to his Hindoo and Muliammadan coimtrymon as
the toacliiii;^ of tlio Upanisliads and tlio Mosnavi, till
they denounced liirn as na.'ttik or atheist. Of this time
he afterwards wrote : — " Tliis roused such a feehuGT
against me, tluit I was at hist deserted by every person
except two or three Scotch friends, to whom and the
nation to wliich they belong I always feel grateful."
In the very year, ISII-, in Avhich ho took up his
residence in Calcutta, he opened the Brumho Sobha,
in order to teach and to practise the worship of ono
supremo undivided and eternal God. At first in his
own house, and then in the thoroughfare of Chitporo
road, he and his pundits expounded in the vernacular
the purer teaching of the Vedas, once a week, but on
each day of the week in rotation in seven years. They
sang hymns to the sound of drum (tohlah) and cym-
bals, (momiccrf), guitar {tomhiwn) and violoncello {beci'
Za/i), such as this: "Ail is vain without the blessing
of God. Remember Ilim Who can deprive you of
wife, children, friends, relatives and wealth. He is
the Supreme, separate from the triune deity (Bruniha,
Yishnoo and Siva) ; to Him belong no titles or dis-
tinctions. J. is written : * Blessed is he whoso soul
dwellcth on Him.' " Again : ** Thine own soul is
thine only refuge ; seek to cherish it in its proper
abode composed of five elemer^i, and guided by six
passions. Why dost thou distrust thine own soul ?
. . God dwelleth even in thine own heart." Christ
was shut out from Rammohun Roy by inability or un-
willingness to believe His own revelation of the Father
and promise of the Spirit. But he set Him, as a
practical teacher, far above all others, when, in 1820,
he published anonymously that chrestomathy of the
synoptic Gospels which he termed, " The Precepts of
Jesus the Guide to Peace and Happiness."
His attitude to Brahmanism was still that of Erasmus
Il6 LIFE OF DR. DUFF, 1830.
towards Roinanism. He believed lie could purify the
popular religion of its " perversion " while falling back
on its early purity. His attacks on idolatry, his decla-
ration of the equality of all living creatures, without
distinction of caste, rank, or wealth, under the moral
government of God, and of their duty to worship Him
according to the most sacred mysteries of the Veds,
roused at once the superstitious fear and the aristo-
cratic selfishness of the orthodox families. They met
the Brumho Sobha by instituting the Dharma Soblia,
to uphold Brahmanism and all its consequences, such
as suttee and the denial of civil and religious liberty,
of property and marriage to dissidents from idolatry.
Thus Hindoo society became divided iuto opposing
camps, while the Hindoo College youths formed a third
entrenchment in support of pure atheism and libertin-
ism. These were the three powers at work, unconnected
by any agency save the slow and indirect influence of
English literature in the hands of vicious teachers, un-
opposed by Christianity in any form, denounced at
a distance, and not once fairly grappled with by any
Christian man, from the Bishop to the Baptist mission-
aries, who had been telegraphed from the Sandheads as
"papists" requiring the special attention of the police.
The Serampore missionaries, indeed, had taken a part
in the conflict, and their quarterly Friend of India had
given voice to Christ's teaching on all subjects, human
and divine. But they were not on the spot ; and, as
we shall see, they made the mistake of fighting
Eamraohun Roy instead of first using him as an ally
against the common foe, and then educating him up
to the revealed standard. If Eammohun Roy had
found Christ, what a revolution there would have been
in Bengal ! But God works by His own method, and He
Bent Alexander DufF to its people and its government,
when He had thus prepared the Hindoo to help him.
^Et. 24. EAMMOHUN EOY's SUPPORT. II7
Having listened to the young Scotsman's statement
of his objects and plans, Rammohun Roy expressed
general approval. All true education, the reformer
emphatically declared, ought to be religious, since the
object was not merely to give information, but to
develop and regulate all the powers of the mind, the
emotions of the heart, and the workings of the con-
science. Though himself not a Christian by profession
he had read and studied the Bible, and declared that,
as a book of reliirious and moral instruction it was
unequalled. As a believer in God he also felt that
everything should be begun by imploring His blessing.
He therefore approved of the opening of the proposed
school with prayer to God. Then, of his own accord,
he added that, having studied the Vedas, the Koran
and the Tripitakas of the Buddhists, he nowhere found
any prayer so brief and all-comprehensive as that
which Christians called the Lord's Prayer. Till, there-
fore, Mr. Duff had sufficiently mastered the Bengalee
and his pupils the English, he recommended him to
study and daily use the Lord's Prayer in the Ben-
galee or English, according to circumstances. But he
entirely approved of using the English language, and
not the Bengalee, Persian, Arabic or Sanscrit, for con-
veying sound European knowledge. This led him also
to remark that he entirely disapproved of Government
having established a new Sanscrit college in Calcutta,
against which, at the time of its establishment, he
solemnly protested, on the ground that instead of
thereby enlightening the native mind according to the
intention of the British Parliament, the authorities
were confirming it in error and prejudice, and rivet-
ing upon it the chains of darkness. He declared of
the Indian Government that it had acted just as if
the English Government, professing to enlighten the
natives of the British Isles, instead of setting up a
Il8 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 1830.
school or college for improved literature, science, and
philosophy, had established a great semiuary for the
teaching of all the scholastic, legendary, and other
absurdities of the middle ages.
" As a youth," he said to Mr. Duff, " I acquired some
knowledge of the English language. Having read
about the rise and progress of Christianity in apostolic
times, and its corruptions in the succeeding ages,
and then of the Christian Reformation which shook off
these corruptions and restored it to its primitive purity,
I began to think tliat something similar might have
taken place in India, and similar results might follow
here from a reformation of the popular idolatry."
Till his study of the Gospels, Rammohun Roy nad not
distinguished between the one universal entity of Pan-
theism and the personal and supreme God of Theism.
When he engaged the Baptist missionary, Mr. Adam, to
teach him Greek and Hebrew, he so shook his tutor's
faith in the revealed Trinity of Scripture that the
Christian relinquished his office, became Editor of the
India Gazette^ and was generally known in Calcutta
as ** the second fallen Adam." Then came the contro-
versy "with Serampore. Christ had drawn Rammohun
so far as to a personal God in the Christian sense.
Had he, at this stage, fallen into the hands of' a theo-
logian of comprehensive views and wide sympathies
with inquirers struggling to ascertain truth, especially
religious truth, in its highest forms, he might have
been led to realize, not merely the perfect humanity
but the Divinity of Christ as set forth in the Scrip-
tures, and on their divine authority. Though the
nature of the incarnation and of the Trinity was incom-
p^ ehensible to finite and spiritually blinded reason, the
facts might have been believed oH sufficient authority.
It so happened that one of the Serampore mission-
aries took him up rather sharply from the title of his
ALL 24. RAJA UAMMOllLFN ROYS CllUlSl'lANnT. 1 I9
pamphlefc, *' The Precepts of Jesus the Guide to Hap-
piness," wliicli seemed to imply that moral precepts
alone are sufficient to attain to supreme felicity. This
was exposed as a system of mere legalism. Had
Ranimohun Roy been an orthodox Christian, and, re-
linquishing orthodoxy, he had come to profess theism
and published such a treatise with such a title, it
would indubitably have been a sign of his falling from
the truth. But it was overlooked that he had been
born and brought up an idolater, so that to renounce
polytheism in all its forms, and attain to a clear belief
in the existence of one God, Creator of all things,
was an evidence of his having made considerable
strides upwards towards the attainment of truth. This
provoked him to publish an elaborate reply, which
again called forth a rejoinder, and that another from
him, so that the controversy became bitter, and he was
kept back from the higher doctrines of uhe Christian
faith. Such was his attitude towards Christianity when
Mr. Duff first made his acquaintance ; but he never lost
his extreme veneration for the character of Jesus Christ,
and his admiration of the supreme purity and subli-
mity of His moral teachings. Subsequently Mr. Duff
and he had many earnest and solemn discussions on
the subject. The testimony of John Foster shows that
this remarkable Hindoo died believing in the divinity
of the mission of Jesus Christ, including His miracles,
but had not attained to an assurance of the deity of
His person.
Greatly cheered by the emphatic concurrence of
E-ammohun Roy, Mr. Duff said the real difficulty now
was, where, or how, to get a hall in the native city
in which to commence operations; for the natives,
owing to caste prejuTlices, were absolutely averse to
letting any of their houses to a European for PJuropean
purposes. Then, if a suitable place could be got, how
I20 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1830.
could youths of tlio respectable classes be induced to
attend, since lie was resolved to teacli the Bible in every
class, and he was told that this would constitute an
insuperable objection. For, at that early period, the
ignorant Hindoos regarded the Bible with something
like loathing and hatred, as the great antagonist of
their Shasters ; they were also actuated by the super-
stitious belief that to take the Bible into their hands,
and read any portion of it, would operate upon them
like a magical spell, forcing them to become Christians.
Rammohun Roy at once offered the small hall of the
Brumho Soblia, in tlie Chitpore road, for which he
had been paying to the five Brahman owners five
pounds a month of rental. The few worshippers were
about to use a new building which he had himself
erected before leaving for England, with the honour
of Raja, on a mission from the titular Emperor of
Delhi to represent certain complaints against the East
India Company. As to pupils, his personal friends
were sufficiently free from prejudice to send their sons
at his request. Driving at once to the spot, the gener-
ous Hindoo reformer secured the hall for the Christian
missionary from Scotland at four pounds a month ; the
liberal Dwarkanath Tagore, who also afterwards died in
England, being one of the five proprietors. Point-
ing to a punkah suspended from the roof, Rammohun
said with a smile, " I leave you that as my legacy."
After a few days five bright-eyed youths of the
higher class, mostly Brahmanical, called upon Mr. Duff,
at Dr. Brown's where he still resided, with a note of
introduction from Rammohun Roy stating that these
five, with the full consent of their friends, were ready
to attend him whenever he might open the school. One
of these, a Koolin named Khettwr Mohun Chatterjee,
turned out a first-rate scholar, entered the Govern-
ment service, and attained to one of the highest
JEt. 24. THE FIRST DAY OF DUFF's COLLEGE. 121
offices whicli a native could then hold. He was long
greatly respected and trusted for his intelligence and
intecrritv. Havino: met in the hall with the iive
on a day appointed, by the aid of an interpreter
Mr. Duff explained to thoin, in a general way, his in-
tentions and plans. They seemed highly delighted,
and went away resolved to explain the matter to
their friends. In a day or two several new youths
appeared along with them, requesting admission.
On every successive morning there was a fresh suc-
cession of applicants, till classification and weeding
out became necessary. When that had been done,
a day was fixed for the public opening of the school,
at ten a.m., when Rammohun Roy was present to ex-
plain difficulties, and especially to remove the prejudice
against reading the Bible. The eventful day was the
13th of July, 1830.
Having been meanwhile busy with Bengalee, having
obtained from the Bible Society's depository copies
of the four Gospels in Bengalee and English, and
having borrowed some English primers from the
Eurasian teacher of an adventure school, Mr. Duff was
ready. Standing up with Rammohun Roy, while all the
lads showed the same respect as their own Raja, the
Christian missionary prayed the Lord's Prayer slowly
in Bengalee. A sight, an hour, ever to be remem-
bered ! Then came the more critical act. Himself
putting a copy of the Gospels into their hands,
the missionary requested some of the older pupils
to read. Thor^ was murmuring among the Brah-
mans among them, and this found voice in the
Bengalee protest of a leader — " This is the Christian
Shaster. We are not Christians ; how then can we read
it ? It may make us , Christians, and our friends will
drive us out of caste." Now was the time for Ram-
mohun Roy, who explained to his young countrymen
122 LIFE OF DR. DUFP. 1830.
that they were mistaken. " Christians, like Dr. Horace
Hayman Wilson, have studied the Hindoo Shasters,
and you know that he has not become a Hindoo. I
myself have read all the Koran again and again, and
has that made me a Mussulman ? Nay, I have
studied the whole Bible, and you know I am not a
Christian. Why, then, do you fear to read it ? Read
and judge for yourself. Not compulsion, but enlight-
ened persuasion which you may resist if you choose,
constitutes you yourselves judges of the contents of
the book." Most of the remonstrants seemed satisfied.
Daily for the next month did the Hindoo reformer
visit the school at ten for the Bible lesson, and fre-
quently thereafter till he left for England, when his
eldest son continued to encourage the boys by his
presence and their teacher by his kindly counsel. But
all the Christian missionaries kept aloof when they
did not expostulate with the young teacher, whoso
weapon of English seemed to them as unbiblical as
his alliance with the author of " The Precepts of
Jesus " was unholy. In vain did Duff reiterate to
them his leading object, which was, by proper culture,
to awaken, develop, stimulate and direct the various
powers and susceptibilities of the human mind, and
for this end to employ the English language as the
most effective instrument ; to imbue the whole know-
ledge thus imparted with the spirit of true religion ;
and at the same time to devote daily a portion of time
in every class to the systematic study of the Bible
itself — not in the way of formal scholastic exercise,
but of devotional and instructive study, not merely
with a view to intellectual illumination but with a view
also, by the advocacy of the grace of God's Spirit, to
the conversion of the soul to God. It was vain for
him thus to show that if what is ordinarily called
secular useful knowledge should be largely commuui-
JEt. 24. OPPOSITION OF THE EARLY MISSIONARIES. 1 23
cated. that would be in inseparable alliance with divine
truth. It was vain for him to state that he not only
did not disapprove, but on the contrary wholly approved
of tlioir modes of operation, as probably the only means
which at an early stage could be practised. In the then
Imckward state of things these, ho said, were carried on
under great disadvantages and consequently compara-
tive ineflQciency ; still, as progress advanced, the time
might come when they could be worked more effec-
tively, therefore his own intention was to master tho
vernacular language with a view to usefulness in vari-
ous forms through that medium. It was vain for him
to explain that while the English language would thus
be used as the channel of conveying all higher and im-
proved knowledge, he was determined that the vernac-
ular should be thoroughly taught to the pupils at the
same time, as a channel of distribution for the masses.
The other missionaries constantly harped on this fact,
that many of the low natives in Calcutta sought a smat-
tering of English only to carry on dealings with the
sailors, whom they allured to low taverns, there to
revel in all manner of wickedness, contriving at tho
same time to rob them of what money they possessed,
and often even stripping them of their clothes, and
throwing them into the street to be taken up by the
police. English had thus come to be in bad odour with
the early missionaries, as regarded these low caste
natives on the one hand, and its apparent effect in
leading the children of the better class natives into the
wildest infidelity.
With :'egard to the natives who wished to learn
English for such purposes, Mr. Duff's reply was that,
even on the low ground of the principles of political
economy, he would soon by th^ multiplication of these
overstock the market, and make it necessary for those
who wished to obtain better positions to remain longer
124 ^^^^ t)F DR. DUFF. 1830.
at scliool, SO as to gain a liiglior degree of knowledge,
wliich might not only enlarge the intellect but regu-
late the morals and manners. With regard to the
children of the higher classes, his trust was that the
thorough inculcation of God's word, with prayer,
would have the effect of preventing them from becom-
ing utter unbelievers or atheists, and in all respects
make them better men and members of society, even if
they did not outwardly and formally embrace the
Christian faith. On the evening before the day of
opening the school, one of the missionaries, who had
become his dearest friend, came to his house vehe-
mently to expostulate with him at the eleventh hour.
When his friend saw that he could make no impression
on the far-seoing Scotsman, he rose, and, shaking him
by the hand, looked imploringly in his face, saying
that he was sorely grieved that his coming to India
might, by the course he intended to pursue, prove a
curse rather than a blessing. The simple remonstrant
exclaimed, as a parting shot, "You will deluge Cal-
cutta with rogues and villains."
The school thus fairly started, let us look at its
founder at work. The student who had passed out
of St. Andrews University its first scholar, its most
brilliant essayist, its most eloquent debater; the
preacher whose fervent utterances had thrilled the
coldest assemblies by addresses which promised a rival
to Chalmers himself, and were afterwards hardly ex-
celled by Edward Irving's ; the man who had been
the stay and the counsellor of all on board the two
wrecked vessels, is doing — what ? Destitute of assis-
tants, save an untrained Eurasian lad, and despised
by his brother missionaries, he is spending six hours
a day in teaching some three hundred Bengalee youths
the English alphabet, and many an hour at night in
preparing a series of graduated school-books, named
ALl 24. WIIITINO PRIMERS AND TEACniNQ TUE ALl'UADET. I 25
*' Instructors," which held their place in every Chris-
tian English school in Bengal for the tliird of a
century. Men, wise in their own narrow sphere and
unable to conipreliend, because unwilling to study,
circumstances so dillerent as those of the educated
Hindoos, ask if tlie powers of a minister of the gospel
are to be degraded by such work? Yet without tluit
sowing of seed the great tree would still have to be
planted. Without tliat humility. Duff wojild have
been like the average of his fellows, whoso incon-
derate short-sightedness was soon turned into admir-
ation and then imitation. It was the genius of
Duff, sanctified by the purest self-sacrifice, that led
him to begin thus, as his Master taught, in the spirit
of a little child.
His school-books were constructed on a system.
The first contained lessons on interesting common
subjects, in which the pupils might be drilled not
only in reading but in grammatical and other exer-
cises. The second consisted of religious lesions,
taken for the most part from the Jiiblo itself, —
especially the historical portions, and put into forms
adapted to the opening intelligence of the youth.
These were carefully read, expounded and enforced
on the understanding, heart and conscience, as purely
reliffious exercises, without reference to • construing
which would only desecrate the subject matter.
As to the English alphabet, which most of the pupils
had to begin for the first time, Dufif devised a plan for
teaching a large number simultaneously. He got a
board supported by an upi ight frame, and along the
board a series of parallel grooves. He then got the
letters of the English alphabet painted on separate
slips of wood. Around this upright frame a large
class was arranged in a semi-circle. The first letter
with which he uniformly began was the letter "0,'*
126 ITFB OP DE. DUFF. 1 830.
because of the simplicity of its form and sound, and
because the sound and the name are the same, as is
the case in Sanscrit and Sanscrit-derived vernacuLirs.
When this letter was thoroughly mastered, whicli was
soon done, the next letter which he usually put into
one of the grooves was " X." Ho would then
bring the two letters together, and pronouncing
them would say, " 0, X, 0,i'" lie then would tell
the pupils that this was the name in English for an
animal with which they were all well acquainted, and
would give them the corresponding word in Bengalee.
This always delighted them, as they said they not
only knew two letters of the English alphabet, but
had already got hold of an English word. So over-
joyed they were at this, that when they went out
into the street, and met an ox pulling a native cart
(which they were sure soon to do), they went along
gleefully shouting at the top of their voice, " Ox,
Ox." But the new missionarv was not satisfied
with giving the Bengalee or the English word. He
began to question the boys as to the properties
and the uses of the objects, or different parts of the
objects, whicli the word represented. This exercise
always delighted them, for it was fitted to draw
out what information they already possessed, and to
stimulate the powers of observation. In this way
the intellect was fairly awakened, and the boys de-
lighted in thinking that they had acquired something
like a now power or faculty. In a word, they had
become thinking beings. The same process of minute
interrogation was carried on in all the classes. The
boys, in their exuberance of delight, would be con-
stantly speaking of it to their friends at home, to the
pupils of other schools, and to acquaintances whom
they might meet in the street. In this way, as well
as for other reasons, the school soon acquired an ex-
M. 24. THE INTELLECTUAL METHOD OF TEACHING. 1 27
tensive popularity among the native community, and
the pressure for admission increased fur beyond what
tlie little hall could accommodate. In the face of the
old mechanical and monotonous style of teaching then
universally prevalent, this method was felt to be a real
novelty. In the course of time it led others, so far
as they could, to imitation, so that ere long the new
system was fairly initiated in most of the Calcutta
and in many of the Bengal schools.*
Wo have DufTs own account of the genesis of his
educational system, given to the students who had
been made by it all they became the third of a century
afterwards, when he was bidding them farewell. Ilis
method was the same to which John Wilson was led in
Bombay. '* A passage in the introduction to the cele-
brated Lectures on Mental Philosophy by the late Dr.
Thomas Brown, the successor of the famous Dugald
Stewart, relative to Education being, when properly
conducted, the grandest practical application of mental
science, first drew my attention, theoretically, while
yet a student, to the real philosophical basis of a sound
and enlightened education. A personal inspection, at a
much later period, of the Edinburgh Sessional School,
then, in the absence of Normal schools, the most re-
nowned in the kingdom, showed me what the intel-
lectual and interrogatory system of education might
and ought to be in practice. With adaptations and
modifications specially suited to the peculiar circum-
stances of India as it then was, this was essentially
the system introduced and wrought out, from the
very first day on which our school was opened."
• A similar process was going on in Scotland where Dr. Andrew
Thomson condescended to the same humble but then necessary task
of primer- writing, alphabet-teaching and map- illustration, and
trained Mr. Thomas Oliphant to make English education what it
has since become in Edinburgh and iu Glasgow.
128 LIFE OP DTI. DUFF. 18301
Increased accommodation was secured, and the next
step was taken. The decree went forth that nono
would bo allowed to begin English who could not read
with ease their own vernacular. The purely Bengale."*
department was then created, in a bamboo shed with
tiled roof erected in the back court. Under pundits
carefully supervised by the missionaries, that has ever
since formed an essential part of the organization.
But, for the first time in Bengal, the English-learning
classes also were required to attend it for an hour
daily. This contemporaneous study had two results of
vast national importance, — it tended to the enriching
of the vernacular language with words, and the then
barren literature with pure and often spiritual ideas.
This system developed into that study of Sanscrit
which, in due time, the University was enabled to in-
sist on in even its undergraduate examinations, with
the happiest effects on both the language and the litera-
ture. Thus, too, Mr. Duff carried on his own Bengalee
studies, the rivalry between teacher and taught, and
the marvellous aptitude of the taught, adding to his
one over-mastering motive a keen intellectu 1 stimulus.
That could not be drudgery which was thus conducted,
and was in reality the laying of the foundations of
the Church of India broad and deep in the very mind
and conscience of each new generation.
Thus the first twelve months passed. The school
became famous in the native city ; the missionary had
come to be loved with that mixture of affection and '
awe which his lofty enthusiasm and scorn of ineffi-
ciency ever excited in the Oriental ; and the opposition
of his own still ignorant brethren was not abated. For
this was no gourd to grow in a night and perish in
a night; and till vulgar success comes commonplace
people do not perceive the gifts of others, as Pascal
remarks. Duff now resolved that he must live as well
yEt. 24. IN COLLEGE SQUAIJB. I 29
as work in tlio very midsfc of the natives, and bo in
hourly contact with thorn in tlio street as well as in
his own house. No European had ever before resided
there, uor was any Hindoo prepared to let a house to
one who would pollute it hy tho consumption of beef,
and cast an evil spell on the neighbourhood. Many
a week passed in fruitless endeavours to find an
abode, when a two-storied tenement, uninhabited for
twelve years because of tho belief that it was haunted,
was with much entreaty obtained in College Square.
The locality, fronting the Hindoo and Sanscrit
Colleges, wos so central, that it was long afterwards
secured by Mr. Barton for the Cathedral Mission
College, and the Medical College and University have
been built on the third side of the square. Up to this
time ho had lived to the south, on the same line of
road, in Wellesley Square, fronting the Muharamadan
College and close to the site of the future Free
Church building. He thus fairly planted himself in
the citadel of the enemy, and he was driven from
it to another quarter only by the unhealthiness ot
the house. He subsequently built his first college,
still known as the General Assembly's Institution of
the Established Church of Scotland, and his own
dwelling-place — succeeded, after 1813, by another
close by — in Cornwallis Square, to the north.
Despairing of inducing the European community to
follow him, in order to test the results of his first
year's labour he announced the examination of his
pupils in the Freemasons' Hall. To remove the pre-
judice that his work was low and fanatical, he secured
Archdeacon Corrie as president on the occasion. It
was an experiment, but Mr. Duff" felt confident that the
pupils would so acquit themselves as to recommend
the school and its system. In this he was not disap-
pointed. The reading of the boys ; their acquaintance
130 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1830.
witli tlie elements of Englisli grammar, geograpliy and
aritliraotic ; the manner in wliicli they explained words
and sentences, and illustrated their meaning by ap-
posite examples ; the promptitude and accuracy with
which they answered the questions put to them — all
took the auditors by surprise and filled them with
admiration, seeing that the school had been only a
twelvemonth in operation. But what astonished them
most of all in those early days was the ease and
freedom with which the Hindoos read such portions
of the Bible as were named to them, as well as the
readiness and accuracy with which they answered all
questions, not merely on the historical parts but on
the doctrines and principles of the Christian faith and
morals, to which their attention had been directed in
the daily lessons.
Altogether the efiect produced by that examination
was very striking. By those present it was pronounced
absolutely marvellous. The three daily English news-
papers of Calcutta had their reporters present, who
gave such accounts of the examination and the new
and felicitous modes of instruction pursued in the
school, that European Calcutta talked of nothing else.
The opinions of the English residents, official and
independent, reacted on the leaders of the native
community, till in the second year hundreds were
refused admittance to the school from want of ac-
commodation, and the number of European visitors
interfered so seriously with the regular discipline of
the classes that Saturday was set apart for such in-
spection. The elder pupils now consented to act as
monitors, native assistants pressed their services upon
the missionary, and the elementary teaching fell to
these as the English classes passt . on to collegiate
studies in sacred and secular truth.
There was another immediate result. Dr. Inglis
^t. 24. THE TAKEB BRANCH MISSION. I3I
and tlio EJinburgh committee liad their desire as to a
school in the interior. While visitors from all parts
of India, including far Bombay as we shall see,
carried away with them the principles of the system
to establish schools elsewhere, Mr. Duff was implored
to open a similar school at the purely Bengalee town
of Takee, forty miles off. There was the ancestral
seat of Kaleenath Roy Chowdcry, one of the principal
followers of Rammohun Roy. He and his brothers
offered all the buildings and appliances for an English,
Bengalee and Persian school, to be supervised by Mr.
Duff, and taught by men of his own selection and on
his own Christian system, whom in the Bengalee and
Persian departments the brothers would pay. The
triumph was complete. There a vigorous mission
school arose, long conducted by the Rev. W. C. Fyfe,
now head of the Calcutta Mission, and aided by Dr.
Temple, whose widow (now Mrs. W. S. Mackay) and
family have ever since been most closely identified
with spiritual and mission work. The examination of
the school and the example of the Chowdery family led
not a few of their wealthy co-religionists in Calcutta
to open new schools or improve the old mechanical
establishments.
At this time Mr. Duff supplied the Hindoo reformer
with the following: letter of introduction to Dr. Chal-
mers. Had they met during the brief remainder of
Raja Rammohun Roy's life, which was spent almost
exclusively in the society of English Unitarians, the
sympathetic Christian divine, who had himself passed
through the last spiritual conflict left for the truth-
seeking Hindoo, might have led him to the only wiso
God, the Saviour. As it was, the Raja died in 1833,
declaring that he was neither Christian, Muhammadan,
nor Hindoo. To the last he preserved his caste, that
he might secure his civil rights of property and in-
132 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1 830.
lieritance and retain his nationality. His best bio-
graplier pronounces him *' a religious Benthamite."
*' Calcutta, College Squaee, 18th Nov., 1830.
" My Dear Sir, — This may probably be delivered to
you by the celebrated Rammohun Roy. His general
character and acquirements are too well known to re-
quire any description on my part. And when I say that
he has rendered to me the most valuable and efficient
assistance in prosecuting some of the objects of the
General Assembly's Mission, I feel confident I have
said enough to secure from you towards him every
possible attention in your power. Any further parti-
culars illustrative of the accompanying document, which
is a copy of what I originally inserted in a religious
periodical published in Calcutta, you. as a member of
the Assembly's committee, may learn from Dr. Inglis.
I would write to you more frequently and more fully,
were it not that I ever cherish the impression that
whatever is addressed to Dr. Inglis, as chairman of
the Assembly committee, is equally addressed to every
individual member of it. Remember me kindly to Mrs.
Chalmers and family. Yours most sincerely and grate-
fully, " Alexander Duff."
Dr.. Inglis and the Church of Scotland, sorely tried
by the disasters which befell the first missionary, and
even before they could learn his safe arrival at Cal-
cutta, determined to pursue their original plan of
sending out two colleagues to assist him whom they
had appointed " the head master of a seminary of
education with branch schools." One was most
happily found in a tall, slightly bent and pale youth
from Thurso, who, having studied at Aberdeen Univer-
sity, completed his course at St. Andrews a year after
Duff, but in time to know well the man whom he ever
JEt. 24. HIS FIEST ENGLISH ASSISTANT. 1 33
afterwards worked along with iu loving harmony.
The Rev. W. S. Mackay, who joined the infant mission
in the autumn of 1831, was so accomplished and
elegant a scholar that it is difficult to say whether ho
became more remarkable as a learned theologian, as
a master of English literature and style, or as an
astronomer. A lofty and intense spirituality marked
all his work, and only a robust physique was wanting
to him. But even his assistance was not enough, as
the school developed into a college, and branch schools
like Takee demanded organization and supervision,
while other duties than that of daily teaching denied
the missionary a moment's leisure. Competent lay
teaching of secular subjects was required, and for this
the acute but imitative Bengalee intellect had not yet
been sufficiently trained.
Mr. Duft' thus found his first English assistant.
Among the passengers of the Moira was a Mr. Clift,
the son of an English squire, who was going out to
one of the great mercantile houses of Calcutta. Being
of a combative disposition he was placed by the captain
next to the missionary, who soon discovered that he
was highly educated and well read, especially in the
then little studied science of political economy. On
the failure of the firm in which the youth became an
assistant, he sought the advice of Mr. Duff, who at
once offered him the position of assistant master on
sixty pounds a year — the highest salary he was em-
powered to give, but invited him to his house as a
guest. Mr. Clift did his work in the higher classes
well. In the house his conduct was upright, and at
least respectful in reference to religion, on which, how-
ever, he maintained a studied silence. He was sent to
the Takee branch school as its first master. Thence
he returned, stricken with jungle fever, to the tender
ministrations of Mrs. Duff. In the delirium of the
134 I^^^E OF DR. DUFF. 183 1.
disease lie was heard repeating Cowper*s hymn, " There
is a fountain filled with blood." As he recovered he
confessed that he had been trained by pious parents,
and that he had led a careless life. He became a
changed man on his return to Takee, from which
Government took him subsequently to make him prin-
cipal of an English college. The incident powerfully
confirmed the young missionary in his conviction of
what was then little recognised in educational systems,
the importance of saturating the young mind with
divine truth.
But the episode has a twofold interest apart from
that. This youth was only one of many of that class
of adventurers who, like Meadows Taylor in Western
India, and hundreds of well-educated lads who
enlisted in the East India Company's Artillery es-
pecially, sought in service in the East, mercantile,
military and uncovenanted, the career denied to their
roving and romantic spirits elsewhere. Sir Henry
Lawrence, after he published his marvellous sketch of
the lives of such military adventurers in the Punjab,*
more than once promised us to write a book on the
prominent English, Scotch and Irish adventurers
in India, for none knew them so well seeing that none
assisted them so gsnerously. But Mr. Clift Lad even
a closer interest for Alexander Duff, introduced as the
missionary had been into the practical and theoretical
teaching of political science by Dr. Chalmers, who
had in Glasgow just before given a new illustration
of the meaning and the working of economics in the
highest sense. In his determination to use all truth
for the good of the people of India, and through it to
* Adventures of an Officer in tlie Service of Runjeet Singh, by Major
H. M. L. Lawrence, Bengal Artillery : 1845. The book is now as
rare as it is valuable.
JEt. 2$. THE FIRST TEACHER OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 1 35
educate tliem to recognise and love tlie higlicst truth,
Duff projected a manual of political economy more
elementary than the writings of Adam Smith and J. R.
McCuUoch. Even at the outset he began to suspect,
what every year and many a woful blunder like tho
mortality of the Orissa famine have since proved,
that without the data supplied by the old civiliza-
tions, the so-called *pre-historic' customs and the
social systems of the East, political economy must
be partial in its generalizations and one-sided in its
principles. Still, even as it was in 1831, the science
might be a powerful armoury against the caste, tho
social exclusiveness, the commercial apathy, the in-
dustrial antipathy, which marked the Hindoos.
Recalling his talk at the cuddy table of the Moira^
Duff proposed to Mr. Clift the drafting of such a
manual. The manuscript he expanded with new illus-
trations and vivid contrasts, all leading up to Christian
teaching. The book became most popular, as taught
in the spirit in which it was written. Thus Mr. Duff's
school was the first in which political economy was
expounded in a country where, indeed, the Permanent
Settlement of Cornwallis and the famous * Fifth Re-
port ' had groped in the dark after a just and self-
developing system 'of land revenue and treatment of
land tenures ; but where Holt Mackenzie and Mertina
Bird, Thomason and John Lawrence were yet bene-
volently to dogmatize in favour of thirty years' leases,
which each changing Government uses to screw more
and more out of the peasantry, and tlftis chiefly makes
them unable to withstand famine when it comes. But
the story is not complete. So little had political
economy been mastered in the land of Adam Smith
and m the kirk of Thomas Chalmers, that the com-
mittee condemned the enthusiastic missionary, when
he joyfully reported his success, for teaching a subject
13^ lilFE OF DR. DUFF. 183 1.
■wliicli tlie monopolist Government of the East India
Company might confound with pohtics !
Alexander Duff was not only in the citadel of Hindoo-
ism ; he had already dug his mine and laid the powder.
The fire from heaven was about to fall, as he invoked it
in the prayer of Lord Bacon*: — " To God the Father,
God the Word, God the Spirit, we pour most humble
and hearty supplications ; that He, remembering the
calamities of mankind, and the pilgrimage of this our
life, in which we wear out days few and evil, would
please to open unto us new refreshments out of the
fountains of His goodness for the alleviation of our
miseries. This also we humbly and earnestly beg,
that human things may not prejudice such as are
divine ; neither that, from the unlocking of the gates
of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light,
anything of incredulity or intellectual night may arise
in our minds towards divine mysteries. But rather
that, — by our mind thoroughly cleansed and purged
from fancy and vanities, and yet subject and perfectly
given up to the divine oracles, — there may be given
up unto faith the things which are faith's. — Amen."
* Quoted in Indicia and India Missior^ t^ the '" appropriate con-
clusion " of the book.
CHAPTER VI.
1831—1833.
TEE FIRST EXPLOSION AND TEE FOUR CONVERTS.
Eagerness of the Bengalee Youth to learn English. — Self-evidenc-
ing Power of Clirist's Teaching. — The Pharisees of Brahmanism.
— The Disintegrating Effect of tn;.o Science. — The Cry raised
of " Hindooisra in Danger." — Projected Course of Lectures. —
Derozio and the Atheists of the Hindoo College. — Tom Paine
the favourite Author, — The first and only Lecture. — -The City
in an Uproar. — The Govern or- General privately Encourages the
Mis.sionary. — Duff studying Bengalee. — First propounds national
system of Female Education. — The Debating Societies. — Robert
Burns on the banks of the Ganges.— The Native Press, English
and Vernacular. — Krishna Mohun Banorjea — Second Course of
Lectures. — Mohesh Chundei Ghose, the First Convert, brings
his Brother to Christ. — Confessions of Krishna Mohun and his
Baptism. — The Third or Martyr Convert. — The Fourth Convert
at last SuiTendered by his Father to Duff.— Origin of the Calcutta
Missionary Conference. — Duff's great scheme of a United Chris-
tian College foiled by sectarian controversy in England. — A
Bombay Civilian's Pitiiture-of the Revolution in Bengalee society.
— Bull's private estimate of his Success and faith in his Policy.
— The English Language and British Administration required to
do their part.
" Throughout the whole progress of these preparatory
arrangements," Mr. DufF afterwards wrote, " the ex-
citement among the natives continued unabated. They
pursued us along the streets. They threw open the
very doors of our palankeen, and poured in their
supplications with a pitiful earnestness of counte-
nance that might have softened a heart of stone. In
the most plaintive and pathetic strains they deplored
their ignorance. They craved for ' English reading '
— * English knowledge.' They constantly appealed to
138 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1831.
the compassion of an * Ingraji ' or Englishman, ad-
dressing us in the stylo of Oriental hyperbole, as
* the great and fathomless ocean of all imaginable
excellences/ for having come so far to teach poor
ignorant Bengalees. And then, in broken English,
some would say, 'Me good boy, oh take me;' others,
* Me poor boy, oh take mo;' — some, * Me want read
your good books, oh take me ;' others, ' Me know your
commandments, Thou shalt have no other gods before
Me, — oh take mo ;' — and many, by way of final appeal,
* Oh take me, and I pray for you.' And even after
the final choice was made, such was the continued
press of new candidates that it was found absolutely
necessary to issue small written tickets for those who
had succeeded ; and to station two men at the outer
door to admit only those who were of the selected
number."
Payment for class-books, and the formal signature
by parents and guardians of an agreement to secure
punctual and regular attendance, struck at the root
of two evils which marked all the other schools and
colleges in Calcutta. The more severe test of steady
attention to the Bible studies was no kss cheerfully
submitted to, parents also beiug invited to listen to
the hoi ir's p reaching to the young every day, and to
satisfy tliemselves that Christianity did not act as a
spell, although it might in time persuade as a divine
force co-operating with the truth-seeking soul ; and
was in any case a perfect system of moral principles
and practice. The Lord's Prayer was succeeded by
the master parable of the Prodigal Son, and then
came the apostolic teaching to I'he Corinthians on
what our fathers called charity.
" Throughout, all were attentive ; and the minds of
a few became intensely riveted, which the glistening
eye and changeful countenance, reflecting as in a
MX. 25. SELF-EVFDENCING LIGHT OV THE SCRIPTURES. 1 39
mirror the inward thought and varying emotion,
most clearly indicated. At last, when to the picture
of charity the concluding stroke was given by the
pencil of inspiration in the emphatic words ' endureth
all things,' one of the young men, the very Brahman
who but a few days before had risen up to oppose the
reading of the Bible, now started from his seat ex-
claiming aloud, ' Oh, sir, that is too good -for us.
Who can act up to that? who can act up to that?'
A finer exemplification, taking into view all the cir-
cumstances of the case, could not well be imagined of
the self-evidencing light of God's holy word. It was
an almost unconscious testimony to the superior ex-
cellence of Christianity, extorted from the lips of an
idolatrous Brahman by the simple manifestation of its
own divine spirit. It was a sudden burst of spontane-
ous homage to the beauty and power and holiness of
the truth, in its own naked and unadorned simplicity,
at a moment when the mind was wholly untrammelled
and unbiassed by prejudice, or party interest, or sect."
Then followed the Sermon on the Mount, which
drove home to a people more enslaved by the letter
that killeth than even those to whom it was originally
addressed, the lesson of the Spirit. " When, on one
occasion, the question was put, * What do you mean
by Pharisee ?' a boy of inferior caste, looking signifi-
cantly at a young Brahman in the same class and then
pointing to him, archly replied, ' He is one of our
Pharisees !' — while the Brahman simply retorted in
great good humour, ' True, my caste is like that of the
Pharisees, or worse ; but you know I am not to bo
like my caste.' "
Nor was this all. From the simple reading of the
words that promise blessedness to him who loves and
prays for his enemy, one youth was turned to the feet
of the Divine Speaker and became the fourth convert
I40 LIFE OF PR. DUFF. 1831.
of the mission. For days and weeks the young Hindoo
could not help crying out, " ' Love your enemies 1
bless them that curse you ! ' How beautiful ! how
divine 1 surely this is the truth!'* And in the more
directly secular lessons science came to carry on what
grace had begun in the morning and was yet to com-
plete. The explanation of the word " rain " on the
Scoto-Socratic method in a junior class, led to the
discovery by the lads of its true nature, as neitlier
Indra-born nor from a celestial elephant, according to
the Shasters, but the result of natural laws. " Then
what becomes of our Shaster, if your account is true,"
remarked a young Brahman. " The Shaster is true,
Brahma is true, and your Gooroo's account must be
false — and yet it looks so like the truth."
This was but a slight shock compared with that
given on the next eclipse. Mr. Dulf was himself as
much surprised by the effect of his teaching as his
pupils. He wrote of this time : — " Though we were
previously acquainted in a general way with the fact,
that modern literature and science were as much
opposed as Christianity itself to certain fundamen-
tal tenets of Hindooism, our own conception on the
subject was vague and indeterminate. It floated in
the horizon as an intangible abstraction. Now this
incident, by reducing the abstract into the concrete,
by giving the vague generality a substantial form, by
converting the loosely theoretical into the practically
experimental, — at once arrestee"' fixed and defined it.
A vivid glimpse was opened, not only of the effect
of true knowledge when brought in contact with
Hindooism, but of the modus operandi, the precise
mode in which it operated in producing the effect."
The effect of the first year's teaching. Biblical,
scientific, and literary, through English and through
Bengalee, on even the young Hindoos, was to lead
yKt. 25- TUB CRY OF * IIINDOOISM IS DANGER.' 141
tlicm into licence before they could reacli true self-
regulating liberty ; for the Bengiileo boy just before or
at the age of puberty is the most earnest, acute and
loveablo of all students. The older lads, " impetuous
with youthful ardour and fearless of consequences,
carried the new light which had arisen on their own
minds to the bosom of their families, proclaimed its
excellences on the house-tops, and extolled its praises
in the street-assemblies. With the zeal of proselytes
they did not always observe circumspection in their
demeanour and style of address, or manifest due con-
sideration for the feelings of those who still sat in
darkness. Even for the infallible Gooroos and other
holy Brahmans, before whom they were wont to bow
in prostrate submission, their reverence was greatly
diminiiihed. They would not conceal their gradual
change of sentiment on many vital points. At length
their undaunted bearing and freedom of speech began
to create a general ferment among the staunch ad-
herents of the old faith. Tlie cry of ' Hindooism in
danger ' was fairly raised."
The result was seen one forenoon, when only half a
dozen of the three hundred youths appr.a'ed in the
class-room. To the question of the puzzled missionary
the only reply was a copy of that morning's Ghimdrihi.
This Bengalee paper had been established to fight for
the sacred right of burning living widows with their
dead husbands. Now, as the organ of the orthodox
Dharma Soblia, of which its editor was secretary, it
had become the champion of the whole Brahmanical
system against an aggressive evangelical Christianity
of a very different type from the secularism of the
Hindoo College with which it had of late been allied.
The decree went forth that all who attended the
General Assembly's Institution were to be excluded
from caste, and it was urged that a yellow flag or
142 LIFE OP DR. DUrP. 1831.
other unmistakable symbol should bo planted in front
of the building to warn the unwary against the moral
and religious pestilence. But the Hindoo society
of the capital had already become too rationalistic in
its mode of viewing the national faith, and too selfish
in its desire to secure the best education which would
lead to official and mercantile appointments. The
])anic did not last a week. The lEoly Assembly had
no greater power than public opinion chose to give it.
Further diatribes against the missionary and his work
revealed only the essential weakness of a body which
the earlier refonns of Ilammohun Hoy had provoked
into existence. Mr. Duff went calmly on till the
classes became more crowded than ever. The quiet-
ness and confidence of an assured faith and an in-
tellectual conviction were seen in his drawing up,
after the experience of the first six months, " the
scheme of a complete educational course which might
require nine or ten years for its development, with
grounds, reasons and illustrations " occupying in all
about a hundred closely written folio pages. This
he sent off to Dr. Inglis as the mechanism of the
Christian Institute to regenerate Bengal and light a
fire in British India, from which ever since many a
torch has been kindled to help in the destined de-
struction of every form of error.
The college thus securely established in native so-
ciety, triumphing over the ignorance of his own
countrymen and already famous throughout India,
Mr. Duff proceeded to use at the same time the two
other more immediately powerful weapons of lectures
and the press. The minds of not a few leading Hindoos
had been emptied of their ancestral idols spiritual and
ecclesiastical, and were swept and garnished. Into
some, thus deprived of even the support which the ethi-
cal elements of their old orthodoxy supplied, the new
ilit. 25. THE IKUilllNT IN TUB UlNDOO COLLEGE. I43
tlcnions of lawless lust and Western vice had entered
with the secularism and anti-theism of the Hindoo
Colle'T^e, so that their last state was worse than the
first. Others, saved for the hour from this, wore in
the temporary attitude of candid inquirers, bold to
violence in their denunciation of the follies of which
they and their fathers had long been the victims,
but timid towards the new faith, with its tremendous
claims on their conscience and irresistible appeals to
their intellect. In May, 1829, the teaching of a
Eurasian of some genius and much conceit, named
Derozio, had bop^un to undermine the faith of the
students of the Hindoo College in "all religious prin-
ciples whatever," as even its secularist managers ex-
pressed it. Hence they formally resolved that Mr.
D'Ansc'line, tlie head-master, "in communication with
the teachers, check as far as possible all disquisitions
tending to unsettle the belief of the boys in the great
principles of natural religion." This interference only
fanned the smouldering fires. Discussion blazed out
into ridicule. Young Brahmans refused to be guilty
of the hypocrisy of submitting to investment with
the 'po'ita, or sevenfold Brahmanical cord ; many sub-
stituted favourite lines of Pope's " Iliad " for their
daily and festival prayers. In February, 1830, seeing
that the Hindoo College was thus threatened with ex-
tinction, although all that was going on was only the
logical outcome of their principles and their adminis-
tration, the managers threatened with immediate dis-
missal teachers who did not " abstain from any com-
munications on the subject of the Hindoo religion
with the boys," or who suffered " any practices incon-
sistent with the Hindoo notions of propriety, such as
eating or drinking in the school or class-rooms."
By April, 1831, the ferment had so increased that
Mr. Derozio was discharged as " the root of all evils and
144 LIFE OP BR. DUFF. 1831.
cause of public alarm." "Students of *'the dining party"
wlio had broken caste by eating animal food, or food
with Hindoos of other castes than their own, were
removed ; and it was determined that " such books as
may injure their morals should not be allowed to be
brought, taught, or read in the college." This was
what fifteen years' teaching of English and Sanscrit,
by the East India Company and orthodox Bengalees
combined, at the bidding of Parliament which sought
the moral and spiritual elevation of our native sub-
jects, had resulted in. The unhappy Derozio, whose
end was even sadder than his life which might have
reflected lustre on the valuable but then uncared
for community of Eurasians, was charged with incul-
cating *' the non-existence of God, the lawfulness of
disrespect towards parents, the lawfulness of marriage
with sisters." He admitted the first, but pleaded that
his chief object had been to enable the boys " to ex-
amine both sides of the question." Mr. Hare still
was of opinion that he was a highly competent teacher;
and Dr. H. H. Wilson, the official visitor on the part
of Government, which spent the public funds on the
place, declared he had never observed any ill effects
from Derozio's instructions. But the atheistic and
immora?! poet was dismissed in deference to the clam-
ours of the orthodox idolaters, although the principal
English text-b")oks, taught by men in quite as full
accord with them as he, were the more licentious plays
of the Eestoration and David Hume's Essays !
Outside of the classes, but constantly referred to by
the teachers, the favourite book was Paine's coarse "Age
of Eeason," which a respectable deist would not now
mention save as a warning. That book, his better reply
to Burke, his "Rights of Man," and his minor pieces
born of the filth of the worst period of the Fi >ch Revo-
lution, an American publisher issued in a cheap octavo
^t. 25. SCEPTICAL INQUIRY. 1 45
edition of a tliousaud copies, and shipped the whole to
the Calcutta market; such was the notoriety of the
anti-christian success of the college which Raramohun
Roy was ashamed to patronise. These were all bought
at once at two shillings a copy, and such was the
continued demand for the worst of the treatises that
cio-ht rupees (sixteen shillings) was vainly offered for
it.* Thus, from the opposite poles of truth, were the
two English colleges — the old secularists' and the new
evangelical missionary's — brought into collision, as
the former retired foiled ir its assault on Hindooisra,
and the latter advanced with renewed trust in the God
of truth to fire the train. Unlike the horror-stricken
but passive Christian preachers in the vernacular
chapels and schools of Calcutta at that time, the
young Scotsman threw himself into the breach
made in the at last crumbling walls of Hindooism.
"We rejoiced," he wrote, "in June, 1830, when,
in the metropolis of British India, we fairly came
in contact with a rising body of natives, who had
learnt to think and to discuss all subjects with un-
shackled freedom, though that freedom was ever apt
to degenerate into licence in attempting to demolish
the claims and pretensions of the Christian as well
as every other professedly revealed faith. We hailed
the circumstance, as indicating the approach of a
period for which we had waited and longed and
prayed. We hailed it as heralding the dawn of an
auspicious era, — an era that introduced something new
into the hitherto undisturbed reign of a hoary and
tyrannous antiquity."
Having by his first j^-ear's work of teaching and
personal intiuence carried on this work of preparation
for calm inquiry, he took three men of like spirit with
* Calcutta Christian Observer for August, 1832.
L
146 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1 831,
himself into his counsels. Dr. Dealtry, who succeeded
Corrie first as Archdeacon of Calcutta and then as
Bishop of Madras, was at that time chaplain of the
Old Church, and was worthy of such predecessors as
Martyn and Chiudius Buchanan. John Adam had
been his own fellow-student at St. Andrews, and was
then of the London Missionary Society. Mr. James
Hill, also a Congregationalist, was the popular and
able pastor of tliat Union Chapel in wiiich Christians
of all sects still gather on the first day of every year
for catholic communion, after a fashion too rare in
divided Christendom. Ali were eager observers of
nativ^e jjrogress, and agreed to co-operate in delivering
the first course of lectures to educated Bengalees.
The subject was Natural and Revealed Religion. The
first lecture, on the External and Internal Evidenoes,
fell to Mr. Duff; Mr. Adam undertook the second,
on the testimony of History and Fulfilled Prophecy;
Mr. Hill was to prepare the third, on Christ in the
Four Gospels, and the Genius and Temper of His
Religion. Dr. Dealtry was to close the course with
a statement of the doctrines of Christianity. But to
prepare the native mind for unprejudiced inquiry, Mr.
Hill delivered an introductory lecture on the moral
qualifications necessary for investigating truth. Mr.
Duff fitted up a lecture room in his house, which,
being still in College Square, was most central for the
class invited. To some that room became the place of
a new birth, and its meiuories stir hallow the similar
work, on the same site, of the Cl ^rch Missionary
Society.
It was a sultry night in the first week of August
when twenty of the foremost students of his own and
of the Hindoo College took their places in expectation
of a novel exposition. With the chastened eloquence
which used to attract the Governor-General and his
J£t, 25. THE NATIVE CITY IN AN UPROAR. 1 47
wife to the dissenting cliapel, Mr. Hill treated a sub-
ject that called fortli no controversy, and appealed
to admitted but too often neglected principles. In
silence the young men separated, looking forward to
the real tug of war a week after in DulFs lecture on
God and Ilis Revealing. That never took place.
Next morning the news flew like wildfire over Cal-
cutta. Students of the Hindoo College had actually
attended, in the house of a missionary, a lecture on
Christianity ! Soon the whole city Avas in an uproar.
The college that day was almost deserted. Continu-
'ing to rage for days the orthodox leaders accused the
Government itself of breach of faith. Had it not
promised to abstain from interference with their re-
hgion, and now insidiously it had brought out a wild
Padre, and planted him just opposite the college, like
a battery, to break down the bulwarks of the Hindoo
fiiitli and put Christianity in its place ! In all haste.
Dr. H. H. Wilson, Mr. Hare, Captain Price and the
native managers put up a notice threatening with
expulsion students who should attend " political and
religious discussions." That was the degree of their
love of truth. The students themselves remonstrated.
Mr. Hill published an indignant exposure of the mis-
representation and cowardice of the college authori-
ties ; and Mr. Duff at greater length assailed the
wisdom, justice and goodness of their tyrannical
decree. But he was not ohe man to rashly imperil
the cause in which, like the first missionary, it be-
hoved him to be all things to all men if thereby he
might win some. That was still the time of the East
India Company's absolutism, when the Governor-
General had the right of deporting non-official settlers
without assigning reason. Not so very long before,
the able civilian John Adam had gagged the press
and ruined, by deporting, Mr. J. Silk Buckingham, to
148 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 183 1.
appease Dr. Bryce and the John Bull newspaper. The
very existence of the mission might be at stake, and
prudence at least demanded that all the facts should
be known to the Grovernment, if only that the mis-
sionary might be assured that it shared none of the
Company's ignorant fears.
Mr. Duff, therefore, thought it right to solicit a
private interview with the Governor-Greneral. Lord
William Bentinck listened with the utmost attention
and patience. At the close of the statement he said in
substance : Assuming the accuracy of the facts which
he could not possibly doubt, he felt that Mr. Duff had
done nothing to contravene the law, nothing that
ought to disturb the public peace. At the same time
he added, from his knowledge of the Hindoo charac-
ter, that it would be well to allow the present tumult
quietly to subside. After a time it might be in Mr.
Duff's power more successfully to renew the attempt.
So far as he himself was concerned, he could not,
as Governor-Greneral, in any way mix himself up with
missionary affairs, or even officially express sympathy
and approval. But he declared that privately, as
an individu£il Christian man, he felt deep sympathy
with the avowed object of the missionaries, and ap-
proved of the operations of all who carried them on
in the genuine spirit of the gospel. He who had been
Governor of Madras during the Vellore mutiny, re-
peated the advice patiently to wait for a seasonable
opportunity to recommence what, if Mr. Duff went
about it calmly yet firmly, he himself would advance
by his private sympathy and support.
This for the moment answered the purpose ; fear
and alarm were ^bated. The most advanced students,
however, though having no good-will to Christianity,
but the contrary, felt that this was a violent inter-
ference with their freedom and independence. They
yEt. 25. FIBST BENGALEE SERMON. FEMALE EDUCATION. 1 49
winced under the order, and boldly declaimed against
the bigotry and tyranny of tlie college and the Govern-
ment authorities. They seemed to champ like horses
prepared for battle when forcibly kept back by bit and
bridle. Still from policy or necessity they deemed it
expedient to submit to what they reckoned a despotic
exercise of authority.
Being thus for a time freed from the task of prepar-
ing lectures in addition to his heavy school work, Mr.
Duff energetically set about mastering the Bengalee
language by the help of a learned Brahman pundit.
By the end of a twelvemonth he succeeded so as to
speak it with tolerable fluency. He wrote out for tho
sake of accuracy and committed to memory his first
sermon in Bengalee. But regular preaching in the ver-
nacular he did well to leave to others, who gave their
whole strength to a work specially adapted to meet
a very different class from those who held the inner
fort of Brahmanism. Denied lectures, the young men
met in debating societies of their own. These, often
nightly and in various quarters of the city, he asked
permission to attend, and soon m address from him
was welcomed as an attractive part of tho proceedings.
There it was that he first formulated his far-seeing
policy on the subject of female education, from which
Government still directly keeps back its hand, though
aiding the tentative efforts of missionaries.
At that time Miss Cooke, who became the wife of the
Church missionary, Mr. Wilson, had been teaching the
first female school in Bengal for eight years. She had
been led to form it by a visit paid to one of the boys'
schools of the Calcutta School Society, in order to ob-
serve their pronunciation of the vernacular, which she
was learning. Seeing the pundit drive away a wistful-
eyed little girl from the door, she was told that the
child had troubled him for the past throo months with
150 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1831.
entreaties to be allowed to read with the boys. Next
day, on the 28th January, 1822, she opened her first
school with seven pupils, and in a year, with the
lielp of the noble Countess of Hastings, the Governor-
General's wife, she had two hundred in two schools.
The Soranipore three had, as usual, anticipated even
Mrs. Wilson by their Female Juvenile Society. But
at that early period and long after, the few hundred
girls under the only partial and brief instruction
allowed them before very early marriage, formed but
units, and were of a class similar to those reached
by the street and village ] caclier. Many were bribed
by money to attend. The middle and higher classes,
whose sons Mr. Duff had attracted to his own school
and was daily influencing by personal intercourse,
were shocked at the idea of educating their wives and
daughters ; and even if they had consented, as many
now do, would not let them out of the home-prison of
the zanana.
But these youths thought differently, and Mr. Duff
encouraged them. One evening he found the subject
of debate by some fifty Hindoo College students to
be, " whether females ought to be educated." As
to the theory of the thing they ended in being
unanimous; one married youth exclaiming, "Is
it alleged that female education is prohibited, if not
by the letter, at least by the spirit of some of our
Shasters ? If any of the Shasters be found to advance
what is so contrary to reason, I, for one, will trample
them under my feet." The brave words won raptur-
ous plaudits for the speaker. As these youths became
fathers and grandfathers, female education would
spread of itself, if the Christian Church supplied the
vernacular and English lady teachers. Hence Mr.
Duff's conclusion, as he listened to the vaporous but
not insincere talk of these fledglings : '* Over the pre-
^t. 25- BENCiALEE DEBATING SOCIETIES. I5I
sent (1830-40) generation little or no control can bo
exercised by tliese youths. But as time rolls on they
become the heads of families themselves, and then will
tliey be prepared, in many instances at least, to give
practical effect to their better judgment." He dreamed,
he talked, he almost lived to be witness of " the hal-
cyon period when universal theory shall run parallel
with universal practice," in instructing the women of
the great educational centres of India. And we shall
see how ready he was to play his part in the practice
when he had done the preparatory work of educating
the husbands and the fathers.
It was of societies whei'e such questions were dis-
cussed that a vernacular newspaper exclaimed, " The
night of desolation and ignorance is beginning to
change its black aspect, and the sky, big with fate, is
about to brinof forth a storm of knowledge which will
sweep those airy battlements away that have so long
imprisoned the tide of thought." But social ques-
tions were not all. These were the days when the first
echoes of the English Beform Bill agitation began to
reach Anglo-Indian newspapers. In the native mind
the constitutional progress of the English Whigs came
to be mixed up with the frothy Bepublicanism of
their familiar Tom Paine, and the sensus communis of
Reid and the Scottish school of philosophy with that
blasphemer's favourite name of " common sense."
An education which, in the Grovcrnment colleges, long
after continued to fill the memories of the students
with the best — sometimes with the worst — passages
of the English poets, had made quotation the mark of
culture and elegance in a young debater. They had
not mastered Shakespeare or Shelley as now, but Sir
Walter Scott, Byron and even Ilobert Burns were
their favourites. "More than once," writes Duff of
that time, " were my ears greeted with the sound of
152 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 183 1.
Scotch rliymcs from the poems of Robert Burns. It
would not be possible to portray the effect produced
on the mind of a Scotsman, when, on the banks of the
Ganges, one of the sons of Brahma, — in reviewing the
unnatural institution of caste in alienating man from
man, and in looking forward to the period in which
knowledge, by its transforming power, would make
the lowest type of man feel itself to be of the same
species as the highest, — suddenly gave utterance, in
an apparent ecstasy of delight, to these characteristic
lines : —
' For a' that, and a' that,
Its comiii' yet, for a' that,
That man to man, the world o'er.
Shall brothers be, for a' that.'
How was the prayerful aspiration raised, that such a
consummation might be realized in a higher and nobler
sense than the poet or his Hindoo admirer was privi-
leged to conceive ! "
But it was time, after all this experience of the
variously mixed material on which he was to work, to
come to close quarters with Young Bengal ; to build
a spiritual temple on the foundation thus cleared
and almost crying out, as in a very similar transition
state the young and erring Augustine cried, "0 Truth,
Truth ! how eagerly even then did the marrow of my
soul pant after thee ! "
The traditional idolaters and the liberal inquirers
had become separated farther and farther from each
other, by that gulf which even here marks off the love
of the true from the tendency to the false. The liberals
established their own English journal, well naming it
the Enquirer. Long before, E-ammohun Roy had set
the English llefonner on foot ; but it had committed
itself to reproducing the antichristian attacks of Paine
^t. 25' ^ '^'^^^ ^^ TKANSITION. 1 53
after its founder Lad left for England, and it was
assisted in this by Englishmen who called them-
selves Christians. The English of the Enqalre)\ and
the Bengalee of the Gyananeahun^ week after week
attacked Ilindooism and its leaders with a courage and
skill that called down on the editors the execrations of
their countrymen. But all besides was negative. The
Reform Bill was eagerly turned to in July, 1831, for a
positive something to rejoice in as the germ of a new
reformation which would sweep away tyrants and
priests. The Holy Congregation's threat of excomnm-
nication was met with this welcome : *' Be some hun-
dreds cast out of society, they will form a party, an
object devoutly to be wished by us ! " The man who
proved a more than worthy successor of Eammolmn
Roy and sounded those trumpet notes in the EnqiiLver
was he who is now and has long been the staid scholar
and the grave minister of the Church of England, the
Rev. Krishna Mohun Banerjea, LL.D. Then he was
a Brahman of the highest or Koolin class, legally
entitled to marry all the women who might take hold
of him to be called by his name, and with the cer-
tainty of becoming, in Hindooism, a Pharisee of the
Pharisees.
Duff has himself told the story of that act by which
the truth-seeking Koolin formed the party of pro-
gress which he desired. Krishna Mohun happened to
be absent from a meeting of the liberal party held in
his fiunily house on the 23rd of August, 1831.
" If there be anything on which a genuine Hindoo is
taught, from earliest infancy, to look with absolute
abhorrence, it is the flesh of the bovine species. If
there be anything which, of itself singly, must at once
degrade a man from his caste, it is the known partici-
pation of that kind of food. Authentic instances are
on record, wherein a Brahman, violently seized by a
154 I-Tl^E OP DE. DUFF. 1831.
Moslem, has had such meat forced into his mouth ;
and thougli deprived of voluntary agency as much as
the veriest automaton, the contamination of the touch
was held to be so incapable of ablution, that the hap-
less, helpless, unwilling victim of intolerance, has been
actually sunk along with his posterity for ever into
the wretched condition of outcast. Well, in order to
furnish the most emphatic proof to each other of their
•mastery over prejudice and their contempt of the ordi-
nances of Hindooism, these friends of liberty had some
pieces of roasted meat, believed to be beef, brought
from the bazaar into the private chamber of the
Enquirer. Having freely gratified their curiosity and
taste with the unlawful and unhallowed food, some
portion still remained, which, after the return of the
Enquirer, was thrown, though not with his approba-
tion, in heedless and reckless levity into the com-
pound or inner court of the adjoining house, occupied
by a holy Brahman, amid shouts of — ' There is
beef ! there is beef !' The sacerdotal master of the
dwelling, aroused by the ominous sound and exasper-
ated at the unpardonable outrage which he soon found
had been perpetrated upon his feelings and his faith,
instantly rushed with his domestics to the quarter
whence it proceeded, and under the influence of rage
and horror, taking the law into his own hands, he
violently assaulted the Enquirer and his friends.
" Knowing that they had been guilty of an action
which admitted of no defence the latter confessed
their criminality, uniting in apologies for the past
and promises of amendment for the future. But
neither confession nor apology nor promise of amend-
ment would suffice. Tht openly avowed opinions and
conduct of the Enquirer and his friends had long been
a public scandal and offence in the eyes of their bigoted
countrymen; and, short of formal excommunication,
JEt 25. OASTB BROKEN BY THE ABOMINATION OF BEEF. 1 5 5
tlioy were in conscqucnco subjected to all manner of
persecution. But tlio crisis — the hour of unmitii,^1te(l
retribution — had now arrived. Hundreds speedily
ralHed around the Brahman, the sanctuary of whoso
home had been so grossly viohited by the presence of
the abomination of abominations. Inflamed witii un-
controllable indignation, they peremptorily demanded
of the family of the Enquirer to disown him in the
presence of competent witnesses, under pain of expul-
sion from, caste themselves. Having no alternative,
his family then called upon him formally to recant his
errors, and proclaim his belief in the Hindoo faith, or
instantly to leave the homo of his youth, and be for
ever denuded of all the privileges and immunities of
caste. He chose the latter extremity. Accordingly,
towards midnight, without being able to take formal
leave of any of his friends, he was obliged to take his
departure he knew not whither, because he could not
be prevailed upon to utter what he knew to be false.
* "We left,' wrote ho, * the home where we passed our
infant days ; we left our mother that nourished us in
our childhood ; we left our brothers with whom wo
associated in our earliest days ; we left our sisters with
whom we sympathized since they were born.' As he
and his friends were retiring, the infuriated populace
broke loose upon them, and it was with some difficulty
they effected their escape and found shelter in the
house of an acquaintance."
Recovering from the fever that followed, young
Banerjea returned to the assault, but still had no posi-
tive truth to lean upon. " I was perfectly regardless
of God," he wrote in the confessions of a later time ;
" yet, as a merciful Father, He forgot not me. Though
I neglected Him, yet He had compassion on me, and
without my knowledge or inclination created, so to
speak, a circumstance that impelled me to seek after
156 LIFE OP DR. DUFP, 1831.
Ilim." It was this. Unwilling to compromise the out-
cast further, Mr. DufT sent a native friend to invito
him to his house. The confessions continue: "Mr.
Duff received me with Cliristian kindness, and in-
quired of the state in which we all were. He openly
expressed his sentiments on what we were about ; and
while he approved of one half of our exertions he
lamented the other. He was glad of our proceedings
against error but sincerely sorry at our neglecting
the truth. I told him it was not our fault that we
were not Christians ; we did not believe in Christianity,
and could not therefore consistently profess it. The
reverend gentleman, with great calmness and compo-
sure, said it was true that I could not be blamed
for my not believing in Christianity so long as I was
ignorant of it, but that I was certainly guilty of serious
neglect for not inquiring into its evidences and doc-
trines. This word 'inquiring' was so uttered as to
produce an impression upon me which I cannot suffi-
ciently well describe. I considered upon my lonely
condition — cut off from men to whom I was bound by
natural ties, and thought that nothing but a determi-
nation on the subject of religion could give me peace
and comfort. And I was so struck with Mr. Duff's
words, that we instantly resolved to hold weekly meet-
ings at his house for religious instruction and discus-
sion." In the Enquirer he continued with growing
boldness : — " Does not history testify that Luther, alone
and unsupported, blew a blast which shook the man-
sions of error and prejudice ? Did not Knox, opposed
as he was by bigots and fanatics, carry the cause of
reformation into Scotland ? Blessed are we that we
are to reform the Hindoo nation. We have blown the
trumpet, and we must continue to blow on. We have
attacked Hindooism, and will persevere in attacking
it until we finally seal our triumph."
JEt. 25. SEEKING AFTER GOD. 157
Persecution drove the reformer to a European lodg-
ing-house, for not a native dared to shelter him. Tliero,
after narrowly escaping death by poison at the hands
of their outraged families, his associates found him.
And there DufF held earnest conference with them,
as they debated the establishment of a Reformation
Society, and the only one among them who had large
property of his own offered it for the common cause.
But convinced that, without some nobler truths to
substitute for the system they destroyed, this would
prove only an eradication society, the hot conspira-
tors in the cause of religious freedom agreed to meet
in the missionary's house every Tuesday, to study the
claims of Christianity to bo such a positive and life-
giving system as they now desiderated.
Hence the second course of lectures and discussions
was carried on with ripe experience on the part of Mr.
DufF, who now preferred to keep it in his own hands ;
and was delivered to really earnest truth-seekers, many
of whom had fairly separated from the idolatrous and
caste system 01 their fathers. But still, at first, the
Enquirer declared it had no religious doctrines to pro-
mulgate, only " let us have all a fair field, and adopt
what reason and judgment may dictate." In a month
the weekly discussions had brought its editor to the
admission that theological truth is the most important
of all, because of its practical influence on life, and that
Christianity deserves special inquiry as having civil-
ized a whole continent. " A reverend gentleman of
the Presbyterian sect has undertaken the task of un-
folding to us the nature of this set of doctrines." Prom
forty to sixty seekers after God listened to each lecture,
sat far into the night canvassing its statements, and
either returned night after night for further inquiry or
wrote out their difficulties for solution. The novelty
of the weekly meeting drew many spectators, and some
158 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. X831.
of these professedly calm inquirers proved to be ** proud,
forward, rude, boisterous and often grossly insulting.'*
But those were the exceptions, and they only stimu-
lated the ardour without ruffling the perfect courtesy
of the apostolic teacher, who had a yearning sympathy
with every soul feeling after God, and knew that it is
through much tribulati^^n such must enter the kingdom.
The record of these agonizings, intellectual and spirit-
ual, forms a unique chapter in the history of the apolo-
getics of those days.* As tlie demonstration of the
existence and personality of the great First Cause called
back the subtle spirit of the Bengalee, steeped in
pantheistic polytheism, from its initial rebound into
nihilismj the closing exhortations, delivered with all
that tearful fervour which was soon to summon the
Churches of the West to a new crusade, led them up
to the great love of Christ and the influence of the
Spirit.
Thus passed the cold season of 1831-32 in Cal-
cutta. The work of John the son of Zacharias, was
done. As his "Behold the Lamb of God!" sent
Andrew to Christ, and Andrew " first findeth his own
brother Simon . . and he brought him to Jesus,"
so was it now. At the conclusion of the discussions,
Mohcsh Chunder Ghose, a student of the Hindoo
College, sent his own brother to Mr. Duff, with this
note : —
" If you can make a Christian of Mm you will have a
valuable one ; and you may rest assured that you have my
hearty consent to it. Convince him, and make him a Christian,
and I will give no secret opposition. Scepticism has made mo
too miserable to wish my dear brother the same. A doubtful-
ness of the existence of another world, and of the benevolence
of God, made me too unhappy and spread a gloom all over my
* Appendix to Lidia and India Missions.
^t. 25. THE riRST CONVERT. 1 59
mind ; but I thank God that I have no doubts at present. I
am travelling from step to step ; and Christianity, I think, will
be the last place wh^re I shall rest; for every time I think,
its evidence becomes too overpowering/*
On the 28tli August, 1832, the Enquirer announced
the baptism into Christ of Mohesh himself, in an
article Avhich thus closed : " Well may Mr. Duff be
happy, upon the reflection that his labours have,
through the grace of the Almighty, been instrumental
in convincing some of the truth of Christianity, and
others of the importance of an inquiry into it. We
hope ere long to be able to witness more and more
such happy results in this country."
For some unexplained reason this first convert of
the G cneral Assembly's Bengal Mission chose to receive
baptism at the hands of an English chaplain whom he
did not know. li. is no cause for regret that the broad
seal of catholicity was thus stamped on Mr. Duff's
work, when his first son in the faith publicly declared
his belief — " in spite of myself," as he said — in
the triune God, in that old mission church which
Kie lander had built and Brown and Martyn, Corrie
and Dealtry had consecrated by their ministrations.
It was thus that this first-fruit of his toil, in Mr.
Duff's house and before many witnesses, after deep
silence burst forth : —
" A twolvemonth ago I was an atheist^ a materialist, a
physical necessitai'ian ; and what am I now? A baptized
Christian! A twelve^nonth ago Tvas the most miser tblc cf
the miserable ; and what i. ■ I now ? In my own mind, tho
happiest of the happy. Whui! a change i How has it been
brought about ? The recollection of the past fills me with
wonder. When I first came to your lectures, it was not in-
struction I wanted. Instruction was the pretext, a secret
desire to expose what I reckoned your irrational and super-
Btitious follies the reality. At last, against my inclinations.
l6o LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1831.
against my feelings, I was obliged to admit the truth of
Christianity. Its evidence was so strong that I could not
resist it. J3ut I stWl felt contrary to what I tliongld. On hear-
ing your account of the nature of sin, and especially sins of the.
heart, my conscience burst upon me like a volcano. My soul
was pierced through with horrible reflections and terrible
alarms ; it seemed as if racked and rent in pieces. I was in a
hell of torment. On hearing and examining further, I began, I
knov not how or why, to find relief from the words of the
Bible. What I once thought most irrational I soon found to
be very wisdom ; what I once hated most I soon began to
love most ; and now I love it altogether. What a change !
How can I account for it ? On any natural principle I cannot,
for every step that I was made to take was conti'ary to my
previous natural wish and will. My progress was not that of
earnest inquiry, but of earnest opposition. And to the last,
my heart was opposed. In spite of myself I became a Christian.
Surely some unseen power must have been guiding me.
Surely this must have been what the Bible calls 'grace,' free
grace, sovereign grace, and if ever there was an election of
grace surely I am one.''
Krishna Mohun Baneijea himself was the next. Ho
desired that tlie lecture room in the missionary's house,
which had been " the scene of all my public opposi-
tion to the true religion, should also be the scene of
my public confession of it." He sought that there his
still Hindoo friends, who had been strengthened in their
unbelief by his arguments, might witness his " public
recantation of all error and public embracing of the
truth, the whole truth, as revealed in the Bible." The
Bev. Mr. Mackay opened that service with prayer.
Mr. Duff addressed and thus interrogated the catechu-
men : — " ' Do you renounce all idolatry, superstition,
and all the frivolous rites and practices of the Hindoo
religion ? ' To this the Koolin Brahman replied : ' I do,
and I pray God that He may incline my countrymen
to do so likewise.' The second question was : * Do you
believe in God the Father and Creator of all, in Jesus
^t. 25. THE CONFESSIONS OF THE SECOND CONVERT. 161
Christ as your Redeemer, and in His sacrifice as the
only means whereby man may be saved, and in the?
sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit ? ' To this,
with emotion, he replied, 'I do, and I pray God to
give me His grace to do His will.' These and other
questions being answered, Mr. Duff administered the
ordinance in the name of the Father, Son and Holy
Ghost ; and then engaged in prayer, the whole com-
pany kneeling." Such was the description, in the daily
newspaper of Calcutta, of the putting on of the yoke
of Christ by the Koolin Brahman who, like another
Saul of Tarsus, had made his name known and dreaded
among thousands of his countrymen. By a different
path from that of Mohesh Chunder, but along the in-
tellectually thorny way of the Trinity from which
many of his countrymen fall aside into their old poly-
theism, Krishna Mohun stumbled on to Him who is
the Way, the Truth and the Life. His confessions
have a typical interest for more than his own people
and the students of ecclesiastical annals : —
" My attention having been particularly directed to the So-
cinian and Trinitarian systomSj I at once felt more favourable
to the former than the latter ; but not seeing anything in it so
great that it might reasonably call for the adoption of such
extraordinary measures as those which Jesus employed for
its rropagation, I could not yield my conviction to it. On
the other hand, I understood not aright the doctrine of the
atonement; and on grounds of mere natural reason could
never believe it to be possibly true. And us the Bible pointed
unequivocally to it, I strove to persuade myself, in spite of the
most overpowering external evidencOj not to believe in the
sacred volume. Neither could I be satisfied wi'h the forced
interpretation of the Sociuians. Socinianism, which seemed
little better than Dcism^ I thought could not be so far above
human comprehension that God should think of working such
extraordinary miracles for its establishment. Accordingly,
though the external evidences of the truth of the Bible wera
M
1 62 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 1832.
overwhelming, yet, because I could not, on principles of
reason, bo satisfied with either of the two interpretations given
of it, I could not persuade ray heart to believe. The doctrines
of Trinitarian Christians, which I thought were really accord-
ing to the plain import of Scripture language, were all against
my feelings and inclinations. Socinianism, though consonant
with my natural pride, seemed yet so insignificant, as a pro-
fessed revelation, that I could not conceive how, with pro-
priety, an all-wise God should work miracles for its sake. So
that I remained in a state of doubt and perplexity for a long
time ; till God, by the influence of His Holy Spirit, was gra-
ciously pleased to open my soul to discern its sinfulness and
guilt, and the suitableness of the great salvation which centred
in the atoning death of a Divine Redeemer. And the same
doctrine of the atonement which, when not properly under-
stood, was my last great argument against the divine origin
of the Bible, is now, when rightly apprehended, a principal
reason for mj belief and vindication of the Bible as the pro-
duction of infinite wisdom and love/'
That baptism took place on the 17tli October, 1832.
In the same class-room, on a Tuesday evening, the
14tli December, a third cateclmmen put on Christ.
Gopeenath Nundi had sought a morning interview
with Mr. Duff in his study, and there burst forth in
tears with the cry, " Can I be saved ?*' He told how
the last of the lectures had driven him to take counsel
with Krishna Mohun Banerjea who prayed with him
and sent him next morning to the missionary. At first
imprisoned by his family, they cast him off for ever by
advertisement in the newspaper; but nothing could
shake his faith. Still, before the irrevocable step was
taken, his brothers and caste-fellows implored him to
desist, then foully abused him, and then offered him all
that wealth and pleasure could give, including even the
retaining of a belief in Christianity if only he would
not publicly profess it. The last appeal was in the
name of his venerable mother, whose piercing shriek
JEt. 36. THE THIRD AND FOURTH CONVERTS. 1 63
none who have seen a Bengalee woman in sorrow can
forget. The scene has often since been repeated,
must yet be again and again w^itnesscd before India
is Clirist's. Nature could not remain unmoved. Go-
peeuath wept, but throwing up his arms and turning
hastily away he decided, " No, I cannot stay ! " Wo
sliall meet the same true martyr's courage in him
again, amid the captivity and the bloodshed of the
Mutiny of 1857. He proved faithful unto death.
Nor was Anundo Chund Mozoomdar long left be-
hind — the youth who in the school had been drawn by
the divine power of the Sermon on the Mount. He
had been the first to seek more detailed instruction
in the missionary's house. He had given up the
family and caste and festival idol worship till a
Cashmere Brahman, who had in vain remonstrated
with him, naively complained to Mr. Duff himself
that the gods had been blasphemed by the atheist
Anundo. Of a wealthy family, ho had declined to bo
married rather than submit to the ritual of Hindooism.
Put out of caste, he only rejoiced in the new-found
liberty, when his fa^^:r, an official in Jessoro, visited
the capital. His u cle had written a vigorous protest
against idolatry, and the father, though an orthodox
Hindoo of what had now begun to be called the old
school, liberally accepted the position, and wrote to
Mr. Duff to receive the persistent Anundo as his son :
" Convert him in your own way, and make him your
follower." So, in St. Andrew's Kirk by the junior
chaplain. Dr. Charles, Anundo was baptized, on Sun-
day, the 21st April, 1833, before the Scottish con-
gregation and many awe-stricken spectators. Whether
from the Hindoo College or from his own, it was by
"the self -evidencing power of the word of God" that
the joyful missionary saw these, his four spiritual sons,
brought to the faith.
164 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1832.
With now confidence in liis own fearless attitude
towards truth in every form, and with assured trust in
his system which used all forms of truth as avenues
by wliich the Spirit of God might be let in on the
hoary superstitions of India, he set himself to perfect
his organization. For the native church whicli he had
thus founded on the one corner stone, and for cate-
chumens, ho opened a private week-day class to study
systematicolly the doctrines of Christ in the minutest
detail, and a Sunday class to read the Scriptures and
hold communion with the Father in prayer. Having
erected a bamboo and wicker-work chapel for ver-
nacular preachin':^-, he added to that an English ser-
vice every Sunday evening. For inquirers outside
Christianity, who had yet been won from atheism,
he conducted successive courses of pubhc lectures on
the Bible, on the Socinian controversy, and on mental
philosophy, followed by open discussions. Foiled at
these, many changed the arena to the Bengalee news-
paper. But pursuing them there, Mr. Duff adver-
tised that he would answer each hostile article in
good faith on the next lecture night, a procedure
which gave a keen interest to the controversy in native
society.
Thus within and without the work went on, while
the school was every year developing into the fiimous
colleo^e which it became with the aid of a colleasfue
so able as Mr. Mackay, and of Eurasian assistants so
fiiithful and earnest as Messrs. Sunder and Pereira.
The administrative, the statesmanlike genius of Mr.
Duff, had after its first examination seized the advan-
tage of making it a still more catholic, central and
efficient institute, by uniting in its support and man-
agement all the Christian sects then represented in
Calcutta. For on the practical ground of economy of
energy and strength of aggressivvjness. aS well as on the
ALt. 26. niS PROJECT OP A UNITED MISSION COLLEGE. 1 65
highest of all, he ever desired unity. Ho found an
agency in the well-known Calcutta Missionary Con-
ference.
Mr. William Pearce, the generous and catholic-minded
son of the Rev. Samuel Pearce of J3irmingham, had, as
the head of the extensive Baptist Mi.«f:ion press, been
in the Imbit of inviting the few Protestant missionaries
to breakfast on the first Monday of every month.
The meeting was found so pleasant and profitable that
it grew into a more formal conference after breakfast,
with devotional exercises before that meal, accor(Tiug to
the early hours and pleasant hospitality of Indian life.
The nomination of a secretar}'', to take notes of the
papers and conversations, further gave the gathering
that permanence and utility which it has enjojaxl now
for half a century. To this body Mr. Duff submitted
his plan of a united college, such as has recently been
carried out in Madras for all Southern India and is
still under discussion for Bombay. For a fee of ten
suiUinofS a month Mr. Duff declared his willinoruoss to
receive the best vernacular pupils of the various mis-
sions and give them the highest Christian education.
All approved, and the Conference appointed a committee
to work out the plan in detail. But, as has often
happened since, the divisions of the Western Church
were fatal to the growth of that of India. Mr. Duff
prepared the plans of a building which would ac-
commodate the students below, and at least two other
colleagues, lay or clerical, above. This scheme showed
a mastery of detail and a foresight such as would have
anticipated the various colleges, comparatively weaker,
which the missionary societies were afterwards com-
pelled to erect and which they still conduct.
We survey with pain the outlines of so stately, so
Christlike a prospect for the Christianizing and civiliz-
ing of the millions of our subjects in Bengal, when we
1 66 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1832.
reflect that what was easy in 1832 has still to be at-
tempted ; and why ? Because the outburst of what
is in itself a miserable church and state controversy,
however important to the actual combatants, made it
impossible for the Nonconformist Churches to work
along with the two Established Churches of Scotland
and England in carrying out the last command of
their common Lord, although their missionaries in the
front of the battle were unanimous in the desire for
such co-operating unity. As Charles Grant's far-
seeing proposals of 1792 fell to be made facts un-
consciously by Duff in 1830-33, so Duff's have yet to
be realized, in Northern and Eastern India, by the
divided Churches of the West.
Rarely if ever in the history of any portion of the
Church at any time since apostolic work ceased Avith
John the Divine, has one man been enabled to effect
such a revolution in opinion and to sow the seeds of
such a reformation in faith and life, as was effected by
the first missionary of the Scottish Church in Bengal
in the three years ending July, 1833. In the form
of an experiment as to the subordination of educa-
tion to evangelical religion, Duff's work was watched,
criticised and narrowly weighed, not only by be-
nevolent men but by officials of all kinds throughout
India. Towards the end of 1831, from the then very
distant Bombay there came to Calcutta, to study and
report upon it, Mr. Henry Young, of the civil service
of Western India. He was a friendly supporter of
the Rev. John Wilson there, who gave him a letter
of introduction to Mr. Duff. Let us obtain a few
glimpses of the state of native society in Calcutta in
the sixteenth month after the opening of the General
Assembly's school, as given by a broad-minded layman
of great administrative experience as well as Christian
benevolence.
iEt. 26. MU. H. YOUNG ON TUE KEVOLUTION IN CALCUTTA. 167
"November 15//i,1831.
"Dear Mr. Wilson, — . . I availed myself on landing of
your letter to Mr. Dull', and lived with him during the time I
spent in Calcutta. 1 have never regretted doing so, as it lias
.•itlbrded me an opportunity of seeing much and learning more
rco-arding a class of young men who, of all others, engaged
my attention in that place ; and I am sure you woul ^ not fail
to share in the common interest felt, were you to witness the
])leasing progress they are making under Mr. Duff. The num-
ber of young men who, having received a college education,
have really thrown olf idolatry, is very great ; but there are
not above eight or nine who come boldly forward, and bravo
every effect of the pride and bigotry of their cuiiutryuien. Of
these Krishna Moliun Banerjea, the editor of the EiK^aircr, is
the most conspicuous. He certainly leads the rest, and, by
t}io admission of all, is the most sober and well conducted of
the whole. In a conversation I had with him the day before
I left, he told me there were not more than four upon whom
he could depend for decided support, and who go the full
length of his own principles ; but he thinks the rest are coming
round, and upon them he hopes principally to exert an in-
iluenco by means of his paper. It must be remembered that
they were formerly bold, impetuous characters, puffed up with
conceit of their supposed attainments, and forward in pro-
claiming their atheistical sentiments. Now they profess a
belief in the Supremo Being, and speak in the very best tone,
and maintain their desire to judge nothing rashly. They will
not, they say, hesitate to condemn and to expose idolatry and
the Brahraanical impostures, because they are convinced of
the folly and absurdity of their former belief ; but of Chris-
tianity they will examine and inquire, and are ready to embrace
the truth wherever and whenever they see it.
" There can be no doubt that, unaer God, they are indebted
for this favourable change to Mr. Duff's lectures, and to the
knowledge they have acquired of English. All the direct effects
of their education at the Hindoo College have been, with this
exception, decidedly evil; and though it has been overruled in
this instance, as far as we can see, to the furtherance of good,
yet it is only the direct effects of that system to which its
directors can lay claim. Mr. Duff has a school of about 150
1 68 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1831.
boys, in which there are some of the higher class that can now
road and write with some fluency in English. When they are
a little farther advanced Mr. Dufl' will gradually instruct them
in the higher branches of science and literature, and ground
them thoroughly in the evidences of religion, and go over
every objection that the inlidel has made to them, with a view
of preparing them for a successful resistance to those young
men whom tlie college is daily sending forth with heads filled
with the subtleties of Hume, etc. So that his two objects at
present are (and between these he divides his time) : to put
himself at the head of the movement already taken place
amongst the students, and gradually reclaim them from the
wrong paths they have taken ; and to train up another set of
young men who have not been subject to the disadvantages
these have felt, who have not lost the docility and teachable-
ness so necessary in receiving the truth, and who, if God
vouchsafe His bles?ing, may furnish a body of well educated
young men of a far superior order to any that we have yet
seen in India. This was the proper object of Bishop's College,
and it has failed from causes which are well known, and which
arc fatal to the Buccess of every human scheme. Mr. Duff is,
in lact, about to establish an Institute himself, the plan of which
has been fully arranged, and has met with the concurrence
of all hero, and which only wants the sanction of the home
authorities to be at once set on foot. In the meantime this
school forms a nucleus, and has arisen unostentatiously with-
out exciting any great notice, and will ultimately furnish him
with a set of students to commence with who have been
brought up under his own eye and under his own system,
which, I might say, is a most efficient one. I questioned him
a good deal about the prospect he had of securing their atten-
dance for the period that it would require to go through his
course. He said he felt, as all others feel, how diflicult it was,
but that such was the eagerness of the boys to remain, that if
they could only obtain a sum sufficient for their support, they
would resist every inducement held out by their families to
leave him ; and that, in fact, he had resolved in all cases of
difficulty to supply them with funds himself, and he accord-
ingly does so support one or two of them already. He said
six or eight rupees a month was ample, and that he himself
only gave them four. The same practice was found necessary
yEt. 25. ExVGIilSII THE MOST EFFICIENT INSTRUMENT. 1 69
at tbo Hindoo College, and some boys in the first class now
receive from Government fifteen rupees a month ; and after all
that can bo said ajj^ainst the measure, I am fully persuaded of
its propriety, and hope that every one will support the system.
"1 very soon, of course, came to ask his opinion upon tho
subject of education generally, and stated our eircumstauccM
to him. Ho attributed the ill success of scriptural education
to the imperfect and elementary nature of tho education given
and the neglect of the English langungo, and seemed to havo
tho fullest conviction of the success of the system he is about
to pursue ; for to every suggestion about tho inutility and ill
success of schools, ho always replied that he thought the failure
was owing to tho not communicating a medium through which
sound and enlarged ideas respecting God and our relations to
Hiui might bo conveyed, and through which the effects of
what education they did receive might bo kept alive and
strengthened. After what I witnessed of the fi\eility of Eng-
lisli instruction, I could not urge as an objection tho difliculty
of imparting it, and, in short, I came away from Calcutta fully
convinced that in neglecting English wo havo neglected the
most efliicient instrument we could have used. With all tho
young men I have spoken to you about, any person may havo
the most free and unreserved comtnuuicatiou in our own
language ; and it quite astonished mo to find how closely and
attentively they followed Mr. Duff in the most abstract and
metaphysical discussions, taking up the weaker parts of an
argument with a readiness which showed how fully they had
comprehended what was addressed to them. I do net mean
that their objections were always the happiest, but they showed
they had, in the main, comprehended his arguments, lie fully
concurred in all we proposed to do, though I cannot say he
went the length which I havo hitherto been disposed to go, in
asserting uni'eservedly that knowledge without religion is
positively evil.
"Mr. Duff's school has not been in operation sixteen months,
and yet an advance has been made sufficient to extort tho
praise of Mr. Hare, who told me, as he was showing me the
college the other day, that Mr. Duff deserved credit for it. Let
us hear no more, therefore, of the difficulty of teaching them
English. I havo seen it here in various instances effectually
surmounted. The Hindoo College is a fine quadrangular build-
170 LIFE OF DH. DUFF. 1831.
ing, ilie inner area being very small, so as to give the house the
shape of a native building; I do not say appearance, for it is
built after a regular Grecian order, and, like most houses in
Calcutta, is very handsome and elegant. The ground-floor
students are exclusively eugaged in the study of Sanscrit,
whicli occupies them seven or eight years, and one cannot help
grieving at the sad and cruel waste of precious time and talent
at this unprofitable study. English has been introduced
recently, that is to say, since the last two or three years ; and
I observed one class going over a proposition of Euclid, which
they seemed to enter into con amove. The first class had just
returned from a lecture on some branch of natural philosophy,
and seeing some essays of their composing I asked for one or
two, which with some hesitation they granted, I was sur-
prised to find on my return that one went directly to refute
Paley, and establish the mortality of the soul and. the futility
of any hopes as to futurity. The subject was: 'Is Paley's
definition of virtue, viz., that it is doing good to mankind for
the sake of everlasting happiness, correct ? ' and the writer
contended that after death the soul vanished into thin air, etc.
"I was fortunate enough to witness, on the Tuesday before
I sailed, a missionary prayer meeting. There were present (at
Mr. Duff's in rotation), Mr. Duff, W. 11. Pearce, Yates, Sandys,
Percival, Mackay, Christie, G. Pearce, T. Robertson (chaplain),
Reichardt, Lacroix, Gogerly, and two or three others whom
I cannot recollect. At seven we met upstairs and engaged in
prayer until breakfast-time, when about twenty sat down.
After breakfast subjects that had been proposed at the last
meeting for discussion were announced, and the sentiments of
each person present were called for. The question under dis-
cussion was, as far as I recollect it, ' the relative importance of
itinerant preaching as compared with education, as a means of
spreading the gospel,' and the sense of the meeting was ex-
pressed in the three resolutions I alluded to in my letter to
Robert Money. The subject was very well, as I thought, dis-
cussed, but not exhausted; and I should like to have proposed
for inquiry next month, * The origin and recorded success of
juvenile education as a means of spreading the gospel in
heathen countries.' The question, however, proposed by Mr.
Mackay will perhaps embrace this. There was at least a pro-
portion of two-thirds of the meeting present who were engaged
^t. 25. HIS OWN ESTIMATE OF PAST AND FUTURE. 171
directly in itinerant preaching in, around, or away from Cal-
cutta. Mr. Lacroix is said to be by far the most ready and
effective preacher, and to draw crowded audiences.
"The infant school, under Mr. Macpherson'a superinten-
dence, founded by the Bishop and conducted by a Mrs. Wilson,
flourishes; so, I believe, does the High School, under the Rev.
Mr. Macqueen, who is rector; but the Free School of St.
Jainos\s parish is wretchedly organized, and the children are
almost parrots. I wonder any person neglects to introduce the
interrogatory system of instruction ; no other deserves, I think,
support. I must not omit to say that the day before I left,
Tarachund Chukurbutee, the leader of the Moderates (as they
are called who, renouncing idolatry, yet fall short of the
decision and uncompromising spirit of Banerjea and others),
called upon Mr. Duff and promised to attend with several of
his friends at Mr. Duff's lectures. This was a subject of great
delight to us all, as they had hitherto declined to mix with the
Ultras (as they are styled), and feared to compromise their
worldly interests."
Three months after Mr. Younoj's visit wo find Mr.
Duff's own Immble estimate of the results, but far-
reaching statement of an unconquerable faith, in two
letters to the Rev. Professor Ferrie, of Kilconquhar : —
" Calcutta, dth January, 1832.
" Here there is little change : much work of preparation
silently cai'ried on, little of the practical work of conversion
from dumb idols to serve the living God. We cannot over-
estimate the worth of an immortal soul, and should one
be found cleaving to the Saviour steadfastly and immov-
ably we cannot rejoice too much or ascribe too much glory
to God. But methinks that, considering the millions still
unreclaimed, our joy should be tempered and our glorying
moderated, lest the one should be found to be mere self-
gratulation and the other a vain boastfulness. How I
fear that much, far too much, has been made of partial
success in the work of conversion, and that many good people
at home are under serious delusion as to its extent. Every-
thing around me proves the necessity of more earnest prayer
172 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1832.
and redoubled exertion. I see nothing to satisfy me that any
decisive victory has been won on the grand scale of national
emancipation. The few converts that have been made can
never be the seed of the Church : they resemble rather those
somewhat imseasonable, somewhat short-lived germs which
start up under the influence of a few peculiarly genial days
in winter — an indication of the seminal power of mother earth,
and a token of what may be expected in spring. Let us not
then confine our views to the few shrivelled sprouts of a mild
winter ; — for these let us be thankful, as they tend to revive our
hopes and reanimate our sinking spirits. But let us reach
forward with restless longing and unceasing efibrt to the full
glow and life and verdure of spring, when the whole earth
shall be loosened from its cold torpor and the heavens pour
down refreshing floods. It is not easy in Calcutta to congre-
gate a decent audience to listen to Bengalee preaching. The
people are naturally apathetic, and here there is superadded
such pervading avarice, such moiiey-making selfishness, that it
is difficult to secure any degree of attention, or even to excite
any alarm for the safety of their own religion. Thousands
there are, in fact, who cannot be said to have any religion at
all. Preaching generally becomes either a conversation, or a
discussion in which the most arrant frivolities in argument are
reiterated with an obstinacy that wastes precious time, and
wholly impedes the free deliverance of truchs that might
quicken the conscience and save the soul i'Jive. More, gener-
ally speaking, can be done by way of direct preaching in
Bengalee in the neighbourhood than in the town of Calcutta,
though I think that missionaries have often too readily given
way to the accumulation of acknowledged difficulties to be
encountered in town. To desert it is like abandoning one
of the enemy's strongest holds and allowing him to occupy it
undisturbed.
" My labours in Bengalee preaching have hitherto been ne-
cessarily very limited. But there is a sphere now partially
occupied, formerly almost unattempted : there is the instituting
of English schools under a decidedly Christian management,
End insisting on the inculcation of Christian truths. The field
may become one of the richest in bearing luxuriant fruits.
We only want the necessary funds and qualified agents. The
success that has attended the large school first established has
JEt 26. THE VARIED WORK IN CALOUTTA. 1 73
infused a kind of new stimulus into the minds of those most
interested in the Christian education of the natives, and in
that alone much real good has been achieved. The work is
excessively laborious and not a little expensive, but time will
show its vast importance. I trust that you are acquainted
with the various proposals already irwarded to the Assembly's
committee. I crave your special attention to the last, as being
perhaps one of the most momentous that has ever been for-
warded from a heathen land, referring chiefly to a union of all
denominations in the support of a Central Institution for the
more advanced literary and religious education of promising
native youth; and to be under the exclusive control of the
Assembly's committee. I refer you again to the printed pro-
posals sent homo, and expect your powerful advocacy of tho
measure.
"Thousands can now talk English tolerably well. Amongst
those I labour a good deal, as this class, being of the better
sort, has generally been neglected. For the last two or three
months I have been delivering a course of lectures on the
evidences of natural and revealed religion, to about fifty
of the more advanced young men who have been educated
at the Hindoo College, as well as of the class of East
Indians who have received a competent education. On the
whole the eff'ect is pleasing. Much discussion takes place at
times, but in tho end objections have hitherto been withdrawn.
" Our church still droops. Were an acceptable preacher to
officiate regularly it might yet be in some degree recovered
from its degradation. I preach occasionally, and perceive clearly
that many are willing to attend, and under a different state of
things would, but refuse at present on the presentation of a plea
which they hold to be sufficient. Consequently many have joined
other communions permanently, many temporarily, and many
live without the stated administration of ordinances. In this
way that which once was a united community is now severed into
fragments ; and that aid which would once hav3 been and now
might be affoi'ded can no longer be expected. Oh let us have
a pious and talented successor to Dr. Brown, and much may
yet be done. Another of the same stamp when the present
incumbent retires, and a vast deal may be done towards re-
storing our Zion. Such appointments would immensely profit
the Assembly's Mission. Mr. Mackay, if he enjoy good health.
174 I-IFB OP TR. DUFF. 1834.
will do well. But he does not appear to be strong, nor capable
of untiergoing much bodily fatigue, nor exertion in speech, all
of which is so essential to the active discharge of a missionary's
duties. I wish the committee would bear in mind that a
constitutional vigour of body is just as requisite as a vigorous
activity of mind, and piety and learning. Indeed it is not
studying men that we want, but hard-woi'king men who have
been and still are students."
" Feb., 1834. — Awakened by the pleasing success which has
attended our humble efforts in Calcutta, some zealous friends
at home, as I hear, are beginning to think tliat a new station
might be opened. Now, let me say at once that notliing
would prove more disastrous. Of all stations in India Cal-
cutta is by far the most important. Its population is a vast
motley assemblage or congregation of persons from all parts of
Eastern Asia. Of course the natives of Bengal greatly predom-
inate, and next to these, immigrants from all the provinces of
Gangetic India. A revolution of opinion here would be felt
moi'o or less throughout the Eastern world, and particularly
among the millions that are the victims of idolatrous delusion
and Brahmanical tyranny. It is of no ordinary importance,
therefore, to make Calcutta the grand central station for con-
ducting missionary operations on an extended scale. But we
require a score more labourers, and if we had two score
Calcutta alone and its neighbourhood would afford abundant
scope for their best efforts for at least several years to come.
It has hitherto been a radical error in the organization of
missions, to scatter the pioneers and so dilute and fritter away
their strength, instead of concentrating their efforts on some
well-chosen field. I sincerely trust that this is an error which
the committee of Assembly will endeavour to avoid, and that
all their aim will be for years directed towards the strengthen-
ing of the Calcutta station.
" I perceive it was stated in the last AsL^embly by Mr.
Thomson, of Perth, that the Assembly's Institution should
always remain a mere school. No remark has astounded me
more for many a year — the utter ignorance which it betrays
of the wants of this people and the most probable means of
supplying these with success ! If it is to continue a mere
school, then I say that all the time, money and labour hitherto
expended on it have been thrown away for nought. Instead
JEt 28. AN EFFICIENT COLLEGJ] AND NOT A MERE SCHOOL. I 75
of being an apparatus which God might bless as the means
of leading heathens to the way ot salvation through Ciirist, it
would be much more likely to become a machine for trans-
forming superstitious idolaters into rogues and infidels. It
has been entirely overlooked that in this country there is a
gigantic system of error to bo rejected ere a system of truth
can be embraced j and the few years which a boy can spend
at a mere school can barely suffice to open his mind to tho
absurdity and irrationality of tho religion of his ancestors, a
religion that closely intertwines itself with every feeling and
faculty of the soul, with every habit and every action of life.
But supposing that in a mere school you could succeed in
overthrowing Hindooism and in inculcating much of tho
knowledge of Christianity, still if the boy be not confirmed
in any belief, and you turn him adrift amid a multitude of
heathens the most licentious and depraved under the sun,
what must be the consequence ? I can only say from ex-
perience, that his latter end must be in all respects worse
than the first.
" Our only encouragement is the hope of being ablo to in-
duce a certain proportion of %ose wlio enter as boys to remain
with us till they reach the age of puberty, and consequentlj'",
attain that maturity of judgment which may render know-
ledge, through God^s blessing, operative and impressions
lasting. Anrl were there no reasonable hope of securing this
end, I wot.i .vithout hesitation say, 'the sooner you abandon
the school, the better.' I, for one, could not lend myself
as an instrument in wasting the funds of the benevolent
in Scotland in teaching young men a mere smattering of
knowledge, to enable them to become more mischievous pests
to society than they would have been in a state of absolute
heathenism. On the other hand, if out of every ten that enter
the school even one were to advance to the higher branches
of secular and Christian education ; were he to become in head
and in heart a disciple of the Lord Jesus ; and were a number
with minds thus disciplined, enlai'ged, and sanctified, to go
forth from the Institution, what a leaven would be infused
through the dense mass of the votaries of Hindooism ! And
what a rich and ample reward for all one's labours, what a
glorious return for all the money expended ! I look to you,
my dear sir, as one whose superior discernment ran penetrate
176 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1833.
this subject^ and expose the erroneous views of such zealous
but, in this instance, mistaken men as Mr. Thomson of Perth.
''The school continues greatly to flourish. You may form some
notion of what has been done, when I state that the highest
class read and understand any English book with the greatest
ease; write and speak English with tolerable fluency; have
finished a course of geography and ancient history; have studied
the greater part of the New Testament and portions of the Old ;
have mastered the evidence from prophecy and miracles ; have,
in addition, gone through the common rules of algebra, three
books of Euclid, plane trigonometry and logarithms. And I
venture to say that, on all these subjects, the youths that com-
pose the first class would stand no unequal comparison with
youths of the same standing in any seminary in Scotland.
Other labours progress apace. My Tuesday evening lectures
on the evidences and doctrines of Christianity are still con-
tinued. God has been pleased to bless them for the conver-
sion of a few, and the obstinacy of many minds has been shaken.
On Sunday evening T preach also in English to considerable
numbers in a small native chapel. There is cercainly much to
encourage, while there is much also to damp one's zeal.
Believe me, the people at home have far too exalted an idea of
what has been done in India. Still, much has been done ; and
that draws out the hope of soon doing still more. Let us not
rest till the whole of India be the Lord's."
In all this warfare of the young apostle against the
hoary citadel of Brabmanism, and in the retreat of
tliG foremost of its men into the slough of theoretical
atheism and practical immorality, or of vague theism
and a dead ethics, we have seen the divine influence
at work. To Calcutta and Bengal, as once to Je-
rusalem and Syria, Christ was being manifested to
destroy the works of the devil. We must now look
more closely at the human instrument He had chosen
through which to pronounce the wonder-working spell,
not only in the native city and for that generation,
but over all India and Southern Asia and for the
ages to come. It was the Greek tongue and the
JEt. 2J. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1 77
Roman order in that which was to all the race the
fulness of the ages. In India the set time came with
the English language, with the legislation and the
administration, the commerce and the civilization of
the British people. The Missionary had, thus far,
done his work. The Governor-General in Council
must now do his.
CHAPTER VII.
1833-1835.
TEE BENAISSANOE IN INDIA. TEE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE AND TEE GEUBCH.
Lord William Bontinck ready. — The Charter of 1833. — Macaulay'a
share in that and in the Reform Act. — His Contrast of Calcutta
and Edinburgh. — Sir Charles Trevelyan becomes his Brother-in-
Law. — Trevelyan's Alliance with Duff. — The Growth of a Vicious
Orientalism alter Lord Wellesley. — Lord Minto. — Bishop Heber.
— The Prinseps and W. H. Macnaghten. — The Anglicists. — Mr.
B. H. Hodgson and the Varnacularists. — Duff's Experience as a
Celtic Highlander. — James Mill. — Macaulay's Famous Minute. —
The Missionary's Greatest Ally. — Decree of Lord William Ben-
tinck's Government. — Sir C. Trevelyan's Account of Duff's
Triumph. — Duff's Modest Narrative. — His Regard for True
Oriental Scholarship. — Vindicates the Government Decree. —
Shows where, from political expediency, it failed. — Eloquent
Application to the Church of Canning's Peroration on the New
World. — Macaulay's Revival of Letters and Duff's Indian Refor-
mation begun.
Lord William Bentinck was ready. He had enjoyed
wliat some call the drawbacks, but all true men pro-
nounce to be the real advantage, of being a younger
son. The second son of the third Duke of Portland,
Lord William Cavendish Benfcinck was thrust out into
positions where he developed for the good of human-
ity all those virtues and that ability which had made
Hans William, the founder of the house, second only
to his friend William III. as a benefactor of Great
Britain. Because, while still under thirty, he hap-
pened to be Governor of Madras when the family of
Tippoo provoked the mutiny of Vellore, Lord William
/Et 27. LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK. 1 79
Bcntinck was recalled by the Court of Directors for
cxacly the same avowed reason which caused their own
extinction after the Mutiny of 1857. In the interval
before his return to India as Governor-General the
young administrator secured a constitution for Sicily,
and, in 1814, he would have restored the old republic
of Genoa but for Lord Castlereagh's stupidity. It
was one of the many merits of George Canning that,
during his too brief term as Prime Minister, ho sent
Lord William Bentinck to govern all India. Alroady,
when Duff landed, had the new Governor-General
spent two of the seven years which have marked
the page of British India with triumphs hardly less
brilliant than those of the Marquis Wellcsley, and
paralleled only by the later achievements of the Marquis
of Dalhousie. Had he, as he washed, been appointed
the immediate successor of Lord Hastings, instead
of the weak Amherst, it is difficult to decide whether
he would have prepared the way for Duff's mission of
positive Christian truth and educational progress, or
whether his lofty benevolence would not have failed,
like other premature ideals, for want of the concurring
aids of a ready man and a ripe time. As it was, it was
well that the purely educational, literary and scien-
tific reforms of his Government fell at the end of
his s-even years' career in the highest ofl&ce which any
man can fill next to that of Premier of the United
Kingdom.
It was well also that to the work of Duif and the
legislative and administrative measures of Bentinck,
applying the principles and results of that work to all
India and for all time, there were added the indispens-
able co-operation and the supreme sanction of the
British people through Parliament. For the first
fruit of the Reform Act of 1832 was the East India
Company's charter of 1833. That charter withdrew
l8o LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1833.
tlie last obstructions to the work of Duff and of every
settler in India, missionary or journalist, merchant or
planter, teacher or captain of labour in any form. It
converted the Company into a purely governing body,
under a despotic but most benevolent constitution so
well fitted for the freedom and the elevation of loner-
oppressed races that the most democratic of English
thinkers, Mr. John Stuart Mill, has declared the sys-
tem to bo the best ever devised. That charter has tho
additional merit of giving men, as well as rendering
possible a constitutional system, to India. It added
a law member to the Governor-General's council or
cabinet, then of five, and created a commission to
prepare codes of law and procedure such as havo
come next only to Christianity itself, from which they
spring, in their humanising and elevating influence.
To mention no others, these four men. Lord Macaulay,
Sir Barnes Peacock, Sir Henry S. Maine and Sir
James F. Stephen have together done more for tho
varied races and the corrupting civilizations of tho
peoples of India than the jurists of Theodosius and
Justinian effected for Europe, or the Code Napoleon
for modern France.
The eloquence of the young Macaulay in carrying
the Reform Act resulted in his appointment as one of
the commissioners, and then as the secretary, under
Lord Glenelg and along with Sir Robert Grant, of
the Board of Control. He was the master of the
Court of Directors for eighteen months, and they for
some time opposed his nomination as the new law
member. Was not the charter of 1833 his doing, and
was he not, at thirty-three, in their eyes an intolerably
conceited person ? Six years older than his country-
man and fellow Highlander, of whose doings he could
not help being officially cognisant, little did he think
that without himself the revival of letters and of faith,
^t. 2 7- MACAULAY GOES TO CALCUTTA. l8l
brought to tlio birth by the young missionary, could
not bo perfected. So it is that God works by many
and apparently incompatible instruments. For Ma-
caulay was ever the apostle of the old Whig neutrality
in religion, whether in India or in Ireland, although
his whole boyhood had been steeped in the discussions
of his father, of the Clapham men and Hannah More on
the evangelization of the Hindoo and the Negro alike.
It was not till June, 1834, that Macaulay reached
Madras to join the Governor-General, then at the
Ncclgherry hills, while he sent his sister on to Cal-
cutta, there to be the guest of Lady William Bentinck.
Duff had just left India stricken down by almost deadly
disease as we shall see, when in sultry September the
Honourable the Law Member o* Council took up his
abode, under a salute of fifteen guns, in what is still
the best of the Chowringhee palaces, the Bengal Club.
But none the less, Macaulay's greatest Avork — greater
than even his penal code and his Warren Hastings
and Clive essays — was to be the legislative comple-
tion of the young Scottish missionary's policy. Yet
Macaulay was never happy during his brief Indian resi-
dence of three and half years. He did not know the
magnitude, he had not his father's faith to realize tho
consequences, of the educational work between which
and a re-reading of nearly all the best Greek and Latin
authors he divided his leisure. In 1854, when Sir
Barnes Peacock completed his penal code, Macaulay
wrote to his sister, " Had this justice been done sixteen
years ago I should probably have given much more at-
tention to legislation and much less to literature than
I have done. I do not know that I should have been
either happier or more useful than I have been." And
in the glorious cold season of Bengal, so early as
December, 1834, he had thus sighed out his "heim-
weh" to Mr. Macvey Napier, of Edinburgh : "Calcutta
l82 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1834.
is called, and not without some reason, *the city of
palaces ; ' but I have seen nothing in the East like the
view from the Castle Rock, nor expect to see anything
like it till we stand there together again."
There was a third official, the warm personal zeal
of whose co-operation drew him clc'^r to Duff than
the two rulers, without whom his energizings could
not have been either so abiding or so imperial in their
consequences — Charles Trevelyan. Like Sir Henry
Durand at a later date, he had been compelled by
public duty to report to Government the malversa-
tion of a high civilian, an offence happily rare since
Clive's reforms. But Macaulay himself tells the
story : —
tt
Trevelyan is almost eight-and-twenty. He was educated
at the Charterhouse, and then went to Haileybury, and came
out hither. In this country he has distinguished himself
beyond any man of his standing, by his great talent for
business; by his liberal and enlarged views of policy; and
by literary merit, which, tor his opportunities, is considerable.
He was at first placed at Delhi under , a very powerful
and a very popular man, but extremely corrupt. This man
tried to initiate Trevelyan in his own infamous practices. But
the young fellow's spirit was too noble for such things. When
only twenty-one years of age he publicly accused , then
almost at the head of the service, of receiving bribes from the
natives. A perfect storm was raised against the accuser. Ho
was almost everywhere abused and very generally cut. But,
with a firmness and ability scarcely ever seen in any man so
young, he brought his proofs forward, and after an inquiry of
some weeks fully made out his case. was dismissed in
disgrace, and is now living obscurely in England. The
Government here and the directors at home applauded
Trevelyan in the highest terms, and from that time he has
been considered as a man Hkely to rise to the very top of the
service.
" Trevelyan is a most stormy reformer. Lord William said to
me, before any one had observed his attentions to Nancy : ' That
^t. 28. SIR CnARLES TREVELYAN. 1 83
man is almost always on the right side in every question ; and
it is well that it is so, for he gives a most confounded deal of
trouble when he happens to take the wrong one.' He is quite
at the head of that active party, among tho younger servants
of the Company, who take tho side of improvement. In par-
ticular, he is the soul of every scheme for diffusing education
among the natives of this country. His reading has been
very confined j but to the little that he has read he has
brought a mind as active and restless as Lord Brougham's,
and much more judicious and honest. . . He has no small
talk. His mind is full of schemes of moral and political im-
provement, and his zeal boils over in his talk. His topics, oven
in courtship, are steam navigation, the education of the natives,
the equalization of the sugar duties, the substitution of the
Eoman for the Arabic alphabet in the oriental languages."*
Trevelyan had not been a week in Calcutti when, in
1831, he threw himself into the different movements
originated by Duff". In their first interview the two
young men soon found themselves absorbed in this
question of all others — the advantage, the positive
necessity of using the English language as the medium
of all Christianizing and civilizing, all high educational
and administrative efforts by its rulers to reach the
natural aristocracy and leaders of the people, and
through them to feed the vernaculars and raise the
masses. Duff^s plans, his experience, his success, were
not only accomplished facts, but had been then for
twelve months the talk and the imitation of every
thoughtful and benevolent Englishman in the far East.
Trevelyan told how he himself, at Delhi, had been for
four years speculating on the advantages of thus using
the English language. From that hour he clung to
the missionary, and became the principal link between
his far-seeing practical principles on the one hand and
* The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, by his nephew, George
Otto Trevelyan, M.P. Second Edition, vol. i., p. 387.
184 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1834.
the coming action of Government in the same direc-
tion. It fell to Macaulay to advise and to the Gover-
nor-General to act under the following circumstances.
When the British succeeded to the Muhammadan
civil government of Bengal and Hindostan, on the
Emperor Shah Alum's grants to Olive at Benares in
1765, Warren Hastings made the first and most en-
lightened attempt to popularise the sacred books of
Islam and Brahmanism by Halhed's translations. It
was in vain. When Lord Cornwallis was forced to put
the judicial as well as revenue courts under British
officers, he still made a barbarous Persian, as technical
as the language of the Scottish courts, the only
lingual medium between the people and their new
rulers. The earliest colleges, as we have seen, Muham-
madan at Calcutta and Sanscrit at Benares, were created
to prepare the few natives required as intermediaries
between the Company's civilians and their subjects.
Thus an orientalism unworthy of the name of scholar-
ship sprang up, grew by tradition in spite of English
scholars like Sir William Jones, and widened the
gulf between the foreign ruler and the ignorant,
oppressed and suspicious ruled. Lord Wellesley was
the first who had the genius to seek to correct the evil.
In spite of the parsimonious Court of Directors, he
established the College of Fort William. He put Carey
and Buchanan practically at its head, to teach the
vernacular as well as classical languages of the East,
and to train the young *' writers " with a view, as Duff
described it, to *' the formation of sound moral and
religious habits, as much as for the cultivation of all
branches of professional or useful knowledge." That
college, like " the glorious little man " its founder,
sent forth a body of scholars and administrators to
whom we owe the conquest and good government of
India up to the next generation of then* pupils, headed
jEt 28. THE GROWTH OF A VICIOUS ORIENTALISM. 1 85
by the Lawrences and Durand, Thomason and the
Muirs. Some, like Lord Metcalfe, early corrected the
orientalizing tendency of their studies by executive
work on the widest scale. Others, like Sir W. Mac-
naghten, intensified its evils by the narrowing work of
a mere secretary to Government. Lord Minto's ad-
ministration, more brilliant in some respects than has
yet been allowed, identified the growing orientalism,
not with the toler ^.tion in which it was born, but with
antichristian anti-popular timidity. Lord Hastings,
though personally friendly to the religious instruction
of the natives, found the orientt^l mania in this form
too strong for him to let it grow. Sydney Smith's
brother, who had made a fortune as Advocate-General
in Calcutta, proposed the educational clause in the
charter of 1813, doubtless in the interest of the
Brahmanizing orientalists, who had almost unchecked
influence with the Governor- General when it came to
be applied. But whatever tlio intention. Parliament,
led by the Grants and Wilberforce and deluged with
petitions from the whole country, had so worded the
clause as to secure the education of the whole
people of India in positive truth of every kind, the
revealed truth of Christianity being no doubt as much
in their mind as the superstitions of Brahmanism and
the Koran were in that of the minority. Like much
else in human compromises, confessions and con-
tracts, the language fortunately allowed of honest
development according to the growing needs of the
country and the time.
Still the orientalists, being in power on the spot,
had the unchecked administration of the money al-
lowed for public instruction. In spite of Rammohun
Roy, notwithstanding the expressed desire of the
natives themselves for English, although the vernacu-
lars were barren and the classical books printed and
1 86 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 1834.
taught were not touched by one native who was not
highly paid for submitting to learn them, the British
Government persisted in its folly. When the ex-
pediency of spending a little of the grant ordered by
Parliament on the Hindoo College established by tlio
natives themselves was forced on the authorities, tlio
agent whom they selected to represent them was the
most intense and least Christian of all the oriental
party — the assistant- surgeon, Horace Hayman Wilson.
Even in 1833, when the Company had to render the
next account of its stewardship, the Government
Committee of Public Instruction was equally divided
between Oriento-maniacs and Anglo-maniacs, as they
called each other. What the teaching was in the
partially English Hindoo College we have seen. It
remained in the Benares Sanscrit College exactly what
Bishop Heber described it to have been during his tour
in Upper India. Under a grant ordered by Parliament
on the pressure of the Christian public, and ad-
ministered by a Christian Government, a professor
lecturing on a terrestrial globe identified Mount Meroo
with the North Pole, declared that the tortoise of
the Hindoo cosmogony supported the earth from under
the South Pole, pointed to Padalon in the centre of
the globe, and demonstrated how the sun went round
the earth every day and visited the signs of the Zodiac!
Well might the teaching of such " rubbish " in a state
college excite the wonder of the Bishop. But that was
harmless compared with what was taught elsewhere,
and even with the obscenely idolatrous teaching which
Imgered in Government school-books till Lord North-
brook purged them three years ago, if indeed they be
yet purged.
When Trevelyan came to the support of Duff, and
adopted his plans as well as his principles as the only
policy for Government, the Brahmanizing five in the
/Et. 28. THE TEACniNG OF THE ORIENTALISTS. 1 87
Government committee were these : The Honble. H.
Shakespear was a colleague of the Governor-General,
and only as such was dangerous. Mr. H. Thoby Prin-
sep and Mr. James Prinsep were brothers. The latter,
an uncovenanted officer of the Mint, was the greatly
lamented scholar who fell an early victim to his too
eager researches into the inscriptions on coins and
rocks which he deciphered. The former was one of the
under-secretaries to Government at that time, was a
greater scholar in Arabic and Persian than his brother,
was afterwards director, member of Parliament, and
member of the Secretary of State's council, and died
at eighty-six, the day before Duff. William Hay Mac-
naghten was a Charterhouse boy, who from the day he
landed in India, first as a cadet and then as a civilian,
mastered the several languages of south and north,
proved the most extraordinary scholar in the classical
tongues ever turned out by Fort William College, and
was trusted by Lord William Bentinck beyond any
other secretary. His evil policy and sad fate in Cabul
make his career most tragic. These, with the zealous
secretary of the committee, Mr. T. C. C. Sutherland,
made the orientalists very formidable antagonists.
The Anglicists were no less strong, however. Fore-
most among them was the greatest land-revenue au-
thority, Robert Mertins Bird, who corrected and com-
pleted the work of Holt Mackenzie, author of the first
official minute on education, and at whose feet Lord
Lawrence sat as a revering pupil. Mr. J. B. Colvin
was he who died in Agra Fort during the mutiny,
Lieutenant-Governor. Sir Charles Trevelyan atoned
for the probably routine efficiency of Messrs. Saunders
and Bushby, who always voted straight. We must in
justice to these two main parties add a third, whom we
may describe as Vernacularists. Allying himself with
the Serampore men then left, with Dr. Marsh man and
l88 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1834.
hk son in the Friend of India, Mr. Brian H. Hodgson,
long the first authority on Tibetan Buddhism, advo-
cated the foundation of a normal vernacular institution
to manufacture good teachers, reliable translators and
pure books. English, ho urged, would be as bad as
Persian, Arabic and Sanscrit, which had " proved the
curse " of India, " not so much by reason of the false
doctrines they have inculcated as by reason of the
administrative mystery they have created and upheld."
All that was good, or possible at the time, in Mr.
Hodgson's then really remarkable proposal Mr. Duff
had already advocated or actually carried into effect.
His school and college long proved to be the first of
normal training institutions in India, which, indeed,
has had no others worthy of the name save those
established by the Christian Vernacular Education
Society since the mutiny. The vernacular department
of his school, fitting into the English and ultimately
the Sanscrit classes, secured all that the great orien-
talist of Nipal wanted. But Hodgson, in common with
his less enlightened fellows on the committee, could not
see that while the natives themselves desired English,
while it was administratively necessary as well as politi-
cally desirable to give them facilities for mastering the
English literature as well as language, no body of truth,
scientific, historical or ethical, not to say Christian, could
be conveyed to the natives through their then barren
vernaculars or sealed classical tongues. The Govern-
ment, like the missionaries, must begin at both ends : at
the vernacular that the people might at least read and
write their own language intelligently, and at the higher
or English end that thence their own teachers might
convey the material and even the terms of truth to
them through the vernacular ; and in time to the learned
through the Sanscrit, Arabic and Persian. Writing of
this period Duff declared : — " I saw clearly and ex-
^t. 28. ME. B. HODGSON AND THE VERNACULARISTS. 1 89
pressed myself strongly to the effect that ultimately,
in a generation or two, the Bengalee, by improvement,
might become the fitting medium of European know-
ledge. But at that time it was but a poor language,
like English before Chaucer, and had in it, neither
by translation nor original composition, no works em-
bodying any subjects of study beyond the merest
elements. As a native of the Highlands I vividly
realized the fact that the Gaelic language, though power-
ful for lyric and other poetry and also for popular
address, contained no works that could possibly meet
the objects of a higher and comprehensive education.
Hence those who sought that found it in English col-
leges, and returned as teachers and preachers to dis-
tribute the treasures of knowledge acquired through
English among the Gaelic people."
Just when, in 1834, Duff's success, Trevelyan's
earnestness, and the increasing urgency of the de-
spatches from the Court of Directors drafted by his
friend Mr. James Mill* had produced a dead-lock in the
Committee of Public Instruction, Macaulay was ap-
pointed its president. But he declined to act until the
Government, of which he was a member, should have
decided the question of policy in its executive capacity.
And to him, as law member, the preliminary duty was
assigned of declaring whether the Governor-General in
Council could legally apply to English education the
grant ordered by the Parliament of 1813, and hitherto
reserved for a so-called orientalism. On the 2nd Feb-
ruary, 1835, he submitted to Lord William Bentinck
• In 1836 Macaalay wrote to his father : — " I have been a sin-
cere mourner for Mill. He and I were on the best terms, and liis
services at the India House were never so much needed as at this
time. I had a most kind letter from him a few weeks before I
heard of his death. He has a son just come out, to whom I have
shown such little attentions as are in my power."
IQO LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1835.
that minute which, while as striking a specimen of his
written stylo as even the passage on Burke in his
" Yfarren Hastings " pronounced by his biographer
" unsurpassed," proved to be the first charter of in-
tellectnal libert}'- for the people of India, the educa-
tional despatch of 1854 based on Duff's evidence before
a Parliamentary committee being the second.
In that minute Micaulay began by showing that the
lakh of rup'^es set apart by order of Parliament was not
only for " reviving literature in India," but also for
" the iutrod action and promotion of a knowledge of the
sciences among the inhabitants of the British terri-
tories." These words, he said, are "alone sufficient to
authorize all the changes for which I contend." But
so terribly was he in earnest that he proposed, if his
colleagues in council differed from him, to do what
would now be impossible, — to pass a short Act rescind-
ing that former clause of the charter of 1813 on which
the orientalists based their opposition. He was him-
self indeed the author of the charter of 1833 more
than any other man, even Lord Glenelg, and he was
the most constitutional of Whigs. But, nevertheless,
to propose that a local legislature, and such a legis-
lature as that of India was till Lord Dalhousie's time,
should quietly abolish an Act of Parliament, was daring
even then. The proposal was unnecessary, for his
opinion as the responsible legal adviser of the Governor-
General was sufiScient. In twelve pages like this he
then proceeded to prove that, being " free to employ
our funds as we choose, we ought to employ them in
teaching what is best worth knowing ; that English is
better worth knowing than Sanscrit or Arabic ; that
the natives are desirous to be taught English and
are not desirous to be taught Sanscrit or Arabic ;
that neither as the languages of law nor as the lan-
guages of religion have the Sanscrit and Arabic any
JEt. 2g. MACAULAY S FAMOUS MINUTE. IQI
])cculiar claim to our encouragement; that it is possi-
i)le to make natives of this country thoroughly good
English scliolars, and that to this end our efforts ought
to bo directed." Mr. Thoby Prinsep replied after the
Anoflo-Indian fashion, which conducts all deliberate dis-
ciission by then written i\r\d now printed minutes, often
of value second only te Macaulay's, and too seldom
ordered by Parliament to be published. Able as that
councillor was, even in his blindness and to the last
hour of liis duties in the India Office, his vain repre-
sentations called forth only this rejoinder, scratched
in pencil, from the law member : " I remain not only
unshaken but confirmed in all my opinions on the
general question. I may have committed a slight mis-
take or two as to details, and I may have occasionally
used an epithet which might with advantage be soft-
ened down. But I do not retract the substance of a
single proposition I have advanced."
Never did what his enemies called his "conceit,"
and hostile critics afterwards used to denounce as his
" obstinacy," stand the world in better stead. He
fought for the enlightenment of the millions of our
Indian Empire as it then was, and of millions yet
unborn. While in the same breath he officially and
personally advocated religT^us neutrality, it was a
true neutrality, intended to prevent the hostility of
Hindooizing foreigners to Christian liberty and prin-
ciples, and he stood forth the greatest ally the Indian
missionary has ever had. It was not only English
that Macaulay persuaded the Government to teach,
it was the recognition of the equality of children
of all castes in the public schools, from which the
Brahmanizing orientalists had weakly excluded all but
the Brahmans. When he fairly joined the committee
he penned such ink-blotted sentences as these in the
minute-book which circulated from member to mem-
192 LIFE OP DR. DUFP. 1834.
ber : "No such distinction ouglit to be tolerated in any
school supported by us." " Tlio general rule clearly
ought to be that all classes shou'd be treated alike,
and sliould be suiTered to intermingle freely." It was
only Duff and the Christian missionaries who had up
to this time disregarded caste and idolatrous festi-
vals alike in their schools, and who had begun rot
only to ask but to receive fees for the secular instruc-
tion, such as the respectable poor could pay and as
would make them value aright the instruction they
received. But it was much that the Government
should at that time follow the same just and tolerant
course.
Nor was it in this only that Macaulay, as an
educationist, followed Duff, through Trevelyan as the
intermediary. In public instruction, as in everything
else, principles are little without the men to give them
effect. Even after tempting the missionary's assist-
ants, like Mr. Clift, to leave him, Government could
not get teachers worth the name. In the days before
normal schools Macaulay wrote in the old minute
book, " Teacliing is an art to be learned by practice.
I am satisfied that it will soon be found necessary to
import from England, or rather from Scotland, a re-
gular supply of masters for the Government schools."
And from the first, again following Duff more or less
consciously, Macaulay looked on English as the indis-
pensable preliminary to the true education of the
people in their own vernaculars. He thus supported
a proposal to teach Hindee at Ajmer : — " An order
to give instruction in the English language is, by
necessary implication, an order to give instruction,
where that instruction is required, in the vernacu*
lar language. For what is meant by teaching a
boy a foreign language? Surely this, the teaching
him what words in the foreign language correspond to
M. 28. MACAULAY ON TEACHINO ENGLISH. 1 93
certain words in his own vernacular language, the
enabling him to translate from the foreign language
into his own vernacular language, and vice versa. Wo
learn one language, our mother tongue, by noticing
the correspondence between words and things. But
all the languages which we afterwards study wo learn
by noticing the correspondence between the words in
those languages and the words in our own mother
tongue. The teaching the boys at Ajmer, therefore,
to read and write Ilindee seems to me to bo bond fide
a part of an English education. To teach them Per-
sian would bo to set up a rival, and, as I apprehend, a
very unworthy rival to the English language."
So, just seven years before. Duff had not only
written but acted in the case of Bengalee, and for tlio
first time in the East. Before he left India Macaulay
was able, sympathetically with the objects of the mis-
sionaries, to write to his father in language that reads
like an extract from Duff's earlier official reports to
Dr. Inglis : — " Our English schools are flourishing
wonderfully. We find it difficult, indeed in some
places impossible, to provide instruction for all who
want it. At the single town of Hooghly fourteen
hundred boys are learning English. The effect of
this education on the Hindoos is prodigious. No
Hindoo who has received an English education ever
remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some
continue to confess it as matter of policy ; but many
profess themselves pure deists, and some embrace
Cliristianity. It is my firm belief that if our plans
of education are followed up there will not be a single
idolater among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty
years hence."
Having, as a colleague of Macaulay's, endorsed his
opinions in a minute, as Governor-General in Council
Lord William Bentinck thus issued the decree of the
o
194 I'IFE OP DE. DVFP, 1835.
7th ^farcli, 1835, which fitly closed tho long list of
services to the people of India and his own country
such as tho former have immortalized by the statue
with its inscription fronting tho Town-hall of Calcutta,
anu as tho latter has expressed through the eulogium
penned by IMacaulay : —
*'lst. His Lordship in Council is of opinion that; tho groat
object of the British Government ought to bo tho promotion of
Kuropoan liteniiuro and science among tho natives of India,
and that all tho funds appropriated for tho purposes of educa-
tion would be best em})loyed on English education done.
" 2nd. But it is not the intention of his Lordship in Council
to abolish any college or school of native learning, while tho
native population shall appear to bo inclined to avail themselves
{ f tho advantages which it affords ; and his Lordship in Council
directs that all the existing professors and students at all tho
institutions under tho superintendence of the committee shall
continue to receive their stipends. But his Lordship in Coun-
cil decidedly objects to the practice which has hitherto prevailed
of supporting tho students during the period of their education,
lie conceives that tho only effects of such a system can be to
give artificial encouragement to branches of learning which, in
the natural course of things, would be superseded by more
useful studies j and he directs that no stipend shall be given to
any student that may hereafter enter at any of these institu-
tions, and that when any pi'ofessor of oriental learning shall
vacate his situation tho committee shall report to the Govern-
ment the number and state of the clas? in order that tho
Government may be able to decide upon the expediency of
appointing a successor.
"3rd. It has come to the knowledge of the Governor-
General in Council, that a large sum has been expended by
the committee on the printing of oriental works ; his Lordship
in Council directs that no portion of the funds shall hereafter
be so employed.
" 4th. His Lordship in Council directs that all the funds
which these reforms v.'ill leave at the disposal of the committee
be henceforth employed in imparting to the native population
a knowledge of English literature and science through the
JEt. 29. aOVERNMKNT DECEEE IN FAVOUR OP ENGLISH. I95
mocliiim of tho English language j and his Lordship in Council
requests tho cominittoo to submit to Government, witli all
expedition, a plan for the nccomplishmcut of this purpose."—
(Signed,) " U. T. 1'kinhei', Secretary to G over time tit."
Rhadakant Deb and Russoraoy Dutt, tlio native
lenders of the orthodox and the liberal Bengalees,
were at once added to the committee ; for even the
orthodox had never approved of the fanatical and, in
relation to them, false orientalism of Dr. H. H. Wilson
and liis associates. The Prinseps, one of whom had
officially signed the decree, led the Bengal Asiatic
Society in an attack upon " the destructive, unjust,
unpopular and impolitic resolution, not far outdone by
tlie destruction of the Alexandrine library itself," and
memorialised the Court of Directors against it. What
Sir Charles Trevelyan, after all the experience of tho
past half-century, still thinks of Duff and his share
in the triumph, that veteran reformer has enabled us
thus to learn : —
" Our concern," he writes to us, "is with the part
performed by Dr. Duff at this crisis of Indian history.
When he arrived in India the first marveUous results
of the education given at the Hindoo College had begun
to appear. Newly acquired freedom had led to a state
of intellectual exaltation, and, seeing that the religious
system they had been taught to venerate had no foun-
dation, the young men jumped to the conclusion that
all religion was priestcraft. Dr. Duff then came for-
ward as a dtifender of the truth of Christianity, and
in several public disputations lie converted some and
enforced respect upon all. But he did a great deal
more than this. He clearly appreciated the new intel-
lectual and moral power which had appeared on the
field, and had the sagacity to distinguish between its
present abuse and the important use to which, under
proper direction, it might be appl^od in aid of the
196 LIFE OP EH. DUr?. 1835.
Cliristian cause. There was a general demand for
education, and lie proposed to meet it by giving reli-
gious education. Up to that time preaching had been
considered the orthodox regular mode of missionary
action, but J)r. "Duff luld that the receptive plastic
minds of children might be moulded from the first
according to the Christian system, to the exclusion of
all heathen teaching, and that the best preaching to
the rising generation which soon becomes the entire
people, is the ' line upon line, precept upon precept ;
here a little, and there a little,' of the schoolroom.
Reconstruction upon a sound basis would then be
linked with the destruction of ancient error. What-
ever difficulties the Government might have, the mis-
sionary societies were free to offer religious education
to all who were willing to accept it.
" The remarkable success of the school which Dr.
Duff opened at Calcutta on these principles, and the
influence it had in promoting the establishment of
similar institutions in other parts of India, are well
known, but account should also be taken of the direct
access thus gained to the future leaders of the people,
and of the new respect paid to missionaries as tutors
of young native chiefs and other highly considered
persons. These were great and pregnant reforms,
which must always give Dr. Duff a high place among
the benefactors of mankind. The indirect influence of
his exertions upon the action of the Government was
at least equally important. The example of his suc-
cess, and the stimulus gi^'-en by him to the popular
demand for English educt jn, entered largely into the
causes which brougnt about the Resolution of Govern-
ment of the seventh of March, 1835."
Duff's own attitude and criticism of the last act of
Lord William Bentinck will be found in that which is,
historically, the most important of his many pamphlets.
^t. 29. TREVELYAN ON HIS SERVICES TO MANKIND. 1 97
his " New Era of the English Language and English
Literature in India." With the culture that had
marked his whole school and university studies, he
recognised the attractions of a genuine oriental scholar-
ship, and reproached his countrymen for their indif-
ference to it, for " perseverhig in a truly barbarous
irrnorauce of one of the most remarkable nations
and countries on the face of the globe." Following
that remark of a contemporary historian, Duff con-
tinued : —
*' If poetry and romance and chivalry bo an object of pursuit,
are there not ample stores of poetic eS'usion and romantic
legend that might not be disclaimed as unworthy by any of the
older nations of Europe ? and are the records of any state more
crowded with the recital of daring adventures and deeds of
heroism than the annals of Rajasthan ? If philology, where
can we find the match of the Sanscrit, perhaps the most
copious and certainly the most elaborately refined of all lan-
guages, living or dead ? If antiquities, are there not monu-
mental remains and cavern temples scarcely less stupendous
than those of Egypt ? and ancient sculptures, which, if inferior
in 'majesty .and expression,* in richness and variety of orna-
mental tracery, almost rival those of Greece ? If natural
history, where is the mineral kingdom more exujerautly rich,
the vegetable or animal more variegated, goi'geous, or gigantic ?
If the intellectual and moral histor} of man, are there not
masses of subtile speculation and fantastic philosophies, and
infinitely varied and unparalleled developments of every prin-
ciple of action that has characterized falleu degraded humanity ?
If an outlet for the exercise of philanthropy, what field on the
surface of the globe can be compared to Hindostan, stretching
from the Indus to the Ganges, and from the Himalaya to Cape
Comorin, in point of magnitude and accessibility combined,
and peculiarity of claims on British Christians, the claims of
not less than a hundred and thirty millions of fellow-snbjects,
sunk beneath a load of the most debasing superstitions, and
the crudest idolatries that ever polluted the surface of the
earth, or brutalized the nature of man ? "
198 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1835,
Having used official documents to show the people of
Great Britain and Ireland wherein the follies of the
Calcutta orientalists' abuse of the public money differed
from the pursuit of an enlightened scholarship, the
missionary vindicated the propriety and excellence of
the decree which restored the Government position
of strict neutrality by allowing English to take its
place beside the classical and vernacular languages of
the people of India, according to their own demand,
and with a view to purify the former while enriching
the latter : —
«
As concerns the interests nnd glory of the Government
itself, its dissemination of its own language and literature, far
fi'om being impolitic, seems the only wise and magnanimous
policy. The vast influence of language in moulding national
feelings and habits, more especially if fraught with superior
stores of knowledge, is too little attended to and too inade-
quately understood. In this respect we are in the rear of
nations some of which we are apt to despise as semi-barbarous.
When the Romans conquered a province they forthwith set
themselves to the task of ' Romanizing ' it ; that is, they strove
to create a taste for their own more refined language and liter-
ature, and thereby aimed at turning the song and the romance
and the history — the thought and the feeling and fancy, of the
subjugated people, into Roman channels, which fed and aug-
mented Romish interests. And has Rome not succeeded ?
Has she not saturated every vernacular dialect with which she
came in contact with terms copiously drawn from her own ?
Has she not thus perpetuated for ages after her sceptre moul-
ders in the dust the magic influence of her character and
name ? Has she not stamped the impress of her own genius
on the literature and the laws of almost every European king-
dom, with a fixedness that has remained unchanged up to the
present hour ?
" Ai^d who can tell to what extent the strength and perpe-
tuity of the Arabic domination is indebted to the Caliph Walid,
who issued the celebrated decree that the language of the
Koran should be ' the universal language of the Muhamraadan
JEt 29. ANALOGY OF ROME, THM CALIPHS AND AKBAR. 1 99
worlds so that, from tlie Indian Archipelago to Portugal, it
actually became the language of religion, of literature, of gov-
ernment and generally of common life ? *
"And who can estimate the extent of influence exerted in
India by the famous edict of Akbar, the greatest and the wisest
far of the sovereigns of the House of Timur ? Of this edict
an authority already quoted thus wrote, about six years ago :
' The great Akbar established the Persian language as the
language of business and of polite literature throughout his
extensive dominions, and the popular tongue naturally became
deeply impregnated with it. The literature and the language
of the country thus became identified with the genius of
his dynasty; and this has tended more than anything else to
produce a kind of intuitive veneration for the family, which
has long survived even the destruction of their power ; and
this feeling will continue to exist until we substitute tho
English language for the Persiarf, which will dissolve the spell,
and direct the ideas and the sympathies of the natives towards
their present rulers.' The 'until,' which only six years ago
pointed so doubtfully to the future, has, sooner than could have
been anticipated, been converted into an event of past history.
And to Lord W. Bentinck belongs the honour of this noblo
achievement. He it was who first resolved to supersede the
Persian, in the political department of the public service, by
the substitution of the English, and laid the foundation for tho
same in every department, financial and judicial, as well as
political. And. having thus by one act created a necessity,
and consequently an inci ised and yearly increasing demand
for English, he next consummated the great design by super-
adding the enactment under review, which provides the re-
quisite means for supplying the demand that had been pre-
viously created. And this united Act now bids fair to out-
rival in importance the edicts of the Roman, the Arabic and
the Mogul emperors, inasmuch as the English language is in-
finitely more fraught with the seeds of truth in every province
of literature, science and religion than the languages of Italy,
Arabia or Persia ever were. Hence it is that I venture to
hazard the opinion, that Lord W. Bentinck's double act for
the encouragement and diffusion of the English language and
English literature in the East will, long after contemporaneous
party interests and individual jealousies and ephemeral rival-
200 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 1835.
ries have sunk into oblivion, bo hailed by a grateful and bene-
fited posterity as tho greatest master-stroke of sound policy
that has yet charactei'ized the administration of the British
Government in India."
Let the Government, he urged, use the Asiatic
Society of Sir William Jones and James Prinsep as
the oflBcial organ for dis})onsing its patronage of stand-
ard oriental writers and their translations. But for
the true education of the learned themselves, as well
as for the elevation of the illiterate millions, the vast
ocean of oriental literature deserves Firdousi's satire
on Ghuzni in all its glory : " The magnificent court of
Ghuzni is a sea, but a sea without bottom and without
sbore. I have fished in it long, but have not found
any pearl." "Is it not one thing," asked Duff", "to re-
gard a literature as an inexhaustible field for literary,
scientific and theological research, and quite another to
cherish it as the sole nursery of intellect, morals and
reliorion ?" Nor was one who knew the relation of the
English to his own Gaelic vernacular so enthusiastic
for English as to dream that it could ever supersede
the mother tongues of millions, or do more than give
them a new wealth and power. He thus concluded
his vindication of the enactment, and proceeded to
show where it fell short of bis own ideal : —
".Who, then, will hesitate in affirming that, in iJie meantime,
the Government has acted wisely in appointing the English
language as the medium of communicating English literature
and science to the select youth of India? And who will ven-
ture to say that the wisdom of the act would be diminished
if it guaranteed the continuance of English as the medium
until the living spoken dialects of India became ripened, by the
copious infusion of expressive terms, for the formation of a
new and improved national literature ? . .
"What will be the ultimate effect of these yearly augmenting
educationary forces ? Wo say ultimate with emphasis, because
^t. 29. DEFECT OF THE DECREE OF 1835. 201
we are no visionaries. We do not expect miracles. We do
not anticipate sudden and instantaneous changes. But we do
look forward with confidence to a great vltimafe revolution.
We do regard Lord W. Beutiuck'a Act as laying the foundation
of a train of causes which may for a while operate so insensibly
as to pass unnoticed by careless or casual observers, but not
the less surely as concerns the great and momentous issue.
Like the laws which silently, but with resistless power, regu-
late the movements of the material universe, these education-
ary operations, which are of the nature and force of moral
laws, will proceed onwards till they terminate in effecting a
universal change in the national mind of India. The sluices
of a superior and quickening knowledge have already been
thrown open ; and who shall dare to shut them up ? The
streams of enlivening information have begun to flow in upon
the dry and parched land, and who will venture to arrest their
progress ? As well might we ask with the poet : —
« (
Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires,
Forget her thunders and recall her fires ?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease, while you go by ? '
" But highly as we approve of Lord W. Bentinck's enactment
so fur as it goes, we must, ere we conclude, in justice to our
own views and to the highest and noblest cause on earth, take
the liberty of strongly expressing our own honest conviction
that it does not go far enough. Truth is better than error in
any department of knowledge, the humblest as well as the
most exalted. Hence it is that we admire the moral intrepid-
ity of the man who decreed that, in the Government institu-
tions of India, true literature and true science should hence-
forth be substituted in place of false literature, false science
iiud false religion. But while we rejoice that true literature
and science is to be substituted in place of what is demon-
strably false, we cannot but lament that no provision whatever
has been made for substituting the only true religion — Chris-
tianity — in place of the false religion which our literature and
science will inevitably demolish. . .
" Our maxim has been, is now, and ever will be this : —
Wherever, whenever, and by whomsoever Chrlstianitij is sacri-
ficed on the altar of worldly expediency, there and then must the
202 LlPifl OP DR. D0FP. 1835.
supreme good of man lie bleeding at its base. But because a
Christian govorumont has chosen to neglect its duty towards
the religion which it is sacredly bound to uphold, is that any
reason why the Churches of Britain should neglect their duty
too ? Let us be aroused, then, from our lethargy, and strive
to accomplish our part. If wo are wise in time, we may con-
vert the act of the Indian Government into an ally and a
friend. The extensive erection of a machinery for the destruc-
tion of ancient superstition we may regard as opening up new
facilities, in the good providence of God, for the spread
of the everlasting gospel, as serving the part of a humble
pioneer in clearing away a huge mass of rubbish that would
otherwise have tended to impede the free dissemination of
divine truth. Wherever a Government seminary is founded,
whicli shall have the effect of battering down idolatry and
superstition, there let us be prepared to plant a Christian in-
stitution that shall, through the blessing of Heaven, be the
instrument of roaring the beauteous superstructure of Chris-
tianity on the ruins of both.
" Already has the Church of Scotland nobly entered upon
the great field ; but let her remember that she has only crossed
the border. Already has she taken up a bold and command-
ing position in front of the enemy ; but let her not forget that
the warfare is only begun. Let her arise, and in the name
of the Lord march forward to take possession of the land.
Already has she given evidence of the possibility, and an
example of the mode of turning the Government schemes of
education to profitable account. Where the Government had
established its first English college there did she station her
first missionaries and plant her first Christian institution.
And some of the most talented of the young men reared in
the Government college became, through the grace of the Divine
Spirit, her first converts, the first-fruits of her missionary
labours in Hindostan.
"We have often wondered at the boldness of the conception
of a celebrated statesman, who, when taunted on the occasion
of the last invasion of Spain by France, as to the diminution of
British influence and the declension of British interests in the
councils of Europe, which that event seemed to indicate, rose up
in the British senate, and in substance made the magnificent re-
ply : ' While others were torturing their minds on account of the
M. 29. canning's peroration ArrLiRD TO MISSIONS. 203
supposed (iisturbanco of tlio equilibrium of power among tlio
European states, I looked at the possessions of Spain on tlio
other side of the Atlantic : I looked at the Indies, and I called
in the new world to redress the balance of the old/ What is
there to prevent the Church of Scotland* from attempting to
emulate, in a much higher and holier sense, the magnanimous
spirit of this reply ? If she awake and arise, and put forth
all her latent energies in behalf of the perishing heathen, may
she not, in reference to the glowing prospects of Christianity
in the East, be yet privileged to show that, at a time when
many upbraided her with the diminution of influence at home,
and others were racking their ingenuity in adjusting the dis-
turbed equilibrium of her power, she looked at the dominions
of idolatry across the great ocean ; she looked at the Indies
and, through the blessing of God, called in a new Church to
redress the balance of the old ? "
With the sensitive modesty which ever marked him,
the eloquent adapter of Canning's saying made no allu-
sion to his own part in this result, of which Trevelyan
writes that it " entered largely " into the official side
of the revival, and how much more largely into the
spiritual I In the next year's report which he drafted,
Trevelyan, remembering John Knox though writing of
purely secular schools, declared it to be the Govern-
ment committee's aim to establish a vernacular school
iu every village of India, and to endow a college for
Western learning ultimately in every zillah or county
town. In that one year the Grovernment English schools
were doubled in number, in Bengal and Northern India
alone rising to twenty-seven. Accepting that so far,
* The reason why the Church of Scotland is here singled out for
special notice is, that the whole of the preceding article happened
to be originally inserted in the Church of Scotland Magazine. Tha
author, however, equally rejoices in all the real success that has
attended the missionary labours of other Churches and societies,
and unites with all that sincerely love the Lord Jesus in earnest
prayer and supplication for their increasing prosperity. — A. D.
204 LIFE OP DTI. DUFF. 1835.
tlio Dcw demand of its first missionary was, that tlio
Scottish and other Churches should plant an insti-
tution beside such secular schools, to supply the
people with the lacking elements of positive moral and
spiritual truth. That, too, he of all men brought
about, alike by the stimulus he gave to the other
Churches to follow his example, and by the tolerant,
catholic grant-in-aid system, which he did not succeed
in securing till Parliament again interfered in 1853.
The conflict which resulted in the decree of 1835,
and the discussion to which that ordinance in its turn
gave rise, left a curious trace on the writings of Mr.
Gladstone and Macaulay three years after. Mr. Duff's
complaint that the Government of India had made no
provision for putting Christianity in the place of the
false faiths which a true science and literature were
destroying, rests on precisely the same principle to
advocate which Mr. Gladstone, in 1838, published his
first book on " The State in its Relations with the
Church." When, on his return from India, Macaulay
wrote his well-known essay on that most earnest
volume, he met the proposition that the propagation
of religious truth is one of the principal ends of
Government, as Government, by considerations drawn
from his Indian experience. From the other extreme
of political expediency he assumed that the Govern-
ment of India, while it " ought indeed to desire to
propagate Christianity," should not attempt such
substitution of the true for the false, because it
would inevitably destroy our empire.
Thus was begun, first practically and then legis-
latively, that revival of letters in India, of which,
referring to the Renaissance of the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries, Macaulay had written in his famous
minute : " AVhat the Greek and Latin were to the
contemporaries of ^lore and Ascham, our tongue is to
JEt 29. TUB REVIVAL OP LETTERS. 205
th'e people of India." Similarly Duff Lad reasoned
years before that was written : What the Christian
Reformation did for Europe through the Greek tongue,
the Roman law and the Bible in the vernaculars, it
will similarly do for India and further Asia through
the English language and the British administration.
It is diflBcult to say whether he showed more genius in
instinctively seizing the position in 1830, in working
out the parallel down to 1835, or in influencing the
Indian Government and the British public by his
heaven-born enthusiasm and fiery eloquence.
CHAPTER Yin.
1833-1835.
THE RENAISSANCE IN INDIA.— SCIENCE AND
LETTERS.
The Duff-Ben find: Period. — The Aryan Witness to Christian Doc-
trine. — Medical Science and Practice in Vedic times. — Charaka
and Susruta. — First Attempt of an Indian Governnicnt at Medical
TeachinjT. in 1822. — Dnff Protests apfainst the Unscientific Folly
of the Orientalists. — Lord William Bentinck's Goraniittee, — Sir
C. Trevelyan's Narrative. — Duff's Brahmanical Students offer to
Dissect the Human Subject. — The Bonojal Medical College created.
— Bramley, Henry Goodeve and the First Professors. — Modosoo-
dun Goopta and the First Dissection. — Subsequent Success of
College and Native Christian Physicians. — The Controversy about
Romanizing the Oriental Alphabets. — The -539 Languages and
Dialects of Further Asia. — Sir C. Trevelyan's Account of Duff's
Assistance. — Duff's Work for Vernacular Education. — Adam's
Reports on the Indigenous Schools. — Duff uses the Press. — Es-
tablishes the Calcutta Christian Observer. — Opinions on Biblical
Criticism. — Freedom of the Press permitted by Lord W. Bentinclc,
and legally secured by Metcalfe. — In what sense a Renaissance
Is true of India.
During what may appropriately be marked out as
this Duff-Bentinck period, the Hindoo mind began to
awake from its long sleep under the dominance, first
of its own Brahmanism broken only for a time by the
Buddhist revolt, and then of the Arab-Muhammadan
tyranny, to which it had early lent the culture of the
caliphs of Bagdad down to that of Akbar at Agra.
The nineteenth century in India is the beginning of a
renaissance in a sense which promises to be as real
for Southern and Eastern Asia as that of the fifteenth
was for Europe. In philology and philosophy, in
astronomy and medicine, the Vedic Hindoos were the
^t. 28. EAULY FAITH AND SCIENCE OP THE HINDOOS. 207
teachers of Pythagoras and Plato, of Aristotlo and
Hippocrates, as well as of the Arabs who, like Ibn
Sina, called Avicenna in the dark ages of P^urope,
preserved the teaching of both Hindoos and Greeks
for the coming revival of letters in the West. What
was the relation of the Hindoo Aryans to the Accadian
or Chaldean and the first Semitic or Egyptian civili-
zations, is still a problem for the solution of which
scholars are painfully collecting the materials. Even
in faith, just as Rammohun Roy went back on the
Vedas and Keshub Chunder Sen, his present represen-
tative at the head of the Brumho Soraaj, professes still
to find there the body of natural religion, so the Rev.
Dr. K. M. Banerjea, the first convert baptized by
Duff, appeals to his countrymen to give up their
idolatry and caste, by " The Aryan Witness, or the
Testimony of Aryan Scriptures in corroboration of
Biblical History and the Rudiments of Christian
Doctrine." He beseeches them to turn — to return —
to Christianity as to the fuller, because anew revealed
embodiment of what the Yedas mysteriously pro-
claimed, that " the Lord of the creation offered him-
self a sacrifice for the benefit of gods," that is, of
the mortals he redeemed for heaven ; and that the
same Lord, " the giver of self," initiated the rites of
sacrifice which is a " reflection " of himself.
This renaissance, this bringing to the birth again
in faith, in philosophy, in philology, was no less re-
markable in science. The Yedic system, which had
given the West the knowledge of numbers and of the
stars, down even to the nine numerals which we incor-
rectly ascribe to the Arab middlemen who only revived
their use, was the first to teach the healing art, accord-
ing to the greatest living authority, Weber*. The
♦ See his History of Indian literature (1878), pp. 30 and 265.
208 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1 834.
rcf^iilation of tlio sacrifices required alike astronomical
observations and anatomical ])ractico. The victim was
carefully dissected that its different parts might bo
assif^aied to the proper deities. Each part had its
distinctive name. In the Atharvan, one of the four
great Vedas, we find songs addressed to diseases and
to the herbs which heal them. Even in Alexander's
time his companions praised the Hindoo physicians,
and ascribed to them that specific for snake-bite which
has so perished, that all the researches and the science
of Sir Joseph Fayrer and the old medical service of
India have failed to re-discover it. To medicine the
Hindoos assigned a secondary scripture, the Ayur
Veda, or " science of life," and derived it, like the
four Yedas, directly from the gods. Their first histori-
cal writers were Charaka, at the head of all surgery,
and his disciple once removed, Susruta, chief of all
physicians before Galen. The number of their
medical works and authors Weber pronounces " ex-
traordinarily large," and the sum of their knowledge
lie declares to have been " most respectable."
In surgery European savants have borrowed from
them the operation of rhinoplasty. Even so late as
1460, Colot, the famous surgeon of Louis XT., begged
a man's life from the gallows in order to prove that the
operation of lithotomy was not necessarily fatal, and
the man lived. But the common Bhoidos of India had
successfully practised the operation since Charaka's
time. So with the process for cataract, to perform
which the princes of Europe used to send into Asia
for oculists. Dr. Allan Webb, when professor of de-
scriptive and surgical anatomy in the Bengal Medical
College, in 1850, told his Hindoo students: "It is
very true that the itinerant Bhoidos do occasionally
poke out eyes, but it is equally true that I have seen in
various parts of India many eyes to which they had
^t. 28. DECADENCE OF UINDOO MEDICINE. 209
restored sight." Embryotomy and mesmerism, not to
mention more, have been successfully practised in
India for ages.
But the oppressive and corrupting influences of the
sacerdotal Brahmans soon extinguished the dim light
of scientific observation and practice in Southern and
Eastern Asia. Gifts to themselves took the place of
natural remedies. All knowledge, every form of truth
they laid upon their own bed, which was narrower than
a man could stretch himself on. Happily for the mil-
lions whom they have thus deluded for centuries, from
Cape Comorin to Java and Lhasa to Peking, the scien-
tific falsehood became easily manifest at the first touch
of the senses honestly applied. Disintegration began
when Duff demonstrated the cause of the first eclipse
which took place after he opened his school. Every
day's teaching, even apart from revealed truth which
shows the divinity of its origin by concerning itself
only with man's spiritual nature, hastened the process,
which is as rapid in the secular as in the Christian
college. In spite of itself the East India Company,
which ignorantly desired to maintain Hindooism for
political ends, made its secular teachers missionaries
of destruction at least, when for the " rubbish " which
astounded Bishop Heber at Benares they used Eng-
lish to give full play to the evidence of the senses.
The elemental theory of medicine which Plato and
Hippocrates had learned from Charaka and Susruta
fell with the cosmogony of the tortoise. Of science
as of faith it became true for a time, that the edu-
cated Bengalee mind was empty, swept and gar-
nished.
Moved by the purely utilitarian consideration of
providing native doctors or dressers for the army
hospitals. Government established the native Medical
Institution in Calcutta in 1822, under an English
2IO LIFE OP DB. DUFF. 1834.
doctor and native assistants. Hindostanee, tlie lingua
franca of all India, was the language of instruction,
and the scientific nomenclature of the "West was ren-
dered into Arabic. Four years after, medical classes
were opened at the Sanscrit College to read Charaka
and Susruta, and at the Madrissa to study Avicenna
and the other Arabic writers. Thus the orientalists
dreamed they could give the people of India the bless-
ings of the healing art as developed in the West, just
as they persisted in spending that people's money on
the printing of books which their scholars scorned, and
in the payment of youths to learn what was despised
because of its methods and what was pernicious
because of its falsity. Dr. Tytler, the head of the new
institution, was one of the most fanatic of the orien-
talists. His translations, afterwards condemned by
his own medical brethren, proved to be among the
most costly of the wasteful pubhcations. The only
anatomical instruction which he dared or desired to
give, was from sundry artificial preparations or models,
from the lower animals, and occasional post mortem
examinations of persons dying in the general hospital.
For a Hindoo of caste to touch a dead body, even that
of his father, was pollution to be atoned for by days
of purification and much alms. To break through
that iron prejudice Dr. Tytler and the orientalists
declared to be impossible, and they did not try. Yet
their own little scholarship, or unscholarly preposses-
sions, did not carry them so far as to translate Susrutii.
They would have learned that the literature classified
under the term " Ayur Yeda '* carefully provides for
dissection of the human subject, and that after a
fashion so disgusting as almost to justify the later
superstition. It was to be made a putrid carcase by
lying for seven days in still water, and then to be rubbed
so that each integument and part might be studied.
^t.28. TFTE COMMITTEE ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. 211
But, adds the Galen of India, who was no materiahst,
" the life of the body is too ethereal to be distinguished
by this process."
Duff was roused, by his own principles and his daily
experience in the school, to protest against Dr. Tytlcr's
folly. If his teaching were of force that all trutli is
a unity, and that for the Hindoos of that generation
truth could be got only through the language of
their rulers, of Shakespeare and Bacon, and the Biblo
of James, it was of force in every branch of ^earning,
scientific and practical as well as other. " Only use
English as the medium," he declared, " and you will
break the backbone of caste, you will open up the way
for teaching anatomy and all other branches fearlessly,
for the enlightened native mind will take its own
course in spite of all the threats of the Brahraanical
traditionists." In 1833 Lord William Bcntinck, not
less attracted by the controversy than compelled by
the deplorable state of medical education, appointed a
committee to report on the whole subject. The mem-
bers were : Surgeon J. Grant, the Apothecary General ;
Assistant-surgeons Bramley and Spens, Baboo Ram
Komul Sen, T. C. C. Sutherland, the secretary to the
Committee of Public Instruction, and Sir C. Trevclyan.
For twelve months did these authorities, professional
and educational, take evidence and deliberate, having
submitted to the combatants on both sides from forty
to fifty detailed questions. What was the effect of
Duff's answers to these, following his experience, we
are enabled by Sir Charles himself to show in this ac-
count of the conflict : —
** It was now proposed to raise up a class of native
medical practitioners, educated on sound European
principles, to supersede the native quacks, who, unac-
quainted with anatomy or the simplest principles of
chemical action, preyed on the people, and hesitated
212 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1834.
not to uso tlio most dangerous drugs and poisons.
The battle which had been so well contested in the
Education Committee was fought over again in this
new field. The superintendent of the Medical Institu-
tion, a learned and enthusiastic orientalist, set in array
the arguments of his party, and confidently predicted
the failure of the attempt, while Dr. Duff took the
opposite side. The following extracts from the report
of the special committee show how largely we are
indebted to him for this great reform : —
" Tho Ilov. Mr. Duff, on tho other band, although acknow-
ledging that the native languages, by which wc understand the
Bengalee in tho lower provinces t'.nd tlio Urdu in the hij^dier,
alone are available; for imparting an elementary education to tho
Tnass of tlie people, alHrms that the popular language does nf)t
afford an adequate medium for communicating a knf)wl(.'dgo of
the In'gher depiu'tmonts of literature and science. * No original
works of the descrij)tion wanted/ he observes, * have yc.'t ap-
peared in the native languages ; and thou<^h much of a higlily
useful nature has been provided through European talent and
perseverance, no translations have been made in any degree
suflicient to supply materials for the prosecution oi" the higher
object contemplated ; neither is it likely in the nature of
things that, either by original publications or translations of
standaid works, the deficiency can be fully or adequately
remedied for such a number of years to come tas may leave tho
whole of tho present generation sleeping with their fathers.'
"We beg now to call your Lordship's attention to the
opinions of tho Rev. Mr. Duff. To the question whether,
in order to teach the princij)les of any science to native
boys, he considered it necessary that they should know
Sanscrit, Arabic and Persian, tho reverend gentleman
I'cplies that, ' In reference to tho acquisition of European
science, the study of tho languages mentioned would be a
sheer waste of labour and time; since, viewed as media for
receiving and treasuring the stores of modern science, there is
at present no possible connection between them.' On tho
other hand, in reply to the question whether he thought it
possible to teach native boys the principles of any scienco
Ait.28. SCIKNOE TAUGHT TIIUOgGU ENGLISH. II 3
through tho medium of tho Eiiglisli hinguage, lie roplitid that
'the cxperienco of tho last tliroo years lias, if possible, coii-
lirmeJ tho conviction ho previously entertained, not merely
that it is possible to t(;ach native V)oys the principles of any
science through the medium of the J*]iiglish language, but that,
in tho present incipient state ofiufoive improvement, it is next
to impossible to teach them successfully tho princi])les oi any
science through any other medium than tho English.' He
further records his opinion, that tho study of the Vhiglish
langunge might be rendered vo.r^^ popular among ilie natives.
*The sole reason,' ho justly observes, 'why tlu; lOnglisJi is not
now more a general and anxious objc.'ct of ac(piisition among
the natives, is the degree of uncertainty under which they (tho
natives) still labour as to tlie ultimate intentions of Govern-
uient, and whether it will ever lead them into paths of useful-
ness, pr(jfit, or honour; only iet the intentions oi" (lovernment
bo oflicially announced, and thera will be a gcnci'ul m<jvement
among all the more i-espectable classes.' IJut the teaching of
English ac(juires much importance when wo consider it, with
Mr. Duff, as the gi'and reme<ly for obviating the prejudices
of tho natives against practical anatomy. ' 'J'he English lan-
guage,' ho urges, ' opens up a wliolo woi'ld <jf new ideas, and
examples of success in every department of science; and tho
ideas so true, and tho examples so striking, work mightily on
the susceptible nn'nds of native youth; so that by the; litne they
have ac(juii"ed a mastery over tho Thiglish language, under
judicious and enlightened instructors, their minds are almost
metamorplujsed into the texture and cast of European youth,
and they cannot help expressing their utter contempt for
Hindoo superstition and pi-(;judices.'
"There is an argument of fact put in by Mr. Duff, which is
admirably to the point. Wo allude to tho introducti(jn of tho
I'higlish language and of English science among the Scottish
Highlanders, whose native language, to this day, is the Gaelic.
The parallel is a very fair one ; ^'je no pe(^j)le were more super-
stitious, more wedded to their own customs, and raoro averse
to leaving their native country, than tho Highlanders : but
since the introduction of tlio English language among thera,
the state of things is much changed. The same observation
applies to Ireland and Wales, where, as in the IHghlands of
Scotland, the English ia a foreign language ; and yet ita
214 LIFE OF DIl. DUFF. 1834,
acquisition is eagerly sought after by the natives of all these
countries as an almost certain passport to employment. There
are medical men, natives of these countries, scattered all over
the world, whose mother tongue is Welsh, Irish, or Gaelic,
which, as children, they spoke for years — just as the children
of European parents in ludia speak Hiudostaneo and Bengalee ;
with this difference, however, that the latter soon forget the
Oriental tongues ; while the youth who acquire the indigenous
language of Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, and Wales, never
lose the language of those countries, because they do not quit
them till a more advanced period of life. For the first years
of youth the Highlanders at school, even of all ranks, think in
the Gaelic ; but this does not prevent their acquiring such a
fluent and business-like knowledge of English as to enable
them to pass through life with credit and not unfrequcntly
with distinction. What is there in the condition, physical or
moral, of the natives of this country that should render them
incapable of acquiring English as easily as the Irish, the High-
landers, and Welsh ? "
" The expectations with whicTi this change was made
have been completely realized. The most intractable
of the national prejudices has given way before the
exigencies of the dissecting room, and European
medical science has taken root in India, whereby one
of the greatest boons ever conferred on suffering
humanity has been extended to that country."
This was not all. Duff supplied the old solution —
solvituT amhulando. The commission visited his school,
in common with all in which English was taught, but
he did not forewarn the youths of their coming.
Taking the senior class, which had been nearly four
years under English instruction, into a small room
by themselves, he invited the visitors to make any
inquiries in any way they chose. Timidly and after
a roundabout fashion did the Apothecary General
approach the dreaded subject of dissection, for the
first thing he learned and indeed saw was that the lads
M. 28. THE ANATOMISTS IN THE MISSIONARY SCHOOL. 2 1 5
were chiefly Brahmans. He thus began : " You have
got many sacred looks, have you not?" " Oh yes,"
was the reply, " wo have many Shasters beheved to be
of divine authority. Some are very old, and others
have been written by Rishis (holy sages) inspired by the
gods. They are upon all subjects, literature, science
such as it is, chronology, geography and genealogies of
the gods." '' Have you not also m'^dical Shasters, which
profess to teach everything connected with the heal-
ing art ? " " Oh yes," they said, " but these are in the
keeping of the Bhoido or physician caste ; none of us
belong to that caste, so that we do not know much about
them." " Do your doctors learn or practise what we
call anatomy, or the examination of the human body
with a view to ascertain its real structure in order
skilfully to treat wounds, bruises, fractures, etc.?"
" We have heard them say that anatomy is taught in
the Shasters, but it cannot be like your anatomy."
" Why not ? " *' Because respectable Hindoos are
forbidden by imperative rules of caste to touch a dead
body for any purpose whatever ; so that from examina-
tion of the dead body our doctors can learn nothing
about the real structure of the human body." " Whence
then have they got the anatomy which, you say, is
taught in the Shasters ? " " They have got it out of
their own brains, though the belief is that this strange
Shaster anatomy must be true or correct, it being
revealed by the gods ; but we now look upon this as
nonsense." '* What then," said the commissioner, " if
the Government should propose to establish a medical
college for Hindoos under European doctors like the
medical colleges in Europe ? Would you approve
or disapprove of such a measure, or how would it
be viewed by the natives generally?" "We certainly
who have been taught European knowledge through
the medium of English would cordially approve, but
2l6 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 1834.
our ignorant orthodox countrymen would as certainly
disapprove." "Well then, were a college of this kind
established, would any of you be disposed to attend
it ; or would there be insuperable objections in
your minds against your doing so ? " " Not at all,"
they said. " If wo were not already otherwise com-
mitted to some course of life which would prevent
us, we would be very glad to attend." "What!"
said the commissioner, " would you actually be
prepared to touch a dead body for the study of ana-
tomy ? " " Most certainly," said the head youth of
the class, who was a Brahman ; " I, for one, would
have no scruples in the matter. It is all prejudice,
old stupid prejudice of caste, of which I at least have
got rid." The others heartily chimed in with this
utterance. The commissioners were highly gratified.
The result of their inquiry exceeded their most
sanguine expectations. They thanked the young men
for the promptness of their response, and promised to
report their liberal disregard of hereditary prejudice
to the Governor General. His Excellency's surprise
did not prevent him from completing the case by con-
sulting the orthodox pundits. These reported that
the prohibition against touching a dead body was most
stern, but they did not find it anywhere expressed in
the Shasters that Hindoos are forbidden to touch the
human subject for anatomica^ purposes. Yet both these
and the Muhammadan Moulvies stirred up the com-
munity to petition the Government to remain satisfied
with the study of the Sanscrit and Arabic treatises.
Nor was Duff alone in this. David Hare, of the
Hindoo College, seems to have been equally zealous,
although we have no record of his action beyond
the fact. The Governor-General in Council embodied
the unanimous conclusions of the special committee
in an order dated 28th January, 1835, abolishing the
j£l^ 28. THE i'lEST DISSECTION BY A HINDOO. 217
Medical Institution and classes, and creating a new
college under the Committee of Education for " tbo
instruction of a certain number of native youths in
the various branches of medical science." The new
college was declared open to all classes of natives,
without exception as to creed or caste, who could read
and write English and Bengalee, or English and
Hindostanee. Eurasians and Europeans were after-
wards included. The English language and the West-
ern scientific standards were declared the medium
and the test of instruction. On the 1st June, 1835,
the classes were opened in an old house in the rear ot
the Hindoo College, only to be removed by Lord
Auckland to a building then pronounced " magnifi-
cent," but long since too small for the thousands who
form what has proved to be the largest medical school
in the world. Dr. Bramley, the first principal, died
soon after, and the early success of the great experi-
ment is associated with the name of Dr. Henry Goodeve,
who still survives. With him were associated the
Danish botanist of Serampore, Dr. Wallich ; the Irish
professor of chemistry, Dr. O'Shaughnessy, who gave
India the electric telegraph, and two others. David
Hare was secretary. Nobly, not less effectually than
Duff's ardent enthusiasm predicted, has the Bengal
Medical College, with its hospitals, under the ablest
members of the Company's medical service and Ben-
galee professors who have risen from the students'
benches, realized what Lord W. Bentinck's committee
aimed at when it laid down for it a curriculum " ample,
comprehensive and worthy of a great Government,
not intended merely to supply the wants of the State
but of the people, and to become a moral engine of
great utility and power."
How did Duff's Brahman students and those of the
Hindoo College stand the test when the hour came for
2l8 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1834.
tlio first dissection ? That hour came after the first
six months' study. The time was then recalled
when the medical class in the Hindoo College mot
for the first cutting up of a kid, and the college gates
were closed to prevent popular interruption of the
awful act ! Following his professor, Modosoodun
Goopta, of the Bhoido or physician caste, was the first
native to handle and plunge his knife into the subject
provided for the purpose. Rajendranath Mitter fol-
lowed, and their fellow-students quickly imitated this
act of moral courage. Thus, nearly three thousand
years after Si.sruta and his loathsome instructions, the
study of practical anatomy by the natives of India
was established. So fast did it spread, that a purely
Hindostanee class and then a Bengalee class were
opened, to meet the need of subordinate assistants in
the military and civil hospitals, and of the cities and
villages of the country. From sixty in 1837 the number
of subjects for the dissecting room rose to above five
hundred in 1844, and now must be three times greater.
Dwarkanath Tagore and Dr. H. Goodevo soon took
four students to England to seek a British diploma; of
these two were Christians and one was a convert of
the General Assembly's Institution. Ever since. Duff's
college has sent some of its ablest converts as well as
Hindoo students to take the highest honours in the
medical faculty of the Calcutta University. One of
them is now a professor in the Medical College, and
several have entered the covenanted service by competi-
tion with Scottish, English and Irish graduates. The
tale of wliat the medical colleges of India — for others
sprang up in imitation of Bengal, at Bombay, Madras,
Lahore and Agra — have done for humanity, for the
sciences allied with medicine, and for enlightenment
throughout the peninsula, in the half -century since Daff
began his apostleship, would form one of the most
/Et. 28. TUE THIRD BATTLE WITH THE OUT ENTA LISTS. 219
brilliant chapters in the history of progress, but it is
not for us to tell it here. ~ *
In yet a third field did Duff and Trevelyan, aided
by that accomplished scholar of the Baptist Mission
press, Dr. Yates, meet the orientalist party. Tho
committee of the Calcutta School Book Society was
the scene of the conflict. That body had succeeded
in supplying pure English literature to the natives
on mercantile principles, while the Government
Oriental colleges had their shelves groaning under
expensive works which no native would take as a gift,
unless also paid to read them, and at which true
scholars laughed. In 1833 Mr. Thompson, a Govern-
ment teacher at Delhi, sought the patronage of the
society for an English and Hind.itanee dictionary
in the Roman character only, designed to assist
natives of the upper provinces in the acquisition of
English and Europeans in the study of Hindostauee.
Dr. Yates, as secretary, recommended the purchase of
two hundred copies. Mr. James Prinsep condemned
the use of the Roman alphabet by any but Europeans
as " ultra-radicalism." Dr. Tytler, whose foible was
a desire to stand well with the few Oriental scholars
iu Europe, protested that such a book would " com-
promise our character very much, particularly with
European scholars, in whose eyes the Oriental litera-
ture of Calcutta does not stand very high at present."
Sir Charles Trevelyan demolished both in a long
minute, in which he exposed the unscholarly character
and expense of Dr. Tytler's translations, showing that
Rs. 105,426 (£1 0,543) of public money had thus been
wasted in the ten years since 1824. On this James
Prinsep cast the broad shield of his genuine learning
over the wounded Tytler, in a minute which con-
cluded with this retort on the " alleged superiority of
English to Sanscrit or Perso- Arabic orthography : — " I
220 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1834.
never heard of a mother who did not complain of the
difficulty of teaching a child the difference between
C and S, and I will ask whether a native child
would as readily recognise tlie * City of God' (Allah-
abad) in the ' isle of bats ' and the * palace at
Ghazeepore * in * Chelsea tune ' {chuhul sitoo}i)." Dr.
Tytler felt as grateful to James Prinsep as Homer's
hero when, worsted in battle, he was hid under the
apron of his celestial mother, Aphrodite. After
Trevelyan had slain Prinsep, Duff entered the field
through the press and anonymously, while Mr. H.
Thoby Prinsep in turn brought the heavy artillery of
the Asiatic Society to bear upon him.
The merits of the eontroversy are these : In the
East Indies, as influenced from their metropolis Cal-
cutta — including in that term Dutch Java and now
French Anam — there are eight distinct ethnological
families, containing 243 spoken and written languages
and 296 dialects of these languages, or 539 in all.
These have to be mastered — having been reduced to
writing in many cases by missionaries and officials —
before the half of the human race who use them can
be influenced for good. They present two sets of
difficulties, arising from their varying written charac-
ters and very different grammatical structure. Can
the former class of difficulties not be removed or
modified ? If the English language and literature are
to be used as the medium and the instrument of civil-
ization in the effete East, why not the one Roman
alphabet in which they are expressed ? — such was the
very natural reasoning of the Anglicists of 1833. That
this is no dream may be accepted from the fact that
the great scholar Lepsius has prepared a " standard
alphabet," and that the Boden Sanscrit professor
at Oxford is an earnest advocate of Romanising, while
Professor Max Miiller has a similar plan of his own.
JEt 28. THE LANGUAGKS AND ALl'IIAUETS OF INDIA. 221
One character is necessary, and that has, of course,
been the Roman thus far for tongues rudiiced to
writing for the first time by missionaries, wlio desire
to tell and write for these simple people " the won-
derful works of God " in Christ. But more than
this, Mr. Cust is within the truth, as every scholar
will admit, when he declares, *' It may be accepted
as a scientific fact that all the characters used in the
East Indies can sooner or later be traced back to the
Asoka inscriptions, and through them to the Phosnician
alphabet, and thence backwards to the hieratic ideo-
graphs of the old kingdom of Egypt, and thence to the
venerable hieroglyphics of the fourth dynasty." The
solitary exception is the Chinese character used in
Anam.*
More than three rivals compete to represent the
539 languages and dialects, for the Indian, Arabic
and Roman are complicated by additions or adapta-
tions to represent all the sounds of each, till religion
is invoked to consecrate some, so that the orthodox
Hindoo will not use the Perso- Arabic, nor the strict
Muhammadan the sacred Nagree. If one alphabet
in the good Asoka's days, not long after Alexander
the Great, why not one again — why not one at any
rate, and that the Roman, for all the peoples who learn
writing, and even reading, for tlie first time from the
Christian missionary and the British and other Euro-
pean Governments in Asia ? Though deprecating as
injudicious and impracticable any attempt to supersede
the established characters of cultivated languages by
the introduction of the alien Roman character, Mr.
Cust urges the use of the standard of Lepsius in the
case of languages hitherto unwritten. In 1878 he used
this language, which is the echo of Duffs half a century
♦ A Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies. 1878.
2 22 LIFE OP Da. DUFF. 1834.
ago: — "It is a remarkable phenomenon that the foun-
tains of so many languages and dialects should have
been unsealed just at the moment when the intellectual,
mechanical and religious powers of Engla\'d and Holland
were at their height, ready to undertr.ke the task of
translating the Bible into scores of languages, foi-
which task, even if the opportunity had offered itself,
English scholars wore, last century, as unfitted as the
Spanish and Portuguese are even now unfitted, and as
unwilling to lend themselves to the task as the Italians,
French and Russians are even now imwilling."
We have received this narrative of Duff's advocacy
of the Romanising system from Sir Charles Trevelyan,
who sought officially to carry it out when Governor of
Madras. lie has recently published as an illustration of
it "Riibinsan Kruso," being a translation, through the
Hindostanee, of Defoe's immortal work into Persian
in the Roman character. To that Mr. Tolbort, of tho
Bengal civil service, as editor, has prefixed an exposition
and defence of the application of the Roman alphabet
to the languages of the East, declaring that that alplia-
bet "will be to the education of Asia what George
Stephenson's rails were and are to the locomotive steam
engine." The system of transliteration was that of Sir
William Jones, who followed the Italian or continental
European sound of the vowels, while Dr. Gilchrist
afterwards sought to fix them to the moro familiar
of their various sounds in English. Thus the well-
known "Ameer" of the latter is the "Amir" of the for-
mer, and the " Punjab " is " Panjab." The advantage of
the Gilchrist transliteration of proper names for purely
English readers is evident ; that of the Jones system
for Romanising and strictly scholarly purposes is not
less so. The German orientalists ha '3 recently pub-
lished a whole iseries of the Oriental classics in Roman
type. In the twenty years ending 1857 the Bible,
ALt 28. BOMANISINO THE ORIENTAL ALPHABETS. 223
the Pilgrim's Progress, the Koran, and forty-thrco
other religious or educational works had appeared in
Romanised Hindostanee. Sir C. Trevelyan writes : —
♦♦ It was proposed to extend to India the advantogo
which Europe enjoys of making one charactei servo
for many different languages and dialects, whereby it
might bo at once seen how far they agreed or differed,
and a tendency might bo created towards a common
Indian language and literature, of which English
would be the connecting link, and the Christian re-
ligion the principal source of inspiration. Eastern
writing is thoroughly phonetic; that is, the duo
relation of sign and sound is consistently maintained
throughout, so that a simple transliteration into the
Roman character gives a correct representation of the
sounds in all the native languages; and during the
long period which has elapsed since the invention of
printing, the typography of these letters, with all its
accessories of punctuation, capital letters, italics, and
other mechanical helps, has been so improved that
they have become a much more efficient anc^. economical
medium for expressing the languages of the East than
the various alphabetical systems in actual use tliere.
This would also be the salvation of the native lan-
guages, which have a hard struggle in their com-
petition with the all-powerful English, freighted with
so many substantial advantages, and it would h,T,vo a
highly salutary political effect by intimately associat-
ing our nation with the growth of the new Indian
literature, and by removing a serious practical obstacle
to satisfactory mutual intercourse.
" This system has made steady progress, notwith-
standing every discouragement, and its advantages
have become so generally recognised that effectuaj
arrangements are likely soon to be made for its grad'ial
adoption; but the undertaking might have been
224 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1834.
strangled in its birth if Dr. Duff had not given it his
strenuous support. The turning point of the contro-
versy was marked by the publication of three papers
by Dr. Duff, in the first of which the * possibility,'
* practicability,' and ' expediency ' of substituting the
Roman for the Indian alphabets was discussed, and in
the last two a practical schemo for that purpose was
worked out in detail, and objections were answered.
These papers give a high idea of the logical powers
and critical acumen of Dr. Duff. They settled the
system on its present basis, and may be read to this
day with interest and advantage.
" It was impossible to work, as I did, with Dr. Duff,
without having his character clearly unfolded before
me, and I must be allowed to indulge my feelings by
briefly saying what I think of it. He combined child-
like simplicity and sincerity with intellectual powers
of no mean order, and his fervid Celtic nature imparted
warmth and energy to everything he undertook. His
disinterestedness, and freedom from selfish motives of
all kinds, appeared to me to be perfect. His whole
being seemed to be engrossed in the one great object
of his life, compared with which all merely personal
motives were of secondary consideration. He was a
truly loveable character. My feeling towards him is
compounded of affection and respect, and I should
find it difficult to say which of these predominates."
Thus far the battle begun and carried on by Duff
had been for the people. English he fought for, as
the weapon of truth's warfare at that stage not only
against the intolerance of the quasi-orientalists who
squandered the people's money on a few scornful
Brahmans and Moulvies, but against the equal intoler-
ance of their own leaders in the Hindoo College, who
excluded the Ic . er castes even from secular instruc-
tion. Through the natural heads and respectable
yEt. 28. HIS WORK FOR VERNACULAR EDUCATION. 2:5
castes of tlie Hindoos he determined that Western
truth and English benevolence should reach the masses
and fertilise the literature of their motlor tongue.
Hence his own early devotion to Bengalee at a time
when his busy nights were no more his own than his
exhausting days, and the instinct of genius drove him
to take the tide of English in native society near the
flood that he might guide it to faith and all that a
reasonable faith here involves, in social purity, in
public enlightenment, in national revival. Hence the
Bengalee department in his school, and the simulta-
neous teaching and reaction on each other of English
and the vernacular. Without that the taunt of the
barren orientalists might have had some justification.
English might have become only another official jar-
gon like court Persian, to be used by the initiated
few for the oppression of the many, and the widening
of the gulf between alien rulers and ignorant ruled.
From that memorable Monday, 2nd of August, 1830,
when the Highland lad opened his school with our
Lord's Prayer in Bengalee, to the day just after the
Mutiny, when he introduced the Christian Vernacular
Education Society into Calcutta, and down to his last
effort for India, having put English in its right place
chronologically and educationally, he sought to have
India covered with primary schools worthy of the
name.
Here, also, the Government of Lord William Ben-
tinck came to his help and did its duty. The same
ever to be remembered months at the opening of 1835,
which legislatively brought to the birth the Renais-
sance in science and letters, by the medical college
and English language decrees, saw the first official
step taken in the application of both to the varied
vernaculars of India. On the 20th January " W,
Bentinck," with whom his colleagues, the Honbles.
2 26 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1834.
H. Blunt, A. Ross and W. Morison ** concurred en-
tirely," wrote the minute which sent Mr. Adam, for
seventeen years a missionary and then editor of the
India Gazette, to visit and report on all the existing
vernacular schools in Bengal. The minute began with
the " universally admitted axiom that education and
the knowledge to be imparted by it can alone effect
the moral regeneration of India." At a time "when
the establishment of education upon the largest and
most useful basis is become the object of universal
solicitude," the minute wisely declared it essential to
ascertain the actual state of education as carried on
for centuries entirely under native management. It
deprecated interference with these before Government
knew the facts, and direct inquiry by officirJs as certain
to excite distrust. Hence the appointment of Adam,
whose three reports, the more that they prove his
intelligent philanthropy and administrative wisdom,
reflect severely on the stupid apathy of the Committee
of Education, which shelved them and drove him to
resign in disgust. Ho showed that, as Duff put it,
92|- out of every hundred children of school-going age
in Bengal were destitute of all kinds and degrees of
instruction. That is, on the basis of the under-esti-
mated population of that time, six millions of such
children were wholly uneducated. Yet not for twenty-
two years thereafter would Government do anything
for Bengal. Not till Dalhousie was Governor-General
was anything done for Upper India save by the
missionaries. So the evil round goes on under the
system which breaks the continuity of progress in
India — the five years term of high office. A Bentinck
takes his seven years' ripe experience with him, to be
followed by a reactionary Auckland. We shall not
bring the illustration down to our own day. Mission-
aries like Duff in Eastern, Wilson in Western, and
^t. 28. HIS USE OF THE PRESS. 22 7
Cald^^cU in Soutliera India alone remain immortal till
their work is done !
In all liis work and at every stage of it Duff felt
that he had a more powerful ally and instrument than
oven Lord William Bentinck as Governor-General, —
and that was the Press. From the outsot of his
career writing went hand-in-hand with teaching and
public speaking. The relation of his new ideas to
the few native papers, English and vernacular, accord-
ing as they opposed, misrepresented or advocated
them, and his plan of replying by public discussion to
the attacks of their correspondents, we have seen. The
Serampore missionaries had, before him, filled the
breach, alike by their quarterly Friend of India and by
Mr. Marshman's establishment of the first Bengalee
newspaper. So that, whereas in 1814 there was only
one English periodical and not one nativ^e in all Ben-
gal, and in 1820 five English papers and still not one
Bengalee print, in 1830 there were eight native papers.
But Duff had not been twelve months in Calcutta
before he saw the necessity of establishing a Magazine
to represent missionary and philanthropic operations
of all kinds, and to bring Christian opinion to bear
upon Government on the one hand and the educated
natives on the other. Hence in June, 1832, appeared
the first number of the Calcutta Christian Ohserrcr,
" edited by Christian ministers of various denomina-
tions." The signature *' D " marks the authorship of
the introductory programme. Besides the sectarian
periodicals then in Calcutta, he sought " something
unconfined by any trammels of party or of sect —
something that will embrace with impartial and com-
prehensive view the wide domain of Catholic Chris-
tianity." He desired to produce a periodical which
should do for religion in the East what James Prinsep'a
Journal of the Asiatic Society accomplished for science
228 LIFE OF DR. DOFF. 1832
and tliG Calcutta Magazine laboured to effect for litera-
ture. The six divisions of the Magazine he mapped
out as theoretical and practical theology, Biblical criti-
cism and translation, missionary operations, European
and native institutions and events, reviews of books,
intelligence of progress of all kinds, amid contro-
versy and resistance, for only eventually may " the
great Christian temple, like its material prototype
of old, be raised with noiseless harmony of design
and execution." The passage relating to the second
division has a peculiar interest : —
" It is not necessary that the majority, or any very
considerable portion of the Christian public should be
Biblical critics or translators. . . But, however true
that the great doctrines of revelation are so potent as
to have produced but one persuasion in the minds of
the immense majority of devout believers in every age,
it is not less true that even these have been repeatedly
and variously impugned. And as the Scriptures were
written in ancient and dead languages, none who were
ignorant of these could venture to elicit and set in
array the genuine force of scriptural evidence. Hence
arises one of the most important offices that devolves
upon the Biblical critic. Again, the Bible containing,
as it does, an historical and prophetical account of the
most interestijig events that tran-spired on the stage
of this w^orld for 4000 years, as vvell as of the extraor-
dinary dispensations of the Almighty, must naturally
and unavoidably include in its contents many ' things
hard to be understood.' Now these are the things
which, surrounded as they are by many luminous
points, cost the pious believer least trouble. But these
are the very things upon which the unbeliever is ready to
pounce with more than the ravenous speed of an eagle
upon its prey. In the reasonableness of this conduct
he resembles the man who, withdrawing hie view from
j£t 26. ON BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 229
the gorgeous productions of the animal, vegetable and
mineral kingdoms, and tbe combined glory of tbe
summer's landscape, would point in a tone of triumph
to the meanest reptile or weed, or to the dampest and
most dingy cavern, in proof of the worse than gratui-
tous assertion that the external world contained nouf,ht
that was fair, beauteous, or lovely. Every person of
common sense and common honesty would regard such
a procedure with merited contempt and indignation ;
while the zoologist, the botanist and the mineralogist
would follow him still further, and by evolving the
hidden beauties and harmonies of what has been so
rashly decried, convict him of the most presumptuous
empiricism. Now, what service these men of science
are enabled to render in rescuing even the most de-
spised of the works of God from the reproaches of the
ignorant, the very same is the Biblical critic expected
to render on the hard and dark things — the abstruse
and apparently profitless parts — of the Word of God.
To be fully qualified for a task so arduous, he ought
of all learned men to be the most learned."
The Observer became, under Duff's influence and
that of his colleagues during his absence from India,
all that he thus desired ; while from 1835 to 1875 the
Friend of Inclia^ changed by Mr. J. C. Marshman into
the powerfiil weekly news'paper which it long con-
tinued to be, applied the same Christian principles in
a more purely political and broadly imperial way
to the elevation of the whole empire. At the same
time we shall see him using, for the highest ends, the
English daily journals of Calcutta as he used the
Anglo-Bengalee newspapers, and in his second term
of service in Bengal editing the Galcutta Bevieiu.
The coarse licence of Hich/s Gazette^ the first Eng-
lish newspaper published in India, in 1780, followed
by that of the Bengal Journal, led the Company's
230 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1835.
authorities, in 1794, to deport the editor of the latter,
Mr. William Duane, because of an inflammatory ad-
dress to the army. During the war with Tippoo Lord
"Wellesley established a formal censorship of the press,
which, made still more severe in 1813, continued till
1818, when Lord Hastings practically abolished it.
George Canning, when President of the Board of
Control, suppressed a severe condemnation of this act
by the Court of Directors. But when Mr. John Adam
became interim Governor-General, he gratified the
bureaucratic instinct against criticism by reviving the
censorship and deporting Mr. James Silk Buckingham,
to please his rival. Dr. Bryce, who was at once senior
Scottish chaplain, editor of the John Bull, and clerk of
str.tionery ! The weak Lord Amherst put Adam's most
severe restrictions in force against Mr. Arnot of the
Calcuita Journal, and warned the Bengal HurJcaru.
When Lord William Bentinck's financial reforms
reduced the military allowances known as batta, he was
covered with abuse which might have tempted other
men to crush the self-seeking critics. But he knew
and he loved the principles of freedom which his great-
grandfather, Hans Bentinck, had helped William III.
to consolidate in England. He went further, declar-
i.ng that the liberty of 4he. press was neces*sary to the
good government of the country, as supplying " that
lamentable imperfection of control which, from local
position, extensive territory and other causes the su-
preme council cannot adequately exercise." In 1831
he invited criticism and suggestions, with results seen
in such works as the Honble. F. J. Shore's " Notes on
Indian Affairs,'' and in the destruction of many an
abuse. Most happily, however, it was left to a Bengal
civilian and pupil of Wellesley to atone for the high-
handed folly of an otherwise estimable administrator
like John Adam. Charles Theophilus, first and last
JEt 2g. BEGINNING OF THE RENAISSANCE COMPLETED. 23 1
Lord Metcalfe, when acting as Governor-General,
deliberately risked the permanent appointment, by the
Act XI. of 1835, which Macaulay wrote, repealing all
restrictions on the press throughout India, and lea 'ing
it, like all other institutions and persons, to the ordi-
nary law of sedition and libel. Vernacular as well as
English literature in India took a new start, hardly
checked by the bureaucratic timidity of Lord Canning's
advisers in 1857, and certain to bo again freed from
the less excusable action of Lord Lytton's councillors
in 1877. Thus the birth of the Renaissance was
completed. Thus the name of Metcalfe is linked
with those of Macaulay, Trovelyan, Bentinck and
Alexander Duff.
No one who knows history and is accustomed to
weigh in its balances, sacred and secular, the causes
and the tendencies of human progress, will be surprised
that we have thus broadly applied the term Renaissance
to the intellectual and spiritual movement started by
Great Britain in Southern Asia in 1813, vitalised by
Duflf in 1830-35, and still in its vigorous infancy. That
this movement is not a birth only, but a re-birth, those
will most readily confess who know far better than the
Brahm^anizipg orientalists of tjie East India Company
the real splendour of the early Aryan civilization ; the
comparatively pure traditions which were the salt of
Vedic nature-worship ; the wealth of the Aryan lan-
guages which Hellas itself never matched, while it
borrowed from them ; and the influence of all three,
through Greek, Latin and Arabic, on Europe in the
dark ages. That the waking up of the Hindoo mind
is certain to prove a Renaissance not only in the
Italian sense, but in the English — a reformation in the
spiritual region, and a silent constitutional revolution
in the political condition, is due to Alexander Duff.
We have seen it in the Christian college which is the
232 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. i^^.
nursery and in the first converts who proved the seed
of the Church. We have seen it in the Enghsh lan-
guage, in Western science, in the liberty of printiiifr,
in the education of the people in their mother tongue,
in the growth of a pure vernacular literature. Wc
have yet to watch the development in church and
university, in literature and science, in social freedom
and even in the political elevation that springs from tho
concession, without a struggle, of all the constitutional
liberties which it took the ruling power centuries to
consolidate for itself. But above and under all we
shall continue to find this, as Europe and Scotland
before all countries found, that the motive power and
the principle of growth consist in the putting every
Asiatic spiritually in that relation to God which tho
Divine Christ has alone revealed and guarantees. Tho
missionary is thus before all others. Savonarola has
survived the Medici, and Luther lives.
CHAPTER IX.
] 832-1835..
WORK FOB EUnOPEANS, EURASIANS AND
NATIVE CHRISTIANS.
St. Anrlrow's Kirk. — Anglican and Presbyterian Sectarianism. — The
Steeple Controversy. — The Battle of the Gilded Cock. — Fight
for a Second Sunday Service. — A Boileau Wanted. — Sunday Ob-
servance in India. — A Boston Socinian and the Lord's Supper. —
Duff longs for Friendly Sympathy. — The Senior Chaplain of
Madras. — Daniel Wilson and Lord William Bentinck. — Rise of
the Eurasian Community. — First Charity Schools. — Origin of the
Doveton Colleges. — The Civil and Religious Rights of Converts
from Hindooism and Muhammadanism. — The first Writ of
Habeas Corpus in India.: — Dr. H. H. Wilson Apologises to the
Missionaries, — Case of Brijonath Ghose. — Duff docs the Bishop
of Calcutta's work. — Castigates Mr. Longueville Clark. — His
Power of Moral Suasion. — Bengal Asiatic and Agricultural Socie-
ties. — Mr, and Mrs. Duff decline to attend the Governor-Generara
Ball.— Lord William Bentinck's Public Eulogy of Duff.— The
School becomes an Arts and Divinity College. — Reminiscences of
Duff in 1834 by a Bengalee Schoolboy. — The Bible and Tract
Societies. — The Great Cyclone of May, 1833. — The panic-stricken
Tiger.— Fever after Flood.— Duff's First Attack.— Visit of A. N.
Groves from Baghdad. — A Day in the College. — Duft again
stricken down by Dysentery. — Carried on board the John
M'Lellan bound for Greenock, — The Precious Seed Germinating.
So early as the beginning of tlie year 1832, while Mr.
Duff was steering his apparently frail boat in the very
trough of the sea of Hindoo society, with no assistance
and little sympathy from his own countrymen, he was
called to minister in St. Andrew's kirk to the Scottish
residents, and to help the Eurasians and the native
Christians in their earnest struggles after toleration
for themselves in the eye of the law and a good edu-
cation for their children. Thus early he began the
afterwards lifelong labours which ended in the estab-
234 I-TFE OF DR. DUFF. 183a.
lisbraent of tlio Anglo-lDdian Christian Union, and in
the creation of the Dovcton Colleges of Calcutta and
Madras.
St. Andrew's kirk — in 1813 the fruit, like its fellows
in Bombay and Madras, of much talking in obscure
Scottish presbyteries, and much petitioning of Par-
liament by synods and general assemblies since 1793 —
had never justified its existence. How Dr. Bryce, its
first chaplain, went out to Calcutta in the same ship
with Bishop Middleton we have told. A bishop must
have his cathedral; so St. John's church, consecrated
by the ministrations of Claudius Buchanan and Henry
Martyn, to which Warren Hastings, his council and
all the " factors " in the settlement used to walk to
morning service, was enlarged and dubbed by the
necessary name, until Bishop Wilson built St. Paul's
Cathedral. It was still more requisite that the Scot-
tish chaplain should have a church, and the Govern-
ment selected as its site the spot on which Lord Clive's
old court-house had stood, whence the name still given
to the finest street in all t!ie East. The Presbyterian
had won the first move iii the evil game of sectarian-
ism which he and the Anglican bishop introduced into
India. But, viewing the national Church of Scotland
as a dissenting body, the bishop would not allow
Government to give it a church with a steeple. The
Scottish blood of more than half Calcutta was roused
at this, for as to origin the Scotsmen were in the
majority. 1 aey had the secret sympathy of the evan-
gelical missionaries of the Church Missionary Society,
whom Dr. Middleton liked no more than the episcopal
and youthful representative of the same views in the
see of Colombo now does. Long and loud raged the
battle of the steeple. It occupied secretaries and
honourable members of Council and the Governor-
General week after week, till the literature of the
JEt 26. ANGLICAN AND PRESBYTEUIAN SECrAKIANISM. 235
subject plunged the predecessors of future Dalhousies,
Caniiiugs and Lawrences in despair. The men who
were equal to successful expeditious to Java, Mauritius
and the Cape of Good Hope ; who had conducted to a
happy issue Burman and Goorklia wars, Maratha and
Piutlaree campaigns, confessed tliemselves l)eaten by the
steeple controversy. Lord Hastings, liiinself a Scots-
man, directed all the papers to bo hurled at the heads
of the directors who had sent out the ecclesiastical
combatants. Equally baffled, the directors appealed
to the Crown and its law officers, not sorry that tho
authority which had forced the Church establishment
upon them should have a little more trouble. Tho
decision was that, as equal in their own sphere to the
Episcopalians, tho Presbyterians should have their
steeple, although the Government were paying a thou-
sand pounds as ground rent for the site. Years had
passed in the fight, but the national zeal had not
waxed cold. There are steeples and steeples. Of
what height was St. Andrew's to be ? Tho kirk itself
was a noble structure, and the steeple must correspond
with it architecturally. To close tho matter, the
Scottish residents, in public meeting assembled, sub-
scribed eighty thousand rupees (£8,000) to add to tho
spire allowed by Government, so as to raise it to a
point twenty feet higher than that of the cathedral,
and they surmounted the whole by a cock to symbolise
their crowing over the bishop. Against this Dr.
Middleton renewed the fight, and the cock, like the
steeple, occupied the discussions of the Governor-
General in Council and then of the Court of Directors.
The decision was worthy of the most subtle of the
ecclesiastical schoolmen, and of the satire of Boileau's
" Lutrin." It must have been meant, by the James
Mills, Charles Lambs or Thomas Love Peacocks who
in those days draughted the despatches, as fine irony.
236 LIFl!) OF Dtt. DUFF. 1 83 2.
When, it was ruled, the quinquennial repairs of the
building come round, the public works authorities are
not to gild the cock anew ! The judgment was a
new triumph, for the patriotic Scotsmen of Calcutta,
for long thereafter, used to raise some five hundred
rupees privately to regild the boastful symbol.
But it was one thing to revel in such warfare, and
quite another to fill the kirk inside, with its spacious
aisles and vast galleries, seated with eight hundred
chairs, over which swung cooling punkahs for as
many occupants. Dr. Bryce was more at homo as
editor of the John Bull and cler'k in the stationery
office. In due time ho received as colleague a man of
a very different stamp, tho Dr. Brown whose guest
Duff became on first lauding in India. But this gave
rise to a new squabble. Scandalised that there should
bo only one service on Sunday, Dr. Brown proposed
to hold public worship in the evening also. Again the
dispute travelled up through the usual machinery of
secretaries, council and directors, when the decision
came that all chaplains were military servants, but tho
Government would not concern itself with their inter-
nal ecclesiastical arrangements. Dr. Brown might
act as he pleased. But he met with an unexpected
obstacle at the first evening service. The precentor
was engaged to raise the tune at only one weekly
service, and did not appear. The good minister had
a voice fortunately quite equal to the occasion, and
Dr. Bryce surrendered. But in the spring of 1830
Dr. Brown had a fall from his horse, which sent him on
sick leave to the Straits of Malacca, where ho died,
and the old state of things was re-established.
The three acts in the ecclesiastical drama of steeple,
cock, and second service, recall the mock-heroics on
the fight of the treasurer-bishop and the chanter con-
cerning the reading-desk of Notre Dame : —
^t 36. UESULT OF TUB ECCLESIASTICAL SliUABDLES. 237
" Jc clianto lo3 cotnbata, ot co Pri'Iat terrible,
Qui par sos longs travaux, efc sa force inviiiciblo,
Uans uiio illustre Eglisc? exor^'atit son grand coour
Fit plac'jr in la fin un Lutrin daus lo cbojur.
Quelle furcur, dit-il, quel avouglo caprice !
Quand lo diucr est prct, vous ap[)L'llo i\ I'office ?
De votro digniio soutcnoz micux Tuclat,
Est-ce pour travaillcr que vous ctcs prolat ? "
As Boileau closes the strife by bringing m Piety,
Faith and Grace, who awaken Aristus to restore peace,
so the missionary brings life back to St. Andrew's.
This was the kirk and the kirk-session under
which Duff might have been bound to work, had not
the young evangelist been given the foresight and the
grace to stipulate that he should go out to found the
mission in India fettered by no man there. The
Government was distracted and disgusted, iihe educated
natives were scandalised by this continued exhibition
of Christianity, and the Scots, who had been so proud
of their national kirk, ceased to enter it. Some per-
manently joined the Church of England, especially
when the loving and cultured lleginald llcber became
the second Metropolitan of India, and others found
what they desired among the Congregationalists or
Baptists. The majority of the residents, Scottish and
English, made the Sabbath a time of pleasuring, when
they could absent themselves from their offices, which
were open and busy every day. Boating excursions,
picnic parties to Barrackpore and the French and
Dutch settlements up the river, and pig-sticking on
the edge of the Soonderbun jungles to the south of
the city, were the result of the spiritual energies of
Middleton and Bryce.
In this state of things Dr. Bryce resolved to take
furlough home. Believing that he could help the new
238 LIFE OF DU. DUFF. 1832.
mission by reporting its success, in which he had
always sympathised, ho quietly proposed to throw on
the missionary the whole duty of preaching in St.
Andrew's pulpit and taking pastoral oversight of the
large Scottish community Thus modestly and in
this brotherly spirit did Duff reply to the first sug-
gestion on the 30th November, 1831: — "I should
have rejoiced to have been able to have rendered
more frequent assistance on Sunday ; but I really
find every moment so engrossed, and the personal
fatigue often so harassing from the miscellaneous
calls on my daily avocations, tliat I have little time
and generally still less strength to spare for pulpit
duties. In the event, however, of your twelvemonth's
trip being resolved upon, I would be ready to do my
best, or to enter into the adoption of any measure
which might secure regular service for the good folks
of St. Andrew's. This, however, is a subject for
further consideration." The next information which
Duff received was in the form of a letter, sent back
by the pilot from the Sandheads, as the mouth of the
Hooghly is called, in which Dr. Bryce announced his
sudden departure with his invalid wife. With no
stock of prepared sermons (for all his manuscripts had
gone down at Dassen Island), with his daily college
duties, and his weekly evening lectures, tiie sudden
call made even Alexander Duff hesitate. But having
reason to believe that if the kirk were once shut
Government would put difficulties in the way of
opening it again, bewailing the condition of his
own countrymen as sheep without a shepherd, and
meeting at every turn the evil effect of their lives
on the observant natives, he threw himself into the
breach.
Never before — not whci. Kiernander was in the
full flush of that activity which attracted Clive, and
^t. 26. PREACHER AND PASTOR. 239
his own Cambuslaug compatriot, Claudius Bucliarian,
was reproving even a good Governor-General like
Cornwallis — liad Calcutta seen such a preacher and
pastor. He went into the pulpit the first Sunday to
find a score of worshippers lost amid the eight hun-
dred chairs. The sight he described as that of "a
void and huge wilderness." The session registers gave
him the names of not a few who had continued to
preserve their latent rights by paying seat-rents, and
with these he determined to begin. The easy theory
had been that the Scotsman in India is so different
a being from what he is at home, that he regarded
his minister's visit as intrusive. The new pastor soon
put that to the test. He found his purely pastoral
calls welcomed. The Sunday solitude of the kirk
gradually became a respectable crowd. The ministra-
tions during nearly all 1832 resulted in the creation
of the good congregation which Dr. Charles, the new
chaplain, found on his arrival. The results on the
morals and the higher life of European society became
marked. Bishop Turner, who followed Dr. James, the
short-lived successor of Heber, had been grievously
vexed by the utter absence of all signs of a day of
rest, Christian or national, when he landed. Govern-
ment as well mercantile offices were open daily with-
out intermission, as they had been smce the first
settlement of the British in India. The bishop's
attempt to reform society by privately asking the less
godless to sign a voluntary pledge to abstain from
business and from compelling the natives to attend
office on the Lord's- day, brought down on him the
fiercest bigotry and intolerance. Duff, a little later,
found his opportunity just before Daniel Wilson landed
as the next bishop.
A prosperous young Scottish merchant asked the
officiating minister of St. Andrew's to baptize his first-
240 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1832.
born. The father was met by a kindly exposition of
Presbyterian discipline, and was recommended to
delay nntil he liimself should, by attending church at
least, and then by observing family worship, show
some honest regard for the Christianity he professed
ill name only. Resentment, under Duff's persuasive
kindliness, soon gave way to the confession that he
was junior partner of a firm which employed five
hundred natives, that his senior was in England, that
he had to supervise the men on Sunday as on other
days and c uld not possibly attend church. The
minister's further intercourse with him and his wife
led him to try the experiment of shutting the office
for one day in seven. Summoning his operatives on
the Saturday, he explained that for the next month
he would not require their attendance on Sunday, but
would not on that account lower their wages. If he
found that the four or five holidays led them to work
more zealously, he would be able to make the arrange-
ment permanent. They could not believe the state-
ment at first, and it soon formed the talk of the
neighbourhood and of the surrounding villages to
which the} belonged. It was found that not one was
absent on Monday morning, and that that month's
tale of work exceeded the out-turn of each of its pre-
decessors, while a new feeling of cheerful loyalty and
confidence had been born between the employed and
their employer. The change, and the baptism which
followed, became the ^leginning of a new life to more
than to this family. It was long till society became
outwardly transformed. But that was the dawn of
the social as well as spiritual improvement which
has made the Christian day of rest, observed by
Government order and European opinion, a boon and
a teacher to the thousands of toiling Hindoos and
others wlio rejoice in its physical advantages, and arc
JEL 26. WORK AMONG AMERICANS. 24 1
sometimes led by it to higher thoughts, though, un-
doubtedly, the viciously inclined abuse the rest as
all good gifts may be abused. The English Sab-
bath is not the least of the blessings conferred by
the British Government on India, and, as usual, the
missionaries pointed the way.
Not till he had been for six months thus building
up the congregation did Mr. Duff announce the in-
tended communion of the Lord's Supper. A young
American waited upon him next day to declare that,
being from Boston, he had been brought up a Uni-
tarian, but had failed to find any real comfort in his
religion. Expecting an impulse to a higher emotional
life at least from the celebration of the sacrament
after the simple Scottish form, he sought permission
to sit down at the table with friends who were already
members of the Kirk. Having expounded the truo
nature of the divinity of Jesus Christ, very much as he
had done to inquirers like Krishna ]\Iohun Banerjca,
and pointed to the only source of all the privilege of
His memorial sacrifice, Mr. Duff recommended fuj'thcr
study of Scripture. The youth consented, and at the
same time courteously offered his counsellor the books
of Dr. Channing, which were at that time new to
England and India. As the American, witli the
assistance of no little intercourse with Duff, was
gradually being led upwards from Jesus of Nazareth
to the ImmanuelWho was wounded for our transsfres-
sions, a wasting sickness seized him, and he was sent
to sea to the health-giving breezes at the Sandheads.
In the pilot-brig he died, but not before the full glory
Oi the Incarnation entered liis soul, and he charged
the captain, as he died, to tell Mr. Duff that he had
found Jesus to be his all-sufTicient because Divine
Saviour. Such cases may bo taken as typical of
the work done among his own people in that year
^ B
242 LIFE OF BR. DUrr. 1830.
memorable to many. Thus, as ever after, there worked
side by side in Duff's career the evangelising of the
Hindoo and the recalling by the evangel of many who
had forgotten their baptismal, their national, their
personal birthright in Christ.
In all this the impulsive but ever loving heart of
Alexander Duff had continued to pant for the sym-
pathy of such a friend as Urquhart, whom he had lost
all too soon in his student days. Dr. Brown had been
taken away, and in the great-hearted Swiss Lacroix,
over whose grave he long after poured out a eulogy
wortliy of David and Jonathan, he found some of the
affection that strong men cherish. Many, who knew
little of the far higher work he was doing for all time,
had desired to see him Dr. Brown's successor, and to
this he alludes in these letters to the Rev. Dr. Laurie,
the Madras chaplain, by wliom he had been hospitably
received on his way to Calcutta. The fervour of his
friendly longing bursts forth, as it ever did to those ho
valued. Here, too, we see his interest in the soldiers,
for whom few then cared : —
" College Square, Calcutta, 1st Nov., 1830.
** My Deae Friend, — Bold indeed must that heart
be, and cheerless that soul, that would not experience,
.1 will not say pleasure simply, but strong emotions
of holy love and ardour on the jjerusal of your truly
apostolic letter. I have not for a long time received
anything so refreshing and to myself so humbling.
With the sincerity of conviction I felt that you treated
me and mine with more than a brother's kindness, and
manifested towards me more than the natural tokens
of a brother's love, and I appeared to feel that it was
not possible to regard any other brother in Christ
with a more tender affection. But since the receipt
of your last letter you seem as if more endeared than
^t. 24. WORK AMONG SOLDIERS. 243
ever to my soul. Such warmth, such earnest anxiety,
such bowels of compassion, such yearnings of a father
for the souls of his people ! Truly was I cheered and
aroused, as with a message from heaven, and humbled
to the very dust. Oh, that I had one half the zeal and
anxious longing for the redemption of lost souls and
the continued welfare of such as appear to be within
the fold of Christ ! Oh pray with me, and for me,
that all the cold and frozen apathy of nature may
disappear before the genial influences of a heavenly
fire !
"It need scarcely be added, that immediately after
receiving your letter the necessary inquiries were
made respecting the regiment in behalf of which you
expressed such d'3ep and unfeigned interest. The
information obtained was that one half of the resji-
ment had reached Calcutta, and proceeded straight on
to Chin surah, thirty miles to the north ; that Chinsurah
itself was only to be a temporary station, as the inten-
tion was tliat they should proceed without delay to the
upper provinces. By this arrangement I am not only
deprived of the opportunity of being useful to them,
but also precluded from the possibility of seeing them
at all. I trust, however, that they will not be for-
saken, that He who hath begun a good work will
accomplish it unto the end. While at Chinsurah they
may derive benefit from the instructions of Mr. Pear-
son, missionary of the London Society. On Monday
last week he came down to Calcutta ou business : to
him I represented the case as strongly as possible.
He felt for them, and stated that on Sunday, 24th
October, about forty assembled and listened atten-
tively to his address ; and that his efforts should not
be spared so far as his other duties would admit of
it. Hence you perceive that the Lord has dealt very
graciously with them ; and our prayers should be that
244 l^IFE OF DE. DUFF. 1830.
at every station some man of God may be raised up
to comfort and cheer this little band in the perilous
voyage to eternity, warn tliem of danger, strengthen
them for the toil of a busy warfare, and direct them
in safety to the blissful haven of eternal rest.
" It is interesting to think that after reaching Cal-
cutta the idea suggested in your letter, of employing
pious and respectably educated soldiers as teachers,
occurred so forcibly to my mind that the first attempt
to secure teachers was directed to that quarter ; and
it was on' after the attempt proved fruitless that
my attention was particularly directed towards 'the
country-born,' as they are commonly called. Among
these, after mucli trouble, anxiety and waste of
time, I succeeded in securing two or three young
men of apparent piety and steady consistency of
conduct. For this I feel thankful to God, and trust
that in future, with God's blessing, the requisite
supply of subordinate teachers may be had from this
class.
" I would now be inclined to give you some account
of all my proceedings for the last five busy husij
months, but know not where to begin or how to
end, so multifarious and closely crowded are the
materials accumulated. A volume, not a few sheets,
vrould be required. This note, however, is but the
preliminary notice, as it were, of what I trust will be
a frequent and delightful correspondence. In order
to meet your wishes, when you write be so kind as to
state, in the form of question, those subjects on which
you would desire to be informed, and I in return will
take the same liberty with you. I have now traversed
every part of Calcutta and its vicinity ; have resolved,
after much anxious inquiry, to make Calcutta my head-
quarters ; have found the impossibility of instituting,
in the first instance, a central seminary of the de-
/gi, 24. HE DESCRIBES HIS WORK. 245
scription proposed by tlie Assembly's committee ; liave
found, after mucli investio^ation, that, in the present
state of things in Calcutta, it is more advisable for the
Assembly's ultimate purpose to maintain Englisli in
preference to Bengalee schools ; have proved, by a
most successful experiment on a large scale, that, with
proper management, elementary Englisli education,
including tlie reading of the Scriptures by the most
advanced classes, may be carried on to almost any
extent ; and that, in the -course of a ver^'' few years
indeed, a central institution for a higher education will
be absolutely demanded. I cannot enter into detail.
In the school now formed in the building formerly
occupied as a Hindoo college, on the Chitpore road,
there are present every day, after making the neces-
sary allowance for temporary engagements and sick-
ness, not less than 250 from the age of six to twenty-
four, and of all classes from the Brahman downwards.
The labours of every day are commenced with prayer
— generally the Lord's Prayer, as that has been fully
explained; about ninety read a portion of the New
Testament in English, and listen to any explanations
or remarks. So far well. The Lord alone can give
the effectual blessing. I have been and still am in a
whirling vortex of employment. Excuse therefore my
haste. Pray write me without delay. Remember me
in kindness to those dear friends who share in our
Christian affection — Messrs. Dalmahoy, Bannister,
Mr. and Mrs. Wardrope, Mr. and Mrs. Webster, Mr.
Smith and Mr. Ridsdale. I have no recollection of
one of the name of Rodgers at St. Andrews. I pray
fervently with my whole heart that he may prove a
faithful, zealous and devoted fellow- worker with you
in the ministry. Oh, who can estimate the blessing
of a messenger of God, having the same mind and
bearing the shame with and for Christ ! Who can
246 LIFE OV DE. DUFF. 183 1.
estimate the curse of an emissary of Satan, wearing
the outward garb and glorying only in the riches of
Christ's visible Church ! The last accounts from Dr.
Brown are ciio(3i'less ; I fear he is no more; if so,
happy, happy, happy he 1"
''29th Deccmher, 1831.
** Things here are in a very complicntod state, and
very difficult to unravel in all that conci 1 us the vitals
of religion, whether among Europeans or natives. I
think it not unlikely that when a decided movement
shall take place it will be simultaneous among
all classes, and probably sudden in its appearance.
Be this as it may, the elements of change are at
present accumulating rather than any great or deci-
sive change developed. Much is visible to call forth
gratitude to God, but nothing, nothing to equal the
expectations raised at home or justify the gloryings
of many.
" I am still little else than an explorer of the field,
though the success of the largo English school estab-
lished is pleasing, and with the Divine blessing it may
become one of the nurseries of a higher and better
institution. Since the departure and death of our
mutually much esteemed friend. Dr. Brown, I am
left absolutely alone. Many, many are exceedingly
kind and friendly, but there is not one who can feel
and co-operate with me as a brother. Often I think of
Madras and of the kind friends there, and especially
of you, my brother. More I cannot say — I always
fear giving vent to my feelings, lest there might escape
a word that indicated repining or dissatisfaction with
the allotments of the Almighty.
"My spare time — and it has hitherto been vcnj
limited — is devoted to the languages. Here, with
God's blessing, I experience little difficulty — the want
jEt, 25. ARRIVAL OF DANIEL WILSON. 247
of time is my grand enemy. I have had no tidings
from home of late, though I daily expect to hear some-
thing about fellow-labourers on their way or arriving.
Education can bo pursued to almost any extent in
Calcutta, with proper agents and adequate funds. I
intend very soon to transmit homo a report or
memorial on the practicability and necessity of found-
ins: an institution for the more advanced branches of
a literary, scientific and Christian course of instruction,
to which the labours of European teachers shall be
chiefly confined, while the branch schools may always
be conducted by less qualified individuals to be found
already in the country, and the direct preaching of
the gospel shall be carried on to the utmost practicable
extent.
" Has your colleague arrived ? and does he profess
a kindred spirit ? Many here have ■ wished to per-
suade me to apply, or allow application to be made,
that I might succeed Dr. Brown, but I have per-
emptorily declined, on the ground that my motives
might be misrepresented and misconstrued — that the
act might be viewed as an inglorious abandonment
of the cause which I have engaged to promote, and
that in this way the cause itself, so far as its present
connection with the Church or Scotland is concerned,
might languish and suffer. But from my soul I
pray, and I am sure you will join me in this prayer,
that a man of Grod may appear to heal the breaches
that have been opened in our Zion.
" Have you written Dr. Inglis ? or found it prudent
to attempt making any collection for the General
Assembly's fund ? Yours very truly,
"Alexander Duff.'*
Daniel Wilson's arrival in 1832, as fifth Bishop of
Calcutta, brought together two men of the same
248 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1832.
evangelical spirit though separated by ecclesiastical
forms. " A visit to Dr. Carey at Serampore,"
writes the bishop's biographer, " elicited many in-
teresting reminiscences of the early Christianity of
India. A friendly conversation with Dr. Duff fur-
nished important information on the subject of native
education." Daniel Wilson's episcopate was to last
nearly as long as Duff's apostleship in India. Al-
though the most ** churchy " of evangelicals the bishop
wrote of Lord W. Bentinck, as he might have done of
Duff, " Lord AVilliam is rather more of a Whig and
less of a churchman than I could desire, but incom-
parably better than the highest churchman if without
piety, vigour and activity. Lord William reverences
religion and its sincere professors and ministers,
but he has prejudices against bishops." Like Duff,
the Governor-Greneral had told the new bishop, who
applied to him in vain to have his sacerdotal claims
over the chaplains legally acknowledged, " Christianity
is my object." The bishop rejoined with characteristic
prejudice : " With a feeble people like the Hindoos
there must be creeds, a liturgy and an established
ministry." Yet Duff had won his first four converts
there, and the revolution he had begun was so fer-
menting that the bishop wrote in March, 1833: *' A
most interesting moment is dawning on India. The
native mind is at work. A beginning of things is
already made."
Europeans and Americans constituted only one-half
of the professing Christian or born Christian commu-
nity in India. Before the influence of missionaries
and chnplains, the overland route and liberal furlough
rules combined to make the married life of white
settlers in India all that the wife of Sir Henry Lawrence
longed for it to be, in the Calcutta Revmo, the Eura-
sians (Europe-Asia) or East Indians had become
JEt. 26. THE EURASIANS AND THE DOVETON COLLEGES. 249
strong in numbers, tlio offspring of Englisli fathers
and native mothers. In 1833 Dufl' developed into a
system his hibours for tliem.
Leaving out the half-caste children of the earlier
Portuguese, who had been allowed to fall nca the
level of the lower castes by the Romish Church which
should have cared for its sons, the mixed offspring of
their officers and writers early forced the Company to
attend to them. So far as these children had sprung
from soldiers, the Military Oi'phan School, for which
David Brown first went to India, was established in
1783, and the Female Ori)luin Asylum in 1815- — noblo
charities still. In 1789 the charity school for others
was developed into the Free School, originally endowed
with part of the compensation paid by the Moorsheda-
bad Government for its sack of old Calcutta. Tho
immortal three of Serampore established the Benevolent
Institution in Calcutta to meet tho increasing need,
while Dr. and Mrs. Marshman conducted high-class
schools at Serampore for the benefit of the mission.
More recently the third of a million sterling, left by
the Frenchman, Claude Martin, who " came to India a
privat(3 soldier and died a major-general," as his tomb
records, was spent in Martinieres or boarding schools
for poor Christians in Calcutta, Lucknow, and his
native city of Lyons. Finally, the great and good
Henry Lawrence endowed the hill Asylums which bear
his name, for the children of our Christian soldiers
not otherwise provided for. It is a bright roll of
Christlike love covering a multitude of sins, not
judging, but healing and atoning fo'^ an evil and, to
its victims, inevitable past.
Now in all this there is no independent self-effort.
The Eurasian community has given India and Eng-
land some of its best men and women, whose virtues
were nursed on self-i eliance and the fear of God. In
250 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 183a.
1823 tho Eurasians of Calcutta united to found a
joint proprietary school, catholic within tho limits of
Protestantism, for tho higher education of their chil-
dren. Their fine ideal they somewhat stiffly ex-
pressed in tho name they gave to what became the
germ of the Doveton Colleges, the Parental Aca-
demic Institution. In this they followed tho Baptist
founders of the Benevolent Institution and the Ar-
menian conductors of the Philanthropic Institution,
under that good man and scholar, Johannes Avdall.
Their leader was the son of an English ensign
who fell at the siege of Seringapatani, John AVilliani
Ricketts. He rose from the Military Orphan School,
through the East India Company's establishment
at Bencoolen, to bo the first of his class in India.
This college was the boon he left them, as well as
the right of sitting on juries side by side with their
fellow Christians. But he did moro. He deserves
to be remembered as the one citizen of Calcutta who,
when a public meeting was about unanimously to vote
a complimentary address to the Honble. Mr. Adam,
protested against so honouring the man who had
stripped the press in India of liberty.
We have seen how Duff had been led, in his early
despair of finding assistants, to think of soldiers, and
how he had secured the young adventurer, Clift. His
experience of the two lads Sunder and Pereira, who
were his first pupil-teachers, and tho zeal which led
him to examine and advise all the schools in and
around Calcutta of every kind, brought him into close
relations with the collegiate school of the Eurasians.
His great services to it led the managers to nominate
him visitor, side by side with the patron, Lord Met-
calfe, of whose merits as a Christian statesman this
is not the least, that he was the first official to help
the Eurasians to help themselves, as Lord Northbrook's
JEt. 26. FIGHT FOR THE RIGHTS OP CONSCIENCE. 251
Government did long after, when alarmed at tlio
increase of Christian poverty in India caused by tlio
thoughtless neglect of all the intervening administra-
tions. " Much as has been gained," he told the com-
mittee, teachers and youth of the school after the tenth
successful examination in 1833 : " much yet remains to
ho won. Let this community rise by its own endea-
vours ; unless men act as men, what can Governments
do ? Moral and intellectual knowledge are not sepa-
rated, and we gain the higliest dignity of our nature
when we cultivate both."
For the Eurasians as for the Native Christians and
all who were not either Hindoos, Muhammadaiis or
European British-born subjects. Duff was in the front
of those who fought the battle for the rights of con-
science, which Lord William Bentinck partially and
Lord Dalhousie and Lord Lawrence long after
completely secured to all classes. With a true toler-
ance, but in ignorance of what it involved, Warren
Hastings in his code of 1772 guaranteed to Hindoos
and Muhammadans their own laws of inheritance.
But these laws exclude dissidents from their respective
religions from all civil right to ancestral property.
Conversion meant disinheritance, and Parliament, with
ignorance equal to that of Hastings, wrote sucli a law
on the English statute-book. As if this were not
enough, the East India Company had by legislation
excluded all converts from public office of any kind.
Duff had not been long in Calcutta when he awoke
to the enormity of enactments which Muhammadans
themselves would never have passed or enforced, and
which fossilized Hindooism for ever. From 1830 the
missionaries all over India agitated the question, the
Court of Directors was stirred up by memorial, and
the Eurasians sent home Mr. Rickctts to petition Par-
liament, which examined him. The result was the
252 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1832.
Kegulation of 1822, wLich provides that no one shall
lose any rights or property, or deprive any other of
rights or propertj^ by changing his religion. Lord
William Beiitiuck had previously thrown open the
public service to all the natives of India, including
the outlawed Native Christians, enacting that there
should be no exclusion from office on account of caste,
creed or nation. The development of an enlightened
legislation under Macaulay, Peacock, Maine and
Stephen, has now given the varied creeds and races of
India better codes than any country possesses, and,
save as to the rights of minors and age of majority —
not yet settled in England — nothing more is needed.
But how desirable that is still may appear from the
first collision with the law, or rather the lawyers, in
defence of the rights of conscience. The missionaries
were those of the Church of England, their natural
defender was the newly arrived Bishop Wilson, but
their actual leader was the young Highlander, whose
zeal for fair-play and civil and religious liberty led him
alone into the breach and tj victory.
The case occurred just after the whole Mission-
ary Conference had publicly answered a thoughtless
attack upon them by the then rising orientalist, H. H.
Wilson, and had forced that keen Hindooizer to
apologise to them. From the day when, in 180(S,
Wilson reported his arrival at Calcutta a young
assistant surgeon, he became })opular as an amateur
actor and musician in the local theatre, and as a most
versatile and accomplished member of society. But
he worked hard at Sanscrit in the midst of all his
amusements, so that in five years he published his
first translation, that of Kalidasa's Mcghaduta or
" Cloud Messenger," and in six more his great
Sanscrit-English dictionary appeared. He gradually
established his reputation as, next to Colebrooke, the
^t. 26. H. H. WILSON APOLOGISES TO THE MISSIONARIES. 253
greatest of English orientalists. Just before lie went
home, in 1832, to be the first Boden professor of
Sanscrit in Oxford, an appointment which he gained
by the narrow majority of seven over the learned and
devout Dr. Mill, he wrote a letter on the study of
Sanscrit literature in England, at the request of
Bishop Turner. In that letter this passage occurred:
*' In Bengal the better order of Hindoos regard the
missionaries with feelings of inveterate animosity,
whilst they invariably express a high respect for
clergymen of the Established Church. They cannot
avoid seeing that the latter are held in higher estima-
tion by the European society, and that they cannot
be reproached with practices which not unfrequently
degrade the missionary character in the eyes of the
natives." Called to account for this " snobbish " as
^vell as libellous statement by " the missionaries of
all denominations in Calcutta," Dr. H. H. Wilson ex-
plained that the letter was private and had not been
published by him, and that he was exceedingly sorr^
to learn it " should have given pain to the missionaries
of Calcutta, for whom generally I have a high respect,
and with several of whom I have long been and hope
long to be on terms of kind and friendly intercourse."
His defence on the merits was, that he merely re-
ported the opinions of high caste Bengalee society,
which he did not share. This made it the; more im-
portant that the missionaries should meet the reflec-
tions nnon tliPiu, which they did in a letter signed
by the lev. C. Grogerly, the Conference secretary, and
full of hibcorical interest to all who would trace the
development of Christianity in India.*
The truth is, that Dr. H. H. Wilson only too ac-
curately, because undesignedly and without malice,
«
Calcutta Ohristian Observer for Oct., 1832, vol. i., p. 233.
254 I^IFE OF DR. DUFF. 1832.
expressed the contempt with which missionaries had
been regarded by men and ministers of the world, in
the days of the vile treatment of Carey and his
colleagues by their home committee, which tempted
the sneers of Sydney Smith in the Edinlmrgh P^'vieio.
For men to live in poverty, and die unknown by their
contemporaries, for the sake of oppressed or savage
or superstition-ridden races, while really the pioneers
of the Government which proscribed them and the
founders of civihzation and scholarship, was to be pro-
nounced mean, weak, illiterate creatures. Alexander
Duff in Eastern, as John Wilson in Western India,
was the first to change all that, even before the gentle
Carey's death, alike by his work and by such an
exposure of the calumny that the boldest scoffer
dared not repeat the lie.
It happened thus. Duff's success had led the
Church Missionary Society to open an English school
in its Amherst-strcet mission-house. Of that Duff's
second convert, Krishna Mohun Banerjea, had been ap-
pointed master. There Brijonath Ghose, after several
months' instruction, sought baptism, and took refuge
-vith his own countryman, the master, to escape the
persecution of his family. He was above fourteen
years of age, then bolieved to be the Hindoo age of
discretion, as it is more than that of puberty and
marriage. Blackstone lays it down that a boy "^ at
fourteen is at years of discretion, and therefore may
consent or disagree tc marriage." The father had
taken the youth from the Hindoo College, lest the
purely secular education there should make him a
'*' nastik " or atheist, and had placed him under so
well-known a Christian convert as Krishna Mohun,
aftbr hearing the bishop declare that instruction in
Christianity was the grand object of the school. Yet,
under a writ of habeas corjjus, to which Krishnr/Mohun
JEt. 24. THE FIRST HABEAS COEPUS CASE. 255
replied that the boy was not in his custody, Brijonatk
liiraself appeared at the bar of the Supremo Court.
After pleadings on both sides, it was decided that he
must be delivered up to his father as not of age, being
only ''fourteen years or thereabouts." Documentary
evidence of age, from the horoscope, is fabricated in
India with an ease which has led the civil service
commissioners in England to reject it altogether,
while oral witnesses can be purchased at sixpence a
head. The test of discretion, of intelligence, of sincer-
ity, seems to have been rejected, as it never was in
England in cases which were then frequent in Chancery
as to Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish minors.
The daily papers, by no means prejudiced in favour
of men at whose puritanism they were too ready to
laugh, described the scene at this the first attempt to
vindicate for the natives themselves, who will one day
be grateful for the act, the rights of conscience.
" The poor fellow," reported the Bengal IlurharUy
" was then seized hold of by the father, who could not
get him out of the court without considerable exertion.
The little fellow cried most bitterly, repeated his
appeals to the judges, seized hold of the barristers*
table, and was dragged inch by inch out of the court,
amidst the sympathy of some and the triumph of
others." Bishop Wilson, who was to have baptized
him, felt " lively grief ; " but he contented himself with
this remark, " A free agent I really believe that boy
was ; and the law of deliverance has been to him and
still is an imprisonment." In three years thereafter,
when the most intolerant could no longer doubt his
age, the youth, earnest and consistent amid all the
persecution, was with three others baptized.
The father's counsel was Mr. Longueville Clark,
who had then been ten years at the Calcutta bar, and
continued there for nearly forty more, with the repu-
256 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1832.
tation of being one of the best chess-players m the
world. To the legitimate arts by which he served his
client, he added in open court the statement which,
under other circumstances and as afterwards intensi-
fied, might have been libellous, that " this was a case
of great importance, as the rights of Hindoo parents
were too often invaded by the missionaries in Cal-
cutta!" Brijonath's was the first case of the kind; it
involved great legal as well as moral principles, certain
to be again questioned ; and 'die charge was repeated
against the whole body of missionaries not many
months after they had received a courteous apology
from Dr. H. H. Wilson. After in vain appealing to the
most experienced agents of the missionary societies
to vindicate the common purity of motive, rectitude
of action and inevitable sense of duty, Mr. Duff, the
youngest among them, entered the lists. Having
failed to obtain from Mr. Clark the most microscopic
evidence of his statement beyond general assertions,
which added to the injury the insult that the
conduct of the missionaries was " flagitious and
dangerous," Mr. Duff resolved to publish the corre-
spondence.
But where ? The three daily papers he believed to
be hostile to him at that time. Fortunately, Mr. Stoc-
queler, also of the Sans Souci theatre set of amateurs,
had come round from Bombay to Calcutta, and had
bought the Tory newspaper of Dr. Bryce, the John
Bull. Securing as his staff of heavy writers Sir John
Peter Grant, who had resigned the Bombay bench after
his squabbles with Sir John Malcolm, Mr. John Farley
Leith, now M.P. for Aberdeen, and Mr. Charles Thack-
eray, uncle of the great prose satirist, the new editor
converted the almost defunct daily into the liberal
Englishman. At that press Macaulay used soon after
to print the rough proofs of those essays which he
M. 26. OASTIG\TES MR. LONGUEVILLE CLARK. 257
sent from India to Napier, while Hohvell's monument
to the memory of those who died in the Black Hole
still perpetuated the humiliation, and Plassey looked
as it had done on that morning of sunshine breaking
through the rain-clouds when Clivo gave the order to
cross the river. Mr. Duff found tlio new editor will-
ing to look at the correspondence, though alarmed by
its bulk, and was surprised to find the whole in next
morning's paper, introduced by fair and even bold
editorial remarks. The case is only another illustra-
tion of that marvellous power of persuasion which,
resting always on a good cause, made Duff irresistible,
even by experts like himself, in private discussion still
more than in his most skilful and eloquent orations.
We remember a later case, in which, in the more
judicial Friend of India, one who has since proved
the most brilliant of English journalists, having advo-
cated one side of a question, was led by the moral
suasion and logical power of Duff, directed by a spirit
of purest philanthropy, to confess that he was wrong,
frankly stated the other side, convinced the Govern-
mf ', and altered the proposed action.
Never, in all the controversies which we have read
or heard, have first thoughtless misrepresentation
and then deliberate malice received such a castigation.
There are passages in the twenty octavo pages of
Duff's alternate scorn and ridicule, reasoned demon-
stration and rhetorical appeal, of which Junius would
have been worthy if that pitiless foe had fought with
sacred weapons and. for other than self-seeking ends.
The Christian is never forgotten, for it is the rights
of conscience and the supremacy of truth for which
he fights. Nor is the man, the Celt, the indignant de-
fender of the honour of his colleagues, of the glory of
his Master in them, and of the grandeur of their one
mission, wanting. The reply of the barrister was tho
s
258 LIFE OF DB. DUFF. 1833.
mocking laugh of Mcphistopholes, the expression of
a desire to secure the missionary " for our Calcutta
Drary." The press and all society were disgusted
or indignant at the lawyer assailant, to whom Avaa
applied the couplet from Young's Epistle to Pope : —
" He rams his quill with scandal and with scoff,
But 'tis so very foul it won*t go off."
The episode closed, for ever, the period of super-
cilious contempt and intolerant misrepresentation of
men and of a cause soon found to be identified with
the best interests of the Hindoos themselves as well
as of the British Government. The defeated barrister
expressed the desire of seeking the satisfaction appro-
priate to himself, in a challenge to fight a duel, which
only the black coat of the defender of the faith pre-
vented him from sending. But he went so far as to
consult a friend on the subject.
All the local honours and attentions which Calcutta
society could at that time off'er had been presseo upon
Mr. Duff ever since the first examination of his school.
Especially did the loading men urge him to join the
Bengal Asiatic Society, although with most of them
he was conducting the Oriental controversy. But duty
to his daily work prevailed over his natural tastes, and
the memory of Dassen Island was never absent from
him in the face of what he regarded as temptations to
literary self-indulgence. Of the publications, library,
and other aids of the Society he made full use in
the war of languages, alphabets and systems. Much
more evident to him was the duty of using the Agri-
cultural Society of India, founded by Carey for the
improvement of the peasantry and the enlightenment
of the great zemindars whom the permanent settlement
of Lord CornwaUis had recognised as copyhold land-
lords on a vast scale. Of this body he was long a
^t. 26. DECLINES TO ATTEND AN OFFICIAL BALL. 259
member, alike in its executive and in its publications
committee, and thus lie found outlets for many of
the educated natives, non-Christian as well as Chris-
tian.'
Of the social life of Mr. and Mrs. Duff at this period
we have one significant glimpse. The accession of
William IV. to the throne was marked by an ofhcial
ball at Government House, to which tliey were duly
invited by Lord and Lady William Bentinck. Per-
plexed, the Scottish missionary took counsel of a chap-
lain, who assured him that, viewing the invitation as
a command, he was in the 1 .bit of going to Govern-
ment House on such occasions, of making his bow to
the Governor-General and his wife and at once retiring.
This compromise did not commend itself to Mr. Duff,
even although he had not remembered the memorable
experience of the first Bishop of Calcutta. On the
occasion of the trial of Queen Caroline, a witness for
the defence attempted to justify her presence at an
indecent dance by the assurance that he had seen
Bishop Middleton and his family at a nautch in
Government House. A reference made to Calcutta
elicited the fact that Dr. Middleton's family were
present but not himself ; and the Marquis of Hastings
sent the explanation to the Lord Chancellor that the
movement of a woman's feet while she sings cannot
be called dancing. This, however, was not a nautch,
but an official ball for Europeans only, such as that from
which, at a later period. Lord Elgin carefully excluded
native nobles, who were liable to misunderstand the
motives of English ladies on these occasions. Mr.
Duff frankly stated, in a letter to the private secretary,
the reasons why he could not conscientiously obey the
most kind and courteous command of the ruler of
India. After long delay he received the Governor-
General's cordial approval of his spirit and action.
26o LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1834
Soon after his Excellency begged the missionary and
his wife to meet him at dinner in one of those frequent
gatherings where the two men discussed, in a like
spirit, the highest good of the people and the govern-
ment of India.
Lord AYilliam Bentinck left India after sickness liad
driven Duff home for a time. He was a statesman
and a phihmthropist worthy to be associated in tlio
spiritual as well as intellectual refoi'niation of India
with the man to whom, in his absence and wlien
bidding all the missionaries good-bye, lie made this
reference, after answering those who would nse the
force of the conqueror and the influence of the
state-paid bishop to induce the profession of Chris-
tianity : *' Being as anxious as any of these excellent
persons for the diffusion of Christianity through all
countries, but knowing better than they do the ground
we stand upon, my humble advice to them is, Ilely
exclusively upon the humble, pious and learned mis-
sionary. His labours, divested of all human power,
create no distrust. Encourage education with all your
means. The offer of religious truth in the school of
the missionary is without objection. It is or is not
accepted. If it is not, the other seeds of instruction
may take root and yield a rich and abundant harvest
of improvement and future benefit. I would give
them as an example in support of tliis advice, the
school founded exactly upon those principles, lately
superintended by the estimable Mr. Duff, that has been
attended with such unparalleled success. I would say
to them finally, that they could not send to India too
many labourers in the vineyard like those whom I have
now the gratification of addressing. Farewell. May
God Almighty give you health and strength to prose-
ciite your endeavours, and may He bless them with
success." The deputation to whom the great pro-
M^ 28. TUE SCUOOL IJICCOMKS A COLLEGE. 20l
consul addressed words such as had never before been
lieurd from a, Governor-General's lips — nor since —
consisted of the venerable Dr. Marslnnan, the saintly
Lacroix and Mackay, Messrs. Sandys, Yates and W.
Morton.
Lord William Bentinck left the land for wliich ho
had done so much, in Marc' , 18:35, eight montlis after
Dull", whose work he legislatively coni[)leted in the last
weeks of his seven years' administration. But Dnlf
was not driven from his position, even by almost deadly
disease, until he had developed liis school, with Mackay
at his side, into " a complete Arts College including
the thorough study of the Bible as well as the evi-
dences and doctrines of natural and revealed re-
liirion." The annual examination of the classes in
the town-hall became one of the notable events of the
year, when there assembled the best representatives of
all society, European and native, from the Governor-
General and his wife, and the learned S'^/U of the
founder of the orthodox Dharma Sobha, the Raja
Rhadakant Deb, to the humblest Baboo or middle- class
Bengalee. Reporters, through all the newspapers,
spread tlio facts of the six hours' testing of Plindoos
in Biblical as well as secular knowledge, over Southern
and Eastern Asia. Mr. ]\Iack, the able graduate of the
University of Edinburgh, whom the Seramporo three
had associated with them in their educational and
literary labours, used to publish a critical estimate o*^
the whole, which guided the many imitators of Duff,
Christian and non-Christian, to higher efforts. We
may leave with him for a time the famous General
Assembly's Institution, with this description of its
founder as he first appeared to a little trembling eager-
eyed boy brought in from the jungles of Bengal to
learn English by an orthodox father, who ran the risk
of afterwards seeing his son a Christian and in time
262 LIFE OF DR. DUFF.
1834.
u missionary. Tlio Rev. Lai Bchari Day writes of this
time : — *
" It was some day in the year 1834 that I accompanied my
father to the General Assembly's Institution. It was about a
month after I had been admitted into the institution that I
caught a near view of the illustrious missionary. He came
into the class-room while we were engaged in reading the first
page of the ' First Instructor ' — the fii'st of a series of class-
books compiled by himself; and though forty-four years have
elapsed since tlie occurrence of the incident my recollection
of it is as vivid as if it had happened only yesterday. I cannot
say he walked into the class-room — he runJied into it, his move-
ments in those days being exceedingly rapid. He was dressed
all in black, and wore a beard. He scarcely stood still for a
single second, but kept his feet and his hands moving inces-
santly, like a horse of high mettle. He seemed to have more
life in him than most men. lie had his white pocket-hand-
kerchief in his hand, which he was every now and then tying
round his arm and twistmg into a thousand shapes. Ho
seemed to be a living personation of perpetual motion. But
what attracted my notice most was the constant shrugging of
his shoulders, a habit which he afterwards left off but which
he had at that time in full perfection. In our lesson there
occurred the word * ox ' : he took hold of that word and
catechised us on it for about half an hour. He asked us (the
master interpreting his English to us in Bengalee) whether wo
had seen an ox, how many legs it had, whether it had any
hands, whether it had any tails, to the infinite entertainment
of us all. From the ox he passed on to the cow, and asked us
c^ what use the animal was. The reader may rest assured that
he did not speak before Hindoo boys of the use made of the
flesh of the cow, but dwelt chiefly on milk, cream and curds.
He ended, however, with a moral lesson. He knew that the
word for a cow in Bengalee was goroo, and he asked us whether
we knew another Bengalee word which was very like it in
sound. A sharp class-fellow quickly said that he knew its
paronym and that it was gooroo, which in Bengalee means the
• EecuUedtons of Alex an J er Puff, D.D., LL.D., and of the Mission
College which he founded in Calcutta. 187l>.
Af.i. 38. UJi WEAUS lilMSKLF OUT. 263
Uniliinan spiritual guide. IIo was quito delighted at the boy*a
discovery, and uskod us of what use tho (jouruu was, uud whoLhor,
on tho whole, the tjoroo was not more useful thati tho ijooroo.
Ho then left our class and went into anotlior, leaving in our
minds seeds of future thouj^ht and reflection.^'
To liis own college teaching and such school super-
vision Mr. Duff added a constant attention to tho
aggressive work of tho Bengal auxiliary of tho British
and Foreign Bible Society and of the lleligious Tract
and Book Society. His Sunday evenings were given
up in 1833-'U to a new course of lectures and discus-
sions, contrasting Christianity with Hindooism and
Muhammadauism. For tliese public controversies ho
purchased an excellent bungalow in the native city, at
a point where four main thoroughfares met. Night
after night for a long time eager inquirers, earnest
disputants and curious spectators crowded the place
almost to suffocation. Every year was adding to tho
intelligence of the native public, the purely spiritual
and moral suasion of Christianity was coming to be
understood, and this last course proved tho most
popular of all. Even Muhammadans attended and
took part in the grave quest after divine truth, and
the crowds spread the sto^y not only over tho city but
into many a rural villago where the Christian mis-
sionary had not been seen.
But what of the man himself who, for four years,
did not cease to burn thus lavishly and incessantly
the physical energy he had brought from the Scottish
Grampians, the exhaustless enthusiasm he ever fed at
its heavenly source ? He had received his first warn-
ing in the great cyclone of May, 1833, but heeded it not.
Prematurely came the rain that year, marshalled by
the rotary hurricane which, revolving within itself, as
if the destroying counterpart of the harmony of the
spheres, moved rapidly over the land. From the Bay
264 LU'^E OF DR. DUFF. 1833.
of Bengal, the mighty waters of which it dragged in
its devastating train, over isUind and mainland, forest
and field, village and town, the wild fury of the cyclone
rolled itself north and west. Here the storm-wave
and the wind bore inland for miles to some rising
ground a full freighted Indiaman of 1500 tons, among
the hamlets of the peasantry, where for months after
it lay a marvel to all. There it swept into sometimes
instant but more frequently lingering death hundreds
of thousands of human beings and their cattle, whose
vain 3truggles to cling to roofs and trees and the
iloatinfif wreck of their desolated homes susfo^ested
thoughts of a greater flood and prayers for the bow
of mercy. Most graphic of all was this incident, which
we tell as Duff himself told it to the writer. His
authority was the Argyllshire fellow-countryman who,
on that dreadful day, was superintending the clearing
of the jungle on Saugar Island.
For several weeks before his party had been an-
noyed by the night attacks of a tiger of unusual size
and ferocity. It carried away some of their animals
employed in agricultural operations, as well as two or
three human beings. When the cyclone prevailed
and the water continued to rise over the island,
as many natives as could swim went to the Scots-
man's bungalow for shelter, until it was greatly over-
crowded. At last, while watching the flood rapidly
rising to a level with the floor, at a distance, driven
before the tempest along the mighty torrent of waters,
he noticed the famous tiger evidently aiming at reach-
ing the house. Happily he had a double-barrelled
gun loaded and ready. The tiger reached the bun-
galow, laid hold of it, leaped into it, worked a way
trembling through the dense mass of human beings,
and did not stop till he got head and nose into the
remotest corner, where he continued to lie still quiver-
J
^t. 27. THE CYCLONE AND THE TIGER. 265
ing like an . ipen leaf. The Scotsman concluded
that though, under the influence of terror produced
by the violence of the tempest, he was then quite
tame, if the bungalow escaped and the storm abated
the genuine nature of the savage brute would
return, and all the more speedily from the exhaus-
tion it must have undergone swimming and strug-
gling to reach the bungalow. So he very coolly took
the gun and pointed the barrel to the heart, rest-
ing it on the skin, which he afterwards showed to all
Calcutta as a trophy of that cyclone. Thus mingled
were the terrors of the tempest, which has often since
recurred, and on the last occasion, in 1876, even more
horribly.
The effect on the survivors was for a time quite as
deadly. Many who escaped the flood fell by the pesti-
lence which it brought when the waters subsided and
the cold season of 1833-84 came round. Malarious
fever, bred by the rotting carcases and vegetation,
spread a blight over the fairest portions of the rice
land. Inexperienced in tropical sanitation, and bound
to discharge the duty of inspecting the prosperous
branch school at Takee, Mr. Duff*, his family with him,
set off" by native boat for the place, which is seventy
miles due east of Calcutta. It was November,
and the country was only beginning to dry up.
Scarcely had they left the city when they came upon
a mass of putrid bodies, human and animal, through
which they had to work their way. All was beautiful
to look at in the green jungle forests of the Soonder-
buns, but the abundant fruit from which the Bengalees
take their proverbial word for " hypocrite " symbol-
ised the reality. Mr. Duff plucked the tempting
raJchalee only to find it filled with nauseous slime.
Mr. Barlow, son of Sir George Barlow who had been
interim Governor-General, was in charge of the Com-
266 LIFE OF DB. DUFF. 1834.
pany's salt station of Takee on £8,000 a year. Dr.
and Mrs. Temple received the missionary and Lis party
with their usual hospitality. The return journey, by
palankeen, was even worse, and the missionary was
laid low by his first illness, jungle fever in its deadliest
form. His fine constitution showed that robust elas-
ticity which often afterwards resulted in rapid recovery,
and after tossing amid the sea breezes of the Sand-
heads for two o^^ three weeks he was once more in
the midst of his loved work. But with the heat of
April, 1834, a remittent fever came on which his
vigour of will resisted so far as to take him, again and
in that weather, to Takee. Dr. Temple, alarmed at
his appearance, at once sent him back, warning him
against the scourge which, oven more than cholera still,
was then the ojyj^robriwm medicorum — dysentery.
On his return at the height of the hot season
he found as his guest the good Anthony Groves,
surgeon-dentist of Exeter, who gave up all he had
for a mission to Baghdad, and was the first and best
of the Plymouth Brethren. The romantic and very
pathetic story of that mission to Muhammadaus under
a Government which punished apostasy with death,
the experience of Francis W. Newman and Mr. Parnell
and the young Kitto — this is not the place to tell, as
Groves told it in the sympathising and sometimes
amused ear of Alexander Duff in 4, Wellington Square,
Calcutta. For when the two widowers. Groves and
Parnell, and the young bachelor, Newman, left Bagh-
dad, they could not leave behind them their one con-
vert, the ?ovely Armenian widow of Shiraz, Khatoon,-
nor could she travel with them save as the wife of one
of them. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on John
Vesey Parnell, graduate of Edinburgh University ; and
when he succeeded his father, the first Baron, in 1842
she became Lady Congleton. So we have seen more
Mi. 28. VISIT OP ME. ANTHONY GROVES. 267
recently, but according to their regular custom, the lot
fall on the Moravian who, having descended from the
snowy solitudes of Himalayan Lahoul to receive the
brides sent out by the followers of Zinzendorf, married
one and conducted the others to his exnoctant brethren.
Duff must have smiled when his gue^D, of high, even
childlike spirituality, gravely told him how when Parnell
had invited the British Resident at Baghdad and the
European assistants to dinner, he applied Luke xiv. 13
literally by calling in some fifty of the poor, the maimed,
the lame and the blind to sha^e the feast.
Having come round by Bombay and Tinnevelly,
where he renewed an old friendship with Mr. Rhenius,
and was charmed by the primitive simplicity of the
native church there, as Bishop Cotton was thirty years
after, Mr. Groves found himself in a new world when
among the j'^oung Brahmaus who were searching the
Scriptures diligently. After a general survey of the
whole school and college he was closeted with the
highest class, and left to examine them on the Bible,
on theology, and in detail on the evidences of Chris-
tianity. Himself an excellent scholar, Mr. Groves was
astonished at the intelligence and promptitude of the
replies. But the whole force of his loving nature was
drawn out when he came to examine these Hindoos on
the design and effect of the sacrifice of the Son of God
on the Cross of Calvary. His questioning burst forth
into an appeal which pressed home on their conscience
the knowledge they had shown, while he wept in his
fervour, and the eyes of the young men glowed with
reflected inspiration. Then turning suddenly to Mr.
Duff he exclaimed, " This is what I have been in
quest of ever since I left old England. At Baghdad
I almost daily exhorted the adult natives, but in the
case of even the most attentive I always painfully felt
there was a crust between their mind and mine. Here
268 LIFE OF DB. DUFF. 1834.
1 feel that every word is finding its way within. I
could empty the whole of my own soul into tlieirs.
How is this ? " Duff's answer was to open the door
into the large hall and point to the busy scene, to
the children in the infant gallery lisping the Englisli
alphabet. "There," he said, "is the explanation.
Well do I remember how I would have loathed such
employment, not only as insufferably dull, but as
beneath the dignity of the clerical office. But on
coming here I soon found that this, with a specific
view to the systematic attainment of higher ends, was
imperatively demanded as auxiliary to the ultimate
renovation of India. On the principle of becoming
all things to all men and new things in new circum-
stances, there four years ago did I teach ABO.
Pilloried though I was at the time, in the scorn of
some, the pity of others, and the wonder of all, the
work was persevered in. And you have seen some of
the fruits. The processes that followed the alphabet-
ical training tended in a gradual and piecemeal way to
break up and remove that very crust which interposed
an impassable barrier between your instruction and
the minds of your auditors. Was it not worth while
to begin so low in order loend so high ? " " Indeed,"
replied Groves, " this throws new light on the whole
subject. I frankly confess I left England an avowed
enemy to education in connection with missions ; but
I now tell you as frankly that henceforth, from what
I have seen to-day, I am its friend and advocate."
That was Duff's last day, for a long time, in his
loved Institution. Even then the agony of dysentery
had begun, and its prostration, more terrible mentally
than physically, soon followed. A generation was to
pass before the specific of ipecacuanha was to be used
to charm away the bloody flux which used to sweep
off thousands of our white soldiers. Four physicians
Ait. 28. ORDEBED HOME. 269
failed to heal the visibly dying missionary. The good
Simon Nicolson, the Abercrombie of Bengal, liad just
been succeeded by Dr. now Sir Ranald Martin, him<
self now followed by Sir Joseph Fayrer. Ranald
Martin was called in, pronounced the case desp(3rate,
but asked permission to try an experimental remedy
which had sava^d one or two of his patients. TI10
result was that, after a long and profound trance as it
seemed to the sufferer, he woke up to consciousness, to
revival, to such a point of convalescence that he could
be carried on board the first Capo ship for home.
The devoted Groves had slept beside him day and
niijht, nursinnr \i[m. with a brotlier's tenderness. For
he was not the only invalid. On the day that the
stricken family were laid in their berths in the John
M\Lellanj bound for Greenock, with Groves as their
fellow-passenger, a son was born, to whom the name of
Groves, as well as his father's name was given. From
Mrs. Duff's letter communicatii^g the departure to Dr.
Chalmers we learn that, even when tlius rescued from
the very gates of death, the ardent missionary im-
plored the doctors to send him on a brief voyage short
of Great Britaii' ' I devoted myself to the Lord," he
pleaded, " to spend and be spent in His service in this
land." Ranald Martin's stern reply was : " In the
last nine months you have suffered more from tropical
disease than many who have passed their lives in India.
Let not a day be lost." As the Greenock Indiaman
dropped down the Hooghly his boy was taken to
comfort him. But he would have been still more
cheered had he known that at that very time, in July,
1834, his old friend, David Ewart, was being ordained
as the third missionary of the Church of Scotland and
would soon after arrive to help Mr. W. S. Mackay.
Thus closed the first five years since Duff had
been sent forth from St. George's, with the charge of
270 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1834.
Thomas Chalmers ringing in his ears, ordained to
preach the gospel in India. Thus ended the first
period of his Indian service since he opened his
famous Institution in the great Bengalee thoroughfare
of Chitpore road, Calcutta. Even the half-century
which has passed since Inglis planned and Chalmers
preaclied and Duff responded, *' Here am I, send me,"
enables us to say that that lustrum is entitled to
rank with the most memorable eras when human
progress has taken a new start to the enUghtening
and the blessing of a whole continent. As the mis-
sionary is borne to the life-giving breezes of ocean
from the sweltering pestilence of a Bengal July, the
precious seed he has been sent to sow is germinating
and growing up night and day, he knoweth not how.
CHAPTER X.
1835.
THE INVALID AND THE OBATOB.
Unwillingness to leave India. — The Voyage Home. — The Reform
Election and Sir Robert Peel. — Welcome from Dr. Chalmers. —
Ignorance of the Committee after death of Dr. Inglis. — First
Addresses. — Comes to an understanding with the Committee. —
Confidential Notes on the Four Converts. — Letter from Go-
peenath Nundi to his spiritual Father. — First Campaign in
London. — Rev. John Macdonald. — Seized with his old fever at
Mr. Joseph Gurney's. — Letter to Ewart. — Expect great things. —
General Assembly of 1835, in the Tron Kirk. — Duff rises from
bed to make his first speech. — The Oration described. — Extracts.
— The tremendous effect. — Contemporary Accounts. — Opposi-
tion and Discussion. — The Orator contrasted with the models
whom he studied. — India and India for Christ as the theme of
eloquence.
Having successfully founded and to some extent
built up the mission in Calcutta and Bengal, Mr. Duff
is summoned, though he knows it not, to do the
equally necessary work of creating a living missionary
spirit in the Church at home. The apparently dying
apostle is really being sent on that parallel or alter-
nating service which divided his whole career into
two indispensable and co-operating sets of activities
m East and West. Having set the battle in array in
front, and fought for years at the head of his scanty
forces, he had then to leave the post of danger to
colleagues of his own spirit, for the less honourable
but not less necessary duty of looking to his reserves
and sending forward his ammunition. Thus it was
that he became at once the missionary worker, the
2 72 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1834.
unresting civilizing force in India, and the missionary
organizer, the unmatched Christian orator and preacher
at home. He led two lives, and in each his splendid
physique, his burning enthusiasm, his divine call and
support, enabled him to do more than the work of
many men together.
Yet, as consciousness returned and strength began
to come back, it was natural that the young missionary
should long to be left at his post, should even some-
what murmuringly marvel why he had been taken
away in the hour of victory. The very elements
seemed to conspire to keep him in Bengal. The John
M'Lellan could not breast the fury of the south-west
monsoon in a Bengal July, her decks were swept
again and again of the live stock laid in for the long
voyage, and after six weeks' tossing she had to put
into Madras for stores. By the time that she sighted
South Africa Mr. Duff had become so far reconciled
to the change as to be able to write thus to Dr.
Bryce : — " The very thought of returning home at
the commencement of my labours and infancy of the
Assembly's mission would have, I verily believe, broken
my heart, were it not that God, by successive afflic-
tions, which thrice brought me to the verge of the
grave, disciplined me into the belief and conviction
that a change so decided was absolutely indispensable,
and that to resist the proposal to leave Calcutta
would be tantamount to a resistance of the will of
Providence. I shall not revert to the pain and mental
distress at first experienced. God has, I trust, over-
ruled all for my spiritual improvement; and I trust,
moreover, that by my return for a season to Scotland
the great cause may be effectually furthered." It was
during this otherwise tedious time of slow convalescence
that he seems to have read the Bible straight through
three times. Beginning with the enthusiastic convic-
-Et. 28. THE FIRST EEFORM ACT. 273
tion, born of liis own success, that the Church in
the world woukl grndually glide into a millennium of
godliness, this comparative and repeated study brought
him to the conclusion that the missionary work is
merely preparatory to the great outpouring of the
Holy Spirit. In history, as in the prophets, he ever
found righteousness and peace preceded by judg-
ments.
The invalid was just able to land at Cape Town,
and with tho assistance of a friendly arm walk to
church, where Dr. Adamson, his host five years be-
fore, baptized the child born on the day they had left
Calcutta. AVhen the ship entered the Firth of Clyde
it was Christmas-day. The sea breezes had done their
best for five months, and the apparently restored mis-
sionary rejoiced in the strong frost which greeted
him as from his own Grampians. When he landed at
Greenock he found the whole country in the exuberant
excitement of the general election under the first Reform
Act, which had extended the franchise from two thou-
sand electors who returned all the Scottish members
of Parliament to something like a fairer proportion.
The time of freedom in Church as well as State had
begun — the conflicts which ended in the disruption
of the Kirk and the abolition of the Corn Laws ten
or twelve years after. The sight of election hustings
was as new to Scotland as it was to Mr. Duff. Every-
where he heard only abuse of the Duke of Wellington.
In Edinburgh Lord Campbell talked of impeaching
" the multifarious minister " who for the hour held
eight cabinet offices, till it was said, " the cabinet
council sits in his head and the ministers are all of
one mind." It was seen in time that the Duke was
only doing his duty till Sir Robert Peel should return
from Italy and form the new ministry which first put
Mr. Gladstone in office. In such circumstances who,
274 ^^^^ OP DB. DUFF. 1835.
in kirk or public meeting, would listen to the talo
of a triumph so remote and so obscure as that which
Mr. Duff had modestly to tell. Yet the tale was
really one of a spiritual revolution affecting millions,
compared with which the Reform Act, the policy of
Sir Robert Peel, and the training of Mr. Gladstone
were but single events in a constitutional series !
After a few days spent in Greenock with the Rev. Mr.
Menzies, formerly librarian of St. Andrews University,
and in Glasgow with his old fellow-student. Dr.
Lorimer, for both of whom he preached, Mr. Duff
turned his face towards the committee in Edinburgh.
He reached the capital by what was then the easiest
and quickest means, the canal track-boat. Finding
that Mrs. Duff's mother had been removed by death,
he and his family settled down in the sea-bathing
suburb of Portobello, in a house in Pitt Street lent
to them by the trustees of her father's estate.
The first member of committee and personal friend
on whom Mr. Duff called was Dr. Chalmeis, then
redeeming the fame of the University of Edinburgh
in its theological faculty. Most courteous and even
enthusiastic was the greeting of the greatest Scotsman
of his day, who added to all his other gifts that large-
hearted friendliness which is the rule of his countrymen
scattered abroad. The hour sped rapidly in a fire of
question and answer about the progress of the mission
and the state of things in India. On accompanying
his visitor to the door Dr. Chalmers demanded of
him, " Where is your cloak ? " "I have not had time
to get any," was the reply. " That will never do in
this climate ; it is now very frosty, and you are as
thinly clad as if you were in India : let me not see
your face again till you have been at the tailor's." The
young missionary was already an old Indian in this,
that the fire of the tropics had made him indifferent
JEt. 29. lONORANCE OP THE COMMITTEE. 275
to his first wintep in Scotland, after wliicli comes
the reaction that often drives the sufferer to tlio sun
of the south.
But where was there another Chalmers or one
worthy of him at that time in Scotland ? Dr. Inglis,
the founder of the mission, was gone. Dr. Brunton
had not then been appointed his permanent successor.
He and the other members received the ardent ad-
vances of the astonished Duff with a polite indifference,
or replied with congratulations on the fact that so
good a conservative statesman as Sir Robert Peel had
been placed at the head of affairs, as if to save and
even to extend the Kirk which had been for years
furiously assailed by the Voluntaries. More than once
was the young Highlander stung into the warning that
for the Kirk to trust any secular statv. ^man, however
respectable, was to lean on a broken reed. The tran-
scendent interests of a great spiritual institution like
the Church of Scotland, he said, must be placed only
on Christ Himself, its living Head. There was one
minister, besides Chalmers, who had watched the
work done in Bengal and had genius enough to appre-
ciate it. He at once invited Mr. Duff to begin his
crusade in Falkirk. That was John Brown Patterson,
the marvel of the High School of Edinburgh, whom
Pillans took with him to the University ; the student
who had there gained the hundred pound prize
proposed by the Government commissioners on the
universities of Scotland for the best essay on the
character of the Athenians — an essay which, when
published, was pronounced unsurpassed in English
literature at the time, for its learning and style. The
result of Duff's preaching in Falkirk, and of a public
meeting: with formal resolutions to advance the Benojal
mission, was not only a collection of money which
surprised all in that day, but the lighting of a flame
276 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1835.
which, in coming days and years, Duff was to fan and
spread till it covered the land, and fired America and
many other parts of Christendom. The glad report
of this, made formally to the committee, was received
with respectful silence. Nor was the bitterness of Mr.
Duff's heart assuaged till, about the same tinu two
theological students called upon him for information
regarding his mission. The interview gave him a
new confidence for the future, for he reasoned that if
any number of the divinity students were like these,
the India mission would never lack men worthy of
it. His young visitors were the saintly Murray
M'Chcyno and he who is still Dr. A. N. Somerville
of Glasgow.
Somewhat dubious now as to the attitude of the
committee, Mr. Duff received, with hesitation, the next
invitation to tell the public of his work. Dr. A.
Paterson, who had been driven out of Russia by the
intolerance of the Czar Nicholas, asked him to address
half a dozen godly folks who met once a month in the
Edinburgh house of Mr. Campbell, of Carbrook, for
prayer for foreign missions. On finding the drawing-
room crowded by a large audience he remonstrated,
and refused to remain. But explanation showed that
no endeavour had been made to summon the audience,
whom he therefore consented to address. The result
was, such an impression in many circles outside as
well as in the Kirk, that an English visitor who had
been present rode down to Portobello next morning
to make a large donation to the mission, and Mr. Duff
was formally summoned, for the first time, to meet
the committee in the rooms in the University which
Dr. Brunton occupied as librarian. Mrrvelling what
the sudden cause could be, but delighted that at last
he would have an opportunity of giving an account of
his stewardship, Mr. Duff hurried to the spot with
iEt. 29. FIGHTING THE COMMITTEE. 2/7
that punctuality for which, like all successfully busy
men, he was over remarkable.
It was thus he used to tell the story : — Entering
the room he found that nearly all the members of
committee were present. After prayer the acting
convener rose, and standing in the middle of the floor,
in substance spoke as follows : — He had thought it
right to summon a meeting to settle and determine
the case of Mr. Duff, who, in these days of agitation,
turmoil, and revolutionary tendencies and irregulari-
ties of every description, had taken it upon him to
hold not exactly a public, but at the same time a
very large meeting in the house of Mr. Campbell, of
Carbrook, with the view of addressing it on the sub-
ject of missions. Now he regarded this as a very l i-
warrantable and irregular proceeding. Mr. Duff h{„d
given him no intimation of his intention to hold such
a meeting, nor had he any means of knowing what
might be the leading subject of the address. He
thought it therefore right to consult his colleagues,
to induce them to lay down rules to regulate Mr.
Duff's proceedings on such matters in future, as it
would never do, in unsettled times like these, to allow
the agent of a responsible committee to adopt what
measures he chose.
Immediately Mr. Duff stood up, and taking pos-
session of the middle of the floor, respectfully ad-
mitted that he was the agent of the committee, but of a
committee guided by moral and spiritual influences and
considerations. While in one respect therefore he was
their agent, in another respect he must be considered
on a footing of religious co-equality, co-responsibility
with themselves ; but not to insist further on this, he
would soon bring the matter to a decisive 'ssue. When
he went to India originally he declared that he would
not go if hampered by any conditions which his own
278 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1835.
conscience did not approve; that, entering upon an
entirely new field, full discretion must be allowed him
within the limits of reason and sobriety to follow what
courses he might deem most effective for the ends
which the committee and himself had alike in common.
This reasonable concession was at once cheerfully
yielded by Dr. Inglis and his committee; and now
when he, Mr. Duff, had returned, after several years of
multiplied experiences, he thought that full discretion
should be allowed him to adopt what course might
seem best for awakening an interest in the Church's
mission, so long as he was ready to take any coun-
sel or advice which the home experiences of members
of committee friendly to missions might suggest.
He then explained how the recent meeting had
not originated with him; though when he came to
understand it he fully approved of it, and thought
that the successful result sufficiently proved its provi-
dential legitimacy. Of course, if the committee had
any work for him to do of any kind anywhere, he
would at once relinquish all other duty for the sake
of taking up that; but beyond this he could not
possibly go. He was an ordained minister of the
gospel, and therefore supposed to be endowed with
ordinary ministerial gifts, graces and attainments.
He was in all respects therefore the free-man of the
Lord ; free to carry out whatever his blessed Master
might indicate as His most gracious will. That
liberty he would not and could not for ten thousand
worlds relinquish. The decisive issue, therefore, came
to be this : if the committee resolved, as they had a
perfect right to do, to draw up some peremptory
instructions to regulate Mr. Duff's proceedings in
purely spiritual, ministerial, and missionary matters,
he must at once write out his resignation as their
agent. If on reconsideration they came to the con-
iEt. 29. CONQUERING THE COMMITTEE. 279
elusion that it was better to allow things to remain
as they were, and grant him full liberty of action
within the reasonable limits stated by himself, he
would rejoice in continuing as their agent, and do
what he possibly could to create a deeper interest in
the mission throughout the bounds of the Church,
and thereby help to increase the funds and the number
of agents to be sent abroad. For the people being
profoundly ignorant of tue whole subject, their being
wakened to take a deeper interest in so spiritual a
work as the evangelisation of the wo^ld would not
only be carrj^ing out more fully the last great com-
mission of our blessed Saviour, but also tend in
many remarkable ways spiritually to benefit their own
souls. Having so spoken he sat down.
Instantly, all present, without any one of them
uttering a single word, went out precipitately, leaving
Mr. Duff and the convener alone in the middle of
the floor to look at each other in a sort of dumb
amazement. " Probably," said the former with great
calmness, "we have had enough of the subject for
this day."
So, on that memorable occasion, the uncompromis-
ing devotion to duty of the young missionary proved
to be more powerful than all tact or ecclesiastical
finesse, as it had done in more difficult circumstances
among the Bengalees. Dr. Inglis was gone. The
country and the Church knew nothing of the Bengal
mission save from the meagre report printed once a
year for a General Assembly which had not then
become a popular parliament. The unhappy commit-
tee wanted only a head to lead them. Dr. Brunton
woke up to the new duties which his rare courtesy
always afterwards sought to discharge with kind-
liness. Had he referred to the scanty records
of which he took charge on appointment to his
28o LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1835.
office, he would have found an official communica-
tion, written by Mr. Duff as he sailed up the Clyde,
and thus concluding : — " Why is it tliat the Lord
was pleased so to reduce me to the verge of exist-
ence that I left the field of labour in that all but
desperate condition of a dying man, and has since
been pleased so wonderfully to bless the voyage to
me that by the time I have reached my native
shores I feel enabled to encounter any reasonable
share of bodily exertion ? Surely it may be, or rather
must be, th?t the Father of spirits has something
or other to do with me, in pioraoting in this land
the glorious cause — e"en the glorious cause of the
Redeemer to which my heart and soul and life are
exclusively devoted. Oh, may God grant that wise
thoughts may be put into our minds, so that when
we meet, measures may be devised for the occupa-
tion of my time while I remain in Scotland which
He Himself will abundantly bless for the promotion
of His own glory in connection with the Assembly's
mission to the perishing heathen."
After Falkirk the next call came from Dr. "Wilson of
Irvine. Dundee followed, led thereto by a visit which
Mr. Duff had paid to all its ministers on his way north
to Moulin to visit his father and mother. Meanwhile
his official and private correspondence shows how
necessarily active he was in educating the new con-
vener and committee in the progress of the mission,
much of the history of which had passed away with
Dr. Inglis. A letter from the Eev. W. S. Mackay
on the work in Bengal called fgrth these •* running
notes " on the converts : —
" March 20th, 1835.
"If these had not been so specially referred to by Mr.
Mackay I should be silent. Many in Calcutta know, and none
more than my dear colleague, how much I was called on to
JEt. 29. WHY TWO CONVERTS JOINED THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 28 1
do for these, and how much to bear from them during tho
time of their infidelity and the progress of their inquiries after
truth ; God only is witness of all I had to do and endure,
hew I had to toil and struggle and travail in soul for them.
It may easily be imagined then how peculiar must my feelings
towards them be. When the two first joined the English
Church I was not much surprised, owing to the very satis-
factory reasons stated by Mr. Mackay. And if the ground of
their reasons had not been removed (as it happily now is), I
should not have expected any talented young man who burned
with zeal to be employed in arousing his countrymen, to re-
main with us — indeed I could not ask any. If the Church of
England offered to ordain and support them as missionaries,
and we could not, then for the good of India would I say,
' rather than remain unemployed, or betake yourselves exclu-
sively to secular professions, by all means join the Church of
England or any other Church of Christ that will engage to
send you forth as effective labourers into the missionary
field.'
"While therefore I did not feel surprised at the two first
converts separating themselves from me, I do confess that
there was an apparent want of consideration to my feelings in
the mode of tho separation. But while others blamed them
for the act as well as the mode, and charged them with in-
gratitude, I really could not blame them so much as their
instigators and advisers. They did not consult me, as I think
they were in gratitude bound to do. Tho former were young
and inexperienced ; the latter, I fear, were actuated more by
the spirit of proselyting to a party than by the love of Chi'ist
and the love of the brethren : the latter therefore, in my
estimation, must bear the main burden of the blame, if blame
there be. My mind is satisfied, aye my very soul kindles into
joy at the thought that these my spiritual children continue
steadfast in the faith, full of zeal for their Master, and con-
scientiously endeavour to serve Him. This noble testimony
from my dear colleague is to me glad tidings indeed, for though
in a measure separated in time, we may yet rejoice together,
and rejoice over the fruits of our separate labours, in tho
realms of bliss.
" The obvious remedy for such defections from our Church,
though not from tho Church of Christ, is (1) the power of ordain-
282 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 1835.
ing and supporting qualified labourers : (2) The supporting
promising young men, when cast oflf by their friends o..
account of their specially devoting themselves to the work of
preparation for the Christian ministry : (3) The erection of a
higher institution for the communication of the more advanced
branches of knowledge, literary, scientific and theological.
The first of theae is now granted ; the two last are yet want-
ing, and till these bo granted too it is utterly impossible for
the Assembly's missionaries in India to be responsible for the
continued adherence of well-educated pious young men to the
communion of the Church of Scotland.
*' Nothing would pain me more than that I should be thought
to have formed too high an estimate of the character of these
young men, and have led others to do so. I conscientiously
believe that I have understated rather than overrated that
character as a whole, and that many Christians in Calcutta
would give a far more flaming account than I have ever done
or ever will do. I simply stated a few clear and notorious facts ;
I might have stated more, and drawn more glowing inferences,
but purposely refrained from doing so. God knows that
under the most powerful temptations to write strongly I have
often written in modified terms, and often not at all. I always
shrink instinctively I'rom raising expectations that could not
be realized, and if I do not greatly mistake, I think the
whole tenor of my communications with the committee for the
last five years bears me out in this assertion.
'' In the case of the first two that were baptized, if they did
not consult me, as they should have done, it was a matter
altogether personal to myself, and no one perhaps could feel
for them as I did, or make for them, in the peculiar circum-
stances of their situation, the same allowances. And seeing
that the matter was personal to myself, and that I had long
forgiven them before God, and that in all other respects, so
far as I could observe, they continued to walk worthy of their
high calling, yea, to labour without ceasing in their Master's
service, I could not feel myself for a moment justified in the
attempt to lower their general high character or impede their
usefulness by dwelling on circumstances to me of so personal
a nature. And as the matter is so very liable to misconstruc-
tion on the part of those who must ever be more or less un-
acquainted with the peculiarities of the position of these young
iEt. 29. WHY TWO CONVEETS JOINED OTHEE MISSIONS. 2S3
man, and so apt therefore to do injury to our cause, I would
beg the committee never to refer to the topic of ' ingratitude '
towarila me. Let the causes of separation from us be freoly
and fully stated, if any questions bo put, and stated too in order
to rouse our brethren to put us speedily in possession of the
remedy against future defer ions.
" When Gopeenath Nundi was appointed at my own recom-
mendation to the school at Fuctehpore, it was not in connection
with any society. The surgeon or the station, in his applica-
tion to mo, expressly stated that the school was founded and
would be supported by the British residents of the place. Its
being taken under the patronage of the Church of England
Missionary Society was altogether a subsequent event. We
could not obviate this, as we had no disposable funds to offer
which might secure the permanency of the institution.
"In June or July, 1833, Archdeacon Corric was about to
proceed to the upper provinces on his ministerial visitation.
This was thought a favourable opportunity for Gopee, as the
Archdeacon kindly offered to take him along with himself. On
his return to Calcutta the Archdeacon spoke of Gopeo in the
very highest terms, and so also did Messrs. Hill and Paterson,
missionaries of the London Missionary Society at Berhampore,
and others whom Gopee had visited in his passage up the river.
From himself I have never had the slightest intimation of an
intention to join the English Church, though for my own
part I scarcely see how he can avoid it. He is, I presume,
supported to a certain extent (though I never heard any par-
ticulars) by the Church of England Missionary Society. Out
of Calcutta (thanks to the supineuess of our Church and her
friends) he cannot enjoy the benefit of Christian ordinances
but in connection with the Church of England. How in these
circumstances Gopee can avoid joining the Church of England
I cannot well see. Mr. Mackay states that he still retains his
afi*ection for me ; I am rejoiced to hear it, for it did appear
to me strong as death.
" Anundo's case is of course under consideration."
Gopeeiiatli was afterwards ordained by the Ameri-
can Presbyterian Church. Anundo had been induced
by Mr. Groves to accompany him to England, in the
284 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1835.
same ship with Mr. Duff. On his return to India he
became a catechist of the London Missionary Society,
and died in 1841. Whatever may have been the motives
which actuated those who induced Duff's first two
converts to leave their spiritual father, all must re-
joice in the fine catholicity, in the rare self-abnegation
v/hich marked his own acti n and have ever since
made his college the nursery of evangelists for all the
Protes[.ant agencies of Northern and Eastern India.
He at least never grudged the Church of God what his
own committee were unwilling or unable to utilize.
And in letters such as this from Gopeenath Nundi,
as well as in the continued reports of Mr. Mackay
and Mr. Ewart regarding others, he found a solace
and a joy of the rarest kind. Two years after his
baptism Gopeenath thus concluded a long letter to
Mr. Duff, from Futtehpore, beyond Allahabad, where
in the Mutiny of 1857 he was to witness a good con-
fession, having been, as he here desired, " kept faithful
unto death ": —
"After I was separated from you in July, 1833, I was
almost thrown alone into the world. Often I was tempted to
be hopeless, and felt the need of your society. When I feel
my lonesomeness, or want of a friend to open my heart to, I go
to Him who is ever kind to me, and disclose my secrets. He
is the only searcher of ail those that are lost. He is the only
friend of all the broken-hearted. He is the true leader, who
leads out of the world and temptation, particularly to the
new and inexperienced. Jesus is sweet unto all those that call
upon Him in faith. Did He not promise that He shall be with
me even unto the end of the world — then what fear ? ' Let
your loins be girded about, and your lights burning ! ' Such
are my expressions in the hour of temptation. Oh what a
comfort to have Christ always, and have fellowship with Him I
Is it not a great blessing to have Christ, a friend, a companion,
and a conductor in all things ? Then let these lines be my con-
tinuul expression :—
./Et. 39. THE BROTHERHOOD IN CHRIST. 285
* If on my face, for Thy dear Name,
Shame and reproaches be ;
All hail reproach, and welcome shame,
If Thou remember mo.'
"I
Oh what a groat, mistake of them that are still wandering,
not knowing where to harbour at ! Did not our Lord pro-
nounce peace on all that are Hi ' Peace I leave with you,
My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto
you : let not your heart be troubled, neither let it bo afraid.'
Is this peace pronounced not for all ? I aay it is for all,
whoever he may be, whatever nation or country he belongeth
to ; so I am sure His peace resteth on me so long as I have
sufficient faith, even unto the end of my life.
"Although we are separated by sight, still our hearts are
combined in the Lord. As for my part, I find that the hearts
which are once in the fellowship of Jesus cannot on any
account be separated, neither by time nor by distance. Wo
are merely separated by earthly boundaries ; but our Christian
love grows stronger and stronger as the day of salvation ap-
proaches. Only a few thousand miles are between you and
me; but I have you always in my heart, and make mention of
you in my prayers : you are scarcely gone out of my sight.
But oh, remember me sometimes in your prayers. Pray not
only for my sinful soul, that I may be kept faithful unto death,
but also, and especially, for the souls of the poor heathens
around me, that they may soon be freed from the chains of
Satan and be blessed in the name of Jesus. Whether I live
or die, let Christ be glorified by the .ngathering of sinners to
Him. I have many more trials and temptations yet to meet ;
but oh, may I cut short all of them through Him who is ever
gracious to me. Those days are gone by when we used to
converse on religious topics ; more especially on Christ's con-
descension to save poor sinners. But we have a sure hope,
that they will be renewed in a better place, and at a better
time, when we come to dwell in the mansions of our heavenly
Father. Oh may we soon come to that place, and greet each
other with a brotherly embrace, — singing praises to the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, for ever and ever. Amen. Yours
affectionately, " Gopeenath Nundi."
"These lines," wrote Duff when publishing them
286 LIFE OP DB. DUFF. 1835
long after, ** in their toucliing simplicity require no
comment. It surely is not possible for any e.\poricnco(l
Christian to peruse them without being sensible that
ho is holding converse with a mind not only generi-
cally but specifically the same as his own ; that he is
in union and communion with a perfectly congenial
spirit — a spirit new-moulded and fashioned after
the similitude of Christ — a spirit whose heavenward
breathings would, with talismanic effect, mark out its
possessor from amidst the countless throng of his
turbaned countrymen as belonging to the spiritual
confederacy and brotherhood of the foithful."
In April, 1835, after making the amcmlG honorable^
the convener submitted to Mr. Duff a letter from the
clerk of the Presbytery of London, expressing pro-
found interest in the India mission of the established
Church of Scotland, and inviting the missionary to
preach to and address each of the congregations,
which were ready to begin a system of contributions
for the good cause. There was only one dissentient
in the Presbytery, as it proved, and that solely from
ignorance. He was the Rev. John Macdonald, who,
when he heard the good news of God from Bengal and
understood how an educational agency like Duff's was
the most evangelistic of all as directed to cultured
Hindoos, gave himself to the same service, resigning
his London charge for the Calcutta mission. Having
accomplished his congenial task, Mr. Duff happened to
be breakfasting with Mr. Joseph Gurney, the Christian
philanthropist who superintended the system of short-
hand reporting in the House of Lords. The mis-
sionary was about to set out for the final meeting of
representatives of all the congregations, when, as he
lifted a cup of coffee to his lips, he was seized with
the violent shivering which marked the return of his
old fever. He was nursed in Alderman Pirie's house
ALi. 29. LETTER TO DAVID EVVAllT. 287
for three weeks, and insisted on returning to Edin-
burgh for the Gcncrul Assembly, which he reached
by steamer apparently a wasted skeleton.
"London, Camderwell, 20th May, 1835.
" My Dear Ewart, — I need not say how rejoiced I
was when I heard of the step you had taken. May
the God of grace strengthen and uphold you : may He
pour upon you of the richest effusions of His grace :
and may Ho render your labour effectual in advancing
the Redeemer's kingdom in the benighted land of
your adoption. By this time you will have become
acquainted with the state of things in Calcutta. It is
needless therefore for me to refer to it. The pushing
on of the advantages already gained in our Institution
is a matter of paramount importance. The raising up
of a class of native teachers and preachers from our
Institution is the only thing that will meet the de-
mands of India, the only thing that will reconcile the
people at home to our proceedings. Therefore every
nerve should be strained towards the accomplishment
of this end. The day that the presbyterial board of
Calcutta shall ordain one of our young men for the
work of the ministry will be a glorious day for India
and for our cause. Such an event would do more than
anything else in the way of arousing our countrymen
at home. When ordained, of course the young mis-
sionary should be employed in or near Calcutta, within
reach of superintendence and direction.
*' I came to London about a month ago, and have
preached or delivered addresses in all our Scotch
churches here. All of them have now formed, or are
about to form, congregational associations in support
of our cause. I was to have spoken at some of the
great anniversary meetings held here in May ; but on
288 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1835.
Siiturday, tlio 2 ad of May, I was seized with a severe
attack of my old friend, or enemy, tlie Bengal inter-
mittent fever, wliicli has up to this date confined
me to the house I am now through God's blessing
nearly recovered; but the consequence has been that
for the present the finest opportunities for making
our cause extensively known in this great metropolis
have been lost. It docs look mysterious, but no
doubt we shall yet find that God has ordered it for
the best.
" While I have been advocating the claims of our
mission generally, and the necessity of increasing
prayerfulness and increasing contributions, I have
not forgotten the special calls for more suitable
accommodation for our Institution, for an extensive
library, apparatus, etc. Things are progressing to-
wards something efi*ectual being done in these respects.
I have now just attended a general meeting of the
Religious Tract and Book Society, and pled in behalf
of our Institution. The committee have accordingly
unanimously voted a grant of all their publications,
amounting in value to about £30. My affectionate
regards to Mr. and Mrs. Mackay, Dr. Bryce, Mr.
and Mrs. Charles, the members of session, brother
missionaries, etc. Yours affectionately,
** Alexandee DuFr "
Duff had now a work to do, and to do at once, com-
pared with which his crusade in Bengal had been
pleasant. The opposition there was what he had
counted on ; it had inspirited him with eagerness for
the battle, and he had been successful. In his own land
he had had just experience enough to sound the depth
of ignorance, and consequent indifference to India
and the state of its people. The few who were of
the spirit of Dr. Inglis, removed by death; Simeon,
JEt. 29. ** EXPECT OBEAT THINGS." 289
near his end; Dr. Lovo, removed to Glasgow after
founding the London Missionary Society ; John
Foster, Charles Grant and Wilberforco, gathered
round the societies, leaving Churches, as such, colder
than before. Irvine and Falliirk were exceptions
in the presbyteries of his own Kirk ; even the Lon-
don Scotsmen were represented as more desirous to
wipe off the reproach of Unitarianism by inviting
him to their midst than to advance foreign missions.
We have seen what his own committee, on the removal
of Dr. Inglis, knew of his drings, and how little they
understood the magnitude of his aims. Just ten years
had passed since the General Assembly had been induced
with difficulty to invite a general collection for the pro-
posed Indian Mission, by the assurance, prominently
pubHshed, that it was " not to bo repeated," yet not
fifty out of its thousand churches made any response.
Dr. Inglis was so delighted by the consent of the
Presbytery of Edinburgh to mak? an annual collection,
even in 1831, that he announced it to Duff as a tri-
umph, and declared he would now fix the maximum
revenue for the mission at £1,200 a year. From the
front of the battle, in all its heat and vastness, the mis-
sionary had replied, " Not £1,200 but £12,000, and do
not stop at that." How had that reply been received ?
When, before the Assembly of 1835, Duff was reading
up the meagre records of the committee, he found that
a leading member had written on the margin of that
reply, *' Is the man mad ? Has the Indian sun turned
his head ? " When he pointed out the query, its writer,
now himself convener, tore it off and threw it into the
fire, exclaiming, " No more will be heard on that sub-
ject." But, in high and low, this was the want of know-
ledge and of faith which the first Scottish missionary
who had returned from India was called to meet. And
the return of the old fever of the rice 'r ?."nps of
290 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. T835.
Bengal, following his London campaign, liad made
liira once more a gaunt invalid.
Physicians and friends tried to dissuade him, and
the list of business that yeai, which followed the
ecclesiastical reforms of 1834, was so large that it was
doubtful if time would be found for even the India
Mission. What was all the administration of Lord
William Bentinck, or all the codes and the essays of
Macaulay, to a general election ? what the evangeliza-
tion of Bengal to the presbyters of Auchterarder ?
But Duff knew that this was his time ; that if he died
he must yet deliver his soul and tell his tale. He could
have no prosperous mission in India without Scotland,
and every Scottish man, woman and child could be
reached best through the reports of the General Assem-
bly, which the reforms of 1834 had made the most
popular of parliaments.
Casting himself on the promise to Paul, the first
and greatest of missionaries, that the grace of God
would be sufficient for him, yea, would be perfected
even by his weakness, Mr. Duff resigned himself
passively into the Divine hands. In those days' he
did not commit a speech or address to writing, but
thoroughly conned over the materials of it, leaving
the expression to the time when he should stand eye
t'^ eye with tlie crowd. The reforming party in the
Kirk had established the Scottish Guardian as their
weekly newspaper, in Glasgow, and the editor, the
Eev. George Lewis, had formed a volunteer staff of
reporters of the Assembly's proceedings. Brother of
one who was a warm friend of Mr. Duff — Dr. James
Lewis — and himself one of the few interested in the
subject, he instructed his staff to take down as full a
report of the missionary's speech as possible. Monday,
the 25th ^Tay, 1835, had been assigned for what had
liitherto been the purely formal duty of presenting
JEt. 29. IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OP 1835. 29 1
the annual report of tlie India Mission. The Assem-
bly met in that most un ecclesiastical large box called
the Tron kirk of Edinburgh. Though in the m' -^han-
ical sense unprepared, and just risen from a sick bed,
Mr. Duff testified often after, that never during his
whole life did ho more thoroughly experience the
might of the Divine saying, *' As thy day so shall thy
strength be." At first it seemed as if he could not
go on beyond a few sentences, and he was conscious
that many were gazing at him, apprehensive, as they
afterwards said, that he would soon drop on the floor.
But, leaping by one effort into the very heart of
his subject, he became unconscious of the presence
of his audience save as of a mass which was gradually
warming to his heat. Advancing from stage to
stage of what was, for him, *' a brief exposition," he
whispered out his at that time unmatched peroration
with an almost supernatural effect, and subsided
drenched with perspiration as if he had been dragged
through the Atlantic, to use his own expression. Then
for the first time he marked the emotion of his hearers,
many of them callous lawyers and lords of session,
cool men *of the world or antipathetic " moderates."
Down the cheeks of even these the tears were
trickling.
With the unconsciousness of the highest art their
first Indian missionary at once planted the General
Assembly beside him in Bengal, as he set himself to
" the conversion of a hundred and thirty millions of
idolaters." Step by step he hurried them on from the
first attempt, on the old system, to influence the- edu-
cated Hindoos, through the statement of the evidences
of Christianity, of miracles, prophecy and the demand
for the proof of the missionary's authority, till this
conclusion was reached : " The power of conveying
the necessary knowledge seems to me to be the only
292 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1835.
substitute we possess instead of the power of working
miracles. But it is surely one thing to say, that a
sound liberal education is greatly advantageous towards
the establishment of the evidence and authority of
the Christian revelation, and, consequently, towards
securing a candid and attentive hearing, and quite
another to say, that it is indispensably and universally
necessary to the heart reception of the gospel remedy.
The former position we do most firmly maintain, but
in the solemnity of apostolic language, we exclaim,
God forbid that we should ever maintain the latter !
Instead of demanding your authority for the truth
of Christianity, the Brahman may challenge you to
invalidate, if you can, the claims of his system. You
soon find that there is no common ground in logic, and
you turn to the experimental principles of physical
science to find the cataclysms of the Hindoo cosmo-
gony exalted against the petty, the recent learning of
the West. You turn to theology proper, only to find
that the Vedic Shasters sanctify and render infallible
all Brahmanism, secular as well as sacred. Do then,"
exclaimed Duff, after pleading for the supply of mis-
sionaries "qualified to silence the intellectually proud
as well as to edify the spiritually humble,"
tt
Do then let me again crave the attention of this venerable
court to the grand 'peculiarity, that if in India you only impart
ordinary useful knowledge, you thereby demolish what by its
peojjle is regarded as sacred. A course of instruction that pro-
fosses to convey truth of any land thus becomes a species of
religious education in such a land — all education being there
regarded as religious or theological. Every branch of sound
general knowledge which you inculcate becomes the destroyer
of some corresponding part in the Hindoo system. It is this
that gives to the dissemination of mere human knowledge, in
the present state of India, such awful importance : it is this that
exalts and magnifies it into the rank of a primary instrument in
spreading the seeds of reformation throughout the land. I ask
JEt 29. HIS FIEST OEATlON. 293
not, whether SQund useful knowledge be universally necessary,
either as the precursor or friendly ally of that which is divine.
Such is neither ray own impression nor belief. But, seeing
that the communication of useful knowledge becomes, in tho
circumstances described, such a tremendous engine for breaking
down the accumulated superstitions and idolatries of ages, I tlo
ask, in opposition to those who decry and donounco useful
knowledge, not in the abstract but as totally inapplicable to
missionary purposes, — I do ask, with humble but confident
boldness, as in the sight of Heaven, 'Who is it that will hence-
forward have the hardihood to assert that the impartation of
such knowledge has nothing to do with the christianization of
India?'"
But tbe European, tbe foreign missionary to the
educated Hindoos soon comes to discover further, that
if the gospel is to be extensively "preached with power
it must be by natives themselves, whom it is his task
to duly qualify. Appealing to the Highland ministers
among his audience, the speaker used the same old
analogy of the Gaelic and English which ho employed
with such effect against the one-sided orientalists of
Calcutta : —
tt
Oh, there is that in the tones of a foreigner's voice which
falls cold and heavy on the ear of a native, aud seldom reaches
the heart ! — whereas, there i sometliiug in tho genuine tones
of a countryman's voice, wlucli, operating as a charm, falls
pleasantly on the ear, and comes home to the feelings, and
touches the heart, and causes its teilderest cords to vibrate.
Doubtless there have been, and there may be now, individual
cases of foreigners having in some degree, or even altogether,
surmounted tliis grand practical difficulty. But these raro
cases form such palpable exceptions from tho general rule, that
they can scarcely be counted on, in providing a nafwurtZ supply
of preachers of the everlasting gospel. Thus, again, is the
comparative inefficiency of European agency, when put forth
directly in proclaiming the gospel, forced upon the mind ; and
the necessity of haviu'g recourse to native agents in the work
is once more suggested with a potency that is resistless. They
294 ^^^^ OI' DR. DUFF. 1835.
can witlistand that blazing sun, they can bear exposure to that
unkindly atmosphere, they can locate themselves amid the
hamlets and the villages, they can hold intercourse with their
countrymen in ways and modes that we never can. And
having the thousand advantages, besides, of knowing tho
feelings, the sentiments, the traditions, the associations, the
habits, the manners, the customs, the trains of thought and
principles of reasoning among the people, they can strike in
with arguments, and objections, and illustrations, and imagery
which we could never, never have conceived. How glorious
then must be the day for India when such qualified native
agents are prepared to go forth among the people, and shake
and agitate, and rouse them from the lethargy and the slumber
of ages !
" It is for reasons like the preceding, that a man of fervent
piety, going forth with the fullest intention of doing nothing
but directly and exclusively preaching the gospel in the native
tongues, often finds himself, in such a country as India, con-
strained to think of other and more effectual means of ulti-
mately accomplishing the same work, and hastening the same
consummation."
Then followed a graphic description of the speaker's
own mo^o of overcoming such difficulties; apathetic
picture of the separation of his third convert from
father and mother, from brothers and friends, for ever;
and a contrast, which time has unhappily only proved
at once a prediction and a justification, in the political
results of the system wbich the Government of India
alone of all ruling powers, civilized or barbarous, pur-
sues — public instruction carefully divorced from all
religion : —
{(
If in that land you ao give the people Icnoivledge without
religion, rest assured that it is the greatest blunder, politically
speaking, that ever was committed. Having free unrestricted
access to the whole range of our English literature and science
they will despise and reject their own absurd systems of
learning. Once driven out of their own systems, they will in-
evitably become infidels ii^ religion. And shaken out of the
^t. 29. HIS FIRST ORATION. 295
mechanical routine of their own roligious observances, without
moral principle to balance their thoughts or guide their move-
ments, they will as certainly become discontented, restless
agitators, — ambitious of power and official distinction, and
possessed of the most disloyal sentiments towards that Govern-
ment which, in their eye, has usurped all the authority that
rightfully belonged to themselves. This is not theory, it is a
statement of fact. I myself can testify in this place, as I have
already done on the spot, that expressions and opinions of a
most rebellious nature have been known to drop from some of
the very proteges of that Government which, for its own sake,
is so infatuated as to insist on giving knowledge apart from
religion. But as soon as some of these became converts to
Christianity, through the agency already described, how totally
' fferent their tone of feeling towards the existing Government ?
Their bowels yearned 7er the miseries of their countrymen.
Theif now knew the only effectual cure. And their spontaneous
feeling was, 'Ah! woe be unto us, if the British Government
were destroyed and the Hindoo dynasties restored ! The first
thing would be to cut us off, and what would then become of
our poor degraded country ? Wo pray for the permanence
of the British Government, that, under the shadow of its pro-
tection, we may disseminate the healing knowledge of Chris-
tianity among our brethren, — that knowledge which alone can
secure their present welfare and immortal happiness.' In
like manner, and for the same reason, there are not more loyal
or patriotic subjects of the British crown than the young men
that compose the more advanced classes in our Institution. So
clearly and strongly did this appear to many members of the
present Government in India, that instead of regarding us with
jealousy and suspicion as enemies, they looked upon us as tlie
truest friends of the British Government, the staunohest sup-
porters of the British power.''
The adoption of English as the language of the
higher education, the abolition of foreign Persian as
the official medium, the use of the vernaculars for
giving knowledge to the millions, the spread of the
higher education from Calcutta to the great cities and
feudatory states of Upper and Central India, and the
296 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1835.
duty of Scotland through its Kirk, all the more since
the death of Inglis, carried the orator to his climax,
■which became a model of rhetoric for many a year
after in the schools and manuals of elocution : —
" Whenever wo malco an appeal in behalf of the heathen, it
is constantly urged that there are enough of heathen at homo,
— that there is enough of work to be done at home, and why
roam for more in distant lands? I strongly suspect that
those who are most clamorous in advancing this plea are just
the very men who do little, and care less, either for heathen
at home or heathen at a distance. At all events, it is a plea
far more worthy of a heathen than of a Christian. It was
not thus that the apostles argued. If it were, they never
would have crossed the walls of Jerusalem. There they would
have remained contending with unbelieving Jews, till caught
by the flames that reduced to ashes the city of their fathers.
And if we act on such a plea, we may bo charged with de-
spising the example of the apostles, and found loitering at home
till overtaken by the flames of the final conflagration. But
shall it be brooked that those who in this Assembly have so
far succeeded to their office, should act so contrary a part ?
Let us pronounce this impossible. I for one can see no con-
trariety between home and foreign labour. I am glad that
so much is doing for home : but ten times more may yet be
done both for home and for abroad too. It is cheering to
think of the overmastering energy that is now put forth in
the cause of chui'ch extension in this land, as well as in refer-
ence to improved systems of education, and model-schools,
and more especially the enlightenment of the long-neglected
and destitute Highlands. I know the Highlands; they are
dear to me. They form the cradle and the grave of my
fathers ; they are the nursery of my youthful imaginings ;
and there is not a lake, or barren heath, or naked granite peak
that is not dear to me. How much more dear the precious
souls of those who tenant these romantic regions ! Still,
though a son of the Highlands, I must, in my higher capacity
as a disciple of Jesus, be permitted to put the question. Has
not Inspiration declared, that ' the field is the world * ?
And would you keep your spiritual sympathies pent up within
^t. 29. THE rEROEATION. 297
the craggy ramparts of the Grampians ? Would you havo
them enchained within the wild and rocky shores of this dis-
tant isle ? ' The field is the world.' And the more we are
like God, — the more wo reflect His image, — the moro our
nature is assimilated to the Divine, — the more nearly will we
view the world as God has done. ' True friendship,* it has
been said, ' has no localities/ And so it is with tho lovo of
God in Christ. The sacrifice on Calvary was designed to
embrace the globe in its amplitude. Leo us view tho subject
as God views it — let us view it as denizens of the universe—*
and we shall not be bounded in our efforts of philanthropy,
short of the north or south pole. Wherever there is a human
being there must our sympathies extend.
" And since you, hero assembled, are the representatives of
that National Church that has put forth an emphatic expres-
sion of faith in the Redeemer's promises; an emphatic ex-
pression of expectation that all these promises shall one day
be gloriously realized — and in these troublous times this is a
precious testimony — I call upon you to follow it up with deeds
proportionate. * Faith without works is dead.' Let you,
the representative body of this Church, commence, and show
that the pulse of benevolence has begun to beat higher here,
and if so, it will circulate through all the veins of the great
system. Let the impulsive influence begin here, and it will
flow throughout the land. Let us awake, arise, and rescue
unhappy India from its present and impending horrors. Ah !
long, too long has India been made a theme for the visions of
poetry and the dreams of romance. Too long has it been
enshrined in the sparkling bubbles of a vapoury sentimentalism.
One's heart is indeed sickened with the eternal song of its
balmy skies and voluptuous gales — its golden dewa and
pageantry of blossoms — its
'fields of paradise and bowers,
Entwining amaranthine flowers,'—
its blaze of suns, and torrents of eternal light : — one's heart
is sickened with this eternal song, when -above, we behold
nought but the spiritual gloom of a gathering tempest, re-
lieved only by the lightning glance of the Almighty's indigna-
tion — around, a waste moral wilderness, where * all life dies,
and death lives' — and underneath, one vast catacomb of
298 LIFK OP DR. DUFI'. ' 1835,
immortal souls perishing for lack of knowledge. Let us arise,
and resolve that houceforward these 'climes of the sun ' shall
not be viewed merely as a storehouse of flowers for poetry, and
figures for rhetoric, and bold strokes for oratory ; but shall
become the climes of a better sun — even ' the Sun of right-
eousness J ' the nursery of ' plants of renown. ' that shall
bloom and blossom in the regions of immortality. Let us
arise and revive the genius of the olden time : let us revive
the spirit of our forefathers. Like them, let us unsheathe the
sword of the Spirit, unfurl the banners of the Cross, sound
the gospel-trump of jubilee. Like them, let us enter into
a Solemn League and Covenant before our God, in behalf of
that benighted land, that wo will not rest, till the voice of
praise and thanksgiving arise, in daily orisons, from its coral
strands, roll over its fertile plains, resound from its smiling
valleys, and re-echo from its everlasting hills. Thus shall
it be proved, that the Church of Scotland, though ' poor, can
make many rich,' being herself replenished from the ' fulness
of the Godhead:' — that the Church of Scotland, though
powerless, as regards carnal designs and worldly policies, has
yet the divine power of bringing many sons to glory; of
calling a spiritual progeny from afar, numerous as the drops
of dew in the morning, and resplendent with the shining of
the Sun of righteousness — a noble company of ransomed
multitudes, that shall hail you in the realms of day, and crown
you with the spoils of victory, and sit on thrones, and live and
reign with you, amid the splendours of an unclouded universe.
*' May God hasten the day, and put it into the heart of every
one present to engage in the glorious work of realizing it ! "
The long-drawn sigh of the profoundly moved
hearers relieved the suppressed emotion which lighted
up or bedimmed every face. The presence of God
alone was the fitting place at such a time, and
Dr. Gordon was unanimously called on to lead the
devotions of the Assembly in praise and thanksgiving
to God. When the tunult of emotion was thus
chastened, one after another of the leaders of the
house, on both sides, rose to give expression to his
feelings. Among these was the venerable Dr. Stewart,
^t. 29. IMMEDIATE EFFECT OP THE SrEECH. 299
of Erskine, who thus spoke : — " Moderator, it has
been my privilege to hear Mr. Fox and JMr. Pitt speak
in the House of Commons, that grand focus of British
eloquence, when in the very zenith of their glory as
statesmen and orators'. I now solemnly declare that I
never heard from either of them a speech similar, or
second to that to which we have now listened, alike
for its lofty tone, thought and sentiment, its close
argumentative force, its transcendent eloquence and
overpowering impreasiveness." The Rev. J. W.
Taylor, of Fiisk, still lives to give us this remiuiscenco
of that day : —
"Before Alexander D-iiff left St. Andrews for India tliero
was a meeting of the Studeuts* Missionary Society in St,
Mary's College. I stumbled up the dark stairs, and when I
got into the room, I found ^'uff addressing a small meeting,
and lamenting in his own pathetic way the little interest
which the cause of Christ and of missions was awakening in
the student mind. The next time I heard Duff was in the
General Assembly of 1835. I was tliere as a volunteer
reporter to the Scottish Guardian. It was fortunate that the
reporting of Duff's speech was entrusted to the cool head and
steady hand of Professor Chalmers of Loudon. All the rest
of us reporters sat spell-bound. There stood Duff in front of
the square box-like enclosure which contained the moderator,
the procurator, the clerks, and the more distinguished leaders
of the Assembly. The look of modesty, of dignity, of anxiety,
as if conscious that the future of his plan of Indian missions
was suspended under God upon the impression which would
be made that day upon that Assembly, won the interest of
every one in the crowded house. And as the great missionary
went on expounding in bis own deep heart-moving tones his
great method of overthrowing Hindooism by the combined
agencies of a sacred education and of the Bible, for betwixt
two and three hours he held the vast audience under the sway
of his commanding eloquence, and when he finished one
conviction possessed every heart — this is the key-note for
India's evangelization. Many old ministers who had been
cold in the cause of missions, and many moderate ministers
300 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1 835.
who liaJ boon opposod to missions, dated the rise of missionary
zeal in tlioir hearts from the speech of that day. Even Dr.
George Cook, who in his lectures to his students was accus-
tomed to argue against foreign missions, under tho stirring
impulse of Dr. Duff's address rose and vied with the evan-
gelical brethren in expressing his admiration of the zeal, the
skil fulness, tuo dovotedness and big-heartedness of the great
missionary.
" The first India mission speech of Duff was sufficient of
itself to signalise any Assembly. But tho Assembly of 1835
was rendered further illustrious by the famous speech of Rev.
Andrew Gray, demanding for chapels of ease tho status of
Presbyterian Churches, and the constitutional provision of
kirk-sessions and representation in the Presbytery.'
}>
The Scottish Guardian of next day wrote thus : —
" Mr. Duff's speech will be found at full length in our
columns, occupying tlie most prominent place in the
proceedings of the Assembly of yesterday. It lias
thrown a flood of light upon the christianization of
India, and furnished principles and information for
guiding our Church which will lead to an entire new
model of missions, and give, we trust, a new direction
to all the efforts of the Christians of Britain in behalf
of India. It would be vain for us to attempt to
describe the impression which the lofty, intelligent
Christian enthusiasm and fervid eloquence of Mr.
Duff produced upon the Assembly. Every heart felt
his appeal, and every understanding approved the
wisdom and sagacity of the means which he proposed
for giving success to the missionary enterprise and
achieving the christianization of India. It will be
long ere the Assembly will forget his pleading. His
appearance has thrown a sacredness around its meet-
ing, and will give a Christian elevation and dignity to
the whole of its procedure. His speech will yet tell
in its moral influence, not only in the cottages of India,
but in the cottages of our own land, and will send
JEt. 29. THE FIRST BATTLE OP THE UOME CAMPAiaN. 30I
back our clergy to their homes smitten with the
missionary and apostolic spirit that burns witli sweet
fervour in the breast of our devoted missionary. Who
would not pray God that he might have the same
wisdom and Christian zeal, and might bring these
to bear upon the christianization of his own allotted
vineyard in the Church, with the same success as Mr.
Duff promises to concentrate them upon his Indian
enterprise ? "
The Preshytcnan Bevicw of the following July
described the whole house as " absorbed in one feeling,
exquisite even to pain ; tears ran down almost every
cheek " during the address. The historian of " the
ten years' conflict," declaring that it is difficult to
refer, at this distance of time, to the impression which
it produced without using what may seem like the
language of exaggeration, records : — " It was indeed a
token that better days had come for the Church of
Scotland, when Chalmers and Duff were contempor-
aneously making the whole country resound with
their noble pleadings — the one for the heathen at
home, the other for the heathen abroad." The
General Assembly ordered the publication of the
address, and two editions of twenty thousand copies,
following the newspaper, spread it abroad, not only
over Great Britain, but in America and many parts of
the continent of Europe. In Scotland, as in India,
the first battle of the campaign had been won.
But only the first. For it was natural and advan-
tageous that this, the earliest adequate statement in the
West of what has since been called the educational
system of missions, should excite discussion and bring
down on its advocate the charges, now of overlooking
other agencies and then of being an innovator, now of
departing from apostolic precedents and again of not
sufficiently recognising the difference between the
302 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1835.
Btato of tlio Britisli and of that of tho Roman empire.
Dr. Wilson also had protested against, and had de-
parted from the stereotyped and fruitless policy of
the missionaries whom he had found in Western India,
but that was in India itself, and the Scottish Mission-
ary Society had reproved him instead of publishing his
communications. Both the Bengal and the Bombay
apostles taught and practised the system which Scrip-
ture, their Church and experience alike led them to
elaborate independently of each other — that of chris-
tianizing the Hindoos, Parsoes and Muhammadans,
who are each the inheritor of a complex body of
religion, philosophy and literature, by public and
private discussion, and by continuous instruction in
Western truth through the English language. In
their hands, and that of all their worthy successors
in every Church and society, colleges, lectures, frank
discussion, daily tuition become, for these classes^ as
truly evangelistic and converting as village preaching
and purely vernacular teaching for the simple non-
Aryan peoples.
Never did public speaker in any assembly think
less of himself or of the form of his oratory, and
more of the message which he believed he was charged
by his Master to deliver to the Church and the
. country, than did Duff. Hence the immediate in-
fluence on those who heard him, and the abiding
power of the printed report of what he said, although
that fell far below the reality in days when verbatim
reporting was unknown. He spake as a prophet, not
as a carefully prepared rhetorician. This redeemed
his orations from the dangers of the florid style
which was the fashion of that period of literature,
while it gave him the power of the more recent school
of eloquence, of which Mr. Bright is the master.
More nearly than any of the speakers of the first
JE{. 39. TUE STYLE OP DTS ORATORY. 303
half of tlio nineteenth century, Duff thug rcahzed tliat
which Mr. Gladstone has pronounced the supreme in-
fluence of the speaker, the power of " receiving fro'u
his audience in a vapour what ho pours back on them
in a flood." But, while eschewing the mechanical
or formally rhetorical preparation which would have
cramped while it polished his utterance, Duff did not
neglect the careful and admiring study of the masters
of English eloquence, from Chatham and Burke to
Erskine and Canning. A little collection of their
master-pieces published in 1827 seems to havo been,
at one time, his constant companion. It is carefully
marked at such speeches as these — Mr. Pitt, in vindi-
cation of his father, Lord Chatham ; Mr. Fox, in
respect to the Government of India ; Mr. Grattan, on
moving for a committee on the claims of the Roman
Catholics; and Mr. Brougham on the slave trade.
From these was the form of his oratory unconsciously
derived ; but not more from these than from Chalmers
— his St. Andrews lectures on moral philosophy, eman-
cipation speech and sermons, such as Mr. Gladstone
to *^^his day pronounces equalled only by the very
diSerent " reasoned homilies" of John Henry Newman.
Duff", too, was at once as fortunate and unfortunate
in his principal theme as his greatest models. For if
the India of popular lancy casts a glamour over the
imagination, the novelty of its names, customs, and
beliefs repels the mind which desires the passive en-
joyment of eloquence in proportion to the earnestness,
the fulness and the accuracy of the speaker. On
India showy platitudes tell where authoritative know-
ledge, even when expressed in the chastest rhetoric,
fails to attract. Witness the contrast, at the present
day, between the popularity of Macaulay and — in this
sense — his successor, Sir Henry Maine. Duff's first
Assembly address was precisely what Sheridan's
304 LIFE Of DR. DUFF. 1835.
celebrated Begum of Oudli speech had been — unex-
pectedly magical in its effect on the hearers, but lost
to a great extent in the report. It was India that
revealed Burke as the orator he became. The know-
ledge which he gained in the select committee of 1780
fed his imagination with events even more distant
and new than the Terror of the French Revolution.
Into that imagination the malicious Francis dropped
the spark which caused it to explode into the five
great speeches on the impeachment of Warren Hast-
ings. After Sheridan had failed in that year, so
that, like a living statesman of the same type, he
exclaimed to Woodfall, " It is in me, and it shall come
out," India enabled him to make the speech which led
the House to adjourn, from the impossibility of debat-
ing judicially after it. Burke, Fox and Pitt united in
declaring it the most extraordinary effort of human
eloquence, ancient or modern, just as the venerable
Stewart of Erskine said of Duff's that it surpassed
the finest efforts of Fox and Pitt, yet these speakers
were second only to Burke in the higher flights of
the imagination, in the abandon which resulted from
absorption in their subject. The impartial and ex-
perienced Wilberforce did not mean to praise Canning
when he said that that speaker never drew you to him
in spite of yourself, as Pitt and Fox used to do, yet
he was a more finished orator than either. Canning
had wit and humour inconsistent with abandon^ but
as precious in themselves as they are rare. Duff
manifested powers of sarcasm and scathing indignation
when he rose to the heights of his prophetic message
and was called to demolish opposition or expose
hypocrisy in the name of his Master. For it was not
India only, but India for Christ, that was the source
of his inspiration.
CHAPTER XL
1835-1836.
BB. BUFF OltOANIZING,
Degree of Doctor of Divinity. — Dr. Duff called to fill the place of
Dr. Inglis in Old Groyfriars. — Offered South Church, Aberdeen,
and recommends Dr. Tweedie. — The Higher Calling of the Mis-
sionary. — The Mai'iioch Case. — Pressed by the Earl of Fife to
prevent Schism by accepting the Living. — Plan of Rousing every
Presbytery formed on the Voyage Home. — Foreign Missions out-
side of Church Parties. — The First Campaign of 1835. — Ex-
periences in the Far North. — Enthusiastic Iloception. — Return
of Fever. — The Second Campaign, of 183G, opened in Perth. —
Description by Eye-witnesses. — Dr. WilHam Thomson. — Dr.
Guthrie and the Opponent of the Law of Gravitation. — Invita-
tions from England. — "jpeech for the Church Missionary Society.
— The Guest of Carus in Trinity College, Cambridge. — Sacred
Interview with the aged Simeon. — Memories of the Moulin Re-
vival. — Whewell. — Original MS. of the "Paradise Lost," as a
Drama. — Milton and the Cam. — Dr. Duff addresses Public Meet-
ing called by the Mayor. — At Leamington with Dr. Jephson. —
News from Calcutta. — Intercourse with Lord William Bentinck.
Fa.e more effectually than even the speaker had dared
to dream, the first Assembly oration of the first mis-
sionary of its Church set Scotland on fire. The
excitement of the general election, which for the hour
made Dr. Chalmers so much of a Tory as to call forth
the remark in his broadest Fifeshire accent, " I have
a moral loathing of these Whugs," had spent itself.
The new spiritual life which was to work itself out
in the disruption of 1843 had asserted its power in
the General Assemblies of 1834 and 1835. Even
Dr. Inglis had declared just before his death, " The
X
306 UF£ OP DR. DUFF. 1835.
kingdom of Christ is not only spiritual but inde-
pendent. No earthly government has a right to
overrule or control it." Chalmers, with such disci-
ples as the young Thomas Guthrie, had begun to go
forth on his evangelical mission of church extension
throughout the length and breadth of Scotland. Side
by side and in loving co-operation with that, as
Chalmers had always taught and he himself had
again enforced, Duff proclaimed and established the
claims of foreign missions. The whole people were
ready to receive the missionary ; almost every parish
competed for a visit from him. Zealously anticipating
St. Andrews and the other universities, Marischal
College, Aberdeen, had hardly met for the autumn
session of 1835 when it honoured itself and surprised
the young divine, still under thirty, by presenting him
with the diploma of Doctor of Divinity.
The most embarrassing and even annoying form
taken by the popularity thus suddenly acquired and
steadily increased for many a year, was that of the
patrons of church livings, and the then few congre-
gations who had the right to call their own minister,
persecuting Dr. Duff to settle amongst them. He
must effectually clear this obstacle out of his path
before entering on his first home crusade. What to
some would have seemed a flattering recognition of
their merits was to him at once humiliating and
irritating. That it should be supposed he would even
consider proposals to retreat from the front of the
battle into the easy and yet respectable comfort of
the baggage, was an evidence of the dense ignorance
which long prevailed regarding the missionary duty
of the Church, and a reflection on his own sacrifice
to that duty. Dr. Ing^is was gone. Dr. Anderson,
who had been appointed his successor, soon followed
him, and the otherwise attractive city charge of Old
^t. 29. OFFERED THE LIVING OF OLD GRKYFRIARS. 307
Greyfriars was pressed upon Dr. DufF. The patrons
were the Lord Provost, tlien the Honble. Mr. Trotter,
and the town council of Edinburgh, but they had pro-
mised to leave the election in the hands of the congre-
gation if it were unanimous. On the very morning
when Dr. Duff was to open his crusade in the country,
just half an hour before he was to leave his house for
the Perth stage-coach, which then started from the
Black Bull Inn, at the head of Lekh Walk, he was
stopped by a deputation from the kirk-session and
people offering him the living. When he showed some
impatience under the long catalogue of weighty reasons
which they advanced for his closing with their urgent
request, they thought that they \voald secure him by
the temptation of preaching for the rest of his days
amid the grandest ecclesiastical and historical associa-
tions, and in the pulpit of his old friend Dr. laglis.
Hardly had he escaped from a position which Pro-
fessor Wilson's cousin, John Sym. was to fill side
by side with Dr. Guthrie, and reached the Highlands,
when the South Church of Aberdeen laid hold of him.
Determined not to lose the advantage of his services
altogether, the disappointed people besought him to
name a candidate most like to himself. The delicacy
of this duty troubled him ; but he met the repeated
invitation to assist the congregation by directing
their attention to Dr. Tweedie, his old fellow-student,
whose ability he had again personally recognised in
London Wall Presbyterian church. The Aberdeen
people had plied him with the argument that, by
meeting their request, Ae would be fible to advocate
the claims of India at home. In the appendix to the
published sermon on the mutual duties and responsi-
bilities of pastor and people, which he preached on
introducing the new minister to the church, he thus
dealt with that consideration : —
308 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1835.
" Were I to remain iu my native land, it would doubtless be
still in my power to do something by way of advocating tlie
claims of poor benighted India. In that case, however, me-
thinks my tongue would not only falter, but often * cleave to
the roof of my mouth/ Fearlessly f^nd unsparingly have I
reprobated the indolence and cowardice of those who kept
lingering, lounging and loitering at homo, in lazy expectation
of some snug peaceful settlement, instead of nobly marching
forward into the wide field of the world, to earn new trophies
for their Redeemer, by planting His standard in hitherto
unconquered realms. Neither have I suppressed my honest
indignation at the no less criminal supineness of others, who,
having once obtained such settlements, ingeniously devise a
thousand petty frivolous pretexts for continuing to wrap them-
selves up in the congenialities and luxurious indulgences of
home, instead of boldly daring, though at an immeasurable
distance, to tread in the footsteps of apostles and prophets
and martyrs. Not that I would have such loiterers to join our
storming ranks. Far otherwise. I, for one, would wash my
hands of the guilt of appending such drags to the chariot
wheels of the conquering Messiah. The grand evil is that
such persons should exist at all, arrayed externally in the garb
of the heralds of salvation. How often have our ears been
regaled with the music of eloquence, echoing the songs of
divine chivalry and the battles of the faith ? But all the
while have we not been left in sorrow to exclaim, — Where the
rushing crowd of champions, clad in armour of light ? Where
the continued toiling, and struggling, and fighting which form
the certain prelude to decisive victory ? Alas ! alas ! if without
an effort, without a struggle and without a sacrifice, imagina-
tion alone could conquer all difficulties, then, with the ease of
some potent spell, and the rapidity of some inexplicable en-
chantment, might we behold every howling waste converted
into gardens of delight, and golden palaces starting from
every barren shore ! Such sentiments and expressions may bo
deemed by many over-severe and not a little uncharitable. If
so, I cannot help it. What I feel strongly I express strongly.
How then could I in consistency, after such decisive expression
of my own feelings, reconcile myself to the resolution of
throwing aside my weapons of aggressive warfare, and timidly
shrinking down into the shrivelled form of a comfort-seeking
JEt. 29. THE HIGHEIl CALLING OF A MISSIONARY. 309
tirae-servcr at home ? What a plausible corroboration might
thereby be given to the base calumny, that few or none go
forth to heathen climes but such as have been unsuccessful
and disappointed candidates for office in their native land, —
the only merit allowed them being the ignoble one of making
a virtue of necessity ? What a triumph might be furnished
to the thousands who stoutly call in question the sincerity of
those who profess their willingness to submit to sacriliccs for
the sake of Christ ? And with what shouts of dei-ision might
any appeals of mine, on the subject of personally engaging in
the toils of missionary labour, be responded to ?
>i
The third among many other temptations put before
Dr. Duft* was of a different and, in an ecclesiastical
sense, still higher kind. It was nothing less than this,
that he might save the Church of Scotland from being
rent in two by the conflict for spiritual independence
which had now entered on its life and death stage.
The famous Marnoch case, with all the Strathbogie scan-
dals, was in its early stage, having succeeded the first
assault of the civil courts, made in the Auchterarder
case, on the spiritual independence in purely spiritual
things guaranteed to the Kirk by Scottish Acts of Par-
liament, the Treaty of Union and the Revolution Settle-
ment. Marnoch is a small parish on the Dover on,
nine miles south-west of Banff. The Earl of Fife was
patron of the living, which fell vacant after the Act
of the General Assembly restoring to communicants
their spiritual and historical right to veto the patron's
appointment of a minister of whom they disapproved.
The earl, who had settled down in Duff House, was
indifferent to the Veto Act, but lie did not wish the
annoyance of fighting his own tenantry on such a
question. In the days of his dissipation as boon com-
panion of George IV., he had allowed his brother,
General Duff, to promise the living, when it should bo
vacant, to one Edwards, long a tutor in the family.
3IO LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1835.
But the old minister would not die, while the Veto Act
represented an earnest change of popular opinion on the
traffic in livings which had once already rent the Kirk,
having degraded the nation ever since Queen Anne's
days. The earl, having sobered down, at first tried to
induce his brother to release him from the promise to
Edwards. Failing in this, the puzzled and somewhat
penitent patron put in Edwards as the old minister's
assistant, half hoping that the now sapless " Dominie
Sampson " might be accepted by the people for pity's
sake. Alas! for the earl, the tutor proved so prodigious
a failure that the little parish came to hate him, and the
kirk became emptier than ever. Again the earl appealed
to his ruthless brother: "John Edwards had been
fairly tried and found wanting ; would he accept this
fact as sufficiently redeeming his promise to the un-
happy tutor, which should never have been made, and
agree to another plan ?" This was, to ask their clans-
man, Dr. Duff, to accept the nomination to Marnoch,
which had now become vacant, in the certainty that he
would be unanimously called by the people under the
Veto Act. General Duff heartily consented, and, let
us hope, was inclined to provide for the old tutor at
his own expense instead of at the spiritual cost of
the parish.
On this the earl asked his own minister, Mr.
Grant, of Banff, to plead with Dr. Duff, to whom
the nomination was offered as a mark of the earl's
good will, as some recognition of his high deserts,
as the only means of delivering the patron from a
terrible dilemma and of preventing a local scandal ;
but, above all, as a sure bulwark against the tide
of schism and anarchy which might sweep away
the Kirk itself and destroy even its Bengal Mission.
Dr. Duff was implored to be the Curtius who would
thus close up the gulf for ever. It was all in vain.
JEt. 2g. THE MAKNOOH CASE AND TUE EARL OP FIFE. 31I
Poor Edwards was forced on the throe liundred heads
of famihes and thirteen heritors against their solemn
dissent, against the hiw of the Kirk and of the hand till
Parliament altered it, and against the rising claniuur
of the whole country. Ho was invited by only one
heritor besides the earl and his brother, and one
parishioner, " Peter Taylor, the keeper of the public-
house at which the presbytery were wont to dine."
No man knew and no minister proved better than
Dr. Duff that Marnoch, like Auchterarder and Le-
thendy, was but a symptom of a disease to be cured
only by the vis medlcatrix natarcG of the case — by
leaving the Church to the laws of Christ in word and
conscience, a loyal ally of the state but independent
in the purely spiritual sphere. Dr. Duff respectfully
declined what was undoubtedly intended to be a liberal
and generous offer. The earl replied in a letter ex-
pressing admiration of the consistency and self-sacrifice
of the missionary. But the old companion of the worst
sovereign England has seen, turned to the law courts,
where a majority of the judges, to the grief of men
like Jeffrey and Cockburn, helped him and his reverend
presentee to drive every member from the kirk to
worship God, like their forefathers in persecuting times,
in a hollow in the winter's snow. With these three
typical instances we dismiss such calls to home work.
How was not only the Church but all Scotland to be
organized for the permanent and progresGive support,
by prayer and by knowledge, by men and by money,
of missionary work in India ? That was the problem
which had occupied the thoughts of Duff on his home-
ward voyage, " when rocked amid the billows of a
tempest off the Cape of Good Hope," and again as he
paced the deck on the return of health. His resolution
was formed before he landed, only to be intensified by
the early indifference of the committee which his first
312 LIFE OF DU. DUFF. 1835.
speecli had dissipated, and by the return of the fever
which had fired his spirit anew. It was "the favourite
plan of visiting and addressing all the presbyteries of
the Church in detail " which had thus forcibly seized
his mind, and had been elaborated and prepared for
during the first six months of his recovery. Such a
proposition, he told the friends of the India* Mission
in 1844, when its success had been established and
the organization had to be renewed on a greater scale
owing to the disruption, "was received in those days,
even by the most sanguine, with grave doubts and
fears as to its practicability, and by others with an
expression of stark amazement. * What ! ' was the
ordinary exclamation, * expect presbyteries of the
Church, in their official presbyterial capacity, to
assemble on a week-day for the express and sole end
of listening to an exposition of the motives, obliga-
tions and objects of the missionary enterprise, and that
too, with the ulterior view of organizing themselves
into missionary associations ! ' — certain well-known
presbyteries, both in the north and in the south, being
usually named, in regard to which the realization of
such a plan was felt to be the very climax of improba-
bility."
From his own mind the experience of Irvine, and
from the Church his Assembly speech, removed every
doubt. Generally preceding Chalmers in the church
extension movement at home, with a thoroughness and
over an extent of country possible only in the case of
one who devoted to it his whole strength and unique
experience. Dr. Dufi" went far to anticipate the greatest
triumph in Christian economics, the Sustentation
Fund for the ministers. The parallel, the necessary
balance and support of that fund, is the system of
congregational associations under similar presbyterial
supervision for the missionaries abroad.
At. 29. FOREIGN MISSIONS AEE OF NO PAETY. 313
But the essential preliraiuary to all success liad to
bo mado known — foreign missions are of no party.
Thoy are the care and the corrective, the test and the
stimulus of all parties in the Church. The missionary
who, as such, takes a side in ecclesiastical warfare,
may gratify his own personal bias, but he imperils the
cause in which he ought to be absorbed. The missions
of the Scottish Church, above all, originated in pure
catholicity, and have, even through the disruption,
been directed by Christlike charity. Dr. Inglis, their
founder, was a moderate by association and an evan-
gelical in spirit, as we have seen. When he sought
and found the first missionary he wrote to the most
pronounced of the moderate party — "As to his sido in
the Church I have made no inquiry." And .t will be
well at this stage to ponder the fact, as the key to
much of his future action, that that missionary thus
early, alike in his friendlv intercourse with and help
to Dr. Bryce, in his loyalty to Dr. Inglis and Dr.
Brunton, and in this statement of his ecclesiastical
policy, declared the superiority of himself, because of
his work, to all party. Thus he became the peace-
maker, in one sense of the beatitude, at home, as in
the higher sense his work in India of reconciling men
to God won him abundantly the peacemaker's blessed-
ness. He thus described the success, of his first
campaign of 1835-7, and the cause of that success.
As a question of mere statistics he raised the annual
income of the foreign missions scheme from £1,200 to
£7,589 in 1838.
" My journeyings among the towns and presbyteries of
Scotland were soon commenced, amid various interruptions, of
longer or shorter continuance, arising from ill health and other
causes, till almost every town and district from the Solway
Firth to the mainland of Orkney had been visited, and many
of them more than once, — and almost every presbytery of the
SH LIFE OF DR. DUFF, 1835.
Church addressed and organized into a missionary association.
Throughout tliese extensive and diversified visitations, I was
received with equal kindness and attention by all classes and
ranks in society — in the baronial residence of the nobility, and
the cottages of the poor, by ministers and members of the
moderate and evangelical divisions of the Church, as well as
by leading ministers and members of tli'^ dillerent dissenting
communions. And why ? For this chief reason, I have no
doubt, among others, that no one Icnew me as a party man — no
one being able to point his fmger to a single overt act of mine
which could fairly stamp me as such. Meetings of every
description, public and private. Church and anti- Church, In-
trusion and non-Intrusion, were held in all directions around
me, with the frequency and the fulness of the showers of an
Indian rainy season ; and yet, up to the hour of my departure
from Scotland, I never once was so much as present at any one
of them. Everywhere, accordingly, was I received in my
simple and single character as a missionary to the heathen,
pursuing, with undeviating fixity of purpose, my own chosen
and peculiar vocation. In this way regions and habitations
were visited that had never been invaded by the sound of a
missionary's voice before. The result was, that a great deal
of new information was communicated, mucli sympathy and
interest in behalf of India excited, and not a little of hitherto
unbroken soil reclaimed for missionary purposes. Everywhere
Avt;re large and liberal collections made, prospective obliga-
tions voluntarily undertaken, and permanent associations,
priBsbyterial and congregational, special and general, duly
formed. Ministers and other office-bearers, on both sides of
the Church, were brought into immediate friendly and co-oper-
ative contact, on a theme wholly exempt from the intrusion of
party jealousies, rivalries, and antagonisms, — a theme which
savoured pre-eminently of the Cross, appealed to the most
generous motives, and aimed at the promotion of the noblest
ends. Already it was evident that a better understanding and
better feeling was beginning to spring up between various
parties, previously marshalled in nmtual opposition; that
these parties frequently greeted and recognised each other
on more cordial terms, frequently visited each other on
a more friendly footing, and frequently assisted each other,
on sacramental and other occasions, iu ways that promised to
JEt. ir). ACT CREATING FOKE ION MISSION ASSOCIATIONS. 315
exert a mellowing and hallowing influonco, alike on pastors and
people. Amid scenes and expei-ieucos like those how could
my heart bo otherwise than glad ? How could I help rejoicing
in a growing ])rocess of convcrgency and assimilation? How
coidd I but long, with prayerful earnestness, for the time,
when * Ej)hraim should not envy Judali, nor Judah vex
l'ij)liraim ;' but when all, merging the heats and tempers of
partizanship in the divine amplitude of the Christian spirit,
should unite, on the broad basis of a common fjiith and a
common charity, in extending tho etupiro of the Itedeemer
over the remotest wilds of heathenism."
Having settled his family in the old mansion-houso
of Edradour, within a mile of Pitlochrie, lie recruited
liis energies there during June, 1835. Meanwhile tho
Rev. Dr. Gordon, as secretary of the committee, was
putting in force the short Act passed by the General
Assembly recommending all presbyteries to givo
Dr. Duff a respectful hearing at meetings called for
the pur})oso, and to form a presbyterial association to
create in each congregation an agency for prayer and
the propagation of intelligence regarding the evangel-
ization of the world. This Act had been drawn np by
Mr. Makgill Crichton, of Rankeillour, in the back-room
of the publishing house of Waugh and Innes, next the
Tron kirk, to give practical eifect to the enthusiasm
created in the Assembly by the great speech, and had
been unanimously passed.
Beginning with the presbytery of Meigle, the first
in Strathraore to the east of Perth, Dr. Duff proceeded
during the rest of the year in regular order to the
north, zigzagging over Forfar, Arbroath, Brechin,
Montrose, Aberdeen, the valleys of the Dee and tho
Don, Old Deer, Peterhead, and Fraserburgh ; then west
through Strathbogie, along the Spey, and through
Banff, Elgin, and Forreg to Inverness. At the last he
spent a week, but he generally addressed three presby-
3l6 LIFE OP DB. DUPP. 1835.
teries, including the largo congregations, every week,
lie then went northwards to the presbyteries of Cha-
iionry, Dingwall and Tain, still in addition to these
addressing large congregations. In the morning ji
the day on which he was to leave Tain for Dornojh,
ho was suddenly, while at breakfast in the manse of
Dr. Macintosh (whose mother showed him all manner
of motherly attentions, as he had known her brother,
Mr. Calder, and others in Calcutta), seized with a fit of
fever and ague. He was thus obliged to betake him-
self to bed, which he was unable to leave for three
weeks. All the arrangements for meeting the eastern
presbyteries of Sutherland and Caithness were over-
turned, and the only one that could bo overtaken ac-
cording to the old arrangement was that of Tongue in
the Reay country. Ho resolved to proceed thither di-
rect across Sutherland. A friend conveyed him to the
manse of Mr. MacGillivray, at the lake Lairg, where
he remained one night, and met there young Mr.
MacGillivray, minister of Strathy, half-way between
Thurso and Tongue, who had come a distance of nearly
a hundred miles to convey him ^;0 Tongue. There
they arrived in the midst of a snowstorm. But the
hearts of the people were warm. Nowhere did he meet
with a more hearty reception. From Tongue he pro-
ceeded eastward along the coast of Thurso, stopping
one night with Mr. MacGillivray to address his people.
On that occasion one of the old peculiar race called
*' the Men " spoke a few words at the close, and as
he was speaking down came a heavy pour of rain
which pattered very strongly against the windows.
For a moment the speaker paused, and looking gravely
at the people said to them with much earnestness in
Gaelic : ** My brethren, they are the heavens tuat are
weeping over the sins of the people," but in Gaelic
the phrase was much more expressive than any trans-
^t. 29- EESULTS OF HIS FIRST CAMrAlON. 317
lation of it into English can bo. After addressing
tlio presbyteries of Thurso, Wick, and Dornoch, as
well as largo congregations connected with these
places, Dr. DufF returned to his teni[)orary home in
the vale of Atholo in order to recruit from tlie
exhaustion of six niontlis incessant itinei-ating and
public speaking. ilow thorougldy even the most
** moderate " presbyteries did their work on tliis oc-
casion is seen in the *' Brief Exposition of the Church
of Scotland's India Mission," a well-written and
elocpient appeal of thirty-five pages by the presbytery
of Ellon, for tlie formation of a Foreign Mission
Association in every parish as giving to the interest
taken in the diffusion of the gospel a fixed and per-
manent character.
If Dr. Duff was surprised by the enthusiasm which
he called forth in his first tour, the result of the second
exceeded even that. For, to the fame of his Assembly
speech there was now added the bruit of his eastern
and northern triumphs. And he opened the campaign
of 1836 in his own county of Perthshire. Repeated
attacks of his old fever, in spite of the occasional
retreat to Edradour, forbade the physicians to allow
him to think of returning to India. But, as may bo
seen from this extract from an official narrative of his
proceedings sent to the committee at the close of
1835, his heart was ever in India : —
" As nearly a twelvemonth has passed by since I
reached my native land, I naturally begin to look with
a longing eye towards the East. Summer is the best
season for leaving this country. But if it be resolved
that I set off next summer, medical opinion conspires
with dire experience in enforcing on me the conviction
that the intervening period spent in almost absolute
repose would be little enough so to recruit my frame
as to entitle me, with any reasonable prospect, to brave
3l8 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1836.
anew tlie influence of a tropical climate. On the other
hand much, very much, might yet be done in this our
native land in behalf of the mission. Unless it be
vigorously supported at home little can be done
abroad. But there is a disposition to support it at
home wherever its claims are freely and intelligibly
made known. The experience of the last few months,
I think, has amply confirmed this assertion. Of course
the grand advantage (and the only one to which I lay
claim) that I possess in advocating the claims of the
mission at home, is one that cannot be communicated
to others, even that of having been on the field of
labour, and having been an eye and ear witness of all
that I happen to describe. It is this circumstance
mainly, I must presume (for nothing else of an advan-
tageous nature am I conscious of possessing beyond
my fellows), that has made our brethren and the mem-
bers of our Church generally muster everywhere in
such numbers and listen with such marked attention
and resolve with such admirable unanimity. It was
my own impression, months ere I landed on these
shores, that good might result from visiting the pres-
byteries of our Church. But that impression has been
deepened in a tenfold degree by the experience of the
last four months, i.e. if professions without number do
not turn out (which God forbid) like Dr. Chalmers's
exuberant shower of promises. About a third part
of the presbyteries have now been visited, and clearly
the other two-thirds could not be visited before next
summer, or if so such visitation would leave me in a
condition the most unfit for resuming my labours in
the East, but it seems most desirable that all the pres-
byteries should be visited. What then is to be done ?
As for myself I am in a sti "t between two. But after
having thus stated the case I leave the matter entirely
in the hands of the committee." Dr. Macwhirter
JEt so. BEGINS niS SECOND CAMrAION. 319
settled tlie matter for both by peremptorily deciding,
on medical grounds, in favour of a less active and
exciting visitation of tlie presbyteries.
Very vividly are the impressions of the first visit of
Dr. Duff to Perth pictured by two of his audience at
the time, Mrs. Barbour, then a child, and her mother,
Mrs. Stewart Sandeman, of Bonskeid, in the neigh-
bourhood of Moulin. These are some of the lines
written by Mrs. Sandeman in I80G upon Dr. Duff : —
" He crossed o'er our path like an angel of light.
The sword of the truth in his grasp gleaming bright;
O'er mountain and valley unwearied he flew
Imploring our aid for the poor lost Hindoo.
" The rich gorgeous East with its dark Indian grove
Was the land that he pled for — all pity and love ;
But we caught the swift glance and the dear mountain tone.
And claimed him with reverence and pride for our own.
" Yes ! dark Ben-i-vrackie, all rugged and wild.
And fair vale of Athole, yo welcome your child,
For oft have his thoughts turned in fondness to you.
While he toiled for the soul of the darkened Hindoo.
" And shall we not aid him with heart and with hand
To ope fountains of truth in that desolate land ?
Nor break the witched charm that he over us threw
While in anguish he pled for the erring Hindoo."
" The arrival of Dr. Duff in the county town of his
native Perthshire was a memorable event to most of
the dwellers in it. It was doubly memorable to the
children who got a holiday to go and hear him in the
East Church on a week-day. Some days before, the
carriage had been watched as it conveyed the invalid
missionary to the crescent facing the North Inch,
and stopped at the house of the Rev. William Thom-
son, for whom he was to preach in the Middle Church.
Reports of his suffering state had come before him.
320 LIPE OP mi. DUFF. 1836.
Mrs. Stuart, of Annat, then residing in Edinburgh,
had been at the communion in Lady Glenorchy's
church. She came home enraptured with the table-
service, at which a stranger had presided. His voice
had seemed hke one from heaven, and he looked so ill,
as if he might have passed away while he broke the
bread. It was Dr. Duff who had arrived from India.
" It was no wonder that the deep galleries of the old
Middle Church of St. John's, Perth, always full, were
on that morning crowded. Even the seats behind the
huge pillars were eagerly seized. The text was, * Be
not conformed to this world.' While the preacher
cut right and left, root and branch at the worldliness
in the Church of Christ, he described how men and
women carried it into God's house, and could be seen
stepping down the aisle with a look so proud as might
make an archangel blush. Next came the week-day
address on the claims of India. Mr. Esdaile, the
scholarly minister of the East Church, followed by the
presbytery and other ministers, accompanied Dr. Duff
to the pulpit steps. Some had made a tedious journey
to be there. Even the children in the multitude that
day assembled were breathless listeners. The gaunt
figure in the pulpit, soon rid of the gown, was seen
beneath the coloured window which was wont to come
between little people and weariness when Mr. Es-
daile' s erudite and polished discourses went beyond
them. And now the eloquent descriptions of the far-
off land began. Snow-peaks, dense forests, aromatic
gardens and Ganges waters were the background. The
hideous image of idolatry arose before the mind's eye
like themonster of Nebuchadnezzar's vision, Brahmans,
ftikeers and soodras in thousands swarming at the
base. Each arrowlike sentence of appeal for help was
barbed with reproach to the selfish Britons who had
come home rich without doing anything to enlighten
iCt. 30. AN OrrONENT TO THE LAW OF GRAVITATION. 32 1
the natives of *poor, plllnged, ravaged, unhappy
India.' When all was over the missionary sank back
exhausted, and had to rest half-way down the pulpit
stairs. One at least of the young who had heard him
had to seek shelter in bed on returning home, to hide
the marks of weeping,' ready to join on the morrow in
the project of a school companion whose emotions had
taken the practical shape of a penny a week subscrip-
tion."
Dr. Duffs host, on ^his occasion, was the Rev. Dr.
"William Thomson, whose portly figure and exalted
character used to strike him with awe when ho was
a boy at Perth Academy. In his own field of genial
scholarship and active philanthropy he was worthy
of his more famous brother, Andrew Thomson of St.
George's. The tremendous strides of the missionary,
as he walked with her father to the top of Kinnoul
hill, so alarmed the youngest daughter, now Mrs.
Omond of Monzie, that she was glad when he stopped
at the Tay bridge to take a long fond look of the
hills among which his father's cottage lay. When, in
1863, the old man passed away at the age of ninety,
Dr. Duff, then still in India, recalled in a public letter
the long career of Dr. William Thomson, and declared
that his had been " one of the happiest, most genial,
and alike to head and heart most exhilarating domes-
tic circles in Christendom."
It was during this Perthshire tour that Dr. Guthrie,
following hard on Dr. Duff's track in the cause of
church extension, found this trace of him at Abernyte.
Mr. Wilson, the minister of the parish, had as his as-
sistant that James Hamilton who became an accom-
plished naturalist and Edward Irving's successor in
London. But Wilson himself was an opponent of Sir
Isaac Newton in the law of gravitation. It grieved
him that his Church's first missionary should dream of
Y
322 LIFE or DE. DUFF. 1 836
subverting Hindooism by a science quite as false as
the cosmogony of the Yeds. Dr. Guthrie attempted to
reason with the animated fossil, and then pretended to
bo so far convinced as to ask most meekly how it is
that the people of the antipodes do not drop off into
boundless space. " AVell sir," said the simple oppo-
nent of Sir Isaac Newton, " they keep on just as the
flies do which you see there walking along the ceil-
ing." Some of the a 'priori objections to Dr. Duff's
evangelistic system of education were quite as well
founded.
In two instances only did the Indian missionary
meet with rudeness. One occurred under circum-
stances whicb have caused the event to be traditional
in the place. Appealed to long after for the facts, he
thus told the story. The presbytery of Dunbar had
been summoned to meet in the parish kirk of the
town. Dr. Duff was received the evening before the
meeting under the hospitable roof of Mr. Sawers. On
setting out to visit the minister of the kirk, as was his
first duty, he was gently warned that his reception
might not be very cordial. The Rev. Mr. Jaffray, he
was told, was notoriously hostile to foreign missions
generally, and was by no means reconciled to those of
his own Ohui*ch. This did not deter Dr. Duff, whose .
duty it plainly was to show courtesy to the man in
whose kirk he was to address the presbytery and the
people. After some hesitation the servant admitted
him, and he followed her to the study so closely
that further denial was impossible. Mr. Jaffray stood
up, and glaring at the intruder with fury, shouted out
in tones heard by the passers-by in the street out-
side, " Are you the fanatic Duff who has been going
about the country beguiling and deceiving people
by what they choose to call missions to the heathen ?
I don't want to see you, or any of your descrip-
^t. 30. THE BRAHMAN OF DUNDAR. 323
tiou. I want no Indian snake brou^lifc in araonof
my people to poison their minds on sucli subjects ;
so as I don't want to see yon tlie sooner you make
off the better." Dr. Duff stood calm and impertur-
bable for a little, and then, breaking he silence, said
that he had come merely to show him courtesy as the
minister of the parish and an ordained minister of the
Established Church, as both of them were. As he
must be aware to-morrow the meeting of presbytery
was to be held in his church, he, Dr. Duff, thought it
only due to him to show this tribute of respect and
courtesy. With permission therefore Dr. Duff very
briefly would tell him the nature and object of his
visit to Dunbar under the sanction and recommen-
dation of the General Assembly. He did so very
briefly because he saw in Mr. Jaffray's countenance
that the churl was all the while in wrathful agony.
When Dr. Duff ended, he said he had nothing more
to explain and would now retire. " By all means," the
reply was, in a surly tone, *' the sooner the better. I
never want to see your face again on earth. I was no
party to the meeting to-morrow. The presbytery had a
perfect right to fix on my church; but as for me, I had
nothing to do with it ; I shall not go near the meeting,
for T hate the s>ibjcct,i and might almost .say the same
thinof of him who has been the means of callinof such
a meeting to disturb the feelings of my people and in-
troduce what may be new strifes and divisions among
us." Dr. Duff, in a single sentence, said ho hoped
and trusted it would turn out otherwise, since the
blessed Saviour's command was, " Go into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every creature," and the
present was but a humble attempt on the part of the
Established Church of Scotland to obey this partiiig
and imperative commission. All this time both were
standing in the middle of the floor; so Dr. Duff, respect-
3^4 LIFE OP DU. DUFF. 1836.
fully bowing, bade him good-night, and retired to his
congenial quarters. That evening Dr. Duff said no-
thing, except, in answer to a question, stating in
general terms that the warning Mr. Sawers had given
had not been in vain. Next day, however, he was
everywhere met by parties personally unknown to
him, who condoled with him on the strange recep-
tion given to him by their minister. " The truth
is," they said, " wo expected nothing cordial, but we
never dreamed that he would stoop to such rudeness."
After this ]\Ir. Jaffray very generally throughout the
bounds of the Church, when this remarkable incident
became known, went under the name of the Brahman of
Dunbar. Tbe intention was to indicate his barbarous
rudeness, but the greatest injustice was thus in Ignor-
ance done to the Brahmans of India, more particularly
the learned and studious class, who are among the
most courteous and gentlemanly persons to be met
with.
By this time the effect of Dr. Duff's work in Scot-
land had spread across the border, influencing churches
and societies in England. When in the midst of
his organization of associations in Perthshire, ho
was pressed by mi«ny: and repeated invitations
from the great missionary and religious societies in
London to address them in the coming month of
May. Even those who had most ignorantly objected
to his Assembly oration of 1835, that it did not re-
present the operations of other Christians in India,
had by this time discovered, alike from his provincial
addresses and the repre^,entations of their agents in
Bengal, the catholicity of his spirit and the extent of
his zealous co-operation with all the Protestant mis-
sionaries in Calcutta and the neighbourhood. Espe-
cially was this the case with the Church Missionary
Society, the noble evangelical organization of the
JEt. 30. niS FIGST EXETER HALL ORATION. 325
Cliurch. of England, whose representatives in Bengal,
Doaltry, Corrio and Sandys had been his most inti-
mate fellow-workers. His response to that society's
earnest appeal to address its annual meeting in Ma
was the beginning of a relation which, as we shall see,
became closer and more loving on both sides till the
end. Never before had the directors deemed it expe-
dient to go out of their own episcopal circle to find
speakers, till Dr. Duff was thus enabled to return, on
a wider scale, the kindness of Dealtry and Corrio to
himself when he first landed in Bengal. When the
meeting was held in London he found himself on the
platform seated between the Bishops of Chester and
Winchester. When the latter had spoken the young
Presbyterian apostle rose, and so addressed them that
the interest and emotion of the vast audience continued
to increase till he sat down amid a tempest of enthu-
siastic applause. We have no report of this effort
beyond its effect, which the Bishop of Chester indicated
when, following Dr. Duff after a long pause, he declared
with characteristic gravity that he had waited until the
gush of emotion excited by the preceding speaker had
been somewhat assuaged. When all was over, among
otlidrs the ^godtyMr. C^arws, one of Mie deans :of Trinity
College, Cambridge, introduced himself to Dr. Duff,
and at once exacted the promise that the missionary
would accompany himself in a day or two on a visit
to the University.
Other circumstances apart, the peculiar interest
of this visit to Cambridge lies in the meeting for the
first and last time of the aged Simeon and the young
Duff. Simeon was within a few months of his death,
but even after half a century's labours for the Master,
in England and Scotland and for India, he was appa-
rently in health and vigour. He and Dr. Duff had what
the latter afterwards described as " a very prolonged
326 LIFE OP DR. DUFP. 1836,
scdenint.** He was full of questions regarding India
and its missions, for which ho had done so much
all that time. And we may be sure that, among the
other topics which occupied that memorable conversa-
tion, the Moulin revival was not forgotten. We have
already traced the spiritual ancestry of Duff to Simeon,
from the journal of the latter, written in 179G, when
the events occurred. The record of them, or the talk
about them forty years after by the venerable saint and
his own son in the faith, the evangelical Anglican and
the evangelical Presbyterian, it is now possible for us
to recall from Duff's talk afterwards.
"What during the conversation gave Simeon such
profound interest in the Moulin revival of 179G was
the remembrance of his own share in the quickening.
His host, Mr. Stewart, the parish minister, was then
a comparatively young man, an excellent and accom-
plished scholar, but without any evidence of true piety.
Ho was of a frank and cheerful disposition, and was a
great favourite with the people, for whom he had always
a kind word. His life, as written by Dr. Sieveright, of
Markinph, shows how by degrees he became unhappy,
from the conviction that there was something real in
Christianity which he did not possess and had not
discovered. The exceeding honesty of his intellectual
nature showed itself thus, as one present told Dr. Duff.
Mr. Stewart had read the preliminary psalm at public
worship in the church on the Lord's-day, and w^is
about to give out his text, when he leaned over the book
board, and looking round with a saddened, piercing
eye on his congregation, he said to them in substance :
" My brethren, I am bound in truth and faithfulness to
tell you that I feel myself to be in great ignorance and
much blindness on the subject of vital religion. I feel
like one groping in the dark for light, and as yet I
have found none. But I think it right to tell you,
^.t. 30. HIS ACCOUNT OF SIMEON's VISIT TO MOULIN. 327
tliat if God in mercy will give me any measure of the
tnie Ufjht, joyfully shall I impart the same to you. Do
you therefore, all of you, pray God fervently that lie
may be pleased to bescow upon me the tnio litjlttf or
such portions of it as He may deem fit for me."
An announcement of so novel and startling a kind,
indicating such simplicity and godly sincerity, could
not but produce a profound sensation. The news
rapidly spread, not only through the parish but
through the surrounding country. One of the con-
sequences was that many even of the most careless
and ungodly were wont to go every Lord's-day to
church in the expectation of hearing that the minister
had found what he called the true light. Still Aveeks
and months passed without any discovery being made
to him. At last it so happened that Mr. Simeon,
of Cambridge, and the Rev. James Haldane, of the
Tabernacle; Edinburgh, had arranged to make an
extensive tour through the north of Scotland, preach-
ing the gospel as they might find opportunity. On
a Thursday they had arranged from Dunkeld to
visit Blair- Athole, about twenty miles distant. They
had to stop at Pitlochrie, which is about half-way.
At that time there was a small country inn there. Ou
arrival they told the innkeeper that as early as he
could manage it ' they wanted a couple of horses to
take them to Blair- Athole. ** Na, na," said the inn-
keeper, " this is our fast day, as the sacrament is to be
held next Sabbath, and we regard the fast day like
another Sabbath, and we do not hire horses or vehicles
on the Lord's-day." '* Well," said Simeon, " I suppose
there is worship in the parish church to-day ? " " Oh,
yes," said the innkeeper, naming the hour. " Well,"
said Simeon, " though this in one respect is a disap-
pointment to us, it may be that in some other respects,
as yet unknown to us, God may have some gracious
328 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1836.
design in it, so let us go at once to tlio English worship
at Moulin." Towards the evening of the day, after all
the services, English and Gaelic, were ended. Simoon
and Ilaldano resolved to call at the manse and see the
minister, who received them with great heartiness.
After some converse Mr. Simeon, from his sage,
spiritual experience, could not but notice there were
internal workings in the soul of Stewart which to him
looked like the incipient influence of divine grace. Mr.
Stewart was greatly refreshed by Mr. Simeon's con-
verse, and in parting with both in the evening he said
to them, "You can see every tiling that is worth seeing
in and about Blair- Athole by Saturday afternoon; " so ho
implored them both to come to the manse on Saturday
evening, attend the church on Sabbath, and partake or
not partake, as they thought proper, of the sacrament.
Mr. Stewart said that as minister of the parish he would
be expected to preach what the Scotch were in the habit
of calling the "action sermon " — sermon before the ad-
ministration of the sacrament — but that on sacrament
Sunday they had always public service in the church
in the evening, as the people's haarts were then
surcharged with feelings of love and pious emotion.
That sermon Mr. Stewart asked Mr. Simeon to preach.
Simeon agreed, and it is very remarkable how that
sermon was blessed of God as the signal instrument
of opening Mr. Stewart's eyes to discern the h^ue lujlit
of the everlasting gospel.
His own declaration w .s, that about the middle of the
sermon Mr. Simeon, who had evidently studied his case
and endeavoured to adapt as much of the discourse as
was practicable to it, uttered a few sentences which to
Mr. Stewart looked like a revelation from heaven. His
own significant expression was, that it seemed as if
the dense cloud canopy which had hitherto inter-
posed between his soul and the vision of God in Christ
JEt 30. HIS ACCOUNT OP THE MOULIN REVIVAL. 329
roconciliTig a guilty world to Himself, had suddenly
burst asunder, and through the chink a stream of light
had como down direct from heaven into his soul, dis-
placing the darkness which had hitherto brooded over
it, filling it with light, and enabling him to rejoice with
exceeding great joy. He was wont, also, to add, that
in spite of partial obscurations afterwards, this light
never wholly left him, but continued to anini'ite,
cheer and guide him through all his ministerial and
other labours. On the following Lord's-day Mr.
Stewart was enabled joyfully to announce publicly
from the pulpit, that the light which ho sought
for and waited for from heaven had at last dawned
upon him and filled his soul with gladness ; he would
therefore proceed Sabbath after Sabbath to give out
as much of it as he could to his own people and others
who might choose to be present. He then commenced
a series of discourses on the 3rd chapter of St. John's
Gospel, which awakened, aroused and enlightened
numbers of the people. Parties were wont to como
every Sabbath from all the surrounding parishes, so
that the work became very extensive, and proved a
mighty revival, in which scores of the previously care-
less, indifferent and godless became genuine converts
to the truth as it is in Jesus, and continued so all their
days. Yea, instead of diminishing, their light went
on increasing and abounding. However humble in
their circumstances, however illiterate, their souls be-
came replenished with the truths of the Bible, so as to
become burning and shining lights to all around them.
All this will account for the deep interest felt by
Mr. Simeon when Dr. Duff called upon him, as tho
father and mother of the missionary when young
and unmarried came more or less under the arous-
ing influences of the great revival. About three or
four months after this Mr. Simeon was called to his
33^ LIFK OP Dll. DUFF. 1836.
eternal reward, but tliougli ho rests from his Libours,
his works, in many of their blessed and fruitful
spiritual consequences, do still follow him. Such
is substantially Dr. Duff's account of what he had
hoard of the ^loulin revival, and of what Simeon and
ho had talked over in Cambridge. The Baptist Carey,
the Anglican Simeon, the IVloderato Inglis, and the
Evangelical Chalmers, united with such Congrega-
tionalist contemporaries as Urquhart and Lacroix to
link Duff into a truly apostolical succession, divided
by no party and confined to no sect.
As the guest of Cams at Cambridge, Dr. DufT occu-
pied the rooms in which Sir Isaac Newton made many
of his most remarkable discoveries in optics. The old
St. Andrews student revelled in associations in which
no college in the world is more rich. For Trinity,
which Henry VIII. founded and his daughters en-
riched, had been the nursery not only of the Church's
most learned prelates and theologians, but of Bacon
as well as Newton, of Jowlcy and Dry don and Andrew
Mar veil. When dining daily in the common hall with
the professors and students, he had much converse
with Whewoll, who was master from 1841, when he suc-
ceeded Christopher Wordsworth, to 18G6 when he was
followed by " Jupiter " Thompson, the present master.
But what interested him most of all, after the living
Simeon, was the collection of the Milton MSS. in the
museum of the college. There he saw the list, in Mil-
ton's own hand, of the hundred titles, or more, which
the poet had jotted down on returning from Italy, in
his thirty-first year, as possible subjects of a great
English poem. There " Paradise Lost " appears at the
head of them all, and also four drafts of it for dramatic
treatment,* the drama to open, as the poet's nephew
* See Professor Masson's perfect Globe Edition of The Poetical
Works of John Milton 0877), page 11.
JEt 30. CAMBRIDOE ASSOCIATIONS OP MILTON. ^^ I
Pliillips tells US, with Satan's speech on first beliolding
the glories of the new world and the sun, as now
given near the beginning of the fourth book of the
epic.
Ever in the midst of his absorbing talks with Simeon
and Cams about missions, Dr. DufT was constrained by
the fjc]ilii.H loci to think of Milton. When walking by tho
Cam, on one occasion, he expressed surprise that no re-
gular Cambridge student had then offered his services
as a missionary. Cams, in reply, drew his attention to
tho exceeding beauty of the spot ; to the loveliness
of the grounds and their adornments ; to the banks of
the Cam witli their grotesque variety of flowers, tho
willow trees overlianging tho stream, the umbrageous
shade cast by other trees on the footpaths along tho
lawns, seats to invite the student to enjoy his favourite
books ; to tho exquisite order in which all things wero
kept. All this, said Cams, tended insensibly to
act on human nature, and produce an intensely re-
fined and luxurious state of mind, with corresponding
tastes and predilections from which it would be diffi-
cult to wean the student so as to induce him to
, become a voluntary exile to distant shores teeming
with the abominations of heathenism. The remark,
Dr. Dufi" replied, had some force in it, in the case
of the old nature. But this ought not to present
difficulties to the child of God, who professed to act
by faith and not by sight. Whoever was resolute of
purpose as a son of God, would find divine grace
more than sufficient to wean him not only from tho
academic illusions of Cambridge, but from ail the
world besides. But then, turning to the river at their
side, he exclaimed in the lines of the exquisite Lycidas,
the memorial poem which Milton wrote on the death
of Edward King, his fellow-student at Christ's Col-
lege : —
332 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1836.
"Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow.
His mantle hairy and Lis bonnet sedf^e,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
' Ah ! who hath reft/ quoth he, ' my dearest pledge ? ' **
At that time Mr. Cams could not venture to call
a public missionary meeting in the college, but the
Major presided over a great gathering of students
and citizens in the town-hall, whom Dr. Duff addressed
at length on India and its missions. From Cambridge
he went to Leamington, where he gained some advan-
tage from the treatment of the then celebrated Dr.
Jephson. Having avoided the excitement of the
General Assembly of 1836, ho thus spent the summer
in England. But on his return to Scotland in autumn,
to complete his organization of the presbyteries and
congregations, he was sternly ordered by the physicians
to rest at Edradour. Rest for him was impossible.
He induced them to wink at occasional raids, made
for three or four weeks at a time, in different directions
from that centre. Thus the months passed till the
General Assembly of 1837.
During all his wanderings north and south. Dr. Duff
kept up a close correspondence with his colleagues,
Messrs. Mackay and Ewart, in Calcutta, and with
other frib.ids of the mission there. He was a keen
observer of public affairs in the closing days of Lord
William Bentinck's administration, and the opening
promise of that of Lord Metcalfe, whom the jealous
Court of Directors refused to appoint permanent
Governor-General. Of how much that was most bril-
liant and abiding in these times could we not say that
he had been a part ? How he explained to the English
public the exact meaning of Lord Wil. m's educational
minutes of 1835, in his " New Era of the English
Language," wo have told. The following extract
JEt. 30. NATIVE CHEISTIANS AS PHYSICIANS. 333
from an official letter to the committee, gives us his
impressions of the other great triumph in the estab-
lishment of the Bengal Medical College : —
" Eduadour, IWb July, 1835.
" I have just received a letter from an intimate
friend in Calcutta, Mr. J. Nelson, attorney of tho
Supreme Court, and now a member of our correspond-
ins: board. Ho writes : —
* You will f reqv -^ntly have heard that the school is doing
well. Within the last few days a prospect has been opened up
likely to be very beneficial to it. I allude to an entirely new
construction of the medical school with which Dr. Tytler was
connected, which has been placed under Dr. ]3raniley, who is
to receive boys from the various seminaries, qualified by their
knowledge of English to become pupils for education in
medicine. He states that in tho formation of his plan, ho
particularly looked forward to our seminary for a supply, and
at a visit he made to it the other day he found a number of
boys most Avilling to go to him, I think there can be no
differences of opinion as to the advantages likely to accrue by
this opening for the young men. It is true that the primary
object we have in view is the endowing them with a know-
ledge of Christianity, and sending them forth as teachers and
preachers amongst their benighted countrymen ; but it is easy
to perceive that for many years persons so sent forth would
require to be supported by our funds, and wq have not the
means of doing so except to a limited few. Besides, it appears
to me to bo hit^hly valuable to have a portion of native Chris-
tians as laymen, interspersed among the brethren, particularly
in such a respectable character as that of a doctor; for it is not
intended that they shall, when qualified, be drafted out to tho
army. On the contrary, they are to receive the education
and thereafter to have a free control in the exercise of their
knowledge and talents, in such way and manner as they may
respectively think proper. The jail of tho Court having been
vacated, Dr, Bramley has applied for it, and I believe I may
say that Government have agreed to give it for a small renti
one portion to be occupied by our school, and the other by his
334 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1836.
medical seminary, whereby sucli of our pupils as fancy medi-
cine will be completing themselves in the higher branches
of education, at the same time that they are receiving medical
instruction.'
" Of the intention of Government to remodel the
old native medical institution in Calcutta I was fully
aware upwards of two years ago. Dr. Tytler, at the
head of it, and his coadjutors were of the old school
of orientalists, who strenuously upheld the necessity
of communicating all ^ \iropean science to the natives
throuG^h the medium of the learned lano^uaGfes of the
East. The decisive experiments of the last few years
in Calcutta have tended entirely to explode this opinion,
and leave it a refuge only in the minds of a few of the
old orientalists. In remodelling the medical school,
the grand controverted question was, whether, as
heretofore, the knowledge should be conveyed to
Mussulmans in Arabic and Hindoos in Sanscrit, or
Avhether it should not be conveyed to both through
the medium of En2:lish. A Government committee
was appointed to receive and examine evidence from
all quarters, and thtxi submit a formal report to the
supreme Government. The three most active men
in this committee were Mr. Trevelyan, the deputy
political secretary; Dr. J. Grant, the writer of the
account of the last examination of our Institution, and
Dr. Bramley. Being all intimate friends of my own,
I was from time to time appr. "ed of the progress and
results of their inquiries ; to u^^out fifty questions
relative to the state and prospects of English educa-
tion in Bengal, I gave a lengtheied reply in writing.
Before I left India this report was finally completed,
and being favoured with a perusal of that part which
related to the question of general education, I had the
satisfaction to perceive that tlie new views on this
subject were recommended in such a way as to insure
Mt 30. LETTER TO DE. EWAET. 335
tlieir adoption on the part of Government. And glad
I am, for tlie sake of our Institution and for the real
welfare of India, that this has been the consummation.
The superintendence of the medical school being taken
from Dr. Tytler, the champion of antiquated opinions,
and given to Dr. Bramley, the enlightened supporter
of sounder views, furnishes a guarantee of indefinite
future good to India, as it is the test of the triumph
of enlightened principles and measures among the
powers that be . . Two Calcutta letters have just
reached me by the morning post, the one from JMr.
Trevelyan detailing the stops relative to the medical
institution, the other, consisting of not less than four
sheets, from Dr. Bryce. 'J^he doctor seems really to
be most enthusiastic in our cause."
" London, 22iid Juno, 1836.
"My Dear Ewart, — I cannot possibly describe to
yon the Intenscness of interest which our mission
now excites in our native land. The eyes of all Scot-
land are now upon you. Oh, that God in His mercy
would pour out Ilis Spirit and seal home the truth to
the hearts of numbers, yea, thousands of the perishing
heathen ! I had once cherished fondly the hope that
this summer I would be retracing my steps to India.
This, however, I find to be an impossibility ; the truth
is, that the labours at home, into which I was im-
pelled for the sake of arousing the Christian public,
have retarded the progress of my recovery, and
reduced me to the lowest state of exhaustion. From
this it will require some time to recover, and yet ray
work at home is not ended. The only thing that
reconciles mc to the detention in my native land, is the
assured fact that God has been pleased to employ me
as an humble instrument in stirring up the slumbering
zeal of our Church, and that the instrumentality haa
33^ LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 1836.
been crowned witli a success wliich I never, never,
never anticijiated I Thanks be to God for all His un-
deserved mercies.
*' 1 now understand the mystery of Providence in
sending mc from India. What between vile politics
and fierce voluntaryism our cause was well nigh being
entirely engulfed in oblivion. At first I could scarcely
get from any one or in any place a patient hearing.
Now, if I had a thousand tongues, they might simul-
taneously be raised in a thousand pulpits. * The spirit
is willing,* but, alas, * the flesh is weak.' Pray for
me — that after having left a flame burning behind me,
I may be speedily restored to you. Yours affection-
^* "Alexander Duff."
Dr. Duff did not leave London, on this occasion,
without spending a forenoon with Lord William Ben-
tinck. After breakfast the two philanthropists enjoyed
the fullest and freest converse regarding the conduct
and policy of the Government in India, past and
present. Relieved of tne responsibilities of Governor-
General Lord William was able to criticise most
frankly the anomalous constitution of the East India
Company, of the Board of Control created to enable the
Crown to check and overrule the Court of Directors,
and of the administration in India itself in all its
branches. The critic commended some institutions
and persons, but exposed the faults and weaknesses of
many more. Of that priceless experience, as of the
still riper knowledge which Dalhousie and Lord Can-
ning took with them to a premature grave, there is no
detailed record. Rulers stumble on to-day repeating
the mistakes of their greater predecessors and dream-
ing that their statesmanship is new because they are
blind to the past.
Whilst the conversation was still fresh in his mind,
JEt. 30. LORD W. BENTINCE ON GOVERNING INDIA. 337
Dr. Duff wrote down a very full and minute state-
ment of the whole, which, as a curiosity, he sent to
the Foreign Missions Committee.* One thing, how-
ever, was never effaced from his memory : Lord W.
Bentinck with great emphasis said that some believed
the Government in India was an absolute irresponsible
despotism. Others were equally strong in the belief
that the Court of Directors was the originating and
directing power. Others again were as strongly con-
vinced that the real power lay with the President of
the Board of Control, with the British Parliament at
his back. But, he added, one thing that struck him,
and of the truth of which he had the amplest ex-
perience, was this, that in the office of the President
of the Board of Control the chief secretary, through
whose hands all official documents were sent out and
sent home, for a long period — between forty and fifty
years — exercised a power to which no President of
the Board of Control, no Director, no Governor-
General or any other respousiblo official could pretend.
Lord William Bentiuc] soon after addressed this
letter to Dr. Duff: —
" Frankfort, August 27th, 1835.
" Dear Sir, — I am confident you will excuse my
seeming uncourteous return for your very kind letter,
when I assure you that the weakness that I brought
with me from India, and greatly increased by all the
excitement, fatigue and bustle consequent upon my
return, completely incapacitated me for all business
and exertion, and it is only here and at Bruxelles that
a day of leisure and quiet has given me an opportunity
of offering this explanation to many friends whose
* This letter is not among those most kindly copied for us from
the records of the Established Church of Scotland.
338 LIFE OF DK. DUFF. 1836.
letters I have been equally compelled to neglect. Lady
William begs that I will express also her acknowledg-
ments for your obliging inquiries. She is, I am sorry
to say, a greater invalid than myself. We have been
both advised to take the mineral waters of Germany —
she, those of Schwalbach in Nassau, and I, those of
Carlsbad in Bohemia. My health has much improved
since I left London.
"I am much gra'^ied to hear of your successful
operations in Scotland. It must bo the result of great
personal exertion alone, for though I have had ample
reason to know the indifference and apathy that
generally prevail respecting all matters connected with
India, yet even with all this experience I was not pre-
pared for the feeling of dislike almost with which any
mention of India is received. But this conviction of
a sad truth, this disgraceful proof of British selfishness
ought only to have the effect of exciting those deeply
interested in the moral and religious welfare of the
people of India to renewed efforts in their behalf.
" I have always considered the Hindoo College as
one of the greatest engines of useful purpose that had
been erected since our establishment in India; but that
institution, in point of usefulness, can bear no com-
parison with yours, in which improved education of
every kind is combined with religious instruction. I
will not prolong this letter further than to say that I
cannot be more gratified with any man's good opinion
than by yours, and wishing you health and happi-
ness, I remain, dear sir, your friend and well-wisher,
" W. Bentinck."
This, the greatest of the Bentincks, who thus ex-
presses something like shame at a degree of English
apathy to India still prevailing in spite of warnings
like the first Afghan war and the Mutiny for which
JEt. 30. MACAULAY ON LORD W. BENTINCK. 339
that iniquity was the preparation, died four years
after, having represented Ghisgow in the House of
Commons. Born in 1774, he was sixty-five years of
age when his ripe experience was lost to a country and
a ministry which preferred to the wise Metcalfe a
place-hunter like Lord Auckland. But Heaven takes
vengeance on a land for preferring the political par-
tisans of the hour to its truly good and great states-
men. The equally noble Lady AVilliam, renowned in
the East for her Christian charities, was the second
daughter of the first Earl of Gosford, and survived her
husband till May, 1843. This great Governor General's
epitaph was written by Macaulay, in the inscription
which covers the pedestal of the statue erected oppo-
site the town-hall of Calcutta by grateful natives and
Europeans alike : — " To William Cavendish Bentinck,
who during seven years ruled India with eminent
prudence, integrity and benevolence ; who, placed at
the head of a great empire, never laid aside the sim-
plicity and moderation of a private citizen ; who in-
fused into Oriental despotism the spirit of British
freedom; who never forgot that the end of government
is the welfare of the governed; who abolished cruel
rites, who eff'aced humiliating distinctions, who allowed
liberty to the expression of public opinion, whose con-
stant study it was to elevate the moral and intellectual
character of the Government committed to his charge,
this Monument was erected by men who, differing
from each other in race, in manners, in language and
in religion, cherish with equal veneration and grati-
tude the memory of his wise, upright and paternal
administration,"
CHAPTER Xn.
1837-1839.
FISHERS OF MEN.
Effect of First Assembly Speech in Drawing Men. — Rev. Jolin Mac-
donald gives Himself. — M'Cheyno almost Drawn. — Glasgow
supplies James Halley. — The Letters of Principal Macfarlan and
Dr. Duff. — Dr. Coldstream and Medical Mi.ssions. — John Ander-
son gives himself to ^ladras. — Followed by Johnston and Bi aid-
wood. — Drs. Murray Mitchell and T. Smith. — Stephen Hislop. —
Duff's Great Speech in Exeter Hall. — Spiritual Destitution of
India. — Indignant Satire on the Church's Apathy. — The Calculus
of Eternity, and the Arithmetic of Time. — Missionary sacrifice in
the Light of Christ Himself. — General Assembly of 1837. — Duff's
Vindication of the Mission. — The two bigotries, of Infidelity and
an unwise Pietism. — Native Apostles. — Duff appeals to Posterity.
— Mistake of the Indian Presbyteries in the Training of Native
Missionaries. — Dr. Macwhirter's Command. — Prize Essays on
Foreign Missions. — Dr. Chalmers and the position of the Kirk in
1839.— Letter to Dr. Ewart.— Ordination of Dr. T. Smith.—
Epistle to all Young Theologians. — Speech on Female Education.
— Lectures and Book on India and India Missions. — Farewell to
the General Assembly of 1839. — The Press. — Personal References.
— Gifts for the College Building, Library and Scholarships. —
Duff pleads with Thomas Guthrie to go to India. — Dr. Chal-
mers endorses Duff's System, and acknowledges his Christian
Economics. — The Farewell to Moulin and to the Children.
In the two and a half years after his return home
at the beginning of 1835, convalescent from the dy-
sentery of Bengal but subject to the recurrence of
its jungle fever, Dr. Duff had nearly completed his
work of organization. Only the fervour of his zeal,
and the power of recovery from exhaustion due to
a splendid physique which marked his whole life, had
enabled him to visit and address seventy-one presby-
teries and synods and hundreds of congregations all
over Scotland. This he had done during the rigours
i?Lt. 31. DRAWING MEN TO INDIA. 34 1
of winter and the heats of summer, when as yet the
canal boat, the stage-coach, and the post-carriage wore
the most rapid moans of conveyance. Twice ho had
visited London and some of the principal cities in
England on the same mission. But that mission was
not merely or ultimatoly the establishment of associa-
tions to collect money, nor even the diffusion through
the Churclics of a missionary spirit. Those were but
means to tlie great end of discovering and sending
out men of the highest faith and scholarship to carry
on the work he had begun in Bengal, to extend it to
Madras, and to strengthen Bombay. For, with his
delighted concurrence, the General Assembly of 1835
had received under its superintendence the Scottish
]\-Tissionary Society's stations in Bombay and Poena,
then under the care of Dr. Wilson, Mr. Nesbit and
Mr. J. Mitchell. The Kirk's Bengal Mission, with its
one missionary of 1829-31, must, according to Dr.
Duff, grow into the India Mission, to christianize the
progress which was radiating out from all the groat
English centres in the East.
Hence the most real and fruitful result of his first
Assembly speech and of those which followed it, in
Scotland and in England, was in drawing men to give
themselves to India. The whole religious biography
of the former country relating to that period is
coloured by his influence or bears traces of his per-
suasive power. We have already told how his early
visit to the London presbytery had converted the Rev.
John Macdonald from an opponent of his system into
such an advocate of it that the minister of Chadwoll
Street, Pentonville, threw up his homo charge and took
his place beside ]\Iackay and Ewart in Calcutta. Son
of that Dr. Macdonald of Ferintosh, who was worthy
of the name he bore, of "apostle of the Highlands,"
John Macdonald published a " Statement of Reasons
342 LIFE OF DIl. DUFF. 1837.
for Accepting a Call to go to India as a Missionary,'*
wliicli, as followed by his self-sacrificing life theroiifter,
was the most powerful testimony to the cause Dr.
Duff had yet called forth. No one can give moro
than himself; no gift to any cau::?o can bo moro
precious than that of the whole sphitualised nature
of a man who is in earnest to the death, ».«» John
Macdonald proved to be. In Macdonald Dr. Duff
early saw, and found for the ten years of the new
missionary's Indian experience, an intense spiritual
force to give increased evangelistic efficiency to
the Calcutta college. " Your special and peculiar
vocation," he wrote to his new colleague before
sending him forth, '* would bo to impart, through the
blessing of God's Spirit, a spiritual impression to tho
minds of scores that have already become dispossessed
of Hindooism, as well as to preach whenever an open-
ing presented itself, to adult idolaters. Our plan is
now so extended as to admit of a division of labour."
We have seen how young M'Cheyne and Somer-
ville were moved by the interview which they sought
with the returned missionary. Duff never lost his
hold on M'Cheyne, who soon after formed one of the
Church's mission of inquiry into the condition of the
Jews in Palestine and Eastern Europe. In April,
1836, the saintly young preacher wrote in his jour-
nal : — " Went to Stirling to hear Dr. Duff once more
upon his system. With greater warmth and energy
than ever. He kindles as he goes. Felt almost con-
strained to go the whole length of his system with
him. If it were only to raise up an audience it would
be defensible, but when it is to raise up teachers it ia
more than defensible. I am now made willing, if God
shall open the way, to go to India. ' Here am I ; send
me ! ' " His biographer. Dr. A. Bonar, remarks that
" the missionary feeling in M'Cheyne's soul continued
^t. 31. " THE MAN WHO DliAT TAIT." 343
all his life. Must tlioro not be somewhat of this
missionary tendency in all true ministers ? " Yet tho
only one of the M'Cheyne band who practically
answered this question, besides William Burns, of
Cliina, was John Milne, of Perth, who was afterwards
for a few years Free Church minister in Calcutta.
Macdonald's resignation of a home charge for a mis-
sionary's apostolate caused so much excitement as to
irritate him into putting the question to the degenerate
Church — " Why is not such an event commonplace?"
Ediuhurgh and St. Andrews had sent their best
student i to the field; it was now the turn of Glasgow,
which had been doing much for Kaffraria, to inquire.
The ripest scholar in its university proved to bo the
most devoted student of theology. James Halley, A.B.,
was the favourite disciple of Sir Daniel K. Sandford,
who, having imbued him with the very spirit of a
reverent Hellenism, introduced him to the Edinburgh
Professor of Greek as '* the man who beat Tait," tho
present Archbishop of Canterbujy. Ho promised to
be the ornament of his university and of the Church,
when death prematurely closed his bright career.
What he was, the Rev. William Arnot's little memoir
tells us. He hurried through from Glasgow, with
James Hamilton, afterwards of Regent Square, to
hear Duff's speech in the Assembly of 1835, and ar-
rived only in time to witness its effect. He describes
it as "a noble burst of enthusiastic appeal which
made grey-headed pastors weep like children, and
dissolved half the Assembly in tears." The im-
mediate effect on him was seen in the College Mis-
sionary Society, of which he was president. Address-
ing Dr. Macfarlan, the principal of the University,
and Dr. Duff afterwards, Mr. Halley sought their
encouragement of the students' missionary aims. The
former replied, declining to contribute even the usual
344 I-IFE OP DB. DUFF. 1837.
guinea, warning thorn that " such exertions on tho
part of the students are premature and injudicious,'*
and thus concluding : " I trust you will receive this
explanation as a proof at once of my deep interest
in the real welfare and improvement of the students
attending this university, and of the personal regard
for yourself." We are not parodying the words, nor
misrepresenting the acts of the head of the University
of Glasgow in the year 1835. Early in 1837 Mr.
Halley received from Dr. Duff this reply : —
it
PiTLOCHRiR, 7th March, 1837.
** I had once expected to have been able to meet
your association in person, in which case much could
bo advanced that cannot well be committed to writing.
But it was a constitution shattered beyond hope of
recovery in a tropical clime that drove me from tho
field of labour ; and ever since my arrival in my native
land I have been buffeting with the dregs of tropical
disease. In this way, rocked by discipline and cradled
by disappointment, I have been unable to overtake a
tithe of what I had originally proposed to myself.
But as it is the ordination of Heaven, I trust I have
learned to submit in patient resignation, ever ready to
adopt the language of my Saviour and Redeemer —
' Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.'
" In the midst of the thunder of clashing interests
and the lightning of angry controversy in this dis-
tracted land, how sweet, how refreshing to the soul
to enter the quiet haven of devotion, and there hold
communion with the great I Am, and the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world, and the Holy Spirit
that enkindles with the fervour of divine love. It is
this feature in the organization of your society —
effective as it is in other respects also — that inspires
me with the purest joy. An alternate meeting is
^t. 31. GLASGOW UNIVERSITY MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 345
devoted, you say, to Christian fellowship, prayer and
the reading of missionary intelligence. God bo
praised who has put it into your hearts to unite in
such hallowing exercises. If such meetings were
more general they would be the rallying centres of
hope to a divided Church and a bleednig world.
" You advert to the chillini? influence of academic
pursuits on the growth of piety in the soul. Most
keenly have I felt it myself. How is it to bo obvi-
ated ? By constantly falling back on the touching
and searching simplicity of God's own word, and
constantly besieging a throne of grace with the
honest effusions of a heart panting and thirsting after
the love of God. Without the unceasing recurrence
of such soul-reviving exercises I have learned, from
sad experience too, that even religious pursuits —
whether these consist in replenishing the intellect
with divine knowledge or in the multiplied duties of
the ministerial office — that even such pursuits may
drain up the fountain-head of spiritual vitality and
cause the plant of renown in the soul, for a season
at least, to droop and wither and decay.
" You complain of indifference to religion in general
and missions in particular. Oh, it is this indifference
which I fear may eventually prove the ruin of our
land, if God in mercy do not send some trumpet-peal
to rouse us from our lethargy 1 The work of missions
is so peculiarly a Christian work that neither its
principles nor its objects can be rendered perfectly
intelligible to any but God's own children. Indiffer-
ence to religion in general must, therefore, produce
indifference to the missionary cause. These are re-
lated as an antecedent and consequent, as cause and
effect. If the souls of men have not yet been
awakened to a sense of sin and danger — if they have
not yet been sanctified, they cannot be susceptible of
t
46 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1 837.
any spiritual impression f':'om any quarter whatever.
To arrest tbc attention of such persons in a
vital manner, and secure their sympathies and their
exertions in behalf of the perishing heathen, we must
first arouse them to a lively personal concern for the
salvation of their own souls."
Another who was then a youth of promise, and be-
came the founder of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary
Society, if not of Medical Missions, was profoundly
impressed. We find Dr. Coldstream, who had just
settled in Leith as a physician, thus writing in 1837 :
" The missionary sermon and lesson of yesterday, by
Dr. Duff, were most impressive. I have no words to
express their thrilling effect. . . I think I never
felt so strongly the delightful influence of the bond
of Christian love. The very spirit of love seemed to
move with electric fire through the great assembly,
knitting heart to heart, and kindling sparks of holy
zeal. It is a day much to be remtmbered." When,
thirteen years afterwards. Dr. Dufi" publicly referred
to a series of lectures on Medical Missions published
by that most successful society, and asked " when will
some of these lecturers set the example of devoting
themselves to the missionary service and come out to
India?" as has since been done. Dr. Coldstream re-
plied, " I feel as if you had put the question to mo
individually."
The report of the speech of 1835 found its way to
the retreat, near Dumfries, of a young licentiate of thr
Kirk whom sickness had laid aside. John Anderson
had passed through the eight years' studies of the
University of Edinburgh the first man of his set. Like
John Wilson at an earlier time, he had come under the
influence of Dr. Gordon, who to his labours in pulpit
and parish added the duties of secretary of the Foreign
Missions Committee. Having refused the office of
^t. 31. JOHN ANDERSON OF MADRAS. 347
assistant to a minister, Jolm Anderson wiis altogctlier
despairing of health, and was ah-eady thirty-two, when
that happened Avhieh ho himself shall describe — " We
well remember the time when, on his return from India,
the Rev. Dr. Duff, emaciated by disease and worn out
with the strenuous exertions of the first five years of
his missionary life, delivered his first speech on India
Missions. , . Its statements flew like liofhtninj?
through the length and breadth of Scotland, vibrated
through and warmed many hearts hitherto cold to
missions, and tended to produce unity among brethren
standing aloof from each other. Never will we forgot
the day when a few of its living fragments caught our
eye in a newspaper in our quiet retreat on the banks
of the xTith, near Dumfries, when suffering from great
bodily weakness; It kindled a spirit within us that
raised us up from our bed, and pointed as if with the
finger to India as the fold of our future labours."
Already had Anderson, as a tutor, been able to train
men like John Cowan, Esq., of Beeslack. But his
indomitable will and untiring energy wore now called
to found and build up in Madras the General Assem-
bly's Institution, which has since expanded into the
great catholic Christian College of Southern India — •
tlie first to realize Dr. Duff''s ideal of a united colloo'o
representing all the evangelical churches. Ordained in
St. George's, Edinburgh, by Dr. Gordon, Mr. Ander-
son visited the alcutta Mission before setting up his
own on its model, and was soon after joined by such
colleagues, also the fruit of Duit's appeals, as Messrs.
Johnston and Braid wood from the same university.
Aberdeen at the same time joined her sister colleges in
the high enterprise, by sending Dr. Murray Mitchell to
Bombay. The harvest, for that season, was finished
by another missionary from Edinburgh, the Rev.
Thomas Smith, to whose ordination we shall again
348 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1837.
refer. The opening of tlie Central India Mission in
Nagpore, a few y^ears after, by Stephen Hislop, com-
pleted the Indian organization of the missions of the
Church of Scotland, established and free. All, directly
or indirectly, are to be traced to the living seed sown
amid so much weakness but yet with such power in
1835-36.
After a rest at Edradour, all too short. Dr. Duff
went up to liondon at the beginning of May, 1837, to
take part in the anniversary of the Church of Scot-
land's Foreign Missions, held by the London Pres-
bytery in Exeter Hall. After much searching we have
been able to discover in an old volume of pamphlets
of the period a copy of what his English critics have
always pronounced by far the most eloquent of Dr.
Duff's speeches. Though weak, he was no longer the
fever-wasted man who had excited the alarm of the
Assembly of 1835. By unrivalled experience in both
England and Scotland he had learned the defects of
the home Churches and of the best stay-at-home Chris-
tians in relation to the missionary command of Christ.
And so, as he mused on the contrast between the pro-
fession and the reality, as he listened to the rhetorical
periods of bishops and clergymen, of ministers and
professors who talked but did nothing more, the fire
of indignation burned forth into glowing sarcasm.
Nothing short of a reprint of the twenty-five pages of
that rare address could do justice to this vein uf the
impassioned oratcr. Severed from the context, without
the flashing eye, the quivering voice, the rapid gesticu-
lation, the overwhelming climax, the few passages we
may now reproduce seem cold and formal indeed.
But we must premise the orator's own explanation of
the satire — " These expressions are in alhision to
certain tropes and figures that have actually flourished
amid the exuberant rhetoric of Exeter Hall."
iEt. 31. THE RHETORIC OP EXETER HALL. 349
Beginning, in tlie highest style of his art, as Demos-
thenes and Cicero and Paul before Agrippa had done,
this modern prophet, sent from the millions of Hin-
dooism to the very centre of Christian profession,
congratulated London, and especially its Scottish resi-
dents, on the reception of the appeal lately sounded in
their ears " in behalf of our suffering countrymen in
the Highlands and islands of Scotland. Nobly and
righteously, and in a way worthy of the wealthiest
metropolis in the world, has the appeal been responded
to. But why is it that we should bo affected even
unto horror at the melancholy recital of mere temporal
destitution, while we are apt to remain so cold, callous
and indifferent to the call of spiritual necessities that
is rung in our ears, loud as the cry of perishing multi-
tudes which no man can number?" Then after skil-
fully picturing the horrors of famine and pestilence
among our own countrymen and within the narrow
limits of our island, and asking if imagination could
concei/e aught more harrowing, he replied : " No ! not
to the natural feeling, even although such a death is
by the hands of a mysterious Providence. To the
higher order of spiritual sensibility, however, some-
thing may be presented more harrowing still. I
know a land where earth, sea and air conspire in
favour of its inhabitants — a land so gorgeously clad
that it has been emphatically styled * the climes of the
sun.' And truty they are * the climes of the sun ; ' for
there he seems to smile with exuberant bounty, and
causes al) nature to luxuriate in her rich magnificence.
There the glowing imagery of the prophet seems
almost literally to be realized. The trees of the forest
seem to clap their hands, and the valleys seem to
rejoice on every side. All bespeak the glories of a
presiding Deity and recall to remembrance the bowers
of Paradise. But oh 1 in this highly favoured land —
350 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 1 83 7.
need I say I refer to India ? — wliicli for beauty might
be the garden of the whole earth, and for plenteousness
the granary of the nations, — in this highly favoured
land children are doomed to see their parents and
parents their children perish — perish, not because
there is no meat in the field, no flocks in the fold, no
cattle in the stall, but because they are goaded on by
the stimulants of a diabolical superstition to perish
miserably by each other's hands."
Then followed word-pictures of that which may
still be seen along the Hooghly — " sons and daughters
piously consigning a sickly parent, for the benefit of
his soul, to the depths of a watery grave;" of "the
putrid corpse of the father and the living body of the
mother" burning together, in every feudatory state
at that time, and only in 1828 prohibited in the East
India Company's territory ; of the sacrifice of children
by their mothers to the waters of Gunga and the jaws
of the alligator ; and of the systematic murder of
female infimts by the Rajpoot castes from Benares to
Baroda. Rising from one scene of pitiful horror to
another, every one of which an audience even of 1837
knew to be living fact and not old history as we now
happily do, thanks to Missions and Christian appeals,
the rajDt speaker reached the highest of all in the
spiritual destitution and debasement which had made
such crimes inevitable; and in the means which he
had taken, through sacred and secular truth harmo-
niously united, to give India a new future. A far-
seeing demand for pure English and vernacular liter-
ature, beginning with " the Bible, the whole Bible, the
unmutilatcd Bible, and nothing but the Bible," for
those whom . both state and church were educating,
brought Dr. Duff to the practical object of his address
— the duty of every Christian man, woman and child
in Great Britain.
^t. 31. INDIGNANT SATIRE ON THE CHURCIl's APATHY. 35 I
«
Look at men*s acts and not at tlicir words, for I am wearied
and disgusted with very loathing at ' great swelling woi'da *
that boil and bubble into foam and froth on the bosom of an
impetuous torrent of oratory and then burst into airy nothing-
ness. Look at men's acts, and tell mo what language do they
speak ? Is it in very deed a thiug so mighty for ono of your
nobles or merchant princes to rise up on this platform and pro-
claim his intense anxiety that contributions should be liberal,
and then stimulate those around him by the noble, or rather
ignoble, example of embodying his irrepressible anxiety in the
magnificent donation of £10, £20, or £50 ! when, at the very
moment, without curtailing any of the real necessaries of life,
without even abridging any one of its fictitious comf )rts or
luxuries, he might readily consecrate his hundreds or thou-
sands to be restored more than a hundred-fold on the great
day of final recompense ? And call you this an act of such
prodigious munificence that it must elicit the shouts and the
pa3ans of an entranced multitude ? Call you this an act of such
thrilling disinterestedness that it must pierce into hearts other-
wise hermetically sealed against the imploring cries of suffering
humanity ? Call you this an act of such self-sacrificing gene-
rosity that it must be registered for a memorial in the book of
God's remembr ^e, with the same stamp of Divine approbation
as that bestowed on the poor widow in the gospel, who, though
she gave but little, gave her all ?
"And is it in very deed a thing so mighty for a Christian
pastor, whether bishop, priest or deacon, or any member of a
Church, to abandon for a season his routine of duty, and once
in the year to come up, either to regale, or be regaled, with the
incense of human applause in this great metropolis, the em-
porium of the world's commerce, the seat of the world's
mightiest empire, and the general rendezvous of men and
things unparalleled in all the world besides ? Is it a thiug so
mighty for any one of these to stand up on this platform, and
call on assembled thousands to rise to their true elevation, and
acquit themselves like men in the cause of Him who rides on
the whirlwind and directs the storm ? And, dismissing all
ordinary forms and figures of speech as tame and inadequate,
is it an act so heroic to stand on this platform, and break forth
into apostrophes, that ring with the din of arms and the shout
of battle ? Is it an act so heroic, at the safe distance of ten
352 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 183 7.
thousand miles, courageously to summon the gates of Peking to
lift up their heads, and its barricades and ramparts to rend
asunder at the presence of the heralds of salvation ? and,
impersonifying the celestial empire herself, boldly invoke her
to send up without delay her hundreds of millions to the house
of the Lord, exalted above the hills, and place her imperial
crown on the head of Him on Whose head shall be all the
crowns of the earth, and the diadem of the universe ?
" Or, is it an act of spiritual prowess so mighty, for one who
never joined in the conflict, to stand up on this platform, and
rehearse the battles that have been fought in the missionary
field, the victories that have been obtained, and the trophies
that huve been won ? Is it an achievement of never-dying
fame to burst into rapture at the unrivalled honour of those
brave veterans that have already laid down their lives in storm-
ing the citadels of heathenism ? Hark ! here are a few blasts
from a trumpet that has often pealed, and pealed with effect,
at our great anniversaries. The missionary's life ? Ah ! * an
archangel would come down from the throne, if he might, and
feel himself honoured to give up the felicities of heaven for a
season for the toils of a missionary's life.' The missionary's
work ? Ah ! ^ the work of a minister at home, as compared
with that of a missionary, is but the lighting of a parish lamp,
to the causing the sun to rise upon an empire that is yet in
darkness.' The missionary's grave ? Ah ! ' the missionary's
grave is far more honourable than the minister's pulpit.'
'^ After such outpourings of fervent zeal and burning admir-
ation of valour, would ye not expect that the limits of a kingdom
were too circumscribed for the range of spirits so chivalrous ?
Would ye not expect that intervening oceans and continents
could oppose no barrier to their resistless career ? Would yo
not expect that, as chieftains at the head of a noble army,
numerous as the phalanxes that ere while flew from tilt and
tournament to glitter in the sunshine of the Holy Land, they
should no more be hoard of till they make known their
presence, by the terror of their power, in shattering to atoms
the towering walls of China, and hoisting in triumph the
banners of the Cross over the captured mosques of Araby and
prostrate pagodas of India ? Alas, alas ! what shall we say,
when the thunder of heroism that reverberates so sublimely
over our heads from year to year in Exeter Hall, is foundj in
JEl Zi» ^ APPEAL. 353
diangeloss succession, to die away in fainter and yet fainter
echoes among the luxurious mansions, the snug dwellings, and
goodly parsonages of Old England !
"Listen to the high-sounding words of the mightiest of our
anniversary thundcrors on this platform, and would ye not vow
that they were heroes, with whom the post of honour was the
post of danger ? Look at the astounding contrast of their
practice, and will not your checks redden with the crimson
Hush of shame, to find that they are coAvards, with whom the
post of honour is, after all, the post of safety ? Ye venerated
fathers and brethren in the ministry, whc l now see around
me, of every denomination — to you I appeal. I appeal in the
spirit of foithfulness, and yet in the spii'it of love, and ask : —
Is this the way to awake the long-slumbering spirit of devoted-
ness throughout the land ? Is this the kind of call that will
arouse the dormant energies of a sluggish Church ? Is this
the kind of summons that will cause a rush of champions into
the field of danger and of death ? Is this the kind of example
that will stimulate a thousand GutzlafTs to brave the horrors
of a barbarous shore ? — that will incite thousands of Martyns,
and of Careys, and of Morrisons, to arm themselves on the
consecrated spots where these foremost warriors fell ? I know
not what the sentiments of this great audience may be on a
subject so momentous ; but as for myself, I cannot, at whatever
risk of offence to friends, and of ribaldry from enemies, — I can-
not, without treason to my God and Saviour, — I cannot but
give vent to the overpowering emotions of my own heart, when,
in the face of England, Scotland and Ireland I exclaim, ' Oh
that my head were waters, that mine eyes were a fountain of
tears, that I could weep over the fatal, the disastrous iucon-
sistencies of many of the most renowned of the leaders of our
people ! '
" What, then, is to be done ? How are the gigantic evils
complained of to be efficiently remedied ? Never, never, till
the leading members of our Churches be shamed out of their
lavish extravagance in conforming to the fashion of a world
that is so soon to pass away, and out of their close-fisted penu-
riousness as regards all claims that concern the eternal destinies
of their fellows. Never, never, till the angels of our Churches,
whether ordinary pastors or superintending bishops, be shamed
out of their sloth, their treachery and their cowardice. For,
A A
354 I'if'E 0^ ^^' DUFP. 1837.
rest assured, that people would got we.iry of the sound of tlio
demand ' Give, give/ that is eternally reiterated in their oars,
when those who make it so seldom give, or, what is the same
thing, give in such scanty driblets that it seems a mockery of
their own expostulations, — and of the sound of the command
* Go, go,' when those who make it, are themselves so seldoui
found willing to go !
" How, then, is the remedy to be effected ? Not, believe me,
by periodical showers of words, however copious, which fall
Mike snow-flakes in the river, — a moment white, then gono
for ever.' No ; but by thousands of deeds that shall cause
the very scoffer to wonder, even if ho should wonder and
perish — deeds that shall enkindle into a blaze the smouldering
embers of Christian lovo — deeds that shall revive the days of
primitive devotedness, when men, valiant for the truth, de-
spised earthly riches, and conquered through suQeriugs, not
counting their lives dear unto the death."
" Archangels," ho said, " cannot leave their thrones ;
but where are the learned and the eloquent, tho
statesmen and the nobles, — where is one of our loud-
talking professors ready to do more than shrivel
their little services into the wretched inanity of an
occasional sermon, or a speech, easily pronounced and
calling for no sacrifice ? . . AVhat ! expect one and
all of these to descend from their eminences of honour
and go forth themselves content with the humble
fare and arrayed in the humble attire of self-denying
missionaries ? Is not this the very climax of religious
raving ? Gracious God ! and is it really so ? . ,
Are we in sober seriousness determined to contract
the calculus of eternity within the narrow dimensions
of the arithmetic of time ? Do I now stand in an
assembly of professing Christians ? " Then the sacred
orator, turning from sarcasm and irony, from reproach
and prophetic ridicule, thus closed with his entranced
audience in the presence of Him who gave Himself: —
ft
With deep solemnity of feeling let me ask : — ' Who is
iEt. 31. MISSIONS IN THE LIGHT OF CHRIST. 355
this that comoth from Edom, with dyed garments from
Bozrah ? ' It is the Man who is Jehovah's fellow. It is
Immanuel, God with us. But who can portray the undcrived,
the incomparable excellencies of llim, in whom dwelt all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily ? In this contemplation wo are
at once lost in an immeasurable ocean o. overpowering glory.
Imagination is bewildered; language fails. Go take a survey
of the earth wo dwell upon. Collect every object and every
quality that has been pronounced fair, sweet, or lovely. Com-
bine these into one resplendent orb of beauty. Then leave
the bounds of earth. Wing your flight through the fields of
immensity. In your progress collect what is fair and lovely
in every world, what is bright and dazzling in every sun.
Combine these into other oibs of surpassing brightness, and
thus continue to swell the number of magnificent aggregates,
till the whole immense extent of creation is exhausted. And
after having united these myriads of bright orbs into ono
glorious constellation, combining in itself the concentrated
beauty and loveliness of the whole created universe, go and
compare an atom to a world, a drop to the ocean, tho twink-
ling of a taper to the full blaze of tho noon-tide sun ; — the n
may you compare even this all-comprehending constellation of
beauty and loveliness with the boundless, the ineffable beauty
and excellence of B.im who is ' tho brightness of tho Father's
glory,' who is ' God over all, blessed for ever ! '
" And yet wonder, O heavens, and rejoice, earth ; this
great, and mighty, and glorious Being did for our sakes con-
descend to veil His glory, and appear on earth as a Man of
sorrows, whose visage was so marred more than any man's,
and His form more than the sons of men. Oh, is not this
love ! — self-sacrificing love ! — love that is ' higher than tho
heights above, deeper tliuu the depths beneath ' ? Oh, is not
this condescension ! — self-sacrificing condescension ! — conde-
scension without a parallel and without a name ? God manifest
in the flesh ! God manifest in tho flesh for the redemption of
a rebel race ! Oh, is not this the wonder of a world ? Is
not this the astonishment of a universe ?
" And, in the view of love so ineffable and condescension
so unfathomable, tell me, oh tell me, if it would seem aught
so strange — I will not say in the eye of poor, dim, beclouded
humanity — but in the eye of that celestial hierarchy that
356 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1837.
caused heaven's arclies to ring with antlieras of adoring
wonder when they beheld the brightness of the Father's glory
go forth eclipsed, mysteriously to sojourn on earth and trend
the winepress alone, red in His apparel and His garments dyed
in blood ? Tell me, ob, tell me, if in their cloudless vision
it would seem aught so marvellous, so passing straugo, did
they behold the greatest and tho mightiest of a guilty race,
redeemed themselves at so vast a price, cheerfully prepared to
relinquish their highest honours and fairest possessions, their
loveliest academic bowers and stateliest palaces ; yea, did tliey
behold Jloyalty itself retiro .and cast aside its robes of purple,
its sceptre and its diadem, and issue forth in the footsteps of
the Divine Redeemer into tho waste howling wilderness of sin,
to seek and to save them that are lost ?
''Ye grovelling sons of earth, call this fanaticism if you
will; brand it as wild enthusiasm ; — I care not for tho verdict.
From you I appeal to the glorious sons of light, and ask,
Was not this, in principle, the very enthusiasm of patriarclis,
who rejoiced to see the day of Christ afar off, and were glad ?
Was not this the enthusiasm of prophets, whoso harps, in-
spired by the mighty theme, were raised into strains of more
than earthly grandeur? Was not this the enthusiasm of
angels that made tho plains of Bethlehem ring with the
jubilee of peace on earth and goodwill to the children of men?
Was not this the enthusiasm (with reverence be it spoken) of
the eternal Son of God Himself, when He came forth travailing
in the greatness of His sti'ength, to endure tho agony and
bloody sweat ? And if this be enthusiasm that is kindled by
no enrthly *^re, and which, when once kindled, burns without
being consumed, how must the hopes of the Church lie sleep-
ing in the tomb, where it does not exist ? Oh ! until a larger
measure of this divine enthusiasm be diffused through the
Churches of Christendom, never, never need we expect to
realize the reign of millennial glory — when all nature shall
once more be seen glowing in the first bloom of Eden ; when
one bond shall unite and one feeling animate all nations ; when
all kindreds and tribes and tongues and people shall combine
in one song, one universal shout of grateful ' Hallelujah unto
Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever
and ever 1 ' "
JEt. 31. VINDICATION OF HIS SYSTKM. 35/
We have not met with a record of the effect of this
denunciation and appeal, any more than with a report
of that whicli Dr. Duff had uttered in the same hall
in the previous year at the anniversary of the Churcli
Missionary Society. But we know that the Rev. John
Macdonald had given himself to the mission as tho
result of Dr. Duff's earliest visit of all, in 18:]5 ; and
money at least was not stinted, for it was announced
to the Assembly held a few weeks after that £700
had been sent as the result of that meeting.
The General Assembly of 1837 is memorable in
ecclesiastical annals for tho happily rare event of a
contest regarding the modcratorship. It is of interest
here because of Dr. Duff's " Vindication of the Church
of Scotland's India Missions," in reply to the mis-
understandings and misrepresentations which had
arisen out of his speech of 18o5, to which, as an
oratorical effort, it comes only second. The local
reporters wrote : " This eloquent address produced,
amidst the profound silence with which it was listened
to, occasional bursts of enthusiasm which were irre-
pressible ; and the peroration at its close called forth
an expression of emotion in the Assouibly such as wo
have rarely witnessed." The Assembly ordered its
publication. Led by Dr. Muir, of Glasgow, in united
prayer the members returned thanks to God for pre-
serving the health and life of their dear brother. Dr.
Duff. The " Vindication " has a value which is more
than historical, from the demand that the Church
should send out its most highly educated ministers
and ablest preachers as missionaries to races like the
Hindoos, and from this still necessary answer to the
ignorant and the malevolent ; —
" Let it never be forgotten that, as tho Governinent schemes
of education uniformly exclude religious instruction, this may
only be a chauge from a stagnant superstition to a rampant
358 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1837.
infidelity. Wheat then is to bo done ? Are the Christians of
Great Britain to stand idly aloof and view the onward
march of tho spirit of innovation in the East as unconcerned
and indifferent spectators ? Forbid it, gracious Heaven 1
What then is to be done ? Why, if we are faithful to our
trust, and wise in time, we may, through the blessing of God,
be honoured in converting the education plans of the Indian
Government into auxiliaries, that may lend their aid in pre-
paring the way foi the spread of the everlasting gospel !
Wherever a Government seminary is founded, which shall
have the effect of demolishing idolatry and superstition, and
thereby clearing away a huge mass of rubbish; there let us
bo prepared to plant a Christian institution, that shall, through
the blessing of Heaven, be the instrument of rearing tho
beauteous superstructure of Christianity on the ruius of all
false philosophy and false rcligiou. Wherever a Government
library is established, that shall have the effect of creating an
insatiable thirst for knowledge ; there let us bo forward in
establishing our depositories of Bibles and other religious
publications, that may saturate the expanding minds of Indian
youth with the life-giving principles of eternal truth. And
who can tell whether, in this way, by * redeeming the time' —
by seizing the present golden opportunity — we may not be
privileged to behold all the Government schemes of educa-
tional impi'ovement in India overruled by a gracious superin-
tending Providence for tho ultimate introduction of Messiah's
reign ?
" From having formerly said so much on the power of useful
knowledge in destroying the systems of Hiudooisra, it has been
strangely concluded by some that our object has been to
reform tho natives of India by means of ' knowledge without
religion.' Need I say that no conclusion could possibly bo
more unfounded ? It is, indeed, most true that, for reasons
which have more than satisfied many of the wisest and most
devoted Christians in this land, I have, with uniform and
persevering earnestness, advocated tho universal diffusion of
sound knowledge in India. Not contented with seeing such
knowledge ooze out in scanty drippings, I have toiled and
laboured, in conjunction with others, to pour it out in copious
streams that may, one day, cover the whole land with the
swelling tide of reason uud intelligence. This, however.
JEt. 31, niS ALLIANCE OF EELIGION WITH KNOWLEDGE. 359
happens to be only one-half of any statement that I have ever,
anywhere, made on the subject. And what right has any one,
in reason or in justice, to fasten on one-half of a statement,
and deal with that half as if it were the whole ? Strongly and
sincerely as I have pled for the diffusion of sound general
knowledge in India, have I not, on every occasion, insisted
as strongly on the contemporaneous diirusion of religious
truth ? Have I not even laboured to demonstrate that, for the
best interests of man in time and eternity, the former should
ever be based on the latter — pervaded with the spii*it of it
throughout and made to terminate in its exaltation and
supremacy ? Have I not ever contended for the holy and
inseparable alliance of both ? — for the reciprocal inter-blending
of their different, though not uncongenial, influences ? And
if one or other must have the precedency, either as respects
priority of time or dignity of position, in the mighty work of
regenerating a corrupt world ; in the uaino of all that is
reverend and just, let that be selected for the honour which,
by inherent superiority and excellence of nature, is pre-
eminently entitled to it.
" Without ' useful knowledge ' man might not live so com-
fortably in time : without * divine knowledge ' eternity must
be lost. How then could the missionaries of the Church of
Scotland — the missionaries of a Church first loose:ied from
Popery by the Wisharts and Hamiltons, subsequently eatab-
lishod by the Knoxes and ]Mclvillea, and onwards perpetuated
by the Rutherfords and Hulyburtons — how could we dare to
sacrifice, at the shrine of a spurious liberality, that highest and
sublimest knowledge, whose ennobling truths many of these
worthies so heroically died to testify ? Or, if we dared thus to
act the part of degenerate children, how could we abide the
piercing glance of rebuke which they would cast upon us, if
recalled from the realms of day to witness our treacherous
cowardice ? And how might we not feel, even now, as if their
very ashes would speak out of the tomb, and their blood from
under the altar cry out against us ! Such, indeed, and so
strong, are my own convictions of tho vast importance of
useful knowledge in the great work of reforming India, that
were this venerable house to forbid the diffusion of it in
connection with its own mission, I, for one, would feel myself,
however reluctantly, constraiued at once to relinquish the
360 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1837.
honourable position wliicli it has been pleased to assign to me.
But such, and so overwhelming, are my convictions of the
immeasurably superior importance of that higher knowledge,
which unseals the fountain of Immanuel's love, that — sooner
than consent wilfully to withhold it for an hour from the
famishing millions of India, or of any other land, in deference
to the noxious theories of certain propagandists of the present
day — I would lay down my head upon the block, or commit
this body to the flames !
" I feel assured, however, that, so far as this house is con-
cerned, it will never fall into either of these extremes. Not-
withstanding the charges of religious bigotry that have been
so profusely heaped upon it, this house, like its noble reform-
ing ancestry, has been, is now, and, I trust, ever will be, the
consistent, the enlightened advocate of all really useful know-
ledge throughout the wide domain of families, schools and
colleges, whether in this or in other lands. And, notwith-
standing the charges of secular convergency that have been as
abundantly levelled at it, this house, like its noble reforming
ancestry, has been, is now, and, I trust, ever will be, the
intrepid, the unbending advocate of a thorough Bible instruc-
tion, as an essential ingredient in all sound education, whether
on the banks of the Forth or on the banks of the Ganges.
Yea, may I not be permitted with empliasis to add, that, sooner
than consent to surrender this vital principle, which is one
of the main pillars in the palladium of the Protestantism of
these realms, this house is prepared, as in times of old, to
submit to dissolution by the strong arm of violence ? — and its
members, like their fathers of the Covenant, prepared once
more to betake themselves to the dens and caves of the earth
— to wander by the lonely shore or over the desert heath,
to climb the mountain-steep for refuge, or secretly assemble to
worship in ' some deep dell by rocks o'ercanopied ' ?
" Let it, then, ever be our distinguishing glory to arbitrate
between the advocates of untenable extremes. Let us, on the
one hand, disown the bigotry of an unwise pietism, by re-
solving to patronis3 to the utmost, as in times past, the cause
of sound literature and science — lesO, by our negligence, in
this respect we help to revive the fatal dogma of the dark
ages, that what is philosophically true may yet be allowed to
be theologically false. And let us, on th^ other hand, de-
^t 31. EXTREMES OF INFIDELITY AND UNWISE PIETISM. 36 I
nounce the bigotry of infidelity, or religious indifference, by
resolving to uphold the paramount importance of the sacred
oracles, in the great work of christianizing and civilizing a
guilty Avorld. Let us thus hail true literature and true scienco
as our very best auxi .iries — whether in Scotland, or in India,
or in any other quarter of the habitable globe. But, in
receiving these as friendly allies into our sacred territory, let
us resolutely determine that they shall never, never, bb allowed
to usurp the throne, and wield a tyrant's sceptre over it.''
The foresight and the faith, the culture and the
self-sacrifice of that passage, reveal the height and
the breadth of the speaker's Christian statesmanship.
Every year since he spoke it has only given new force
to its truth, new reason for regret that the Church
and the Government alike were not wise in time to
seize the golden opportunity. Even Lord William
Bentinck's Government had refused the Mission Colleo-e
a grant-in-aid in recognition of the secular instruction
it gave, lest the Company, which was a partner with
the priests of Jugganath in their gains from the
deluded pilgrims, and which ordered its Christian
officers and Muhammadan sepoys to salute t^e ele-
phant-headed, pot-bellied idol Gunputty, should hurt
the religious feelings of the natives. The Mutiny
came, and brought the catholic universities with it.
The Mutiny passed — but at what a price ? In vain,
to this hour, by gagging the press and imprisoning
libellous or treasonable editors, does the Government
try to undo the evil effects of the undiluted and rigid
secularism of its schools and colleges. It goes on
sowing the wind as no other Government on earth
does or in history has ever done. Woe to India
and to the Church — to the three Churches of Scotland
especially which, in Duff and Wilson, and now in Dr.
Shoolbred, have been honoured to lead the way — if
this warning is forgotten 1
I
362 LIFE OF DR. DUIF. 1837.
Dr. Duff went further. The spiritual reformation
of the varied peoples of India he saw must be effected
by themselves when foreigners had thus handed on
the divine torch to ''' the Luthers and the Calvins and
the Knoxes of Hindostan " : —
"Our objcctj therefore, is not local or partial, individual or
tempoi'ary. It is vast and all-comprehensivo. It is nothing
less than intellectaally and spiritually to reform the universal
mind of India ; and not merely so, but to embody the
essential spirit of the reformation in improved institutions,
that sliall perpetuate its blessings to latest ages. But, has it
ever been heard of, that a great and permanent reformation,
in any land, has been the work of a day, or a year, or even a
single age ? Never, never. A great reformation is not merely
the pregnant cause of innumerable happy effects : — it is itself
but the aggregate effect of innumerable predisposing causes,
that may have been accumulating for centuries, ere they
became ripe for explosion. Viewed in this respect, the Re-
formation of Luther has been well compared to the rapids of
a river, in its precipitous passage from some mountain range
to the level plains below. Now, for India we not only con-
template a religious reformation, as effective as that of Luther
in Europe, but a reformation still more pervasive, and more
thoroughly national.
"As yet, however, we are only defiling among the wild,
upland, and mountain ranges of Hindooisra, with its bleak
wastes of fable, its arid knolls of prejudice, its frowning
crags of superstition, its towering eminences of idolatry.
But already, blessed be God, after the long dark night of
forty centuries, has the Sun of righteousness begun to gild
the Eastern horizon. Already are His earliest beams seen
reflected from the frozen summits. Already are there drop-
pings of truth on many a rocky heart. Already are there
under- currents of inquiry, that shall one day emerge from the
hidden recesses of individual minds. Already are there evan-
gelical founts that send forth their little rills of saving know-
ledge. Already are the clouds fast gathering, surcharged
with the waters of salvation, and ready to pour down their
copious showers. And soon may the swollen brooks unite
JEt 31. nE CONFIDENTLY AITEALS TO POSTERITY. 363
into rivers, and rivers into a mighty stream of quickoninj^
influences. For some years more, the mighty stream itself
may continue to flow on through comparatively barren and
unanimated solitudes. At length, impatient of restraint, it
must burst its accustomed boundaries, and, dashing headlong,
in the foam and thunder of a cataract of reformation, it
will gently glide into the peaceful under-vale of time. There
it shall roll on in its majestic course, overspreading its banks
with the verdure of righteousness, and pouring the fertility
of paradise into its pastures of gospel grace, till it finally
disappear and is lost in the shoreless ocean of eternity !
" Persuaded, as I feel, that such is our present position
among the incipient processes that shall, in due time, unite
and issue in so glorious a consummation, I, for one, am cheer-
fully willing to toil on, for years, in feeding, if it be but one
of the little rills of awakening influence, — though I should
never live to behold their confluence into the mighty stream
of sequences, with its rushing cataract, and waving harvest
gladdening its after-course. And, as regards the ultimate
realization of the magnificent prospect, I would, even on a
dying pillow, from a whole generation of doubters confidently
appeal to posterity.'
)i
We have seen how of his first four converts three
had become teachers, and were soon to become
preachers of the gospel, but under the Church of
England, the London and the American Missionary-
Societies, because the Church of Scotland was not
prepared to send forth the young evangelists in her
own name. Dr. Bryce, who had retired from the
ecclesiastical service in Bengal, rose in the General
As.'- nbly " after the heart-stirring and transcendently
eJoqaent speech " of Dr. Duff, to tell its members how
something at least was to be done to remedy this for
the future. The Assembly of 1834 had created three
presbyterial bodies at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras,
which united in sending representatives to the central
and highest court. These bodies drew up a course of
study to be followed by converts who sought to be
364 LIFE OF DR. DUFf. 1838.
licensed preacliers and ultimately orda;ncd missionaries
to their countrymen. In attempting to fix this course,
said Dr. Bryce, " the presbytery felt that a very
great latitude must be held as allowed to them, alone
acquainted as they could be with local circumstances.
But of this latitude they felt disinclined to avail
themselves beyond the necessity of the case, and
after the most mature deliberation given to the sub-
ject, they determined to follow generally as a model,
and as far as practicable, the course pursued at our
Divinity halls at home." We do not know how far
this decision would have been modified had Dr. Duff
been in Calcutta, although his letter at page 281 seems
to imply that he would have followed the Scottish
model less slavishly. While we admire the determi-
nation to secure a learned as well as godly native
ministry, shown in the rule which compels Bengalee,
Marathee, Goojaratee, Tamul, and even simple Son-
thalee converts to pass a satisfactory examination in
Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and to sign the historical
documents of the Scottish Churches before being
licensed to preach, we are compelled by hard facts
aL well as common sense to ask if it is thus we shall
raise or equip native Luthers. Is it a Christian
Nanuk or a Hindoo Calvin that India needs ? As the
story of the mission goes on we shall meet with able
Bengalee converts, made preachers and missionaries
because they have satisfied the presbytery according
to Dr. Bryce's still enforced " course of study." But
financially as well as ecclesiastically and even spirit-
ually, this parody of Western theological training has
worked so badly that the three Scottish Churches
have been asked by their missionaries to sanction
an evangelical course and creed more like those -of
the Apostles and the Church at Antioch, and not
less thorough and pure than those of covenanting.
JEt 32. REST AT EDRADOUR. 365
much-sufFerlng, often testifying and still sorely divided
Scotland. The Church of India has grown so far out
of infancy that it asks to be freed from the controver-
sial swaddling-bands of the West.
After again visiting some of the presbyteries in the
south of Scotland, Dr. Duff began his preparations
for returning to India. But he was premature. Ilis
general health was suffering so greatly that ho was
detained, and was even forbidden to attend the Assem-
bly of 1838, by his medical adviser, Dr. Macwhirter,
who had been for years physician to the Countess of
Loudoun, wife of the Marquis of Hastings, Governor-
General of India. Dr. Macwhirter when in Calcutta
had the reputation of being an exceedingly skilful
physician, while he was one of the most gentle and
amiable of men. After full personal inspection and
all manner o-f inquiries, the physician lifted up his
hands in astonishment, expressing the utmost surprise
that, with a body so weakened by general as well as
special disease, and so exhausted by the prodigious
labours undergone. Dr. Duff had been able to perse-
vere, though at the same time he had done so, un-
consciously to himself, not only at the risk of perma-
nent injury bub of premature death. " You are not
at all in a fit state to return to India," said Dr. Mac-
whirter. " You must have months of perfect quiet
under proper medical treatment with a view to re-
cruiting. If you can really submit to this, since
you are still but young in years and evidently have
a singularly wiry and iron constitution, my medical
judgment is that, after a reasonable time you will be
so far recruited as to warrant you to return. My
earnest advice to you, therefore, is at once to return to
your quiet Highland home, where by correspondence
I can perfectly regulate, from day to day if need
be, your regimen and medical treatment; there you
366 LIFE OP DR. DUFP. 1838.
will have the tender, nursing care of the members
of your own family about you." Thus most of the
autumn, and a considerable part of the winter of
1838-30, was spent at Edradour.
In that quiet and beautiful retreat Dr. Duff only
exchanged the voice for the pen. From all parts of
the kingdom and from other lands he was applied to
for counsel or information or help on the most catholic
grounds. Among others whom his earliest addresses
had roused were " a few friends of the missionary
enterprise in Scotland,"* as they described themselves,
who offered two prizes, of two hundred and fifty
guineas in all, for the best essays on " The Duty,
Privilege, and Encouragement of Christians to send
the Gospel of Salvation to the Unenlightened Nations
of the Earth." Dr. Duff, with whom Dr. Chalmers
and Professor M'Gill, of Glasgow, were associated as
promoters of the philanthropic enterprise, conducted
a remarkable correspondence on the subject, declaring
that if he had the means he would himself supply
the money. This is the first illustration in Scotland
of what we have seen in Bengal — his conviction that
for foreign missions, as for all good objects, the press
is an agency, not so powerful as the pulpit in the
spiritual region, but more extensive and effective in
its influence on the mass of mankind. To the last
he complained that it was far too much neglected by
the Church as a weapon of good. The adjudicators,
who were Professor Welsh, Dr. Wardlaw, the Rev.
Henry Melvill, Dr. Jabez Bunting, and the Rev. T. S.
Crisp, representing all the evangelical Churches,
* Mr. R. A. Macfie, of Dreghorn, who subsequently organized
the Liverpool Conference of Missionaries, iuforms us that these
friends were bis father; Mr. John Wright, jun,, father-in-law of
the Rev. Charles Brown, D.D. ; and the late Thomas Fairnie, of
Greenock, etc.
^t. 32. DIl. CIIALMEllS. 367
awarded tho prizes to Dr. Harris, the president of'
Cliesliiint College, and to Dr. R. Winter Hamilton, of
Leeds. The essays were published, but not in a
cheap form which would have sent them into every
house ; several thousands of both were sold. A
catholic narrative and exposition of the foreign mis-
sionary movement from the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century to the present day, popular, accurate,
condensed, and including Romish missions, is still a
desideratum.
When fairly restored to health, towards the summer
of 1839, Dr. Duff prepared himself for the consolida-
tion of all the work ho had been doing during tho
previous four years towards making the ilirk of Scot-
land permanently for the future a Missionary Church.
He sent out a third missionary in addition to Mr. John
Macdonald and Dr. Murray Mitchell ; he broadened
the movement for female education in the East; he
spoke his farewell counsels to the country through tho
General Assembly ; he left his lectures on " India and
India Missions," to quicken the missionary spirit in
his absence ; and he made the final arrangements for
giving Bengal a central college worthy of the higher
Christian education. In all he had the constant sup-
port of Dr. Chalmers, and the friendly hospitality of
Dr. Brunton alike in the university and at Bilstane
Brae. Of the former we find him thus writing to Sir
Andrew Agnew, on the 17th September, 1838 : " What
triumph attends Dr. Chalmers's career 1 How ought we
to bless and praise our Heavenly Father for having
raised up so mighty a champion of truth in troublous
times ! Truly it is the duty of every one that fears
the Lord to lift up his arms as for battle, when the
enemy is coming in on every side like a flood. What
ineffable consolation in the assurance, * the Lord
God Omnipotent reigneth I ' " By this time it had
368 LIFE OP DK. DUFF. 1839.
. become evident that the spiritual rights of the Kirk,
guaranteed by Scottish Parliament, Union Treaty and
Revolution Settlement, were in danger. In May,
1830, Lords Brougham and Cottenham gave the
sanction of the highest appellate court to the aggres-
sion of a majority of the Scottish judges on these
rights. Dr. Duff began to see the purely spiritual
work for which a Church exists, which he had done
side by side Avith Chalmers and Guthrie in kirk ex-
tension, threatened. In 1839 the revenue of the
Church of Scotland for missionary purposes of all
kinds was fourteen times greater than it had been in
1834, so that Chalmers exclaimed : " We are planting
schools, we are multiplying chapels, we are sending
forth missionaries to distant parts of the world, we
have purified the discipline, we are extending the
Church and rallying cur population around its vener-
able standard."* All this foreign colonial, and home
missionary work was to be extended far more largely
than fourteen times, by the very ecclesiastical cata-
clysm which in 1843 seemed certain to extinguish it.
So greatly had the Bengal Mission been extended
under Mackay and Ewart, working out Dr. DuflF's
system with his careful and constant support from
home, that they were not satisfied with the addition of
a third colleague in the person of Mr. Macdonald.
The three clamoured for a fourth to help them to over-
take the special field in which no other mission had
then followed them. To their demands Dr. Duff sent
this among other replies : —
" Edinburgh College, January \hth, 1839.
"My Dear Ewart, — To your last letter I purposely
delayed replying till I might have it in ray power to
• Memoirs of Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D. By Dr. Hanna.
Vol. ii. chap. 27.
iEt 33 NO EXCLUSIVELY SECULAR WORK IN COLLEGE. 369
communicato somctliinf^ of a dofinito nature on the
maiQ practical point therein referred to. Tlio instant
it was received I wrote most urgently to Dr. B run ton,
pressing the necessity of immediately appointing a
new labourer to support you. Something was spoken
on the subject. But lets and hindrances seemed to
threaten to retard indefinitely. In December, my own
health having much improved, I resolved to visit Edin-
burgh — firstj to consult in person with my medical
advisers as to my fitness for immediately returning to
Calcutta ; and second, in the event of that not being
allowed, to enforce the appointment of another. As
to the first point, — though satisfied with the progress
made on the whole, it was deemed utterly inadvisable
to attempt to return tih next summer. But, if tlie
Lord will, I have now the certain prospect of turning
my face eastward in June or July next. Meanwhile,
I have laboured incessantly in pressing the second
point, the immediate appointment of another. And
I am sure you will rejoice to learn that yesterday, at a
meeting of the general committee, not only was it re-
solved to appoint one, but the individual was actually
nominated — and he will lose no time in setting sail to
join you. The new colleague is Mr. Thomas Smith,
lately licensed to preach the gospel — one who has long
pondered the subject of personal engagement in the
missionary cause, though young in years. He has a
fine missionary spirit, and in mathematics and natural
philosophy was one of the most distinguished students
of the session in Edinburgh. He will at once, there-
fore, be able to lend you effective aid, by taking up
any of your own or Mr. Mackay's departments in the
scientific part of the course. He will thus relieve
you of some of those most onerous duties that have
devolved on you in consequence of Mr. Mackay's
lamented illness. We have given Mr. Smith to under-
6 B
370 WFE OF DB. DUFF. 1839.
stand that he may be called on by you to take up the
very subjects which constituted Mr. Mackay's share
of instruction in the Institution. And I am happy to
say that he will be prepared, if deemed proper by you,
to do so cheerfully.
*' It will not do for a single moment to abate one
iota of the educati£)nal course. The committee, the
General Assembly, the entire Church of Scotland is
publicly committed to it. If the Institution at Cal-
cutta be allowed to drop, the sinews of war at home
will be cut off, and all the missionaries must either
return, or support themselves the best way they can on
the voluntary system. At this moment nothing would
reconcile the people of Scotland to any measure that
would weaken the strength of the Institution. And
henceforward, such is the public feeling of intelligent
thoughtful people on the subject, that the committee
dare not send a missionary who will not pledge him-
self to join in conducting any department of the edu-
cational course which may devolve upon him, either by
the judgment of his brethren or the exigency of un-
forseen contingencies. This does not infringe on the
grand design of effecting a thorough division of labour
when the number of labourers is complete — each
having that department allotted to him in which he
is known and acknowledged most to excel — or that
which may be his forte. But this is not to be under-
stood as limiting one so exclusively to one particular
department as to exonerate him from taking some
share in conducting any other when a vacancy may
temporarily occur.
** I do not altogether relish the idea of a total se-
paration or chasm being effected between the strictly
spiritual and what is called the secular department.
Rather, I should say, there ought to be no exclusively
secular department. In other words, in teaching any
^t. 33. EPISTLE TO THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS. 37 1
branch of literature and science, a spiritually-minded
man mu^t see it so tauglit as not only to prove sub-
servient to a general design, but bo more or less
saturated with religious sentiment, or reflection, or
deduction, or application. In this way, incidentally
and indirectly it may be, yet most eifectually, may
religious impression be conveyed even when engaged
in teaching literature and science. But besides this
incorporation of what is religious with what is secular
or scientific, there ought no doubt always to be regular
systematic instruction in what is biblical and religious.
And if in this department any one should be allowed
to excel, it would, on the principle of division of labour,
be well to allot it to him, but not n such sense as
that any other was precluded from teaching religion,
or that he was exempted from taking a share in the
literary and scientific departments, in case of necessity
arising from temporary illness or absence.
" Now, my dear Ewart, there is at my disposal
something above £1,000 in all. Do then send me by
the first steamer a complete list of all your desiderata
as to books, philosophical apparatus, etc., and I shall
endeavour to have all supplied. Do not miss a
steamer in sending me as complete a list as you can
furnish, that it may reach in time to enable me to
avail myself of it before returning to join you. My
affectionate regards to Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald, Mr.
Charles, Mr. Meiklejohn, etc. I hope to reply to tho
old pundit ere long. In haste, affectionately yours,
" Alexander Duff.'*
In St. Andrew's Church, Edinburgh, on the 7th
March, 1839, Dr. Duff him':>elf presided at the ordin-
ation of his young colleague, now the Rev. Thomas
Smith, D.D., and the only survivor of the prse-Mutiny
oand. Dedicated to all students of divinity in Scot-
372 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1839.
land, ** with miiny of whom the author has enjoyed
much general converse,*' the discourse and the charge
to the youthful missionary still form not only the
most remarkable as it has been the most popular of
Dr. Duff's writings, but a model to be studied by all
candidates of theology of whatever Church. The mis-
sionary apostle himself described it as " a plain letter
of instructions which might prove really useful to a
young and inexperienced but beloved brother." The
epistle has just enough of an autobiographic element
to give it a fascination which every year will increase
as the events of the decade ending 1839 are thrown
farther back in the history of India and of its Church.
*' Missions the Chief End of the Christian Church ;
also the Qualifications, Duties and Trials of an Indian
Missionary," as the publication of 1839 was entitled,
should be edited for republication in its completeness.
The latest reprint is sorely mutilated. Many a mis-
sionary has that little epistle and charge sent to India,
China and Africa from other Churches.
The education of the women of India was begun
by young ladies of Eurasian extraction, in Calcutta,
under the Baptist missionaries so early as April, 1819.
Mrs. Wilson followed, in the same city, in 1822. But
Bombay, if later, soon distanced the rest of India, be-
cause of the absence of caste among the Parsees, the
greater freedom of the social life of the Marathas than
that of the Bengalees, and the readiness of Mrs. Mar-
garet Wilson to take advantage of both. Hence, in
1837, a Bombay officer. Major Jameson, began in Scot-
land the formation of the Ladies' Societv for Female
Education in the East. Still it was long till, in any
part of India, it was possible to bring girls of respect-
able and cas\.e-bound families under Christian or even
secular instruction, with the exception of Parsee ladies.
On his first visit to England Dr. Duff was asked to
^t. 33. FEMALE EDUCATION IN INDIA. 373
supply the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel witli infor-
mation, wliich the preacher published as an appendix
to his sermon preached for the Society in London for
promoting female education in China, India and the
East. He heartily supported Major Jameson's move-
ment in Scotland. On a recent visit to Penicuik we
found in a state of active prosperity the hrst Ladies*
Society ;.eon in Scotland for combined prayer and
work for female education in India. That society is
the result of an address by Dr. Duff, of which there
is no other trace. In the forty years since, it has
kept up an intelligent interest in, and has called forth
annually increasing work and subscriptions for the
evangelizr.tion of the women of India, from some of
the best families of Midlothian and not a few of the
cottages and farms of Penicuik.
Dr. Duff's address at the first annual meeting of
the Scottish Ladies' Society, now more vigorous than
ever in two bands, not only sketched the position of
women in the East under Hindoo and Muhammadan
law and practice, but outlined a policy, applicable to
Calcutta and Bengal, which he lived long enough to
see in full fruition. That has before been sketched in
the account of the discussion in Bengalee debating
societies, and as an integral part of his missionary
educational system. It is most tersely put in these
sentences of his appendix to Baptist Noel's sermon.
"From the unnatural constitution of Hindoo so-
ciety, the education of females, in a national point of
view, cannot possibly precede, cannot even be con-
temporaneous with the education of males. The
education of the former, on any great national scale,
must, fi'om the very nature of their position which
those only who have been in India can at all ade-
quately comprehend, follow in the wake of the en-
lightened education of the latter. In a word, a
374 ^i^^ 0^ ^^' i>^Fr. 1839,
gGDeration of educated males, i.e. educated after the
European model, must be the precursor of a genera-
tion of educated females."
Should nothing, then, be done ? On the contrary,
elementary education among the few who may be
induced to attend a public school, and during the
brief time before marriage and re-absorption into
their own idolatrous system, should be zealously prose-
cuted. Christian philanthropy will care especially for
the outcast and the orphan, and the growing class of
native Christians must be provided for. " But there
is another and far more rapidly increasing one, that
must annually swell the aggregate of those friendly to
female improvement; the multiform class that aims
at the acquisition of European literature and science,
through the medium of the English language. From
various concurrent causes thousands of native youth
have now begun to flock to Government and Mis-
sionary Institutions, there to enter on the career of
English education ; and, if the future keep pace pro-
portionately with the past, these thousands will ere
long be multiplied tenfold, and ultimately a hundred-
fold. Now, it may safely be laid down as an un-
doubted axiom, that every individual who receives a
thorough English education, whether he become a
convert to Christianity or not, will, with it, imbibe
much of the English spirit, i.e. become intellectually
Anglicised; and hence, will inevitably enrol himself
in the catalogue of those whj assert the right of
females to be emancipated from the bondage of
ignorance. This is not a legitimate inference only,
it is a statement of the results of past experience."
The elementary or direct method has not only
rescued thousands of girls from destruction, aiding
Government in famines and providing wives for
Christian homes ; but it has, on the normal school
JEt. 33. HIS BOOK, " INDIA AND INDIA MISSIONS." 375
method, trained devoted vernacular teachers who
were ready to enter the zananas, and to teach the
select caste schools, the moment that tlie indirect
influence had prepared the next generation of women
to be taught. What Dr. Duff predicted in 1829-1839
came to pass twenty years afterwards. We shall see
how this policy has led to the caste school and the
zanana instruction till at least one Bengalee lady
has passed the matriculation examination of the
University of Calcutta.
When residing with Dr. Gordon, on the occasion of
Mr. T. Smith's ordination, that zealous secretary of
the committee suggested to him the delivering of a
series of popular lectures in so central a place as
St. Andrew's church. Having devoted two or three
weeks to the arrangement of his materials. Dr. Duff
attracted overflowing crowds in the foui' weeks of
April to hear those gorgeous descriptions, novel ex-
positions, and thrilling narratives which he published
for the benefit of the funds of the committee, to
whom the book was dedicated, under the titlo of
" India and India Missions : including Sketches of the
Gigantic System of Hindooism both in Theory and
Practice." The work soon reached a second edition,
and has still a historical value, although it may be
said that oriental scholarship has come to exist only
since the translations of Sir William Jones and the
essays of Colebrooke were followed, chiefly after 1839,
by the publication of the researches of Burnouf and
Lassen, Prinsep and John Wilson, H. H. Wilson and
Weber, Max Miiller and the brothers Muir. Nor were
Duff^s lectures confined to Edinburgh. We have
traces of him in Liverpool, both in the Philanthropic
Hall and in the Collegiate Institution, where Dean,
then Principal, Howson induced him to deliver one
described by a critic as " of remarkable brilliance and
power."
37^^ LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1839.
The General Assembly of 1839 brought -with it, for
Dr. Duff, the solemn but not sad duty of saying fare-
well to the country and the Church. As a member
for his native presbytery of Dunkeld he spoke again,
but with fresh power and new facts, " on the subject
of your great missionary enterprise." The contrast
between the past and the present in the highest court
of the Kirk was no striking that he recalled the time
when the venerable Erskine cried out, '* Rax me the
Bible," that he might prove to his brethren in the
ministry the duty of preaching the gospel to the
heathen. Against that memorable incident, only a
generation past, he set the record of converts and
Hindoos about to become themselves missionaries, as
given in the latest report of the India mission. Sad-
dened for the moment that he was leaving no eye-
witness behind him to feed with facts and appeals the
home machinery he had organized, he said, " Public
meetings alone will never answer our end. We must
descend to the mass and permeate with vitality its
humblest and most distant atoms. Without this all
our missionary, educational, and church extension
schemes must flag and fail. You must get the young
on your side," he said ; " give me the school books and
the schoolmasters of a country, and I will let any one
else make not only its songs and its laws, but its
literature, sciences and philosophy too ! What has
made Brahmanism the hoary power it is but its
Shasters ? What has sustained the force and passion
of Islam for centuries but the Koran" read in every
school and college from Gibraltar to the Straits of
Malacca ? So must Christians use the Press, after his
outburst on which he referred to his own departure : —
ti
Already is it the boast of our country, that it has replen-
ished the service of our sovereign with warriors and states-
men ; supplied every civilized nation with men accomplished
iEt. 33. FAliEWELL ADDRESS TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 377
in learned professions ; filled the exchanges of every nietro-
polis in the globe with entcrprisirg capitalists ; sent intrepid
adventurers to explore the most barbarous and inhospitable
climes. But let us, through the medium of works for the
young, .*id especially of school books universally adopted, only
s;ttui'ate the juvenile mind of the nation with evangelistic
principles, duties, and motives, and our country may bo
destined to earn yet greater and more lasting fame. Our
parochial schools may become the rudimental nurseries, and
our colleges, and especially our divinity halls, the finishing
gymnasia of a race of men who shall aim at earning higher
trophies than flags and standards rolled in blood — nobler
badges than mimic stars of glittering dust ; — a race of men,
on whom shall fall the mantle of the Eliots and the Brainerds
of the West, and the Martyns and Careys of the East.
" . . . Often, when wearied and exhausted under the
debilitating influences of a vertical sun and a burning
atmosphere : often, when depressed and drooping in spirit, amid
the never-ending ebullitions of a rampant heathenism : often,
when thus made, in some measure, to realize the feelings of
the exiles of old, who by the streams of Babel did hang their
harps upon the willows, and wept when they remembered
Zion — often, often I have retired to the chamber of medita-
tion, on a table of which constantly lay a copy of ' the Cloud
of Witnesses ; ' and after pe/using some of the seraphic
utterances of our Renwicks and Guthries, from the dungeons
and the scaffolds of martyrdom, often have I fallen down
before the divine footstool, ashamed and confounded on ac-
count of my faint-heartedness and cowardice ; and rising up,
new -braced and invigorated in the faith, as often have I been
made to resolve, through grace, to be so faint-hearted and
cowardly no more. But little did I then think of the fresh
impulse and enjoyment that awaited me, when subsequently
privileged to visit those regions of our native land, that may
well be termed the Judaea and Jerusalem of persecuting times.
I have been in temples of the most gorgeous magnificence ; J
have been in palaces decorated with the glittering splendours
of art; I have been in bowers gladdened with perpetual
summer, and clothed with never-dying verdure ; — but never,
never amongst them all have I experienced the same pure and
elevated and ecstatic emotion as within the last two years.
378 LIFE OP DB, DUFF. 1839.
when traversing those bleak and dreary upland moors, and
barren mountain solitudes, that often constituted vhs only
home of those devoted men of whom the world was not
worthy — that have been consecrated in the eyes of posterity
as their birthplace and theii' graves ; and over every moss,
and rock, and dell of which once waved the banner em-
blazoned, aa if in rebuke of the treason and blasphemy of
latter days, with the glorious inscription, —
••'For Reformation
In Church and State,
According to the Word of God,
And our sworn Covenants.'
" Now, these are the men whose example wo are ever and
anon called upon to imitate. But surely, if there be any one
point more than another in which they have set us the most
emphatic example, it is in their cheerful determination to deny
themselves and submit to all manner of sacrifices. Can we,
except in derision, be said to emulate their conduct, if not
prepared and resolved to submit to like sacrifices with them ?
If all were here present this day, whether clergy or laity, who
glory in being the members of a Church that has been watered
and cemented by the blood of martyrs, might we not demand,
* What substantial proof or pledge have ye ever yet given that
ye are really prepai*ed and resolved to tread in their footsteps ?
You profess to imitate their example ! Well, in order to this,
you are called upon, like them, to deny yourselves, in order
the more effectually to advance the cause of the Redeemer/
" In the spirit of this resolution I originally went forth to
heathen lands. And though suddenly removed by an afliictive
visitation of Providence, over which I had no control, the
spirit of that resolution still abideth the same. If the Lord
will, therefore, my unaltered and unalterable purpose is, to
return to the scene of my former labours. In adhering so
determinedly to this purpose, I am not unaware of the mis-
construction and uncharitable insinuations to which, in certain
quarters, my conduct has been subjected. Now, though in
myself I feel and confess that I am nothing, yea, ' less than
nothing, and vanity,' I must, for the sake of ' magnifying my
office,' be permitted to assert and vindicate the integrity of my
actuating motives. I would return to the land of my adoption.
Mt. 33. PAEEWELL ADDRESS TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 379
not because, in the gross and carnalising judgment of somo
vvorldlings, I could not do better at homo. No ; if the earnest
and reiterated entreaties of friends ; if the most alluring offers,
on the part of some of ' the mighty and the noble •/ if the
most tempting ' vitations to spheres of houour and responsi-
bility, from 10. a few of the Christian people of this laiul, —
could liavo availed aught, I might, in the low, vulgar and
drivelling sense of the expression, have done better at home.
I would go, not from the restless spirit of wild, roviug ad-
venture. If the animating principle had flowed from that
source, sure enough it ought by this time to have been cured,
in the case of one who twice suIFored shipwreck, barely
escaping with life; who, more than once, was well-nigh
foundered amid the gales and hurricanes of the deep ; and who
was thrice brought to the very brink of the grave by the
noxious influences of an unfriendly clime. I would go, not
from any exaggerated estimate or ambitious longings after the
pomp and luxuries of the East. No. Dire experience con-
strains mo to say, that, for the enjoyment of real personal
comfort, I would rather, infinitely rather, be the occupant of
the poorest hut, with its homeliest fare, in the coldest and
bleakest cleft that flanks the sides of the Schehalliou or Ben
Nevis, than be the possessor of the stateliest palace, with its
royal appurtenances, in the plains of Bengal. I would go,
not from any freaks of fancy respecting the strangeness of
foreign lands, and *he exciting novelty of labour among the
dwellers there. There I have been already; and can only
testify that the state of the heathen is far too sad and awful a
reality to be a fitting theme for story or for song, — unless it
be one over which hell would rejoice, and heaven weep. I
would go, not from any unpatriotic dislike of my native land,
or misanthropic aversion from its people, or its institutions.
No : for its very ruggedness, as the land of ' the mountain and
the flood,* I cherish more than ordinary fondness. How could
it be otherwise ? Nestled and nursed, as it were, from earliest
infancy, among its wildest and sublimest scenes : — no pastime
half so exhilarating as the attempt to outrival the wild goat
in clambering from crag to crag, or to outstrip the eagle in
soaring to their loftiest summits ; no music half so sweet as
the roar of the cataract among the beetling precipices of some
dark frowning ravine or solitary dell ; no chariot and equipage
380 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1839^
half so much coveted as the buoyant wreaths of mist that
scoured atliwnrt tlio scalped brows, or curled their strange and
fantastic shapes around the ragged peaks of the neighbouring
hills. Hence a fondness for the characteristic scenery of my
native land, amounting almost to a passion — a passion which,
like every other, it requires divine grace to modify and subdue.
For oft as I have strayed among gardens an(.' groves, bo-
studded with the richest products of tropical clin.es, the in-
voluntary (ejaculation has ever been, * Give mo thy woods, thy
barren woods, poor Scotland ! ' Towards its people I have
always cherished the fondest attachment — an attachment
vastly augmented by the circumstance, that from Pomona, the
mainland of Orkney, to the Solway Firth, there is scarcely a
city or district in which I could not point out one or more
personal friends, in whose Christian society I have found re-
freshment and delight. Of all its institutions, sacred and civil,
I have ever entertained an unbounded admiration — an admira-
tion that has been immeasurably enhanced by the contrast
which the want of them exhibits in other lands. I would
therefore go, not because I love Scotland less, but because
I humbly and devoutly trust that, through the aid of divine
grace, I have been led to love ray God and Saviour, and the
universal extension of His blessed cause on earth, still more.
I would go because, with the Bible in ray hands, I cannot see
what special claim Scotland has upon me, as a minister of
Christ, any more than any other land embraced within the
folds of the everlasting covenant ; because, witii the Bible in
my hands, I cannot see how a soul in Scotland can be intrin-
sically more precious than a soul in Greenland, or Kaffirland, or
Hindostan, or any other region on earth ; because, with the
Bible in ray hands, I cannot see that the bounds of the Church
of Scotland are identical with the bounds of the Redeemer's
kingdom ; or that the Lord Jesus, who is no respecter of
persons, is the Redeemer of Scotland rather than of any other
realm included in the emphatic and catholic designations of
* all the woi'ld,' and ' all nations.' "
While thus entitled to be exacting, in his Master's
interest md their own, towards others because he
was not sparing of himself, the missionary was no less
^t. 33- FAREWELL HONOURS DECLINED. 381
gonorons in his acknowledf^inont of tlioso who did
their duty. Mr. Baptist Noel had shown that in tho
year 1834, when tho whole income of the United King-
dom was estimated at about 514 milHons sterhntr, tho
proportion assigned to missions and Bible societies of
all kinds was only one seventeen-hundredth part, or
£300,000. Dr. Duff told of individuals, and especially
Christian ladies, who had become his fellow-helpers
in the gospel. One lady in London raised £500 ; her
example led two at Inverness* to collect £1,000 in
pennies, every one of which meant so much intelligence,
prayer and faith ; and another aided the new colonial
scheme by supplying with four ministers the thirty
thousand Scotsmen then in the island of Capo Breton.
Still another sent him £500 in an anonymous note,
as " from one who, having felt tho consolations of tho
gospel, is most anxious these should be imparted to the
perishing heathen." Thus was the Government price
of the site (£1 ,600) for the new college in Cornwallis
Square contributed ; thus was the building raised ; and
thus, as we have seen from the letter to Dr. Ewart,
were a library and philosophical apparatus supplied for
the use of its students. Tnto this college building
and equipment fund, destined to an unexpected fate —
the disruption of 1 843 — Dr. Duff poured a sum which
many to whom he had been blessed offered him in vain
as a personal gift for his family. All that he would
* Thus described by Dr. DufF: "One of the most peculiar at-
tempts was that which originated with the Misses Macintosh, of
Raigmore House, Inverness. Their father had been the founder of
one of the six great commercial and banking-houses in Calcutta.
The scheme was io interest parties in every parish iU Scotland so
fis to realize by pennies the sum of £1,000. Through indefatigable
exertions, at length the object was really accomplished, and in
carrying it out no doubt a vast deal of fresh interest in the
mission was diiTused throughout the membership of the Church."
382 LIFE OP DB. DUFF. 1 839.
consoTit to, of a personal naturo, was tlio publication
of his portrait, painted by William Coweu, and on-
graved, in mezzotint, by S. W. Reynolds. The original
is now in Calcutta.
Ho who had stood alone in Calcutta in 1830 now
saw eight other miHsionaries from the Church of Scot-
land in India all working on his system with an enthu-
siasm fu'cd by his own. And ho did not stop there.
Dr. Guthrie had been called to the church of Old
Greyfriars in Edinburgh which he himsolf had refused,
and liad been there only two years when he wrote : " I
had DiifTand some others dining with me the other day.
Duff was keen for me to go out to India. Dunlop de-
clared that Lord Medwyn would take out a prize war-
rant, seeing that he is risking some five or six hundred
pounds in the new church (8t. John's), on the under-
standing that I was to be minister thereof." Ten years
after, when Guthrie broke down from overwork, Duff
thus wrote to him from Calcutta : " The whole of
your remarkable career during the last few years I
have been following with intense delight ; your Manse
scheme and Ragged School have been bulking before my
mind's eye in a way to fill me with wonder, aye and
devout gratitude to the God of heaven for having so
extraordinarily blessed your efforts. From my own
experience I find that a season of affliction and inward
humiliation usually precedes some development of
spiritual energy in advancing the cause of the Lord."
Puzzled by his refusal of any personal recognition of
his services at home, friends on both sides of church
politics begged that Dr. Duff would at least meet them
at a public dinner or banquet. With his answer many
who have been victims on such occasions, alike in
giving and receiving honour, will sympathise : " Fare-
well dinners," he said, " were never to my taste. I
have always shunned them in the case of others, and
TEt. 33. THE SECOND OHAEQE OF DEi» CUALMEUS. 383
I will not myself be the object of honour. Tlioy are
generally attended by a mass of stereotyped phrases
intended to bo flatteries but without honest meaning.
Mut hold a religious service, and ask Dr. Chalmers to
give me his fatherly counsel and admonition." And
so it came about that, though the great preacher's
ordination charge to Duff has not seen the light, wo
have his matured opinion on the Scottis' missionary
system, from the economics of which he received many
a hint for his own Free Church creation three years
after. Dr. Ilanna has reprinted the farewell charge of
1839 in the " Sermons illustrative of different stages
in liis ministry," by the man whom Mr. Gladstone has
pronounced the grandest of all preachers he has hoard,
in spite of a distasteful accent, although John Henry
Newman was one of those preachers.
" Ten years ago," said the divinity professor of
sixty to the already experienced missionary of thirty-
three who stood before him above a vast crowd in
St. George's, Edinburgh, " in the work of setting you
apart to your office I expatiated on the nature and
evidence of conversion to God. * As we have heard,
so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in
the city of our God : God will establish it for ever.'
Christianity is the manifestation of truth by the S[)irit
to the conscience. It is on some such moral evidence
that the philosophy of missions is based. As we have
heard, so have we seen : then may it be understood
how, without a sensible miracle, there may arise in
the mind a well-founded belief in the truth of Chris-
tianity." Thus had hhe first missionary of the Church
of Scotland devised his plan and carried out the divine
policy — " faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the
word of God."
"By a device of admirable skilfu'.ness and correspondpnt
success, you have brought many of tKe most iufluential families
'y
84 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1839.
of nindostan within reach of the hearing of the word of God.
You havf, instituted a school mainly of scriptural lessons and
scriptural "xenHses. You have practised no deceit upon the
natives, for all is above board, and it is universally known
that the volume which forms the great text and substratum of
your scholarship is the book of the religion of Christians.
But you, at the same time, have studied to multiply the at-
tractions of this school ; you have not only iustituLod a lecture-
ship on the evidences of Christianity, but, for the purpose of
engaging the attendance chiefly of the higher classes, you
have pressed into the service both the physical and the
mathematical sciences, and, what might startle some, have
superadded the doctrines of political economy, and all that the
votaries of science might be lured within the precincts of
sacred ness. It is thus that many of India of all ranks, and
especially of the upper orders of society, have passed through
your seminary in successive hundreds, familiarized with the
language and seasoned with the subject matter of inspiration.
It is thus that many have heard with the hearing of the ear,
and at least been disarmed of all hostility to the gospel, and
some of these, many, have been made to see, and been con-
verted, and become the declared friends and champions of our
faith. It delights me, sir, to know, as the fruit of my in-
timate converse and of my acquaintance with your principles
and your thoughts, that while you have done so much to
obtain an extensive hearing for the gospel of Jesus Christ
in the most likely and promising quarters of human society,
you are at the same time fully and feelingly aware what that
high and external quarter is whence alone the seeing comes,
anu that unless a blessing, to be evoked only by prayer, shall
descend from the sanctuary above upon your enterprise, all
the labour you have bestowed upon it will prove but a vain
and empty pf^,rade. Let me earnestly recommend the con-
tinuance of this sacred and fruitful union, a union between
the diligence of ever-working hands and the devotion of ever-
praying hearts. Men of various moods and temperaments, and
different tastes of spirituality and intellect, will be variously
affected by the spectacle. Those of shrewd, but withal of
secular intelligence, will think lightly of your supplications,
perhaps even speak contemptuously of those outpourings of
the Spirit on which, I trusi, you will ever wait and ever watch
^t. 33. DR. CHALMERS EULOGISES HIS SYSTEM. 385
with humblo expectancy. Those of serious, but withal of
weak and drivelling piety, will think lightly of your scieuco,
and perhaps even speak with rebuke of your geometry, and
your economics, and your other themes of strange and philo-
sophic nomenclature, as things that have in them a certain
cast of heathenish innovation, prejudicial to the success, be-
cause incongruous with the simplicity of the gospel. But
amid these reproaches on the right hand and on the left,
persevere as you have begun ; and whether, on the one hand,
they be the cold rationalists who assail you with their con-
tempt, or, on the other hand, they be the fanatical religionists
who look on you with intolerance, continue to do what all men
of sense and of sacredness have done before, and you will
at length reap tho fulfilment of the saying, that wisdom is
ju&' "fied of her children.'
}i
Having thus put his imprimatur on the system in
language as strong as even Dr. Duff's when the mis-
sionary vindicated his evangelism alike against " the
bigotry of an unwise pietism " and *' the bigotry of
infidelity," Dr. Chalmers spoke with an almost pre-
dictive reference to his own coming scheme of Free
Church economics, when ho said, " You were the first,
I believe, to set the example of parsing from parish to
parish, and from presbytery to presbytery in behalf of
your own cause, and it only needs to be so carried
forward in behalf of other causes as to fill the whole
length and breadth of the land, in order to reap a
tenfold more abundant harvest from the liberalities
of the people than has ever yet been realized." Re-
ferring to his special work of home missions as not
a competing but a co-operating cause, he uttered a
truth which his successors have generally though not
always remembered : " Our two causes, our two com-
mittees, might work into each other's hands. Should
the first take the precedency and traverse for collec-
tions the whole of Scotland, the second would only
find the ground more softened and prepared for an
c
386 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1839.
abundant produce to itself. It acts not by exhaustion
— it acts by fermentation." And with this glimmer-
ing of the certain glory, he a second time sent forth
his favourite disciple and now beloved brother ; refer-
ring to " the singularly prophetic aspect, not merely
of the days in which we live, but both of Christendom,
that region you are about to leave, and of Eastern
Asia, that region of ancient idolatry whither you are
going ; for we can notice on that distant horizon the
faint breakings of evangelical light which, like the
dawn of early morn, may perhaps increase more and
more till the drying up of the Euphrates that the way
of the kings of the East may be prepared.**
We find this note written to Dr. Chalmers before
the address : —
«
BiiiSTANE BY LoANHEAD, Tuesclaijj 8th.
My Deae Sib, — I thank you with all my heart for
your very kind note of this morning. To receive
from you anew in any form the address of ten years
ago — the material of which became food for the white
ants of Bengal, but the moral of which had been
previously incorporated into my mental constitution —
will be to me an invaluable boon.
" I am grieved to say that I had a pre-engage-
ment for breakfast on Thursday morning, of such a
nature that I cannot suspend it. But, if possible, I
shall endeavour to call on you between ten and eleven
o'clock, a.m. I cannot express the gratification, the
comfort, the invigoration of spirit which I have ex-
perienced in the very prospect of yottr giving me a
parting address on Thursday, for to you I feel more
indebted, as an instrument in the hands of God, for
the impulse that carried me to heathen lands, than to
any other in the form of mere man. With grateful,
aff'ectionate regards, " Alexander Duff.'
it
JEt. 33. ANGLO-INDIAN PARTINGS. 38 7
Dr. DufF preached his farewell sermon to his own
people, in the Moulin parish kirk of his childhood,
from the text, " Finally, brethren, farewell." The
services, Gaelic and English, lasted for live hours, and
the crowded audience were in tears. On the subse-
quent Monday evening he met with them again, and,
after a short address, shook hands with the minister
in the name of all the country people, who had flocked
in from the vale and the hillsides of Athole. Then
followed the living martyrdom of Indian exile, the
parting of father and mother from their four children.
The birth of the youngest, a boy, only a few months
before, had been to Dr. Duff a source of new joy and
strength at a time of depression. Parents and children
were not to meet again for eleven long years.
CHAPTER Xin,
1839-1840.
EOTPT.^SINAL—BOMBA T.—MA D J?
Wigliom and the Overland Route. — Dr. Duiff as a '
■wich to Civita Vecchia with Cardinal Wi.seni;i
Wines of France. — Syra. — Alexandria. — Muhami;
Church jf St. Mark. — The Pyramids and Memplii
the Pasha's Misgovernment of Egypt. — Interview
Patriarch. — Caravan to Suez and an Indian of tli
Dr. Duff goes alone to Sinai. — Justinian's Convci
rine. — Greek and Hindostauee. — A Christian '
Mount of Moses. — Letter to his Daughter. — Sii(
Meeting with Wilson and Nesbit. — The Differin
Western and Eastern India as Missionary FicKi
Backwardness of English Education in Boniba;
Missions and Missionaries there. — Round (\i
Madras — A Night with Samuel Hebich at 3
Scottish Mission iu Madras. — A Cyclone at Hi
Hooghly. — Calcutta again.
The Overland Route, a phrase which I
have any but a historical meaning sinc^
of the Suez Canal, had just been made a i
',he autumn of 1839, Dr. and Mrs. Duff went forth to
India for the second time. On the ordinary roll of
the English martyrs of science the name of Thomas
Waghorn is not to be found. It has been left to the
French to do justice to the memory of the man who,
amid obstruction, obloquy and injustice ending in a
pauper's death, first opened the British overland route
to India in 1830. When M. Ferdinand de Lesscps
created the consequent of that by cuttinp: ♦^^-^ ' n^inl
III (jijcu sL'izud by his creditors. Thomas Wag-
* In the eight years ending 1878, the number of vessels which
have passed through the Suez Canal has been 10,988, yielding
eight millions sterling in dues. Of these vessels 8,007 were British,
which paid six millions sterling out of the eight. In the last year,
1878, of 96,303 passengers who passed through the Canal in 1,593
ships with a measurement of 3,269,178 tons, -besides the many who
crossed the isthmus by railway, 28,;:5o9 were British soldiers and
l'i,775 Ani^lo-TiuUans, or -irijlM iu all.
390 LIFE OP DE. DUFF.
horn died in the misery of debt, while the Pen
and Oriental Company sent its first steamers, it
along the path he had persistently tracked on
complete the scandal, not seven years have
since his aged sisters were driven to ask the p\i
support, while the Government which had so
their brother raised a revenue of fifty millions
a year from India and paid nearly half a iin
subsidies for the postal traffic on his overlaiui
So it is that the Latin poet's experience is stil!
"Sic vos non vohis" The bees of humanit
honey, but not for themselves.
When Dr. Duff resolved to return to India 1
was, in 1839, still Waghorn's overland route, li
the story of the heroic pioneer so far, and he i
to run the risk. *'A man above the count
activity, energy and enterprise!" was his in
exclamation then, before the eager life had hvc
a miserable tragedy by an ignorant country
ungrateful Government. Hotels in Egypt, swi
vans instead of camels in the desert, and a
with cabin accommodation for twelve passeng( i
the marvellous facilities supplied by tins i
benefactor in such circumstances. Thus ho li
verted the nearly five months of 1830 into tlio
and a half of 1839 between London and Boml >
as he pointed the road to the present rcductioi
time to sixteen days. Dr. Duff had to find !
first to Bombay, at the request both of Dr.
and the Kirk's committee, that he might conit
counsel his colleagues there after the keen excii
caused by the baptism of the first two converts ivum
Parseeism. His most rapid course thus lay from
Harwich to Antwerp and Brussels, south by Paris to
Marseilles, and thence by steamer to Syra, there to join
the mail steamer from Constantinople to Alexandria.
M'DINAL WISEMAN. 39*
s showed more than tho
^^-Tudian. By reading
^lad gone over his
■lligent onjoy-
(lour of the
Mio broad
'.(1 or
i;il!v'
step iu
whom Eiisi^hiii ■
Antwerp Dr. Dull
created by the flow uL i
392 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 1839.
earliest overland route — by Solomon's cities in tlio
desert, the Danube and the Rhine to the Dutch East
India Company's docks. In Brussels, " so strangely
mixed up with the intricate web of British history,"
and still more in Paris, he marked '* the combined
idolatry of sense and intellect " which more than ever
attracts worshippers from every land. As ho went on
to Chalons-sur-Saone, Melun recalled Abelard to him.
The wealth of the wine country through which he was
slowly driven suggested such reflections as these, of
oven more significance to our own time than they were
forty years ago : —
"In these countries, mantled with vineyards, one
cannot help learning the true intent and use of the
vine in the scheme of Providence. In our own land
wine has become so exclusively a mere luxury, or,
what is worse, by a species of manufacture, an intoxi-
cating beverage, that many have wondered how the
Bible so often speaks of wine in conjunction with corn
and other such staple supports of animal life ! Now,
in passing through the vineyards in the east of France,
one must at once perceive that the vine greatly
flourishes on slopes and heights where the soil is too
poor and gravelly to maintain either corn for food or
pasturage for cattle. But what is the providential
design in rendering this soil — favoured by a genial
atmosphere — so productive of the vine, if its fruit
become solely either an article of luxury or an instru-
ment of vice ? The answer is, that Providence had no
such design. Look at the peasant at his meals in
vine-bearing districts I Instead of milk he has before
him a basin of the pure unadulterated ' blood of the
grape.' In this, its native and original state, it is a
plain, simple and wholesome liquid, which at every
repast b( comes to the husbandman what milk is to
the shepherd, — not a luxury but a necessary, not an
^t. 33. WINES OF FRANCE. URNS OF ETRURIA. 393
iiitoxicfitiii!^ but a nutritivo boverago. Hence, to tlio
vine-dressing peasant of Auxerre, for example, an
abundant vintage, as connected with his own ininiedi-
ate sustenance, is as important as an overflowing dairy
to the pastoral peasant of Ayrshire. And hence, by
such a view cf the subject, are the language and the
sense of Scripture vindicated from the very appearance
of favouring what is merely luxurious or positively
noxious, when it so constantly magnifies a well-
replenished wine-press, in a rocky, mountainous
country like that of Palestine, as one of the richest
bounties of a gracious Providence — not to the rich
or the mighty of the earth, but to man, as man, with
his manifold physical wants- and infirmities."
The sail from Chalons down the Saone took the
travellers i'^ to the heart of scenery like their own
Scotland, but with a climate more congenial to the
Anglo-Indian than the gloom and the grey of the cold
North. Past Roman ruins and fairy-like villas, Rous-
seau's valley of Rochecardon and Lyons of martyr
memories, — where a day of refreshing intercourse was
spent with the evangelical pastor, M. Cordcs, — they
were swept on by the rapid Rhone two hundred miles
in twelve hours to papal Avignon ; thence Marseilles
and its steamer were reached. On the calm bosom of
the Mediterranean, the Presbyterian and very catholic
missionary and the Roman Catholic Dr. Wiseman were
glad to renew their talk. The magnificence of Genoa
— the first * city of palaces ' — from the sea, with the
setting sun bathing it in gold, gave place to the gentler
beauty of Leghorn, framed as it were in the "Western
Apennines, and that to the low land and fever-stricken
swamps of the neighbourhood of Civita Vecchia. As
they coasted along the ancient Etruria, their talk was
of the discovery of ancient urns in its hills. Here
Dr. Wiseman was a master, and he courteously guided
394 I-IFE OP DR. DUFF. 1839.
liis travelling companion to tlio nearest eminence
where the treasures of ancient art had been found.
At the then papal port they parted never to meet
again, the English priest to his episcopal consecration
and cardinal's hat in due time, the Scottish missionary
to his turning upside down of the idolatrir of the far
East.
The Marseilles steamer then called at Malta, passed
within a hundred yards of the precipitous headland
of Cape Matapan, and dropped anchor at Syra, the port
of Europe which is nearest to India. The filth and
the vice of a Levantine albeit Greek centre contrasted
painfully with the glories of Homeric and even later
days. The steamer from Constantinople had Colonel
Hodges, the new British Consul-General for Egypt, on
board, and also the Rev. Mr. Grimshaw, rector of
Bedford, and known in his day as the author of a lifo
of Cowper the poet. On reaching Alexandria they
found that the last act of the departing Consul-
General, Colonel Campbell, would be to lay the founda-
tion stone of the first English church, of St. Mark,
which now adorns one corner of the great square. Dr.
Duff learned that the ceremony was to be of a purely
civil character, in this Muhammadan city, with it?
memories of Panta3nus and Clement, of Origen and
Athanasius, and sought an explanation of the anomaly.
Colonel Campbell was a great favourite with the
enlightened Muhammad Ali, the irresponsible ruler
of Egypt. Being religiously disposed, the Consul-
General had felt the need of a Protestant place of
worship in a city like that of Alexandria, which was
daily becoming a greater thoroughfare between the
West and East than it had been since the time of its
founder. Though himself a Presbyterian, he did not
want it to be exclusively Presbyterian : he knew that
members of all Protestant Churches would often be
JEt. 33. MUHAMMAD ALI AND ST. MAUK*S, ALEXANDUIA. 395
passing through and there bo often detained for days.
What ho wanted was a Protestant Church on a purely
cathoUc basis, so that ho might freely invite any minis-
ter of any Church to conduct divino service there. Ho
had repeatedly therefore asked his friend the Pasha
for a piece of grou!id, outside the walls of Alexandria,
on which such a church might bo erected.
Muhammad Ali frankly declared that personally ho
had no prejudice on the subject, but the religious
heads of Islam at Constantinople would resist tlio
attempt. At his farewell interview with the Consul-
Goneral, however, he said, with a smiling countenance :
" Colonel Campbell, you and I have always been fast
friends. You have often greatly helped mo with your
counsel, and in other respects have done mo good
service. You know that in the East the custom is for
a ruler to make his friend a present of a piece of land,
commonly called 'jagheer,' to be in perpetuity his own
property. I want to give you a small portion of the
space occupied by the great square in Alexandria,
very near its centre. It is my parting gift to you,
only you must ask me no question as to what use
you may make of it, as that may involve me in
official trouble. But I tell you plainly, you may use
it for whatever purpose you think proper." Colonel
Campbell thoroughly understood the Pasha, thanked
him with all his heart, and soon made over the land
to a committee of the English residents as the site
of the first English church. Muhammad Ali went
further. He could not himself be present, but he
sent his chief officers of state and bis body-guard
to honour his friend on the occasion of laying the
foundation stone. All the consuls, all Alexandria,
were to be present. How could a religious service
be attempted in such circumstances ?
Colonel Campbell came to see that, even in Oriental
39^ I'lI'E OF DB. DUFP. 1839.
oyos, tlio clodication of a sito for the worship of God
Avithout tlio recognition of tho proseuco of God would
be a scandal, or a cause of suspicion. Accordingly on
the 14th December, Ur. Duff — described in tho Globe
newspaper of the time as " a missionary of some cele-
brity in India, who happened to be present in Alexan-
dria — perfo. ned tho religious part of tho ceremony,
in which he was followed by the Rev. Mr. Grimshaw."
Since that occasion Dr. Yule has raised a Scottish
church near the square, and M. do Lesseps has had his
canal cutting blessed by prelates of all the Eastern
Churches side by side with Muhammadan Moulvies.
But never before or since has the Egypt of Fatimito
caliphs and Turkish pashas heard publicly read in its
greatest place Solomon's dedication of the first Temple
and the prayers of Protestant ministers from West and
East. " It was quite remarkable to note," wrote Dr.
Duff, " the stillness, respectfulness, and earnestness
with which the whole mass of surrounding Mussul-
mans, only a few of whom could understand English,
listened to the prayers, the reading, and addresses, and
then quietly dispersed. Such was the noble catholicity
of the Protestant church, as projected and practically
established by Colonel Campbell." In two interviews
with Muhammad Ali thereafter, Dr. Duff pressed upon
the Pasha the importance, for industrial as well as
other reasons, of attracting the Jews back to Palestine,
for the Pasha was at the time master of that part of
Syria.
By dahabieh up the Mahmoodieh canal, excavated
in 1820 by cruelly forced labour, and slowly up the
Hooghly-like Nile of the Delta, Cairo was reached, only
to find that there were sixty passengers to fill the twelve
berths of the small steamer to Bombay. This gave
Dr. Duff a whole month, in which he not only visited
the pyramids of Geezeh and Sakkara, and explored
JEt 33. MUIIAMMADAN MISRULE IN EGYPT. 397
Memplua from the ancient comctory, of wliicli Sir
G. Wilkinson's Arabs wore busily laying baro th(3
mummy pits, but carefully studied the condilion of
the unhappy fellaheen of Egypt, and afterwards went
to Mount Sinai. Familiar with Bengal and with the
British financial and administrative systems, tlio far-
seeing missionary formed impressions regarding the
rule of Muhammad Ali very different from those which
were popular at the time, but too sadly confirmed
by the subsequent history of Egypt to the present
hour. Indeed, having many times passed tlirough
the land, from the days of the vans in the desert to
those of the canal steamer and the now railway, wo
can find no more correct description of Egypt as it was
than that of the Bengal missionary in 1830, and no
more faithful account of Egypt as it is than that of the
Bengal Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George Campbell.
The one unconsciously confirms the other. Both
independently show the hopelessness of Mussulman
rule under the very best conditions.
After an eloquent description of Cairo, full of the
life and colour of the confused oriental scene which
Parisian taste has now covered but not cleansed, and
the exposure of a great magician whose spiritist arts
made him the talk of the East, Dr. Duff" wrote in the
Calcutta Chrisiian Observer of 1840, that the hope
of a revival of Egypt under the new Pasha was a
delusion.
*' That the Pasha is one of the most extraordinary
men of his age — a man of uncommon talent and
energy of character ; a man, too, capable of being
courteous and affable in the extreme — is universally
conceded. But that he is, in any sense, the real friend
or regenerator of Egypt, is belied by every one of his
actions. Self, self, self, is with him the all in all.
Personal fame, personal power, and personal aggrau-
39^ LIFE OF DE, DUFF. 1840.
dizoment, circumscribe the entire horizon of his policy.
On the details of his well-known history it is needless
to dwell. Born of a humble parentage at Cavallo
in Albania, in 1769, he for some time acted as an
assistant collector of taxes, and afterwards as a to-
bacco merchant. Having been twice admitted to his
immediate presence, it wonderfully struck us that his
whole appearance still pointed very significantly to
the lowliness of his origin. Of middle stature, inclined
to corpulency rather than corpulent, he exhibited in
his countenance nought of real greatness, dignity, or
command. Indeed, the entire expression of it was
decidedly of a sharp, harsh, and vulgar cast ; its chief
redeeming quality being its venerable beard. But
those eyes — were they not striking ? Yea, verily ;
such a pair of flashing eyes we never saw. it seemed
as if their possessor could penetrate through one's
bodily frame, and at a single glance read the most
secret thouo-hts and intents of the heart. Still it was
not the piercing glance of a profound intelligence
which mainly lightened through these eyes : it was
rather the vivid flash of a tiger-like ferocity. Hence,
doubtless, his favourite oath, when bent on some deed
of more than ordinary horror, * By my eyes ! ' When
he spoke, his voice had a peculiar shrillness which
made one feel uneasy ; and when he smiled, his very
smile had somewhat in it of a savage grin."
Dr. Duff showed in detail, in agriculture, in manu-
factures, in public works, in commerce, in military
discipline, and in the aggravated horrors of the slave-
trade, that all the changes amounted to neither a
reform nor a regeneration, but to the oriental art of
squeezing the peasantry that the ruler might have
a full treasury and a ruthless army. The solitary
printing-press and polytechnic school were " in point
of fact, as much the mere instrument of an all-absorb-
^t. 34. DEGENEEACY OP THE COPTIC CHURCH. 399
ing despotism as the drill ground, the cannon foundry
or the powder mill." Then, as all through the
debasing history of his house, while it is true that
Muhammad Ali and his successors have been capable
of occasional acts of generosity, the remark of their
J'rench panegyrist sums up the truth : — " The traveller
sees with astonishment the richness of the harvests
contrasted with the wretched state of the villages. If
there is no country more abundant in its territorial
productions, there is none, perhaps, whose inhabitants
on the whole are more miserable." Forty years of
that misery have slowly passed, handing it on in an
intensified form to a new generation, from whom
Christian bond-holders still demand the pound of flesh,
while the Western Powers are foiled in the attempt to
keep the fellaheen quiet, only, let us hope, to hasten
the day of their deliverance.
Dr. Duff could not be in Egypt without studying
the most degraded of all Christian churches except its
Abyssinian offshoot, the Coptic. Yery tender is the
sympathy, very eager the hope, which he expresses in
its case. Then the only missionaries in all Egypt were
Messrs. Lieder and Kruse, the former and his wife long
the benefactors of its people, and the friends of all
Christian travellers who sought them out. Now
American Presbyterians like Dr. Lansing, as well as
others, have done in Cairo, and from Eamleh to the
equator, the same work among Copts and Arabs that
Dr. Duff had been doing among Hindoos and Muham-
madans. " Roused by recollections of faded glory, we
felt moved with a burning desire to know how life
could be rebreathed into the shrivelled skeleton of so
fruitful and so noble a mother of churches," wrote
Dr. Duff. The Patriarch, professing to be the
apostolic successor of St. Mark, had been conveyed
from his convent to the chair of the Evangelist by
400 LIFE OP BR. DUFP. 1840.
the soldiery of the Pasha for consecration ! Dr. Duff
sought an interview with him, that he might urge
the gradual establishment of a college like that in
Calcutta — a scheme since most successfully carried
out by the Americans. He and Mr. Grimshaw were
conducted to the audience chamber by the Bishop of
Jerusalem.
" There the Patriarch, a dark-complexioned, venerable
old man clad in his pontificals, was seated in oriental
style to receive us. Having explained the anti-popish
character of the doctrines of the Churches of England
and of Scotland as well as of other Protestant denomi-
nations, and having raferred at some length to the
original prosperity and subsequent decline and per-
secution of the Church of Egypt, we expressed our
deep regret at the obscuration of their light, our
sympathy for their past and present sufferings, and
our earnest concern for their restoration to more than
primitive excellence. The Patriarch admitted that
many grievous errors had formerly crept in ; that
much deadness still continued to benumb, and much
darkness to overshadow them ; and that there was
need for the infusion of new life and new light.
When, in making this admission, he pointedly referred
to the sufferings of their martyred fathers, he seemed
greatly moved, and melted into tears. What then was
to be done towards a revival and a re-illumination ?
Might not, it was asked, might not the Bible be freely
circulated, not in the Coptic, which was a dead lan-
guage studied by few, but in the Arabic, which, read
by numbers, was understood and spoken by all t^
Without qualification or reserve the Patriarch de-
clared that it might; adding, with emphasis, that
wha' ver else might be alleged against his Church,
this at least had never ceased to be one of its distin-
uishing characteristics, viz., that the Bible should bo
^t. 34. HIS SCHEME FOE REVIVING THE COPTIC CnURCTI. 4OI
held as the ultimate standard of appeal in articles of
faith ; and that to it, through any intelligible medium,
the laity and the priest should, all alike, have the
right of unrestricted access. Again, it was asked
whether, in order to aid* in reviving and diffusing
a knowledge of Christian doctrine, tracts or small
books in the form of extracts or selections from the
most celebrated fathers of the Alexandrian school,
who are still regarded -u^th profoundest veneration
by the Copts themselves, might not be compiled, trans-
lated, and distributed among the people, or introduced
into seminaries of education ? Without hesitation the
Patriarch — smiling with t;vident delight at our respect-
ful recognition of names which have reflected honour
on the Christian Church — replied, that there could bo
no possible objection to such a measure, yea, that he
would consider such tracts and books an invaluable
boon. The subject of raising or rather new-creating
a standard of instruction for the clergy next occupied
the main part of conversation. Not to arouse the
fears and suspicions of an ignorance so profound, not
to tear up by the roots a plant so sapless and feeble
by sudden stretches of innovation, it was asked in
the first instance, whether a seminary might not be
established in which candidates for the ministry
could pass through a systematic course of theological
tuition, making the Bible itself the great text-book,
and selections from the most venerated of the fathers
important auxiliaries, superadding, with a view to the
expansion of the miud by an enlargement of the range
of ideas, a course of instruction in geography and
general history, ancient and modern, placing the
whole system under the patronage and supervision
of a committee composed of the Patriarch himself and
other leading members of" the Coptic community, to-
gether with the English missionaries, and entrusting
D D
402 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1840.
the latter with the entire practical and professorial
duties of the proposed institution ? After much initial
explanation, the Patriarch eventually signified his own
acquiescence in some such scheme. He accordingly
announced his consent and sanction that Mr. Lieder
should forthwith prepare in writing a well digested
syllabus of the projected plan, to be submitted form-
ally to himself and his council of bishops .and presby-
ters for their united approval and ratification; and
that, when approved of and ratified, an authenticated
copy thereof, signed by the Patriarch and sealed with
the patriarchal signet, should be furnished to the
missionaries, to be by them forwarded for the satis-
faction of the British Churches, with a view to secure
and guarantee their countenance and support. After
replying to many other questions relative to the
present doctrines, discipline and ceremonial of his
Church ; and after thanking us for the i^.terest which
had been manifested in its re-invigoration and pros-
perity, the Patriarch rose up and solemnly pronounced
his benediction, subjoining, with tearful eyes and
quivering lips which betrayed deep emotion, the simple
but devout aspiration : ' If Tie should never meet
again in time, my prayer is, tharfc we may meet in
heaven, before the throne of our common Lord and
Saviour.' "
For the expedition from Cairo to the peninsula of
Sinai a party of five English gentlemen offered to join
Dr. Duff. At Alexandria he had engaged an assistant
at the British Consulate, who was master of the popular
Arabic. The sheikh of the tribes of the Sinai range,
happening to be in Cairo, was secured as guide of
the caravan, Mr. Lieder making the necessary con-
tract. Each of the six travellers had three camels,
for himself, for the tent and for the provisions.
One was a Madras civilian, whoso ideas of comfort in
JEt. 34. AN OLD INDIAN IN THE DESERT. 403
the desert proved to be those of the most luxurious
nawab that Theodore Hook or Thackeray ever satir-
ised. The route was the most southerly, from old
Memphis to Jebel Attaka, believed by the scholars of
that day to have been the line of the Exodus, just as
the latest scholar, Brugsch Bey,* would now scud tlic
Israelites north through the Sorbonian bog. Before
sunrise on the morning after the first encampment in
the desert, when all were up for a frugal breukftist
and early start, the nawab was heard shouting for
his gridiron, and then for chops. He was pacified
with difficulty, but only to call an early halt for
* tiffin,' or luncheon, in the blazing sun. Next day a
sandstorm threatened to engulf the whole party, and
tho unhappy gourmand demanded to bo led back to
the joys of the Waghorn hotel in Cairo. He was forced
to proceed, but his troubles were not yet at an end.
On the following morning, after the misery of the
sand, he called for water. Dr. Duff's description of
the scene used to be most amusing. " For what
purpose?" "Why," said the nawab, " to have a bath,
for this state of things is simply intolerable." His
associates tried to persuade him that it was vain to
expect water for such a purpose. Then it was that lie
coolly asked for one or more of the hogskins in which
water for culinary purposes was carried, though, as
the skins had not been sufficiently tanned, the water
by that time had got the colour of London porter !
Yet being the only water available for necessary uses,
no part of it could be given up for the luxury of a
bath. The civilian was still unsatisfied, and could not
be quieted. At last it occurred to some one to call
the sheikh. The look of the Arab was one of perfect
* A nistorii of Ugijpt iinder ihe riiamohs derived entirehj from the
Monuments. By Houry Eru^^'sch Bey. 1879.
404 LIFE OP DE. DUFF, 1840.
astonislimcnt. He eyed the Sybarite from head to
foot as if his eyes would penetrate his very body. At
last when the explanation was fully given, the sheikh,
instead of a formal reply, looked somewhat con-
temptuously at the gentleman, put both his hands
down into the deep sand, took up a handful, rubbed
liis fingers with it, and looking steadfastly at the
Englishman, said with great emphasis : " That, sir,
is the water of the desert ! " The result was that,
from Suez, Dr. Duff alone went on to Sinai, while his
companions returned to Cairo, not however without
having exacted from the sheikh a new pledge, drawn
up by the English vice-consul then just established at
Suez, to bring back in safety the foolhardy missionary I
The silence of the desert of Sinai for the next fort-
night proved a time of refreshing to the spirit of the
solitary traveller, as he passed from the toils of the
West to the labours about to be renewed in India.
Bible in hand, he rode day by day along the track of
the children of Israel, as they had marched, noting
the wells, the palm-trees, the acacias, the camel tracks,
and the desert landscape. As he left the Red Sea for
the great plain at the foot of the Mount of the Law,
he followed the eastern central route and returned by
the south-western, that he might cover as much ground
as possible. It was evening when he came to the
outer border of the great platform of the wilderness of
sandy rock. The rays of the setting sun fell slantingly
on the stupendous masses of grey granite which form
the Sinai range, as it stretches for forty or fifty miles
along the sea and rises to a height of between 8,000 and
9,000 feet. To his imagination the sight was that of
a mighty fortress on fire, of blazing battlements and
flashing towers. On the morrow at sunrise, while the
ground was still bound by frost, the disintegrated
granite seemed a mass of orient pearl and gold, and
JEt. 34. APrROACniNG THE MOUNT OP MOSES. 405
the plain looked as if strewed with the manna from
heaven, which melted away as the sun rose in the
sky. Since that time many a scientific explorer
and, finally, the Ordnance Survey have revealed the
physical appearances of the wilderness of the wander-
ings, only to leave the question of the actual peak
from which God talked with Moses as unsettled as
ever. Dr. Duff's experiences, as often told to his
children and grandchildren down to his last years,
have an interest of their own.
The broad valley running along the north side,
opposite the eastern portion of the Sinai range, is the
Wady es-Sheikh. The wady runs eastward for some
distance, then turning to the south it enters the centre
of the great range, and proceeds westward to the
foot of Jebel Musa, the traditional Mount Sinai.*
This undoubtedly. Dr. Duff used to say, is the route
that would be pursued by any great caravan or large
company of travellers, and more particularly by such
a host as that of Israel. From the central point in
the Wady es-Sheikh there is a pass which rises on the
rio-lit to a considerable elevation, and runs strai«cht
to Jebel Musa. Following this. Dr. Duff was struck
by the appearance of the precipitous mountains on
both sides. It really looked as if the mount some
time or other had been cleft asunder. As he as-
cended, the mountain air became exhilarating in a
way scarcely to be conceived. When the summit of
the pass was reached, a lofty, perpendicular conical-
looking mountain suddenly rose up some miles in
front. Immediately the whole of the Arabs dis-
mounted and began to shout out, " Jebel Musa,"
* Dean Stanley's map of the traditional Sinai, in his Sinai and
Palestine (1860), best illustrates Dr. Duff's experience in 1840, and
Dr. Wilson's in 1843.
406 LIFE OP DR. rUFP. 1840.
" Jebel Musa," " Jebol Musa," showing the veneration
they had for the mountain. Then the traveller entered
on a very remarkable gently sloping plain, the slope
beinc: downwards to the foot of the mountain, but the
surface as smooth as if it had been artificially pre-
pared. Hero was a plain quite capable of holding the
entire encampment of the Israelites, for it should
never be forgotten that their ordinary tentage must
have occupied very little space, somewhat like that of
the Arabs now. This plain seemed a gigantic nest in
the centre of the mountains, for all round on every
side it was bordered by craggy precipices. The soli-
tude was profound, reminding him of the perfect
stillness of a well-kept Scottish Sabbath. Proceed-
ing onwards he reached the base of a high peak.
Here the first thing which astonished him was the
literal truth of the Scripture passage which speaks of
the mountain that might be touched, and, when the
law was given with such awful solemnity from its
summit, declares how means were used to prevent the
people from touching it. As a native of the Gram-
pians, he had been wont from infancy to gaze at and
climb mountains. Then when he read this in the
Bible about Mount Sinai, he wondered what it meant;
for if any one had told him, as a youth, of any
Scottish or Grampian mountain that it might be
touched, or that means might be taken to prevent its
being touched, he would at once have inquired — for
instance of Schehallion, Ben Lawers, or Ben-y-gloe —
"Where is the beofinninor of the mountain?" Now
when he saw Mount Sinai itself, the literal truth of
the whole description flashed upon him.
A mile or two up the wady, on the east side of the
mountain, is the celebrated convent, Justinian's St.
Catharine. He had left Suez on Monday morning,
and it was Saturday forenoon when he reached the
JEt. 34. IN ST. Catharine's convent. 407
convent. The stately building is an irregular fortress,
with apparently no entrance) into it. For the sake
of protection from the Arabs it is surrounded by a
massive wall, forty feet high. In the centre of the
eastern wall was a cupola, with a windlass inside ; the
ordinary rule was, when strangers appeared there, to
let down a bag to receive any communication from
parties known to the superior, who might accredit
their character and position. When Dr. Duff loft
Cairo there were six who intended to visit the convent,
and they got from the Greek Patriarch the requisite
order. But here was only one traveller. The superior
demanded an explanation from the sheikh. On that
Dr. Duff was hoisted up into the convent, and was
fairly installed as a guest ix.- all that is left of what
was once the great episcopal city of Paran, and a
mountain of Greek hermitages to which pilgrims
flocked from all parts of the Christian East.
How to communicate intelligibly with the superior
and the monks was the India^^ missionary's first diffi-
culty. They were ignorant of Latin, but their first
evening service, followed by a reading of the Gospels,
suggested to Dr. Duff that he should try Greek.
After he had been taken round the traditional sights
of the convent, including the legendary site of the
burning bush, he visited the superior, who was
walking on the terrace. Having heard of the convent
garden, every inch of the soil of which had been carried
from Egypt on camel-back. Dr. Du^ said to him, " You
have a garden," using the word paradelsos. To him,
examinin;^^ the little spot, the superior said, *' You are
going to India," as the Patriarch's certificate stated.
"Yes," said Dr. Duff, "I am returning to it." "Do
you speak the Indian language, then ? " "In India,"
Dr. Duff replied, " there are many languages." On
this the superior sent for a monk who had spent
408 LIFE OF DR. DUFF, 1840.
several years in India, and the man came into his
presence exclaiming, "Bahout, bahout salaam, Sahel)."
The familiar Hiudostanee thenceforth became his
medium of communication. The old monk was a
Kussian by birth. As a pedlar ho had worked his
way through the great Khanates of Central Asia and
Afghanistan to the Punjab, and thence had gone as
far as Calcutta, where he had resided for some time.
Such wanderings are still not unusual on the part of
semi-Eastern races at a low stage of civilization like
the Russians, and of our own hardy Muhammadan
and Sikh merchants. Sikhs and Hindoos of Western
India have been settled in St. Petersburg ; there are
traces of them in the marts along the Danube, and we
have met them in recent years at the Nijni Novgorod
fair on the Volga. Not long ago the Government of
India was sorely puzzled to find heirs in the Punjab
for the enormous fortune left by a villager who had
thus found his way to wealth in the Nevski Prospekt.
Having set his heart on climbing to the top of the
Mount of Moses before the sun rose on the coming
Sabbath, Dr. Dufi' persuaded his new friend, in spite
of all dissuasions, to call him in time and give him
a younger guide with food that he might there spend
the day of rest and worship. Excited by the prospect
he could not sleep, any more than Tischendorf when,
four years after this, that scholar spent Whitsun morn
on the peak of Jebel Musa, during the memorable
visit when his casual discovery of forty-three leaves
of the Septuagiut among the waste paper intended
for the oven of the convent, led to his discovery of
the only complete Uncial MS. of the Bible. Descend-
ing from St. Catharine, which the Ordnance Survey
places at an elevation of 5,020 feet, while Jebel Musa
rises to 7,359, the impetuous missionary mounted up-
wards with a speed that alarmed his guide. The
^t. 34. ON THE TOP OF MOUNT SINAI. 409
summit was readied just before the sun's first rays
heralded his approach, always rapid in the south, and
the sky was clear without a cloud. Dr. Duff's heart
was filled with gratitude to God for the favour with
which He had thus visited liini. While the monk
vainly displayed the contents of his wallet, the travel-
ler was gazing at the first red ray of light which shot
and then streamed over the whole range, turning its
peaks for the moment into a succession of glowing
furnaces. Then rose the glorious luminary of day in
all the fulness of its majesty, calling out from the dark
waste of mountains the infinite variety of tints and
colours. There he penned this letter to his daughter,
one of twelve which he wrote to dear friends in
Scotland from the same spot : —
" Top of Mount Sinai,
** Sabbath Morning, 12th January ^ 1840.
" My Dearest R ; — Did you ever expect ^o
get a letter from papa dated 'Mount Sinai' ? — a letter
written on the very top of that extraordinary moun-
tain on which Jehovah once came down, amid thun-
derings and lightnings, so that the thousands of
Israel were affrighted, and Moses himself exceedingly
quaked ! And yet so it is. Here I am on a Sabbath
morning, on the 12th January, about sunrise — when
perhaps you and your sister and brothers are scarcely
out of bed. And amid all the wonders of that most
indescribable scene around me I have not forgotten
my dear children, or the guardian friends that surround
them. Yes, this very moment I have finished reading
aloud the 19th and 20th chapters of Exodus, — but oh
in what a different voice from that in which they were
uttered upwards of three thousand years ago ; and
have just now risen from the naked granite peak, on
which I knelt to implore the Lord for a blessing — to
4IO LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1840.
pray that the law might be my schoolmaster to
bring me to Christ; and iu my prayer, rest assured
that you and sister, brothers a.i'' otlicr friends, wore
not forgotten. No ; the remeinhnince of you all has
been sweet to me. May the Lord lead and guide you,
in grace and in truth, to know and to do His holy
Willi
" I left Cairo in company with some gentlemen for
Sinai. Wo followed the route of the children of Israel
as recorded in Exodus, through Succoth, Etham,
Pihahiroth to the Red Sea — to the memorable spot
where Jehovah divided the waters of the great deep
to afford a safe passage to His chosen people. We
could not cross on dru ground^ so we travelled north-
ward to Suez, where my companions, from fatigue or
faint-heartedness in traversing the desert, resolved to
proceed no farther. So, in the society of an Arab
sheikh, or chief of a tribe, and a few Arabs, with
camels, etc., I advanced alone along the eastern border
of the Red Sea into the 'great and terrible wilderness;*
passed the bitter fountain of Marah — whose waters I
tasted and found as bitter and undrinkable as ever ;
passed Elim, where there are still wells and palm-
trees; came to the spot where the Israelites next
encamped by the sea shore, and so on to the base and
top of Sinai, where I now am.
" But you may say, * What, papa, climb a mountain
on Sabbath ! ' Yes, my dear ; think for a moment. In
Edinburgh, where there is a church, it would be wrong
not to go there to worship with the rest of God's
people. But hero there is no church — no church
within hundreds of miles, in which I could worship.
Now you know that God is ' ^ot confined to temples
made with hands.' He is a Spirit, and is to be wor-
shipped in spirit and in truth. He is everywhere to
be found, and may everywhere be worshipped. Our
A^A. 34. SiNAI AND CALVARY. 4 I I
Saviour often wont apart to a mountain to pray ; so
this morning I retired to the summit of Sinui to hjld
communion with my God, and to renicnibor in prayer
those that are dear to me. I never hi\d such a chureli
before; for this is the chureli where Jt^hovah Himself
proclaimed the law to the thousands of Israel. And
the very rocks now surround me that quaked and
shook at that mighty voice. Oh may wo all find
refuge from the thunders of Sinai beneath the shadow
of the Cross of Calvary 1
" This is a solemn spot 1 This is a solemn day !
And never in my life did I before read the fourth
commandment with such peculiar emotion ! ' Re-
member the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.' I hope, my
dear children, that you strive to obey this and other
commands of the Lord. Attend submissively to the
instructions of those who are over you; pray that
God Himself, by His Spirit, may make you more able
to obey. . . Your affectionate papa,
*' Alexandeu Duff."
Several times during that memorable day did Dr.
Duff read aloud, amid the awful silence of the mount,
the Ten Commandments. To him the desolation and
the barrenness around marked the blighting influences
of sin, the hopeless state of man under the law which
condemns. In desire he turned to the mount in Jeru-
salem where the great Sacrifice for sin was offered,
and heaven was opened for the Pentecostal effusion
which is yet to bless the whole earth. " The law was
given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ," the words he had first joined the monks of St.
Catharine in reading, rang in his ears as his guide took
him to the legendary spots where since Justinian's
days it had been taught that Jehovah passed by re-
vealing the skirts of His glory, while farther on the
412 LIFE OP DB. DUFP. 1840.
Arabs show tlio footprint of Muhammad's dromedary
on the ni<^lit-journoy from Mecca to Jerusalem. Like
every traveller before and since, down to the purely
scientific members of the Ordnance Survey, Dr. Dulf
returned from his fortnight's study of the natural
features of the peninsula of Sinai strengthened in his
conviction of the truth of Holy Scripture. Ho was
invigorated by the air of the desert at that season.
His only mishap was his being thrown from a camel
and stunned for a time.
The little Bombay steamer arrived at Suez the
morning after his return, with the news, then as now
eagerly looked for, of the progress of an evil policy in
Afghjinistan. Sir Jolm Keano had marched up the
Bolan Pass to the capture of Kandahar and Ghuznee,
where the young lieutenant of Engineers who had
forced the gate was his old companion, Durand. But
till he learned this Dr. Duff had doubted whether there
might be a British India to go to, 30 fatal did the
policy which sacrificed Dost Muhammad seem to all,
save to the council of Lord Auckland, and the Cabinet
in which Lord Palmerston was the foreign secretary
and Sir J. C. Uobhouse president of the Board of
Control. But there was a practical question of more
importance for the moment — how to secure a passage.
Dr. Duff happened to be the first to meet the purser,
who advised him to go to the office at once and pay
his money. This the missionary refused to do because
the day was the Sabbath. Had not the purser re-
spected his conscientiousness, and himself secretly
become responsible for the passage-money, Dr. and
Mrs. Duff would have been left in Egypt for another
month. " I have secured for you the best cabin," said
the pursei " next to that occupied by the Commander-
in-Chief."
When early in February, 1840; the Suez steamer
iEt. 34. "^I'i'^1 ^"' WILSON IN nOMRAY. 413
entered the harbour of Bombay, Dr. Wilson was wait-
ing to receive Dr. and Mrs. Duff, wliom lie at once
installed in what was then the centre of all his
op(>rations, the mission-house of Amhi-olie. The two
missionaries to Western and liastern India, from the
Scottish border and the Grampian hif^hlands, from
tlie Universities of Edinburi^h and St. Andrews respec-
tively, met for the first tijne. Uol)ert Nesbit, too, was
there, and Dr. Murray Mitcliell who had not long l)e-
fore arrived from Abei'deen. All were still young men :
Wilson was just thirty-six, and Duff was nearly thirty-
four years of age. Their experience of India had not
been the same, for they had been separated by distance,
by race, by language, and even by social differences
more widely than Fi'ance from Russia. Like a bracing
wind from the north. Dr. Duff brought with him all the
news of national and ecclesiastical affairs in Scotland,
— of the widening gap in the Kirk, of the work of
Chalmers and the toil of Welsh, of the devotion of
Gordon and, on the other side, of the kindly zeal of
Brunton ; of the coming men like Guthrie and Candlish,
some of whom he had vainly summoned to higher
work in the East; of the missionary spirit of presby-
teries and congregations all over Scotland, soon to bo
checked for a time by internal disruption, but only
to burst forth in home and colonial and educational
movements as well as foreign missions, along the
lines first marked out, as Dr. (Jhalmers had said, by
Duft' himself. Nor was the talk oidy of Scotland, for
the Calcutta missionary had visited Bombay to consult
about that now mission from the Prosbyterian Church
of Ireland to which he had given a mighty impetus
after Wilson had invited it to the Krisliua-desolated
lands of Kathiawar.
Dr. Duff embodied his month's experience of Bom-
bay and Poena in a long letter which his Church
414 I-IFB OF I>B« DUFF. 1840.
pulMshed as a complete narrative of travel. The
pamphlet of thirty-six pages forms an artistic picture
of Western India, its physical aspects, its varied races,
its different civilizations existing harmoniously side by
side under the shadow of the Christian Government,
its proselytising and other benevolent agencies, and
especially its Scottish mission and missionaries. The
report, written as he doubled Cape Comorin on the
way to Madras and Calcutta, has a peculiar value from
the contrast which it suggests rather than works out
between the conditions of Western and Eastern India
as fields for the agencies of Christian philanthropy.
The reproach is often too well founded that, amid the
vastness and variety of India and its peoples, the
foreign resident becomes so enamoured of his own
presidency or province as to do injustice to the others
of which he is more ignorant. Hence the conflicting
statements and opposing evidence of officials and
settlers who have been twenty years in India and
speak " the language." Like even the greatest philo-
sophers, they are wrong onl}'- in what they deny, while
more or less right in what they assert. Of this weak-
ness there is little trace in Dr. Duff's report. He was
too well travelled, too scrupulously fair for that. A
quarter of a century after his visit we found his
representations proportionately true as between the
natives of the more imperial and superstitious Bengal
and those of the less caste-bound and more commercial
Bombay.
In Western India the small community of Parsees,
free from caste and aggressive in their progress as
having been long oppressed, formed a more remarkable
element of the population in 1840 than, since the
commercial development caused by the United States
civil war, has since been, relatively, the case. The
settlement of the land revenue in leases directly be-
iEt. 34- BOMBAY CONTRASTED WITH BENGAL. 415
tween the Bombay Government and tlio cultivator,
and the lapse of rent-free tenures, did not foster the
creation of such a body of zemindars, or great and
generally absentee landed proprietors, as those who
crowd native Calcutta. The temporary nature of the
Bombay tenure has further proved fatal to the growth
of prosperity and of thrift, and has developed the
shocking agrarian demoralisation revealed by the
Deccan Riots Commission. Had the land revenue
settlement of Bombay ouly been made permanent with
the cultivators, it would have created prosperous and
loyal millions of peasant proprietors, able to withstand
famine, free to attend to and value education and
Christianity, and enabled in time to yield in indirect
taxation far more than the periodically increased land-
tax which now keeps them on the margin of starvation.
On the other hand, the mistake was made in Lower
Bengal of applying the financially sound and equitable
principle of permanence of tenure not to the cultivators
but to their lords, some hereditary and some mere tax-
collectors, from whose exactions moreover they were
not protected till 1859, when it was too late to alter
society. The knowledge of the revenue officials of
India has never been equal to their benevolence.
Hence, for want of a Von Stein, the British Govern-
ment, with the best intentions, has created and is
periodically intensifying the only serious danger to the
stability of its rule and to the self -developing growth
of civilization. This did not escape Dr. Duff's eye
when he wrote of the main bulk of the inhabitants of
Bombay, the Hindoos : — *'As the ryotwaree system pre-
vails — that which regards the ryot, the actual cultivator
of the soil, as having a possessory right therein, and as
directly amenable to all the fiscal and other regulations
of Government — there is no large and powerful body
of landed proprietors, corresponding to the zemindars
41 6 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1840,
of Bengal. From these and other causes united, there
is a- very marked difference indeed in the outward
temporal circumstances of Hindoo society in Bombay
and in Calcutta. Most of the avenues to worldly
eminence being blocked up or preoccupied by enter-
prising strangers, and most of the impellant motives
to great secular exertion being cut off, the Hindoo
community of Bombay seems stricken with a languor
and apathy, a poverty and mediocrity, a diminutive
weight and influence, a want of general activity or
zeal for improvement, which form a perfect contrast
to the wealth, and power, and splendour, the liveliness,
and energy, and restless spirit of temporal ameliora-
tion, which characterize the great Hindoo merchants,
bankers, zemindars, and rajas of Calcutta." Since
that was written, trade and cotton manufacture have
attracted the acute intellect of the Maratha Brahmans
and the keen capital-hunting scent of the Goojarat
Jains. But this is still true, to some extent, of the
effect produced on public instruction by such con-
ditions. Dr. Duff is describing his visit to the Govern-
ment Elphinstone College and schools : —
"In the schools there are at present about 500 pupils ; in the
college about a dozen. In passiug through the different classes
it was impossible not to be struck with the sparkling intelli-
gence in the countenances of ti.e youth. Yet none of the more
advanced have begun to exhibit that freedom from prejudice,
and that fearlessness of inquiry, which, ten years ago, youth of
somewhat the sa^me standing largely manifested in Calcutta.
What are the causes of the difference ? Some of these may
be latent ; others are obvious enough. First, the desire for a
superior English education is of later growth at Bombay than
at Calcutta ; and even now it is not so ardent and widely
diffused in the former as in the latter. The local government
has not done nearly so much to create and encourage the
desire as that of Bengal. Besides, one grand stimulus was
wanting in the west, which operated with great potency in
JEt 34. BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA. 4 1 7
the east. In the west, Persian, the language of diplomacy, was
not, as in the east, also the language of the civil and criminal
courts — the vernacular tongue being from the first adopted.
In the east it gradually became obvious to all thinking rainda
that an anomaly so pt'epos^erous as the administration of
justice through a medium alike foreign to rulers and ruled
could not, in the nature of things, be long perpetuated. It
seemed the demand of reason that the language of one or other
of the parties concerned should be substituted. In either case
— Persian ceasing to be the language of polite literature and
of converse in cultivated society — English must take its place.
Hence it was that a strong sense of self-interest, operating on
shrewd forecasting minds, gave an early impulse to the study
of English in Calcutta, which, in like intensity, could not bo
experienced at Bombay. Accordingly, while in the latter
place the aggregate number, in seminaries of every description,
receiving anything really entitled to the name of a good
English education, scarcely amounts to a thousand; in Cal-
cutta it exceeds five or six times that sum, though the popula-
tion at the utmost is not more than double. But at Bombay,
as elsewhere, the English tide has now fairly set in; and
nought can arrest its progress till it overflow the land.
Secondly, from the more recent and limited character of
evangelistic, educational, and other operations at Bombay, it
is at least ten years behind Calcutta as regards the general
relaxation of unthinking bigotry, the general tendency of
indurated hereditary prejudices towards a state of fusion and
incandescence, and th« conse»^uent. general preparedness for
change. Nursed and nurtured in a state of society so uncon-
genial to mental freedom of inquiry, the young men naturally
present a more hostile front of resistance to the direct influences
of the new ti^uths offered for tlieir acciaptanoe. This, however,
is a cause the force of which will be yearly diminishing.
Thirdly, in the Bombay Government seminaries, a prepon-
derant share of attention has hitherto been bestowed on the
polite, the mathematical, and the physical sciences, to the com-
parative disparagement and neglect of the mental, moral, and
economic. Now, the former, addressing, as they chiefly do,
the imagination, the memory, the understanding or 'faculty
judging by sense,' and the speculative reason, are not calcu-
lated to produce the same varied influential practical convic-
E E
41 8 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1840.
ti'ons, or to awaken tlie same bold and stirrinpf activities of
inquiry, aa tlio luttei' ; whose very objects are the powers and
capacities of the immaterial soul, as well as the duties, rights,
privileges and relationships of man, viewed as a member of
human society and a denizen of the moral universe. A more
vigorous graft, therefore, of the latter on the Bombay Govern-
ment institutions, would bo a decided improvement. Still, as
it is in the hundred metropolitan institutions, tho noblest, most
fruitful, and most enduring of all sciences would be wanting —
and that is 'knowledge of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.'
Until it be admitted, for the sanctifier and regulator of all
other knowledge, man's life is, after all, treated practically as
nothing better than a meaningless riddle; and his destiny as
nothing higher than that of the * brutes that perish.' ''
The Church of Scotland's Mission, in both Bombay
and Poona, was suffering under the combined triumph
and alarm caused by the conversion of the first two
Parsees who had accepted Christianity. " The Parsee
convulsion, like the shock of a moral volcano, has
more or less affected every province of missionary
labour. It has laid an arrest on the friendly inter-
course which began to subsist between the members
of the mission and many of the more influential of
the native community. It drove into alienation and
def»ertion the young tmc^n educated in Government
seminaries, who had been induced to attend Dr.
Wilson's former weekly lecture, and Messrs. Nesbit
and Mitchell's private evening classes. It greatly
affected the attendance on the services in the ver-
nacular languages. It broke up certain departments
in connection with female education. It almost anni-
hilated, for a time, the English Institution — reducing
at once the number of pupils from two hundred and
sixty to fifty — and removing the whole of the Parsee
youth, by far the most advanced and promising of the
number. Yet, in the midst of all these depressing
and disheartening calamities, did our brethren betray
^t. 34. NESBIT AND WILSON. 419
either faint-lieartcdness or despondency ? No ! * Strong
in tlie Lord, and in the power of His might,' they still
prayed, and laboured, and persevered."
Very precious were the sympathy an the counsel
of Dr. Duff at this time. Of Nesbit, his old St.
Andrews companion, ho wrote, "With commanding
talents of an intensive rather than discursive character,
there is no subject on which ho is led to concentrate
his powers which he is not sure to master in a style
of surpassing superiority. Hence, as a philosophical
linguist and practical Marathee scholar, he is generally
allowed to be imrivalled." After descriptions of Dr.
Wilson's scholarship, the fruits of which he enjoyed in
the study of the Cave Temples, and of his influence in
society, native and European, Dr. Duff" thus testified
to his wisdom in the battle for toleration : *' Dr. Wil-
son, who took the lead in the whole proceedings,
conducted himself throughout with a manliness of
Christian energy which must for ever endear him to all
sincere friends of the missionary enterprise." How
the great Bombay missionary valued this visit he has
told in a remarkable letter of the 28th February, 1840.*
Of Panwel, where they parted in apostolic fashion,
after re,a4iiig th^ 20th chapter of tlie Book of the Acts
and prayer, he wrote : " My memory will often visit
the hallowed spot whence we moved asunder." These
were the closing words of 'Dr. Duff'^ report on Bombay
and Poona : —
*' Intensely occupied were the days which I spent at
both — in visiting educational and other institutions ;
in witnessing miscellaneous missionary operations ; iu
eliciting all manner of information which might present
to my own mind something like a topographical chart
of the existing state of things; in addressing, lectur-
* The Life of John Wilson, D.D., F.B.S. (1878), p. 283.
420 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1840.
ing, and prcacliing; in holding converse with my
brethren, individually and collectively ; in freely can-
vassing, reviewing, and comparing all past proceedings
connected with the Mission, at home and abroad ; in
frankly soliciting and communicating suggestions as
to the future. Sweet and pleasant was the personal
intercourse with my respected brethren ; very sweet
and very pleasant is the remembrance of it now.
Dearly beloved before for their works' sake, they are
now dearer than ever, from the felt experience of their
worth. AVe met and we parted of one spirit and of one
mind; not merely as children of the same Father,
redeemed through the same blood, and partakers of
the same inheritance of grace ; but of one spirit and
of one mind as regards the essential principles, modes,
and prospects of missionary operation in India."
The only communication between the western capital
and the metropolis of Indian then was by teak -built
sailing vessels round the peninsula. Dr. and Mrs.
Duff were the only passengers. Now, Mr. W. Mac-
kinnon has called into existence the second largest
fleet of steamers, which carry the traveller rapidly
and toiich at every port on the wide-stretching coasts
of Southern Asia and Eastern Africa, from Singapore
and the Java islands reaching to Australasia, along
the shores of India, Persia and Arabia to Zanzibar.
Hugging the picturesque coast of Malabar, the ship
passed native town and feudal castle, pirate stronghold
and busy harbour, till, leaving Goa to the north, it
dropped anchor for a day and night at Mangalore in
the Canara county of Madras. This once dreaded
roadstead of Hyder Ali, scene of alternate Portuguese
intolerance and Mussulman ferocity, of General
Matthews' s victory and of the East India Company's
treaty with Tippoo, had been occupied by the self-
denying Basel missionaries in 1834. It has been ever
iEt. 34. SAMUEL HEBICH AND THE BASEL MISSION. 42 1
since their greatest as it- was their earliest Christian
settlement, having now some 1,200 church members
out of the more than 0,000 gathered in at other
stations. In Hebich, the afterwards famous and
somewliat eccentric German then stationed there,
Dr. Duff found a friend of kindred spirituality and
earnestness. With him and his colleagues the
Scottish missionary spent, the night in delightful con-
verse* till within an hour of the dawn. Frequently
afterwards did Samuel Hebich recall the talk of that
cightjt especially to the many sepoy officers and
civiUans of the East India Company, whom his fear-
less appeals and holy self-denial led to Christ. Mr.
Finlay Anderson, the assistant collector who received
the Basel brethren in 1 834, still survives to help in
every good work for the people of India. This was
Hebich' s last year in Man galore, where he had laid
the spiritual foundatioti of the Tooloo church, and
left among others Dr. Moegling, to civilize not only
the Canarese but the recently annexed Coorgs from
Mercara as a centre.
Cape Comorin — too low to be seen save where the
Western Ghauts abruptly end some miles inland — and
Ceylon were then successively rounded, when the ship
came to anchor in the swell of the Madras Roads
for five days. These days were busily spent in an
inspection of the Mission, and in stirring addresses to
both natives and Europeans. Mr. Anderson and Mr.
Johnston, fruit of the General Assembly address of
• So, long after, Dr. Norman Macleod inspected the allied Ger-
man Mission at Calicut, and recorded the " very encouraging re-
sults" of ■which he wrote : " These, being connected with education
as well as preaching, are the more likely to be permanent! "
t The German Memoir of Hebich, of which an English transla-
lation appeared in 1876, contains no reference to this meeting with
Dr. Duff.
422 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1840.
1835, bad organized out of the St. Andrew's school,
opened by the Scotch chaplains in Madras in that
year, the nucleus of what has since become the groat
Christian College of South India, representing all the
evangelical missions there. Just three years before, on
the 3rd April, 1837, Mr. Anderson had begun the new
Institution in a hired house in Armenian street, with
fifty-nine Hindoo youths. His early success, in the
baptism of highly educated Hindoos who became
missionaries to their countrymen, had, as at Calcutta
in 1830, and Bombay in 1839, so alarmed the native
community as to produce this remark, " Some of our
best youths have been forcibly carried off or withdrawn
against their will." Yet, when on Monday, the 20th
April, Dr. Duff visited the infant college, this was his
impression : — " It was wise on the part of Mr. Ander-
son and his coadjutor to make the Bible itself — as in
Bombay and Calcutta — not only the principal book of
the Institution, but to bestow upon the teaching of it
the largest measure of their time and attention, so
long as this could be done without occasioning that
desertion of pupils which the more successful prose-
cution of general literature and science in other native
seminaries must inevitably insure, if there be not a
correspondent progress in such studies in the Mission
seminaries. And certainly in the Bible department,
which has been chiefly cultivated, there is much, very
much, to excite admiration, delight and thanksgiving
to God. xV^o where have I met with young men of the
same age and standing who evinced a more intelligent
grasp, a more feeling comprehension, of the divine
truths which they had learned from God's holy oracles.
In some cases, there is every reason to believe that
vital and saving impressions have begun to be made.
And even should all be renounced in a day, what has
been done will not, cannot be lost. Talk and dream
iEt. 34. THE SCOTTISH MISSION SYSTEM IN MADRAS. 423
who will of not being able, dlrecfh/ ami formalJ 1/ , and
in tliG homo sonso, to preach the gospel in onr Indian
mission seminaries, I do most solemnly aver for myself,
that never, never, when addressing an audience of
fellow-Christians in my native land, had I a more
sensible consciousness of reaching the understanding
and the heart than I experienced when pouring out
ray soul on the themo of man's lost and ruined state
by sin, and of man's redemption through a crucified
but Divine Redeemer, in presence of the assembled
youth of the General Assembly's Institution, Madras."
On the other side, we have this official record by Mr.
Anderson of the visit of the founder of the Scottish
missionary system in the East : " He left an impression
behind him on the minds of our youths which nothing
will ever efface. It was quite thrilling to see how ho
set them on fire by the truths which he exhibited to
them in touching and graphic figures, with an energy
of manner altogether his own. Their bright eyes
seemed to say, as they sparkled with delight, * This
man loves the natives, especially native boys.' "
Dr. Duff had been delayed on his outward tour too
long for himself, if ncu for the work he had to do. Ho
reached the pilot ground at the mouth of the Ilooghly
at very nearly the same advanced season as on the
occasion of his first arrival in Bengal. Again did
the rotary storm seem to defy his advance. The sus-
picious calm of a hot May evening, following a lurid
sunset, warned the captain to be ready. Before mid-
night the cyclone burst upon the ship with savage fury.
Lashing themselves to the cuddy hatch, the captain
and his officers sat ready to cut down the mast should
the vessel drift to the shore. For twelve hours tho
whirlwind raged, with a violence which was set off by
a hideous and sometimes ludicrous contrast. An
officer who had joined the ship at Madras, whither he
424 LIVE OP DB. DUFF. 1840.
had returned from leave in the colonies, and who soon
after fell one of the thirteen thousand butchered amid
the snows of the Klioord Kabul pass, had an Australian
parrot which ho had diligently taught. Ever and anon
in the pauses of the blast, and continuously as if con-
tending with it, the bird was hoard to shriek, now de-
fiantly, now pathetically, '* There's nae luck aboot tho
house whan our gudeman's awa' ! " The Malabar
teak of the Bombay-built vessel withstood tho wind
and tho waves, and the course of the cyclone finally
drove it out to comparative safety in tho open sea.
After a voyage from Bombay of nearly seven weeks,
Dr. and Mrs. Duff were received under the hospitab^-e
roof of the nephew of Dr. Patrick Macfarlan, of
Greenock, who was chief magistrate of Calcutta.
CHAPTER XIV.
1841.
FIGHTINO THE aOVEBNOU-GENERAL.
India Sncrificed to Party Politics. — ^Malcolm, M. Elpliinstone and
Lord Heytesbnry. — The First and tlio Second Lord Auckland. —
The Misses Eden. — Controversy between Orientalists and Angli-
cists Renewed. — Lord Auckland's Minute. — Mr. ^[arsliman's Com-
ment. — Dr. Duff's three Letters to the Governor- General. — The
Irony of Trnth. — Lord W. Bentinck and Lord Auckland Com-
pared. — The Missionary and the Governor- General Contrasted —
Vernacular Education by a School Cess urged. — Lord Auckland
Arraigned at the Bar of Universal Reason. — The Dangers of
purely Secular Education denounced by a Government Secretary.
— The Educational Reaction temporarily forgotten in the Cabul
Disasters.
Lord Auckland had been Governor-General for four
years when, for the second time, Dr. Duff landed at
Calcutta. Apart from contemporary history, his ap-
pointment to the most responsible office under the
British Crown forms the most scandalous instance of
the sacrifice of the good of the people of India and of
the peace of the Empire to the intrigues and the self-
seeking of political parties. India is so far outside of,
so high above, the level of purely party politics, that
it used to be true that its governing and commercial
classes left Whig and Tory prejudices behind them.
Even the purely British officials who, as Governor-
General, governors, and law member of council, owed
their appointments to partisan considerations among
others, were generally raised by the very elevation of
426 LIFE OP DB. DUFF. 1841.
their duties to tlie disinterested and philosophic level
which looked only at the good of India. From the
high vantage ground of a Governor-General's seat,
the purely domestic questions which cause the rise
and fall of ministers in England often look petty in-
deed. It may be accepted as an absolute test wliicli
marks off the really able statesmen among the nine-
teen Governor-Generals from the few whom history
despises, that the former in every case acknowledged
first their duty to India; the latter, their selfish gra-
titude to the party which sent them out. Against
rulers like Warren Hastings, Lords Wellesley and
Hastings, W. Bentiuck and Dalhousie, Canning and
Mayo, we have to set Cornwallis (the second time),
Amherst and Auckland, not to mention the living.
"William Eden, a younger son of a Durham baronet,
and a barrister who entered political life, was created
Baron Auckland for negotiating a treaty of commerce
with France. His successor rendered services to the
Whig party of a less evident kind, and in 1830 Lord
Grey gave him a seat in the Cabinet. When sick-
ness sent Lord W. Bentinck home after an adminis-
tration of nearly eight years, the Court of Directors
would not allow the most brilliant servant they had
had since Warren Hastings, to fill the seat which he
occupied provisionally, because his honesty had been
equal to his ability. They were willing to see the
Honble. Mountstuart Elphinstone appointed, but he
had had enough of oflBce as Governor of Bombay
and he declined the high honour. On this the Tory
ministry selected Lord Heytesbury, who drew the
usual allowance for outfit, made the indispensable
speech about peace at the Albion, and had taken his
passage to Calcutta. ^ut just as, under somewhat
similar circumstances, George Canning gave place to
Lord Amherst, and died Premier of England, so Lord
^t. 35. LOED AUCKLAND AND SIE J. 0. HOBHOUSE. 427
Auckland was sent out instead of Lord Heytesbury.
The Melbourne ministry took office in April, 1835,
with Byron's friend, Sir John Cam Hobhouse as Pre-
sident of the Board of Control. Refusing their con-
fidence to the Tory Governor-General designate, the
Whig ministry, which was to hold office for six yenr^
and a half, sent out Lord Auckland to the seat which
Bentiuck had made more illustrious than ever, and
for which Metcalfe and Blphinstone were better fitted
than even he. In a word, the British Government
had once again jobbed the appointment, and the whole
empire was to suffer the consequence in the military
disasters, the financial losses, and — greater than both —
the political consequences in 1857 of the first Afghan
war. Sir John Cam Hobhouse, made Lord Broughton
for the iniquity, found in Lord Auckland the tool
and in Lord Palmerstou, then Foreign Secretary, the
confederate who enabled that reckless, blinded official
to boast of the deepest stain on the page of English
history, " It was I that did it."
The best thing that George, the second Lord
Auckland, did was to take to Calcutta and Simla with
him his two clever sisters, one of whom, Emily, in
her journals, not to mention her novels, has left us
unconsciously the most vivid picture of the Governor-
General's weakness of character. If to her " Up The
Country," and the book which more recently followed
it, we add Sir John Kaye's picture of the unhappy
faineant pacing the verandas of Government House
at night as he brooded over the horrors of the Ghilzai
massacre which made him sleepless, we may form some
idea of the man who, between Hobhouse at home and
Macnaghten by his side, blindly let the empire drift
down the dark current of a policy of which he never
approved, but which party prevented him from fairly
considering and resolutely refusing to carry ou^. Any-
428 LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1841.
tiling would have been better than this drifting, but
on him was the curse against which the prophet cried
ill vain.
It was the Governor-General's vacillation — ending,
as is generally the case, in weakly following the evil —
which brought Dr. Duff into conflict with Lord Auck-
land. The missionary had set out to return to Bengal,
grateful to his Excellency for the interest which he and
the Honble. Misses Eden had shown in the Institution
during ^ 's absence, by frequent visits and occasional
prizes. As a rule the English settlers, and above all
the Christian ministers in India, are loyally on the side
of the Government there. They are roused to demon-
strations against it only by some sucli departure
from principle as Lord Ellenborough's, or evidence of
incapacity to understand the gravity of the crisis as
Lord Canning's advisers showed in 1857. Up to the
disasters of 1842 Lord Auckland — who had been made
an earl in reply to the opposition of the Court of
Directors and to the universal public opinion which,
then as since, condemned his policy — was personally
respected for his amiability. His advisers liked a
Governor-General whom they could lead ; the pubHc
appreciated the social attractions of his court. Those
who estimated an administration by a higher standard
even praised him for legally completing what his pre-
decessor had begun in the Act of November, 1837,
which aboiishb^ Persian as the language of the courts.
But another qu">stion of still greater importance to
the people had come down to him. Lord W. Bentinck's
Government had, ii 1835, decreed that English should
be the language of the higher public instruction —
finally, as it seemed. Still the formal approval of the
Court of Directors had not been communicated. Not
only was Lord W. Bentinck out of office, but Dr. Duff
was far away, and of their coadjutors, Metcalfe was in
^t. 35. LORD AUCKLAND'S DELHI MINUTE. 429
Agra, while Macaulay and Trevelyan were soon to go.
The defeated orientalists saw their opportunity with
the new and weak Governor-General. They resolved
to get rid of the reform of March, 1835, by a side-blow.
Mr. Thoby Prinsep and the Bengal Asiatic Society led
the assault. Mr. Colvin, the private secretary, was
neutralised or so far talked over as to seem to con-
sent to the undoing of that which he had formerly
urged.
From 1836 to 1839, the renewed controversy between
the Orientalists and Anglicists went on in the form
of a dispute as to the proportion of public funds to be
assigned to each. On the 24tli November, 1839, Lord
Auckland signed, at Delhi, a minute which is remark-
able among Indian state papers for its Dad stylo and
worse reasoning. The contrast to Macaulay's and
Duff's was painful. The minute professed to be a
compromise of a dispute in which there could be no
concessions by what was true to what the Govern-
ment had officially allowed to be false and therefore
unworthy of being propagated by the public funds.
But the defeated Anglicists were not to be found, save
one. Mr. Marshman, though rather a vernacuUirist,
raised his solitary voice against the reaction in the
weekly press. The minute itself no sooner appeared
in an official blue-book, fifteen months after it had
been written, than Dr. Duff criticised it in a series
of letters to Lord Auckland which appeared in the
Christian Observer. Mr. Marshman, though grateful
to the Governor-General for his personal support of
vernacular schools, did not spare the weak amiability
which had led his Excellency to apply " the spirit of
compromise amongst varying opinions " to a contro-
versy over vital principles. The orientalists he
described, in 1841, as "a few elderly gentlemen of
the ancient regime, who rather dislike the spread of
430 I-IFE OF DR. DUrP. 1841.
knowleclf]fo as a clanf::orous innovation tLan hail it witli
generous confidence as the means of national regener-
ation ; who, if compelled by the spirit of the age to
sanction education at all, must use every endeavour to
restrain it to the absurdities and logomachies of the
dark ages. . . When a retrograde movement is
made merely to quiet a few superannuated European
gentlemen, and extinguish their already expiring mur-
murs, wo confess it passes our comprehension.
AVhat will be gained by their reconciliation, or to what
will they be reconciled ? "
The evil which the minute had secretly attempted
to do was twofold. It reversed the decree of Lord
AV. Bentiuck by restoring the stipends paid to natives
to learn Sanscrit and Arabic books which their own
learned men neglected where they did not teach them
far more effectually in the indigenous * Toles ' or
colleges. Thus error was again endowed, while true
orienial research was hindered. And the minute
finally shelved the plan for the improvement of ver-
nacular schools and teachers which Lord W. Bentinck
had appointed Adam to submit. Lord Auckland be-
came the victim of what was afterwards scouted by
his successors as the filtration theory — the belief that
if only the higher classes are educated with the public
money, tlie millions of the people who contribute that
money may be left in their ignorance till the know-
ledge given to their oppressors filters down to them.
Seriously that con tin tied to be the fact, if not the
theory of the Government in Bengal, at least, for the
thirty years from Lord Auckland's minute to the time
when Sir George Campbell was made Lieutenant-
Governor of the province.
Dr. Duff did well to be angry, for his experience
and his foresight anticipated the mistake. Lord
Auckland thus became, not only the foe of a righteous
^t. 35- LETTERS TO LORD AUCKLAND. 43 1
policy beyond the frontier but the r'^actionary enemy
of the people of India. But for him the vernacular
side of the reforms of Duff and Bentinck would have
become a reality long before the present Earl of
Derby's despatch of 1859 on the subject issued in the
Duke of Argyll's action, through Sir George Campbell
in 1870. Happily Lord Auckland was too feeble even
to stunt the already vigorous growth of the English
side of these reforms. So, taking Wordsworth's lines
as his introduction, Dr. Duff thus began the corres-
pondence. The language now reads as fine irony, since
a few brief months were to reveal the incapacity of
Lord Auckland and his Government, at home and on
the spot, with its miserable results. But, early in
1841, Dr. Duff used such language, as the whole press
of the time did, in all good faith and loyalty. Had
not Baron Auckland just been made an earl for his
apparent success?
" Oh ! for the coming of that glorious time
When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth
Ar 1 best protection, this imperial realm,
V; lile she exacts allegiance, shall admit
An obligation on her part to teach
Them who are born to serve her and obey;
Binding herself by statute to secure
For all the children whom her soil maintains.
The rudiments of letters ; and to inform
The mind with moral and religious truth."
"My Lord, — When the Governor-General of India has
recorded his sentiments on a great national question, and
when these have been rapturously responded to by so many of
the councillors, the judges, the secretaries, and the leaders of
public opinion, it may be deemed presumptuous in a Christian
missionary to lift up his voice at all; more especially should
that voice, however feeble, seem to mingle as a note of discord
amid the fresh full gale of popular applause. And so it would
be, were the question exclusively one of mere worldly policy.
But when it is found to be one which, in its essential bearings,
concerns the souls fully as much as the bodies of men, affect-
432 LIFE OP DR. DUTF. 1 841.
ing the interests of eternity not less than those of time, the
Christian missionary must not, tlaros not be silent, evm if
his voice sliould be uplifted against kings and governors and
all earthly potentates. When the honour and glory of his
Divine Master and the imperishable destinies of man are in-
volved, the ambassador of Jesus can brook no dalliance witli
mere human greatness, or rank, or power. In the spirit of St.
Basil, in the presence of the Roman prefect, he is ever ready
to exclaim : — ' In all other things you will find us the most
mild, the most accommodating among men ; we carefully guard
against the least appearance of haughtiness, even towards the
obscure citizen, still more so with respect to those who are
invested with sovereign authority ; but the moment that the
cause of God is concerned we despise everything.'
" In the influence of policy and arms, you are, my lord, at
this moment, the first man in Asia. Speak but the word for
peace or for war, and that word will speedily cause itself to be
felt fi'om Ceylon to Bokhai'a, from the Euphrates to the Kianko.
Thus planted on an eminence which would make most men
giddy, it is no small achievement to have so maintained the
equilibrium and balance of the mental powers, that, amid the
blaze of conquest and the echoes of victory, you could have
paused to indite a calm dispassionate dissertation on edu-
cational economics. But does it follow that the first man in
Asia, in policy and arms, must also be the first in the depart-
ment of intellectual and moral husbandry ? This may be ; but
all the probabilities are against it.
" Thac the author of the immortal work on ' The Conduct
of the Human Understanding ' should be the author of the
equally immortal ' Thoughts on Education,* is nothing
strange. The intellectual habit from which the former pro-
ceeded formed the best possible discipline and preparation for
the production of the latter. But that the intellectual habit
from which resulted the celebrated Simla ukase on British
policy in Central Asia should prove the best discipline and
preparation for inditing a Delhi minute on national education,
would be passing strange. Who that has studied the human
mind, or attended to the lessons of past experience, could
reasonably expect Lord Auckland to be equally at home —
equally great— in both ? When the first statesman in Asia
steps aside from his own towering eminence to grapple with a
^t. 35. LORD AUCKLAND CONTRASTED WITH BENTINOK. 433
theme that is wholly foreign to, and incompatible with, his
general habits, he must reckon it no disparagement if of him it
be recorded, as of Newton and of Brown in similar circum-
slauces, that he has gone out as another man 1 Still, as the
Commentary on Daniel will bo perused because it is the pro-
duct of the author of the ' Priucipia,* and the poem of the
* Paradise of Coquettes ' will be read because it claims the
same paternity as the lectures on * The Philosophy of the
Human Mind,' so v/ill the Delhi minute on native education
obtain currency and favour because it is the offspring of a
politician and statesman who is at the head of the most power-
ful empire in Asia. And as, in the cases of Newton and of
Brown, the splendour of their great, their immortal works,
is apt, from the blending of association, to shed and diffuse
a portion of their own lustre over the kindred but inferior
progeny of the same minds ; so will the dazzling renown of
the present Governor-General of India, as a statesman, be sure
illusively to communicate a share of its own brilliancy to a
production which otherwise might soon have sunk into obli-
vion ; — a production which is remarkable chiefly for itc.
omissions and commissions — remarkable for its concessions
and its compromises — remarkable, above all, for its education
without religion, its plans without a providence, its ethics
without a God 1 '*
Having reviewed the whole controversy in Lord
W. Bentinck's time, very much in the tone of his
" New Era of the English Language," Dr. Duff comes
to this conclusion in his first letter : —
" Here are two systems of education, directly opposed to
each other, and absolutely contradictory in their entire sub-
stance, scope and ends. Reviewing these two systems. Lord
W. Beutinck, with the straightforward bearing of British
manliness and British courage in the spirit which fired the old
barons of Runnymede, and with the decisive energy of uncom-
promising principle, thus pronounced his decision : ' Regard-
less of the idle clamours of interested partisanship, and fearless
of all consequences, let us resolve at once to repudiate alfcogethor
what is demonstrably injurious, bccaijse demonstrably false,
and let us cleave to and exclusively promote that which i*
434 I'IFE OP DR. DUFF. 1841.
demonstrably beneficial, because demonstrably true.' Review-
ing tlio very same system, my Lord Auckland, with what looks
very like the tortuous bearing of Machiavellian policy, in the
spirit of shrinking timidity wliich heretofore hath compro-
mised the success of the best laid schemes, and with the
Protcus-like facility of temporizing expediency, thus enun-
ciates his contrary verdict : * Fearful of offending any party,
wishing to please all, and anxious to purchase peace at any
price, let us, — dropping all minor distinctions between old and
new, good and bad, right and wrong, — let ..i at once resolve
to embrace and patronize both, and both alike : —
'Tros Tyriusvo mibi nullo discrimino liabetur.'
"In a word, 'Let us,' says Lord W. lientinck, 'disendow
error and endow only truth,' ' Let us,' replies Lord Auckland,
' re-endow error, and continue the endowment of truth too.'
A decision so wholly at variance with every maxim of truth
and righteousness, a decision so utterly repugnant to the pro-
gressive spirit of the age, what valid plea, what plausible grounds
can be adduced to justify ? Justify ! It surely must scorn all
justification as impossible, and any attempt at justification as
the most ludicrous farce. Bub seeing that vindication is im-
practicable, does it not admit of some palliatives ? If palliatives
there be, they may be summed up in a single sentence ; viz.,
that it was most kind and amiable to soothe the expiring
sorrows of the superannuated remnant of the race of orien-
talists, who, like the owls and the bats, have such a special
affection for the dingy and the dismal edifices of hoar antiquity,
and who, like these lovers of darkness, are ever ready to break
forth into strains as doleful as the notes of a funeral dirge,
when the crazy crevices in which they have so long nestled are
threatened with extermination ! Most kind and amiable we
admit all this to be ! But, beyond this admission, where are
we to look for grounds of palliation ?
" These words are penned in the full assurance that with
your lordship and councillors they will not have the weight of
a feather. So let it bo. Here, your lordship is evei'ything.
Here, politically and civilly speaking, your voice is all but
omnipotent. Speak but the word, and thousands are ready to
shout, ' It is the voice of a god ! ' Speak but the word, and
thousands more ai'e ready to fall down and worship whatever
^.t. 35. THE MISSIONARY AND THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL. 435
idol or imago you may be pleased to sot up. Here, on the
other liiiud, the humble missionary, in a worldly sense, neither
is, nor desires to bo, anything. Lot him but speak the word,
and lo, it is the voice of a fanatic ! Let him but give forth his
warnings, and lo, they are treated with supercilious scorn or
branded as a grand impertinence. But, ray lord, I must
remind you that the greater the power, the more tremendous
the responsibility ! I must also remind you that — apart from
the solemnities of the great assize to which the noble and tho
mighty will be sumnioned, without respect of persons, along
with the poorest and the meanest of the land — there is, even
here below, another tribunal, of a different frame and texture
from that of an Asiatic time-serving, favour-seeking com-
munity, at whoso bar tho appeal of a gospel minister will bo
lieard as promptly as that of tho noblest lord. There is a
British public, and abovo all, a religious public in Great
Britain, which heretofore hath been moved, and may readily
be moved again, by tho addresses and expostulations of a
Chi'istian missionary. It was the righteous agitation of this
public which wi'onched asunder the bars of prohibition to tho
Ireo ingress of Bibles and heralds of salvation into India. It
was the righteous agitation of this public which accelerated
and insured the abolition of tho nun-derous rite of suttee. It
was tho righteous agitation of this public Avhich foredoomed
the ultimate severance of official British connection with tho
mosques and temples and idolatrous observances of this be-
nighted people. And rest assured, my lord, that as certainly
as the rising sun chases away the darkness of night, so certainly
Avill the righteous agitation of this same British public even-
tually wipe away, as a blot and disgrace, from our national
statute book, that fatal act, by which your lordship has restored
the Government patronage and support to the shrines and
sanctuaries of Hindoo and Muhamraadan learning with all
their idolatrous, pantheistic and antichristian errors ! A
sui'cr prospect of earning the garland of victory no Christian
missionary could possibly desire, than the opportunity of
boldly confronting, on a theme like this, the mightiest of our
state functionaries, in the presence of a promiscuous audience
of British-born free-men, in any city or district, from Cornwall
to Shetland. His march would be that of one continued con-
quest. The might and the majesty of a great people, awakened
43^ LIFE OP DR. DOFF. 1841.
to discern the truth and import of things as thoy are, wouhl
increasiii<jfly swell his train. And, from the triumph of in-
doniitiil)le principle in Britain would emanate, as in times past,
an influence which would soon cause itself to bo felt in the
supreme councils of India, and thence extend, with renovating
efficacy, through all its auti -religious schools and colleges.'*
In the second letter, v,ith consummate art as well as
fairness Dr. Duff takes out of the minute and holds up
to eulogy all of it that lie can justly praise. Especially
does he thank the Governor-General for at last carry-
ing out his own recommendation of 1834, to promote
true oriental scholarship by *' a separate grant for the
publication of works of interest in the ancient literature
of the country, to be disbursed through the appro-
priate channel of the Asiatic Society." He corrects
the mistake which would build the pyramid of national
education on its apex, beginning with the college,
going on afterwards to the secondary school, and
leaving the millions without primary schools. He tells
what John Knox and his associates did for Scot-
land in 1500. He urges that the same means which
the Scottish Parliament then decreed be adopted by
the Indian Government, in levying a school cess on the
land-tax, as a road cess had even then begun to be
raised. " So might a permanent education fund be
established, proportionate to the wealth and population
of each province, by * the surrender in return of one
per cent, of the revenue on the part of the revenue
receivers for educational purposes.' Well might such a
sum, or one hundredth part of their immense revenue,
b'^ pronounced the very minimum amount that India —
sunk, depressed, benighted India — has a right to ex-
pect or demand from her rulers for securing one main
ingredient of the panacea of her intellectual, moral and
social maladies." Such a cess was raised first in Bom-
bay, and then by the late Earl of Kellie in a district
y^t. 35. APPEAL TO TIIR STATESMEN OP ALL COUNTRIES. 437
of Central India, till now it is exacted all over India.
But it is not the revenue receivers who pa}^ it. Rather
liavo cesses of all kinds, of which that for schools is
the least, been added to the peiiodically increased
land-tax,* till the burden of tho long-sutl'ciing culti-
vators is gi'eater than they can bear.
The third letter arraigned Lord Auckhmd and his
advisers at tho bar of universal reason, as spiritually
guilty in their education schemes " of what looks
like treason against the majesty and sovereignty of
the God of providence ; of the cruelest wrong to tho
souls and immortal destinies of thousands " of their
Indian fellow-subjects. After a very practical exposi-
tion of the fact, ever since pressed upon tho Govern-
ment of India in vain, that it stands alone of all tho
world in the suicidal attempt to support by public
taxation an official system of education which jealously
excludes religion of every kind and the sanctions of
morality, Dr. Duff thus closed : " For tho substantial
justice of tho charge I appeal — not to the religious
public of Great Britain alone — but to the recorded
verdicts of the Russells of England, the Cousins of
France, the Falcks of Holland, the Altcnsteins of Ger-
many and all the greatest and most celebrated states-
men of ancient and modern times 1"
The appeal remained unheeded by the Government
till 1854. The concession then solemnly made by the
present Lord Halifax and by Lord Dalhousie, to tho
♦ In theory, half the net produce of the land is left, on tho system
of thirty years leases, to the cultivators, ifear by year cesses have
been imposed, till tho State takes sixty per cent, and the peasant
receives only forty. The latest impo«t is that of a cess to be
" solemnly," " religiously," set apart !i.s a reserve for the famines
which the periodical increase of the 'and-tax provokes. This new
burden has no sooner been paid for the first time than it has been
used to carry on the second Afghan war.
438 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1841.
effect that the State would adopt the English position
of giving grants for secular education and retiring
from its functions as a direct schoolmaster whenever
the public would take its place, has never been carried
out. As a commentary on Dr. Duff's appeal in 181-1,
on the broken j)ledgo which he secured in 1S51< fi'oni
Parliament, on the alarm of Lord Northbrook in 1875,
on the censorship of the native press in 1877, and on
the annually increasing political as well as moral and
spiritual danger of the system, wo may cite this ex-
tract, made confidentially to one of Lord Auckland's
successors in 1872 by the Home Department which is
charged with the imperial direction of public instruc-
tion in India : —
" That most remarkable feature in Indian education, tlio
religious neutrality of the Government, is no doubt a relic of
the extreme apprelieusion which prevailed in 1 793, and whether
its original declaration was a wise one or not is far too deep
and many-sided a question to be discussed here. Wo must
accept the fact as we find it. But it is^ I believe, absolutely
without precedent or parallel elsewhere, besides beiug entirely
opposed to the traditional idea of education current in the
East. In Europe, it is almost an axiom that the connection of
any State system of education with religion is not the mere
result of tradition ;* ' it is an indissoluble union, the bonds of
which are principles inseparable from the nature of education.'
This is admitted almost universally. Even the French system
is religious, not in the sense in which all European systems
profess to be more or less so, in inculcating the precepts of a
certain universal and indisputable morality, but in inculcating
morality in the only way in which the masses of mankind will
ever admit it, in its connection with the doctrines of religion.
In Holland, primary instruction was decided in a much debated
law to be designed to train ' to the exercise of all Christian
and social virtues,' while respecting the convictions of dis-
senters. In Switzerland, religion stands on the same footing
* Public Education, by Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, p. 290.
A'A. 35. DANnF.RS OP A NATIONAL SECUTATIISM. 439
ns reading, writing, grammar and arithmetic, as a fundamontal
part of the schomo. In Germany, generally, religion still
forms, as it has always done, the first and staple subject of
the elementary school, and tho religion of the master must bo
in conformity with that of tho majority of his pupils. Tho
American system, while repudiating all doctrinal or dogmatic
teaching, provides everywhere for the regular daily reading of
tho Bible and for prayer. \nd, lastly, tho framers of tiio
Phiglish Education Act, 1870, have been able to assumo as a
matter of course that every elementary school would be con-
nected with a recognised religious denomination, and that
Government aid might, therefore, bo oiTered to all alike for
secular education only. *
" In India, not only is there no religious teaching of any
kind in Government schools, but even tho aided schools under
native managers are generally adopting tho same principle. I
believe this result was never anticipated, and I am sure it
requires attention. Looking to tho rapid growth of our educa-
tional system, and to the enormous inilucnco for good or evil
that a single able and well educated man may exercise in this
country ; and looking to the dense but inflammable ignorance
of tho millions around us, it seems a tremendous experiment
for the State to undertake, and in some provinces almost
monopolise, the direct training of whole generations above
their own creed, and above that sense of relation to another
world upon which they base all their moral obligations ; and
the possible evil is obviously growing with the system. It is
true that things go smoothly and quietly, but this is attained
by ignoring not only the inevitable results of early training on
the character and tho great needs of human nature, especially
in tho East, but by also ignoring tho responsibility which
devolves on tho Government that assumes the entire control
of direct education at all. If, therefore, while fanaticism is
raging around, there is a calm in our schools and colleges, it
is an ominous and unnatural calm, of impossible continuance,
the calm of the centre of the cyclone.
" The subject is one of extreme difficulty, that grows with
the consideration devoted to it. Of course it is out of the
question to recede in any degree from the pledges of the past.
Mr. Gladstone's speech, Ilansard, vol. CCII., p. 2G7.
440 LIFE OF DTI. DUFF. 1841.
And it is probable that the evil is less serious in primary
schools whore the instruction given does not necessarily de-
stroy religious belief, whereas our higher instruction does.
Therefore, although the State may establish and maintain
primary schools where no local effort is forthcoming, it v,'ould
still seem very desirable that it should retire as rapidly and as
coi plctely as practicable from the entire control of all direct
instruction, and especially higher instruction, and leave it to
local management to bo encouraged by the State, and aided
in conformity with the English principle which, without any
interference in the religious instruction imparted, practically
insures by tho constitution of the local boards that some
religious instructiou is regularly given.'
»
We shall see this vital question coming up again
and again to the very close of Dr. Duff's life, when, as
he lay a-dying, liis memory went back to tliis conflict
with Lord Auckland, and he longed that his life might
be spared, if only to fight till he won tho battle against
a neutrality which is not neutral to but carefully fosters
the worst error ; against a secularism which is fast
robbing the Hindoos even of the natural religion and
traditional truth of their own system, till they them-
selves cry out. The Christian college stands alone
in the breach which tho rising flood-tide is threatening,
while Church and State look on apathetically.
Even the daily newspapers of Calcutta republished
Dr. Duff's letters, and made them the I'.ubject of edi-
torial comment. " As no press ever struggled more
manfully for its own liberty," he wrote in a note to
bis reprint of the correspondence, " so none has on
the whole ever less abused that liberty when conceded.
In this respect the sentence of Sir J. 0. Hobhouse
must be regarded as downright, though perhaps, in
his happy ignorance of Indian affairs, unintentional
calumny." Bat the subject was, in a few months,
swallowed up in the snows of Afghanistan, with our
JF.t. 35- '^HE FIRST AND SECOND AFGHAN WARS. 44 1
thirteen tliousand troops and tlicir ofTicers. Lord
Auckland began his evil policy in July, 1837, with Lord
W. Bentinck's hard-earned surplus of a million and a
half sterling. He was created an earl in 1840, for
that march to Ghuznee which made Sir John Keano a
baron though he forgot his battery-tra^n. The more
denounced an evil policy is the more fruitful of hon-
ours is it expedient for the responsible ministry of the
day to make it. Sir J. C. Hobhouse himself became
Lord Broughton ! In January, 1812, when ho had
packed his baggage to return home triumphant. Lord
Auckland received intelligence of the bloody collapse
for which he had converted his great predecessor's
surplus into a deficit of two millions, had added enor-
mously to the debt of India, had shaken the English
power in the East till it nearly fell in pieces in 1857,
had allied his country with iniquity — and yet, had not
succeeded in warning his successors forty years after
against following in his blood-stuined feeble footsteps.
It fell to Henry Lawrence and George Clerk, to Colin
Mackenzie and George Broadfoot, to save the residue
of the troops and to rescue the captives alike from tho
imbecility of the Whig Governor-General and from the
madness of his Tory supplanter.
CHAPTER Xy.
1841-1843.
THE COLLEGE AND ITS SPIRITUAL FRUIT.
Outwai'd Signs of the Progress of a Decade. — The Second Convert
a Christian Minister. — Tlie College Building.s. — The Staff of
Five j\lissionaries. — Tneir Unity in Variety. — The College Re-
organized. — A Normal Training Class. — Dr. Duff's Educational
System then contrasted with the State Colleges now. — The
Spiritual Machinery. — The Female Orphanage. — Legal Disabili-
ties and Social Oppression of Hindoo Widows. — The Native
Christian Family.— The Death of Dr. Duff's Child in Scotland.—
Dr. Inglis and his Son, the Lord President. — Sympathy with
Mrs Briggs, of St. Andrews. — The j\[ovement in Krishnaghur. —
A New Vaishnava Sect. — Dr. Duff visits the District twice. — Inter-
view with the Gooroo of the Woi"shippei"s of the Creator. — New
Stations at Cahia .and Ghospara. — The Eight New Converts
from the College. — Mahendra's First Sermon. — lieview of the
Twelve. — Proclamation of Peace in Afghanistan and China, —
Lord Ellenborough. — Dr. Duff's Anticipations.
When Dr. Duff landed at Calcatta to begin the second
period of liis work in India, even he was astonished
at the outward signs of progress which ten years
of English education under really enlightened British
administration had brought about. No one could
doubt that, in the great cities and intellectual centres
at least, as in Italy of the first three centuries, and
again of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the
Renaissance was a fact. Even on his way from the
ship to his own college-building and principrd's or
senior missionary's residence, which he had yet to see,
he passed through a succession of such outward evi-
dences, which he reported in his own graphic style to
Dr. Brunton.
^t. 35. 0UTWA1?D SIGNS OF THE RENAISSANCE. 443
Tlie first object that Lad caught his eye on landing
was a sio^nboard on which were marked in laro-o char-
acters the words, " Ram Lochun Sen & Co., Surgeons
and Druggists." Not six years had passed since the
pseudo-orientalists had declared that no Hindoo would
be found to study even the rudiments of the healing
art through anatomy. But here, scattered over the
native town, were the shops of the earlier sets of duly
educated practitioners and apothecaries who had begun
to find in medicine a fortune long before the chicane
of law attracted them to our courts.
"When I gazed at the humble, yet significant, type
and visible symbol before me of so triumphant a
conquest over one of the most inveterate of Hindoo
prejudices — a conquest issuing in such beneficial prac-
tical results — how could I help rejoicing in spirit at
the reflection that, under Divine providence, the
singular success of your Institution was overruled as
one of the main instruments in achieving it ? Oh !
that a like energy were put forth — an energy like to
that which characterized the Divine Physician — for
the healing of the spiritual maladies of the milHons
around us ! Holy Spirit ! do Thou descend with a
Pentecostal effusion of Thy grace. Come from tho
four winds, breath, and breathe upon these slain,
that they may live. Blessed be God that the belter
cause is neither wholly neglected, nor without promise.
"After passing the Medical College itself, the next
novel object which in point of fact happened to attract
my atteniion as I approached Cornwallis Square, was
a handsome Christian church, with its gothic tower
and bu^^tresses, and contiguous manse or parsonage.
iVnd who was the first ordained pastor thereof ? Tho
Rev. Krishna Mohun Banerjca, once a Koolin Brah-
man of the highest caste ; then, through the scheme
of Government education, an educated atheist and
444 I-IFE OF DR. DUFF. 1841.
editor of the 77/? ^^zaV^^r newspaper ; next brought to a
saving knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, and
admitted into the Christian Church by baptism,
through the unworthy iustrumentaUty of him who
now addresses you ; and, last of all, ordained as a
minister of the everlasting gospel by the Bishop of
Calcutta, and now appointed to discharge the evan-
gv'^lical and pastoral duties of the new Christian temple
which was erected for himself I What a train of
pleasing reflection was the first view of this edifice
calculated to awaken ! Men there are who, practically
ignorant of the real nature of the gospel and of the
power of God's grace themselves, still choose to deny
the possibility of converting Hindoos of good caste.
To repudiate with holy indignation the downright
atheism of such denial, it is enough for the believer to
know that with God all things are possible. But here
was, in addition, a sensible refutation of the atheistic
dogma. Here is not a low caste, but a high caste
Hindoo, yea, one of the highest order of the Brah-
manical caste in India; not an ignorant man, but
one who, having gone through an ample course of
European literature and science, explored the labyrinth
of Hindooism with the torch of modern illumination,
and deliberately rejected his ancestral faith as a
tissue of absurdity, superstition and cruelty; not a
rash enthusiast, but one who, in his ignorance of a
better faith, having been led to deny the very being
of a God, was persuaded, on the ground of reason and
consistency, to examine the claims of natural and
revealed religion; one who, having had his under-
standing opened, to discern the resistless force of
evidence, and his heart deeply affected by a sense of
the suitableness and adaptation of the gospel remedy
to his felt condition as a guilty and helpless sinner in
the sight of God, publicly and solemnly embraced the
Mt. 35. THE FIBST BENGALEE MINISTER. 445
Christian faith, through the sacred ordinance of bap-
tism. Such has been the steadfastness of his Christian
walk and conversation for the last eight years, that
even the bitterest enemies among his own countrymen
now, with one accord, acknowledge his sincerity.
Nor has he been inactive in his Master's service.
Naturally endowed with no ordinary degree of energy
and force of character, he has laboured assiduously
and successfully as a teacher, a catcchist, and now
an ordained minister of the gospel of salvation. He
preaches regularly both on Sundays and week-days,
in Bengalee and in English, to suit the wants of this
country, to men who have, or have not, acquired a
European education. Nor has he laboured in vain.
ThrouG:h his faithiul ministrations not a few have been
shaken out of their idolatries. Several educated
natives of high promise have professed Christianity ;
and some already act as his fellow-helpers in advanc-
ing: the cause of the Redeemer in this bonio*hted land.
Who can dare to gainsay facts so notorious and de-
^xsive ? And do they not amount to a visible demon-
stration of the wretched fallacy of the atheistic dogma,
of the alleged impossibility of converting high caste
Hindoos ? Shall we glory in being able to appeal to
such emphatic demonstration ? Never, never ! so far as
man's instrumentality is concerned. But we glory in
the Lord. His is the kingdom, and His the power, and
His too — and His alone — must be all the glory ! * It
is the doing of the Lord, and marvellous in our eyes.'
" Of the Bengalee sermons preached in this new
church the author has published a small volume.
They are designed specially for Brahmans and other
high caste Hindoos. Both from their stylo and sub-
stance they are admirably calculated for the object
designed. Of this work, remarkable as being the
first volume of regular sermons ever published Ux the
44^ J^IFE OF DR. DUFF. 1841.
Bengalee language by a Brahman convert and ordained
preacher of the gospel, and peculiarly enhanced in
our estimation from the circumstance of its author
being one of the first-fruits of the Church of Scotland's
Mission to India, I shall endeavour, by the first oppor-
tunity, to send you a copy. Nor is the illustration
hereby aff'ordcd of another process of paramount
importance to be overlooked. What is wanted to
insure, under God, the rapid and extensive spiritual
regeneration of India, is not an exotic artificially
sustained life, but an indigenous, self-sustaining, self-
propagating life. Here, then, is the process com-
menced in this great heathen metropolis. One has
been called of God, endowed with such gifts of nature
and endowments of grace, as to have not only life in
himself, and for himself, but life so abundantly as to
be enabled, through the Divine blessing, to communi-
cate a portion to others around him. These already,
in the good providence of God, have been blesf ,d in
imparting a share of their own vitality to others; who
must bo destined to impart the same to others still, in
an onward progression, through an ever widening
circle. The rate of augmentation, at first gradual and
almost imperceptible, may at length advance with a
rapidity which might well make the present pioneering
generation incredulous. Here there is one case where
Christianity may be said to have fairly taken root in
the Indian soil, where the process of indigenous self-
propagation may be said to have fairly begun. The
poor earthen vessel which had originally been employed,
under Providence, in conveying the seed of life to this
portion of the Indian soil, after depositing the seed in
the spot pre-ordained and chosen of God, became
shattered and useless. To prove that it had nought
to do with the giving of the increase, the human
instrument was wholly withdrawn from the field. By
^t 35. THE MAIN DESIGN OP THE MISSIONARY COLLEGE. 447
his witlidrcawal was the process of indepcndont self-
diffusion arrested ? On the contrary, in the particular
instance under review, it progressed more rapidly than
ever. And though the original conveyer of the seed
had died, or had never returned, the process would
have still gone on, to the praise of God's glorious
grace. Surely a statement of fact like this might well
dart a ray of new light into the darkest caverns of
prejudice and unthinking bigotry. Surely it might
open up a glimpse of the holy and noble extent and
purpose of the most fret^uently misunderstood part of
our labours. For what is the main and leadinGf desi^fn
of all our Christian schools and missionary colleges ?
Is it not, in humble dependence on the blessing and
fruitful increase of God's Holy Spirit, to raise, and
rear up, and multiply a superior race of natives
who, like the Rev. Krishna Mohun Banerjea, shall be
privileged to originate and perpetuate the mighty
process of gospel propagation through all the cities
and provinces of India ?
" After passing the new church, which stands out to
the eye so pleasing a monument of the incipient pro-
gress of Christian influence in this heathen metropolis,
I came full in view of the Assembly's new Institution
and Mission-house, on the opposite side of CornwalliL^
Square. Gratifying as some of the preceding spec-
tacles were, this to me was the most gratifying of all.
What a change since May, 1830, and how different the
thoughts and feelings of the spectator I Then, almost
the only thing determined on was, that Calcutta should
not be my head-quarters and fixed abode ; — now, I
saw before me my head-quarters and permanent
residence. Then, the precise line of operations to be
adopted was not only unknown, but seemed for a
while incapable of being discovered, as it stretched
away amid the thickening conflict of contending dif-
44^ LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 184 1.
ficultios ; — now, there stood before mo a visible pledge
and token that one grand line of operation had long
been ascertained, and cleared of innumerable obstacles,
and persevered in with a stead fastness of march which
looked most promisingly towards the destined goal.
Then, I had no commission, but either to hire a
room for educational purposes at a low rent, or to
erect a bungalow at a cost not exceeding £30 or
£40 ; — now, there stood before me a plain and sub-
stantial, yet elegant structure, which cost £5,000 or
£G,000. Then, it was matter of delicate and painful
uncertainty whether any respectable natives would
attend for the sake of being initiated into a compound
course of literary, scientific and Christian instruction;
— now, 600 or 700, pursuing such a course, were ready
to hail me with welcome gratulation. Then, the most
advanced pupils could only manage to spell English
words of two syllables, without comprehending their
meaning;— now, the surviving remnant of that class
were prepared to stand an examination in general
English literature, science and Christian theology,
which might reflect credit on many who have studied
seven or eight years at one of our Scottish colleges.
Then, the whole scheme was not merely ridiculed as
chimerical by the worldly-minded ; but as unmissionary
if not unchristian, in its principles and tendencies, by
the pious conductors of other evangelizing measures ;
— now, the missionaries of all denominations resident
in Calcutta, not only approve of the scope, design and
texture of the scheme, but have for many years
been strenuously and not unsuccessfully attempting
to imitate it to the utmost extent of the means at their
disposal. Yea, so strong has the conviction of some
of them become on the subject, that in some instances,
they have laboured to promote the object not only
without the sanction, but almost in spite of the declared
Mt. 35. THE PROGRESS OF A DECADE. 449
sentiments of tlie home committees of the parent socie-
ties; and, as one of the number (who has devoted the
last fifteen years exclusively to Bengalee preaching, but
who has gradually become an entliusiastic admirer and
advocate of our scheme, as one of the migliticst engines
for the dissemination of the gospel in India) again
and again declared to me, in the presence of other
missionary brethren, the main argument employed
by them in writing to, and expostulating with their
home committees, has been an appeal to the model,
example, and palpable success of our Institution.
Then — not to multiply more contrasting parallelisms,
— it was my lot to stand alone, without any actual
assistance or practical co-operation whatever, — alone,
yet not alone, for I was driven the more urgently
to look to God as my helper and my counsellor, my
fortress and my tower; — now, I was to join four
beloved brethren, one iL spirit, one in mind, one
in purpose, one in resolution, able, ^v^illing, ready
mutually to assist, mutually to co-operr-te in carrying
out the great generic principles of the Mission into
thei.i' full and legitimate development. In the midst
of such a crowding profusion of past remembrances,
and present realities, and future prospects, I trust that
the presiding feeling after all was gratitude to the
Father of mercies, and joy in the God of our salvation.
Who am I — did the soul instinctively cry out — who
am I, that the Lord should condescend so graciously
to visit lae ? After being in deaths oft, after so many
perils by land and water, after so much unprofitable-
ness and unworthiness, who am I, that I should have
so much given me of my heart's desire ? that I should
be spared to witness so much of what, ten years ago,
had been pronounced to be the wild dreams of a
visionary, actually realized ? Almost instinctively was
I led to appropriate and apply, in a very humble and
G G
450 I-IPE OF DK. DUFF. 1841.
subordinato sense, tlie words of aged Simeon : — * Lord,
now lettest Thou Tliy servant depart in peace ; for
mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, whicli was prepared
before the face of all people, — a li<^lit to lighten the
Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.' "
If the college building and the mission-house, with
their spacious grounds, in a fine open square and yet
close to the busiest part of the native city, formed the
fruit of his homo labours on which ho could look with
legitimate satisfaction, much more had he reason to
rejoice in the colleagues who had followed him, and
had so well carried out his plans during his absence.
The whole staff, with Dr. Duff again at its head,
formed a remarkable group of five pioneers, such as
no other mission has probably ever enjoyed at ono
time. Dr. AY. S. Mackay, whom we have previously
described, had bravely brought a spirit of intense
devotion and unusually high intellectual grace to bear
up his frail body, until the arrival of Dr. Ewart soon
after Dr. Duff's first departure set him free to obey
the physician's order. He had restricted his energy,
but in 1838 had been forced to visit Tasmania in
search of health. In the Australian colonies he had
pled for the Mission with a quiet power which led
many of the churches to try to detain him. But de-
claring that even at the risk of chronic sickness there
vvas no career like that of an Indian missionary, he
had returned to his post, shipwrecked like Duff in
the Bay of Bengal. Dr. Ewart seemed a man whose
physique the tropics could not touch, even when he
lectured and taught for six hours a day and rested,
only to give up his evenings to the increasing inquirers
and converts. Mr. Macdonald had found a place
peculiarly his own in tbe purely theological work of
evangelizing all the classes, and specially of training
the catechumens who sought to be first catechists
^t. 35. THE FIVE MISSIONARIES. 45 I
and tlien ordained missionaries to their country-
men. Youngest of all, and now the only survivor,
Dr. T. Smith after a visit to the Capo of Good
IIopi. to throw off the tlien too fatal dysentery of
Bengal, had amply redeemed the promise which Dr.
Dull' saw in him when presiding at his ordination in
St. George's, as a spiritually aggressive mission.'uy to
the educated Hindoos and as the first mathematician
then in the East. St. Andrew's kirk, too, was a lielp
to the Mission rather than a drag on its energies, as in
former days, under the two chaplains, Dr. Charles and
Mr. Meiklqjohn. Thus generously, but truthfully, did
Dr. DufF write home of the colleagues who only needed
him among them to consolidate and carry out to still
wider results their varied labours.
"Our missionary brethren, Messrs. IMackay, Ewart,
Macdonald and Smith, have, in different ways, been
labouring up to the full measure of their strength, and
some, it is to be feared, beyond their strength. Of
the rich and varied endowments and graces which all
of these have been privileged to bring to bear upon
this great missionary field it is impossible to think,
without admiration of the disinterested devotedness
wherewith all have been consecrated to the advance-
ment of God's glory ; or, rather, without adoring grati-
tude towards Him who bestowed the willing heart to
refrard such self-consecration as one of the chiefest of
the privileges of the heirs of glory. How admirable
the ordinance of Heaven! Diversities of gifts — yet
one spirit ! Here there are five of us, born, brought
up, educated in different parts of our fatherland, in
diverse circumstances and amid indefinitely varying
associations. Still, when thrown together, in the
inscrutable counsels of Divine providence, in a strange
and foreign land, without losing any one of our pecu-
liar idiosyncrasies, we find that we are one in spirit.
452 LIFE OF DE. DUFF. 1841.
one in the prime actuating motives, one in the grand
design and end of our being ! Blessed be God for
the realization of such oneness and harmony, as the
l^roduct of a genuine Christiari love. With one accord,
for reasons a hundred times reiterated, we regard our
]\Iission Institution as the central point of our opera-
tions. In the present exigencies of India, it cannot
be otlierwise in the eye of any largely observant and
contemplative mind. From an intelligent conviction
of the peculiar character of the present wants of India,
as well as from voluntary obligation, we all feel our-
selves pledged, systematically, to devote a due propor-
tion of our time to the advancement of the interests of
an Institution which has already infused so much of
the leaven of divine truth into the vast mass of native
society ; and which promises, with the Divine blessing,
to infuse still more. The remainder of our time is
daily devoted to prayer-meetings, conversations, dis-
cussions, preaching, translation, preparation of tracts,
or any other miscellaneous objects of a missionary
character which may present themselves in the course
of providence, or which may best comport with the
ability or predilection of the individual labourers."
By 1841, too. Dr. Duff's return enabled him to
reorganize the Institution in all its departments,
rudimentary school and college, English and Oriental.
AYliile the ecclesiastical doctrine and practice of
Presbyterian parity, of the equality of ordained elders
lay and clerical, governed the presbytery and the kirk
in all purely spiritual things, organization required
something more for the efficient wo^^^ing of a great
college and a growing mission. All the gifts and
varied energies of the five men must be utilized and
directed to the one spiritual end of the immediate
conversion of the students, as the test of a system
which aimed at far more, even the ultimate subver-
^t. 35. THE COLri^GE EEORGANIZED. 453
sion of the whole Brahmanical system and the substi-
tution of an indigenous Christian Church. Dr. Duff's
earhest act was to propose the formation of a mis-
sionary council to meet regularly for consultation and
prayer under the senior, or whomsoever the Church
at home might recognise as the senior, on account
of peculiar fitness for the presidency of a Christian
collco^e. The macliinew thus establislied within the
Presbyterian ecclesiastical system, has ever since
worked as well as in any divinity or university Seuatus
in Scotland. Men who are not only gentlemen, but
gentlemen of the highest type — the Christian, will find
no difficulty in such cases save when a mistake is
made in adding^ to their number. The odium ecdesi-
asticum is a sure gauge of the diminution of the love
of Christ, not a proof of intelligent earnestness for the
truth. For one Athanasius there are a thousand like
Paul of Samosata. Certainly, with the exception of the
two sacerdotal parties of the Church of Rome and in
the Church of England, foreign missions or mission-
aries have ever testified to the Churches which sent
them forth, that in Jesus Christ there is neither party
nor sect, that the devil is a common enemy strong
enough to require all the unity of the evangelical
forces. How Dr. Dufi"s reorganization of the Mission
was received by his colleagues, Dr. Mackay thus officially
reported to the committee : '' Dr. Duff" will tell you of
our meeting together regularly for consultation, and
of what we have agreed on ; but I cannot refrain from
saying, that in all our new and complicated arrange-
ments, arising out of our increased number and ef-
ficiency, there has been no difference of opinion ; and
we are all agreed as one man. Each is satisfied with
his own peculiar work, and all are satisfied that every-
thing has been done for the best. In Christ we feel
that we have one Head, one end, and one mind ; and
454 I*"^ OF DR. DUFF. 1841.
believing, wo pray that we may always labour together
in peace, and unity, and love."
To no subject, when in Scotland, had Dr. Duff
devoted more of his little leisure than to the careful
inspection of all educational improvements in school
and college made during his absence in India. These he
now proceeded to adapt to his Bengalee circumstances.
He had the buildings, the library, the philosophical
apparatus for scientific and technical training — every-
thingf but the assistant native teachers. In all India
there was not a normal school at that time. The
Mission had raised its own subordinate masters, but
on no regular system. He saw that his first duty was
to devote part of the strength of his increased staff to
the systematic training of native schoolmasters. He
had introduced the gallery system, as it was called, into
India for the first time. Every Saturday the Institu-
tion was crowded by visitors to see the novel siglit of
some three hundred boys from six to twelve exercised
after the most approved fashion of David Stow, begin-
ning with gymnastics and closing with an examination
on the Bible. Here was his practising department.
Daily, since he lived in the grounds, did Dr. Duff him-
self induce all the native teachers to remain for an
hour, when lie taught them " Paideutik," with results
which soon showed themselves in the increased efficiency
of the school. Not only so, but he was continually
called on to surrender his best teachers to other
Missions and to Government, while he was consoled by
the consciousness that he was thus extending a Chris-
tian, as well as educational influence, far and wide.
To utmost Sindh, as it then was, as well as far eastern
Burma the college sent forth teachers of other schools,
as well as officials for the many subordinate and some-
times higher appointments of the State, so that the
little leaven was gradually leavening the whole lumpj.
^t. 35* '^^^ COLLEGE CURRICULUM AND METHODS. 455
The General Assembly's Institution at that time was
strongest in the two allied, though too often divorced
subjects, of physical and mental science. The mission-
aries themselves were fresh from the higliest honours
in the classes of Chalmers and Jackson, Leslie a id J.
Forbes, Brown and Wilson. Of the five, four were
masters in the field of mathematics, pure and applied.
Dr. Duif himself lectured on chemistry, but his special
delight lay in the exposition of psychology and ethics,
leading up through natural religion to the queenly
theology of revelation. A native student of that time,*
who has now been for years a professor in a Govern-
ment college, bears this testimony to the intellectual
and scientific training of a period when " cram " was
unknown, when competition had not learned at onco
to stimulate and to poison the higher education, and
when physical science was taught as the handmaid of
faith. Dr. Duff lectured on the methods of teaching
pursued in Scotland, in Switzerland, in Germany, in
Pr:i^jdia; and expounded the systems of Stow, of
Fellenberg, and of Pestalozzi. Two things were
greatly insisted on throughout the classes — a clear
conception of an idea in the mind, and the expression
of that conception in words. " Duff did not think
that a boy had thoroughly caught hold of an idea
unless he could express it in his own words, however
* Rev. Lai BoLari Day, professor of Englisli Literature in the
Government College, Hooghly, Tliese were the studies of tlio
highest college class, in 18 13 : — In Theology : the Bible, Scriptural
doctrines with textual proofs, Greek Testament, Taylor's " Traus-
missiou of Ancient Books," Paley's " HoroD Paulinas." In English :
Milton's "Paradise Lost," Young, Bacon's Essays and "Novum
Organum," Foster's Essays. In Psychology : Brown's Lectures,
Whately's Logic and Rhetoric. In Mathematics : analytical geometry,
spherical trigonometry, conic sections, the diilerential calculus, optics.
In Physics : geology, magnetism, steam navigation. In Sanscrit: the
Mugdhaboda. In Pciaiun : the Gulistau and Bostan.
^5^ LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1841.
inelegantly. We therefore took no notes of explana-
tions given by the professors; indeed, no notes were
given in the class, under the apprehension that they
might contribute to cramming. How just that fear
was must appear evident to every one who observes
the mischievous consequences arising from the practice
of giving notes now adopted in all the Indian colleges.
Th3 students of the present day never open their
mouths in the class-room — unless, indeed, it is to
make a noise. They take down the professor's words,
commit them to memory — often without understand-
ing them — and reproduce them in the examination
hall. A copying-machine would do the same. An-
other feature in the educational system pursued in
the General Assembly's Institution was the judicious
mixture of science with literature. At the present
day the cry in India, as in Europe, is — physical science.
And many people think it is a new cry. But thirty-
five years ago Duff took his pupils through a course of
pliysical science, in addition to a high literary course.
Mechanics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, optics, astronomy,
the principles of the steam-engine — the text-books
generally being of the science series of Lardner — were
taught in the college classes. A course of lectures on
chemistry was also delivered, accompanied with ex-
periments; the youthful and fascinating science of
geologv was studied on account ot its bearing on
theology ; while we were so familiar with the use of
the sextant, with Node's ' Navigation, and with the
* Nautical Almanac,' that some captains of ships, after
examining us, declared that some of my class-fellows
could guide a ship safely from the Sandheads to Ports-
mouth. The Bengal colleges of the present day have
not yet advanced so far as the General Assembly's
Institution did, under the guidance of Duff, thirty-five
years ago."
^t 35. SrmiTUAL AGENCIES OF TDE COLLEGE. 457
In all this, however, again as in the solitary time
of his founding the Mission, the intellectual was di-
rected above all things, and excluding all other imme-
diate ends, to the spiritual. A new creation in Christ
Jesus was what the founder and the four colleagues of
like spirit with himself sought to make every student,
while they were sustained by the divinely given con-
sciousness that they were working for ages yet to
come, under the only Leader with Whom a thousand
years are as one day, against a system which would
not fall, as it had not risen, in a night.
So when the reorganization of the college was com-
plete, several directly and exclusively spiritual agencies
were called into play. First, the public offices being
now shut on the Sabbath-day, Dr. Duff opened a class
for the systematic study of the Bible by thoughtful and
religiously disposed Bengalees, who had never studied
in a Christian college, and were occupied as clerks all
the week. Many of that large class were in the habit
of visiting him and the other missionaries, as inquirers,
in the evening. Every Sunday morning, at seven
o'clock, saw a goodly number of young and middle-
aged Hindoos, of the higher class, gathered in the
mission-house during the three years which ended with
the disruption of the Kirk. Dr. Wilson was doing
similar work in Western India. Never, probably, since
Pantsenus, the first Christian missionary to India, and
his successors in the great School of the Catechumens,
evangelized the lands of the Me^^Herranean and the
Indian Ocean from Alexandria, iic*d there been such
searching of the Scriptures. The result of that three
years' work was that the majority of the Hindoo in-
quirers expressed an intellectual conviction of the truth
of Christianity. Only the Spirit of God, in direct,
irresistible and expanding influence, was wanting so to
touch their hearts as to make them dare the renun-
45^ LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1841.
ciation of father and mother, caste and kinship, for
Christ. " God is a sovereign God," Dr. Duff once
said of these busy years, *' and at that time, so far as
I could judge, the grace of God's Spirit operated effect-
ually on only one soul, to whom it brought home witli
power the whole truth of gospel salvation through
Jesus Christ." We shall come to him and to others,
and we shall see in the coming years how the seed
bore fruit of different kinds secretly and openly.
For another class, students who had left college for
the world but still desired at once the elevating influ-
ence of companionship with the missionaries and the
continuance of their studies, Dr. Duff" opened a week-
day evening lecturo in his house. There they read,
in a critical spirit, those master-pieces of literature
in which were most apparent suggestions of good
thoughts and spiritual ideas drawing the reader to the
higher life. Such were Guizot's History of Civilization,*
a history of the Renaissance and Reformation which
had gained the pr Tered by the French Academy,
and John Foster'^ ?. This, too, proved most
popular. The olu.^ r\ ^ad yet to be cared for,
Hindoos who had le^ ch jjge just before or at Dr.
Duff's arrival, who remeinhercd the lectures of 1831-4,
and desired to renew their investigations. For such he
delivered a weekly lecture in a side-room of the Insti-
tution, on the leading points of a complete system of
mental and moral philosophy, leading up to religion,
natural and revealed. Here his remembrance of the
famous series of Chalmers at St. Andrews, in which he
had been the foremost man, stimulated the missionary.
* The Protestant missionaries in China have just issued the pro-
spectus of fifty-one treatises to be written for the people of China
and Japan, by the ablest Sinologues. Dr. Williamson is engaged on
a History of Civilization for this Chinese encyclopcedia of pure and
Christian literature.
JEt 35. FEMALE EDUCATION AND HINDOO WIDOWS. 459
He brought his large audience of thoughtful hearers to
^j\\e utmost confines of psychological observation and
the ethical reason, and then pointed them to " the
higher calculus of revealed truth."
At this time, too, he saw the first streaks of the
dawn of that day which he had anticipated ten years
before, when the educated Bengalees would demand
educated wives, and the increasing community of
native Christians would seek the means of instruction
for their children. The orphan refuge for girls, begun
by Mrs. Charles, was developed into an efficient Ben-
galee school under the Ladies' Society, and from that
in later days, in its two branches, many young women
have gone forth to be zanana teachers, and the happy
wives and mothers of a prosperous Christian commu-
nity. The time for more public and direct aggression
on the ignorance and social oppression of the women
of Bengal, at least, was not yet. In a noble building
planted just opposite Dr. Duff's first college, and beside
the church of his second convert, the Honble. Drink-
water Bethune, a member of the Government, founded
a female school, which, though no longer premature,
pure secularism has ever since blighted. Yet the two
enlightened Brahman landholders of Ooterapara, near
Calcutta, had in vain besought the State to join them
in opening a school for Bengalee young ladies there.
But while Duff sought, in the new orphanage, to
prepare Christian teachers, wives and mothers for the
future, as it developed before his own eyes, he was no
less active in procuring the removal of legislative ob-
structions to the freedom of women within legitimate
limits. In an official letter of 16th September, 1842, ho
expounded in detail the two evils of infant betrothal and
early marriage — before puberty, often — and of the
prohibition of widow marriage. The characteristic dis-
belief of Hindooism, in common with all systems except
46o LIFE OP DR. DUFF. 1841.
Christianity, in the continence of man and the purity
of woman, makes widows for life of the infant girls
whose betrothed have died. These, growing up de-
spised, ill-treated and overworked, become the centre
of the household and village intrigues which fill the re-
cords of the criminal courts of India, and the mainstay
of the thousand groat shrines to which pilgrimages are
made from vast distances and am: a incredible hardships
all over the peninsula. Weary of life and dissatisfied
with herself, allowed a freedom unknown to the wife
and frequently never herself a wife, the Hindoo widow
vainly seeks peace at the hands of the touting priest,
who strips her of her all — even of what honour she
may have left — in the name of the Yaishuava deity.
Or slie courts rest at the bottom of the village well.
Add to this the state of wives who are no wives, of
the Koolin Brahman's hundreds of wives, some of
them whole families of mother and daughters, and
we have an idea of the moral and spiritual problems
wliicli Christian education faced in even orthodox
Hindoos. AVith satisfaction did Dr. Duff observe the
discussion of these in the vernacular newspapers,
and the formation, so early as 1842, of "a secret
society among the educated Hindoos for privately
instructing their young daughters and other female
relatives."
On the other side he had, before this, described his
administration of the ordinance of Christian baptism
to the first boy of his third convert, Gopeenath
Nundi : *'The Christian Hindoo father stood forth,
in the presence of his countrymen, some of whom
had formerly been either his pupils or companions,
holding in his arms the infant whom he desired
solemnly to consecrate to his God and Saviour. Be-
side him stood the Christian Hindoo mother, holding
by the right hand her firstborn, a little girl of three
^t. ZS- THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 46 1
years. And tliero, in the presence of God and man,
did both parents unite in taking upon themselves the
most sacred vows and obligations to bring up their
little one in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
Thus, in the heart of the Brahmanism of Bengal, there
was growing up the sweet plant of the Ciiristian
family. And the agitation against the legal prohibi-
tion of widow marriage, begun in these years, bore its
fruit iu the Act of Lord Dalhousio and Sir Barnes
Peacock, which, just before the Mutiny, removed all
legal obstructions to the marriage of Hindoo widows.
While thus sowing joy for generations to come. Dr.
and Mrs. Duff were called to bear the bitterness worse
than death — the sudden blow of the removal of one of
their own children far away from themselves. Long
separation and frequent death form the oft-repeated
tragedy of Anglo-Indian life. That is none the less
bitter that it occurs so often, and seems all the more
cruel that the dearest friends who have never left home
can only half sympathise with the sufferers. Duff's im-
pulsive, continuously imj^etuous affection rushed forth
to all his friends and converts, but it flowed in a rapid
and deep stream towards his family. In Dr. Brunton
he had made a friend to whom he poured forth all the
fulness of his heart in private letters, often side by
side with his ofiQ.cial correspondence. Thus did thoy
write each other, and thus did Dr. Duff, in his own
sorrow, comfort the venerable and still surviving lad\%
Mrs. Briggs, of St. Andrews, whose gift he employed
in the mission work : —
"Edinbuugh College, 2nd Juno, 1841.
" My Dear Dr. Duff, — I had counted upon commenciug my
letter by this mail with an appeal which would, I well know,
be readily responded to, for your sympathy and condolence
under our sore bereavement. But, in the unsearchable counsels
of God, I am called, on the other hand, to offer ours to you.
462 LIFE OP DR. DUFI\ 1841.
Our heavenly Father has called little Aune to Himself. I need
not detail the circumstauces. I know that more than ouo
afTi'ctionato friend intends to transmit them to you. Nor do
I need to remind you what are the duties to which, after the
first sore burst of anguish, you will feel yourself called. I
write merely o assure you that the little sufl'crer had every
human resource which you yourself could have desired. !Mrs.
Campbell watched her with maternal care. The best medical
skill of Edinburgh was promptly and affectionately bestowed
on her. We have laid her in Dr. Inglis's burial place, close
to the spot of his own hallowed rest.
"I will mix up no other theme with this. The little which
I had to say on business I address to Mr. Ewart. I am sure
you will not misunderstand me, as if I imagined that, even
under this sore trial, you would cease for a day to labour in
your Master's work. On the contrary, I know by experience
that such labour is most wholesome medicine in huraaji sorrow.
But you are well entitled to judge for yourself at what precise
time and in what proportion you are best able to bear the
medicine. Mr. Webster happened to be here from Aberdeen
on Assembly duty ; and nothing could exceed his devotedness
in doing all that was kind and useful. He has written to you,
I believe ; as has also Dr. Abercrombie. Miss Stevenson (the
writer's niece) communicates with Mrs. Duff by this despatch.
My dear friend, my prayers and my best wishes are with you.
May God Himself sustain and cheer you ! Yours affection-
ately, " Alexander Brunton."
"Calcutta, Cornwallis Square, 17th August, 1841.
" My Dear Dr. Bhunton, — How strikingly did the mournful
intelligence by the last overland make me realize the force of
the humble but expressive adage, * a fi'iend in need is a friend
indeed.' Often, often, have I in retrospect watched with wonder
and delight the manifold acts of personal kindness shown to
me by yourself and Miss Stevenson. And I assure you that,
unable, in the deep sincerity of my heart, to find anything in
myself worthy of such kindnesses, I have been ever led to ascribe
it all to the special grace and favour of God my heavenly
Father, who hath been pleased in His sovereign mercy to
raise up unto mo friends in so peculiar a sense. But oh, me-
thinks your last attentions to our da"ling and beloved chilu
^Et. 35, ON THE DEATH OP HIS CHILD. 463
were, if possible, the kindest acts of all, attentions paid too
amid your own sore, sore domestic bereavements. It were to
afTect a stoicism alien to my nature were I to pretend that the
affliction lias been to us a lij^lit one. Oh no, it was one of the
heaviest that could possibly have befallen. Even now, after
the interval of nearly a month, the vivid realization of it
brought about by my writing this note scarcely allows me to
proceed. The tears flow now as copiously as on the day of
the unexpected intelligence. But do not, my dear father
and friend in the Lord, do not conclude that these are tears
of murmuring or complaint against the will and act of my
heavenly Father. Oh no, they are the meltings of the poor
weak human heart of a fond parent, still smarting under the
rod of my heavenly Father's chastisement. I can truly say that
if these past weeks have been fertile in natural sorrow, they
have also been still more fertile in spiritual joy. Every thought
of my departed darling child is associated with the thought l '
heaven — the home of the weary pilgrim of Zion, and the re-
membrance of Tlim who hath gone before to prepare mansions
of glory for all His faithful followers. I have felt more in the
communion of the Divine lledeemer and its fellowship with the
redeemed in glory, than I have experienced for some time past.
Still may I say, it was good for me to have been thus afflicted.
"It was a kind thought 01 your ., and in beautiful harmony
with all your other refined and delicate consideration for human
feelings, to have our little one laid beside the man for whoso
memory beyond all others I cherish the deepest veneration.
Kindest and best thanks to dear Mrs. Inglis and family for
their ready consent. Also my warmest thanks to the com-
mittee for their tribute of respect. I think far more of their
act of favour in behalf of the departed than if they had be-
stowed thousands on the living. May the Lord reward you all.
" The enclosed business note for Dr. Gordon I leave open, that
you may peruse its contents, and lend your aid in accelerating
the object solicited. Before this reach you, the Madras events
will have cheered you. We have reason to bless God and
take courage. It is not to be expected that Satan will sur-
render this long-possessed realm without a deadly struggle.
Tour report to the Assembly has been very soothing and
cheering : may the Lord bless its difll'usion. The enclosed
you will kindly hand over to Mr. Inglis; it also contains one
4^4 LlFia OF DE. DUFF. 1841,
for bis mother, Mrs. Dr. Inglis. This reminds me of what I
often intended to ask; could you net manage to procure for us
a bust (or even a print, if that cannot be had) of Dr. Inglis, to
be set up in the library of our Institution ? Surely nothing
could be more appropriate. With heartfelt thanks and re-
membrances to Miss Stevenson, Mrs. Stevenson, and love to
my dear young friends the Borrowmans, I am ever gratefully
and affectionately, " Alexandeu Duvf."
" Uth November, 1841.
" My Dear Mrs. Brigqs, — It was indeed kind of you — more
than kind — amid your own aflfliction and sore bereavement, to
remember one so distant and so unworthy. The announce-
ment of the death of your dear husband I had noticed, and
longe 1 to learn some particulars relative to his latter end.
This I was disposed to ask for as a favour at your own hands.
But you more than anticipated me. And your doing so, un-
solicited and unprompted, enhances the favour a hundred-fold.
That you had * much comfort in his death, which was that of
the Christian enjoying peace in believing;' — ah, my friend,
these simple but touching and thrilling words in your letter
did cause tears of joy to flow from eyes which, in these heathen
climes, seldom find matter but for tears of sorrow, and a song
of grateful thanks to ascend to the Father of spirits from a
heart which, though vexed daily and almost hardened by the
freezing obduracy of the votaries of idolatry, has not yet
(blessed be God) wholly lost its sensibilities or its sympathies
with the great Christian brotherhood. To sleep in Jesus, to
die in the Lord, oh, is not this the top and flower of all
other blessings here below ? What more could the expanded
souls of the ransomed in glory, what more could the burning
desires of a seraph long for on behalf of sinful mortal man,
than that he should fall asleep in Jesus ? This being the case
with your departed husband, while, if I met you, I could not
help weeping along with you, could not help the outgush of
nature's tenderness and nature's regrets, I should also soon
be constrained to mingle joy with my weeping on account of
the ascended and ransomed spirit. And in order to die the
death of the righteous, oh, may it be ours to live the life of
the righteous, to be united to Christ by a living faith, to be
grafted on Him as a liviiiy branch, to be built up in Him as a
^t. 35. LETTER TO A LADY. 465
livinrj stone, to be replenished, through the energy and in-
working of His Almighty Spirit, with that grace now which
shall ripen into glory hereafter. These, my dearly beloved
friend, these are amongst the blessings which constitute the
heritage and possession of God's own children.
"As to your remembering me by the large munificence of a
Christian heart, as well as the kindness of a Christian's holiest
wishes, I know not what to say. Coming from one whose noble
and (considering the arduous circumstances of the case), I will
add, heroic example of piety I was wont to admire and gather
strength from when yet a feeble neophyte myself, I cannot
doubt the heartfelt kindliness of the motive, and dare not
therefore refuse. In the spirit of Christian love that pi'omptcd
the token of remembrance, I cannot but accept it as sent to
me by the Lord, through the instrumentality of one of His
own chosen ones. And I pray God that I may be privileged
to employ it in such way as may best promote His own glory
and honour. Recompense you on earth I cannot; I can only
pray that the God of all grace may continue to shower upon
you still richer effusions of His fatherly loving-kindness, and
in the world to come reward you a hundred-fold. And to all
your other kindnesses, oh, deny me not the crowning ore, to
remember me in your daily petitions at a throne of grace, that
the Lord may uphold me in His strength, and cause His
pleasure more abundantly to prosper in my unworthy hands.
" Amid much to humble we have much to cheer us here. Tho
other day we joyously admitted a young Brahman, of whose
faith in the atoning sacrifice of the Divine Redeemer we had
ample evidence, into the communion of Christ's visible Church.
But as Dr. Brunton will probably publish some portion of tho
account I sent him, I need say no more here. Is Miss Grace still
with you ? Often, often, do I blend my being with ten thou-
sand recollections of St. Andrews. There I passed some of my
earlier days of sin and folly, and shameful neglect of God and
salvation. There, too, the Lord was pleased to rescue me as
a brand from the burning. Oh, praised be His Holy Name.
Were I to name the many men in whom I feel the deepest in-
terest, and to whom I would beg to be remembered, my whole
paper would be filled. The Lord bless you, and enrich you,
and ennoble you more and more by the shining of His grace.
Yours gratefully and affectionately, "Alexander Duff."
n u
466 LIFE OP DE. DUFF. 184 1.
In the year 1838, when Dr. Duff was in the press of
his home operations, the news came from Nuddea, a
county fifty miles to the north of Calcutta, of large
additions of Hindoo and Muhammadan peasants to
the Church. In 1830 he had visited the spot, among
other parts of rural Bengal, only to decide that he must
begin the Scottish Mission in Calcutta, and from that
as a base extend his influence. In 1832 the Church
Missionary Society opened a school in Krishnaghur,
the county town, and baptized five students in the first
twelve months. By 1838, whole villages with their
head men had sought instruction, and hundreds of
earnest men and women, under purely spiritual in-
fluences, were baptized, and proved their sincerity by
suffering persecution unmoved. Then there came into
operation motives of a more mixed character. The
river Jellinghi, one of three streams into which the
mighty Ganges spills over so as to form the united
Hooghly on which Calcutta stands, inundated the dis-
trict and swept off" the rice harvest. The result was a
local famine, from too much water, such as we have
twice witnessed since that year. There was no rail-
way to pour in food as now, no machinery to link the
million of sufferers with the charity of Great Britain,
no prudent anticipation on the part of the authorities.
The work of relief fell, as usual, on the few mis-
sionaries, English and German, who sailed over the
inundated plains of an area as large as Lincolnshire,
distributing rice to the dying and lending small sums
to those who could thus struggle through the crisis.
The result was precisely what Madras and Mysore have
recently displayed on a greater scale. The evangeliza-
tion of the previous six years,* acted on by gratitude
* The Trident, the Crescent, and the Cross (1876), by the Rev.
James Vauglian, who is now again building up the Church at
Krishnaghur amid many difficulties.
^t. 35- THE NEW SECT, "WORSHirrEIiS OF THE CREATOR." 467
for the humanity and symjathy shown, bore both
natural and spiritual fruit in the profession of Chris-
tianity by thousands. On one occasion Bishop Wilson
presided at the baptism of nine hundred Hindoos
and Muhammadans. Dr. Duff drew up a document
explaining the movement to the churches at home.
Judging from analogy there can be little doubt that
Krishnaghur and the rich sugar, indigu, oilseed and
jute districts of the Hooghly Delta would by this time
have been what the Tinnevelly Church has become, in
similar circumstances, had the missionaries not com-
paratively deserted it before the infant church had
been consolidated and had produced its own tried and
trained pastors. As it is, the large nominal Christian
descendants of the first converts, among whom caste
has crept and the sacerdotalism of Jesuit priests
recognising caste, is being again evangelized, like the
lapsed sections of our own cities and mining and
manufacturing districts.
But there was another providential preparation for
the rapid creation of the Krishnaghur Church. When
Eammohun Roy was feeling after God, as we have
already told, among the learned of Burdwan and Cal-
cutta who knew Sanscrit and English, there was a
villager of the cowherd caste in Ghospara, near Krish-
naghur, who in the Bengalee vernacular admitted
neophytes to a new sect on the payment of a rupee
and the recitation of this Muntra, or combined creed
and charm — "0 sinless Lord. great Lord, at thy
pleasure I go and return; not a moment am I without
thee; I am ever with thee. Save, great Lord."
E-amchurn Pal was really a follower of the great
reformer Chaitunya, but he set up a new sect which
recognised Jiim as the incarnation of Krishna rather
than the character which he professed. The Gooroo,
or teacher, was the sinless lord, entitled to all the
468 LIFE OF DR. DUl'T. 1842.
spiritual power and offerings. This new sect of
Vaisbnavas called themselves Kharta-bhajas, or wor-
shippers of the Creator. They ate together twice a
year ignoring caste, and gained over many women and
infirm persons by the belief that the Muntra removed
barrenness and disease. Such is the account of tho
Gooroo's contemporary, Mr. Ward, of Serampore.*
In this its first stage, before the denunciatio: of
caste had given place to free love, as in many such
sects, and the cessation of idol-worship had been
followed by the substitution of one god for another,
the new teaching sent many to swell tlie ranks of
true but uninstructed Christians.
To a careful study of the Kharta-bhajas, with, the
view of founding a mission among them, Dr. Duff
devoted the college vacation of 1840-41, and again of
1841-42. As the guest of the Church missionary,
Mr. Alexander, he was at the head-quarters both of
the sect and of Christian operations. In discussing
vernacular education, helping to spread village schools
and frequent meetings with both the Christians and
the Kharta-bhajas, two months passed away. He
signalized his farewell by a simple feast to the Chris-
tians of one station, at which five hundred squatted,
oriental fashion, before piles of curry and rice and the
fruits of the cold season, spread out on the soft green
leaves of the plantain-tree, and deftly conveyed to the
mouth with two forefingers and thumb. So the Hishis
ate on the ancestral Aryan tabhJand. But here were
also women and children, and glad sounds of praise
arose to the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour,
* Vol. ii., page 175, of A View of the History, Literattire, and My-
thology of the Hindoos (1818, second edition), by W. Ward. A
work now of some rarity, and drawn upon by not a few writers
without due acknowledgment.
^t 36. THE NEW STATIONS AT CULNA AND GllOsrARA. 469
Jesus Christ. Dr. Duff was intensely human, rejoicing
as much in the social feast of the lately christianized
families, in its way, as in their solemn acts of pure
worship. Desirous to concentrate his mission on the
left bank of the river, Mr. Alexander urged his Pres-
byterian guest to take possession of Culra, opposite,
once the great port of fertile Burdwan, and still a
pilgrim town of 50,000 inhabitants, where the per-
petual lease of a piece of ground had been secured.
After inspecting the place. Dr. Duff dropped down
the Hooghly to Ghospara, now three miles from the
railway station of Kanchrapara. There, in a mango
tope or grove, he visited the Gooroo of the Kharta-
bhajas. Surrounded by his disciples, the son of
Ramchurn made a statement of his faith to the mis-
sionary sitting upon the simple " charpoy " or low
couch-bed of the East, and willingly granted him,
in perpetuity, a lease of land for a Christian school
and church. From the fifty thousand pilgrims who
twice a year crowd to the " cold sea" or pool whose
waters had healed the wife of their Gooroo, and to the
sacred pomegranate-tree under which she was buried,*
he thought to gather many to Christ.
But where were the missionaries for the rural
stations, thus increased to three — Takee, Culna and
Ghospara ? In the first, Mr. Clift had been succeeded
by Mr. W. C. Fyfe, sent out from Scotland as an
educationist and subsequently ordained, so that he is
now the senior missionary in Bengal. Happily the
college in Calcutta, which, in 1830, had begun with the
Lord's Prayer in Bengalee, the English alphabet, and
the slow spelling out of the Sermon on the Mount,
and had given its first four converts to the Angli-
can, American Presbyterian and Congregationalist
• A Statistical Account of Bengal (1876), vol. ii., p. 63.
470 WFE OP DB. DUFF. 1842.
Churches, because the Kirk was not prepared to
utilize them, was producing the ripest spiritual fruit.
Established to sway towards Christ, and by Christ,
the whole revolution of thought and feeling which the
English language and the British administration had
set in motion and were hurrying away from all faith
and morals. Dr. Duff felt that his college would be
an immediate failure if it did not bring in individual
souls and raise an indigenous missionary ministry.
Before idl other agencies for educated Hindoos, his
system had, in 1830-1834, accomplished both results.
Nor had it ceased to do so in his absence, while his
return gave it a new impetus. "Whether we look at
the spiritual or the intellectual character of the young
men; whether we consider what they sacrificed for
Christ, or what He enabled them to become in His
work, we may assert that no Christian mission can
show such a roll of converts from the subtlest system
of a mighty faith and an ancient civilization as Dr.
Duff's college in the first thirteen years of its history.
We begin with the one failure — let the truth be told,
but tenderly. In 1837, Dwarkanath Bhose, at the age
of seventeen, was baptized. No convert witnessed so
good a confession as he, if persecution be the test. He
was the Peter of the band. Thrice carried off by his
bigoted family, chained and imprisoned till Mr. Leith's
services in the Supreme Court were necessary to en-
force toleration, he clung to his convictions. So bright
a student did he become that he was one of the four
Bengalees selected by Government to complete their
medical studies in London. Was it there that, like not a
few of his countrymen since, he found the temptations
of a great city, in which he was alone, overpowering ?
With the highest professional honours he returned to
practice in Calcutta, where he fell a victim to the
vice which our excise system has taught the educated
^t. i6. THE NEW CONVERTS. 47 1
Datives of India, when it plants the licensed wine-shop
beside the Christian school. We visited him in his fatal
sickness. "Who shall say that, like Peter also, he did
not rise, ever so little, from his fall ? It i^ not English
Christians, at least, who can judge 'iira. Bather lot us
judge our own wani} of faitb and charity towa^'dp India ;
our own administration wnich, now purged of most
other debasing tendencies and immoral monopolies,
still uses the whole power of the State to secularise
public instruction, and to raise an annually increasing
revenue by spreading drink and drug licences far and
wide over India and even China. The missionaries
were used to make Dwarkanath Bhose the noble con-
vert and accomplished student he was when he landed
on our shores — who is responsible for the rest ?
A fellow-student of Dwarkanath' s would have stood
by his side in baptism. Laid low by fever he sent for
his companions, declared to them that he believed in
Christ, and died before he could be baptized. He was
one of a large class of secret Christians, who have
been known to baptize each other in the last hour.
The bloom of the Mission, intellectually and spiritually,
was also cut off by an early death — two converts who
lived and worked long enough to become the David
and the Jonathan of the Church of India, Mahendra
Lai Basak and Kailas Chunder Mookerjea. Mahendra
had entered Dr. Duff's school in 1831, at the age of
nine, but was removed to the Hindoo College be-
cause of the direct Christian teaching of the former.
Returning he became so thoughtful as to alarm his
Hindoo friends, who tried to seduce him to sins which,
they thought, would make even the missionaries shun
him. It was in vain. He rose to be the gold medalist
of the college, and his demonstrations of some of
Euclid's problems were so ingenious as to call forth
the eulogy of Professor Wallace, of the University of
472 LIFE OF DR. DUFF. 1842.
Edinburgh. But his intellectual power was dedicated
to the office of the Christian ministry. Baptized in
1839, after renewed opposition from his father, ho be-
came the first divinity student of the college. The
same year saw him joined by a Koolin Brahman,
Kailas, T>'ho had. gone through the six years' course of
the college. ^iVhcn on the way with his family to an
idolatrous service, his conscience so pricked him that
he fled to the mission-house. Gentle and confiding,
he was deluded by solemn pledges into leaving its pro-
tection, when he was kept in durance for three months.
On escaping he was publicly baptized in the college
hall. After systematic theological training, the two
friends were appointed catechists. Part of their prac-
tical training had been to accompany the missionaries
on itineracies through the rural districts in the cold
season. Dr. Duff thus described his experience of
Mahendra, as a preacher, at the beginning of 1841 : —
"In these rural itineracies I had much reason to
be satisfied with the docility, humble demeanour, and
moral earnestness of my young friend, Mahendra.
His tact, too, and management in meeting the objec-
tions, and in presenting divine truth in an intelligible
form to the minds of his countrymen, were such as to
encourage no ordinary expectations as to the future.
On one occasion he displayed much eloquence and
power. Standing on the steps in front of a temple
of Shivii; in the large town of Culna, we got into a
long and varied discussion with the Brahmans. Soon
an immense crowd was assembled. They professed
their readiness to listen to what the SaJieb had to
say; but when, at my suggestion, Mahendra began
to ask certain questions, he was at first received with
a shout of derisive scorn. ' What I ' exclaimed they,
* shall we give ear to the words of a poor ignorant
boy?' With the greatest calmness and self-posses-
JEt. 36. THE NOBLEST OP ALL THE CONVERTS. 473
sion Mahendra replied, * Well, friends, if I am a poor
ignorant boy, is that not a stronger reason why you,
who are so loarned, should take pity npon me, and
give me the knowledge which you believe would re-
move my ignorance. I began to ask the qu stions,
not with a view to abuse you, or your faith, or to dis-
play my own learning, which is veiy little ; but simply
to know what your creed really is, and thus enable mo
to compare it with my own.' This ' soft answer ' had
the desired effect. After answering some questions,
they began to interrogate in return. In reply to the
query respecting his faith, Mahendra began by giving
a brief sketch of what ho was by birth and education,
and how he came to renounce Hindooism and embrace
Christianity. His exordium at once caught the ear
and riveted the attention of every one; and not a
whisper was heard from the previously unruly and
nproarious audience, when he commenced his narrative
by saying, ' Countrymen and friends, I am a Hindoo ;
I was born and brought up a Hindoo ; yea, I belonged
to the Boistobs, one of the strictest sects, as you know,
among the Hindoos. My father was and is a Boistob ;
my mother was and is a Boistob; they were both vory
careful in training me up in the knowledge of their
peculiar creed ; they made me attend upon Radhanath,
one of the great pundits of the Boistob sect ; at his
feet I was brought up ; he laboured to imprint upon
my mind the doctrines of Atma, Onama, and other
Shasters.* How forcibly the preliminary part of this
address made me realize the exceeding naturalness and
adaptation of the Apostle's appeal, in somewhat similar
circumstances, and with a view to somewhat similar
ends ! * Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the
Hebrews ; as touching the law, a Pharisee ! ' How
forcibly, too, did it make me feel the superiority of the
474 I'IFB OP DB. DDFP. 1843.
vantagc-grouml on wliicli a qualified native must over
stand, when addressing his own countrymen — his own
kinsmen according to the flesh I Oh that we had
hundreds of Mahendras I — hundreds exhibiting similar
qualifications of head and heart; then might we begin
to lift up our drooping heads, in the full assurance that
the day of India's salvation was nigh at hand. At
tlie conclusion of Mahendra's long address we dis-
tributed all the tracts in our possession. We had
reached the temple about five p.m. ; it was now eight
o'clock; and the full moon, shining from the deep blue
vault of an almost starless though cloudless sky, lighted
us back to our small boat on the river. On our way,
we overheard many remarks respecting what had been
said ; amongst others, the following : * Truly, he looked
a poor, ignorant boy; but his words showed him to bo
a great pundit.' "
These were the men, Mahendra and Kailas, who were
placed in Grhospara as missionaries to their country-
men. Within a few weeks of each other, in the year
1845 they passed away, after services which Dr. Ewart
and Mr. Macdonald recorded in Memoirs of them. So,
also, the amiable Madub Chunder Basak died ripe for
heaven. Dr. Duff longed for hundreds like them, and
he did not pray in vain. Passing over the baptism
of another Brahman, of Kalichurn Dutt, and of Dr.
DuflP's converts baptized by other Churches, we come
in 1841-3 to the conversion of the four remarkable
Hindoos who lived to bo ordained ministers of the
Free Church of Scotland, and at Culna and other rural
stations, as well as Calcutta itself, proved successful
missionaries. The Rev. Jugadishwar Bhattacharjya,
a Brahman of the Brahmans, above eighteen, whom a
mob attempted to tear from the mission-house, has
since won the gratitude of his peasant coun^^ymen,
alike by his spiritual and his temporal services to
JFA. 37. THE TWELVE PRINCIPAL CONVERTS. 475
them, having saved many in the time of famine. Such
are his knowledge and influence, that ho was selected
by Lord Northbrook to give evidence before a Com-
mons committee. The Rev. Prosuuno Koomar Chat-
terjca, once of the same highest caste, has long presided
over another of the rural missions in Bengal. The
Rev. Lai Behari Day, a successful English author and
Government professor, who preaches regularly to the
Scotsmen sent out to superintend the jute mills on the
Hooghly, has lately told the world his " Recollections "
of the missionary who was one of his spiritual fathers.
Last of all, but now no more, do we linger over the
name of the Rev. Behari Lai Singh, the Rajpoot who
died the only missionary in India of the Presbyterian
Cburcli of Enf]:land. The teaching: which led him to
sacrifice all for Christ he and his brother received in
the college; the example which afterwards proved to
him that Christianity was a living power was that of
his official superior, Sir Donald M'Leod.
From the converts made up to 1843 we have named
these twelve — four in the first period, eight in the
second — as the typical fruit of the system directed by
the first missionary of the Church of Scotland to the
destruction of Brahmanism and the building up of
the Church of India by educated Hindoos. The first,
Brijonath ; the sixth, seventh, and tenth, Mahendra,
Kailas, and Madliub; became early fruit of the native
Church in heaven, but not before Mahendra and Kailas
had done true service for their Master. With a joyful
catholicity Dr. Duff had given Krishna Mohun to the
Church of England, Gopeenath to the American Pres-
byterian Church, Anundo to the London Mission, and
Behari Lai to the English Presbyterians. Of the
twelve not the least brilliant fell ; while we shall see
Gopeenath witnessing a good confession in his hour
of trial in the Mutiny.
47^ LIFE OF DE. DUl'F. 1843.
Wliilo tho college, in spiritual iufluenco and intellec-
tual force, with its 900 students and three brunch
stations, was thus advancing to tno state of efficiency
in which it closed for the last time in 184'3, all around
there were then, as now, disaster and confusion in
public nffairs. Thus longingly did Dr. Duff dwell on
tho triumphs of peace, and on tho way which it opened
for the Prince of peace, into the lands beyond our
frontiers, then on tho Sutlej and tho Yoina mountains
of Arakan. How hopefully, in the Punjab, the Karen
country and China, have his anticipations been realized.
What he wrote of Loi d EUenborough even may stand,
for he wrote it on the 17th October, 1842, before the
Somnath Gates proclamation and the Sindli war,
Captain Durand being that Governor-General's private
secretary : —
" For the last three years all India has been in a
state of suppressed ferment and smothered excitement,
by the desolating warfare in Afghanistan and China.
A permanent peace with Afghanistan may prepare a
way of access to the vast nomadic hordes of Central
Asia, who, from time immemorial, have been the
conquerors and desolators of its fairest and richest
provinces. The last few years have served to prove
that, though the sword of war may destroy, it cannot
tame or subdue any portion of these wild and lawless
races. What fresh glory will this shed on the triumphs
of the gospel, when, by the peaceful * sword of the
Spirit,' these very tribes are brought into willing sub-
jection, and endowed with meek and iamblike disposi-
tions ! A permanent peace with China may open up
an effectual door of ingress to more than 300,000,000
of human beings — one-third of the entire race of man-
kind I— hitherto shut up, and, as it were, hermetically
sealed against the invasion of gospel truth. How
mysterious, and yet how wisely beneficent the ways of
JFA. 37. PEACE THE OPPORTUNITY OP THE MISSIONARY. 477
Divino Providence ! China being sealed a^^ainst the
direct intrusion of Bible heralds, the last thirty years
have been chiefly devoted by the lamented Morrison
and others to the study of that unique and solitary
lingual gonus, the Chine?o tongue — to the investigation
of Chinese antiquities, literature, mythology, and other
such like subjects as tend to throw light on the genius,
the character, the mental and religious habitudes of so
singular and multitudinous a people — to the prepara-
tion of grammars, and dictionaries, and tructs, and,
above all, to the translation of the Word of life, that
Book of books, the Bible. And when the requisite
apparatus for an effectual spiritual warfare has been
fully prepared, suddenly and unexpectedly the in\menso
field for their practical application has been thrown
open, by the instrumentality of one who * meant not
so, neither did his heart think so.* (Isa. x. 7.) What
a striking coincidence I AYho dare say that it :s for-
tuitous ? Oh no ! It is altogether the ordination of
Him who ' knoweth the end from the beginning.' It
is one of those marvellous points of confluence among
the manifold streams and currents of Providence,
which may flow, for years or even ages, unseen be-
neath the surface, till the * set time ' hath come for
their springing forth visibly, to bespeak the presiding
presence of Him, who ' doeth according to His will
among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of
the earth.*
" If anything could enhance the joy which we have
all experienced from the simple announcement * Peace,*
it is the language in which the present Governor-
General has couched his solicitation for the offering of
public prayers and thanksgivings to Almighty God
throughout all the Indian Ciiurches. From the State
circular, penned by Lord Ellenborough himself, I ex-
tract the following passage : — * The seasonable supply
47^ I-IFB OP DE. DUFF. . 1843.
of rain, following our prayers recently offered to God
for that blessing, wliereby the people of the North-
Western Provinces have been relieved from the fear of
impending famine; and the great successes recfntly
obtained by the British arms in Afghanistan, whereby
the hope of honourable and secure peace is held out to
India, impose upon us all the duty of humble thanks-
giving to Almighty God, through whose paternal
goodness alone these events have been brought to
pass. Nor have we less incurred the duty of earnest
supplication, that we may not be led to nbuse these
last gifts of God's bounty, or to attribute to ourselves
that which is due to Him alone ; but that He may have
granted to us grace so to improve these gifts to us,
to show ourselves worthy of His love, and fit instru-
ments, in His hand, for the government of the great
nation which His wisdom has placed under British
rule.' These, surely, are sentiments worthy of a
British statesman, and honourable to the Christian
head of the most powerful empire in Asia ! — sentiments,
embodying so solemn a recognition of Jehovah's su-
premacy and man's responsibility ; — sentiments which
are sure to be translated into all the languages, and
circulated among all the nations of the Eastern world !
Oh, let all the British Churches respond, with heart
and soul, to the voice of thanksgiving and supplica-
tion which is about to be lifted up by all the Churches
in India ! and pray that the time may come, and that
right speedily, when the outpourings of God's Spirit
shall descend on this dry and parched land."
END OP VOL. I.